International

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stressed Brazil would not recognize the Honduran election results as legitimizing the process to ensure a serious president for Latin America. “Brazil does not have to rethink the situation in Honduras”, da Silva added, highlighting the need for one´s position to remain firm, serving as a warning to anyone else harboring similar notions.

On his stop in Spain, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca, asked for the vote of Bolivians residing there. He listed before the press the domestic accomplishments achieved by the government of Evo and the improvements for Bolivians living abroad. Regarding the future, he made clear the next big challenge for the coming years: the industrialization of the country.

As the World March for Peace and Nonviolence is due to arrive in New York on Monday November 30th, it has issued a statement regarding President Obama’s speech on Tuesday at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York which is widely expected to be an announcement of an increase in troop numbers in Afghanistan of anything up to 40,000.

Mazdak Ali Nazari, a journalist and editor of the website Khabar Negaran-Solh (‘Peace Reporters’), was arrested a few days ago at his private home in Iran. His whereabouts and the reasons for his arrest are currently unknown. Before he was detained, Nazari had planned to take part in the World March for Peace and Nonviolence on its way through his country.

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace. *Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan*

The popular singer-songwriter, León Gieco, at the Festival for the 127th anniversary of the city of La Plata (capital of the province of Buenos Aires) wore the sweatshirt of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence. At the “birthday” concert, held in Plaza Moreno, 10 other groups put on a show for an audience of a hundred thousand people.

More than a dozen organizations and nonviolent groups have participated to the World March round table in Sarajevo on November 4. At the end of the meeting all of them have subscribed a Declaration about peace and nonviolence, stating that war doesn’t start in the battlefield and doesn’t end with peace agreements. Its beginning and its end are in the heads of the people.

Japan, the only country to be the target of atom bombs, and the U.S., the only country to drop them, firmly committed themselves to working towards a nuclear weapons free world, when President Barack Obama visited Japan during his first presidential tour of Asia. Both governments reaffirmed their “determination to realize a world free from nuclear weapons”.

“In the next 60 seconds, 10 children will die of hunger,” says a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) online video. It continues, “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry.” In addition to this online campaign, United Nations is hosting the World Summit on Food Security in Rome this week

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence was welcomed to Rabat by Siba, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by Dermolini, the Secretary General for Youth. The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Popular Movement, a party which includes many former members of the resistance who chose peace as the only method for conflict resolution.