by Admin | Apr 3, 2016 | AI World Society Summit
(April 4th, 2016) The Boston Global Forum has presented to planners of the G7 Summit, set for May 26-27 in Japan, its recommendations for improving cybersecurity and cybercitizenship. The proposals are part of the BGF-G7 Summit initiative.
The Boston Global Forum has presented to planners of the G7 Summit, set for May 26-27 in Japan, its recommendations for improving cybersecurity and cybercitizenship. The proposals are part of the BGF-G7 Summit initiative. The full package of proposals, the list of experts who produced the package and scholarly source material.
Here’s a summary of the key parts:
- That the G7 nations encourage adoption of norms set forth by the G20, the United Nations’ Group of Government Experts (GGE) and The Boston Global Forum’s Ethics Code of Conduct for Cybersecurity (ECCC).
- G7 nations should engage hardware and software vendors to develop cybernorms, following the six guidelines in the Microsoft report titled“International Cyber-Security Norms: Reducing Conflict in an Internet-Dependent World.”
- The G7 nations should develop certain cyber risk-reduction measures.
- The G7 nations should identify, publish and promote “best practices” in cybersecurity.
- The G7 nations should support cybersecurity capacity-building in developing countries.
by Admin | Apr 3, 2016 | World Leaders in AIWS Award Updates
(April 4th, 2016) This may be a sign of a further tightening of relations between South Korea and Japan, perhaps accelerated by their common concerns about North Korean and Chinese aggressiveness, as well as by Japan’s desires to create an upbeat mood for the G7 Summit.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye have met and reinforced an agreement to resolve the issue of reparations for the Korean comfort women forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers before and during World War II. During that time, all of Korea was occupied by Japan.
Mr. Abe will host the G7 Summit in Japan on May 26-27, for which the Boston Global Forum has been preparing proposals aimed at strengthening peace and security as part of its BGF-G7 Summit Initiative.
“While both nations have various domestic issues that must be dealt with, I want to display leadership in ensuring that the agreement is implemented properly,” Mr. Abe told Ms. Park, said Japanese officials.
Mr. Park, too, expressed her intention to fully carry out the pact.
Under the agreement, Japan will pay 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) to a fund to be established by Seoul to support the surviving former comfort women. South Korea, for its part, is expected to try to address Japanese government demands for the removal of a statue representing comfort women near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
Ms. Park also mentioned her conversations with Mr. Abe following recent North Korean nuclear tests and missile launches. She said those conversations laid the foundation for a new resolution approved by the U.N. Security Council that included tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.
by Admin | Apr 3, 2016 | World Leaders in AIWS Award Updates
(April 4th, 2016) The United Nations’ Global Citizenship Education program is a form of education of civic values in which the world is seen as global village where learning involves students’ active participation in projects that address global social, political, economic and environmental issues.
The United Nations’ Global Citizenship Education program is a form of education of civic values in which the world is seen as global village where learning involves students’ active participation in projects that address global social, political, economic and environmental issues.
The Boston Global Forum has been heavily involved in promoting the concepts of global citizenship education, especially through the UNESCO-UCLA program in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education at the University of California at Los Angeles. BGF member Carlos Alberto Torres is Distinguished Professor of Education and UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education. Nguyen Anh Tuan, the BGF’s chief executive and editor-in-chief, is chairman of the International Advisory Committee of the UNESCO-UCLA Global Citizenship Education (GCE) program.
U.N. proposals for Global Citizenship Education can be summarized as aiming to:
- Develop global consciousness through education.
- Improve behaviors and lifestyles through outdoor project-based learning.
- Create a curriculum based on life skills, human rights, pluralism, social justice, democracy, ethics, sustainability, health, science, technology and environmentalism at the local, regional and global levels.
- Nurture technical-rational students through community-based learning and by using the educational power of the wider culture through dialogue and action.
- Emphasizethe importance of “psychosocial resources,’’ such as by using modern technological tools interactively and empathetically, both between heterogeneous groups and within groups.
by Admin | Apr 3, 2016 | Initiative
(April 4th, 2016) The United States has told China it will not recognize an exclusion zone in the South China Sea and would view such a move as “destabilizing,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said.
Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft May 21, 2015. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters
In what might be a sign of a tougher stance, at least rhetorically, against China’s military expansionism in the South China Sea, the U.S. has emphasized that it won’t recognize any exclusion zone declared by China around the islands and reefs that it has been seizing and building on in the sea, through which goes 30 percent of world merchandise trade.
And U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said that America would view the declaration of any such zone as “destabilizing.’’
U.S. officials worry that an international court ruling expected soon in a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could prompt Beijing to declare an air-defense identification zone in the region, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013. The U.S. doesn’t recognize that zone.
America, Vietnam, the Philippines and Australia have been pushing back against China’s stepped-up efforts to become the dominant power in the South China Sea.
by Admin | Apr 3, 2016 | Event Updates
(April 4th, 2016) Japan announced last week what it said it hoped would be priorities for the G7 Summit set for May 26-27 in Japan. (The Boston Global Forum, in cooperation with Japanese officials, has been preparing recommendations for topics and positions for the summit as part of its BGF-G7 Summit Initiative.)
Mr. Yasuhisa Kawamura.
Yasuhisa Kawamura, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s spokesman, set forth as the first topic addressing the economic weakness in the Group of 20 major and emerging economies, especially China, whose growth rate has slowed sharply.
Mr. Kawamura said that given the economic weakness being demonstrated in many nations, the G7 meeting should send a “clear message to the world so that those countries will make a contribution to the sustainable growth of the world economy.’’
He also said the G7 summit should also take up “in a strategic way” such issues as global terrorism, Russia’s conflict with Ukraine and the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
The group, which includes the United States, Italy, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Canada and France, cut Russia from the group that had been known as the G8 in 2014 after Moscow seized and annexed Crimea.
