The Global Assembly on International Peace and Security is part of our Global Citizens Leadership Program, which is a unique leadership development program that brings together outstanding young people from around the world to build critical leadership skills in a global context. GCLP/GAIPS offers Scholars the opportunity to learn from and exchange ideas with some of the world's top business leaders, policy officials, lobbyists, journalists, diplomats and academicians in the challenging and dynamic environments of Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and New York City; Vienna, Budapest and Prague; or Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

During the Global Citizens Leadership Program and the Global Assembly on International Peace and Security, you will expand cultural awareness and cultivate your inherent leadership skills as you interact with top students from more than 200 countries. You will form new ideas and new ways of thinking by participating in simulations that challenge you to look at ongoing world issues from varying points of view.

Each session of the Global Citizens Leadership Program and the Global Assembly on International Peace and Security is designed to educate, inspire and motivate Scholars by giving them the opportunity to explore cultural differences firsthand, absorb diplomatic skills daily, build confidence and enhance decision-making skills in an exciting atmosphere that is challenging and fun.

More than 200 countries will send exceptional young leaders – with a variety of backgrounds and a broad range of interests and goals – to attend this unique leadership program and assembly for high-achieving students.

Scholars take advantage of this extra ordinary opportunity and be among the selected few, highly motivated and accomplished students from around the world who will participate in in the Global Assembly on International Peace and Security as part of our Global Citizens Leadership Program.

The registration is now open and you can print out and fill form from www.gaips.org

I call on all the Non-Governmental Organisation resident in the Gambia and the state at large to finance in the fight against AIDS, young  women and girl living with HIV/ADS are suffering a alot, i also call on the civil society to combine effort to curb the spread of the disease in the Gambia and africa at large.

 "Strengthening the response, weakening the HIV/AIDS".

As a way to promote positive living amongst YPLHIV in the Gambia, the Government and the NGOs should have to provide regular consultations and provide support to other YPLHIV in need and the consultation should  includes summer camps, sensitization sessions and sharing of best practices and experience with YPLHIV in the Gambia and other countries as well.

When we think about the very basic fundamentals of blogging and expressing ideas we find the clear practice of writing. Today we are launching a new theme which tries to reflect precisely on that. Manifest is a wonderful theme for writers.

This is a theme that presents your creations in an elegant and powerfully clean way, offering your readers an intimate and direct experience with your thoughts.

With content being the clear focus in Manifest, you can create different types of posts by choosing appropriate post formats. You can create image posts, link posts, asides, and Manifest will present them in the same neat, clutter free way it shows your regular text posts. You can even add a subtle header image to bring a personal touch to the design.

The Manifest Theme was designed by Jim Barraud. Go and learn more about it on the theme showcase, or activate it right away at Appearance → Themes. And once you are done, just start posting.

Last week, we introduced support for OAuth2 and launched develop.wordpress.com, as we’re eager to empower the developer community to extend WordPress.com in new and meaningful ways.

Today, we’re excited to announce the availability of our new oEmbed Provider API, yet another way to make it easy for third-party services and their respective audiences to share and consume content.

oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third-party sites. The simple API allows a website to display embedded content (such as photos or videos) when a user posts a link to that resource, without having to parse the resource directly.

The API supports any WordPress.com URL, any WordPress.com-hosted domain or subdomain (EG: http://techcrunch.com/, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/) as well as WP.me shortlinks pointing to WordPress.com-hosted sites.

Hop over to develop.wordpress.com and see the oEmbed Provider API documentation for more information. Keep impressing the world with innovative ways to use the wonderful breadth of content created by our millions of talented bloggers!

Got lots of magazine-style content and need a stylish frame? Today we are introducing Lifestyle, a new colorful magazine theme that comes with ten content-friendly, soft color schemes.

As a premium theme, customization is at the core of Lifestyle. Choose from multiple layouts and menus, breadcrumbs, header image, or custom background. This theme is a great fit if you publish magazine or news style content. You can showcase multiple categories on the homepage and use featured images to make your site look stunning.

Developed by StudioPress, Lifestyle is available for the lifetime of your blog for $75. Read more about the theme features or preview it live on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Today we’re excited to launch Matala, our newest theme. You might recognize this one — it was once the primary theme for ma.tt, Matt Mullenweg’s blog. Last year, Matala was released to the WordPress.org Themes Directory, and now we’re thrilled to bring it to WordPress.com.

Originally designed by Nicolò Volpato, Matala’s bright colors and dynamic shapes are suggestive of designs seen in Talavera, a pottery tradition common in Puebla, Mexico. Grungy textures, hand-scribbled icons, and whimsically titling text in the main navigation menu join the colors and shapes to give your blog a bright, playful look.

