Poor harvest, growing population…..probably are not enough to explain the skyrocketing food prices. Besides Biofuel, ’gambling’ in the futures market of food is certainly another human-induced reason of surging food prices.
Not long ago, investment banks, hedge funds, private equity were rushing to invest in CDOs and other subprime assets. Huge losses? Not at all. Anyway, Central banks will help out when those [...]
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Posted in Church, Faith, Justice, Life on April 23, 2008 | No Comments »
“Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”
14th Dalai Lama
I assume everybody knows about situation in Tibet. I would say we get used to it. We are able to live normal lives while others are fighting for human rights, freedom, democracy. But [...]
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Oil prices surge to new record of $118 a barrel!
Oil prices is surging; Food prices is skyrocketing.
The dilemma is: producing more biofuel may drive down the oil prices, but at the same time pushing up the food prices.
Remebered that just few months ago, I interviewed a renewable energy fund manager from US. I asked him about his view [...]
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Posted in Life on April 21, 2008 | No Comments »
Starting today applications are open for the African group of ENGAGE: LWF Global Training for young leaders. Just to remind you: That is the exciting LWF leadership training program in three phases:
A regional meeting
Implementing a small scale activity in the home context
Participating as a steward in the LWF General Assembly 2010 in Stuttgart, Germany
The African [...]
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Posted in Life on April 16, 2008 | 4 Comments »
It is a crucial topic: How can young people from different faith traditions and start to understand each other better. The United Nations - usually not very strong on religious issues - want to support this and have formed an “Alliance of Civilizations”. I am really glad that they have also a youth component. Currently, [...]
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Invitation to an international Conference for Fair Trade volunteers in Tallin, Estonia.
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Posted in Africa, Justice, Life on April 14, 2008 | No Comments »
How to rig an election and stay in power: learning from a master, Zimbabwe’s ‘President’ Mugabe.
In the past, Mugabe managed to rig elections by intimidating voters beforehand. He used violence, often on the opposition candidates themselves, banned opposition rallies, and made various laws to put a lid on any opposition. These elections had been seen [...]
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Posted in Church, Faith, Youth on April 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »
It all started with a video that I found on YouTube and which you can see below. I was really impressed by the performance and the idea. I’ve seen many christian dramas but this one was something completely new. Take a minute to watch this and make sure your sound is on.
It made me think [...]
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Review the themes of World Health Day in the past years:
2007: International health security; 2006: Working together for health; 2005: Make every mother and child count; 2004: Road Safety……
This year 2008, the theme - Climate Change.
Honestly, that is quite a surprising theme for me to think about World Health Day. But, when I looked at what WHO director-general [...]
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Posted in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Carribean, Middle East, North America, Poverty, Poverty/Affluence, UN, Youth, Youth participation on April 4, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Yesterday, Francis and I went to the Presentation of the World Youth Report 2007. For the main website of LWF (www.lutheranworld.org) I put together a formal report. Here is it:
“There has never been a generation that was more likely to volunteer and be involved in community causes than this one,” said Patience W. Stephens, the [...]
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