Beijing, China: Beijing municipal officials on Monday announced a target of 400,000 city volunteers to staff urban areas outside the Olympic venues. Volunteers roughly equal the number of foreign visitors expected for the Olympics, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 800,000.  Read article

Florida, USA: More than 350,000 volunteers removed about 7 million pounds of  debris from 34,500 miles of coastlines and waterways, along with ocean, river and lake bottoms.  Read article

Johannesburg, South Africa: The indispensable role of volunteers in helping countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals is to be explored in a new co-publication by the CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE).  Read article

Kandahar, Afghanistan: Health officials launched a different sort of Afghan offensive Sunday as a brigade of volunteer soldiers armed with clipboards, chalk and tiny bottles of vaccine fanned out across the city, hunting an invisible enemy that preys on the poor and the young.  Read article

Colombo, Sri Lanka: United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has voiced concern about the safety of aid workers in Sri Lanka after the murder of two Red Cross volunteers, his office said, as Japan's peace envoy began a visit to the war-battered island.  Read article

Beijing, China: China sent more than 400 volunteers to teach Mandarin in Thailand, the largest number of volunteers since China launched its program to send volunteers abroad to teach the Chinese language, the overseas edition of People's Daily reported on Monday.   Read article

Islamabad, Pakistan: Volunteers are a catalyst of change for any society and there is urgent need for creating an enabling environment at the national level to foster volunteerism, said Federal Health Minister Muhammad Nasir Khan recently.  Read article

Israel: Israeli Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog recently approved the first Arab non-profit agency, the Organization for Social Equality and National Service, to direct Arab volunteers to civilian national service jobs.  Read article

Bangkok, Thailand: Civil servants will be given five days leave a year to do volunteer work  starting today, says Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham.  The announcement was made after Thai government declared that giving and volunteering was placed in the national agenda.  Read article

Seoul, Korea: A volunteer expert said that South Korea's overseas volunteer program creates a triple-win situation for volunteer participants, donor and recipient governments.  Read article