Enabling Environment Conference

Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at The Enabling Environment Conference in Kabul, Afghanistan
June 4, 2007

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellency President Hamid Karzai
Your Excellencies
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is a great pleasure and honour to be with you all today. We extend our warmest thanks to all those whose dedication has made this conference possible, most especially to President Karzai and the Government of Afghanistan for their central role - as well as to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who will attend tomorrow's closing session. continue...

Julia Stephenson: The Green Goddess

'We stayed in the honeymoon suite.The stains! I bet Al Gore doesn't have to put up with this sort of malarkey'  Published: 03 May 2007

Recently I've had a spate of invitations to speak at various eco gatherings. Public speaking is an alarming prospect, but in the spirit that if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger, I've been saying yes to them all. Besides, nothing will ever be as terrifying as throwing myself off the top of a telegraph post strapped to a safety harness on a course with Tony Robbins, the uber life-coach. People think fire walking is scary, but that's just a question of running fast. Anyway I digress. continue...

The wild bunch: Britain's eco entrepreneurs

Fields, woods and beaches are a rich source of income for the growing number of businesses turning a living from nature's harvest. Sanjida O Connell meets Britain's eco entrepreneurs
Published: 10 May 2007

This year, I made my best sloe gin. It wasn't just that 2006 was unseasonally warm and the hedgerows were laden with blossom, so consequently the blackthorn were bowed down with the weight of their glaucous blue-black fruit by early autumn. It was more that when I got home I discovered I had no gin. continue...

EU boycotts 'provocative' Israeli anniversary party

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Published: 14 May 2007

Ambassadors from European Union states are to boycott celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Israel's conquest of Arab East Jerusalem this week - in the opening shot of what promises to be a challenging summer for Israeli diplomacy.

The United States ambassador, Richard Jones, is also expected to join the Europeans in snubbing the celebrations .

What Israelis commemorate as the "reunification" of their historic Jewish capital is seen by most of the international community, not to mention the Palestinians, as a unilateral attempt to pre-empt a key issue in any peaceful solution. One-third of the city's 725,000 residents are Palestinians, who have opted to reject offers of Israeli citizenship. Along with most other countries, the Europeans keep their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, yesterday welcomed the European boycott as a blow for international law and peace. "The Israelis," she said, "cannot get away with creating facts on the ground and then forcing everybody to fall in line". continue...

Friends dis-united: The social scandal that tore Manhattan apart

Flip, irreverent and bitchy as hell, the internet sensation Socialite Rank caused a frenzy among Manhattan's hip, beautiful and obscenely wealthy. The anonymous website that put party girls in their places was loved - and feared - by the bright young things it fed on. But then the mystery bloggers went a posting too far...

Isaiah Wilner reports
Published: 14 May 2007

It was the perfect letter - if the goal was to blow up New York society. A bombshell of preening and aspiration, it set off a war between an ageing princess and the girl who threatened to snatch her crown.

There was just one catch: according to a complaint filed last week with the Manhattan district attorney's office, the letter was a fake.

The publisher of the letter was socialiterank.com, a mysterious website that appeared on 24 April, 2006, declaring itself unofficial judge, jury and executioner of 10021 - the postcode of upper Park Avenue and Fifth, and the home of many young women who appear on the charity-ball circuit. Each fortnight, the site released a "Social Elite Power Ranking", scoring the women on their style, public appearances and publicity efforts. The perennial No 1 girl was Tinsley Mortimer, a Virginia rug salesman's daughter who'd married into New York society.  continue...

Health concerns over mobile phone masts prompt review

'IoS' report on the dangers of electronic smog from wireless technology examined by ministers
By Marie Woolf and Geoffrey Lean
Published: 13 May 2007

Ministers are to investigate arrangements for erecting mobile phone masts in the light of growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases because of "electronic smog".

They will review the exceptionally favourable rules that allow mobile phone companies to escape normal planning regulations and stop councils from considering the effects of the masts on health, even when they are sited near homes and schools. continue...

The cream tea diet

If you live in Cornwall, it may be time to cut back on the scones
By Roger Dobson
Published: 13 May 2007

Who ate all the pies? People in the West Midlands and the South-west, says research showing where the highest numbers of Britons are obese - in some places over one in three - or overweight.

The new research, to be published in theSocial Science and Medicine journal, contrasts the overweight - those with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 30 - and the obese, whose BMI is above 30.

Academics at Southampton and Portsmouth universities analysed data on 18,000 people, and worked out a formula for characteristics linked to the risk of obesity for every English council ward. continue...

