<<MAY 25, 2008>>
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Martti Ahtisaari, Dr. <office@ahtisaari.fi>

P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D., Professor <tapio.varis@uta.fi>

Kaisa Kautto-Koivula <kaisa.kautto-koivula@kolumbus.fi>


Your Excellency, Dr. Ahtisaari:

(1) My sincere congratulations to your receiving the prestigious Felix Houphuet-Boigny UNESCO Peace Prize (ATACHMENT I and II).

Your extraordinary efforts for global peace certainly deserves for this prize.

(2) It was my great pleasure and honor to have met with you at the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia, in November 2005, by the kind introduction of Prof. Tapio Varis.

(3) I also express my gratitude for your contribution of the following paper to our book;

Martti Ahtisaari, President of Finland and Laureate of Fulbright Prize
"The 2000 Fulbright Prize Address"
http://tinyurl.com/ytrrm9

 

Global Peace Through The Global University System
Tapio Varis - Takeshi Utsumi - William Klemm (Eds.)
University of Tampere, Finland 2003
ISBN 951-44-5695-5
The entire contents of this book can be retrieved at;
http://tinyurl.com/kofpf

In the bottom line of this page, you can find the following;
Interview with Takeshi Utsumi by Parker Rossman
http://tinyurl.com/fnxxt


(4) I would also like to congratulate your delivering the 14th U Thant Distinguished Lecture at the UN University in Tokyo on May 26;

Negotiating peace: Martti Ahtisaari to deliver U Thant Lecture
<http://update.unu.edu/issue49_15.htm>


I regret not being able to attend it, but I would be very delighted if you can kindly send me your speech transcript so that I would share it with our list members.

Anyway, pls enjoy your stay in Tokyo.

(5) For your reference, pls visit the followings in the Projects of GLOSAS <http://tinyurl.com/65sffj>;

(a) Finnish Noblesse Oblige Project:

Our Finnish colleagues attained the world #1 ranking in education, vocational training and ICTs fields by DAVOS, OECD, UNESCO, etc.  We are very much honored and privileged to have been able to undergird their activities, especially in the age of globalization of this 21st century.

On the other hand, Japans ranking in the fields by those organizations are slipping down year after year recently, since they havent overcome yet The biggest barrier for new development of Human-Centric Knowledge Society is our Industrial Age mindset! -- the very last words in Dr.
Kaisa Kautto-Koivulas following paper;

Kaisa Kautto-Koivula and Marita Huhtaniemi, Nokia Ventures Organization
"Evolution Towards Human-Centric Knowledge Society. Can Societies Learn from Global Corporations?"
http://tinyurl.com/y5ja49


Our Finnish colleagues are now initiating this Finnish Noblesse Oblige project to have GUS spreading the know-how of how and why Finnish accomplished such high rankings –- starting to Japan as the first target country for preventing further decline of their rankings and national power, and later to various developing countries.

I would very much appreciate it if you can kindly provide your blessing and support to Kaisa.

(b) Globally Collaborative Environmental Peace Gaming (GCEPG) Project and
Global network of the Center for Conflict Management and Resolution (CCMR):

We are now working to establish a global network of the Center for Conflict Management and Resolution (CCMR) with the use of a globally distributed computer gaming/simulation system to help decision makers construct a globally distributed decision-support system for positive sum/win-win alternatives to conflict and war, particularly focusing on the issues of environment and sustainable development in developing countries.

The idea involves interconnecting experts in many countries via the global Internet to collaborate in the discovering of new solutions for world crises, such as the deteriorating ecology of our globe, and to explore new alternatives for a world order capable of addressing the problems and opportunities of an interdependent globe.  Gaming/simulation is the best tool we have for understanding the world's confrontation prone problems and the solutions we propose for them.  The understanding gained with scientific and rational analysis and critical thinking would be the basis of world peace, and hence ought to provide the basic principle of global education for peace.


I would greatly appreciate it if you can kindly support the above two projects,  as you do for our GUS.

Please have a very pleasant and safe trip back to Finland from Tokyo.

Sincerely yours,

Takeshi Utsumi
Chairman, GLOSAS/USA
Founder and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of GUS


ATACHMENT I


From: Tapio Varis <Tapio.Varis@uta.fi>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 19:45:40 +0300
To: <office@ahtisaari.fi>
Cc: <utsumi@columbia.edu>, <tapio.varis@uta.fi>
Subject: Congratulations for the UNESCO Peace Prize

H.E. President Martti Ahtisaari
Finland


Your Excellency,

On behalf of the UNESCO Chair in Global e-Learning at the University  
of Tampere, Finland, I extend my warmest congratulations to you for  
receiving the Felix Houphuet-Boigny UNESCO Peace Prize. I also want to  
send you the congratulations of other colleagues working with our  
Unesco Chair, especially Dr. Takeshi Utsumi whom I had a pleasure of  
introducing to you at the WSIS Summit in Tunis in 2005.

