International

With one week to go before the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, World without Wars has published it’s official position for the first time in this field. They are calling for an end to nuclear energy and for criminal charges against TEPCO executives and members of the Japanese Government responsible for the criminal negligence.

A document published in March by UNESCO reports that more than twenty-eight million children in those countries affected by conflicts do not receive education. If rich countries transferred monies from their military spending for just six days over to education, in 2015, the objective of Education for Everyone could be achieved.

Our Humanist Association of Hong Kong Letter to the Editor appeared today in the South China Morning Post newspaper, April 18, 2011. Also appearing on Humanize Asia and Lantau Forum, eliciting comments from others. I replied to one critic that I quote the worst case scenario where nuclear fallout would poison the entire planet.

People who have suffered the impact of unjust practices and those who have been victims of abuse from corporate impunity will heave a sigh of relief the day directors of such companies are brought to court from behind their corporate shields. The spins and the twists in legal tangos that play out so impassively will become a thing of the past.

Three days after Hosni Mubarak resigned as the long-standing dictator in Egypt, people in the small Gulf state of Bahrain took to the streets, marching to their version of Tahrir: Pearl Square, in the capital city of Manama. Bahrain has been ruled by the same family, the House of Khalifa, since the 1780s – more than 220 years.

Bradely Manning was arrested on the assumption that it was he who sent cables to Weakileaks whose disclosure led to the offensive against Julian Asange, director of the whistleblowing website dedicated to revealing secret information of public interest. Manning’s treatment in the military prison is tantamount to torture. Here’s the Avaaz campaign to stop this.

As many as 10,000 people gathered in New York City’s Union Square on April 9 to make the connection between militarism abroad and austerity at home–and renew the antiwar movement’s demand to bring U.S. troops home now. Across the country, some 1,500 people rallied the next day in San Francisco in a sister demonstration.

Over 200 people, Africans fleeing Libya by boat, drowned on Wednesday before reaching safety in Italy. It is just one of many tragedies resulting from North Africa’s refugee crisis, one of the world’s worst, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres. Many of the refugees who were fleeing Libya in fact came from Somalia, Eritrea and Ivory Coast.

Ai Weiwei was being monitored around the clock by the secret police when **Time Out Hong Kong** gained access to his Beijing studio to discuss the ‘Jasmine Revolution’. This must be the last interview before his disappearance. Although Mr Ai has had numerous run-ins with China’s state security apparatus he has never been formally detained or disappeared in this way before.

Intentional or not, as there are no documents to support this hypothesis, the attack on Libya has served as a diversion to hamper a possible “second wave” of popular revolts in the Arab world. These are the thoughts of the political analyst Immanuel Wallerstein in Znet, published on 2 April by Rebelión and we circulate it because it is a different – and possible – view.