UNESCO Courier articles from January 2000

UNESCO Courier archives from January 2000

FOR JAPAN'S PERPLEXED TEENAGERS, THE END OF AN ERA.(modernization era in Japan)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... For over a century Japanese society was welded together by a struggle to catch up with the West. Now, as the old certainties fade away, Japanese youth faces a complex and ruthless world. It has often been said that Japan, unlike the United...

THE KNOWLEDGE DIVIDE.(relationship of developing countries to Western industrialized nations)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Globalization looks very different when it is seen, not from the capitals of the West, but from the cities and villages of the South, where most of humanity lives. Four examples taken from my own country, Peru, illustrate how the paradoxical...

THE ARAL SEA: BACK FROM THE BRINK?(environmental disaster in Central Asia)
January 1, 2000... Sue Lloyd-Roberts and Ethirajan Anbarasan [*] An ecological disaster area, the shrinking Aral Sea generated a flood of assessment studies but little follow-up. Humanitarian action is now an urgent priority. "The health of women of...

UNRULY CLASSROOMS.(causes of increasingly disturbing behavior among students)
January 1, 2000... Lucia Iglesias Kuntz [*] Teachers are not getting enough training and back-up to help them with worsening behaviour in schools Merlo, Argentina: "A 13-year-old wounded by a bullet at school." Springfield, United States: "One dead and...

International Year 2000: Peace in our hands.
January 1, 2000... The United Nations General Assembly has decided to voice the universal aspiration for peace, an end to war and to all kinds of violence spawned by injustice and oppression. On UNESCO'S initiative it has proclaimed the year 2000 as the...

The fabric of peace.
January 1, 2000... Rene Zapata [*] In a world pervaded with violence, the struggle for peace must begin in everyday life From time immemorial, peace--in the sense of peace between nations and peace within societies--has been exclusively based on the...

A new arena for individual initiative.
January 1, 2000... Zaki Laidi [*] believes that politics today revolves round three unequal poles: the state (slimmed down but still alive and kicking), the market and civil society There is a lot of talk about the weakening of the state's role in national...

Videos to dispel despair.(gangs and crime in Bogota, Colombia)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Amid the poverty and violence of a Bogota slum, Victor Manuel makes videos to divert young people away from guns and drugs "The future for youths like me in Ciudad Bolivar is guns," says 20-year-old Victor Manuel. "First you have to...

Stars through the rain.(school for autistic children in Beijing, China)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Katherine Arms [*] In China, there were no facilities to educate autistic children until Tian Huiping started a school in Beijing to help her son and other sufferers. When Tian Huiping discovered that her son, Taotao, was autistic,...

The houses that Francisco built.(Brazilian academic Francisco Casanova)
January 1, 2000... Maia Menezes [*] A Brazilian professor teaches slum-dwellers low-cost brick-making techniques Brazilian chemist and civil engineer Francisco Casanova makes houses for the poor. He has developed a technique that has allowed families to...

Mali: a flickering flame.
January 1, 2000... Sophie Boukhari [*] Malian President Alpha Oumar Konare is committed to a culture of peace. But crime has been rising in Mali for several years now and the political climate is getting worse On the edge of the Sahara, donkeys and...

Gandhi's disputed heritage.(protest in India against genetically modified crops)
January 1, 2000... Darryl D'Monte The Leadership of an Indian farmers' movement against transgenic crops says it embodies Gandhian principles but critics wonder whether it is being manipulated In December 1998, when farmers in the south Indian states of...

Jubilee 2000: churches spread the word on debt.
January 1, 2000... Madeleine Bunting [*] Inspired by the biblical concept of jubilee, a global campaign to cancel Third World debt has managed to influence the agenda of the world's richest countries Jubilee 2000 is cited as as one of the biggest...

Sant'Egidio's diplomacy of friendship.
January 1, 2000... Mario Giro [*] A lay Catholic movement dedicated to helping the needy and mediating in international conflicts An old woman barricades herself in a dilapidated building in the slums of an Italian city. She refuses to open her door. Her...

Revolt against violence.
January 1, 2000... Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells [*] thinks violence aggravated by globalization will trigger a new wave of planet-wide opposition You predict that a multitude of what you call ethical-pragmatic movements will gradually join hands until...

EUTHANASIA AND RELIGION.
January 1, 2000... Courtney S. Campbell [*] The advance of technologies to prolong life and control dying can raise agonizing moral dilemmas. What guidance is offered by the great world religions? In "The Parable of the Mustard Seed", the Buddha teaches...

THE HERMITAGE COMES OUT OF ITS SHELL.
January 1, 2000... Alexander Kan [*] Long swathed in bureaucratic red tape and cushioned by hefty state funding, the great St. Petersburg museum is adapting as best it can to the rigours of the global marketplace "I wouldn't think of trading now, in...

MIDDLE EAST: MEDIA PLURALISM VIA SATELLITE.
January 1, 2000... Christophe Ayad [*] Satellite TV channels are making inroads on state-run monopolies and widening programme choice, but the number of households equipped with dish receivers is still generally low On October 21, 1999, Syrian security...

MICHAEL WALZER: A USER'S GUIDE TO DEMOCRACY.
January 1, 2000... A leading American political philosopher's 30-year quest for a more just society You've written a great deal in support of multiculturalism. In short, you describe systems in which individuals wear different "hats"-that of the citizen, a...