International

This Friday, October 16th, marks the celebration World Food Day 2009, started and sponsored by the United Nations. This year’s theme “Achieving food security in times of crises” seeks to highlight the seriousness of the problems facing food supplies in the world, as well as the effects of biofuel production and climate change.

Four members of the base team of The World March for Peace and Non-Violence were hosted by the Humanist Movement of Kerala on October 14th ,the anniversary of Gandhi’s visit in 1927. The team members attended various functions interacting with post graduate students, youth, socio-political leaders, and the press club.

Base team members did not travel to South Korea in vain. Thanks to their visit to this country known as the “Land of Morning Calm”, this is the first time that foreigners have set foot in the zone marking the border between the two countries, called the “demilitarized zone” or “DMZ”, a buffer zone surrounded by the highest concentration of armed forces in the world.

As Nobel Peace Laureates and Nobel Peace Laureate Organizations will meet on November 10th and 11th in Berlin, Germany, they are preparing the open letter we publish here in order that it can be signed by all individuals and organizations who agree on its content and on the concept that “Violence is a preventable disease”.

The 20 marchers arrived in New Delhi on October 12 to honour several meetings in various provinces of India. After a long march to New Delhi, where the base team was received by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharji, Ghandi’s grand-daughter, the group split up to go to Bombay, Amritsar, Chennai and Trichur (in the province of Kerala).

Members of the Middle East team of the World March have now left Bethlehem following a visit yesterday to the occupied Palestinian territories. Along with them were representatives of the Holy Land Trust association of Bethlehem, a non-profit organisation that has worked for years for the nonviolent development of the Palestinian communities.

The Nobel Peace prize to a president for rhetoric, with no real achievement, is like a peace prize for a movie to a former vice-president, with no real achievement either. People are touched by a rhetoric everybody has heard, but that it does not meet the criteria Nobel states in his will: understanding among nations, reduction of standing armies, and peace conferences.

On October 11th and 12th, the Middle East team of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence passed through Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Among the marchers was Giorgio Schultze, the European spokesperson for the March. The team met the Director of Music and Dance at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Municipal Councillor Margalit of the Meretz party.

One of the 2009 Right Livelihood Awards, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prizes goes to Alyn Ware, World March for Peace and Nonviolence Coordinator for New Zealand – Aotearoa, for “his effective and creative advocacy and initiatives over two decades to further peace education and to rid the world of nuclear weapons”.

“The Olympic Games symbolize the eradication of nuclear arms and world peace”, stated Tadatoshi Akiba, mayor of Hiroshima. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is investigating the potential candidacies for the 2020 Olympic Games of the two Japanese cities that suffered nuclear attacks in 1945 and left approximately 220,000 dead.