Europe

Here we are publishing the Opening Adress given by Dunja Mijatovic, from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), as Representative on Freedom of the Media, on the occasion of the inaugurative plenary sesion of the 2011 Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum held recently in Bonn, Germany, and focused on Human Rights.

The five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States – met in Paris on June 30 and July 1, 2011 to deal with an issue that carries with it the survival of the planet: nuclear disarmament. The conference was a follow up to the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York in May 2010.

Japanese children have been shown to be contaminated with radioactive caesium just weeks after the government raised the acceptable level of contamination in schools which provoked angry responses from parents. At the same time it is revealed that the UK government attempted to minimise the importance of the accident in order to prevent a backlash against nuclear energy.

Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement for democracy in Burma is hanging in the balance this week, with the regime threatening a brutal response to her call to free political prisoners. Activists have appealed to the world for help, saying international pressure is crucial to tipping the balance. Avaaz calls people to sign a petition

We go on with the publication of Ivo Ghignoli’s Chronicles from the garrison of Maddalena, where NO TAV militants are peacefully protesting against the construction of the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway line; the line will pierce a mountain and disrupt the entire hydro-geological structure of Val di Susa, near Turin.

While members of the Spanish 15M Democracy Now were attempting to demonstrate at Wimbledon where their beloved tennis hero Rafael Nadal was due to play, in Glastonbury U2’s Bono (“Saint Bono”) was being given a hard time by Art Uncut for dodging taxes by moving part of his huge wealth into a tax haven used by big corporations responsible for much of the poverty he criticises.

The right to food is a human right, and unless governments follow up on their pledges, it will remain a utopia. Broad-based social movements and human rights defenders the world over should therefore continue to demand change, says Olivier De Schutter, an independent United Nations watchdog.

THIS IS NOT A DEBT IT IS A FRAUD!

We, the indignant at the Bastille, in Paris, declare our solidarity with the general strike to be held June 30th in the UK against proposed austerity plans.

There are no weather forecasts for that, so you must do it by yourself. Just watch the sky every time you can as it might rain atomic bombs. It is not about any fiction tall– a technical problem, a new virus or a hiker attack, could order drones (unmanned aircrafts) to empty their full-of-nuclear-weapons’ stomach on your head.

Athens has succumbed to the onslaught of the God of the Market, more powerful even than the Gods of Mount Olympus. Despite the 48 hour strike and the thousands of demonstrators surrounding Parliament, within the building they voted by a majority of 155 to 138 in favour of the plans for measures that will create a debt of the Greek people three times its Gross Domestic Product.