Russia

MOSCOW, November 23, 2009, The New York TimesPresident Dmitri A. Medvedev called Monday for tax incentives and other measures to assist Russia’s beleaguered nonprofit groups, which have come under government pressure in recent years.

May 29, 2009, Singapore — The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is committing $68 million over seven years to a new Asia Security Initiative that will increase the effectiveness of international cooperation in fostering peace and security in Asia. The Initiative brings together 27 institutions from around the world to develop new ideas to address Asia’s many security challenges.

April 29, 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — After losing almost one-third of its assets during the last year, the Ford Foundation has announced it will close its offices in Russia and Vietnam.

Chicago, IL, April 16, 2009 — Nineteen projects from around the world were awarded funding today to explore digital media’s ability to help people learn. In a $2 million competition funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, winners include a radically affordable $12 TV-computer, a video blogging site for young women in Mumbai, India, and a cutting-edge mobile phone application that lets children conduct digital wildlife spotting and share that information with friends. Other winners include:
Tecno.Tzotzil, a project that leverages low-cost laptops to help indigenous children in Chiapas, Mexico learn by producing and sharing their own media creations;

“That was then; this is now.” A blunt expression often used in negotiations when one party wants to make clear to the other that previously reasonable expectations are unlikely to be met because of some adverse and unalterable change in circumstances. It is an expression that the cultural sector’s leadership is likely to hear frequently over the next few years as it seeks to navigate a radically changed economic and political map. The global recession that we have entered will not just knock the froth off things; it will permanently reconfigure the cultural landscape. This may happen more slowly and the events may be less flamboyantly newsworthy than the bankruptcy of Iceland, the collapse of the international banking system or the failure of the American mortgage industry, but the underlying forces at work are just as strong—indeed, they are the same forces.

More Blogs