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The recent anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Montserrat Ponsa i Tarrés to write the following impassioned article. A journalist with a decades-long commitment to the culture of peace, she will be a member of the core team of the first World March for Peace and Nonviolence that will circle the globe.

North Korea’s KCNA state press agency says the border has been re-opened for family visits from South Korea. The move is an important gesture at a time of rising tension between the two countries. North Korea has also announced that the whole country is on high alert because of joint military exercises taking place between the United States and South Korea.

Human Rights Watch released a report last week detailing new evidence of possible Israeli war crimes committed during last winter´s operations in Gaza that left over 1400 Palestinians dead. The report says Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians, including 5 women and 4 children, who were in groups waving white flags.

United States citizen, John William Yettaw, was released and deported by the government Sunday and left the country along with Democrat Senator of the United States Jim Webb who concluded his three-day visit to Myanmar. Yettaw´s visit was the excuse for Aung San Suu Kyi 18 month extension house arrest that does not allow Ms Suu Kyi to run for next year’s elections.

The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought her African visit to a close in Liberia, a country which achieved independence from the USA, in support of the only African woman President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The trip has placed Africa in the spotlight and served to lend support to the International Court of Justice of The Hague, which the USA has still not recognized.

Right in Nagoya international airport, in line to check in for my flight back to Sao Paulo, I hear a strange noise. Meow, meow.… There was a cat, somewhere close by. I tried to find it but could not. It was coming from a couple who spoke Portuguese. They had lots of luggage. The passengers behind them also had lots of luggage.

The self-appointed Inter Action Council, IAC, chaired by German ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had its 27th Annual Meeting in King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia 10-13 May, with 20 other former prime ministers and presidents, many right wing social democrats, attending. They issued a Final Communiqué with a Present State of the World. My comments follow.

Altogether 18 participants of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence met in Vieste, Southern Italy, to receive all of the information necessary for the challenge which awaits them for three months around the world.
The members of the team committed themselves to exhibit flexibility, tolerance, humility, and an open heart in order to incarnate the spirit of this initiative.

The new magazine ‘Israel-Kurd’ has caused a stir in northern Iraq. To the surprise of many in the Arab world, the second edition also recently made it into the kiosks. A third edition expected for september. Kurdish Iraq is increasingly positioning itself between Israel and the Arab world. It is known that the late Kurdish leader Moustafa Barzani made two visits to Israel.

Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its foundation with a concert tour of Europe, during which it will visit some of Europe’s leading festivals and concert halls. This orchestra “represents an alternative model, based on the idea of equality, cooperation and justice for all, to the current situation in the Middle East”.