Tag Archives: cooperation

Tuesday, 25 May, 2010

Singapore, Malaysia Resolve 20-year Land, Water Disputes

From Singapore, Malaysia resolve 20-year land, water disputes. (Asiaone)
and Better travel links to Malaysia

Singapore and Malaysia said on Monday they have resolved long-standing disputes over land and water that have plagued ties between the two neighbours for the past 20 years.

Malaysia will relocate its railway station near Singapore's central business district to an area close to one of the two bridges linking the two countries, freeing up land in the city-state for redevelopment.

Malaysia has sovereignty over the site on which the Tanjong Pagar station is located, as well as land on both sides of the railway tracks that run through Singapore, under agreements dating back to British colonial rule.

Singapore said in turn it would not seek to extend a water agreement dating back to 1961, which allowed the city-state to buy water from the southern Malaysian state of Johor at below-market rates. Singapore will also hand  over the waterworks it operates in Johor to the Malaysian state government when the current agreement lapses.

The agreement between the two countries emerged after a meeting between Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

"The points of agreement would facilitate resolution of the issue which has been outstanding for more than 19 years," the two countries said in a joint statement.



The railway station in Tanjong Pagar, owned by Malaysia's Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), will move to the Woodlands Train Checkpoint by July 1 next year. This might be moved to Johor when the proposed rapid transit system is up.

Malaysia will co-locate its railway Customs, Immigration and Quarantine facilities at the checkpoint.

The Tanjong Pagar site and five other parcels of land in Singapore owned by Malaysia - in Bukit Timah, Kranji and Woodlands - will be managed by a new company jointly owned by Malaysia and Singapore.

They may be swopped for pieces of land of equivalent value in Marina South and/or the Ophir and Rochor area.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit Kuala Lumpur within a month with a proposal for the swop, after both countries conduct their own valuations of the land.

The railway buildings at Tanjong Pagar and Bukit Timah will be conserved.

The issue of Malaysian railway land here has dogged bilateral relations for decades, and stalled after both countries signed the Points of Agreement (POA) on its status and development in 1990.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that the deal was "historic because we see now the light at the end of the tunnel with respect to an outstanding issue that has been lingering almost 20 years".

PM Lee said: "It enables us to move forward on so many other areas, to cooperate and work together for mutual benefits without having this outstanding issue always there."

Asked why the deal worked now, he said: "There's a willingness on both sides to look forward and to resolve this matter.

"There is urgency. This matter really cannot wait indefinitely because it's already been 20 years and there are many development projects in Singapore which have been held up because the POA has not been implemented as it should have been many years ago."

He added that both sides recognised the need to work together and develop a win-win relationship to stay ahead of the competition from other countries in Asia.

The company, called M-S Pte Ltd, will be set up before the end of this year, with Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional holding 60 per cent of the shares, and Singapore's Temasek Holdings taking the remaining 40 per cent.

The ownership of the six parcels of land will be transferred to it when KTM vacates Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.



BY 2018, commuters will be able to travel between Singapore and Malaysia's Johor Baru and Tanjung Puteri using a rapid-transit system, to be jointly developed by Singapore and Malaysia, the prime ministers of both countries said yesterday.

The toll charges for the Second Link will be cut on both sides; the number of cross-border bus services will be doubled with eight new bus services; and cross-border taxi services will be liberalised, among other measures to improve connectivity between both countries.

Tags: Singapore, Malaysia, conflict, cooperation, relationships


Posted in World


Tuesday, 24 February, 2009

A developer's introduction to Google Android

From arstechnica.

Ars takes a close look at the technology underlying Google's Linux-based Android platform. From the platform fundamentals to the development experience, details inside.
..

As Google originally promised, things improved dramatically after the launch of the G1. The source code for the entire platform is now open, and Google has published extensive documentation that describes how independent developers can contribute to the project. Those changes in the development process make Android a truly open and participatory project. Patches from external contributors have already been accepted, and Google is also working closely with upstream projects like Harmony.

After the source code was opened, there was still one critical weak spot: the T-Mobile G1, Android's flagship handset, is a closed device that uses code signing to restrict changes to the platform. There is no way to flash the G1 with modified images, which means that platform hackers have no practical way to test their changes on physical hardware. This limitation was an immense disappointment, and it undermined a lot of the value of having an open mobile platform. To address this deficiency, Google launched its own unlocked developer model of the G1 handset. The hackable Google handset, which is available to anyone who registers with the Android App Store, is a fully open device that can be flashed and modified.

..

