As indigenous peoples, we are extremely concerned that the principles agreed upon in the Cochabamba People鈥檚 Agreement have been unilaterally removed from the negotiating document [for the Cancun climate conference] that was released on November 24.
Equally alarming is the misrepresentation of the Copenhagen Accord as a legitimate path forward, despite its widespread denouncement by civil society and its tepid reception last December in Denmark, when the United Nations merely 鈥渢ook note of鈥 it.
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The Cuban Communist Party has called its Sixth Congress for April. It has presented a document for discussion that proposes economic and political reforms to be implement over the next five years.
The proposals are outlined in the 鈥淭he Economic and Social Policy Development Project鈥, a 32-page pamphlet that establishes 291 鈥渓ines of action鈥.
The document covers: the economic management model; macroeconomic and foreign economic policies; investment, agro-industrial and energy plans; and initiatives in the tourism, transport, construction and trade sectors.
One of the features of advances in military technology is that an increasing proportion of those killed in wars are civilians, not combatants.
During the 20th century, airstrikes became the preferred form of warfare by technologically well-resourced superpowers. This led to civilians becoming the majority of those killed in wars worldwide.
In the first decade of the new century, new developments in military technology have raised the possibility for powerful countries of increasingly dispensing with combatants entirely.
The United Nations global climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, looks set to repeat the failures of Copenhagen. The chances of Cancun producing a binding agreement that would avert climate disaster are next to zero.
Many world leaders have not even bothered to attend the summit, which runs from November 29 to December 10.
Leaders of rich nations and the media talked much about the 鈥渓ow expectations鈥 of an agreement in the lead-up to the conference.
The Venezuelan government released a statement accusing the United States of provoking the ongoing conflict between North and South Korea to further US interests in the region, Venezuelanalysis.com said November 26.
The statement came amid escalating tensions, as the US and South Korea carried out military exercises in disputed waters North Korea claims as its own.
Many liberal environmentalists say that people must sacrifice some luxuries to save the environment and/or help the world鈥檚 poor. A more equitable sharing of the world鈥檚 resources means some will have to give up a bit.
For the well-off, sacrifice is like charity: giving up a few privileges to make themselves feel better. For such people, the idea of sacrifice tends to reinforce an elitist mentality.
But for poorer, working-class people, sacrifice has a different connotation.
鈥 A secret, US-backed operation had started to remove enriched uranium spent fuel from a Pakistani nuclear reactor research facility.
鈥 The US, Israel and several Middle East countries collaborated to isolate and threaten Iran, and several European countries were revealed to be holding US-owned nuclear weapons on their soil.
More than 250,000 confidential files from United States embassies and consulates around the world sit in the database of whistleblower website Wikileaks.
Latin America Social Forum (Sydney) co-founder and respected Latin American community activist Victor-Hugo Munoz was awarded a Diploma of Honour on December 4 by the Guatemala Network for Peace and Development.
The award acknowledged Munoz鈥檚 tireless, decades-long work in defence of human rights in Guatemala.
Ten activists from the Friends of Palestine WA staged an action outside the Seacret booth at Carousel shopping centre in Perth on November 27. This action was part of the international "boycott, divestment and sanctions" campaign against Apartheid Israel.
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