Monday, September 16, 2013

No contest

Feed from Rebus 21:

Zamboanga City Siege: As in many other conflicts, it is glaringly apparent that there is no quarrel between the soldiers on the government side and the fighters on the side of the Moro National Liberation Front - MNLF. As for the volunteer workers who are in the vicinity where the hostilities are, they do not have any ax to grind vs. either the government nor MNLF.

Civilian government officials, particularly from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process - OPAPP, in particular Hon. Secretary Teresita "Qing" Deles, confessed over the national media that they invited Misuari Nur to the talks but he won't participate.

Hon. Secretary Deles however also said they regret having neglected the MNLF and not giving them enough importance. She and her subordinates at OPAPP did not know the full weight of not wholly involving Misuari, she said.

On the other hand, such oversight if committed without malice, does not really matter. The Honorable Secretary already made it clear that Misuari did not show interest in participation. Read the rest of this article here.

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The Distraction brought by fighting Climate Change

After the 2005 Hyogo Conference, scientists urged the United Nations to consider that the various conflicting issues surrounding Climate Change is "distracting governments" from providing solutions to threats of disasters worldwide.

"The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems."

A letter written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ventilated sentiments of scientists and technology experts on the issue of focusing deeper into finding means to adapt to the threat of climate change.

A network of connected hazards

The Global Geohazard System

Crisis Mapping

In 2008 we determined to create a full-function Crisis Mapping project. This was borne out of the persistent eruption of hostilities in Southern Philippines between both communist - Islamist groups on one side and. government on the other side. Fresh from the experience at confronting an incorrigible troublemaker such as the Juma'a Abu Sayyap, or more popularly known as Abu Sayyaf, we resolved to push stakeholders to join in formulating the Philippine conflicts crisis map.

This is modeled after the U.S.-Euro academe's successful crime and peace keeping mapping efforts that had led to wide acceptance and invited broad-based support from as many sectors and as many countries as possible.

After all, the value of life is such that people and institutions, states and combines will pay as high a price as possible for the safety of both individuals and enclaves of people.

Changed Parameters

One year later, the entire universe for the crisis mapping project had changed. It cannot be called a drastic change since the new directions fell within range of long-held advocacies and persistent efforts. We had began such efforts by provoking officials at the Department of National Defense to modernize.

Among the sources for concepts and ideas of our papers given to the department was an executive formerly engaged as part of a service provider group at a Saudi Arabia military base. The Saudi military and government, thanks to their foreign high-tech service providers in the late 80s were already advanced in the use of GIS, the digitization of all documents, exploiting satellite information among many things.

With various other inputs from visiting colleagues, the advocacy for a fully functional satellite research, GPS and GIS-ready system was pushed at defense department, the National Security Council and at the Department of Transportation and Communications through the suggestion of the administrative officer of the defense secretary. More > >

Environment Hazards. Crisis Mapping. Forecasting.

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Monday, September 16, 2013

No contest

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