Region

A caravan of Mexican anti-violence protesters arrived in the United States over the weekend. Mexican poet, Javier Sicilia, led the traveling protest, which began last week south of Mexico City and ended in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday. Sicilia demanded the United States end the Merida Initiative, which provides training and support for the Mexican army in its “war on drugs.”

Newly released government data shows the Obama administration approved $200 million in military sales to Bahrain last year just months before the Gulf nation launched a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Part of the military sales involved the sale of rifles, shotguns and assault weapons. There have been a number of developments in Bahrain.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party has scored a third consecutive election victory. In a victory speech, Erdogan pledged to work with opposition parties to rewrite Turkey’s constitution.
Soon after the Turkish election results were announced, a bomb exploded in southeast Turkey, injuring eleven people.

We present a short amazing video of a conference recently held by Julia Bacha regarding the stories that can change the so called “confirmation bias” (or previous believes) that we all have, and help us open our minds and have a new cognitive resonance or comprehension of a fact that usually we tend to look with some prejudice. Such is the case of non-violence in Palestine.

The Caravan for Peace has demanded the U.S. government to suspend the Plan Merida and admit that its drug policy has a devastating effect on Latin America.
Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, the caravan organizer, said that the USA should admit its responsibility for the violence in Mexico, during a rally in El Paso, Texas, United States, at the end of the caravan protest campaign.

Over fifty million Italian citizens are voting in the referendum over the use of nuclear energy, privatization of water and immunity for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Despite the government’s attempts to thwart the referendum by all means, it was approved last Tuesday by the Italian Supreme Court and is taking place this Sunday.

The elected President of Peru, Ollanta Humala, arrived Sunday in Uruguay as part of his tour to strengthen the economic and political ties with South American countries.

The official agenda will begin on Monday when the president, José Mujica, receives Humala at the seat of government, confirmed the presidential website.

In Italy, on June 12th and 13th, the population will vote in four simultaneous referendums: one which will allow magistrates to proceed with their investigations against the Prime Minister, the second and the third which aims to keep water in public rather than private hands and, the fourth regards the return to a nuclear energy program in Italy.

An educational forum was held 10 June, 201l, according to its blurb intending to increase literacy on nuclear issues to help civil society in Hong Kong to discuss and debate the issues surrounding nuclear energy as a part of the current local fuel mix – others are coal then natural gas – with presentations and open discussions.

Almost three months after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster in Japan, new radiation “hot spots” may require the evacuation of more areas further from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency recently admitted for the first time that full nuclear meltdowns occurred at 3 of the plant’s reactors