Leger’s Paintings
I have been an admirer of Ferdinand Leger’s geometric paintings for a long time, including the two of his murals which had been installed in 1952 in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations headquarters in New York. Now, the Foundation Beyerler is hosting an exhibition of 80 of his paintings in Basel Switzerland, which will continue until the 7th of September. Thanks to the International Herald Tribune displaying of the slides show of some of his famous paintings, I can enjoy seeing “La femme en blue”, Les grands plongeurs noir”. and “Deux femmes tenant des fleurs” without having to travel to Switzerland myself. Ferdinand Leger was a French painter and a member of the Cubism and Tubism movement. He was born in the Argentan, Orne, Basse-Normandie, and at the young age of 25, began painting and producing numerous pieces of arts until at the age of 74 when he died in Gif-sur-Yvette, Essonne. To me Leger was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century who had left valuable work for appreciation by the generations to come.
Filed under Art | Comment (0)Improving UN Performance for Gender Equality
In June, the United Nations General Assembly asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to prepare a second concept note detailing the range of institutional options for improving the UN’s performance in gender-related activities. This timely request gives an opportunity for the Secretariat to assess its own performance as to the success and failure in meeting memberstates’ expectation, and the UN’s capacity to meet global commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and the implementation of the Security Council Relolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. What lies behind this General Assembly’s request for a second concept paper was a disagreement among memberstates over the “UN Gender Architechture” recommendation of the 2006 High Level panel on System-wide Coherence, heavily lobbied by NGOs, which proposed a new UN entity on gender to be led by an Under-Secretary-General level post on gender and women’s rights. The Joint Coordinating Committee of the Group of 77 and Non-Aligned Movement, China and India do not support the creation of this new entity and high-level post proposal. I could not agree more with them. I see no need to spend our limited global resources in creating a new bureaucratic structure when the existing ones are already doing quite a good job. And in addition, in my judgement, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its Committee are also doing an excellent job in monitoring the implementation of the treaties on women’s rights and the reviewing of country’s reports. As far as the UN leadership in this matter is concerned, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, himself, and Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, have done their best to move the World’s action towards gender equality, and at the same time, have tried to improve UN capacities in assisting memberstates to fill their needs and the identified gaps. The UN Secretariat already has many competent senior level staff to work on this gender issues such as Ms. Rachel Mayanja, Assistant Secretary-General, Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and Ms. Carolyn Hannan, Director, Division on the Advancement of women. These existing UN offices should be strengthened with more resources to increase their capacities to assist memberstates as and when needed. The responsibility for achieving gender equality really lies within the countries themselves.
Filed under Gender Issues, United Nations | Comment (0)1,226 Bird Species Threatened By Climate Change
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world oldest and largest global environmental network, is doing an excellent job of allerting the world about the negative impact of climate change to bird species. The 2008 IUCN Red List gives us useful intormation of the threathened species of birds owed to long-term drought, sudden extreme weather and loss of breeding habitats. Top Ten countries listed for threatened bird species are: Brazil, Indonesia, Peru, China, Philippines, Colombia, India, Ecuador, United States, and New Zealand. Just to take one example of the birds that have been uplisted from “Endangered” to “Critically Endangered”,
Spoon-billed Sandpiper. About 57% of their breeding habitat could be destroyed by 2070. An admirable work is being done in this area by an NGO, Bird Life International. Spoon-billed Sandpiper is now on their list of “Species Champions” of the Preventing Extinction Programme targetting 190 critically endangered birds that are on the 2008 IUCN Red List. Bird Life International finds
Species Champions who will fund the work of nominated ‘Species Guardians’ for each bird. Organizations and individuals best placed to carry out the conservation work necessary to prevent the loss of the bird species in all regions can join them in this very creative programme. Birds are under enormous pressure from Climate Change. This gigantic efforts by IUCN and Bird Life International are worthy of our support no matter where we live in the world.