International

At the G8 meeting in Italy, world leaders pledged $12 billion for a “food security initiative” for the world’s poorest countries. The total committed falls three billion dollars short of the $15 billion promised by President Obama.

A group of youth from various countries around the world met up recently in the Italian capital to participate in the Junior 8 Summit, a week-long conference for young people to exchange ideas and opinions on ways to improve global conditions for young people. Today they will present their recommendations to the G-8 leaders.

With President Barack Obama and other world leaders now talking about building a nuclear-free world, it is time to consider whether that would be a good idea. Six reasons for supporting nuclear abolition are particularly cogent.

Tadatoshi Akiba says he is “furious” with the country´s disregard of international demonstrations against their threat of building a nuclear arsenal. The UN Security Council called for sanctions over the country´s tests voting unanimously for sanctions both on the nuclear tests and the North Korean ballistic missile programmes.

On Friday 3rd of July 2009, Mogho Naaba Baongo, Emperor of the Mossi people (the majority ethnic group in Burkina Faso) endorsed the World March. This endorsement was marked by a special ceremony that took place in the Royal Palace in Ouagadougou, in the presence of the Minister for Promotion of Human Rights, Salamata Sawadogo.

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is in Washington today for meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s Zelaya’s highest-level meeting with a U.S. official since his overthrow last month.

156 people have died and more than 800 have been injured in the worst wave of ethnic violence in many decades in China during strong clashes between the Han and Uigur ethnic groups. A curfew was declared today in the Xinjiang region from 9pm until 8am to “avoid more chaos”.

US President, Barack Obama and Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, yesterday signed terms of an agreement to reduce strategic nuclear weapons by a third, despite differences over US plans to install an anti-missile shield in Europe. The Russian president proposed the creation of an anti-missile shield capable of protecting all countries worldwide.

Last July 2nd, the Brazilian President sanctioned a new law which benefits an estimated 50,000 foreigners living illegally in the country. During the signing of the new law, President Lula criticized the anti-immigration policy adopted by richer countries which restrain immigrants’ rights.
*”All we want is for Brazilians living abroad to be treated in the same way we treat immigrants here in Brazil”*, said Lula.

Barack Obama is getting ready for his first trip to Moscow that will last from Monday 6th of July to Wednesday 9th. This is a re-start of a new area in the relations between Russia and the USA. Depending on those meetings is the future of the bilateral nuclear programme of disarmament and the anti missile shield affair (NMD) that the USA plans to build in Central Europe.

In this Summit a new treaty will be prepared in order to reduce the nuclear strategic arsenal of both countries, to replace the START-1 treaty that will expire on December 5th 2009.