The number of households in electricity-starved Bangladesh using solar panels has crossed the one million mark — the fastest expansion of solar use in the world, officials said Wednesday.
In 2002, just 7,000 households were using solar panels but now more than a million households — or some five million people — gather solar energy.
A man in Sweden was downsizing. There was no room in his new place for the large canvas that had hung on his wall for over a decade, so he included it in the boxes set for an auction house.
He had no idea that the painting his wife left him when she passed away in 2002 was a Russian masterpiece by Ivan Aivazovsky painted in 1858. The “worthless” painting was priceless and sold for $1.4 million.
(READ the story in Yahoo News)
Peace is beginning to flower across Afghanistan with about 5% of Taliban fighters nationwide already surrendering, to re-join civil society through the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Program, or APRP, paid for by donors like the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“So far, we’ve got about 1,740 former fighters (five percent of the estimated total) who have formally joined the reintegration process. On top of this, the High Peace Council has at least another 40 to 45 groups in negotiation across the country — maybe as many as another 2,000 fighters. And much of this activity has emerged literally in the past four months or so.”
So said British Army Major General Phil Jones, of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who has been working on the nascent peace-building effort since it started almost a year ago when a 30 page strategy document was signed by presidential decree following the convening of a 70-member National Consultative Peace Jirga in Kabul.
As the US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan are preparing for a scheduled drawdown next month, President Hamid Karzai’s administration has stepped up its efforts to win over Taliban insurgents and the plan, with the full backing of the United States, seems to be working. Insurgents, including key commanders, are surrending every day to the authorities, pledging to obey the Constitution and renouncing violence.
Peace is beginning to flower across Afghanistan with about 5% of Taliban fighters nationwide already surrendering, to re-join civil society through the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Program, or APRP, paid for by donors like the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“So far, we’ve got about 1,740 former fighters (five percent of the estimated total) who have formally joined the reintegration process. On top of this, the High Peace Council has at least another 40 to 45 groups in negotiation across the country — maybe as many as another 2,000 fighters. And much of this activity has emerged literally in the past four months or so.”
So said British Army Major General Phil Jones, of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who has been working on the nascent peace-building effort since it started almost a year ago when a 30 page strategy document was signed by presidential decree following the convening of a 70-member National Consultative Peace Jirga in Kabul.
As the US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan are preparing for a scheduled drawdown next month, President Hamid Karzai’s administration has stepped up its efforts to win over Taliban insurgents and the plan, with the full backing of the United States, seems to be working. Insurgents, including key commanders, are surrending every day to the authorities, pledging to obey the Constitution and renouncing violence.
Two months after a tornado destroyed much of the town of Phil Campbell, Alabama, people from around the world named “Phil Campbell” have descended on the town to make sure the clean-up continues.
Men from as far away as Alaska, Australia and Scotland are pitching in and raising money for Phil Campbell.
(WATCH the NBC Making A Difference segment below)
When Alice was in the fourth grade, her family was going through a rough patch after her parents split up. So she and her father made a pledge: to read together every single night for 100 days.
But after 100 days, they just kept going. Their streak ultimately lasted 3,218 days — spanning from Alice’s fourth-grade year to her first day of college, and even included prom night, when she jumped into bed wearing her dress.
Their commitment to reading and to each other are the subject of Alice Ozma’s debut book, The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared
In their own brief moment of ‘Arab Spring’, Saudi women got behind the wheel and drove through their towns Friday, a defiant act against the law banning women drivers in Saudi Arabia.
Dozens of women, many of whom have driven abroad for years, protested the ban that they contend is unfairly based on Sunni religious tenet.
A Facebook campaign was launched by one young woman who worries about the cost of hiring drivers, since women are not allowed on public transportation, and the inability to drive to the hospital in case of emergency.
Perfectionism.
It’s the enemy of creativity, productivity, and, well, sanity. It can frustrate your efforts as a mom, wife, friend, and human being because no one and no thing is perfect in this blemished world of ours.
I tackle this adversary everyday. And although my inner perfectionist clearly has hold of my brain many days, I do think I am handcuffed less often by the fear of messing up than I used to be. Here are 10 techniques I use to break out of the prison of perfectionism in order to live and create as freely as I can in an imperfect world.
Perfectionism.