The next major version of Android delivers some important features that will help make the platform more appealing to mobile carriers and hardware makers. One of the most important changes is the new on-screen keyboard, which has opened the door for using Android on a whole new class of devices. There are already several products under development that will take advantage of this feature, including an upcoming media tablet from Archos, a WiFi Skype tablet from GiiNii, and the HTC Magic, which is coming to Vodafone.

Another significant addition is support for the x86 architecture, which could make it possible to bring Android to some netbook devices and Atom-based MIDs.

.. ..

Google had better act fast to capitalize on Android's momentum, because its window of opportunity is closing quickly. Microsoft is moving to get its improved version of Windows Mobile ready to ship, some of the LiMo-compatible smartphone platforms such as ALP are getting closer to hitting the market, and Symbian will be royalty-free soon. Google has a chance to be a major player in the mobile market. The company will need to mature Android rapidly to stay competitive in the growing smartphone ecosystem.

Related:
Interview with Google Android’s Makers.

Tags: Google, Linux, cooperation, Android


Posted in Linux , Mobile , Open-Source , Technology


Saturday, 21 February, 2009

Washington Times releases open source projects

From Washington Times.

The Washington Times has always focused on content. After careful review, we determined that the best way to have the top tools to produce and publish that content is to release the source code of our in-house tools and encourage collaboration.

The source code is released under the permissive Apache License, version 2.0. The initial tools released are:

  • django-projectmgr, a source code repository manager and issue tracking application. It allows threaded discussion of bugs and features, separation of bugs, features and tasks and easy creation of source code repositories for either public or private consumption.

  • django-supertagging, an interface to the Open Calais service for semantic markup.

  • django-massmedia, a multi-media management application. It can create galleries with multiple media types within, allows mass uploads with an archive file, and has a plugin for fckeditor for embedding the objects from a rich text editor.

  • django-clickpass, an interface to the clickpass.com OpenID service that allows users to create an account with a Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Hotmail or AIM account.

The opensource.washingtontimes.com web site will be hosting the code and issue tracking software, using django-projectmgr.

Tags: Python, django, resource, cooperation


Posted in Open-Source , Python


Tuesday, 23 September, 2008

It Takes just one Village to Save China's Langurs

From IHT.

In 1996, when the langurs were highly endangered, Dr. Pan Wenshi, China's premier panda biologist, came to study them in Chongzuo at what was then an abandoned military base. This was at a time when hunters were taking the canary-yellow young langurs from their cliff-face strongholds, and villagers were leveling the forest for firewood.

Pan quickly hired wardens to protect the remaining animals but then went a step further, taking on the larger social and economic factors jeopardizing the species. Pan also believed that alleviating the region's continuing poverty was essential for their long-term survival.

In the 24-square-kilometer nature reserve where he has focused his studies, the langur population increased to more than 500 today from 96 in 1996.

"It's a model of what can be done in hot-spot areas that have been devastated by development," said Dr. Russell Mittermeier, the president of Conservation International. "Pan has combined all the elements — protection, research, ecotourism, good relations with the local community; he's really turned the langur into a flagship for the region."

Historically, local farmers had occasionally killed langurs for food, but then teams of outside hunters began taking a serious toll on the population.

"In the 1990s, the Chinese economy started booming, and those with money — governors, factory owners, businessmen — all wanted to eat the wildlife to show how powerful they were," said Pan, 71.

A breakthrough in protecting the species came in 1997 when he helped local villagers build a pipeline to secure clean drinking water. Shortly thereafter, a farmer from the village freed a trapped langur and brought it to Pan.

"When you help the villagers, they would like to help you back," he said.

As self-appointed local advocate, Pan raised money for a new school in another village, oversaw the construction of health clinics in two neighboring towns and organized physicals for women throughout the area.

"Now, when outsiders try to trap langurs," Pan said, "the locals stop them from coming in."

In 2000, he received a $12,500 environmental award from Ford Motor Company. He used the money to build biogas digesters — concrete-lined pits that capture methane gas from animal waste — to provide cooking fuel for roughly 1,000 people.

Based on the project's success, the federal government financed a sevenfold increase in construction of tanks to hold biogas. Today, 95 percent of the population living just outside the reserve burn biogas in their homes.

As a result, the park's number and diversity of trees — the langurs' primary habitat and sole food source — has increased significantly.

In 2001, the county government built a research center in the reserve with accommodations for Pan and his students, a guesthouse and a yet-to-be completed education center to showcase the region's biodiversity.

