International

On 19th August, the last US army combat brigade left Iraq. It was 1:30 on Thursday when soldiers from the Fourth Stryker Brigade of the Second Infantry Division crossed the border with Kuwait. There were 56 thousand soldiers still on Iraqi territory for “stabilisation” tasks, such as training Iraqi armed forces and police.

From the 17th to the 20th of August the XVI São Paulo Forum Meeting, created in 1990 took place in the City of Buenos Aires. Political parties, organizations and representatives from 18 countries in the region participated in the event. Overthrown Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya was present. The Humanist Party from Argentina participated in all workshops.

After a week of negotiations, the main conclusions of the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Right of Mother Earth (Cochabamba, April 2010) have been incorporated in the document of United Nations on Climate Change, that now have been recognized as a negotiation text for the 192 countries which has been congregated in Bonn, during the first week august of 2010.

Almost 1500 assistants gathered last Saturday in 20 Parks of Study and Reflection in America, Asia and Europe. Young people, elderly people, women, men, students, workers, and a variety of customs, ethnic backgrounds and cultures joined together to take part in a meeting where the collective understanding was the distinctive feature of the day.

A new process of preparatory work for the Disciplines, an internal process of transformation giving access the Profound spaces of the Mind, begins in the Parks of Study and Reflection on Saturday August 14th. In 20 parks across America, Europe and Asia, thousands of people will attend to begin the work of the Siloist School.

The Chilean humanist Tomás Hirsch presented the book “Parks of Study and Reflection, Beacons of the New Spiritual Horizon of Humanity”. He informed about these places of inspiration for a new spirituality. The conference took place at the Book Fair in San Lorenzo, organized by members of the Carcarañá Park of Study and Reflection, near the city of Rosario, Argentina.

Bradley Manning, 22-year-old US soldier posted to Iraq in the military intelligence service, shall be tried – and, of course, sentenced- by a war council that the high command of his own Army will preside over. His crime is to have spread true but secret information on the US wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the 2nd and 3rd of August, the Argentinean province of San Juan was the venue for the 39th meeting of the board of the Common Market and Summit of the Leaders of MERCOSUR and Associated States . The main achievement was the Customs Code “a document, a very important piece of regional legislation”, which has been agreed, and which is the result of six years of work.

The three-term mayor of Hiroshima who spearheaded a global campaign for nuclear disarmament and a photographer who documented river pollution in his native China are among the 2010 winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards. The awards are considered Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. They are named after a popular Philippine president who died in a plane crash in 1957.

Former CIA director Michael Hayden said Sunday the chances the US will attack Iran are increasing. Hayden made the comment in an interview on CNN.
Candy Crowley: “If it should, is there any alternative to taking out their facilities?”
Michael Hayden: “It seems inexorable, doesn’t it? We engage, they continue to move forward.”