Europe

Prague, November 3, 2009. Thousands of people have gathered in Prague’s Wenceslas Square to participate in the biggest event in the country organized as part of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence. It was the last and the biggest event that concluded a three day stay of members of the World March’s Base Team in the Czech Republic.

“Why isn’t the arms industry threatened by strike?” asks Nobel Prize laureate in Literature José Saramago, at the release of his new book “Caim” at Casa da América in Madrid. Breaking his personal rule of silence, Saramago revealed the theme of his next novel, which will question the lack of protest among arms industry employees.

An important press conference with participants such as Alena Gajdusova, First Vice-president of the Senate, Rafael de La Rubia, president of World Without Wars, and Otakar Mika, expert in nuclear arms issues. They all emphasized that it is important for countries to choose to reduce armaments and assign new roles for their armies.

The World March on day 6 of its tour through the Balkans arrives in Kosovo, coinciding with the arrival of Bill Clinton who is in town to receive the thanks of the Kosovan people. World March organisers and nonviolence activists denounced the wars in the Balkans as being manipulated by outside forces driven by selfish interests rather than the good of the people.

The press conference to present the 2009 Report was held on last Monday. The data is surprising: long stays, very high rates of education and employment. Results that undermine the rhetoric on irregular immigration and which throw light on an unknown universe that is viewed with mistrust.
The report analyses data collected between 2000 and 2008.

On the road from Salonicco to Skopje, the coach carrying the World March of the Balkans was welcomed by mayors, councillors for culture and hundreds of children and teachers in the towns of the Republic of Macedonia. The march, organised by the humanist organisation, World Without Wars, this time passed through Bitola, Resen, Ohrid, Struga, Gostivar, Tetovo and Skopje.

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence is soon to arrive in the Czech Republic. On the occasion, among other things, a conference will be held at the Senate and a Peace Party, of multicultural content, will fill Prague’s largest square. The base team, which Lucie Fialová of the Czech Republic joined for the European stage, will arrive in Prague on November 1.

Invited by the Danish section of the international organisation “Peace Alliance” to a conference on Peace in Copenhagen, representatives of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence acknowledged and supported the creation of a Ministry for Peace such as already exist in Costa Rica, Nepal and the Solomon Islands.

War correspondent Hernán Zin, echoing the words of Gervasio Sánchez on receiving the Ortega y Gasset award, in this article condemns the military agreement to be signed by the Governments of Israel and Spain that suggests the implicit support of an occupational army (that of Israel) and a betrayal of leftist ideals by Zapatero’s Government.

The new conservative-liberal coalition government wants the United States to withdraw all nuclear weapons still deployed in Germany despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, end of the cold war and re-unification twenty years ago.
Observers said that Merkel would take up the issue when she travels to Washington to address the U.S. Congress on November 3.