International

The scenes that plagued Latin America through the 1980s bear a striking resemblance to those in the Arab World since Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Tunisia nearly 30 years later. In Latin America, protests reflected the rising frustrations of the middle class, marketplaces were bombed by those angry at incumbent autocrats and citizens rallied against police brutality.

Politicians in rich countries use to cry to the sky and tear their hair out, warning against migrants and refugees’ alleged extraordinary threats and exceptional danger, while blaming them for all the troubles that their obedience to the “market lords” and the “war lords” has been causing.

They give life almost in every way – they deliver generation after generation; they plant seeds and grow crops, feed their families and sell food in rural markets; they bring water and heat and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their people be them newborns, adults or elderly.

The case of a young Armenian forced sentenced to two and a half years for refusing military service was taken up by a number of high profile international organisations, including Amnesty International. Today the European Court of Human Rights ruled that individuals have a right to conscientious object and called on Armenia to immediately introduce civilian alternatives.

The world is on course to miss United Nations hunger reduction targets set in 2000, despite successes in curbing extreme poverty, a UN report said Thursday. In 2000, the world body’s 192 member states launched eight Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015 and the 2011 progress report showed mixed results on the first target of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

Canada was to officially end its combat mission in Afghanistan on Thursday, after nine years of fighting which saw it lose 157 troops and spend more than $11 billion dollars. With popular support for the war sapped at home, most of the nearly 3,000 Canadian soldiers, based mainly in the dangerous battleground of Kandahar, have packed up and gone home.

A year after the first Gaza Freedom Flotilla was attacked by Israel in international waters leading to the deaths of nine activists, the Free Gaza Movement is organising a second flotilla which is currently experiencing difficulties in Greece as the government there is refusing to allow the boats to leave port, citing fears for the safety for the passengers on board.

Thousands of people flocked to a Washington arena Wednesday to celebrate the 76th birthday of Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who urged followers to mark the occasion by practicing compassion. “Happiness — it is not money, it is not material things, it is not power. It is (inside), full of self-confidence.”

A social phenomenon exploded almost fifty years ago: young people began to make their voice heard and took control of the social space. Different cities witnessed the simultaneous uprising as this clamour became the visible form of the much-discussed Gasset y Ortega thesis on generational dialectics as the driving force of history with extraordinary empirical evidence.

Here we are publishing the Opening Adress given by Dunja Mijatovic, from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), as Representative on Freedom of the Media, on the occasion of the inaugurative plenary sesion of the 2011 Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum held recently in Bonn, Germany, and focused on Human Rights.