Region

A new process of preparatory work for the Disciplines, an internal process of transformation giving access the Profound spaces of the Mind, begins in the Parks of Study and Reflection on Saturday August 14th. In 20 parks across America, Europe and Asia, thousands of people will attend to begin the work of the Siloist School.

The United Nations says the number of people suffering from the massive floods in Pakistan has now exceeded 13 million which is more than the combined total of people affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined, though the death toll in Pakistan is far lower.

The Chilean humanist Tomás Hirsch presented the book “Parks of Study and Reflection, Beacons of the New Spiritual Horizon of Humanity”. He informed about these places of inspiration for a new spirituality. The conference took place at the Book Fair in San Lorenzo, organized by members of the Carcarañá Park of Study and Reflection, near the city of Rosario, Argentina.

Bradley Manning, 22-year-old US soldier posted to Iraq in the military intelligence service, shall be tried – and, of course, sentenced- by a war council that the high command of his own Army will preside over. His crime is to have spread true but secret information on the US wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Muscovites have brought airports to a standstill with attempts to leave the Russian capital where the air has become unbreathable and visibility enormously reduced due to the dense smoke clouds from fires which in the last hours have been growing, due mainly to the very high temperatures of this summer; the highest registered in decades.

On the 2nd and 3rd of August, the Argentinean province of San Juan was the venue for the 39th meeting of the board of the Common Market and Summit of the Leaders of MERCOSUR and Associated States . The main achievement was the Customs Code “a document, a very important piece of regional legislation”, which has been agreed, and which is the result of six years of work.

The three-term mayor of Hiroshima who spearheaded a global campaign for nuclear disarmament and a photographer who documented river pollution in his native China are among the 2010 winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards. The awards are considered Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. They are named after a popular Philippine president who died in a plane crash in 1957.

Former CIA director Michael Hayden said Sunday the chances the US will attack Iran are increasing. Hayden made the comment in an interview on CNN.
Candy Crowley: “If it should, is there any alternative to taking out their facilities?”
Michael Hayden: “It seems inexorable, doesn’t it? We engage, they continue to move forward.”

The Convergence of Cultures calls for urgent action to help refugees in Libya where reports of violence have been received with authorities failing to assist the injured and making deportations to countries in humanitarian crisis. Many of the victims are men, women and children rejected by European authorities, in violation of the Geneva Convention.

The proposal to legalize whale killing went down in flames in recent Morocco meeting.
In a few short weeks, the biggest whale-saving petition in history, signed by an extraordinary number of 1.2 million of worldwide people, will be delivered directly to the key delegates at the International Whaling Commission meeting.