All posts by CPNN Coordinator

About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

International Cities of Peace in China

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION ..

Messages from the newsletter and Facebook page of Inernational Cities of Peace

In mid-December this year, I will be traveling to Nanjing, China for the third time in less than two years. The alliance between our organization and the two Peace Institutes in that City of Peace (our 169th and the first in China) are growing stronger. The mission for this trip is to determine criteria for more Cities of Peace in Southeast Asia. The trip is being funded by the UNESCO Chair on Peace Studies and the Memorial Hall for Victims of the Nanjing Massacre.


image from the video

December 20

REPORT #3 FROM CHINA. Kids and families! People are the same everywhere! Life went on as usual in Nanjing while I was awash in interviews focusing on the rising peace movement in China. CCTV with a billion viewers, Nanjing local TV with 10 million audience, Jaingsu Province TV with hundreds of millions highlighted peace messages, culminating in the Peace Commemoration which reached the entire Chinese population.

(Continued in right column)

Questions for this article:

How can culture of peace be developed at the municipal level?

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The photos of people in this Report are wonderful but the VIDEO LINKED AT THE END OF THIS POSTING is the first in a series of NANJING DIALOGUES FOR PEACE, where I was hosted by UNESCO Peace Chair, Professor Liu Cheng. The video is long, over 45 minutes but it focuses on International Cities of Peace as a platform for peace studies and global change. The attention to peace in China is made possible by the growth and global energy of our network — due to you, the individual City leaders, groups, and friends around the world. Thanks to everyone! Onward and upward. Here is the Dialogue link: https://youtu.be/Yi-sq2rHZaI.

 December 17

FIRST REPORT FROM CHINA: Every person involved with International Cities of Peace (Leaders, the Board, U.N. Reps, donors, organizers, partners, etc.) can be heartened this morning. In substantial part due to our City of Peace efforts — our Chinese partners have truly told me — Nanjing and China itself is making a huge transition. From a focus on mourning the victims of war (which is an honorable action), they are investing in actions focused on peace building and promotions that will shape behaviors that emphasize peace now and into the future. In Nanjing, I saw it with my own eyes. Deep challenges, yes, but transitions are evident. I will tell more as the week goes on. Thanks to all. This is important work we all share. I photographed these billboards around Nanjing. Peace is everywhere for all to see and inspire. Amazing to be honored for our work.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, East Asia

Drones (unmanned bombers), Should they be outlawed?

Here’s what Kathy Kelly said as she went to prison for protesting the use of drones by the United States:

It’s a good time to be very uncompromising with regard to the United States’ wars. These wars are murderous. The wars are killing civilians, as has been happening in the United States’ wars since World War II. Now 90 percent of the people killed in wars are civilians. And this is true certainly with the drone strikes. The Reprieve organization has said that for every one person who is selected as a target for assassination, 28 civilians are killed. And even just three nights ago, there was another targeted assassination in which they hit two homes in the Logar province, and six people were wounded, four people were killed, all of them civilians.

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:

US: Why Daniel Hale Deserves Gratitude, Not Prison

The growing use of weaponised drones risks destabilising global peace and security

Peace Activist Kathy Kelly Heads to Prison for Protesting U.S. Drone War

Germany: 5000 people protest in Ramstein – drone war is murder. We will be back!

USA: We come to the gates of Hancock Drone Base today to install a memorial of Jerry Berrigan.

USA Exclusive: Air Force Whistleblowers Risk Prosecution to Warn Drone War Kills Civilians, Fuels Terror

United States: Ad for drone pilots to refuse runs in Air Force Times

Ban ‘Killer Robots’ Before It’s Too Late

UN Counter-Terrorism Expert to launch inquiry into the civilian impact of drones and other forms of targeted killing

Protesters march on RAF base calling for UK’s killer drones to be banned

Medea Benjamin to Receive 2014 Gandhi Peace Award (United States)

d-disarmament

A culture of peace in Iraq, Is it possible?

Awaiting comment

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-disarmament

Global meetings, conferences, assemblies, What is the best way for delegates to interact afterwards?

Awaiting comment

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-information

University campus peace centers, What is happening on your campus?

Hawassa University in Ethiopia offers their experience as a model for other universities. “We suggest that our experiences at Hawassa University can contribute to the learning about how universities in conflict-affected settings can play a positive role in peacebuilding. We would welcome further contact with other universities that are interested in sharing and exchanging learning and knowledge of peace education journeys and our efforts to make a difference in the peacebuilding processes in our societies. . . .

“Hawassa University’s peacebuilding initiatives and the results achieved so far are showing us that we can facilitate students to become better agents of peace through establishing, in collaboration with them, the spaces to discuss and debate peace, by providing good quality capacity-building interventions that enhance their conflict analysis, conflict management and critical thinking skills, and by mainstreaming a visible culture of peace in our institution.”

