UNITED NATIONS CHRONICLE.Soon after we telephoned Ben Wisner to request this issue's cover essay on disaster management, we found ourselves swept into a wirelessed world of indignation and imagination, indignation at what had not been done that could well have been. Imagination about what had not been thought of but could well be realized. Over the brief weeks of February, we've been participant, albeit at the cc level, in an energetic e-maelstrom of exchanges between scientists, engineers, architects, town planners, scholars and non-governmental activists--each with experience, each with ideas, affirming the validity that knowledge and information share with the material elements of recovery and reconstruction in preparing for, and dealing with, disaster. Indeed, when Secretary-General Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (born April 8, 1938) is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1 1997 to January 1 2007, serving two five-year terms. He was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. launched First On the Ground last year, he acknowledged that "we in the policy-making pol·i·cy·mak·ing or pol·i·cy-mak·ing n. High-level development of policy, especially official government policy. adj. Of, relating to, or involving the making of high-level policy: world need to understand better how the economics of information differs from the economics of inherently scarce physical goods--and use it to advance our policy goals". First On the Ground brought the economics of information (made wondrously non-scarce in our hyperlinked times) to the economics of disaster response. Telephonic and microwave communications connected humanitarian relief workers (see Issue No. 1/2000), enhancing existing linkages through which the United Nations has spurred a safety net to anticipate and address disaster. But should still other linkages, other commitments including political, be considered, as our Essay (page 6) argues? Another vital element in disaster response--the medical--is reflected in our two articles on continuing problems related to radiation sickness radiation sickness, harmful effect produced on body tissues by exposure to radioactive substances. The biological action of radiation is not fully understood, but it is believed that a disturbance in cellular activity results from the chemical changes caused by in the aftermaths of the Chernobyl accident Chernobyl accident Accident at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear power station in the Soviet Union, the worst in the history of nuclear power generation. On April 25–26, 1986, technicians attempted a poorly designed experiment, causing the chain reaction in the core to and nuclear testing Nuclear tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have staged tests of them. in Kazakhstan's Semipalatinsk region (page 14). Scientists remain quietly effective in the community of the concerned; engineers in Malaysia have crafted a new device to measure the strength of rock and soil (page 16). From the architecture--formal and otherwise--of disaster management to the architecture of the world economic system, we have a cluster of articles (page 18) related to globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation , governance and human development. Again, a common theme is partnerships, the visibility of preparedness and response. And information: as the Danish Ambassador remarks in our coverage of the Millennium Assembly session (page 29) "common analysis and opinion on what works in development" is essential to achieving the right political motivation for action. Yet again, the United Nations as a focal point focal point n. See focus. of information retrieval information retrieval Recovery of information, especially in a database stored in a computer. Two main approaches are matching words in the query against the database index (keyword searching) and traversing the database using hypertext or hypermedia links. as we know it today: as Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Petrovsky observes in his article on the Organization's Geneva Geneva, canton and city, Switzerland Geneva (jənē`və), Fr. Genève, canton (1990 pop. 373,019), 109 sq mi (282 sq km), SW Switzerland, surrounding the southwest tip of the Lake of Geneva. headquarters (page 75), "it may not be fanciful to project that a future Silicon valley may one day stretch along" that city's famous Lake shore. As this issue was closing for press, news came of the passing of poet A.R. Ammons. Lines from his "Sphere", admittedly beyond context, came to mind: I want to be declared a natural disaster area...I want to be the aspect above which every hope rises, a freshening of courage to millions... Can, from the aspect of disaster's shattered being, hope yet arise and refresh the courage of the millions left undestroyed? Read on. And write ... |
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