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Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement for democracy in Burma is hanging in the balance this week, with the regime threatening a brutal response to her call to free political prisoners. Activists have appealed to the world for help, saying international pressure is crucial to tipping the balance. Avaaz calls people to sign a petition

This day each year the citizenry of Hong Kong take to the streets and demonstrate in solidarity against a wide variety of ills and social injustices – July 1, 2011, was no exception. Hongkongers staged their biggest show of discontent with the government in seven years, taking to the streets in the largest numbers since 2004.

We go on with the publication of Ivo Ghignoli’s Chronicles from the garrison of Maddalena, where NO TAV militants are peacefully protesting against the construction of the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway line; the line will pierce a mountain and disrupt the entire hydro-geological structure of Val di Susa, near Turin.

“High food prices are here to stay, and their impact on the poor in developing countries who spend a high proportion of their income on food can be devastating”
Their number exceeds one billion and up to 98% of them live in developing countries.

Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Ernst Joseph and Wolf “Duralph” François, hosts of the programme “They said it” on Radio Prévention in the southwestern town of Petit-Goâve, who have been detained ever since their arrest during an appearance at the public prosecutor’s office on 22 June.

Mired in poverty and with few land rights, indigenous groups saw little to celebrate on the bicentennial of the nation’s independence from Spain on May 14. Representatives of indigenous organizations headed to the capital, Asunción, to demand the government take immediate action to stem the severe problems afflicting Paraguay’s 20 native peoples.

The Palestinian leadership is more committed than ever to obtaining statehood through the United Nations General Assembly. But despite this commitment, there is worry that success in New York might not necessarily mean success in Nablus or Hebron. There are many reasons the UN route is the correct strategy for Palestinians today.

Napoleon is said to have remarked: “Bayonets are wonderful! One can do anything with them except sit on them!”. Today’s bayonets are nuclear weapons; and we are actually sitting on them.
Mr. Dhanapala is President, Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs. He served as UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs and as Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the USA in 1990s.

The right to food is a human right, and unless governments follow up on their pledges, it will remain a utopia. Broad-based social movements and human rights defenders the world over should therefore continue to demand change, says Olivier De Schutter, an independent United Nations watchdog.

Many are those who throughout history have not found a way out the conflicts imposed by the conditions of social injustice, and have resorted to self-immolation as a form of denunciation and struggle. With their own suicide they seek to awaken in others a sense of solidarity with the powerless, to open the way for the collective modification of the conditions of oppression