Excess calcium in elderly 'linked to dementia'

By John von Radowitz, PA Science Correspondent
Published: 14 May 2007

Calcium and vitamin D in dairy products may be helping to cause brain damage and dementia in older men and women, new research suggests.

Scientists believe too much calcium can narrow blood vessels in the brain, leading to neural damage.
The effect may be compounded by vitamin D, which regulates calcium retention and activity.

Researchers made the discovery after scanning the brains of 79 men and 153 women aged between 60 and 86.

All had at least a number of brain lesions - areas of tissue damage. continue...

Country walks 'can help reduce depression'

By Nicola Boden, PA
Published: 14 May 2007

Country walks can help reduce depression and raise self-esteem according to research published today, leading to calls for "ecotherapy" to become a recognised treatment for people with mental health problems.

Ecotherapy: the green agenda for mental health is the first study looking at how "green" exercise specifically affects those suffering from depression.

According to Mind, England and Wales's leading mental health charity, it produced "startling" results proving the need for ecotherapy to be considered a proper treatment option.

The study by the University of Essex compared the benefits of a 30-minute walk in a country park with a walk in an indoor shopping centre on a group of 20 members of local Mind associations. continue...

Lack of a good night's sleep leads to mistakes

By Rob Sharp
Published: 14 May 2007

Those who work long hours and scrape by on scant slumber, beware: Sleep deprivation causes areas of the brain to malfunction, making people blunder.

American researchers, using brain scans of volunteers playing a computer card game, have discovered that the sleep-deprived show increased signs of rash risk-taking. That has been linked to changing activity levels in the parts of people's brains responsible for appreciating reward and understanding the significance of heavy debt.

Dr Michael Chee, one of the researchers undertaking the experiment at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, said: "Understanding why we make poorer choices when sleep deprived is important not only because of the increasing numbers of persons affected, but also because there exist today unprecedented opportunities to incur damaging losses by means such as online gambling."

People should have between seven and eight hours sleep a night to maintain good health. continue...

Cherie's parting shot

Mrs Blair speaks out against pregnant women sent to jail
By Marie Woolf, Political Editor - Published: 13 May 2007

Cherie Blair last night made her first foray into British politics since her husband announced he was standing down as Prime Minister by attacking the Government for sending pregnant women to jail.

In what will be interpreted as Mrs Blair's first attempt to stake out her own political credo even before the couple leave Downing Street, the human-rights lawyer has warned that sending mothers to prison increases the risk of their children turning to criminality later in life. continue...

Brown plans 'eco-towns' and cheaper housing

By Ben Russell, Political Corresponent
Published: 14 May 2007

Gordon Brown will detail his commitment to building hundreds of thousands of new homes to meet demand for social housing and help young people get a foot on the property ladder.

The Chancellor will emphasise his commitment today to build more than 200,000 new houses a year, including new homes for people on low incomes and a ground-breaking series of five environmentally friendly "eco-towns".

Mr Brown will use a whistlestop tour of marginal constituencies to flesh out his plans for tackling the housing crisis before turning his attention to the battle for the Labour leadership nominations at Westminster later this week.

He will outline his vision of a property owning democracy but will pledge to make developments environmentally sustainable. continue...

Mother's Day (United States)

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day, celebrated on June 2nd, was first proclaimed around 1870 by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872. As originally envisioned, Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament by women. The original Mother's Day Proclamation was as follows [1]:

Arise then...women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with

Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor,

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Early "Mother's Day" was mostly marked by women's peace groups. A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

Corn-based ethanol: the biggest greenwash ever?

Posted by Tom Philpott at 6:51 AM on 29 Mar 2007 

It's hard to imagine what politicians and corporate chiefs are intending to do by crafting a corn-based ethanol boom, beyond rigging public policy (and raiding the public purse) to generate huge private profits.

But whatever their intentions, they're methodically creating environmental and social disasters -- while brazenly brandishing the "green" flag. continue...

On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food

On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food
By Tom Philpott  |  10 May 2007

Not long ago, a reader wrote in with an interesting response to one of my many articles condemning industrially grown corn.

Yes, you can buy it!

Photo: iStockphoto

"When sweet corn appears at the farmers' market next summer, can I buy it in good conscience?" she wanted to know. "Or is it bad for me and bad for the land?"

I can see why she might be confused. Even as U.S. farmers prepare for what will almost certainly be the largest concentrated corn harvest in world history, criticism has rained down like fertilizer on an Iowa corn patch. Michael Pollan placed corn at the center of what he called "our national eating disorder" in his best-selling Omnivore's Dilemma. I've personally joined the chorus tying corn to everything from the obesity epidemic to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, and to the "biggest greenwash ever," ethanol. continue...