// world citizen // world citizen is meant as a place on the internet, where references to interesting articles are collected, in the subjects of international affairs, globalization, sustainable development, social and society issues, developing world, world citizenship, art & technology, architecture and a little bit lifestyle... // world citizen is a weblog by Christopher Baan Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 2 3604

Articles from // world citizen

“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!â€� 2007-06-06 17:23:21 SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH AFRICAN ECONOMICS EXPERT The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem. Read more in Der Spiegel… Or read another article by James Shilkwati: Foreign Aid — “Please Just Stop!â€� in the Canadian Lawyer, or his CATO policy report ‘What makes development sustainable’?. Tags World, War & Terrorism, Sustainable Development, Politics & International Relations, Society, Developing Countries, Globalization & Global Culture Share This ...

Cracks in Wageningen’s multiculti image 2007-06-02 06:59:02 As an international student, easy-going multicultural student town Wageningen is not a bad place to be. With almost a hundred nationalities, it seems to be a last bastion of Dutch tolerance. But a closer look reveals that, even in Wageningen, integration leaves a lot to be desired. Wageningen UR advertises itself worldwide as having an international character. Almost a third of the master’s students and over half the PhD researchers come from abroad. In addition, many of the Dutch students are motivated by the search for a fairer world, and some of them are preparing for a career in a developing country. Plenty of opportunities for contact between foreign and Dutch students to blossom, you might think. The reality is different. That international and Dutch students do not integrate well is an increasingly heard complaint. Despite international parties, joint excursions to Amsterdam and compulsory group assignments, the students do little together outside of classes and lectures. ‘I ...

Adapting to climate change: What’s needed in poor countries, and who should pay 2007-06-02 06:40:56 ‘We basically have three choices – mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required, and the less suffering there will be.’ - John Holdren, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. There is a deep injustice in the impacts of climate change. Rich countries have caused the problem with many decades of greenhouse-gas emissions (and in the process have grown richer). But poor countries will be worst affected, facing greater droughts, floods, hunger, and disease. A new Oxfam International Report on Climate change and developing countries, reveals that developed countries should take the main responsibilty (95% of the costs) in reducing the harmful consequesces of climate change. In developing countries Oxfam estimates that adaptation will cost at least $50bn each year, and far more if global emissions are not cut rapidly. Acc ...

Darfur, China and the 2008 Olympic Games 2007-05-29 17:35:05 An open letter to Darfur activists and advocates, by Eric Reeves. The full-scale launch of a large, organized campaign to highlight China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide appears likely to begin soon. But it’s past time to start thinking about how to tap the creative power of students and other Darfur advocates in this critical initiative. Enough of selling green bracelets and writing letters to those who are content with posturing or avoiding the central challenge of the moment: changing the international diplomatic dynamic in ways that will result in deployment of an international peace-support operation to Darfur, one that can provide adequate protection to civilians and humanitarians. Without such security, humanitarian organizations will continue to withdraw and hundreds of thousands of additional Darfuri lives will be lost. Eric Reeves wrote some more interesting articles about the unclear and often speculated diplomatic relations between China and Sudan: Underst ... Games

We need partners, not donor assistance! 2007-05-28 17:40:47 Mr. Vasu Gounden is the founder and Executive Director of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD). Mr. Gounden, a co-author of the book ‘Shaping a new Africa’ (on alternative perspective for a viable Africa) held a workshop on African solutions for African conflicts in this year’s AFRIKADAG, the biggest Dutch event on development cooperation held on 14 April in Den Haag. It was at this unique event, attended by such luminaries as Jerry Rawlings (former President of Ghana), Bert Koenders (Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation) and Dr. Mo Ibrahim (founder of Celtel) among others, that two Editors of The African Bulletin had an opportunity to chat with Mr. Gounden. Please read the exciting excerpt from the interview: The African Bulletin: ‘You have a long and intimidating resume as a mediator, trainer and researcher in the field of conflict resolution. How did you end up in this field?’ Vasu Gounden: ‘In my previous ...

Globalised World: Who Gains, Who Loses? 2007-05-24 16:19:55 “Globalisation is really the best way to lift millions of people out of poverty because it increases trade; it increases job creation. It’s a positive force.â€� –Nandan Nilekani, CEO Infosys, Interview with San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2004 . “Globalisation creates growth by destruction of the environment and of local livelihoods. It therefore creates poverty instead of removing it. The new globalisation policies have accelerated and expanded environmental destruction and displaced millions of people from their homes and their sustenance base.â€� – Vandana Shiva, Scientist and environmental expert Resurgence, June 1997 It has become a cliché to say that there are two countries, India and Bharat. And yet, it is a truth whose full significance is being experienced and digested only as the multifarious processes of a globalised capitalist economy unfold in the two countries. The two countries breathe differently, inhaling quite distinct vapours, living off ma ...

GM or organic: Where does India’s future lie? 2007-05-24 16:07:46 (By Suman Sahai) Does it make sense for India to forego its special status as a producer of GM-free agricultural foods, lose a secure market for its produce and incomes for its farmers, and start cultivating GM crops that no one will buy? Is the future not with organic farming? According to the author, ‘It is embarrassing that a country of India’s size, with such agricultural strengths and dependencies, is lurching from one biotech product to another with no defined policy to guide it and no public consultations’. It seems it has to adjust itself to a world market which is producing more and more GM crops, lead by US exports. Read more at Info Change India… Tags Earth & Environment, Developing Countries, Science Share This ...

