Thirty press freedom groups have urged the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to reject a three million dollar donation from Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

The money is intended for a prize awarded by UNESCO and financed by Obiang, to be awarded in June, but in a letter to UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, the journalists’ unions and watchdog groups described Obiang as “one of Africa’s worst violators of press freedom.”

“We, the undersigned freedom of expression organisations, join with the Committee to Protect Journalists to express our grave concern regarding the three million donation by Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang for the administration of an international prize in life sciences,” said the letter, made available to AFP on Friday and dated Thursday. (more…)

Bids are being prepared for two of the Isle of Man’s most important historical sites to receive global recognition.

Tynwald Hill and the Laxey Valley are being put forward by Manx National Heritage (MNH) for consideration for Unesco’s World Heritage list.

People are being urged to write to MNH outlining why they think the sites are important to Manx culture for inclusion in the June application.

The bids will be assessed by UK experts before submission in 2011.

The first bid will focus on Tynwald Hill and its importance as the oldest continuous parliamentary site in the world, dating back to the 9th Century.
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The Pyramids, Great Wall of China, Stonehenge and…Colchester? The Essex town is preparing an audacious bid to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and it’s not as unlikely as it sounds. Destination Colchester, a group of local business owners and heritage enthusiasts, is preparing a bid to be entered onto a tentative list of the UK’s heritage sites. If the bid, due next Friday, is successful, Colchester could find itself inscribed alongside famous British landmarks like Bath Spa, Hadrian’s Wall and the Tower of London.

Colchester has already been making headlines this year with a bid to preserve Britain’s only known chariot racetrack, or circus. But while the campaign, which enlisted the help of famous faces such as historian Dan Cruickshank, reached its £200,000 target earlier this year, Destination Colchester member Bill Hayton thinks the city has undersold itself for too long. (more…)

For the first time, biosphere reserves in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe are joining the United Nations network that was created in an attempt to halt the loss of biodiversity and promote sustainable development, according to UN News Centre.

The more than 500 sites in 109 countries are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR), designated “to serve as places to test different approaches to integrated management of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine resources and biodiversity,” according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which oversees the network through its Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme.

Kafa, an Ethiopian highland region which contains 50 per cent of the country’s remaining Afromontane evergreen forest ecosystems and origin of the rare Coffee Arabic, was added to the network, as was Yayu, in the country’s southwest. (more…)