World Refugee Day

Today is World Refugee Day, and the United Nations wants us to become more aware of the needs of refugees.

“From remote camps to big cities, from the steaming lowlands of Liberia to the high plateaux of Afghanistan, from floodlit fountains to fashion shows and soccer matches, the United Nations today celebrated World Refugee Day with a message of “Hope” broadcast around the globe by leaders, film stars and refugees themselves. ”

In Toronto Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and a whole load of local and small NGOs where at a rally at Yonge and Dundas Square. It was great to see so many people out and supporting human refugee rights.

Do You Live in a Polite City?

Readers Digest has conducted a survey of major cities around the world to find which ones are the most polite. I can’t say I’m surprised that New York City won – NYC has an undeserved reputation of rudeness. Playfuls as a short article on the polite cities.

“The survey showed that New York (80 points), Zurich, Toronto, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Zagreb (Croatia), Auckland, Warsaw and Mexico City were the world’s most polite cities.”

World Urban Forum

Vancouver is hosting the UN World Urban Forum this week and it’s a chance to explore how to make cities more livable. This week people from the world will look at how to make cities more environmentally sustainable and how to make cities a friendly environment for people, among many other topics.

This urban forum badly needed since the majority of people now live in cities than in rural settings – a first for humankind.

There is also a website to encourage youth to be involved with the WUF.

Speak Up

Have you always wanted a way to make awesome advocacy happen? CitizenSpeak is all about making it easy for grassroots organizations to get their word out on the street, or at least the e-street.

“CitizenSpeak is a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. Inspired by MoveOn email campaigns, CitizenSpeak provides the same e-advocacy capability at the community level in English and Spanish.”

China Aims to Build Green

The growth of China’s economy has been staggering, and now they aim to have the similar great growth, but green. It’s wonderful to see such an economic powerhouse direct it’s energy towards environmentally friendly developments, even if the environment was ignored earlier.

“China is about to change “from emphasizing economic growth but ignoring environmental protection to emphasizing both environmental protection and economic growth,” the government said today in a policy paper covering the next five years.

Released by the Information Office of the State Council, China’s central government, the paper says that government is “fully aware” that the situation of environmental protection in the country is “grave.””