International

Dr Rowan Williams said the levy would be one way of advancing the “moral agenda” of the protesters outside St Paul’s. The Cathedral has cancelled attempts to evict the campsite. The City of London Corporation has put on hold proceedings and expressed an intention to open negotiations. Will the G20 listen to the voices of common sense?

Yet, a different kind of protest. ‘Compassion is Revolutionary’. Flash mob Meditation and Multifaith Service at St Paul’s stairs. Active Nonviolence, humour, global democratic links and leaderless consensus seeking Assemblies. Three priests resign from high posts at St Paul’s over divided views. The City of London Corporation begins eviction moves, it may take months.

Smallholder farmers, who produce up to 80 per cent of all food in some areas, mainly in Africa, “face the risk of exploitation under contract farming arrangements with processing or marketing companies,” according to UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who presented his annual report to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee

It sounds like utopia. But it is a “concrete utopia”, very much in the spirit of Ernst Bloch’s philosophy and also with Nichiren Buddhism.
Whereas the former visualises elimination of all forms of oppression and exploitation, the latter envisions transformation of the human spirit – which would enable culture of peace to prevail over culture of violence.

In Bangladesh, the group completed the legalization process for ownership of the land which is about 55 kilometers from Dhaka, at Bitipara, Gazipur, and the members are now laying the brick-and-concrete foundations for the Centre of Studies. What is taking place in Bangladesh is being repeated across Asia with like Parks in various stages of completion.

Pakistani humanists organized a forum for dialogue on the “Existing Political Situation and Alternatives in Pakistan”, on 22nd October, 2011. The event was held at Hamdard Hall, Lahore, where around 60 people from Lahore participated, that figure including several lawyers. The seeds of a new Humanist Party were planted!

Ayyaantuu News Online reported October 28, 2011 that from mid-October, the Ethiopian army – under the control of the Ethiopian Prime Minster Meles Zenawihas – started forcefully relocating thousands of families in the rural areas around Obole in the restive Ogaden region in southeastern Ethiopia where government forces are engaged in fighting rebels of the ONLF

Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, explains in a TED session how inequality harms society, not just the poor but also the rich. Not a moment too soon, in order to add to the discussion taking place globally by the Occupy/Indignados/ArabSpring movement about setting the basis of a new society.

The winds of change are blowing across the globe. What triggers such change, and when it will strike, is something that no one can predict.

Last Jan. 18, a courageous young woman in Egypt took a dangerous step. Asmaa Mahfouz was 25 years old, part of the April 6 Youth Movement, with thousands of young people engaging online in debate on the future of their country.

Lunchtime at the HSBC building Central Hong Kong – gone was its strangely grimy sterility once only broken by smoothly ascending escalators that carry what appear to be robotised humans into its underbelly; the grey flagstone base now replete with a growing tent city, tables of foodstuff, sofas, gaudy banners, quietly disposed youngies at laptops or in small bands, talking.