Heads of State and Government arrived in New York to the annual debates at the United Nations General Assembly; they were hosted by President María Fernanda. 

The new President of the General Assembly, H.E. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, of Ecuador, took the oath of office on 17^th September and officially opened the General Assembly a day later with a pledge to dedicate her presidency to women and girls. She said: “I want to support those women who have entered politics; who are demanding equality in the workplace; those women and girls who are victims of violence and those girls and adolescents who demand access to quality education.”

President Espinosa Garcés is the first woman of the Latin America and Caribbean Group to preside over the General Assembly.

The 73^rd session of the General Assembly focused on gender equality, migration and refugees, decent work for all and the role of youth in peace and security. The session also focused on supporting the rights of the disabled, climate action and revitalization of the work of the UN.

Ms. Espinosa Garcés is committed to bringing the UN closer to the people and people closer to the UN in order to make the Organization relevant to everyone.She has dedicated her year in office and that of her team to ensuring that the UN delivers seven days a week, every week. Her slogan has been abbreviated to: D.A.R.E which stands for “Delivery, Accountability, Relevance and Efficiency.”

Along with the statements from world leaders, the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, will also include high-level events on the elimination of tuberculosis and tackling of non-communicable diseases, as well as a special session on global peace in honor of former South African President Nelson Mandela

A statue of Mr. Mandela will also be unveiled at the UN Headquarters in New York in recognition of his lifetime of efforts to promote peace and security and protect human rights, both pillars of the United Nations.

A rise in school shootings has resulted in one company developing an armored protection backpack for students, travelers and first responders.

In 2016 there were 385 mass shootings in which four or more people were injured or killed in the U.S., according to the Gun Violence Archive as of February 2017. According to the FBI’s study of active shooter incidents between 2000 – 2013, there has been a dramatic rise in shooter events – from seven in 2000 to over 200 in 2012. 

US company, Meret, that produces medical, adventure backpacking and scuba diving gear, recently collaborated with Angel Amor, a leader in ballistic armor technology, to develop a consumer daypack and reengineer their first responder bags to include lightweight, armored ballistic protection. Weighing no more than a typical daypack, their new commuter backpack can withstand multiple rounds, defending the vital chest area and potentially saving your life, all while carrying your laptop and personal items.  

“It sounds extreme,” says Scott Decker,  President of Meret, “but why wouldn’t you want the added protection if you’re already carrying a backpack?”

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The city of Kyiv in the Ukraine was the focus of worldwide attention last month with the UEFA Champions League final taking place at the NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium between Real Madrid and Liverpool.

A big part of the competition this season has been UEFA’s #EqualGame campaign which aims at celebrating the positive effects that football brings to communities while highlighting the power and importance of diversity, inclusion and team work on and off the field.  

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Every month, as part of this campaign, UEFA focuses on a person from one of its 55 member associations as a great example of how football promotes inclusion, accessibility and diversity.  

One example is Olesksander Fomichov, football coach and professional businessman who lives in Ukraine. Fomichov is no stranger to adversity. He was forced to abandon his home  following the outbreak of civil unrest in 2014. But he is able to understand that there is power in unity and the bonds of good relationships. He states: “Keeping faith in people is the most important factor for the development of every country and the world as a whole. We can build a sustainable society and use football as one of the tools that brings us together.” 

Echoing this sentiment is Andriy Shevchenko, one of Ukraine’s greatest footballers and head coach of the national team. Shevchenko says: “Football is an international game. It has nothing to do with politics or religion. It’s a game that’s accessible to all and it should be pure, not only in the top competitions but also among children.”

Among the spectators at the Champions League final was the Mayor of Kiev and former professional boxer Vitali Klitschko, who said: “It’s very important to spread the message of social inclusion and diversity… and we want to do this through sport. Like Nelson Mandela said: sport has the power to change the world.”

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A lack of U.S. government support is holding back businesses that seek to do good as well as making a profit, according to a Republican congressman who says the private sector often does a better job of solving society’s problems.

