The Road to the Horizon

Follow the frog

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 04:06:08 PDT

In our ongoing quest to find good and exciting advocacy videos, I found this one from the RainForest Alliance. HT to Susan for the tip!

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5 Broken Cameras

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 22:25:34 PST

"5 Broken Cameras" is a film, shot almost entirely by a Palestinian farmer, Emad Burnat. Emad bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son. He registers life in the Occupied Territories, following his family through five years of village turmoil. Emad watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost, through a cycle of five cameras. Each camera gets destroyed in a violent incident. This is an extraordinary work, a...

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This is what winning looks like

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:55:06 PST

John Allen, the US general in charge of NATO's troops in Afghanistan, handed over his command to his successor. But not without a farewell speech, in which he declared: "This is victory, this is what winning looks like, and we should not shrink from using these words." (Full) Dear General Allen, I have some news from you: you have not accomplished shit in Afghanistan. The Taliban have not been defeated, and are just waiting for you to leave. The living conditions of the Afghani people have...

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Alitalia crash reveals dead bodies in the closet

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:11:33 PST

The crashed "Alitalia" plane as it looked on Saturday Last Saturday night, a plane crashed at Fiumicino (FCO), Rome's main airport. The initial news reports mentioned "an Alitalia flight from Pisa to Rome, veering off the runway after landing in strong winds". Already from that moment, I was a bit surprised: I live 5 miles from the landing strip, and the wind was not unusually strong. Luckily only one person was seriously injured. But surprise: it was a flight attendent who was apparently...

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The complexity of the US "Fiscal Cliff"

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:18:35 PST

TV screen shot: Last night the Belgian program "Ter Zake" tackled the difficult subject of the US "Fiscal Cliff". Or was it the "Ficscal Cliff"?

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UN high-level politics and how to simplify things....

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 04:33:02 PDT

This must be the picture of the month, if not of the year. Addressing the UN General Assembly this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu illustrated his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions, with a complex drawing. I thought the US hit the UN's intellectual bottom when they came up with their fabricated evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, back in 2002. But Netanyahu showed one could go lower. (Full story) Story filed under #KinderGardens and...

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US mass killings: good for gun sales

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:19:39 PDT

In the four days after the July 20 shooting in the Colorado movie theater, dealers in the state submitted 3,647 requests for state background checks required to buy a firearm, according to the FBI. That’s 41% more than during the same four days the prior week and a 38% increase over the first Friday to Monday in July. (Source) I just crack up with this quote in the same article: At a gun show in Loveland, Colorado (ed: no kidding, "A gunshow in Loveland"), two days after the shooting,...

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From the past: expedition to Howland Island

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 03:54:17 PDT

Just by coindence, I found the video from our Howland island expedition on Youtube. Funny to look back at an adventure of almost 20 years ago. Howland is a deserted island of about 1 square mile, smack in the middle of the Pacific, on the crossing of the dateline and the equator. If you'd ever heard of the island, then it must have been in connection to Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman to fly around the world, scheduled to refuel on Howland's make-shift airstrip, back in the 1930's....

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See Rio+20 and die...

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 06:00:36 PDT

João Luiz Telles Penetra, one of the two murdered activists Almir Nogueira de Amorim and João Luiz Telles “Pituca” Penetra were both leaders of the Associação Homens do Mar. AHOMAR (Association of Sea Men) is an organisation set up in 2009 to defend the rights of the fisher-folk working in Rio de Janeiro, and particularly those affected by the construction of a gas pipeline for Petrobras. On June 19, both fishermen attended a meeting at Peoples' Summit, a RIO+20 side event in Rio de...

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Sahel: The world is waiting for pictures of starving children

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:38:37 PDT

When I see the dynamics of the "international aid", I get thoroughly disgusted at times. Take the Sahel hunger crisis: Less than a year ago, the international humanitarian community got heavily criticized for their lack of advanced warnings, and preventive responses in the Somalia drought crisis. While the first clear signals of a major drought in the Horn of Africa came as early as August 2010, it was not until a year later, in July 2011, that the international community reacted....

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Our microfinance team allocated its 1,666th loan

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:38:57 PDT

Would you even know where Kyrgyzstan is? Leave alone, been there? And would you even have thought to finance an entrepreneur there? Ever? Well we did. On all three accounts: "Knew", "Visited", and "Financed"... We just financed our 1,666th loan (that is one thousands six hundred and sixtysixthththth) loan with our Kiva micro financing team. The loan went to Zaripakhon, 52 years and mother of three children. She is a cattle farmer since 2000 selling milk and dairy products. To order...

