North America

With President Barack Obama and other world leaders now talking about building a nuclear-free world, it is time to consider whether that would be a good idea. Six reasons for supporting nuclear abolition are particularly cogent.

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is in Washington today for meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s Zelaya’s highest-level meeting with a U.S. official since his overthrow last month.

President Obama: “President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there. In that, we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States. I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.”

The US and Venezuela have announced plans to restore their expelled ambassadors after a nine-month rift. Both countries withdrew their ambassadors in a dispute over the Bush administration’s destabilization efforts in Bolivia.

For its 30th edition, the Montreal International Jazz Festival of Canada offers a program with great musicians, artists and singers, with dedication to the utmost quality in diversified music. The plethora of concerts captures the mood, from jazz fusion to American rock, with trips through free jazz, ’80s gypsy music, pop music, the legendary R&B, Afro-Cuban, Afrobeat and visits from the music of Mexico and Eastern Europe. American music legend Stevie Wonder will perform at the Festival’s opening, as an outdoor free event on June 30th.

Educators are promoting the declaration of the week from the 28th of September to the 3rd of October as the Week of Peace and Nonviolence in Mexico.

To encourage even greater awareness of this important International Day, the United Nations is encouraging people around the world to send text messages for peace on or before 21 September. UN offices in several countries are organizing campaigns. Messages collected by the UN will be presented to world leaders gathering in New York for the 63rd General Assembly from 23 September.

During meeting with Rafael de la Rubia, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the president of the General Assembly, says that there is 100 per cent agreement with the goals of the World March

United States envoy George Mitchell called Tuesday for a “prompt resumption” of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, saying regional support for President Barack Obama has boosted peace prospects.

*”We all share an obligation to help create the conditions for the prompt resumption and the early conclusion of negotiations,”* the special Middle East envoy said.

Mitchell, speaking at his first press conference in Washington since his appointment in January, gave no time-frame but hoped his preliminary discussions aimed at reviving the negotiations would conclude in a matter of weeks.

Adopted by the UN in 1996, the treaty can only come into force when 44 specific countries who at the time of negotiations had nuclear technology have ratified it. China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States have yet to do so although during the US election campaign Obama said, “As president, I will reach out to the Senate to secure the ratification of the CTBT at the earliest practical date.”