In 2002, when Pan inaugurated the Chongzuo Eco-Park, a small part of the Nongguan Nature Reserve that is open to the public, he had a quote from the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius carved into stone at the front gate. The phrase, "In an ideal society, everyone should work for the well being of others," was a subtle reminder to local officials that the park should not be misused for their own financial gain. But the quote also reminds those looking to protect the langurs that they must consider the area's human community.

Yet his greatest achievement may well be what he has passed on to the next generation. In 1991, he founded Peking University's department of conservation biology — now the Center for Nature and Society — one of the first institutions in China dedicated to studying and protecting endangered species.

Currently staffed by 10 of Pan's former students, the department conducts fieldwork on everything from dolphins in the South China Sea to snow leopards on the Tibetan Plateau.

Pan became interested in langurs in the early '90s after reading "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis," a groundbreaking book by Dr. Edward Wilson, the Harvard biologist, environmentalist and writer. It suggested that certain social behaviors were evolutionarily advantageous. Pan wanted to test Wilson's ideas in the field, but needed a more gregarious species than the panda, which lives primarily in solitude.

..

Related:

China’s First National Park - Pudacuo.

Palm oil puts squeeze on Asia’s endangered orangutan.

Yangtze River Dolphin now Extinct.

Tags: social-life, nature, environment, Photos, cooperation, extinction, community


Posted in Animals , Photos , Science


Sunday, 20 January, 2008

Africa's Biggest Mammals Key to Ant-plant Teamwork

From ScienceDaily.

Throughout the tropics, ants and Acacia trees live together in intricate interdependent relationships that have long fascinated scientists.

Now researchers are reporting that in Africa, this plant-insect teamwork depends on the very antagonist it is intended to ward off: Africa's big browsing mammals.

Researchers report that elephants, giraffes and other large plant-eaters spur Acacias to "hire" and support ants as bodyguards -- and without the mammals, the trees slash their investment in ants, opening both to other attackers.

Acacias are mostly shrubby trees common across the tropics and sub-Saharan African savannah. They have swollen thorns that serve as nests for three species of biting ants. Healthy trees have hundreds of the thorns, often containing more than 100,000 ants per tree. Both the ants and the trees benefit from their close cohabitation. The ants get the thorny shelters, as well as nectar they collect from the bases of Acacia leaves. Because the ants swarm in defense against anything that molests the trees, the trees get protection from their chief ostensible nemeses, browsing animals.

That's when the mutualism is working well. But the research got its start when Palmer noticed that certain Acacias at his research site in central Kenya, which had been fenced off from wild herbivores, looked sickly compared with their unfenced counterparts. That was the opposite of what might be expected, because the browsers feed voraciously on the trees.

Without mammals around to eat the trees, sheltering fewer, less aggressive ants would not present a cost to the trees.

But the research revealed that the fewer colonies of weakened ants become less able to defend their territory from another species of ant that, unlike the others, does not have a mutually beneficial relationship with Acacias. Instead, this fourth ant species feeds away from the tree and does not protect it from attackers -- in fact, it actually encourages a destructive, wood-boring beetle whose cavities then serve as this ant's home.

The result appears to be that the trees untouched by browsing mammals are infested with more of the beetles, which is part of the reason that they fare poorly.

One irony of the findings is that the trees have developed their mutualistic relationship with the ants to protect themselves against plant-eating mammals -- and yet because of that relationship, the trees wind up actually needing the mammals.

"If you get rid of the large mammals, it shifts the balance of power, because the trees default on their end of the bargain," Palmer said. "When the trees opt out, their hard-working employees starve and grow weak, which causes them to lose out. So, ironically, getting rid of the mammals causes individual trees to grow more slowly and die younger."

The research has important implications for conservation.

Tags: nature, plant, cooperation, interdependence, insect, relationships


Posted in Animals , Science


Wednesday, 14 November, 2007

Interview with Google Android's Makers

From CNET News.com.

After years of rumors of a Google phone, the search giant a week ago finally unleashed its mobile play: an alliance of handset makers and an open software platform dubbed Android.

On Monday, Google released the software developer kit, or SDK, for Android and announced that it would set aside $10 million to give out as prizes to developers who create programs for the new platform. (Android Developer Challenge)

Android is based on the work of Andy Rubin and several other founders of Danger. Google acquired their newer venture, Android, in 2005.

Q: What does Android look like?

We've been building it as a mobile mashup platform. That is a new concept for cell phones. So the developer can now stand on the system platform and take advantage of other developers' work for the first time. So, that just creates more flexibility for the developers, less work, faster turnaround, rapid prototyping, and all that stuff, and we're really, really excited about that concept.

