Italy, 9-15 November - The purpose of the visit to Italy of the Health Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Umar Khanbiev, member of the General Council of the Transnational Radical Party, accompanied by the Radical European Member of Parliament, Olivier Dupuis and by the Radical regional Councillor Carmelo Palma [link],was to denounce the genocide of the Chechen people currently in progress, and to promote a concrete peace proposal - the "Akhmadov" Plan for a United Nations administration in Chechnya, supported by the Transnational Radical Party.
A few days before, during the visit of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to Italy, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, had declared that the media should stop "spreading myths" about Chechnya. Khanbiev invited Berlusconi to meet and listen to the Chechen President, Aslan Maskhadov, announcing the latter's willingness for such a meeting.
Others who reacted to Berlusconi's words included the Secretary of the Italian Radicals, Daniele Capezzone, ("someone stop him, please"),the President of the Radical Members of the European Parliament, Maurizio Turco (who recalled other cancelled "myths", such as the assassination of radicals Antonio Russo and Andrea Tamburi) and the already mentioned Olivier Dupuis, who defined them as "expressions of arrogance and cynicism".

Rome, 6 November - The Italian Government, in the Chamber of Deputies, declared its definitive renunciation of presenting the pro moratorium resolution on capital executions in the UN General Assembly; what is more, it made changes to the two motions put forward by the parliamentary majority so as to exclude any specific commitment in the General Assembly for the adoption of the pro moratorium resolution, in spite of the previous pronouncements by the Italian and European Parliaments. For the first time the Italian Parliament was divided during a vote on the death penalty: 236 votes were in favour of the motions (all the centre-right groups) and 202 contrary (opposition Members of Parliament). For Hands off Cain, the Italian Government, in its lack of conviction and therefore of credibility, has not only consolidated the positions of abolition fundamentalists in Europe, but has literally killed off any concrete chance of arriving at the complete abolition of the death penalty in the short-term, that is, through the UN moratorium on capital executions.

Brussels, 13-14 November - The group of Radical Members of the European Parliament organised, in the offices of the European Parliament in Brussels, the conference with the title "Reform of the European Union: from the Altiero Spinelli Project to the work of the Intergovernmental Conference", with the participation of European Members of Parliament, experts, exponents of the European federalist Union, as well as the Turkish Ambassador at the EU, Oguz Demiralp, and Haim Ramon, member of the Israeli Knesset for the Labour Party.

Venice, 14-15 November - Emma Bonino spoke at the meeting organised by the Liberal Foundation on the theme of the Middle East and on transatlantic relations. She put forward the proposal of the International Crises Group to draw up a plan which was binding in its various phases, to be submitted to a referendum both in Israel and in the Palestinian Administration territories, underlining the fragility of the Road Map, since it's lacking any sanctioning mechanisms. It appeared from the debate that the racist vision, in which democracy would be difficult to adapt to non-western societies, appears to have been finally overcome, claims Bonino, even if, on an international level, there is still very little consideration of how to realistically promote democracy and the appropriateness of making recourse to civil and non-violent actions, to "weapons of mass appeal".
In an interview with the Corriere della Sera on Iraq, Bonino indicated the need to work for the exile of Saddam Hussein, as a Radical proposal.

New York, 6 November - The UN has decided not to decide on the total ban of every type of human cloning (both reproductive and therapeutic) and to postpone by two years the drawing up of an international treaty. This is the result of the vote of the legal commission of the UN General Assembly on the postponement proposal put forward by Iran, approved with 80 votes in favour, 79 against and 15 abstentions. The Luca Coscioni Association had sent, through Emma Bonino and Rita Bernardini, a letter to Kofi Annan with the signatures of more than two thousand scientists and academics requesting the freedom of scientific research. In the meantime, in the European Parliament, the Radicals are continuing their commitment to unblock funds for research on staminal cells from embryos in excess, while in Italy it is trying to prevent the approval of a law, on Medically Assisted Procreation, which drastically limits reproduction medicine and destroys the hopes of sick people [link].

