Education World

Archive for September, 2010

The 2010 Arab League (AL) summit opened in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte on Saturday. The two-day summit is the 22nd of its kind since the organization, formally called the League of Arab States, was founded in 1945.

The following is a brief introduction to the pan-Arab organization.

On March 22, 1945, at the suggestion of Egypt, the leaders of seven Arab countries met in Cairo and decided to form the League and adopt its Charter. The League currently has 22 members.

The AL is a national and regional organization that seeks to promote closer ties among member states and coordinate their policies and their economic, cultural and security plans with a view to developing collective cooperation, protecting national security and maintaining the independence and sovereignty of member states, thereby enhancing the potential for joint Arab action in all fields.

The Summit of the Heads of Arab States is the League’s highest organ of power, and also the Arab world’s top-level forum devoted to the discussion of major regional issues.

In October 2000, a special summit of heads of Arab states decided to make the summit an annual event.

Through institutions such as the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALESCO) and the Economic and Social Council of the Arab League’s Council of Arab Economic Unity (CAEU), the AL facilitates political, economic, cultural, scientific and social programs designed to promote the interests of the Arab world.

It has also served as a forum for the member states to coordinate their policy positions, to deliberate on matters of common concern, to settle some Arab disputes, and to limit conflicts such as the 1958 Lebanon crisis. The AL has served as a platform for the drafting and conclusion of many landmark documents promoting economic integration.

Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa is the current AL Secretary General, who was appointed at the Arab summit in Amman, in March 2001.

Militants Saturday blew up two schools in Mohamnd and Khyber tribal areas of Pakistan’s northwest in a fresh attempt against educational institutions, local media reported.

A government boys’ middle School was blown up by militants in Alinagar area of subdivision Saafi, Mohamand Agency earlier Saturday morning, according to official sources.

Unknown militants came at around 1:00 AM local time and placed explosive materials in different parts of the school. The school was comprising of 16 rooms. Eleven rooms were blown up completely while five were damaged partially. It is to be noted that since January 2009, this has been the 36th school targeted by the militants in Mohamand Agency.

In another incident in Qambar Khel area of subdivision Bara, Khyber Agency, earlier Saturday morning at between 04:00 to 05:00 a.m. local time, a government boys’ primary school was blown up by militants from Khyber Agency. The school had five rooms and four of them were damaged completely while the one left behind received partial damages. The school was without a boundary wall.

Pakistan Taliban, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, have claimed responsibility for the two incidents.

Pakistan has witnessed a rise in religious conservatism in parts of its northwest tribal belt with militants opposing education, especially female education and hundreds of schools have been destroyed in the last a few years.

Visiting top Chinese political advisor Jia Qinglin has met with the Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba in Windhoek on advancing the two nations’ traditional friendship.

Jia Qinglin noted the two countries have cooperated well in the fields of politics, trade, culture, education, and health. He highlighted the mutual understanding and support on issues concerning each other’s core interests. He called for further cooperation in economy,trade and humanitarian exchanges.

Namibian president Hifikepunye Pohamba spoke highly of China’s long-standing support for Namibia’s national liberation and construction. He reiterated his commitment to a stronger relationship with China.

China and South Africa, two influential developing countries, have great potential to develop bilateral cooperation, Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Zhong Jianhua said.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Zhong said both countries attach great importance to developing bilateral ties and have obtained remarkable achievements in cooperation in politics, economy and trade, culture and education.

Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), is scheduled to visit South Africa on March 28-April 1.

Zhong said the visit will enhance bilateral cooperation and promote friendship between the two countries.

Developing comprehensive cooperation with South Africa has always been a high priority of China since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1998 and established a strategic partnership in 2004.

Meanwhile, South Africa has given priority to its ties with China in South-South cooperation, and therefore, China-South Africa relations have enjoyed a smooth development and increasingly close contact.

Visiting top Chinese political advisor Jia Qinglin made a four-point proposal and met Namibian leaders for improving Sino-Namibian relations on Friday.

Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top advisory body, said both countries should consolidate their long-standing friendship to deepen mutual political trust, and strengthen economic and trade cooperation to realize win-win results.

China and Namibia should also expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges to foster their lasting friendship, and boost coordination and cooperation to enhance the common interests of both countries and all developing countries, he added.

Jia made the remarks at a reception marking the 20th anniversary of the Sino-Namibian diplomatic relationship.

Jia and Namibia’s founding president Sam Nujoma joined more than 400 people to celebrate the occasion.

