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Thousands of students and pupils in education establishments around the world are preparing themselves for the “runthisway” project, a project getting people running to promote peace and nonviolence. Social movements around the world have sprung up this year and many have chosen non-violent means to achieve their aims. This initiative aims to support this trend.

President Rafael Correa Delgado

Carondelet Palace

Quito, Ecuador

Ecuadorean media minister Alvarado published an open letter to Reporters Without Borders on 9 September in response to the one that its secretary-general, Jean-François Julliard, addressed to President Correa three days before. RWB is posting the minister’s reply on its website. It includes an invitation to international media freedom organizations to take part in a debate.

Reporters Without Borders calls on the Peruvian authorities to give clear evidence of a determination to combat impunity after the second murder of a journalist in Peru this year. Shot by masked gunmen near his home in the northwestern city of Casma on 7 September, TV journalist Pedro Alfonso Flores Silva died of injuries to the liver and colon yesterday.

Article written by Nathan Schneider

It’s a foregone conclusion that revenge ties itself in a logical knot. It’s a cycle that churns until everyone bound up in it is dead. With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in mind, philosopher Simon Critchley rehearses this fact eloquently in his latest at his New York Times forum, The Stone.

Werner Herzog allows us to learn about one of the major archaeological discoveries in humankind. The Chauvet-Pont d’Arc grotto contained in its depths hundreds of prehistoric animals’ skeletons that permit to reveal the constitution of the European wildlife 35 thousand years ago. Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel-Deschamps and Christian Hikkaire found it in 1994.

As the ten year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, an intense media blitz is in motion. To be honest, I find most of the coverage offensive in that it imposes and manipulates assumed feelings about the event without the least reflection on the
real meaning and consequences of that day. I get the feeling that a particular response
is expected. But my response is different.

Where is our current society heading: as events escalate, as violence becomes more and more
globalized each day? Is there a way out?

In the last few years, we have seen new conflicts and new forms of corruption emerge, we have seen
ecological and financial disasters. Theses events are entertwined and cause rapid changes.

A humanist work camp is scheduled to start October 10, 2011, organised in Panauti, Nepal, as the initial efforts to establish Nepal’s Park of Study & Reflection. This is a small town 32km south east of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Panauti is renowned for its rich history, cultural activities, artistic buildings and year-round festivals.

The body bag marked “Victim 0001” on Sept. 11, 2001, contained the corpse of Father Mychal Judge, a Catholic chaplain with the Fire Department of New York. When he heard about the disaster at the World Trade Center, he donned his Catholic collar and firefighter garb and raced downtown. He saw people jump to their deaths to avoid the inferno more than 1,000 feet above.