Kibera, by Jonas Bendiksen 2007-05-08 10:54:31 Within the next few years, for the first time in history, more people will live in cities than in rural areas, and one of every three of them — about a billion of the planet’s urbanites — will live in slums like Kibera, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Kibera, which is the size of New York’s Central Park, is home to as many as one million people, some say more, half of them under the age of fifteen and nearly all of them living in one-story, one-room mud-and-wattle homes. Kibera is one of Africa’s biggest slums, and it is growing steadily. In fact, the United Nations predicts that in the coming decades such megaslums will become our primary form of urban living. To picture what these statistics and projections mean, the photographer Jonas Bendiksen rented a room in Kibera in the spring of 2005, and as he got to know his neighbors, they invited him and his camera into their homes and into their stories. “Look,� he said, when he came back with his photos and reconstructe ...

Stephen Rwangyezi meets Idi Amin 2007-05-06 08:38:40 On the 8th of May, Stephen Rwangyezi, who played in The Last King of Scotland as the minister of Health Jonah Wasswa, will give a lecture about the psyche of Idi Amin and about leadership in Africa, at Studium Generale in Wageningen. Rwangyezi also directs the Ndere Troupe, an traditional music and dance group from Uganda which supports the educational development of youths who don’t have the opportunity to do so. ISOW, our international student organization, is pleased to participate in the project of hosting him and his music & dance group for a night in Wageningen. Read more about Rwangyezi’s unexpected star performance at the opening night of the London Film Festival… Tags Developing Countries, Art & Culture Share This ...

Zambian wins ‘Nobel green prize’ 2007-05-06 06:22:36 A Zambian man has won a prestigious Goldman Prize for helping to curb widespread elephant poaching by setting up economic projects for villagers. Read more on BBC or at Living on Earth Tags Earth & Environment, Developing Countries Share This ...

Apple goes green 2007-05-03 18:38:28 Greenpeace replays to Apple: “We are cheering! Steve Jobs has decided to bring us closer to the greener apple that Mac users all over the world have been asking for. Today we saw something we’ve all been waiting for: the words “A Greener Apple” on the front page of Apple’s site” It’s not everything we asked for. Apple has declared a phase out of the worst chemicals in its product range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008. That beats Dell and other computer manufactures’ pledge to phase them out by 2009. Way to go Steve! Steve has promised greater transparency, and more changes - excellent outcomes. But while customers in the US will be able to return their Apple products for recycling knowing that their gear won’t end up in the e-waste mountains of Asia and India, Apple isn’t making that promise to anyone else. Elsewhere in the world, an Apple product today can still be tomorrow’s e-w ... Apple

It’s About Energy, Not Climate 2007-05-01 09:08:25 by George Reisman The environmental movement has been doing its utmost to sabotage energy production since the 1960s, long before it was able to latch onto the prospect of global warming. Its opposition to atomic power has nothing to do with global warming, nor does its opposition to the construction of dams to provide hydro-electric power. Indeed, if global warming and the consumption of fossil fuels, which it alleges is the cause of global warming, were really its concern, it would be a leading advocate of atomic power and of the construction of new and additional dams to provide hydro-electric power. Instead, however, the environmental movement opposes atomic power even more adamantly than it opposes power derived from fossil fuels, and it also urges the actual tearing down of existing dams, even though they provide substantial electric power. (On this last, see, for example, the article in New York Times “Climate Change Adds Twist to Debate Over Dams.� on 23rd April 2007) ...

It’s the demography, stupid! 2007-04-29 09:38:30 ‘A lot is happening, but nothing is going on,’ John Lennon once said. Behind the happenings and short-like hypes of everyday life, often much more important developments are going on. Things we are rarely aware of. Examples like the climate hype - what is really going on, behind the emotionally loaded quotes of politicians and semi-scientists? - and… demography. In this must-read essay by Mark Steyn, - only for people with steady stomachs - he describes the end of Eurpe as we know it today. According to him we have to give room in our thinking about new core power centres in the world and the culture they preach. This essay was extracted from Steyn’s newest book: America Alone - the end of Eurpe as we know it. According to Chris Rutenfrans, (De Volkskrant): “He is extraordinarily spirited, writes splendidly, with neologisms and word combinations virtually untranslatable, but is also profound and visionary.” Read the whole article by Mark Steyn, in Opin ...

Change.org 2007-04-21 10:45:25 What Do You Want to Change in the World? Here’s a nice inspirational platform. Go and change the world! Read more… Tags Sustainable Development, Design & Technology, Globalization & Global Culture Share This ...

Fifteen guidelines for peacekeepers 2007-04-21 10:43:01 Fifteen guidelines for peacekeepers, by Jan Pronk, published on his weblog. Nice words. But when are they being translated into action…? Here’s an abstract of some of the guidelines. Twelve: Fight bureaucracy. Fight also the bureaucrat in yourself. Stay a movement; keep the spirit of a pioneer. Thirteen: Care for people. People first. Fourteen: Peacekeeping is a calling, not a job Fifteen: Please, stay It’s only that mr. Pronk didn’t follow the last rule… photo by Zoot. Tags World, War & Terrorism, Politics & International Relations, Developing Countries, Society, Globalization & Global Culture Share This ...