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-education

Peace Museums, Are they giving peace a place in the community?

Here are excerpts from the Wikipedia article about the International Network of Museums for Peace.

The Network was established following a conference in Bradford in 1992.

Between 1992 and 2009, the network was very informal, sustained by occasional newsletters between international conferences. As the number of peace museums worldwide increased, however, the network needed to formalise its structures. Steps towards addressing this were taken at the Gernika conference of 2005, including changing the name of the organisation to the International Network of Museums for Peace (INMP).

2009-2018

In 2009 the INMP was established as a foundation (nonprofit) in The Hague and, with the support of the municipality, opened its secretariat and archive in the Bertha von Suttner Building near the Peace Palace in 2010. Since 2014 the INMP, as an international NGO, has been granted special Consultative Status from the UN ECOSOC, and gained ANBI-status in the Netherlands. The foundation consists of a General Coordinator, ten international Executive Board members and twelve international members in the Advisory Committee.

In 2018, the INMP Office in the Hague was closed, and moved to the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-education

What’s the message to us today from Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Here is the message according to the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, who heads up the “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” reviving the campaign that was called for by Dr. King back in 1968.

Speaking on the “Democracy Now!” news hour, Rev. Barber reflected on how little has truly changed since King’s time: “Fifty years later, we have nearly 100 million poor and working poor people in this country, 14 million poor children. … Fifty years later, we have less voting rights protection than we had on August 6, 1965,” he said. “[Republicans] have filibustered fixing the Voting Rights Act now for over four years, over 1,700 days.”

“Every state where there’s high voter suppression,” Barber continued, “also has high poverty, denial of health care, denial of living wages, denial of labor union rights, attacks on immigrants, attacks on women.”

Barber says the answer is fusion politics: “We have black, we have white, we have brown, young, old, gay, straight, Jewish, Muslim, Christians, people of faith, people not of faith, who are coming together,” creating what he calls the “Third Reconstruction. . . ”

Barber sees transformation of the Deep South on the near horizon, but doesn’t claim it will be easy. Recent court victories against both racial and political gerrymandering in North Carolina will further empower African-Americans and other traditionally marginalized groups. But the real work will be done not in the courts, but in the streets. . . .

Martin Luther King Jr. was robbed of life by a sniper’s bullet 50 years ago. But on this anniversary of his birth, this national holiday that people fought decades for, his vital work to empower the poor, lives on.

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-education

Is there a future for nuclear energy?

Here are some key indicators from the 2019 edition of the World Nuclear Report, which show that the use of nuclear energy is declining.

1. Over the past two years, the largest historic nuclear builder Westinghouse and its French counterpart AREVA went bankrupt.

2. In 2018, ten nuclear countries generated more power with renewable than with fission energy. In spite of its ambitious nuclear program, China produced more power from wind alone than from nuclear plants. In India, in the fiscal year to March 2019, not only wind, but for the first time solar out-generated nuclear, and new solar is now competitive with existing coal plants in the market. In the European Union, renewables accounted for 95 percent of all new electricity generating capacity added in the past year.

3. The number of units under construction globally declined for the sixth year in a row, from 68 reactors at the end of 2013 to 46 by mid-2019, of which 10 are in China, but there is still no construction start of any commercial reactor in China since December 2016.

4. The nuclear share of global electricity generation has continued its slow decline from a historic peak of about 17.5 percent in 1996 to 10.15 percent in 2018.

5. Over the past decade, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 88%, wind by 69%, while nuclear increased by 23%. Renewables now come in below the cost of coal and natural gas.

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-sustainable

Can Cyprus be reunited in peace?

Since 2003 CPNN has carried at least ten articles about initiatives to promote peace and reconciliation on the island of Cyprus that has been divided since 1983 between two sides with allegiance to the ancient enemies Greece and Turkey.

The Presidents of the two sides of the island have called for reconciliation on several occasions mentioned in these articles, but the most consistent action has been carried out at the grassroots by organizations of teachers from the two sides.

CPNN has been describing the education project since it began in 2016.

In 2018-2019, the educational programme “Imagine” which addresses primary, lower and upper secondary and vocational schools managed to bring together 3665 students and 397 teachers from more than a 100 Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot schools from across Cyprus.

At the the ‘Imagine’ Head Teachers Conference in December 2019, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades met with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci. Anastasiades said “there is no other choice or alternative but to bring peace to our land”. In his address, the Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci referred to the importance of cultivating a culture of peace in Cyprus and highlighted the value of education.

Akinci added that the decision with President Anastasiades to form the bicommunal technical Committee back in 2015 was “the most important decision we took with my friend Nicos.” That committee thas supported the educational programme “Imagine.”

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-disarmament