..

The platform itself has the ability to be targeted toward all sorts of different screen sizes and input mechanisms--touch devices, trackballs, five-way keypads, portrait displays, landscapes, big displays, small displays, QWERTY keyboards, non-QWERTY keyboards. When the developer writes an app, and that app is on portrait display, the platform also will run that same app on a landscape display.

This platform has been contemplated in different devices, from car navigation systems to set-top boxes to laptop computers and, of course, cell phones.

..

Q: Which is more important to you: the richness of the platform or the affordability of phones the platform runs on?

Rubin: I would say both are equally important, and that is the reason we made this an open-source project. By having a free and open platform, we're reducing the cost of software, which, in turn, reduces the cost of the cell phone. When we built the platform, we didn't go for the really expensive $600 smartphones. We went for the mid-market.

..

Related: Wired’s Interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Tags: cooperation, Google, Linux, Android


Posted in Open-Source , Linux , Mobile , Technology


Monday, 1 October, 2007

Hoops and Harmony: How PeacePlayers is Changing the Middle East

From ESPN.com by Chad Ford.

In this old, dusty village, two cousins -- Ghassan and Samer Alayan -- wearing sweat-drenched PeacePlayers International shirts sit and talk about the history of Beit Safafa. They speak of resistance and cooperation, roots and exile, the joy and the despair of everyone, on both sides, who chooses to live in this place. Both have just spent the past week running coexistence and leadership basketball camps in Israel and the West Bank.

Ghassan's father ambles up the stairs and joins the conversation.

He looks at the PeacePlayers shirts with a furrowed brow.

"This word 'peace,' " he says, pointing to the shirts. "We [Palestinians] hate this word. Peace, peace, everyone always comes talking about peace. You know the problem with this word? Everyone talks about peace. No one does peace. We are tired of hearing a word that is not real."

In August, I spent a week in Israel and the West Bank following up with a program that we covered last year: PeacePlayers International (formerly Playing for Peace). PeacePlayers is a program that, through the game of basketball, brings together young people living in communities of conflict.

Here, the main activity of PeacePlayers is the Twinned Basketball Clubs, a program that brings together Palestinian and Israeli youth on a weekly basis. The youth participate in basketball, life skills and leadership training, in addition to activities that facilitate intergroup relations and dialogue. Ideally, children begin the program at age 10 and continue until age 16, when they have a chance to become coaches and role models for the youth in their communities.

While PeacePlayers has created deep roots in Northern Ireland and South Africa, the Middle East poses unique challenges that make it harder to measure success. Still, PeacePlayers is experiencing tremendous growth in the Middle East, having worked with more than 2,000 youth. Last year, 600 children enrolled in its yearlong program, with some 40 local coaches employed and 15 interns trained.

The following are the stories of the dedicated volunteers in the region who are planting those seeds. They range from the general manager (R. C. Buford, Spurs General Manager) of the NBA champs to a former Israeli solider (Yoav Shapiro) who once raised tigers in Thailand to a 13-year-old Jericho girl who made a splash this summer in North Carolina when she was named to an All-Star team of 16- and 17-year-olds.

Each one, in his or her own way, is taking the sport of basketball and using it as a tool for peace.


..

While serving in the army can harden a soldier's view, it had a different effect on Yoav. "I had many chances to kill them, but I couldn't do it," he says with a pained expression. His reddhish hair is in dreadlocks, his facial hair a Fu Manchu.

"I would see them taunting us, and it made me angry. But then, after while, I began to understand why he hates us. We destroyed his neighborhood. We took his things from his house. We mistreated him at the checkpoints. Everyone, Israelis and Arabs, were behaving the wrong way."

..

Later, Yoav was a camp counselor working with 10 Israeli and Arab children at the basketball camp.

The first day was rocky. By Day 2, things began to change. After a night of movie-watching and swimming, and with competitive games on the line, the kids were starting to get along.

As the camp prepares to end, an ecstatic Yoav is bouncing around the gym. "Can you believe this? They are playing together. Passing to each other. High-fiving! If you had asked me if this was possible yesterday, I would say it was impossible. Today, everything is possible."

That evening, Yoav commits to working in the program in Jerusalem for the entire year.

"I'm not sure I was ready for this when I came," he says in a subdued voice later that night. "My family doesn't like Arab people. I didn't like them either.

