North America

The organization “Circulo Latinoamericano de Estudios Internacionales”, part of Abolition 2000, is pushing for the signing of a letter requesting the withdrawal of all US bases from Latin America. Until now, the signatories are artists, politicians, and professionals from Mexican civil society, but they are looking to extend the initiative to signatories from the entire region.

The first ever Legislative Bill for a Department of Peace in the Canadian Parliament was tabled on Sept. 30. The Bill calls for a Federal Department of Peace, headed by a Cabinet level Minister. This Department should coordinate and promote issues such as Nuclear Disarmament, Human and Economic Rights, Peace Education and Prevention of Violence in Canada.

People the world over must find non-violent ways to oppose American military force lest they suffer the fate of the Vietnamese and the Iraqis. In response to the menace of the U.S. military-industrial complex, non-violent soul force needs to be considered in international conflicts just as it was used by Mahatma Gandhi in India and by the Reverend Martin Luther King in the U.S.

The State Council for the Awareness and Prevention of Domestic Violence (CEPAVI) will add events to raise awareness about peace and non-violence to those planned for the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence and the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution, to occur in October and November, among other activities for these purposes that the organization will carry out.

World’s first six-continent Peace March kicks off 93 days of global activities with October 2nd events in cities around the US.
Cities from San Francisco to New York will celebrate in their own way, from participating in peace walks to forming a human peace symbol calling for the elimination of wars, nuclear weapons and violence of all kinds.

Mahatma Gandhi, whose legacy this annual observance celebrates, once observed that “non-violence, to be worth anything, has to work in the face of hostile forces.” In today’s world, we face many hostile forces — multiple and persistent crises that demand a response from leaders and grassroots alike.
Inspired by Gandhi’s life, the UN today works to end violence.

The U.S.-drafted resolution called for further efforts to achieve “a world without nuclear weapons.” But critics of the resolution said it failed to include mandatory provisions that would have required nuclear weapons states to take concrete disarmament steps. The resolution also lacked any call on nuclear states to halt production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

After having participated in the Right to Food forum in Mexico, Olivier De Schutter, argued that “taxing food doesn’t seem to be a solution for combating the economic crisis”. He also said that “35 percent of the world’s children who die each year –equivalent to about 6.5 million – die as a result of malnutrition or related causes.”

With the upcoming special session of the UN Security Council on September 24 approaching, Abolition 2000 calls on world leaders, “to focus attention and promote tangible steps that would reduce the nuclear weapons danger, and move decisively toward a nuclear-weapon-free-world, based on the UN Secretary General’s five – point plan.”

Northrop Grumman personnel ready a visiting unmanned Global Hawk aircraft for takeoff at Brunswick Naval Air Station. A pilot from Patrol navigates the craft remotely from Patuxent River (Md.) Naval Air Station. The Global Hawk’s approximately stay represented the first time one of the military’s vaunted drones had ever landed from a New England location.