By Anton Lutter. Since 1898 Rizal Day is observed by the Philippine community all over the world every 30th of December in commemoration of life and marytrdom of national hero Jose Rizal.  The major celebration is held at Rizal Park, more popularly known as the Luneta in Manila. The event is highlighted by flag-raising and wreath-laying ceremonies at the Jose Rizal Monument. Dr. Jose Rizal (1861-1896), a ophthalmologist and a novelist was a Filipino patriot during the Spanish colonial era and became a martyr for reform in the Phillipines after his execution by the Spanish. He’s considered as the one of the greatest heroes in Philippine history, and is credited as starting the Philippine revolution against the Spanish colonisers. His two novels, “Noli me Tangere” (“Touch me not”) and the sequel “El Filibusterismo” (“The Filibustering” or “Reign of Greed”) exposed the injustices brought on the Philippne people. He was the first person in all of Asia to advocate and introduce ideas that can be called modern democracy and Western liberalism. As early as 1880,Jose Rizal through his essays, letters and novels was already espousing such principles as the worth and dignity of the individual, the inviolability of human rights, the innate equality of all men and races, the necessity for constitutional government and due process of law, popular sovereignty as the basis of all political authority, faith in human reason and enlightenment, the right of the masses to public education, and belief in social progress through freedom. Rizal believed in the brotherhood of men irrespective of creed and nationalities, in universal peace and justice, and in the happiness and welfare of humanity. He envisioned a new world order in which men are free of tyranny, bigotry, and slavery, where justice reigns and all nations live together in fraternal harmony (lit: Souvenir Program of the 10th Annual International Assembly of the Order of the Knights of Rizal).              

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.

By Guillaume Kavaruganda, Minister Counselor, Embassy of Rwanda. Being a Diplomat, especially an African diplomat in The Hague is indeed fascinating and unusual. Nowadays, less than 20 African countries are represented in Netherlands. The number is increasing each year which is a laudable. Better late than never as the saying goes! When I was posted in The Hague in July 2010, I had a vague idea where I was going and what to expect. I had once visited the City of Zwolle in 2004 when I was then a junior diplomat in Geneva; I stayed one overnight and drove back early morning to Switzerland in my old Mercedes. Nothing particular on that trip had attracted my attention. No one can be indifferent Vis a Vis of the Netherlands, especially the one who has lived in Rwanda. You get shocked by lots of similarities. The two countries are small, over populated; both habitants are hardworking people, interested in farming and very tall people. Compare to their small sizes both countries managed and have succeeded to be relevant in a way or another in the International arenas.  The differences are also there: Rwanda is a landlocked country, very hilly, called for that reason a country of thousand hills; Rwanda is still listed among the Least Developed countries contrary to the Netherlands which is ranked among Developed world. Since the independence of African countries in early 60’s, what African diplomats have been asking has remained quite the same in the last 50 years. The Diplomats of that time, now in retirement, were asking in those days the noninterference in internal/domestic affairs, transfer of technology, more aid, more technical assistance, more capacity building, and the access to the market especially for the commodities. Those are the same issues we are still fighting for.As the Italian saying goes “La Lotta Continua/ the struggle has not yet ended” and we are not sure of the victory. Another uncertainty is to know if the perception of Africans towards Europeans and vice versa have changed since the independence; in other word, if the Europeans still see the African man or woman in the same manner that they were seen by the Europeans in early 60’s.The same goes for Africans to the Europeans. To understand better how the two civilizations were looking at each other’s, I am inviting you to read a novel by the Ivory Coast man named DADIE BERNARD written in 1959 under the title of “LE NEGRE A PARIS” Which can be translate in “A NEGRO IN PARIS”. Meanwhile good news is coming from Africa in sectors where nobody was expecting them. Rwanda has been for the last ten years the first country in the world to have a big number of women in Parliament. This small example can give hope. In half-life of a man age, I was very lucky to live in many countries abroad either as a diplomat or pursuing my studies. Beside Rwanda, the Netherlands is the country where I feel more comfortable. You forget easily that you are a foreigner, and nobody reminds you of that. I am for that reason very grateful to the Dutch people.  

Precision Agriculture with Hyperspectral Sensors, Monitoring Against Disease, Nutrient Stress, and Drought

By Ruud van der Lem, Drone-Solutions. Crop monitoring for nutrients, water-stress, disease, fungus, insect attack and overall plant health and development is a vital aspect of successful agricultural operations. Traditionally this has been carried out by visual examination of crops on the ground or sometimes from the air. However these methods are limited by the ability of the human eye to discriminate between healthy foliage and foliage suffering various kinds of stress. Often a specific condition must be well-advanced before visual symptoms become noticeable even to experienced observers. Modern precision agriculture relies on site-specific management tactics to maximize harvest and resources while reducing environmental impacts such as over-fertilization and the broad applications of pesticides. Pin-pointing areas requiring attention – be it water, weed or pathogen treatment, or nutrient adjustments – allows for spot application rather than whole-field treatment. The collection of key data at a sufficient level of accuracy depends on the availability of equipment that can be operated at a cost-effective level. Some of the benefits of hyperspectral and multispectral imaging are that these technologies are: low cost, compared with traditional scouting methods, give consistent results, simple to use, allow for rapid assessments, non-destructive, highly accurate, and have a broad range of applications. The development of aerial and ground-based spectral imaging equipment has been a major breakthrough in the expansion and practical application of precision agriculture techniques. This technology has made possible the assessment of crop stresses, characterization of soils and vegetative cover and harvest estimation, in addition to its predictive capabilities. Drone-Solutions is a specialist in providing solutions in remote sensing, represents French companies that are specialized in flying drones, land and naval robots. Some of these drones / robots are used by the French army.