Live from Copenhagen

Join us to watch the Internews Earth Journalism Awards live from Copenhagen via webcast December 14th at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern.
As the action unfolds at the COP15 climate summit this week, we will webcast the Internews Earth Journalism Awards, co-hosted by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC Chair. Award presenters include Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC, and Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Representative of the Elders.
The Internews Earth Journalism Awards recognize the vital role journalists play in informing the world about the impact of climate change and the issues at the heart of COP15 – including adaptation, mitigation, REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries), and CDM (Clean Development Mechanism). The 15 winning entries include a Kenyan group that spreads environmental information to their peers in the Nairobi slums through hip hop, a multimedia report from Brazil documenting how local customs and responsible agriculture clash in the Amazonian rain forest, a compelling account of a small Pakistani community adapting to climate change, as well as other engaging pieces from a wide range of countries.
A sixteenth award, the Global Public Award, was selected by the public through an innovative online voting platform combining Facebook, Twitter, and the Internews Earth Journalism Awards web site. More than 5,000 votes were cast for the Public Award. Watch the webcast, where the winner of the global vote will be announced live.
During the ceremony, moderator Lyse Doucet of the BBC World Service will field questions from the audience of negotiators, reporters, and activists to the award presenters, including Dr. Pachauri and others. Please join us online Dec 14 to participate in the event!
________________________________________
Other ways to follow COP15
Read posts from 40 Fellows representing 26 developing nations who are in Copenhagen to cover the negotiations as part of the Climate Change Media Partnership, a joint project of Internews, Panos and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) to bring journalists from countries most affected by climate change, but often least represented in the media at climate summits.
Read dispatches from the 15 Internews Earth Journalism Award winners in Copenhagen.
Improve your own skills with Covering Climate Change, a free online course developed by Internews and Poynter’s News University.
________________________________________
Internews Network is a nonprofit organization that empowers local media around the world to provide quality news and information for their communities. Internews has worked in over 70 countries and trained over 80,000 people. Internews has specialized programs to improve reporting on the environment, humanitarian crises, and public health.

While I was in Istanbul this past week, the number of ads for 3G USB modems I saw on the street jumped out at me, as did Turkcell’s ubiquitous advertising for its 3G services. It turns out that the availability of these 3G modems, along with the netbooks that are showing up in high street shops in the major cities, are gaining significant traction. Together are enabling a new slice of Turkish consumers the ability to get online quickly and conveniently that they lacked before.

Posted via email from Some Observers

Fun and frustration when learning video editing.

I’m fortunate to live in a great community, the City of Takoma Park, MD, and I’m really happy to see that the kids in our community (3rd – 5th graders) have gotten together and organized around an issue.  They need your help by this coming Tuesday Dec. 8 when the county school board will make a decision on their petition.

Their issue:  cutting down on the tons of garbage produced in the schools every year by getting rid of foam lunch trays – 5.6 million go into incinerators every year nationwide.

Back when I was a kid, and I won’t say how long ago but disco was in, we used to have cafeteria trays that were made of particle board.  They lasted forever and were solid enough that we would sneak them out of the cafeteria to go sledding on the hill behind the school on snowy days when we should have been in class.  This was a time when school cafeterias actually made food – and washed dishes.  Somewhere along the way to increase efficiency and cut costs schools stopped cooked and everything became disposable – including the cafeteria trays which are now made of styrofoam.

The kids in our local school realized that the mountains of styrofoam piling up after lunch every day were unnecessary so the Piney Branch Elementary School Young Activist Club set about to raise funds – over $10,000 – to put a dishwasher back in the school, buy reusable trays, and not fill up landfills with the styrofoam.   They even made the Washington Post with their effort last June, where Daniel de Vise wrote:

“The cost and repair of dishwashers would raise the cost of a meal, which is not a good thing to do,” said Joseph Lavorgna, acting director of facilities management for Montgomery schools. “It would cost more in Takoma Park to produce a meal than it would elsewhere.”

The dispute puts the school system in the awkward role of defending the annual incineration of 5.6 million foam trays countywide to students steeped in the urgent need for environmental stewardship. Piney Branch Elementary goes through 250 foam trays a day, more when pizza is served.

The kids are trying to convince the school system that they should pilot a program with dishwasher, they’ve raised the money, but the school hasn’t stepped up.  The Montgomery County School board makes that decision and they hear the kids’ case this Tuesday.

I would encourage you to time between now and Tuesday morning Dec. 8 to call or email the Montogmery County Board of Education and ask them to introduce and pass a motion to endorse this project.  If you email boe@mcpsmd.org, all Board members including superintendent Weast will receive the email.

I set off today (Sunday, 06DEC09) to visit the Musee d’Orsay, to view its wonderful collection of post-1850 art and to enjoy the architectural delights of this renovated train station. I had no idea that French cultural workers had been striking major museums since 23NOV09 http://bit.ly/5UeuGP.

