North America

We present a short amazing video of a conference recently held by Julia Bacha regarding the stories that can change the so called “confirmation bias” (or previous believes) that we all have, and help us open our minds and have a new cognitive resonance or comprehension of a fact that usually we tend to look with some prejudice. Such is the case of non-violence in Palestine.

The Caravan for Peace has demanded the U.S. government to suspend the Plan Merida and admit that its drug policy has a devastating effect on Latin America.
Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, the caravan organizer, said that the USA should admit its responsibility for the violence in Mexico, during a rally in El Paso, Texas, United States, at the end of the caravan protest campaign.

In Wisconsin, more than a thousand Wisconsin workers marched today through Madison Monday to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget repair” bill that slashes collective bargaining rights and funding for education, health care and seniors’ programs. Eight people were arrested.
Pilar Schiavo is participating with National Nurses United.

Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation

The author Maxime Kaufman-Lacusta visited Montreal on May 16th to launch her new book “Refusing to be Enemies”. Kaufman-Lacusta is optimistic regarding the future of Palestinian nonviolence movement. The book is about diverse strategies used by different organizations to struggle against the occupation.

By Randy Rydell*

The world is filled with many serious problems that must be addressed — poverty; racism; illiteracy; contagious diseases; terrorism; injustice; to name only a few.

So why should we bother to focus on nuclear weapons? And why specifically should anybody approach this subject in a Middle East context?

In a landmark step towards lifting more than 370 million indigenous peoples in 90 countries accounting for 15 per cent of the world’s poor out of extreme poverty, 4 UN entities have launched a new initiative to be known as the UN Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership (UNIPP).
It will promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples, aspiring to strengthen their institutions.

A proposed international conference regarding a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, tentatively scheduled for year 2012, may be in jeopardy amid the growing political turmoil sweeping across the Arab world – and Israel’s fears of negative fallout on its own security.

By Thalif Deen
Nuclear Abolition News | IPS |

Abolition 2000 message on the nuclear crisis in Japan and around the world. “In solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of victims and survivors of the nuclear energy and weapons industries we call for an end to nuclear energy and weapons – the human and environmental impact of both being uncontrollable in time and space.”

During this week the United Nations General Assembly discussed international standards that grant nature equal rights to humans. Similar protocols have been adopted by over a dozen U.S. municipalities, as well as Bolivia and Ecuador. Renowned environmentalists Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva join us for this interview.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster – and 6 weeks after the devastating disaster in Japan – 9 Nobel Peace Laureates call upon world leaders to invest in safer forms of renewable energy by sending an open letter to 31 heads of state whose countries are currently heavily invested in nuclear power production, or are considering investing in nuclear power.