We have been enjoying reading your contribution to our book and I  
personally am very proud of having your support in my work during many  
decades.

Yours very sincerely,


Tapio Varis
Professor of Vocational Education with special reference to global  
learning  University of Tampere, Finland
UNESCO Chair in Global e-Learning


ATACHMENT II


From: Tapio Varis <Tapio.Varis@uta.fi>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 22:38:04 +0300
To: <utsumi@columbia.edu>
Subject: Fwd: Unesco Peace Prize to president Martti Ahtisaari

Dear Tak,

This is the information of the UNESCO Peace Prize that I congratulated  
President Ahtisaari in the name of myself and you (copied it to you  
earlier today)

Sincerely,

Tapio

UNESCO
http://portal.unesco.org/unesco/

Martti Ahtisaari receives 2007 Houphout-Boigny Peace Prize
   Nations Unies The Flix Houphout-Boigny Peace Prize was  
attributed to Martti Ahtisaari, President of Finland from 1994 to  
2000, and founder of the non-governmental organization Crisis  
Management Initiative. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State  
and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, president of the international jury  
that awards the Prize, declared that the laureate had been chosen "for  
his lifetime contribution to world peace."

In a personal message to Mr Ahtisaari, the Director-General of UNESCO,  
Kochiro Matsuura, expressed great pleasure at this recognition and  
congratulating the laureate. Recalling the outstanding nature of Mr  
Ahtisaari's career at the service of dialogue and world peace, Mr  
Matsuura stressed its closeness to UNESCO's ideals.

Mr Ahtisaari carried out numerous peace missions for the United  
Nations, in particular in Namibia and the Balkans. In the framework of  
the Crisis Management Initiative, he organized in September 2007  
during a week in Helsinki negotiations between Iraqi Moslem Sunnite  
and Shiite groups to help re-establish dialogue between the two  
communities.

With the Crisis Management Initiative, he also facilitated the peace  
process between Indonesia and the Aceh separatists. This process led  
to the signing of a peace treaty between the Indonesian Government and  
the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM, Free Aceh Movement) ending the conflict  
in the province.

In 2000, he supervised the disarmament process of the Irish Republican  
Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland at the request of the British government.

The Flix Houphout-Boigny Peace Prize was created in 1989 by UNESCO's  
General Conference "to honour living individuals, and active public or  
private bodies or institutions that have made a significant  
contribution to promoting, seeking, safeguarding or maintaining peace,  
in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations and the  
Constitution of UNESCO."

The international jury which awards the prize comprises distinguished  
personalities such as Mario Soares, former President of the Republic  
of Portugal and the Argentinean Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Adolfo  
Prez Esquivel.

Previous laureates of the Prize include Nelson Mandela and Frederik W.  
De Klerk; Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Prs and Yasser Arafat; King Juan  
Carlos of Spain and former US President Jimmy Carter; and Senegalese  
President Abdoulaye Wade.


List of Distribution


Martti Ahtisaari, Dr.
Former President of Finland
Erottajankatu 11 A
00130 Helsinki, Finland
Tel: +358 9 6987024
Fax: +358 9 6127759
E-mail: office@ahtisaari.fi
Web:  http://www.ahtisaari.fi/

P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D., Professor
Acting President, Global University System
UNESCO Chair in Global e-Learning with applications to multiple domains
Professor and Chair of Media Education
Research Center for Vocational Education & Hypermedia Laboratory
University of Tampere
P.O.Box 229
FIN-13101 Hameenlinna
FINLAND
+358-3-3551-3608
GSM: +3358-50-567-9833
Fax: +358-3-614-5611 or +358-3-3551-3611
tapio.varis@uta.fi
http://www.uta.fi/~titava
www.ecml-eu.org -- about ECML project.
http://www.uta.fi/conference/mediaskills/

Kaisa Kautto-Koivula
Ph.D.(educ.), Lic.Techn., Docent
Adjunct Professor, New Learning Environments
Tampere University
Tampere, Finland
Mobile: +358 400 403 632
kaisa.kautto-koivula@kolumbus.fi
or
Kruununtie 8 C
02180 Espoo, Finland


*******************************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA                           *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)          *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education           *
* Founder and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of                         *
*   Global University System (GUS)                                            *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-5913, U.S.A.                        *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Email: utsumi@columbia.edu                               *
* http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/search/display.asp?Quest=8032562&lang=en *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/                                     *
* U.S. Federal Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676 <http://tinyurl.com/534gxc>          *
* New York State Tax Exempt ID: 217837 <http://tinyurl.com/47wqbo>            *
*******************************************************************************