Region

Today is election day in Afghanistan. A new poll shows growing American opposition to the war in Afghanistan. The Washington Post-ABC News survey found 51 percent of Americans view the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting. Just one-quarter of respondents say they support President Obama’s escalation of the Afghan war with at least 17,000 additional troops.

A legislative amendment already passed into Law by Congress would permit the Justice ministry to be renamed the Ministry of Justice and Peace, instead of Justice and Grace, its current denomination. In addition, the legislative amendment will create the National System for Promotion of Peace and Citizen Coexistence, an essential point of this model initiative for Latin America.

For the past eight years, a teacher native to Kenya has been dedicated to recuperating computers and other electronic items discarded for trash. After repairing them with a team of computer experts, he sends them to students in Kenya who have no access to these technologies. Jude Ndambuki developed a new bartering system: “if you plant 100 trees I will give you a computer.”

A North Korean diplomatic delegation has told New Mexico’s state governor Bill Richardson that Pyongyang wants bilateral talks with the United States about its nuclear programme. Pyongyang seems to have adopted a more moderate course recently: Two US journalists were released and North Korea is sending a delegation to the funeral of former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung.

Scotland’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill released the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Al-Megrahi is the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. MacAskill made a non reciprocal decision: compassion and mercy for Al-Megrahi although he did not show them to his victims.

Lack of consensus between the participating countries on procedures related to the working agenda of the UNO Conference on Disarmament continues. The calendar to start the negotiations to prohibit the production of materials essential for the production of nuclear weapons is one of the questions that have led to this impasse.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ordered Eritrea to pay neighbouring Ethiopia seven million euros in compensation for damage inflicted on each other during the war between 1998 and 2000. The international tribunal said it specified the extra money because Eritrea had begun the conflict. Both countries have agreed to the ruling.

In a late but important recognition, the government of North Korea announced its intention to participate in Kim Dae-Jung´s funerals. President Kim, was the first South Korean President to actively seek reconciliation with the North. He made enormous progress in the relations with North Korea, which he visited in 2000 and held an historic meeting with its leader Kim Jong-il.

Over one hundred religious, national, community organizations and leaders and academics today called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “suspend negotiations for expanded U.S. military access or operations in Colombia,” a plan that has generated protest among Latin American countries, including Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere.

You live in a nice house in a tense neighborhood. Your neighbors haven’t been too pleased with you lately, and you have a terrible roach infestation running havoc in your house. But perhaps there’s hope. A big, strong guy lives near, and is offering help. He has big guns and says he has just the spray to get rid of those pesky roaches if you just let him crash at your place.