As the coordinator of CPNN, I was invited recently to take part in peace seminars in Mexico and Brazil. Along with a conference that I attended at the end of 2015 in Colombia, it has given me the chance to appreciate the great advances being made towards a culture of peace in Latin America.

History is not always reflected in the headlines of the mass media. Sometimes it is the "slow news" – events that are not considered newsworthy – that accumulate and change the course of history. A good example is slow but steady progress in peace education, which we salute in this month’s bulletin.

The website of the Global Campaign for Peace Education gives us a good overall view of the extent of peace education in the world today. One can begin simply with the list of their national and local endorsing organizations, who come from over 50 countries and all six continents.

Since women’s equality is an essential part of the culture of peace, we must appreciate the great mobilization around Women’s Day, March 8, and the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

We’ve seen two shocking election results recently: the defeat of the referendum for the peace accords in Colombia, and the election of Donald Trump in the USA based on a racist and xenophobic campaign. What does it mean ?

Renewable sources of electricity overtook coal last year to become the largest source of installed capacity in the world, according to the International Energy Agency.

A recent graph is spectacular showing how the cost of solar energy has come down while the volume deployed has gone up. In 1975 a silicon solar energy module cost over $50 per watt, while now it is less than $1 per watt. The milliwatts installed have risen from 1 to 115,000 ! Since 2000 the deployment of solar has doubled seven times.