Region

Paris –The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today Octobre 31, 2011 voted to admit Palestine as a full member of the Paris-based agency.

UNESCO’s General Conference, the agency’s highest ruling body, took the decision by a vote of 107 in favour to 14 against, with 52 abstentions, according to a news release.

Police send warning letters to students arrested (but not necessarily convicted) during previous demonstrations, announce publicly “pre-approved” use of baton rounds and rubber bullets, warn teachers not to allow schoolchildren to leave the classroom to attend the demo and turn up in huge numbers to the November 9th students demonstration in Central London.

“I think that everyone involved in or studying Occupy or Town Square or 15M and the Arab uprisings should consider that this is a ‘Values’ based movement, not an ideologically driven one. We should throw away our group banners, our more superficial reasons for being involved, and take on the core value of simply actively, non-violently expressing our wish for a better world.”

We reproduce here some background information about the campaign to prevent a Naval Base (considered to be part of the US “Star Wars” antibalistic misile system) to be constructed in Jeju Island. In the last few hours a group of the most central activists have been arrested. Some are facing very significant jail terms as they are already on probation.

The original number of 20 Dutch police trainers was recently cut by half. The higher ranking officers would be given an eight-week follow-up course to basic training is also being suggested that Afghan police trainers could shadow their Dutch and German counterparts. Final decisions, will not be taken until after the Afghanistan Conference at the beginning of December.

Chile is facing new social mobilizations starting on Sunday to protest against the country´s institutionalism, inherited from the Pinochet military dictatorship.
A family march is announced for Sunday afternoon, starting in the Alameda of Santiago, to demand free and public education and a law-abiding plebiscite as an exercise of the will to face the country’s problems.

Among countries that have moved from the periphery to the core, China has acquired a place of pride in a world that is no longer steered by the industrialized states of yesteryear. President Hu Jintao surfaced from the G20 summit in Cannes, as sagacious leader of a country whose ascent to the status of a new superpower was speeded up after the financial crisis in 2008.

We reproduce here a report from the [Robin Hood Tax](http://robinhoodtax.org/latest/g20-verdict) campaign website in relation to the meeting of the G20. Who supports it, who will try to block it and how it could help the Eurozone emerge from its current crisis. As even some bankers are now talking about being responsible, the momentum for this tax keeps growing.

Evolution is through the path called ‘Imagination’. Not many centuries ago the end to slavery would have appeared as a utopia to a large number of people, until the moment when someone dared to imagine it. As Albert Einstein said: “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” World without Wars and without Violence makes a call to imagine a different world

As the Canadian and the Irish two ships approach and are too close to reach the Gaza’s Harbor, Israel has begun a massive propaganda-offensive against the new “flotilla” which set sail from Turkey on last Wednesday, carrying medical supplies, medicines and humanitarian support for the impoverished people from Gaza Strip.