Tom MacArthur introduced a bill to Congress in 2016 seeking to establish a commission to examine how government could support social enterprises – businesses that deliver social or environmental benefits – but progress has stalled.

“Leveraging the power of the market to solve social problems using private capital is something everyone should be able to get behind,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email.

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“It promotes radical accountability by bringing the private sector’s insistence on measurable results and fiscal soundness to bear – something that government programs fail at miserably.”

MacArthur said the sector was flourishing in the United States even without the support he is calling for.

Examples include the Bombas sock company, which donates one pair to a homeless shelter for every pair sold, and Branded, a company named after markings traffickers make on victim’s skin that teaches survivors to become jewellery makers.

However, he said a lack of data – no one knows how many social enterprises there are in the United States – was holding back legislation that could boost the industry.

Proper data “would help lawmakers appreciate just how far this sector has advanced, and help us make the case that lawmakers need to be paying more attention,” he said.

The first national directory, compiled by a Vermont University academic and published in April, includes 1,000 social enterprises.

In Britain, with a population a fifth that of the U.S., there are 70,000 businesses employing nearly 1 million people last year, according to membership organisation Social Enterprise UK.

“We run the risk of missing a huge opportunity,” said MacArthur, whose social enterprise bill was referred to the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2016 and has since stalled.

“Social entrepreneurs want to solve the problems facing all of us, and they want to do it in creative, financially sustainable ways.”

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By Lee Mannion @leemannion, Editing by Claire Cozens. 

Francis Okello wanted to kill himself after he was blinded at the age of 12 by an unexploded bomb while digging in his family garden in northern Uganda – until he made friends with a dog.

“I would have nightmares,” said Okello, who lives in an area that has been scarred by two decades of conflict between Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and Ugandan forces. “Life became worthless because I was stigmatised.”

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Hope flickered when Okello bonded with a dog called Tiger at his boarding school, where he felt ashamed of having to wake people up to guide him to the toilet at night. “I hated burdening people for help,” the 29-year-old father of two told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I got close to Tiger who would help me walk to the toilet.”

The value of therapy animals for mental health problems is well documented in the West but is rare in East Africa, where many people fear dogs as they are usually kept as guards.

Okello later trained as a community psychologist and set up the Comfort Dog Project in 2015, which has helped heal more than 300 people who have been traumatised by the rebellion, marked by the kidnapping of children for use as fighters and sex slaves.

Uganda’s health ministry estimates that seven out of 10 people in northern Uganda are traumatised by the war in which tens of thousands were killed and 2 million were uprooted from their homes. The LRA was ejected from the area in 2005. Filda Akumu, 35, whose family was massacred by LRA rebels, battled with trauma after escaping rebel captivity.

“When I witnessed my father and my two brothers being hacked to death, I never thought I would heal again – until now,” said Akumu, who also volunteers at the project.

Thousands of former abductees – like Akumu – suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and suicidal thoughts, making it hard to rebuild their lives, experts say.

The presence of dogs can provide comfort to people with mental health problems and distract them from upsetting thoughts, research shows. Okello gets many of his dogs from The Big Fix, northern Uganda’s only veterinary hospital.

“I mainly use stray dogs because they face tough conditions,” Okello said. “When these dogs bond with our patients, they form a companionship that heals both parties.”

By John Okot. Editing by Katy Migiro.

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During the delegations’ procession, they saw 166 Korean athletes walking in step behind a blue and white flag. A unifying flag for two countries separated by one border, but in conflict for several decades. Among these 166 Olympians, 22 of them come from North Korea.

The entire world witnessed an historical event – North and South Korea joined together in the same procession, their athletes advancing hand-in-hand, dressed in identical uniforms.

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Athletes, officials and supporters of the two Korean neighbours expressed their common cause through the magic of the Games and the Olympic Movement.

A few weeks ago, this sight still seemed impossible. Today it’s a reality.

Once again, sport has succeeded where politics has failed. A magnificent example of the power of sport diplomacy. In a world of tension, where divisions between societies never cease to increase, sport remains one of the rare grounds for expression through a neutral and universal language which sparks dialogue.