It’s the enemy of creativity, productivity, and, well, sanity. It can frustrate your efforts as a mom, wife, friend, and human being because no one and no thing is perfect in this blemished world of ours.
I tackle this adversary everyday. And although my inner perfectionist clearly has hold of my brain many days, I do think I am handcuffed less often by the fear of messing up than I used to be. Here are 10 techniques I use to break out of the prison of perfectionism in order to live and create as freely as I can in an imperfect world.
A fresh foods program at the Leavenworth Penitentiary has inmates growing a quarter million pounds of produce every year, which produces free healthy food for them, and more than 80,000 pounds in donations to help feed the needy throughout Kansas City.
The program even helps the volunteers — all non-violent offenders — get good jobs after being released, and at no cost to the taxpayers.
(READ the story from the Kansas City Star)
Business school students want to learn how to make profits in the business world. That’s a given. But now, they are wanting to make a profit by doing good — and scores of programs, like those at Wharton and Stanford which combine social consciousness with financial returns, are popping up at universities around the world.
“Social entrepreneurship programs have exploded in business schools across the U.S. and Europe.”
A recent video segment of Korea’s Got Talent racked up more than 6.6 million hits on YouTube, when it featured a shy orphan boy who lived on the streets for many years, stunning an audience with his amazing singing voice on national television.
One of the judges even pledged to pay for a singing coach, as she and her colleagues moved the boy to the next round of competition.
The occasional climate phenomenon known as ‘La Nina’ that may have helped boost last year’s hurricane season and this spring’s tornadoes has ended and the ocean returned to neutral conditions, said the Climate Prediction Center last Thursday.
During a period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean is lower than normal by 3–5 °C (8-15°F).
Wanting to pay less for fuel now, Virgin America has invested in a remarkable new engine from GE. “This is one of these significant breakthroughs in technology and engine efficiency that come along once every 10 to 15 years,” David Cush, Virgin America’s CEO, tells us.
Virgin Air isn’t waiting for major innovation in the biodiesel sector — even though it has invested heavily in fuel made from algae — the company’s American airline this week announced a $1.4 billion order for ultra fuel-efficient engines.
President Barack Obama announced a new effort Monday to eliminate government waste, citing as an example the daily printing of the Federal Register, which has been available on the Internet for years.
He said some of the cuts aren’t big, like duplication among federal websites, but so far his administration has identified $33 billion in savings for this year alone, including thousands of surplus federal buildings he hopes to begin selling off.
General Motors says it will spend $47 million at a factory in Defiance, Ohio, so it can build more parts that go into the company’s small four-cylinder engine and its Chevrolet Volt electric car.
Additionally, GM will invest $20 million in machinery and equipment at its assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas, to add technologies to its Buick LaCrosse sedan.
The investment is part of a plan announced by GM in May to invest $2 billion in 17 U.S. plants.
Babies who are breastfed – especially those only fed breast milk, and not formula as well – are less likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, suggests a new analysis of past studies.
While the findings can’t prove that breastfeeding causes the lower risk of SIDS, it could be linked to SIDS because breast milk protects infants against minor infections that have also been shown to make sudden death more likely, the authors note.
Decluttering your home or workspace can often seem overwhelming, but in truth it can be as peaceful as meditation, and can be a way to practice living mindfully and in the present moment.
Clutter is a manifestation of either holding onto the past or a fear of what might happen in the future or it could be an unexamined thrifty nature that goes back generations.
Why do we have clutter in the first place? Why do we keep it when we don’t really need it? Maybe we think we do need it — for one of three reasons:
Decluttering your home or workspace can often seem overwhelming, but in truth it can be as peaceful as meditation, and can be a way to practice living mindfully and in the present moment.
Clutter is a manifestation of either holding onto the past or a fear of what might happen in the future or it could be an unexamined thrifty nature that goes back generations.
Why do we have clutter in the first place? Why do we keep it when we don’t really need it? Maybe we think we do need it — for one of three reasons:
Columbia University engineers were awarded $1.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their project to develop a revolutionary new model that turns waste water to energy.
Kartik Chandran, an associate professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering is working with partners in Ghana on the development of an innovative technology to transform fecal sludge into biodiesel and create the “Next-Generation Urban Sanitation Facility” in the city of Accra.
