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L'UE est au coeur de la nouvelle stratégie internationale de la Ville de Paris, qui veut être la "ville qui agit le plus à l'international". Climat, inclusion sociale et innovation seront prioritaires.

Depuis lundi matin, la justice burkinabè a engagé les exhumations des dépouilles supposées de l'ancien président Thomas Sankara et de ses frères d'armes dans le cimetière de Dagnoen à Ouagadougou.

A legkisebb brit hercegnő, Charlotte születésének örömére készített két óriási játékmackó érkezett Londonból a Brassó megyei Zernyestre.
Kategória: Színes

Jegyeladási rekordnak számít, hogy több mint 50 ezer bérlet kelt el a nyári Kolozs megyei zenei rendezvényekre – mondták az egy hónap múlva Bonchidán szervezendő Electric Castle és a július végi kolozsvári Untold fesztivál szervezői.
Kategória: Színes

Ha törik, ha szakad, november végéig elkészül a Havasrekettyés–Prislop–Ponorék-útszakasz – jelentette be Mircea Avram, a Kolozs Megyei Közterület-fenntartó Vállalat (RAADPP) igazgatója a megyei önkormányzat keddi sajtótájékoztatóján.
Kategória: Erdélyi hírek

A farmer in Patiala, India shows damage to wheat caused by unseasonably heavy rains in April 2015. While India and Pakistan don’t see eye to eye on pretty much anything, climate change dangers may help finally bring them together. Photo: Getty Images via aljazeera.com

Relations between India and Pakistan have been notoriously frosty for decades. But the two long-time adversaries will soon need to work together to effectively combat literal frost: in other words the effects of climate change.

Neil Bhatiya, a policy associate at the Century Foundation, reports that monsoon-level rains pounded Pakistan this past April — much earlier than expected — and resulted in at least 37 deaths. At the same time, unusually heavy spring rain also decimated wheat crops in India. Farming remains critically important to both countries’ economies: The World Bank estimates that about 47 percent of India’s, and 45 percent of Pakistan’s, workforce is employed in the agriculture and rural development sector.

In addition to impacts on the economy, both Mumbai and Karachi are susceptible to problems caused by rising sea levels. Just this week India suffered a debilitating heat wave that killed over 500 people. If these recent extremes are signs of things to come — and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a higher rate of severe weather events in the next century — India and Pakistan could face significant environmental, economic and societal upheaval.

The situation may not be not as grim as it seems. Cooperation has already taken place between the two neighboring countries on the the Indus Waters Treaty, a scheme to share river resources that has been in place since the 1960s. Leadership in India and Pakistan have made some progress in developing renewable energy sources, notably solar.

Thus far these efforts have been pursued separately. India and Pakistan must somehow find a way to pool their ideas and initiatives. If they can, as Bhatiya writes, such interaction could “serve as confidence building measures for climate change cooperation an important cornerstone of the bilateral relationship, to the benefit of the region as a whole.”

Enemies for so long, India are linked by their geography and potential to be devastated by climate change. If anything could bring them together, it should be this.

Magyar író kapta az irodalmi Oscar-díjat – adta hírül az egyik hírportál, amikor Londonban közzétették, hogy Krasznahorkai Lászlónak ítélték oda az idén a brit Man Booker Nemzetközi Díjat, amelyet szakmai körökben az egyik legjelentősebb elismerésnek tartanak az irodalmi Nobel-díj után. Olyan írók kaphatják, akik vagy angolul írnak vagy jelent meg munkájuk angol fordításban.

A Škoda megmutatta az első képeket az új Superb kombiról. Premier szeptemberben, a Frankfurti Autószalonon.

Bár a bíróság már az intézmény kilakoltatását is elrendelte, az Árkosi Művelődési Központ képviselőinek időhúzása miatt a tulajdonosok továbbra sem tudják birtokba venni az árkosi Szentkereszty-kastélyt – tudtuk meg Kincses Előd ügyvédtől.
Kategória: Erdélyi hírek

Egy többszörösen széttagolt ország új elnököt választott májusban, akivel szemben óriási elvárások fogalmazódnak meg. Habár Muhammed Buhari már egy kipróbált ember, sikere nagyban függ az olajár alakulásától is. Mindenesetre egy érdekes gazdasági és befektetési sztori körvonalazódik Afrika legnépesebb országában, Nigériában. 