Brussels, 3 November - The seven Italian Radical Members of the European Parliament, sent a letter of support to their Jamaican colleagues that are evaluating Seven Recommendations issued by the Jamaican Government to reform the status of Ganja within Jamaican Law. Prof. Arnold Trebach, Chairman of the Board of Advisors of the International Antiprohibitionist League, and member of the TRP General Council also contributed with a statement. Parliament is set to discuss the issue on November 26."a good beginning".

Paris, 27 October - The International Buddhist Information Agency has launched an appeal to support the non-violent movement of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), run by Vo Van Ai, member of the TRP General Council, further to the strengthening of restrictive measures adopted by the Vietnamese government. Despite promises of greater religious tolerance made during the meeting in April 2003 between the Prime Minister, Phan Van Khai, and the UBCV Patriarch, the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, the Vietnamese government reacted to a peaceful assembly of the UBCV monks with arbitrary arrests, besides the imprisonment, incommunicado, of the two leaders of the UBCV - the Ven. Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do - , with the charge, still not formally announced, but punishable by death, of "transmitting State secrets".

Brussels, 13 November - The president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, has responded to the request of Radical Member of the European Parliament, Marco Cappato, that action should be taken to revoke the appointment of the Tunisian general, Abib Ammar, as President of the National Organising Committee of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will be held in Tunis in November 2005. ). Cox has sent a letter to Ben Ali, President of Tunisia "urging a review of the appointment of General Ammar" and has contacted Omar Bakhet, Director of the UN contact office with the EU, to press for the intervention of the United Nations.

Brussels, 10 November - Marco Cappato, European Parliamentary spokesman on privacy, has filed a formal protest with the European Commission regarding the illegal transfer of his personal data to the United states, requesting the Commission to initiate procedures against airline companies that breach European regulations on the protection of data.

Rome, 30 October-2 November - The general motion approved at the second Italian Radicals Congress identified the denunciation of the "Italian Case" as a priority, that is, the systematic illegality present in Italy, deciding upon a Satyagraha aimed at obtaining a monitoring programme for the forthcoming European elections from international organisations such as the UN, the EU, OSCE and the Council of Europe. Besides the strengthening of the Committee of observers on the "Italian Case", other areas of initiatives are those directed towards the "United States of Europe and America", the constitution of "Radical groups" in the Italian Parliament, opposition to the law on assisted fertilisation, the creation of a "crisis unit" for liberal economic reforms, the preparation within 30 days of a project for the presentation of Movement lists at the forthcoming European elections, starting from the idea of an "Anti-prohibitionist and anticlerical list", and finally the commitment of the Italian Radicals to support the Transnational Radical Party.

Rome, 2 November - Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation and member of the TRP General Council, and the Lebanese human rights defence lawyer, Muhamad Mugraby, were present at the second Italian Radicals Congress. Kok Ksor thanked the Transnational Radical Party for its support in the UN - for which the TRP risks losing its advisory status upon the request of the Vietnamese government - and for the radio programme "The Voice of Degar", thanks to which it's possible to return to the Degar people a part of the right to information to which they have been denied. Kok Ksor underlined how the choice of non-violence has been difficult to sustain, but at the same time, was the only possible choice. Muhamad Mugraby spoke of a Lebanon held hostage to a still more repressive regime, that of Syria, and called for a joint effort by Europe and North America in the promotion of democracy and rule of law throughout the region south of the Mediterranean. Mugraby also underlined the need for countries in the area to arrive at a clear separation between State and Church as an essential prerequisite for the development of freedom, as well as the need to free the information media from the monopoly of the regimes.

from 7 to 8 December, in Brussels, the Radical Members of the European Parliament are organising a "European Radical Conference" on the following themes: 1) Constitution (immediate or not) of the European Radical Party; 2) Constitution (immediate or not) of the promoting Committee for the United States of America and of Europe; 3) For European federalist reform in consideration of the counter-reforms in progress and on the increase. To take part: link

Presentation of the General Councillors of the Transnational Radical Party: In this issue: Olivia Ratti | Vo Van Ai | Umar Khanbiev