By Mustafa Abdulhalim

During the 2012 London Summer Olympics each country cheered for the success of their athletes, but in Egypt this hope went beyond simply winning. For a country with many societal divides, sports - particularly football - can strengthen social cohesion and national identity.

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Government has set out new policy on state funerals:

Evans Chibiliti [Cabinet Secretary] says the personalities entitled to state funerals are the President, Vice-President, Chief Justice, Speaker of the National Assembly and Cabinet ministers.... all former holders of these offices will be accorded the status of a state funeral and the period of mourning for a serving President is seven days while that of a former President is five days....five days of national mourning will be accorded to a serving Vice-President and three days to a former Vice- President.....Speaker of the National Assembly and Cabinet ministers will all be accorded three days of national mourning while former holders of these offices will be accorded one day.

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In eight countries around the world, 20 young Americans will soon be assuming new work spaces in cabinet-level ministries. They'll barely have time to thumb tack photos of their loved ones on the walls before getting down to work with their new colleagues.

What is that work? The real and everyday challenges those governments face in Bangladesh, Cote d'Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Thailand, and Tunisia. And what brings these committed young men and women to these posts? They are the first members of a fellowship program -- sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs -- that seeks to build mutual understanding and strengthen the... more »

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"Internally Displaced Persons" (IDP) camp in eastern Congo, in pouring rain.

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Being a writer is tough, especially nowadays. It's an odd occupation because you never quite know if you understand it, if you're getting anything right. There's always this mental pull and push between art and making a living. You want to write what and how you want, but you really can't unless you never want to be published. Even once published you don't really know if you've had success. You get reviews and royalty statements but do they really mean anything? Do they answer the questions in your head in any satisfactory way? Do they give you any real feedback about what took place? Do they assure you that it will all happen again?

If you're a plumber, for example, you go to plumbing school and you learn how to fit a toilet. And once you've become an expert at fitting a toilet you can be ...

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Here is the latest blog entry by the US Paralympic Soccer Team:

"Hey everyone its Josh McKinney here with the Paralympic soccer team.  We just finished our month long camp and are prepared for the Paralympics next week.  It's amazing how quickly the games came around, qualifiers feels like they were just last week.

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For more information visit: Weaverbird Art Uganda Weaverbird was also profiled by the Start Journal of Arts and Culture. The article is available here.

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On August 14, @zehrarizvi and I co-hosted a Twitter chat on ways that ICTs can support and protect "children on the move," eg., children and youth who migrate, are displaced, or move around (or are moved). Background information on the issue and the research. We discovered some new angles on the topic and some resources and [...]

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En Français

What happens when you give hundreds of student teams across the world an AdWords online advertising budget of US$250 and three weeks to help a local business improve their marketing campaign? You get the annual Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) which is now in its fifth and most competitive year yet.

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