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With 142 member nations already signed on, the new International Renewable Energy Agency is promoting a fast, global transition to clean, safe, and renewable energy. Alice Slater explains why it’s so necessary. “Every 30 minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year.”

The town hall of Fuenlabrada, south of Madrid, is exhibiting thirteen paintings made by students from several local schools. They are inspired by Pablo Picasso’s famous painting that portrays the horrors of war. This initiative is one of the activities developed by ‘World Without Wars and Without Violence’ during the World March for Peace and Nonviolence.

In my Reflection of January 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: “In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian people free of charge.

Haiti is preparing for a massive relocation of survivors of last week’s earthquake out of the capital Port-au-Prince. Some 400,000 people will be moved to camps outside the city. The relief effort has now abandoned most efforts to find people trapped beneath the rubble to focus on keeping the survivors alive. The US is now leading the effort to repair Haiti’s main port.

In three languages, Aymara, Quechua, and Spanish, Evo Morales proclaimed that in Tiwanaku, a new ray of hope was born for humanity and a new Bolivian State, after receiving the ceremonial staff of the indigenous peoples, who anointed him as a spiritual guide in the ruins of a thousand-year-old civilization, to mark the beginning of his second presidential term.

Bolivia points the way to emancipation for the world’s indigenous peoples with the consolidation of the process of change and the indigenous leader Evo Morales’ second presidential term. This was affirmed on Wednesday by the Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchú, a well known human rights activist and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The Obama administration will not unveil the results of a major review of United States’ nuclear weapons strategy until March 1 2010, a senior Defense Department official told Congress late last month, “Because of the complexity of the issues being addressed”. Reports reveal dissension within the Obama administration.

Premieres on CBC’s The Nature of Things – Thursday, January 21, at 8p.m. (8:30 NT) –
Filmmakers Donna Zuckerbrot and Daniel Zuckerbrot, Reel Time Images, produced, directed and wrote this exciting and intriguing documentary called “Bugs, Bones & Botany: The Science of Crime”, that will surprise even faithful viewers of TV’s many forensic programs.

Authorities in Haiti say as many as 200.000 have died in last week’s devastating earthquake. Another 1, 5 million and a half people have been left homeless. The death toll continues to rise as relief agencies struggle to distribute food and water to those in need. The World Food Programme said it fed about 100,000 people in Port-au-Prince on Monday.

Doctors Without Borders, international humanitarian organisation delivering medical care and awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1999, is carrying out effective action by assisting and helping voluntarily in the city of Port au Prince, recently devastated by an earthquake. The natural and human disaster stirred compassion in numerous organisations and governments around the world.