You can use Matala’s fun design as is, or create a look of your own with a custom background image and custom header image.

Matala comes with three widget-ready areas: the right-hand sidebar and two columns at the bottom of your post content column. In addition,  there is a full-width page for single-image pages, an option to display a small “Random Photos” gallery on single-image pages, and support for six post formats — aside, status, quote, video, image and gallery.

Learn more about Matala’s features on the Theme Showcase.

We love developers and the applications they build to help extend WordPress.com in new and meaningful ways. To continue providing support for developers who build applications that integrate with WordPress.com, we’re announcing support for OAuth 2, as well as a new developer portal, develop.wordpress.com.

Starting today WordPress.com supports a new method of authentication which makes it extremely easy for third party applications to connect with WordPress.com blogs. This new method uses an open protocol, OAuth2, to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard way. OAuth2 allows applications to access a WordPress.com blog without ever asking for personal details such as a password or username. Connections from applications can easily be managed within the dashboard and connections won’t break when a username or password is changed.

In addition to supporting the new authentication feature, we’re also launching develop.wordpress.com. If you’re interested in learning more about OAuth2 and other ways to integrate with WordPress.com, then this developer portal is for you.

Develop.wordpress.com contains some handy documents and resources about how you can develop using WordPress.com technologies. The site also houses a channel where you can contact us directly regarding issues such as OAuth2 authentication, client access, and embedding new media types on WordPress.com.

These documents are only the beginning -  we’ll be adding more resources and tools over time as the developer ecosystem grows.

Memolane is one example of the many possibilities for integration of third party applications with WordPress.com. Memolane allows you to pull posts directly from your WordPress.com blog into a graphical time line with other elements of your online life. You can easily view, add to, and share this timeline online. As of today, you can also embed your personal Memolane on your WordPress.com blog using a new shortcode.

So, developers, what would you like to build with WordPress.com?

Today we are introducing an elegantly designed and typographically pleasing theme, Château.

Designed by Ignacio Ricci, Château has been crafted with close attention to detail and typography. Its beautiful, minimalist look allows you to make your content the focal point of your blog.

Aside from a brilliant design, this theme offers many cool features that help you to personalize your blog. There are two color schemes, three layout options, custom accent color, Custom Header Image, Custom Background, six widget areas, and three post formats — Aside, Gallery and Image. It’s loaded with options that make the theme flexible enough to fit a variety of sites.

Read all about Château’s features on the Theme Showcase.

Want to share your WordPress.com posts with your LinkedIn connections? Now you can! Today we are happy to announce that our Publicize feature connects with LinkedIn. To activate Publicize for LinkedIn, head to Settings -> Sharing in your dashboard and click Connect to LinkedIn. Please note that you need to have a LinkedIn account before you can connect it with your WordPress.com site.

After you’ve approved the connection, you’ll see LinkedIn listed in the Publish module next to the post editor. Here you can customize the message for the update you’ll send out to LinkedIn and any other sharing services you have connected. You can also opt out of Publicizing a particular post by unchecking the box next to the name of the service. Below is an example of an update shown on LinkedIn.

A LinkedIn sharing button was also recently added to the Sharing feature on WordPress.com, which can be displayed at the bottom of your posts and pages. Visit your Settings -> Sharing panel and you’ll see LinkedIn as one of the Available Services.

We’re always working hard to give you more opportunities to increase the traffic to your blog. If you have questions, read more about how Publicize works. For more information on boosting your readership, check out Getting More Views and Traffic.

Over five years ago, when WordPress.com was just getting started, we launched a theme that has become near and dear to many of us. A theme that even then stood out from all the others with its, well, its banana-smoothie-ness. It’s about time to shake up the Banana Smoothie, isn’t it? Maybe even give some other fruit a shake? We think so. Let’s take a look at its delicious successor, Fruit Shake.

Click to view slideshow.

The goal of Fruit Shake was to capture Banana Smoothie’s essence and serve it up to everyone with a refreshed design — and even more fruity flavor. Hence, your choice of three fruit-flavored color schemes: Banana, Blueberry, and my favorite, Dragon Fruit. And just like, Banana Smoothie did, Fruit Shake comes with its own fruit shake recipe widget — courtesy of the incomparable Jane Wells — that lets you share your love of bananas, blueberries, and dragon fruit with your blog readers. Also, there may or may not be a secret, unlockable, fruit in Fruit Shake. Or not. I can’t say much more than that except, well, it might be a secret. If it even exists.

Of course, if you just like the basic colors of Fruit Shake you can also personalize the design with your own custom header and custom background image. You can even remove all the widgets from the sidebar in Appearance → Widgets and create a sleek tumblelog look for your blog. In other words, you don’t have to be obsessed with fruit to enjoy Fruit Shake. It doesn’t hurt though.

