European Youth Voice

The Irish singer and activist Bob Geldof appears together with the German actress Katja Riemann in a critical advertisement about the German G8 presidency. The question raised in the advertisement “The same procedure as every year?” is taken from the New Year’s Eve classic “Dinner for One”. The heads of state and heads of the government of seven most important industrial states and Russia (G8) are challenges to finally take measures against the poverty in Africa. This year the politicans meet in germany.
The video clip can be downloaded here:
www.tagesspiegel.de/videos/dinnerforall.mpg
Minor knowledge of German is necessary

When is the mass murder of people genocide? Is there a difference between the homicides of some hundred or many thousand people? Questions, which lead to headlines every single day, as the case Darfur and the wrangling around a UN resolution, show over and over again. Mass murders that date back a long time still concern the public and especially the offspring of the victims. An international team of 40 researchers wants to put this year for the first time a comprehensive encyclopaedia to mass crime in the Internet. A project, which might cause strong and negative reactions in spite of all care. “The 20-th century was, concerning the destruction of people, one of the most murderous years in the history “, says project initiator Jacques Sémelin of the French study centre for international research (CERI). ” Till this day no data bank collects our knowledge. The encyclopaedia should close this gap. ” Besides, the juridical processing of many crimes is going on. In January 2007 began a process in Iraq against six former followers of Saddam Hussein who should be responsible in 1987 and 1988 for the death of more than 180,000 Kurds. And since January 2007 the international penal court of law deals for ex-Yugoslavia once more with the siege of Sarajevo in which thousands of civilians were killed between 1992 and 1995
Information online: www.massviolence.org

To be a girl leads in many parts of Asia and Africa to a death sentence. The UNICEF report of 2007 in Berlin therefore denounces the abortion of female foetuses. “In India are only 927 girls born compared to 1000 boys, in China there are even less than 900 “, explained a UNICEF speaker. Hence, statistically seen about 100 million women are absent worldwide. “The demographic relation is completely distorted “, one says in the report. UNICEF demanded reinforced investments in the education and the support of women’s groups and the protection of girls and women against discrimination and power of men. From the worldwide 771 million illiterates two thirds are women. Girls have often no access to education. On 100 boys who do not go to school are 115 girls, the report states.

Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Professor of Socialization at the University of Bielefeld, headed various research associations on right-wing extremism, violence, xenophobia, and ethnic-cultural conflicts. In his recently published long term study he published the following figures:
– every second German is xenophobic
– in Eastern Germany even more than 60 % of the population have a xenophobic tendency, in the western part about 46 %.
The results point out: ” where problem zones become visible. It is also about the substance of the democratic order. Deflation of democracy takes place “, according to the leader of the study. 9,968 persons were questioned. for the elevation of the institute of interdisciplinary conflict studies and research of violence of the university of Bielefeld.

The ten SS army officers, who have massacred hundreds of civilians in 1944 in Marazabotto/Italy, will presumably remain unpunished. Indeed, an Italian military court in La Spezia condemned the men to lifelong prison sentences at the beginning of January . Nevertheless, a speaker of the German Ministry of Justice pointed out the fact that a delivery of the convictions is “problematic because the judgments have been made in absence of the defendants.”

The massacres which were retried occurred between the 29th September and the 5th October, 1944. Supposedly to the pursuit of Italian partisans a German division combed the area. The SS people murdered on the worst way in Marzabotto more than 800 people. .

The convicted are according to the court: Paul Albers (88), Josef Baumann (82), Hubert Bichler (87), Max Roithmeier (85), Max Schneider (81), Heinz Fritz Traeger (84), Georg Wache (86), Helmut Wulf (84), Adolf Schneider (87), Kurt Spieler (81)

The leader, the Austrian Walter Reder, was condemned in 1951 to lifelong custody, then was pardoned in 1985.