Europe

The actions of **Real Democracy Now!** monopolize the news, the front pages of newspapers, the debates on the radio. While some are accused of subverting the old order, others try to build bridges to be voted on themselves by the ‘outraged’. A nonviolent revolution has begun to take shape, say participants in these gatherings.

The non-violent protests continue, and they are spreading to other Spanish cities. In Madrid’s downtown, in the well-known “Puerta del Sol” about five hundred people were camping. They were vacated this morning. This did not stop them from reconvening this afternoon in the same place. The protest is also reaching into new areas.

The growing demands for freedom and justice across the Middle East and North Africa and the rise of social media offer an unprecedented opportunity for human rights change – but this change stands on a knife-edge, said Amnesty International as it launched its global human rights report on the eve of its 50th anniversary.

Following the sickening display of glorification of assassination shown by a US president who somehow managed get a Nobel Peace Prize, World without Wars declares: What occurred on Monday, 2nd of May can in no way be described as justice: justice is done when a man accused of a crime is brought before a court of law and given a trial according to international legal standards.

Heart-rending images of Fukushima disaster and a tidal wave of popular uprisings in the Arab world threatened to blur the compelling need for a nuke liberated Middle East as part of a world free of nuclear weapons. A transcontinental 10-nation initiative seeks to jolt the international community out of a mind numbing stupor.

Whilst protesters are shot at in demonstrations against long standing autocratic regimes in the Middle East the British style of avoiding protest and opposition during the Royal Wedding is simply to arrest people **before** they have the opportunity to express themselves. The few who did manage to stage small and peaceful protests are arrested for “Breach of the peace”.

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.