If you want to know more about the cool features in Fruit Shake we’ve made a page that outlines them all on the Theme Showcase. You can read up on Fruit Shake there and check out a live demo or just activate it on your blog and start experimenting! And if you have a self-hosted installation of WordPress you haven’t been left out of the fun. Fruit Shake will be making its way to the official WordPress Theme directory where you can download it and install it on your blog.

It’s a new way to blog, on a new type of platform. Today we’re excited to share a glimpse of the future for all the WordPress mobile apps. Drumroll please! I give you WordPress for webOS, available as a download for the HP TouchPad with support for more webOS 3.0 devices coming in the future.

Here’s the run-down: It’s the first official WordPress app to have a full featured WYSIWYG (what’s this?) post editor. The app has been translated to all languages available on the TouchPad. It uses a “Sliding Panels” interface, which takes full advantage of the larger screen of the TouchPad and makes for fast and easy blog management on the go. Check out the video below to learn more!

Of course the app also features everything else you’ve come to expect from a WordPress app. You can manage posts and pages, as well as add new ones. Moderation is built right in, and you can even reply directly to comments. If a comment comes in and you’re working on something else with your TouchPad at the time, you’ll get notified about it. Peruse the Stats panel for in-depth information on what your visitors like the most about your site.

Another neat thing about this app is its use of “Cards”. This is a webOS invention that lets you stack screens belonging to the WordPress app in a single pile, making it very easy to, for instance, write a post while keeping the main window open. In fact, if you tap an email address in a comment, a compose email card will be stacked together with those of the app.

Learn more about WordPress for webOS at webos.wordpress.org and follow @WPwebOS on Twitter for the latest news!

Are you rocking a TouchPad? You can download WordPress for webOS directly on your device using the HP App Catalog. Just search for “WordPress”. Visiting on a device? Follow this link to download.

Get involved! Just like all the other official WordPress apps, WordPress for webOS is an Open Source project that craves your mad programming skills. Head on over to the development section to learn more.

Huge thanks to Beau Collins for some major webOS pwnage. We’d also like to thank our partners at HP for making all of this possible.

So, what’s your favorite invention in WordPress for webOS?

We all pray to be Old, but there are challenges in that World too...and at times we do even have the feelings that is enough to live, but yet still we don't wanna die because of the beauty of the World. lets seek for the Eternal Live and act pro-active...Is always present. We just need to have a deep look into our Inner bieng to see this wonderful image.

PROJECT TITLE: AFRICA FEED AFRICANS

Implementing partners
Bangladesh manpower, www.designbangladesh.com in partnership with Africa Rise International, the Gambia.

Preamble
According to the latest report from international fund for Agricultural development, 6.7 billion people 1.4 billion in abject poverty and the most poverty affected is sub Sahara African and south Asia.

The need for more agricultural products cannot not be ruled out, especially in Africa in view of this development there is a need to make room for more of this in order to have a sustainable development, a view commonly held by Africa-Rise International is that a major symptom of poverty is unemployment and ignorance.

The most recent research conducted by ARI has shown that most of their campaign result. Youths in the streets however, there is relatively little open unemployment rural communities although some localities seasonal unemployment is much higher, but is not evident that the rate of unemployment has increased in the Course of time as growing poverty is not necessarily associated with growing unemployment.
Indeed, it is note worthy that the empirical studies of ARI was that citizens failed to engage in agriculture and horticulture which leads to unemployment cited as a prominent cause of poverty and It is our belief that in order for Africans to be free from dependency we must feed ourselves. Agriculture stands as fundamental tool in nation development; hence it promotes health and Education.
The aim of bringing the team is to facilitate and help capacitate our Agricultural team
Members as well as to structure our 1st proposed farm land by early 2012 at.
Babylon Village,
Kombo North,
Western Region, the Gambia.
And bring different expertise to help us grow more Agricultural Products.
Key activities will include helping in various way base on their experience in
the field both in theory and Practical, after arriving the Gambia in June 2011 to
December 2011.

Geographical Area
Kanilai Village, Western Region of the Gambia at the President family farm, as the first phase of the project.

Length of the Project
The project will last for six months at the Presidents Farm, starting from the Date of arrival

WORK PLAN
(Africa feeds Africans) a project proposed to be implemented by ARI is created to help our members get inform about what is going on, in our environment, from deforestation and the growth of agriculture and horticulture for the protection of our climate and to help ourselves grow what we eat as free Africans. We want our members to pass through a training process of six months at our Presidents Farm, Kanilai family International farm with our implementing partners Design Bangladesh, for the first phase of the project.