"But when you see things like this, it causes you to re-examine your assumptions. Maybe I do believe that peace can still come. Maybe the problem is, we just don't know the way. Seeing basketball used like this makes me think that maybe there's a way."


During an adidas Streetball tournament in 1997 in Jerusalem, Ghassan's team made it to the semifinals. They lost in the semifinals, but the difficult conditions won him and his team a few admirers. Even though some fans wanted him dead, Israeli players congratulated him and his team for their play. (Ghassan Alayan, Palestinian Player and PeacePlayers Coach)

"Playing basketball, for the first time in my life, brought me some respect," Ghassan says. "I didn't forget this."

Ghassan admits that the basketball part of PeacePlayers is more important to him than the peace part -- a common reality for many of the participants.

This means PeacePlayers is preaching not only to the converted, the liberal, the open-minded children who already want peace. PeacePlayers is engaging coaches and children who might not initially be open to integration or conciliation. As a general rule, "encounter programs" suffer because the participants are self-selected to fit the program. The fact that PeacePlayers overcomes this hurdle attests to the power of sport to bring together people who otherwise would not be open to meeting and interacting with each other.

Still, given the circumstances, Ghassan remains skeptical that peace can be made via basketball or anything else.

He notes the disparities between the two groups still serve as a wall. Most of the Israeli kids play in new, air-conditioned gyms. Only two such gyms exist for Arabs in the country. The Arab kids almost always have to travel to the Israeli towns when the teams mix. The Israeli parents won't allow their kids to visit the Arab areas -- which leads to less understanding among the Israeli players about the conditions that many Palestinians face.

..

Despite the problems in making peace in the region, Ghassan has noticed changes in his kids, the Israeli kids and himself since starting the program.

"I think we've learned respect for each other through the game," he says. "This conflict is about a lot of things, but clearly a lack of respect is at the heart of it. If this program builds even a little of that, I've seen what it can do."


"PeacePlayers is a great opportunity to be around kids using basketball to bridge damaged relationships in areas that need some good things to happen," Buford says.

As the GM for the Spurs, Buford is known as a guy who can see the big picture. From the sound of things, that trait has helped PeacePlayers.

"Basketball is a game where all five players need to share the ball," Buford says. "If it is played with great teamwork, the sum of the parts is greater than the individual. It's a great forum for building trust. A lot of the game happens with things you can't see. Communication and trust with teammates is the key. It seems to me that the same can be said of peacemaking."

Buford's support of PeacePlayers isn't the only area in which he has given kids a chance. ..


Khaled took the role of mentor to many of the younger players in the camp. He made sure everyone's needs were taken care of and even earned a nickname: Coach Khaled.

Khaled's leadership during the camp illustrated one of the PeacePlayers ideas that makes the program sustainable -- making mentors and coaches of the older players in the program.

With several others, Khaled will pilot the new Leadership Development program this fall.


Another success story is PeacePlayers' new girls' program. The girls' program was launched last September as a partnership with the Jerusalem Girl's Basketball League. PeacePlayers' involvement signified the first time Arab girls were included in the league. With the support of coaches like Osnat Ginati, an Israeli women's basketball player from Jerusalem, the demand for the program has been enormous.

"I think with girls it's easier," Osnat says. "I think the biggest issue is culture. Many of the Jewish girls from the poorer neighborhoods dress in ways that the Arab girls find immodest. That's been the biggest obstacle."

..

"I was thinking that Jewish people were cold and didn't like Palestinians," Serene remembers. "But Bar was warm and cared. I think she trusted us, and that was great."

The story of Bar and Serene, says Osnat, has an important effect not only on the kids, but also on the adults.

"I think kids like that, who are willing to open themselves up, despite real danger of being rejected, inspire us all to be better," Osnat says with tears in her eyes. "Some of my family tells me I'm crazy to believe a program like this will ever work. That Arabs will never change. But I see this, and I say to myself, maybe both of us are capable of change."


"You come here with one impression about the place and the people," Sigafoos says. (Sigafoos, Program Director) "But it's totally erased when you're here. The people are better than you'd think. The conflict is more complicated that it appears from the outside. But most of all, you just see a lot of people trying to create a normal life out of an extraordinary situation.

"My work for PeacePlayers has been so rewarding to me personally because of the challenges we face on a daily basis. It's hard to make a difference in the larger context of the conflict. We're not overreaching or deluding ourselves in that way. What we can do, as a small and passionate grassroots organization, is make a real difference in the lives of everyone we work with. PPI is succeeding and creating positive change among our players and coaches because of the talent and passion of the entire PPI staff, especially our local coaches, for change and for a better future."