HÍRKÉP – Kisiklott egy Segesvár és Brassó között közlekedő, kőszenet szállító tehervonat a Maros megyei Héjjasfalván kedd reggel 6 órakor.
Kategória: Erdélyi hírek

Sokadik nyílt konzuli fogadónapját tartotta ma délelőtt Magyarkanizsán a szabadkai Magyar Főkonzulátus. A cikk folytatása …

Read more here: VajdaságMa – Vajdaság

    

Chinese construction on the previously submerged Hughes Reef. Photo: Tuoi Tre

I had not given much thought to the flight plan of the airline I recently booked to go back to the U.S. from Vietnam, but recent events in the airspace over the South China Sea prompted an online search. As I discovered, my commercial flight will be flying not far from where a U.S. surveillance plane was warned on Wednesday to leave by a Chinese radar operator.

The P8-A Poseidon, the U.S. military’s most advanced surveillance aircraft, was flying near artificial islands which China is constructing, and the order is thought to have come from an early warning radar station on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Island chain, on which the Chinese have been constructing military facilities, which include a 10,000-foot runway. New satellite images show heightened reclamation work by China at seven sites in the Spratlys, adding around 2,000 acres of land since March 2014. Beijing claimed last month that the new islands would benefit provide weather forecasting and search and rescue facilities for the benefit of other countries, while admitting the islands could also be used for military purposes.

Also on board the P8-A Poseidon was a television crew from CNN, which recorded the American pilot insisting they were flying over international airspace. A commercial flight operated by Delta was also in contact with the Chinese radar operator during the confrontation with the U.S. military aircraft, and assured of safe passage. Following the incident, both Beijing and Washington accused each other of taking potentially dangerous actions, sparking memories of the 2001 collision between another U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter aircraft. In the 2001 confrontation, the Chinese pilot was killed while the American surveillance crew were detained on Hainan island.

The latest confrontation, along with earlier warnings to Philippine military aircraft to evacuate airspace in the same area, are igniting concern among claimant nations to the waters (Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan), as well as the Obama Administration. While China has not officially declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea, it claims the right to establish an ADIZ — similar to the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone it introduced in November 2013. The U.S. response back then was similarly confrontational, as American B-52 bombers were ordered to fly through the zone. Both military and commercial aircraft operating in ADIZs are required to identify themselves or be subject to military intervention.

As tensions of claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea have escalated, the U.S. has repeatedly expressed its desire for freedom of navigation in the waters, which see around $5 trillion in shipments. To reinforce this message, the Pentagon is actively considering the deployment of military aircraft and ships to within 12 nautical miles to patrol the disputed waters and airspace of the Spratly archipelago.

In an apparent response to Wednesday’s confrontation, Chinese embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan hoped “relevant parties” would not to take sides “and refrain from playing up tensions.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying added, “Freedom of navigation does not give one country’s military aircraft and ships free access to another country’s territorial waters and airspace,” according to Xinhua, China’s state-owned news agency.

Given China’s claim to some 90 percent of the South China Sea, how far Beijing is willing to prevent free access to any country’s military and ships remains to be seen.   “Freedom of Navigation” exercises were conducted by the U.S. military last year, and the combat ship USS Fort Worth just completed a week-long patrol near the disputed Spratly Islands, where it encountered numerous Chinese warships.

Other regional actors such as the Japanese may become more involved, should they decide to join the U.S. in conducting joint maritime air patrols.  Japan held its first joint naval exercise with the Philippines last week in the South China Sea, and has promised to supply Manila with 10 coastguard vessels by the end of the year.  Last week, foreign and local journalists were invited by Manila to tour the Thitu Island, the largest island occupied by the Philippines in the South China Sea.  Japan also conducted search and rescue training with Vietnam this week, and is supplying used navy patrol boats to Hanoi.

