Education, Education, Education? UK’s ‘Tuition Fees Chancellor’ Enjoys Unlikely Reinvention

Gordon #Brown to become #UN Special Envoy for #Education with remit of increasing #accessibility; past 'forgotten' tinyurl.com/7r3tzmn—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) July 15, 2012

Global Population Inflation Situation: United Nations Reports Human Population to Reach Nine Billion By 2049!

UN: world population to hit 9 billion by #2049; by #2030, higher demand for food (+50%), water (+35%) & energy (+40%) tinyurl.com/7tuyxrc—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) March 22, 2012

Water, Water, Everywhere? Millions Without Drinking Water and Sanitation in Europe: WHO

120m people in Europe are without access to safe clean #water + sanitation; Eastern Europe particularly affected tinyurl.com/859dete #Rio20—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) February 23, 2012

Kosovo’s Footballing Limbo: An Alternative Solution

The question of what constitutes a nation has occupied the attentions of historical figures as different as Mazzini and Muḥammad, but as a thought-provoking recent piece by the eminent (and eminently readable) journalist Keir Radnedge shows, the case of Kosovan football urges one to reconsider this riddle anew. Kosovo – a small, landlocked republic in south-eastern Europe with a population of 1.825 million people – issued its most recent declaration of independence from Serbia on 17th February 2008. Its independence promulgation was a legally contentious one as some states – particularly those with unsolved territorial issues of their own – reasoned that it set an uncomfortable precedent in this context; hence, international recognition of the Republic of Kosovo has proceeded in a piecemeal fashion.

Presently, Kosovo is not a United Nations member, which, as Radnedge points out, means that FIFA and UEFA membership is also out of the question for the time being: these organisations currently stipulate that membership of the UN is a precondition for, in turn, joining them. However, numerous countries which are not UN members are nonetheless members of world football’s two most notable international federations, including England, Wales and the Faroe Islands; further afield, Hong Kong and Macau – both special administrative regions of the PRC – freely compete in tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup as members of the Asian Football Confederation (‘AFC’).

This inconsistency hardly seems fair on Kosovo, or indeed any other nation which may find itself in a similar position in the future; moreover, the fact that one or more of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – effectively wields a veto on FIFA membership can be interpreted as little other than an anachronistic flaw in the process.

Mediolana has the following suggestion to transcend the impasse, which is effectively a hybrid of past and present systems:

1. Applications to FIFA should be considered on a case-by-case basis;

2. If any applicant nation is recognised by 50% + 1 members of the United Nations at the time their application is made, ceteris paribus their application must be accepted unless there are compelling and extraordinary reasons against this presumption.

Under this formula, Kosovo – currently recognised by 42% of UN member states, a total that is ticking upwards as the months and years pass – could look forward to joining the structures of world and European football within a reasonable timescale; the status quo forces players such as Xherdan Shaqiri, Granit Xhaka, Arljind Ajeti and Taulant Xhaka – four young footballers of considerable talent, all with Kosovan nationality and registered with FC Basel – to represent Switzerland, the home of FIFA and UEFA, instead.

Coming Soon: One Planet, Seven Billion Humans

#UN has 31/10/2011 as date that Earth's population passes 7bn people; population expected to peak at 8.0-10.5bn tinyurl.com/3maewa8—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) August 30, 2011

Somalia: the Famine the World Forgot?

UN says 3.2m people in need of 'immediate, lifesaving assistance'; 187/1,000 Somali children dead by age 5 tinyurl.com/3n5sfmd #Somalia #UN—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) August 10, 2011

A Logo for Human Rights: The Mediolana Proposal Revealed

As mentioned in this blog on 27th May 2011, the 31st July 2011 deadline to enter the competition to find a new logo for human rights – the winning entry to be presented at the UN General Assembly in New York at the end of September – is now upon us. Mediolana are proud to reveal that our entry can be seen here.

The properties this entry incorporates are as follows:

1. Universality. The logo is a variant of the infinity symbol, a mathematical symbol that has the same meaning everywhere.

2. Simplicity. The logo is easily reproducible as the infinity symbol is included as a character on virtually all modern PCs; anyone with Internet access can cut-and-paste the symbol from the Web in a very simple operation. Even in the absence of a computer, the logo can be drawn with ease.

3. Neutrality. The logo is in United Nations blue (#007FFF), arguably the world’s most neutral colour.

4. Unity. The concept of infinity is imbued with secular meaning – as the highest conceivable value – and religious meaning, infinitude being a divine attribute.  

5. Beauty. The symbol is elegant, timeless and aesthetically pleasing.

Somalia: On the Brink of Extinction?

10m people affected by Horn of Africa's worst drought in 60 years; UK pledges £52.25m/US$84m in emergency aid tinyurl.com/6gscmky—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) July 18, 2011

The End of Starvation?

José Graziano da Silva, the father of Brazil's 'Zero Hunger' programme, elected head of UN FAO tinyurl.com/6bgee5v #UN #FAO #ZeroHunger—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 26, 2011

Human Rights You Can See: A Logo for Human Rights

Via his perhaps unsurpassable comic strip Peanuts, artist Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000) once asked: ‘What is the colour of a peace conference?’ Eleven years after Schulz’s demise, ‘A Logo for Human Rights‘ – a Berlin-based competition – has been launched to find an answer to an analogous riddle: how to visually represent the concept of human rights. German Human Rights Commissioner Markus Löning recently explained that the initiative was inspired by the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, where demonstrators protesting for their basic human rights did not have recourse to a symbol which obviously represented this demand.

Ten United Nations member states – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mauritius, Senegal, Singapore and Uruguay – created the Internet platform for the competition. Cash awards of €5,000.00 (winner), €3,000.00 (second position) and €1,000.00 (third place) will be allocated, and those wishing to enter the contest have until 31st July 2011 to do so. The judges include the ten foreign ministers of the initiator countries, as well as luminaries such as USSR icon Mikhail Gorbachev, microcredit guru Muhammad Yunus, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and China PR artist Ai Weiwei. At the end of September, the winning logo will be presented at the UN General Assembly in New York.

So what does colour/s does Mediolana think human rights is/are? Details of our contributions to this proposal will be published on this blog shortly; our readership will doubtless have their own thoughts on the matter.