And the Olympic Games are its most powerful showcase. In Pyeongchang over the next weeks, the two Koreas will not just stop at being in the same procession at the Opening Ceremony.

They will play together as one team in the female ice-hockey competition. Players started their preparation at the end of January. They abandoned their differences in the skating rink. They are simply Korean. Since it was founded, Peace and Sport has been working in its own way, patiently but with great determination, to promote dialogue between the two Koreas in the sports field.

In 2011, we united players from the two countries in the same tournament in Doha, organised in collaboration with the International Table Tennis Federation. North and South Korean ping-pongers formed teams on the same side of the table. They won – and sometimes lost – together.

Last year, with help from the International Ice Hockey Federation and the 2018 Pyeongchang Organising Committee for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, we brought together players from the two countries for a historic photo as a side event to the ice hockey qualifier for the 2018 Olympics.

They posed on the ice, holding up a #WhiteCard, a symbol of the initiative bearing the same name launched in 2015 by Peace and Sport, to promote peace through sport.

At the Pyeongchang Games, athletes from both Koreas will have a role to play for the future of their countries. An historic role !

By marching together, wearing the same t-shirt in the women’s ice- hockey competition, by sharing meals and conversations at a communal table in the Olympic Village, they can push the barriers and inspire Korean youth on both sides of the border.

The athletes are not only examples; through their words and their actions they can also become ambassadors of peace and sharing.

If these Games are an opportunity for North Korea to open dialogue with South Korea, and indeed the rest of the world, they also provide the occasion for other countries to seek ways to build sustainable peace via the diplomatic tool of sport.

The meeting of the two Koreas at the Winter Games marks a first victory. But it shouldn’t be the only one.

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A newly launched satellite is expected to become the brightest object in the night sky, creating a shared experience for all humanity, after being launched on board Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle in January.

The Humanity Star is intended to serve as a focal point for humanity, as every single person on Earth will have the opportunity to see and experience it. The satellite will appear as a bright, glinting star shooting across the night sky.

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Created by Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck, the project is about drawing people’s eyes up and encouraging people to look past day-to-day issues and consider a bigger picture.

“No matter where you are in the world, or what is happening in your life, everyone will be able to see the Humanity Star in the night sky. My hope is that all those looking up at it will look past it to the vast expanse of the universe and think a little differently about their lives, actions and what is important for humanity,” he says.

“For us to thrive and survive, we need to make big decisions in the context of humanity as a whole, not in the context of individuals, organisations or even nations. The Humanity Star is a way of looking beyond our immediate situation, whatever that may be, and understanding we are all in this together as one species, collectively responsible for innovating and solving the challenges facing us all. We must come together as a species to solve the really big issues like climate change and resource shortages.”

The satellite is currently orbiting the Earth after being launched from New Zealand and successfully deploying to orbit on Sunday 21 January 2018, NZDT. It is the first New Zealand-designed and built satellite to orbit the Earth.

The Humanity Star is a geodesic sphere made from carbon fibre with 65 highly reflective panels. The sphere spins rapidly, reflecting the sun’s light back to Earth, creating a bright, flashing effect that can be seen in the night sky. Orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes and visible to the naked eye from anywhere on the globe, the Humanity Star is designed to be a bright symbol and reminder to all on Earth about our fragile place in the universe.

The Humanity Star will orbit the Earth for approximately nine months before its orbit starts to decay and the satellite is pulled back into Earth’s gravity, burning the satellite on re-entry.

The Humanity Star’s location, including when it will be visible from different regions of the planet, can be tracked in real-time at TheHumanityStar.com

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Nespresso has announced it will expand its coffee-sourcing program for the first time into several former conflict zones as part of a $50 million investment in sustainable high-quality coffee cultivation in Colombia.

President Juan Manuel Santos addressed the Nespresso Sustainability Advisory Board where he welcomed the company’s commitment. He cited the investment as an important contribution to the development of post-conflict areas.

