By Ruud van der Lem, Drone-Solutions.nl. In many parts of the world, mosquitoes are responsible for a variety of illnesses for both humans and domestic animals, like Malaria, Chikungunya, Dog Heartworm, Dengue, Yellow Fever, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Zika virus, St. Louis Encephalitis, LaCrosse, Encephalitis, Western Equine Encephalitis and the West Nile Virus. Many of them can be lethal as well. Nearly 700 million people get a mosquito borne illness each year resulting in greater than one million deaths… The first US project Now the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District has initiated a project, to search for the mosquito breeding grounds, using drones, equipped with infra-red sensitive camera’s. These cameras can determine small shallow water pools from within varied rural areas. Finding these pools quickly means the authorities can than treat the areas with larvicide in order to destroy both the eggs and the larves. Domestic areas Mosquitoes have a fly range from up to 3 miles, so this ring around domestic areas is sufficient enough to gain a large effect. Project improvement We would encourage more research on this subject, whereby special designed software, automatically fixes the date/time, coordinates and the size of the suspected pools. With the use of GPS/smartphone/mapping, the larve destroy team than can quickly treat the locations. Conclusion In the war against mosquitos, drones can really make the difference. A additional benefit is not only the additional employment in operating such a project, but also the people’s awareness towards the positive aspects of drones. Drone-Solutions.nl is a specialist in providing solutions in remote sensing and cooperates with the security and drone industry.

By Mitesh D. Mistry – Diplomat Magazine’s Associate Editor in the United Kingdom Since the 1920’s, America has evolved into the world’s largest economy. Their status as world economic leaders has enabled them to dictate the course of global economics. However with the rise and threat of other regional economies like that of East-Asia, home to the large economies of China and Japan; it is argued that American economic hegemony is declining and coming to an end. The East Asian economy, consisting of China, South Korea, Japan and Hong-Kong, is one of the most thriving regional economies in the world. China’s economic rise, after their free-market reform in the late 70’s, had a huge impact on their long-term economic prosperity. It created more optimism over the last decade as China entered new markets such as mobile technology, with Huawei overtaking Sweden’s Ericsson to become the world’s largest telecoms equipment-maker. The quality of life improved significantly for median Chinese workers as they benefited from higher salaries, unlike American workers, due to China’s healthy economic growth. This meant more Chinese workers could afford to exchange their bicycles for vehicles, strengthening China’s car industry considerably; Chinese production increased greatly from 2 million cars to 18 million cars over the last decade overshadowing America’s automobile output of 11.6 million last year. This decline in American automobile production can be attributed to the global recession, which the US had failed to fully recover from; something which President Obama acknowledges, “I do think that one of the challenges that we are going face in the US, at a time when we are still recovering from the financial crisis is, how do we respond to some of the challenges of globalisation? The fact of the matter is the US was such an enormously dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now because of the incredible rise of China and other countries, there is real competition.”  The recession showed the first signs of economic power shifting favourably towards East-Asia, with particular focus on the Chinese and South Korean companies flourishing in the past five years, such as Huawei and Samsung respectively, due to particular development in science and technology. However despite the outcome of the recent recession making China appear economically superior, America can still be considered a major force in the global economy; through the International Monetary Fund. With high voting powers within the IMF and global use of the dollar, America has spread its global economic dominance through the loans and conditions the IMF issue to crisis-hit economies. Furthermore, the East-Asian ‘bloc’ doesn’t have an alternative institution to rival and challenge this American influenced organisation. Although the Chiang Mai Initiative is the closest East-Asian rival to the IMF, it is based on the foreign reserves of the East-Asian economies. Surprisingly, China’s foreign reserves are in decline. Figures from the People’s Bank of China showed its reserves had slipped 0.6% to $3.18tn This means if an ‘Asian Monetary Fund’ was created to rival the IMF, China would have to consider whether or not to fund it if their foreign reserves were forecasted for continuous decline. In spite of China’s economic success, rivaling that of America’s over the last decade, the continued global use of the dollar, which finances over half of the world’s trade, is a greater achievement for which global economic dominance can be measured; America’s global economic dominance is not at an end. Nevertheless if other East-Asian economies grow significantly and help push China to higher degrees of economic success and the use of its currency on a global scale, it could instigate a shift in global economic power to the East-Asian region and ignite a potential clash for future leadership of the global economy; between an American-led West and a China-led Asia.

