Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch BlogPeacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
OTTAWA — A federal New Democrat has teamed up with a Liberal to propose the creation of an army of peace professionals within a new federal department to resolve violent conflicts within Canada and around the world.
(...more)Center for Nonviolent Solutions (CNVS) Will Launch in Worcester
October 17th event includes appearance by Congressman McGovern &
Keynoter Colman McCarthy, Veteran Washington Post Columnist
New community survey results announced on subject of nonviolence
The public is invited to a celebration for the new Center for Nonviolent Solutions on Saturday, October 17, 2009 held at the Worcester Public Library, Saxe Room, from 9:30-11 a.m. The free and open event includes appearances by Congressman James McGovern and by Colman McCarthy, nationally known journalist and lecturer. Additionally, there will be an announcement of a community survey on the subject of nonviolence. The new Center for Nonviolent Solutions, located at the Worcester Friends Meeting House, 901 Pleasant Street in Worcester, seeks to promote alternatives to violence in transforming conflict at the local, national, and international levels. The new Center will provide resources, increase awareness, and facilitate collaboration on the subject of nonviolence. For more information, visit www.nonviolentsolution.org or call 774-641-1566 or 508-747-8228.
Mahatma Gandhi and his world-recognized initiatives for establishment of peace and non-violence are no more confined to India and its people alone with the whole humanity across the globe resolving to follow his footprints in letter and spirit. The first official move came from United Nations General Assembly, which in 2007 had declared the observance of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s birthday on 2nd of October every year as the International Day of Non-Violence. Two years later, the second move comes from another world body, UNESCO, which is all set to approve New Delhi’s proposal for having an UNESCO Category-I Institute to be named after Mahatma Gandhi. Thus India is poised to become the first country in Asia to have such an institute to promote the peace efforts of the Father of the Nation. The Executive Body of UNESCO has approved India’s proposal to set up Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development.
(...more)DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Lawyer Mary Ann Arnado became the first recipient of the World Vision International Peace Prize for her efforts to build a just and lasting peace in Mindanao.
Arnado was honored for helping facilitate a dialogue between Moro rebels and the government.
(...more)Many months back I had interviewed General (Retd) Thenoselie, a former comrade-in -arms of senior leaders like Isak Chishi Swu, SS Khaplang, Th Muivah and General Khole. At that time, the work being done by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) was only beginning to unfold. I remember there was an air of expectancy as well as skepticism in the minds of many ordinary Nagas.
(...more)In this month’s Underreported Struggles: Canadian mining company bows out of Chiapas; Malaysian police tear down Penan blockades; Ecuador’s Indigenous movement Mobilizes for the Water; Landowners threaten to shut down Barrick mine; Algonquins blockade logging companies.
(...more)WASHINGTON – The Obama Administration and the Burmese Military junta has initiated the US-Burma dialogue process with their first meeting, amidst call from the Burmese monks that there should be time line for such a dialogue process.
(...more)Here at Harvard and MIT, I’m getting to read more history of science–and from the introduction to the classic scientific work The Skeptical Chemist of 1661, I find this great passage that has much bearing on how we discuss contentious issues like science and religion today:
(...more)…I am not sorry to have this Opportunity of giving an example how to manage even Disputes with Civility; whence perhaps some Readers will be assisted to discern a Difference betwixt Bluntness of Speech and Strength of reason, and find that a man may be a Champion for Truth, without being an Enemy to Civility; and may confute an Opinion without railing at Them that hold it; To whom he that desires to convince and not to provoke them, must make some amends by his Civility to their Persons, for his severity to their mistakes; and must say as little else as he can, to displease them, when he says they are in an error.
In a special meeting presided over by President Obama, on September 24, 2009, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. It is the first evidence that the U.S. strategy for achieving an eventual “world without nuclear weapons†is paying off.
(...more)BEIJING – Peace has now more or less returned to a part of Myanmar which erupted in violence last month, pushing thousands of refugees into China, the country’s ambassador to Beijing was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
(...more)WASHINGTON — A senior US diplomatic official was to meet Tuesday with a delegation from Myanmar on the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting, the State Department said.
(...more)October 2 is the UN International Day of Nonviolence, celebrated on the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. See news
If Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia’s father had had his way, his son would have followed him into the profession of wrestling…
As it happened, the boy had completely different ideas, which his father was not happy about.