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KONY2012: Can Social Media Capture a War Criminal?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:39:25 PDT

I blogged before about Kony, the infamous leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. For decennia, he has been terrorizing, first Uganda, and now, larger areas of the surrounding countries. According to the guys from KONY2012, one of the reasons why Kony has not been captured, is lack of a lack of means and efforts. Those in turn, can only be possible if the public opinion pushes policy makers to allocate enough resources in order to smoke out an indicted mass murderer. Thus, was the approach...

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Monsanto Go Away

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:06:15 PST

As part of the Occupy Maui movement, The Human Revolution has a clear message for Monsanto. More on Monsanto on The Road.

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Happy 2012 everyone. Now start changing the world, will you?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:39:57 PDT

Since we kicked off our Kiva microfinance project "Change Starts Here" in November 2008, our Kiva Lending Team has already funded over 1,500 projects, for a total value of US$54,000. Check out our project score card on our Have Impact! blog. In 2011, I had a wide range of sponsors for the blogs I manage. After deducting the running costs for my blogs, I want to invest the left-over funds in our microfinance project "Change Starts Here" . Seems like a good way to start 2012 off on a good...

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Looking for a job as an aidworker? Here is a good start!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:40:29 PDT

Ever since I wrote the post on "How to become an aidworker", I get mail from people asking for advice. Most struggle with getting into "the system", which is indeed the hardest part: "getting through that solid iron gate". Part of the problem is that people don't know where to look for vacancies. Job announcements in the aid and nonprofit sector are spread in many different places. I tried to change that, and built an aggregator. AidJobs collecting job vacancies in the international aid...

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Teased bull frog eats finger

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:37:41 PDT

An African bull frog is trying to catch ants on an smartphone screen. Kinda funny. Is even more funny when he takes revenge.. Discovered via AllTop

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Where the hell is Matt?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:03:59 PST

This is really sweet. From his website: Matt is a 35-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep...

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Hans Rosling: The only way to stop population growth.. is to increase child survival rates.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 29 May 2012 00:51:15 PDT

... even if it sounds contradictory: Increasing child survival rates will stop population growth. With thanks to GB for the link!

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The UN debate of the day: Where is the 7 billionth baby born?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:42:10 PDT

From our UN-correspondent: In 1999, the UN decided the 6 billionth (is it 6 billionth or 6th billion or 6th billionth?) human being would be born in Sarajevo (picture). The fact that the Balkan area was still recovering from a nasty war, made that decision easy. For months now, the UN member states have been debating when and where the 7 billionth member of our human community was to be born. The US veto'd any country which had more than 10% of muslim population, forgetting that would not...

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Video: Wear your seat belt

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:52:32 PDT

Amazing what emotional impact a good video clip can make, no? PS: Updated the post. Video fixed.

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The status of the world, according to the Global Hunger Index 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:28:10 PDT

IFPRI (The International Food Policy Research Institute) just published its 6th annual Global Hunger Index. If you want an overview of the state of the world, related to poverty, hunger, and overall development achievements, I think this is a must-read. The Index combines three equally weighted indicators into one score: the proportion of people who are undernourished, the proportion of children under five who are underweight, and the under-five child mortality rate. The 2011...

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Steve Jobs: Lessons on life

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 05:31:29 PDT

Steve Jobs (RIP) talking about his lessons on life, to young Stanford University graduates. About dropping out to drop in at college, about the trust that one day the dots in your life will connect. About to love doing what you do. About not loosing the limited time you have on Earth, by living someone else's life. Truly inspiring. Reminded me of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.

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Calling on the good and willing

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:35:21 PDT

After 17 years in the field, working in front line humanitarian emergency response, of which 15 years in food aid relief, I took a sabbatical break. Taking a distance allowed me to discover an other side of the humanitarian work, something more longer term, but with no less impact: agricultural development. Over the past sabbatical year, I had the opportunity to work with a team at CGIAR, mostly on social media related projects. That work brought me to the field, talking to farmers about...

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The importance of bio-diversity.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 04:48:09 PDT

A sweet, unpretentious, yet significant TEDtalk by Cary Fowler, the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, on the importance of preserving the bio-diversity of our seeds, and the role of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in this. While often dubbed as "the Doomsday Vault", the half a million seeds stored at Svalbard guarantee a future rather than a doomsday: As the natural conditions under which we grow our food continuously change, our seeds also need to adapt. As these changes...

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A move towards ethical advertising?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:43:32 PDT

An article in the press made me chuckle at first, and afterwards, made me think.. Ads featuring Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington for a beauty product of giant L'Oreal were banned by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ASA stated the retouched images misled consumers by exaggerating the results the beauty products could achieve. The advertising agency admitted the images had been "digitally retouched" to lighten the skin, clean up make-up, reduce dark shadows and...

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