International

Yesterday,Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

Honduras is facing growing regional and international pressure to restore the overthrown President Manuel Zelaya. Earlier today, the thirty-five-member Organization of American States said it would suspend Honduras unless Zelaya is returned to office within three days. The ultimatum follows Tuesday’s unanimous decision by the UN General Assembly to condemn the coup. Addressing the UN, Zelaya stuck by his vow to return to Honduras on Thursday despite threats of arrest.

Soka Gakkai International (SGI) has promoted a worldwide campaign to ban nuclear weapons and has just launched a DVD and a book including testimonies of Japanese women who survived nuclear bombings that hit Japan during the Second World War. Their testimonies of the horror of nuclear bombings call attention to the clear present danger.

A boat carrying twenty-one human rights workers and kits to help families who have lost their homes in Gaza departed yesterday from Cyprus.

US forces have completed a withdrawal from major Iraqi cities and towns on today’s deadline to hand formal control to the Iraqi military. Iraq has declared a national holiday to mark the pullout, and celebrations have been underway nationwide. Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the pullback a victory for national sovereignty.

Charity premiere of award-winning film in London will raise funds for FilmAid’s programme.“Skin” won the Pan African Festival in Los Angeles and the Time for Peace First Film Award.

President Obama: “President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there. In that, we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States. I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.”

Inaugurating the recent OAS Assembly in San Pedro Sula, President Zelaya spoke about nonviolence

“The topic of nonviolence is essential during this century. Violence has grown exponentially and has many faces. Nonviolence must be the guiding principle of society, of the state vis-à-vis citizens, and of the state vis-à-vis states.

Nonviolence must take the form of ongoing dialogue for the creation of a just, equitable, and inclusive world order, based on solidarity and respect for human beings, the dignity of individuals, and restructuring of the international community and its institutions.

Nonviolence is the principle of action that rejects force, which is the major cause of violence. While the causes of violence are numerous, as you all know, so too should be the responses and the actions of nonviolence.

This is the approach we must have in the short, medium, and long terms if we are to build a society based on other principles, principles that must steer our ways of acting and thinking in our society.”

In North Korea, more than 100,000 people attended a government rally Thursday denouncing the United States. Government speakers promised “a fire shower of nuclear retaliation” in the event of US or South Korean military action.

The US and Venezuela have announced plans to restore their expelled ambassadors after a nine-month rift. Both countries withdrew their ambassadors in a dispute over the Bush administration’s destabilization efforts in Bolivia.