The pledge builds on Nespresso’s long-term commitment to Colombian coffee and its efforts to improve production in regions previously impacted by the conflict, including reviving the industry in areas where production was lost. It follows Nespresso’s limited-edition Aurora de la Paz (Dawn of Peace), a coffee sourced from the region of Caquetá and launched earlier this year as a symbol of the opportunity that peace presents for coffee farmers.

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Early indications suggest that Nespresso will source up to five times more coffee from Caquetá in 2018, as it expands its efforts into areas that were inaccessible before the peace accord. The extension of the programme will see coffee-sourcing for the first time from San Vicente del Caguán, a community that found itself at the centre of the armed conflict. This region has unique climate, with Arabica coffees grown at a low altitude and low temperatures. Combined with the high humidity, this characterizes the coffee with rich, fruity notes and fine acidity. 

President Santos said: “Colombian coffee is the finest in the world. I welcome Nespresso’s commitment to our country, which highlights the many opportunities that peace opens for Colombia.”

Nespresso‘s agronomists have already started working with more than 500 producers in the Caquetá region in order to implement its AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program. The program works directly with farmers to improve their productivity, quality and sustainability by sharing good practice, providing technical assistance, and improving standards in farmers’ environmental and social welfare.

Key achievements of this program have included the support of 10’000 AAA coffee farmers to become certified by The Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade International and Fairtrade USA, helping farmers to build resilience to climate change by driving the reforestation of one million native species of trees on farms by the end of 2017, co-investing in water management systems in 25 critical water basins and the introduction of a retirement savings scheme for 2000 farmers in Caldas together with Colpensiones and the Fairtrade International Organization

Jean-Marc Duvoisin, CEO of Nespresso, said: “Quality coffee, and the premiums that farmers can earn, present a very strong opportunity for the long-term sustainability and resilience of coffee farming communities. We are delighted to bring this incredible coffee to the world.”

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A year after the historically divisive 2016 elections, a new documentary is challenging Americans to stop blaming others and question how their own decisions and actions shape the contours of our society and our country.

By asking questions about family, money, religion, civics and more, the film gets viewers to question whether the divisions in our society truly stem from group dynamics, or if we’re all part of the problem as individuals.

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“The American Question,” produced by Guy Seemann (pictured above) – a political veteran and entrepreneur who’s lived all over the world and directed by James Kicklighter – a Hollywood filmmaker raised in rural Georgia, profiles dozens of Americans from across the political, economic and social spectrum in search of these answers, going far deeper than just getting people together to find some superficial common ground.

The film explores this question through the lens of history, deteriorating civic education and evolving culture rather than rehashing the 2016 election. After conducting dozens of interviews of people from different walks of life all across the country, the creators believe something much bigger is at work, and that it has the potential to threaten the status of America as a superpower.

“We found that our divides had nothing to do with the election,” Seemann said.

“Fights spring up over core values which are supposed to unite us as a nation. Religion, speech, equality, opportunity – these concepts kept coming up over and over again.”

“This is a unique period in time, but the identity crisis we’re feeling is part of a cyclical pattern in this country. After our nation unites to defeat a common enemy – the imperial British, slavery and secession or the Nazis, we tend to lose our cohesiveness. This time, though, we have to address this issue or our status as a cohesive entity – let alone a superpower –is under threat,” he added.

Kicklighter continued, “there’s a set of values that define what it means to be an American. I heard people from all corners of the country saying the other side did not have their interests in mind. A fascinating pattern unfolded about the broader culture here, and we are trying to figure out what’s causing it and what it means.”

“What’s dangerous is when someone comes to a different set of conclusions based on their ideological perspective and pegs the other as an enemy simply because the other doesn’t agree with their individualized ideology,” Kicklighter said. “I hope The American Question helps people recognize that their neighbor is as American as they are. That’s the starting point we need to get to,” he said.

With entire communities in crisis due to this breakdown over America’s core values, the filmmakers are looking to spark a national conversation to encourage viewers to rethink how they themselves approach their own life decisions as well as their perceived differences with their neighbors. Seemann, Kicklighter and their national team want to enable them to reconcile over the shared values laid out in the founding documents which have helped the country overcome adversity since its founding.

For more on the film visit www.theamericanquestion.com

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