Enhancing economic coordination will be put at the center of a new 10-year blueprint to be formally adopted at a summit of European Union (EU) leaders in June, but analysts said it will prove to be no easy task for the 27-member bloc.

Europe 2020, the new blueprint proposed by the European Commission on March 3 to replace the failed Lisbon Strategy, aims to develop the EU economy based on knowledge and innovation, and put forward a set of clear targets on education, research and development, and poverty reduction.

The EU leaders stressed the importance of enhancing economic coordination of the 27-member bloc after a two-day summit which ended here on Friday.

“The EU needs a new strategy, based on an enhanced coordination of economic policies in order to deliver more growth and jobs,” the EU leaders said in a conclusion document.

Strong coordination of economic policies within the EU is a strong point for the launch of the new Europe 2020 strategy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on behalf of the rotating EU presidency.

The EU leaders also stressed that efficient monitoring mechanisms are key for the successful implementation of the strategy.

To drive the new strategy at the national level, the European Council will once a year, make an overall assessment of progress achieved both at EU and national level on implementing the strategy.

After reaching agreement on a standby aid package for debt- laden Greece, the eurozone leaders also stressed in a statement ” we commit to promote a strong coordination of economic policies in Europe.”

They said that the European Council must improve the economic governance of the EU and proposed to increase its role in economic coordination and the definition of the EU growth strategy.

Analysts said that it’s clear that enhancing economic coordination has become a consensus among EU leaders, but it will be a big challenge for the 27-member bloc to achieve the target.

In the draft plan unveiled on March, President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso proposed to issue “policy warning” in case of inadequate response by member states to the new strategy. And he also stressed that the reporting of Europe 2020 will be done simultaneously with the evaluation of the Stability and Growth Pact. The pact requires member states to keep their budgetary deficit under three percent of GDP, which only allows temporary breach to a small extent under exceptional circumstances.

“Last time we had one hand tied behind our backs. This time we must grip the problem with both hands,” the president said.

However, the EU leaders did not mention “policy warning” in their conclusion document.

Moreover, the proposal of tying reporting of Europea 2020 and the evaluation of the Stability and Growth pact was also abandoned by the EU leaders. It was reported that it was mainly due to opposition from Germany, which said that tying the two could politicize the budget process of member states.

As another example of the difficulty of coordinating polices of the 27 member states, the EU leaders also failed to reach an agreement on the two headline targets in the new strategy, namely the targets on education and poverty reduction.

It was reported that the target on education were dropped because Germany was worried that the EU objectives could step on its federal competence on education policy. And difference on the definition of people living under poverty line led to the quit of the objective on poverty reduction.

Analysts said economic coordination of the EU will be a gradual process due to imbalance in economic development of the 27 member states.

Over 30 well-known Chinese universities gathered in Vietnamese capital city of Hanoi on Saturday for an annual education exhibition that drew a large number of students and their parents each year.

The Seventh China Education Exhibition in Vietnam is jointly held by education authorities of China and Vietnam. The universities, such as Beijing University, Tianjin University, Beijing Normal University and some medical, engineering universities participated in this year’s event.

Le Thanh Hai, a sophomore student at Vietnam Foreign Trade University came to the exhibition very early in the morning.”I am thinking of going to China for a master program after graduation.”

Hai, currently a Chinese language major student, said she wants to learn economics in graduate study in China.”China’s economy is developing rapidly and has become world third largest economy. Meanwhile, economic exchanges between Vietnam and China are developing fast. Considering the strong education capability of Chinese universities and job prospect, I should go to China,”she said.

Hai has visited booths of a few Chinese universities and she preferred ones in southern part of the country.”It will not be too cold for me to live there.”

Figures from Chinese Education Ministry showed that increasing number of Vietnamese student have flocked to China in recent years. Last year, over 12,000 Vietnamese students studied in China. The number ranks fourth after those of Republic of Korea, the United States and Japan among all the foreign students in China.

“China and Vietnam are close neighbors with similar customs and life style. Vietnamese students find it easier to adapt to the environment when they study in China,”said Zhai Leiming, Political Counselor of Chinese Embassy in Vietnam at the exhibition.

The United States has agreed to provide another 14 F-16 jet planes to Pakistan till December this year, Pakistani Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman said at a media briefing Saturday.

He said that in June this year, the U.S. authorities would start delivery of planes, adding that America would also provide Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles along with the jet planes.

The Pakistan Air Force is capable of thwarting both conventional and unconventional threats from enemy, he said.