But, as luck would have it and today being the first Sunday of the month (the one day a month when the museum is open free of charge), the workers had elected to work today in order that “… the visitors be satisfied and delighted.” (Quote from a 1-page tract handed out by union representatives to museum-goers as we waited in line to gain entry to the exhibit.”

In what I think must be a brilliant gesture designed to gain public support for their strike, the tract went on to state, “Today, Sunday 6th December, we are stopping the strike, only to start again on Tuesday 8th. Why? Free entrance is granted once a month, on the first Sunday of each mongh, and we wish you to take advantage of it.”

The tract goes on to say, “The consequences [of the current government trend to run museums as though they were media events, with the focus on making money] are heavy on the staff as well as on the quality of the activities, and therefore on the visitors. For instance, higher entrance fees are asked for well-advertised exhibitions; chefs-d’oeuvre are rented for a high price to foreign museums. So much so that, in the end, visitors are considered not as culture amateurs or culture lovers, but as ordinary consumers of money-making enterprises.”

I love that French ethos: art is the lifeblood of society, not some commodity to be bought and sold at ever-increasing profits long after the artist has died and can no longer benefit from the popularity of her/his work. Talk about liberte, fraternite, egalite. These guys stay “on message.”

For their persistence I admire them. For their generosity of spirit, I thank them.

I had a wonderful few hours in the museum.

As I write, I am sitting at a small table situated only a few feet from the Bosphorus, facing the Dolmabahce palace.  The morning sun bathes my neck and Turkish observations race through my mind.

At 11 a.m. the call to prayer booms out from the Ortakoy mosque, located directly behind me, before echoing from mosque to mosque, across the Bosphorus and throughout the city.  I think after a time this might become commonplace, but for now, hearing the call to prayer is thrilling.  I can imagine it being repeated throughout the Islamic world, echoing through the ages, connecting me with both past and future.

I can’t imagine Istanbul before the Ottomans, before the city’s skyline was defined by minarets.  I am no Byzantine scholar, but I doubt the cities vibe was much different—the Bosphorus and her boats were still here and civilizations still mixed, providing the city with goods and ideas from every part of Europe, Asia, the Mid East, and Africa.

I find myself in a thoughtful mood, I think, because I so enjoyed my last few days at the Eurasian Conference.  Nothing excites me more than new places and new people, both of which have been found in abundance here.  Yes, I have fallen for the city of Istanbul, but also, and more meaningfully, I fell for the people if Internews.

Present at this conference were Khazaks, Ukrainians, Muldovans, and many others.  Old friends united and new friendships were formed, stories of past escapades were recounted even as new adventures were had.  And through this all a shared sense of mission and purpose was reinforced while professional skills were gained.

I found the amalgamated vibe created by the above characteristics in combination with my own excitement to meet and work with so many diverse, interesting people to be intoxicating.

At dinner Friday Vladimir told me of Kazakhstan’s many towering mountains and expansive forests, only to have Bektour assure me this morning at breakfast that this wasn’t the case at all.  Rather, Bektour said, Kazakhstan was flat and dull while Kyrgyzstan had the gorgeous mountains.

I learned very late last night that Jerri knows all the words to Boom Boom Pow and dances like a true black eyed pea.

Thursday Zuhair regaled me with tales of his war reporting and explained the details of his independent iraqui news agency, minutes later I watched as an overly well endowed belly dancer pummeled him (and not with her fists) as part of her successful effort to take every internews man’s money.

Fittingly, since we are in kebab land, it turns out that Scott Smith is the curator of the largest collection of Kebab photo’s in the world.  Undoubtedly, he added to his collection over the last 4 days.

I know there is much more I would like to say, but it is almost noon, and the Turkish sun is no longer so gentle on my neck, telling me it is time to move on.

Cheers to you all!

Several of us attended a Turkish league football match Friday night, and the atmosphere alone was worth the price of the tickets. This short video was made from still images and sound captured on my iPhone, edited quickly, and uploaded for your enjoyment.

Who has the best cheese, Georgians or Armenians?

“I disagree, this is the way to cook the Chicken sauce Imperator !”

“Rebiata, who of you really cooks, come on ? !”

“Nowadays, people use more than just nuts and juice for these goodies.”

Genadi Uchumbegashvili, Manana Aslamazyan, Nouneh Sarkissian fighting over Caucasian cuisine, Eric Johnson commenting, all this very seriously over Ukrainian chocolate  and 7-year-old Armenian cognac.

This is how the day finished today – in the great tradition of Internews International meetings.  An II meeting without a good fight is not an II meeting.

I was missing it.  Looking forward to the next II meeting in April 2010 in Arlie (US) and another good fight, a good reminder that we are a family