The next IISEE one-year training courses will start this September. These courses are "Seismology, Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Mitigation (JICA Course No.:J-07-00797) and Tsunami Disaster Mitigation (JICA Course No.:J-07-04051). The candidate countries are as follows:
(for Seismology, Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Mitigation course)
Bangladesh 　　　China 　　　El Salvador 　　　Fiji
India 　　　　　　Indonesia 　　Jordan 　　　　　Kazakhstan
Kyrgyz Republic 　Mozambique 　Myanmar 　　Nepal
Nicaragua 　　　　Pakistan 　　　　Peru 　　　Samoa
Saudi Arabia 　　　Sri Lanka　　 Thailand 　　Turkey
Uzbekistan 　　　　Vietnam
(for Tsunami Disaster Mitigation course)
Bangladesh 　　　　　India 　　　Indonesia 　Malaysia
Thailand

The JICA's General Information has been distributed to above candidate countries. Since Required Documents should be submitted to JICA Office (or the Embassy of Japan) by June 15, 2007, please start your action immediately. We are looking forward to receiving many applications from your institutions.

Please contact JICA Overseas Offices
http://www.jica.go.jp/english/contact/overseas.html


Nobuo HURUKAWA
Director, IISEE

The Japan Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Mitigation (CISMID) in Peru is organizing the International Conference on Earthquake Engineering to celebrate the 20th anniversary of CISMID. The detail information is available in the following URL:
http://www.cismid-uni.org/anuncio_e.htm


Taiki SAITO
Chief Research Engineer, IISEE

Cooperation between IISEE and UNESCO resumed last year after an interval of 10 years. As a part of this cooperation, UNESCO decided to dispatch lecturers to the Tsunami Course. On April 6, 2007, Dr. Laura Kong, a UNESCO lecturer, gave a lecture on "Education of tsunami disaster reduction" to participants from the Tsunami Course and some participants from the Seismology Course. Dr. Kong is a director of the International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC, http://ioc3.unesco.org/itic/ ), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO. She leads the world's tsunami awareness program. She introduced the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (PTWS) and the Hawaii State Regional Tsunami Warning System. She also introduced an education, outreach, awareness, and public policy for tsunami disaster mitigation and educational materials such as "Tsunami Teacher".


Bunichiro SHIBAZAKI
Chief Research Scientist, IISEE