Our agricultural commission members will be part of these dedicated volunteers from Bangladesh tasked with training and working on the growth of agriculture in the Gambia for a period of six months.
Design Bangladesh is an organization working for better Bangladesh with social responsibilities.

OUR RESPONSIBILITY
1. Offer our service to the Kanilai family International farm in the areas they want our input in the farmlands.
2. To make researchments on plantation farm and other necessary areas in agriculture, and horticulture that will give us experience in delivering our responsibility to the organization as well as the entire black Africa for relevant and interesting resources.

WHAT WE NEED
As Africa-Rise Agricultural commission team we need rich and rewarding experience, working with some amazing individuals that share our interest in promoting agriculture and other skillful activities we need as a developing country the Gambia, but before we do we must be able to bring few things to the table.
1. Be willing to work for six months, at the Kanilai family farm as volunteers
2. Have a background on the issue we will be working on
3. Be able to work within the team of volunteers from around the globe.
4. We will be involve in taking part of the activities for the daily event at the farm

WHAT WE WILL GAIN
As Africa-Rise Agricultural commission members, we will gain the valuable experience of volunteering within an organization that is recognize as a leading innovator in social activities. This is not only something we can show to future employers, but is a way for us to develop our skills as society members.

1. We will walk away from this experience with the experience to be able to participate, train trainers, to promote, and to implement agricultural Farms in the different regions of the Gambia.
2. Strong connections to globally minded people from around the Gambia and Bangladesh to help us have an International experience in the non-profit sector.
4. National awareness in using Agriculture as an Instrument to feed ourselves as Gambians who want to be free from ignorance which leads to poverty.
5. An employment opportunity and long term partnership with our counterparts in Bangladesh.
6. The Group shall be certificated by His Excellency the President of the second Republic of the Gambia, Professor Dr. Alh. Yahya AJJ Jammeh upon formal Approval.

If you’ve wanted a magazine theme for your blog but haven’t found just the right one today’s new theme might just do it for you. It’s called Delicious Magazine and it’s the latest in a series of terrific magazine themes from Woothemes.

If you love using images to draw your visitors into your writing, you’ll love Delicious Magazine. Right away you can see how it uses Featured Images to build an elegant area for highlighting groups of select posts on your home page. And just like the other premium magazine themes available on WordPress.com it’s packed with features that let anyone easily customize the design.

Delicious Magazine is available for the lifetime of your blog for $45. Read more about the Delicious Magazine features or preview it live on your blog from Appearance → Themes. It might be the magazine theme you’ve been waiting for!

Today we’re excited to bring you Custom Design, a powerful new tool that combines easy to use, code-free font selection from Typekit and a beautiful CSS editing interface with world-class support from our famous WordPress.com Happiness Engineers.

You’ll find both new features—Fonts and CSS—under Appearance → Custom Design in your dashboard. Custom Design costs just $30 a year, and both features include a free preview so you can try them out first.

Fonts Made Super Easy

The Font Editor provides a visual preview of your blog with over 50 gorgeous premium Typekit fonts—from foundries like Mark Simonson, exljbris, FontFont, and the League of Moveable Type—and allows you to easily modify the size and style of your fonts. It works with all themes, no coding skills required!

We worked closely with Typekit on this new tool—incorporating their long experience with delivering beautiful fonts on the web—to create the best experience possible. With the Custom Design upgrade comes the ability to manage all your Typekit fonts settings from within your dashboard; you no longer need to make a roundtrip to Typekit and back to update the fonts on your blog.

If you are already using Typekit fonts on your blog, you are grandfathered in—meaning your fonts will continue to display as they do now but you’ll have limited editing and functionality. To take advantage of all the new features, we encourage you to upgrade to Custom Design.

CSS Backed by Expertise

This popular tool received a visual refresh with its merge into the Custom Design upgrade. If you know your way around a cascading style sheet, you can use the CSS Editor to really put a personal touch on your blog and create an entirely new design.

If your site already has custom CSS enabled, it will continue to work as it does now, and visitors will see no changes to your design. Furthermore, you’ve been upgraded to the new Custom Design package for free, so you now have full access to all the new features, including the Font Editor.

Along with the CSS Editor updates we’re making the WordPress.com CSS forum officially supported by the WP.com Happiness team. Bring your CSS customization questions to the forum and you can get expert help.

From your feedback—and by seeing your cool customizations in use all over WordPress.com—we know that design tools on WordPress.com are put to good use, so we hope you love this new upgrade. Fonts are now incredibly easy. We’re now helping you craft your CSS. Let’s make something beautiful.

If you’d like more details on the new upgrade, head over to Custom Design.