Region

This is how it’s done in China, ignore everything and without stretching things to any limits, get on with it. This was the message the lone meditator seemed to express as he sat in lotus style under the trees in the quiet hinterland of the Taoist temple of the Yellow Dragon. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Common Man relaxed while children frolicked in a heady afternoon of family fun.

*China’s Communist Party Central Committee 15 October, 2010, started its annual closed-door meeting to map out the country’s economic course for the next five years, amid increasingly fervent calls for political reform and against the continuing crackdown on human rights activists, dissidents and lawyers. Also, open letters by opposing voices and a wider press coverage*

Dear Mario, now we live in different spheres, but I feel that our spiritual and moral contact, our friendship and sympathy have not disappeared and cannot ever disappear. Only after the death of a man can we appreciate the real meaning of his life because in everyday life is almost impossible to appreciate the magnitude of the work of others.

In the UK, Scientists call on the Prime Minister to save funding for scientific research for the benefit of humanity and axe funding for nuclear destruction. Highlighting the lack of financial transparency in military research spending in moments of savage cuts to public services, SGR Executive Director points out, “The Cold War is over.”

*Over the years since the founding of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh the country’s secular constitution has been gradually eroded, and increasingly, a religious bias came into play. Religious-based political parties appeared. However, the general tenor of the people favoured a secular state while remaining firmly set in their Islamic faith fundamental to their daily life.*

The Afghan government and the Taliban have reportedly begun secret, high-level talks over ending the Afghan war. According to the Washington Post, Taliban representatives have recently met with officials from the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. At least one session was reportedly held in Dubai, even if there are differing versions of it.

The discovery of a new planet and the denied appointment by the UN of someone responsible for relations with ‘aliens’ leads us to reflect on the moment in which humanity finds itself as a whole. What will mankind do at this historical crossroads? Will we continue in our prehistory or will we launch ourselves like a shooting star towards other worlds?

The culture of minimising and hiding the true extent of nuclear danger raises its ugly head again. A fire at Aldermaston nuclear bomb making establishment on August 3rd was reported in the newspapers as a minor incident which, although neighbours were evacuated for some hours, did not really represent a nuclear risk. Well, not exactly…

Antiwar activists targeted in last month’s FBI raids in Minneapolis and Chicago have announced they won’t testify before a grand jury. On Tuesday, demonstrators gathered outside a federal building in Chicago where the grand jury is convening. Stephanie Weiner, whose home was targeted in the raid, said the activists would defy their subpoenas to appear.

Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos, Silo, died in Mendoza, Argentina on the 16th of September 2010 but none of the big European newspapers (nor the television channels) reported this fact. They therefore silenced the great initiatives and humanist proposals which came from the other side of the Atlantic and which are still there, constructing *“life to come”*.