A friend of mine, Björn Richter from Germany, are currently living in Gaborone, Botswana to do an internship at the Southern African Development Community and to do research for his final thesis about cross-boundary water-management in Southern Africa.

Follow his blog at http://www.inyas-blog.eu.

On Friday, at 10pm GMT the winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo, Norway. I will be following the presentation and will publish my views on it Friday by noon GMT. Some peace groups have been critical of the committee that they are choosing laureates that are not specifically working for peace. I don´t agree and believe that Professor Yunus or Al Gore are working for peace and security their ways.

Today, the laureates of the 2008 Right Livelihood Award where released.

Founded in 1980 the Right Livelihood Awards are presented annually in the Swedish Parliament and are often referred to as ’Alternative Nobel Prizes’. They were introduced “to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”.

Next weekend I will be in Helsinki, Finland to live blog from the youth conference Globsol. Around 100 young people from the Nordic countries will participate and talk about global health and what we can do to make it better.

You can follow the blog at http://globsol.joneysworld.com.

Well, the debate are over and all of us hoping they would talk about issues like climate change and poverty reduction have to wait a bit longer. They started off, as expected, by talking about the current economical problems and the bailout plan that the US congress. This is Obamas field and it really showed that he took the lead in the first round.

Tonights presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama shoul be about foreign policy. But I think most of it will be about the economy anyway. But I will follow the debate and write a story about their view on international issues like poverty reduction and climate change…if they talk about it.

During the fall, I will travel around in the Middle East for three week. I will publish podcasts and blog posts from the region with focus on the good stories. About the change, the ideas and the people behind it.
I will go to Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

I fear that this day would come, that South African president Thabo Mbeki had to resign under the pressure from Jacob Zuma and his people leaving South Africa with political uncertainty ahead of elections expected next year.

Mbeki said on Saturday he will step down “as soon as all constitutional requirements have been fulfilled” after calls by the African National Congress national executive committee for him to go.

It is believed the ANC is not ready to call an election earlier than those set down for April 2009, and that the party will appoint an interim president to lead the country for the remainder of the second term.

I will follow this and hope that the people of South Africa work together to solve this issue as fast as possible.