Internationally acclaimed flute player Hariprasad Chaurasia will be in concert this Thursday (as part of the Shared History: The Indian Experience in South Africa festival) along with young South African pianist Jan Hugo.
The concert commemorates Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and the international day of non-violence, the following day, October 2.
Born in 1938 at Allahabad, the young Hariprasad Chaurasia was scared of his wrestler father and ended up having to learn music secretly.
(...more)Friday, 2 October 2009 to Sunday, 3 January 2010
The World March will begin in New Zealand on October 2, 2009, the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, declared the “International Day of Nonviolence†by the United Nations. It will conclude in the Andes Mountains (Punta de Vacas, Aconcagua, Argentina) on January 2, 2010. The March will last 90 days, three long months of travel. It will pass through all climates and seasons, from the hot summer of the tropics and the deserts, to the winter of Siberia. The American and Asian stages will be the longest, both almost a month. A permanent base of a hundred people of different nationalities will complete the journey.
(...more)“When I sit in jail thinking of war and peace and the problem of human freedom,” Dorothy Day once wrote, “of jails, drug addiction, prostitution and the apathy of great masses of people who believe that nothing can be done–when I thought of these things I was all the more confirmed in my faith in the little way of St. Thérèse. We do the things that come to hand, we pray our prayers and beg also for an increase of faith–and God will do the rest.”
Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Edith Stein, Mother Teresa and millions of others have pondered Thérèse’s life and her ordinary witness of extraordinary love. Some dismiss her as a saccharine neurotic, but anyone who tries to practice her spirituality of sacrificial love quickly realizes how hard it is, how strong she was, and how transforming her personal nonviolence can be for all of us. As we celebrate her feast on October 1st, we do well to learn again from her how to practice interpersonal nonviolence.
(...more)A few days ago I asked what rights corporations should have. That posting generated some useful comments, but some of those comments, and other things I’ve been reading online, suggested an animosity to the very notion of rights for corporations and the legal personhood that goes along with it.
So, I’ll put this forward succinctly: legal personhood for corporations is not optional…
This point does not imply any particular list of rights: the items on that list, and the limits thereon, are still very much up for debate….
(...more)Republican or Democrat, Protestant or Catholic, right or wrong? That formulation is the basis of most human dialogue. Either I am right or I am wrong. More definitively, you are right or I am right. It can’t possibly be both.
And so it goes; family conflict, church conflict, health care policy, legislative reform. We must choose one position over the other. This false dichotomy has immobilized discourse and limited achievement and innovation. Why is it that debates can only be won or lost?
(...more)On Friday 25 September 2009, the Israeli authorities at Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv, denied entry to CPTer Seán O’Neill. They told O’Neill, a U.S. citizen, that Israel’s Ministry of Interior had ordered the denial of entry. In response to enquiries from O’Neill’s lawyer, the Israeli authorities stated that the ban was due to a court appearance by O’Neill and Joe Wyse (to whom the Israeli authorities denied entry earlier this month) in March 2009, despite the fact that an Israeli judge had ordered them released without charges.
(...more)Saturday, 26 September 2009 to Tuesday, 29 September 2009
The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is honoured to host His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Vancouver, September 26-29, 2009 for the Vancouver Peace Summit: Nobel Laureates in Dialogue. Joining the Dalai Lama will be Nobel Laureates: Archbishop Desmond Tutu [cancelled], Jody Williams, Mairead McGuire and Betty Williams, as well as a number of respected international leaders from the realms of education, the arts, business, politics and social transformation.
(...more)Title: An Evening with Michael Tsur: Negotiating With My Brother and My Enemy
Date: Sunday, October 4
Time: 7pm
Place: Synagogue, 1461 Blanshard St (corner of Pandora)
Fee: By donation
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear about mediation in Israel, from one of the founders of conflict resolution in Israel.
Michael Tsur is the founder and director of the first center for mediation and conflict resolution in Israel. He was also a partner in the establishment of the National Center for Conflict Resolution and Mediation in the Ministry of Justice, and one of the founders and the chairman of the Israeli Association of Mediators. He is regarded as an expert in the areas of negotiation, conflict management, mediation and conflict resolution, interpersonal communication, family and divorce, commercial and business law. He has mediated hundreds of cases and has initiated many mediation related conferences. He was involved with preparing police and army for removing settlers from Gaza when it was given back, and has worked with the IDF to retrieve hostages. This stimulating and thoughtful evening is a “don’t miss”.
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