Europe

Images of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, following an unprecedented nine magnitude earthquake and resultant tsunami, inevitably evoke memories of my two encounters with Hiroshima.
A gentle monument in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is festooned with thousands of paper cranes that symbolise humankind’s fervent desire that Hiroshima and Nagasaki may never happen again.

Malaria still kills thousands of people a day. That’s distressing when you consider it is a disease that can not only be combated, but even eradicated. On the occasion of World Malaria Day for year 2011: the irritation, the expectation and the hopes of three prominent Dutch malaria fighters.

By Thijs Westerbeek van Eerten

With one week to go before the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, World without Wars has published it’s official position for the first time in this field. They are calling for an end to nuclear energy and for criminal charges against TEPCO executives and members of the Japanese Government responsible for the criminal negligence.

Bradely Manning was arrested on the assumption that it was he who sent cables to Weakileaks whose disclosure led to the offensive against Julian Asange, director of the whistleblowing website dedicated to revealing secret information of public interest. Manning’s treatment in the military prison is tantamount to torture. Here’s the Avaaz campaign to stop this.

Amidst growing apprehension that the United States and its allies might use radioactive weapons in Libya, as they are reported to have done in several local and limited wars beginning with the 1991 Iraq War, the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) is calling for a global treaty to prohibit such arsenal.

By Jaya Ramachandran

The former Landsbankinn in Iceland that went bankrupt in the big financial crash in Iceland in October 2008 offered its British customers sky high interests, way above any that of any other bank. The question at stake in the referendum is whether or not Icelandic taxpayers should compensate those who put their money in the Icesave account now that Landsbankinn is bankrupt.

During the March 26th demonstration in London a group of nonviolent protesters from UK Uncut occupied the Fortnum and Mason luxury store in Piccadilly to bring attention to it’s owners tax avoidance strategies. In spite of their not causing any damage the protesters were arrested after being promised by the police they would not be if they agreed to leave peacefully.

The likelihood of DU use in Libya has now increased following the deployment and use of A-10 and Harrier AV-8B aircraft. ICBUW calls for pressure to be brought on the US to clarify the situation, and to put DU ammunition beyond use.

Laureates of the Right Livelihood Award and members of the World Future Council have called for a global phase-out of atomic power reactors as well as the abolition of nuclear weapons. In a joint statement, fifty laureates said the Japanese nuclear disaster had raised global awareness of the extreme dangers that can result from nuclear power generation.

Countries which continue to use the death penalty are being left increasingly isolated following a decade of progress towards abolition, Amnesty International has said today in its new report Death Sentences and Executions in 2010.
A total of 31 countries abolished the death penalty in law or in practice during the last 10 years.