Dushanbe, Tajikistan June 9 to 11, 2015 High Level International Conference on the implementation of the International Decade for Action “Water for Life”, 2005-2015.   On 19 December 2014 the UNGA has adopted a resolution (A/RES/69/215) entitled “International Decade for Action, “Water for Life”, 2005-2015, and further efforts to achieve the sustainable development of water resources” calling upon member countries, UN system institutions, including the “UN-Water” and other organizations to comprehensively evaluate progress achieved in the implementation of the Decade and continue taking steps for achieving internationally agreed water-related goals, including those indicated in the outcome document of the Rio+20 Conference, entitled “The future we want”. The resolution as the previous water related initiatives of Tajikistan has found wide support at the UN General Assembly and more than fifty UN Member States, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Croatia, Cuba, Eritrea, Finland, Georgia, Haiti, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Senegal, Seychelles, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen have become the co-sponsors of the resolution. The adoption of the resolution by consensus reaffirms the fact that water initiatives by Tajikistan are of global importance and are widely supported by the UN Member States. The resolution implies the convening of the two important events: High-level interactive dialogue of the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly in New York within the week after the World Water Day on 22 March, 2015; and the High Level International Conference on the implementation of the International Decade for Action “Water for Life”, 2005-2015 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The Government of Tajikistan as the host of the latter event which is scheduled on 9-11 June, 2015 in Dushanbe, alongside with the “UN-Water” and other UN institutions, international and regional organizations has already started its preliminary work in order to facilitate the whole process. Thus, aimed at successfully holding the Conference, as well as developing a comprehensive Programme of the Conference with the participation of all categories of water users and decision-makers the International Steering Committee of the Conference from among the representatives of the partner countries, international and regional institutions, river basin organizations, NGOs, the private sector and other stakeholders has been established. Moreover, within the National Organizing Committee under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Tajikistan a Special working group (from all relevant ministries of Tajikistan) has been summoned to actively engage in organizational matters of the Conference. The main goal of the Conference is a comprehensive discussion of the issues of implementation of the International Decade for Action “Water for Life”, 2005-2015, which will later play a fundamental role in conducting comprehensive review of the implementation of the International Decade with bringing its results to the notice of wider international community. As the international community approached the year 2015 it’s important to recall that on 23 December 2003 the UNGA at its 58th session adopted the resolution A/RES/58/217. In accordance with the resolution the period 2005–2015 was declared as the “International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” (www.un.org/waterforlifedecade), the main goals of which alongside with promotion of efforts to fulfil international commitments made on water and water-related issues by the year 2015 were also the development of plans for integrated water resource management and water-use efficiency in rendering assistance to the developing countries. Today the need for a comprehensive assessment and review of the activities carried out during this period, identification of the impediments preventing countries from implementation of the Decade goals, as well as planning of the further activities for the post 2015 period become very critical. Therefore, conducting the High Level International Conference on the implementation of the International Decade for Action “Water for Life”, 2005-2015 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (June 9-11, 2015) in this particular year is considered as a timely and effective step towards raising the awareness of the international community about the water sector trends and mobilizing efforts of the governments, UN institutions, international and non-governmental organizations, as well as other parties at all levels involved in the water problems solution. The Conference will gather together the representatives of the UN member countries’ governments, UN institutions, international and regional organizations, international financial institutions, business communities, non-governmental organizations, civil society, as well as scientists and experts. Invitations to the UN member countries, international and regional organizations and other partners will be sent on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan and the National Organizing Committee in due course. For more information about the Conference, visit www.waterforlifeconf2015.org or contact the Secretariat of the Conference: 33 Sheroz str., Dushanbe 734001, Republic of Tajikistan E-mail:info@waterforlifeconf2015.org; Tel: (+992 37) 227 68 43 Fax: (+992 37) 227 68 4

Saturday 28 March will see the reopening of the renovated Panorama Mesdag. After a period of restoration and remodelling, the museum is  ready  to accommodate the growing number of visitors with expanded exhibition spaces and state-of-the art public amenities.The museum that houses the magical 1881 marine panorama is well-prepared for this year’s Mesdag Year. New amenities The revamp of Panorama Mesdag has created more temporary exhibition space. The permanent collection has been reorganised to provide more information about the works and lives of Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten. Besides a cosy museum café and an a museum shop, the museum boasts new flexible (rental) spaces for talks and events 2015 Mesdag Year This year, The Hague will be celebrating Mesdag’s 100-year-old cultural legacy. In the late 19^th century, Mesdag put the city on the cultural map, both nationally and internationally. In addition to being a marine painter, Mesdag was an entrepreneur, collector, organiser, Mecenas, and an important source of inspiration for many painters from The Hague School. Since that time, Mesdag and the city of The Hague have been inextricably interwoven. In 2015, several museums in The Hague will showcase the many faces of the city’s icon with a range of exhibitions, symposia and events. Panorama Mesdag, The Mesdag Collection, the Louis Couperus Museum, The Hague Municipal Archives, and Pulchri Studio have teamed up to make the Mesdag year a success. As of mid-February, you will find more information on www.mesdagjaar.nl. Exhibition: The Mesdag Family Collection To properly ring in the Mesdag Year, Panorama Mesdag will be hosting a temporary exhibition called “The Mesdag Family Collection. The exhibition, on display from Saturday 29 March through Sunday 4 October 2015, will feature – often very personal – works collected by Mesdag-van Houten from the private collections of their descendants. These include Mesdag’s extraordinary and never-before-exhibited portrait of his father, Klaas, as well as Sientje’s delightful painting of dog Nero. For more information about the reopening, the Mesdag Year or the new exhibitions, please contact Helma Doorman or Marije Beckers on 070-3106665 or at info@panorama-mesdag.nl