Europe

Poor families often want their children to work in order to earn money for the family. There are employers who like child labourers in the unskilled and semi-skilled sector as child labourers are cheap and work quickly. People in society from the top to the bottom are responsible for child labour, there must be a collective will power to stop child exploitation.

The WM spokesperson in Europe, Giorgio Schultze had a meeting with the “Nobel Peace Laureates”. The group will receive the World March Base Team in Berlin during the Summit that will take place on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On this occasion, Silo has been invited to speak about the subject of “peace and nonviolence in the present moment”.

Labour MP Martijn van Dam responded to remarks by US President Barack Obama that the number of nuclear arms in the world should be reduced. Two months ago the president signed an agreement with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, to work towards nuclear arms reduction. The governing Labour party thinks that the Netherlands can remove its nuclear devices from Dutch soil.

President Evo Morales visits Madrid in the next few days. Using this state visit, the Evo Welcoming Committee has organised a meeting with the President and thousands of Bolivians, Latin American immigrants and Spaniards, who will show their support for the Andean leader. This event takes place on Sunday 13, at 5pm, at the Cubierta de Leganés.

A letter aimed towards endorsers of the World March has been sent by the International Spokesperson for the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, Rafael de la Rubia, asking for people to donate kilometres to the team of people who will cover the 160,000 km of the World March. Kilometres can be donated through the internet in the official World March website.

It is a mistake to think that certain problems do not concern us, only because they happen thousands of miles away from us and affect people we have never met, or whom we perceive as “different” from us. The world we live in is increasingly interconnected, and what happens in seemingly remote places can affect all of us in the form of violence, conflict, insecurity.

More than 12,000 members of Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian minority community have taken to the streets in protest at a new language law introduced on Tuesday. The new law limits the use of minority languages. Anyone speaking Hungarian in public buildings, for example, could be fined. More than half-a-million ethnic Hungarians live in Slovakia.

The Scottish Minister of Justice, Kenny MacAskill, says Libya failed to keep its word about the return of the Lockerbie bomber last week. MacAskill said Libya had agreed on a modest reception for al-Megrahi, who was released from prison in Scotland because he is suffering from terminal cancer. However, when he arrived at Tripoli airport, he received a hero’s welcome.

The Scottish government has again defended its decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer. In the US, the decision has been criticized. Scotland’s spokesperson said that: **”Compassionate release is not part of the US justice system but it is part of Scotland’s.”**

Scotland’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill released the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Al-Megrahi is the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. MacAskill made a non reciprocal decision: compassion and mercy for Al-Megrahi although he did not show them to his victims.