Enter Samer Alayan, Ghassan's cousin. Not only does Samer now coach three teams for PeacePlayers, a girls' team and two boys' teams, in Beit Sefafa, he also now heads up a new program for PeacePlayers: BasketPal.

The idea behind the program is to strengthen the basketball infrastructure in Palestine. As a Palestinian, he often was embarrassed when playing against Israelis. The lack of formal coaching and facilities often left the Arab teams underprepared. Out of addressing that concern, as well as the difficulty of Palestinian teams traveling to Israel, BasketPal was born.

The program started with seven teams in Tul Karem and two in Jericho, and is expanding to Ramallah and possibly Bethlehem this year. The goal is to spread the program throughout the entire West Bank.

"If the kids can't play, the respect won't come. In fact, the stereotype that Arabs are worthless just increases." Samer says.

Samer has been beating the bushes looking for support, and he's found a lot of it from a local Palestinian company: Hadara Technologies, the Internet service provider arm of PalTel, which provides broadband services to the 7 percent of Palestinian households that have access to the Web.

"For many Palestians, the Internet is the only way to reach the outside world," says Huda Eljack, Hadara's CEO. "They are so trapped, it's difficult for them to get access to new ideas or even entertainment."

"You can't have peace if people don't have jobs," she says, "so we've tried to create as many jobs in Palestine as we can the last few years."

Her support for the program is enthusiastic. "They aren't just creating basketball players," she says. "They are building life skills and gaining role models.

"Programs like this teach kids to deal with each each and connect them in important ways. Finding the right role models in Palestine, with all of the religious and political strife in the region, is very difficult. To have the coaches develop relationships with the kids may be the most important piece of this."

The BasketPal program itself already has produced its first star, a 13-year-old Christian girl from Jericho named Natalie. Natalie might be the best player in the PeacePlayers program, boy or girl, regardless of age, religion or nationality.

Her goal is to make it to the United States and play high school basketball, with an eye toward playing Division I college basketball. She has the potential to do it, and thanks to BasketPal, she might have the chance.


Karen Doubliet (Middle East Managing Director) is one of the few Israelis who can say she actually has spent time on the other side of the wall -- in Tul Karem, Ramallah and Bethlehem -- in any capacity other than as a solider. Now Doubliet, with a strong academic background in conflict resolution, is taking PeacePlayers to new places as well. She has been working furiously as PeacePlayers expands its programs and adds new curriculum to provide better leadership and coexistence training to both the program directors and the coaches.

"I felt I was spending too much time on history when there was a real live conflict in front of my eyes," she says. "I felt a responsibility to contribute to something I can change. It was the beginning of new path for me."

She enrolled in Bar-Ilan University to study conflict management and negotiation.

"Bar-Ilan is a religious university, and I wasn't particularly religious," she says. "But I wanted to see the religious perspective of the conflict. I felt that, in order to totally understand the conflict, you need to understand the narratives of all sides: right and left, religious, and secular. You need to understand the perspectives of your friends and your foes. The program was professional and neutral, but the life experiences of the faculty and students gave me a deeper insight into a new way of thinking about the conflict."

"It is a miracle that we are even bringing Palestinian and Israeli youth together under these circumstances, and creating a forum where coaches from both sides can work together, creating a joint future. There is no doubt that the program has a significant impact on the lives of the children with whom we work -- many of whom would be playing on the street and getting into trouble if it weren't for the program and the positive role models.

"This is a necessary part of the process. Bottom-up peace-building is a gradual process; it's about changing attitudes and opening people's minds to other possibilities. These kids won't create the political agreements that need to be made. But it open minds and prepares them for the peace when it comes. If we impact even a few kids, it may not make peace in and of itself; it's another drop in the bucket. Eventually, we'll have a full bucket."

The success has not gone unnoticed. Adidas's corporate foundation, the Adi Dassler Fund, recently awarded PeacePlayers a significant grant that will support PeacePlayers' programs in the Middle East and New Orleans.

Former President Bill Clinton mentioned PeacePlayers in his newest book, "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World," as a program that can foster communication, cooperation and leadership in the Middle East and around the globe.

The plan is to continue growing, adding a community a year as PeacePlayers receives more financial support.

More from ESPN:

2006 Chad Ford's first report from Israel and Palestine.

ESPN Mag: PeacePlayers making progress in Ireland, too.

Tags: Israel, basketball, Palestinian, cooperation, community, nba, communication, Middle-East, children, conflict, relationships, respect, peace


Posted in Sports , World