‘If we can improve the images of the world, perhaps we can improve the world’
Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders’ words have perhaps never been more relevant to a movie than in the case of Home.
Following directly on from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Home is, of course, a film with a message that sets out to shift [...]

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(published in NRC: 14/3/2009) – in Dutch
Geachte minister-president Balkenende,
De kredietcrisis leidt tot een noodzaak aan nieuwe investeringen, die een in het slop rakende economie van de ondergang moeten redden – daar bestaat momenteel veel consensus over. Echter, over waarin wij als samenleving moeten investeren is veel debat.
Als vertegenwoordigers van de jongere generatie – een generatie die [...]

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Today, students are playing crucial roles in opposition movements throughout the world, fighting for democracy and the implementation of human rights. Though they often are the first ones to climb the barricades, sadly they are also the first ones to be forgotten. The purpose of the Student Peace Prize is to make their voices heard, [...]

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A bright New Year!
Coming soon:
• the year 2008 in review from a young internationalist perspective
• the best – and worst – list of 2008
• a brief preview of the possible, probable and impossible of 2009

In the mean time, take a look at this wow! video (by Famous). Thank you anothercompany

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Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Some places you should definitely take a look:

Official UN website
Know Your Human Rights
Amnesty International
Opendemocracy | Human Rights at 60: early retirement or another chance?
International Herald Tribune; China hails ‘progress’ but quells protest on human rights anniversary
Right Now (Dutch language, festival, accessible flyer handed out to [...]

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- by Al Gore
Op-Ed Contributor Ny Times
The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat [...]

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The attacks on India’s commercial capital belong to a global frontline of asymmetric urban warfare, says Saskia Sassen.

The Mumbai attacks of 26-27 November 2008 are part of an emerging type of urban violence. These were organised, simultaneous frontal assaults with grenades and machine-guns on ten high-profile sites in or near the central business and tourism district. Also [...]

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What if we had everything and needed nothing else? Today (29th november: international) is Buy Nothing Day. Realizing that you actually have way too much stuff than needed to keep your life running…
Watch the beautiful video here on the ‘good consumer’.

(or read Benjamin Barber’s ‘Consumed’ bestseller – I’m not kidding, you HAVE to consume, or [...]

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LONDON — Former President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, who has worked to end conflicts in troubled spots around the world for more than three decades, won the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday

In its announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called Mr. Ahtisaari “an outstanding international mediator” whose efforts “have contributed to a more peaceful world and to ‘fraternity [...]

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By Somini Sengupta
AZAMGARH DISTRICT, India: When Chandra Bhan Prasad visits his ancestral village in these feudal badlands of northern India, he dispenses the following advice to his fellow untouchables: Get rid of your cattle, because the care of animals demands children’s labor. Invest in your children’s education instead of jewelry or land. Cities are good [...]

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