Is Justin Timberlake the new Al Gore?

Source: Washington Post | By Associated Press

Justin Timberlake has been lauded for his work in music, TV and film. Now he’s about to get an accolade for trying to better the environment. The Environmental Media Association says Timberlake will receive its Futures Award, which represents future environmental leaders in entertainment.

Read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

To know more about the Gstaad Project, click here. Our new book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place” is now available online at Create Space, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobles.

Heroes of the United Nations is now on Storify

After the documentary film “Why is Kofi Annan not a woman? – Gender equality at the United Nations, ” author Andreas S. von Warburg brings us “Heroes of the United Nations,” a book about people helping people… The book explores a side of the UN most people ignore. It tells the stories of eight great heroes of the UN, including Dag Hammarskjöld, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The UN and social media? The start of a new multilateral diplomacy…

Here is a great article/interview by Eliza Villarino (DevEx):

Ban Ki-moon donned his usual smile as he sat across ABC News’s Juju Chang in a studio at United Nations headquarters in New York. Yet this was no usual TV interview. It was a first for the secretary-general: a global conversation on pressing U.N. issues via social media.

The Sept. 13 event was streamed live on Facebook, Livestream, Tumblr and the U.N. Webcast. Questions, which numbered more than 5,500, were submitted via Twitter and Weibo. They were sent in U.N. official languages – Arabic, Chinese English, French, Russian and Spanish – as well as in Portuguese and Swahili.

Island nations beg for help: they’re disappearing underwater

Source: The Washington Post | By Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — The Palestinians want the United Nations to recognize a state. And the island nation of Tuvalu wants the United Nations to act — now — to keep their state above water. The high drama surrounding the historic Palestinian bid for statehood has to a degree overshadowed other issues facing the U.N. General Assembly, which Saturday heard from the leaders of island nations where the impact of climate change is already having a profound effect.

Obama at the UN

To watch US President Barack Obama’s address to the United Nations, visit the UN Webcast website: http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/index.html

For a transcript, please click here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/21/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly

To know more about the UN and its work around the world, read our newly-released book: “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place.” The book is available online at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-United-Nations-Andreas-Warburg/dp/0615467105). Click here for a review.

5 stories to follow during UN week in New York

Here is a post by Mark Leon Goldberg, managing editor of the UN Dispatch blog. The post was originally published by CNN:

“UN Week is here. Soon, world leaders will descend on Turtle Bay for the annual ritual of speeches, press conferences and back-room wheeling and dealing. Here are the top five stories on the agenda this week in New York, ranked in descending order of likely media interest. So, without further ado – 5 stories to watch during UN Week.

UN Heroes: Who killed Dag Hammarskjold?

Exactly 50 years ago, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash on a mission to prevent civil war in newly independent Congo. Suspicions that the plane was shot down, never fully laid to rest, are now again on the rise.

Hammarskjold is one of the eight great heroes portrait in the newly-released book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place.” The book, authored by Andreas S. von Warburg, is published by our publication arm, Gstaad Publications (click here for more info: http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-United-Nations-Andreas-Warburg/dp/0615467105)

Obama and Bush: a foreign policy perspective

Great OpEd on the Washington Post by David Ignatius. The focus is on the development of the US foreign policy in since President Barack Obama took office and how the new Administration’s international agenda relates to that of former President George W. Bush.

“Barack Obama got elected president in part because he promised to change the foreign policy priorities of a Bush administration that was unpopular abroad, had strained relations with key allies and was facing a growing Iranian challenge and a continuing menace from al-Qaeda,” Ignatius states.

“So what’s happened over the past 32 months?” the writer continues. “There have been a lot of bumps and bruises, especially in the global economy. But if you step back from the daily squawk box, some trends are clear: Alliances are stronger, the United States is (somewhat) less bogged down in foreign wars, Iran is weaker, the Arab world is less hostile and al-Qaeda is on the run.”

Please click here to read the article in it’s entirety:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-successful-post-bush-foreign-policy/2011/09/02/gIQAlfzexJ_story.html