While the latest incident ended relatively quickly, the International Crisis Group warned in a report released last week that clashes in the South China Sea were “becoming more heated and the lulls between period of tension are growing shorter.” With the flight of the surveillance plane, Washington made it clear it would not tolerate any further restrictions to international airspace over the South China Sea, with Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, saying, “Nobody in their right mind is going to try to stop the U.S. Navy from operating.”

How far Washington will go to preserve freedom of navigation and how far Beijing is willing to assert sovereignty over the 90 percent of the South China Sea it claims remains to be seen. But small-scale skirmishes will continue, and despite warnings in the Global Times, a Chinese state-owned newspaper, that construction of the artificial islands is the country’s “most important bottom line,” and that “war is inevitable” unless Washington stops demanding Beijing halt the construction, China is not prepared for conflict with the United States, and the U.S. is not prepared to go to war with China over small piles of sand. Wednesday’s provocation was a carefully crafted combination of hard and soft power from Washington, using not a B-52 bomber but a surveillance plane, and using a television crew to curry international favor.  Sometimes using soft power to shame proves vastly more effective than forcing a country to save face with a military challenge.

Húszszázalékos fizetésemelést ígért a tanügyi kisegítő személyzetnek az oktatási minisztérium, így eredményesnek mondható a háromszékiek hétfői tüntetése. 
Kategória: Erdélyi hírek

Sokadik nyílt konzuli fogadónapját tartotta ma délelőtt Magyarkanizsán a szabadkai Magyar Főkonzulátus.

To keep up with Democracy Lab in real time, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Howard W. French argues that President Obama’s choice to run the United States Agency for International Development exposes the bankruptcy of Washington’s thinking on Africa. Juan Nagel profiles Venezuela’s top comedian, whose act exposes the absurdity of his country’s regime. ...

A marosvásárhelyi szakoktatás felélesztése érdekében nyújtana támogatást a megyeszékhely németországi testvérvárosa, Ilmenau önkormányzata – jelentette be kedden Dorin Florea polgármester.
Kategória: Erdélyi hírek

BÉCS. Terrorizmus vádjával nyolc hónap letöltendő és tizenhat hónap felfüggesztett börtönbüntetésre ítélt egy 14 éves fiút kedden a Sankt Pölten-i tartományi bíróság.

May/June Visual Statement

Since independence, African states and organizations have made significant investments in conflict management and resolution tools. So why do some African states and regions remain saddled by conflict and instability? How can African states leverage democratic governance to end wars?

The new report Silencing the Guns suggests that the key to ending conflict in Africa lies in fostering effective governance and creating political and economic institutions that can effectively prevent, manage, and resolve conflicts. Author Gilbert Khadiagala unpacks how and why democratic governance is linked to conflict prevention and management, and provides an overview of landmark trends that have influenced governance in Africa since the 1950s. He shows that not all forms of democratic governance reduce conflicts and examines the ways in which “developmental dictatorships,” corruption, and the privatization of security are posing obstacles for governance and peace today.

To strengthen governance as a tool for peace in Africa, the author offers the following recommendations:

• African governments and states should prioritize national infrastructures for peace that allow early detection, prevention, management, and resolution of violent conflicts. They should enhance people’s participation in political and economic processes, promote sound and equitable livelihoods, and strengthen Africa-specific strategies for conflict transformation.
• Regional economic communities should consolidate their current efforts to implement regional collective security and governance frameworks that promote peace, enshrine common democratic values, and foster disarmament and military reductions consistent with regional resources.
• The African Union should advance implementation of normative frameworks around governance, conflict prevention, management, and resolution, such as the African Peace and Security Architecture and the African Governance Architecture.
• The international community should cut the sources of armaments that have fueled African wars and renew attempts to clamp down on unsustainable arms flows into Africa.

This report is a joint undertaking by the African Union and the International Peace Institute.

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