Opinions

Victoria Manno is an actor, journalist and pentathlete, among many other interests. Since 2000, she has started the year by performing a challenge for Peace in one of the 6 continents. She joined the organisation World without Wars and began by climbing mount Aconcagua, carrying the World March for Peace and Non Violence flag to the highest point in the Western World.

President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address Wednesday night. A full two-thirds of the President’s seventy-minute address was devoted to the economy, the central theme of which was job creation. We get response from MIT professor Noam Chomsky author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

A week has already passed since I left Punta de Vacas. I have arrived in Geneva and am going to leave my bags at home, in the Valais Mountains.
I’d love to sum up this wonderful adventure. The World March already seems like a far-away memory and a chapter has just ended. The experience and facts now belong to the past.

With 142 member nations already signed on, the new International Renewable Energy Agency is promoting a fast, global transition to clean, safe, and renewable energy. Alice Slater explains why it’s so necessary. “Every 30 minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year.”

In my Reflection of January 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: “In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian people free of charge.

On November 19th, President Barack Obama wrote a stirring tribute in USA Today to the most famous draft resister in US history, Muhammad Ali. On Tuesday, Obama spoke at West Point, calling for an increase of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, with a speech that recalled the worst shadings of George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”

Chilean Tomas Hirsch, reference for new humanism in Latin America, spoke in the closing event of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence celebrated on January 2, 2010. Hirsch took the opportunity giving testimony of his experience marching in Latin America and spoke about the growing consciousness there with inspiring images of the future activities of the Humanist Movement.

This proposal developed by Tomás Hirsch and delivered to the President of Ecuador, Mr Rafael Correa, comes from the Humanist Movement, as the World March for Peace and Non-Violence is approaching its final destination, arriving at Punta de Vacas, at the foot of Mount Aconcagua, on border between Chile and Argentina on 2 January 2010.

I was standing in the queue at passport control when Rafael de la Rubia took me to one side and said quietly: “We’re hoping to introduce someone to you, the governor of this department, Antonio Navarro, the former leader of the M-19 group who was indirectly involved in the operation that took your father and several other ambassadors hostage…”

While Uruguay awaits the arrival of the World March for Peace and Non-Violence on 27th December, writer Eduardo Galeano reflected on the initiative’s proposals, the business of war and its consequences. The members who are steering the project in Uruguay will hold a welcoming festival on 29th December on calle 18 de Julio and at the University.