The air force chief said that the Pakistan Air Force is focusing on its preparedness and is taking stock of it preparations according to the modern trends.

On March 24, Pakistan and the U.S. held strategic dialogue and the latter wants to improve ties with Pakistan.

It is worth to mention that the news about the provision of F- 16 planes to Pakistan came at the time when India tested two types of short-range ballistic missiles.

Li Changchun, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC), on Tuesday visited the Confucius Institute at Tehran University, where he encouraged the Iranian students to constantly improve their Chinese level and become professional translators to make contributions to bilateral relations.

Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, told the Iranian students in the institute that he was moved by their strong interest in learning Chinese.

While presenting some Chinese culture-experiencing equipment and books to the institute, Li, who is on an official visit to Iran, said he hopes the institute can use these books and equipment to promote its Chinese-teaching capacities.

President of Tehran University Farhad Rahbar said the Confucius Institute has been playing a very important role in promoting Chinese teaching in Iran and boosting bilateral cultural cooperation, adding that the university is willing to further boost cultural and educational cooperation between the two countries.

Li also watched performances about Chinese martial arts, poetry recitation and Chinese lion dance by the Iranian students in the Confucius Institute.

After visiting Confucius Institute at Tehran University, Li went to the site of Metro line 4 in Tehran, which was jointly constructed by Iran and China.

Li said the operation of the Metro line 4 is a product of the bilateral economic and trade exchanges, and he hopes that with joint efforts by the two sides the Metro line 4 can be turned into a line of friendship and cooperation between the two sides.

“I hope more achievements about our cooperation can be acquired in the future,” he added.

The Confucius Institute, the first in Iran, is co-founded by Yunnan University of China and Tehran University. It was officially opened in Tehran on Jan. 1, 2009.

Iran is the last leg of Li’s four-nation tour which has taken him to Estonia, Montenegro and Ireland.

The Kurdish issue is at center stage in Turkey as diplomatic contacts with Iraqi and U.S. officials intensified to end the deadly conflicts with Kurdish rebels.

Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay visited the northern Iraqi city of Arbil at the weekend for talks as part of an anti- terrorism action plan among Turkey, Iraq and the United States aimed to eliminate threats from the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

Emre Taner, Turkey’s chief of national intelligence, will also pay a similar visit to Iraq next weekend following his talks in Washington.

Listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. Some 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts over the past two decades.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Developing Party (AKP), which was cautious in new moves on the Kurdish issue for fear of nationalist backlash before it won support of the Turkish public majority in the Sept. 12 referendum on its constitutional reforms, has now sped up paces to solve the Kurdish issue.

Top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin and Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi visited Ankara on Tuesday in a bid to continue the work of a tripartite committee made up of Baghdad, Ankara and Washington that seeks measures for the crackdown against the PKK.

The AKP faces task to further extend the ceasefire declared by the PKK in August and prolonged last week. It also aims to let the PKK lay down arms and achieve permanent peace through a political reform process on expanding Kurdish rights.

Last week, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek and Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin met leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and listened to their demands.

The AKP has said it will start to prepare for an entirely new constitution after the amendments were approved and is open to more constitutional changes related to the Kurdish issue.

BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas said after the Thursday meeting a further constitutional overhaul should accommodate Kurdish demands for autonomy and broader linguistic rights.

However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ruled out Kurdish call for Kurdish-language education in public schools.

As the next general elections in summer of 2011 approaches, the AKP is in a delicate situation since the government faces harsh criticisms from nationalists for expanding Kurdish rights.

The Turkish government will ask the parliament to extend a mandate for cross-border military strikes on the PKK bases in norther Iraq, Cemil Cicek said Monday.

Approximately 2,000 PKK members are deployed in Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq, where Turkish army makes operations from time to time, aided by U.S. intelligence.

As diplomatic traffic with the U.S. and Iraq grew, some government officials are in contact with Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned PKK leader who still has remarkable impact on the PKK, though the government has denied direct talks with the organization.

Meanwhile, pro-Kurdish politicians are also mediating between the government and the PKK.

Aysel Tugluk, a Kurdish politician, met with Ocalan on Monday and said after her visit that Ocalan insisted on a peaceful and democratic solution to the Kurdish issue, giving a message for further extending the ceasefire.

The PKK announced last week it was extending a previous unilateral ceasefire, which lasted from Aug. 13 to Sept. 20 for the sake of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, until this week, when it would make public its next step.