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Thunberg Leads Pro-Palestinian, Climate Protest in Milan

Thunberg wore a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel - AFP
Thunberg wore a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel - AFP
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Thunberg Leads Pro-Palestinian, Climate Protest in Milan

Thunberg wore a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel - AFP
Thunberg wore a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel - AFP

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg attended a climate change and pro-Palestinian rally in Milan on Friday, days after her criticism of Israel sparked a row over protests in Germany.

More than 1,000 people, many of them teenagers, joined a peaceful march in the northern Italian city organized by Fridays For Future, the climate change movement Thunberg helped found.

Wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf symbolizing the Palestinian struggle against Israel, Thunberg walked near the front of the procession as other protesters waved flags, held banners and danced to music.

"Palestinians have been living under suffocating oppression for decades by an apartheid regime, and during the last year with Israel's live broadcasted genocide, the world has once again abandoned Palestine," the 21-year-old said in a speech, AFP reported.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza after October 7 attack by Hamas has killed more than 42,000 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Gaza health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures to be reliable.

Thunberg drew a link between global warming and the weapons industry.

"The fight for climate justice is a fight against the fossil fuel industry, just as much as it is a fight against the weapon industries, militarisation and the over-extraction of natural resources," she said.

German police on Tuesday closed a pro-Palestinian protest camp that had invited Thunberg after a rally she attended in Berlin Monday -- the anniversary of the Hamas attack -- ended in clashes with police.

She accused Germany of "silencing and threatening activists".

The Milan march was part of a "national strike for the climate", a series of protests organized by Fridays For Future across Italy.

"Demonstrating is the only weapon we have against the injustice that we suffer," said protester Sofia Parisi, 17.

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Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Japanese Organization of Atomic Bombing Survivors

Tomoyuki Mimaki, representative director of the Nihon Hidankyo, attends a press conference after the group was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima on October 11, 2024. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT
Tomoyuki Mimaki, representative director of the Nihon Hidankyo, attends a press conference after the group was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima on October 11, 2024. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT
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Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Japanese Organization of Atomic Bombing Survivors

Tomoyuki Mimaki, representative director of the Nihon Hidankyo, attends a press conference after the group was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima on October 11, 2024. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT
Tomoyuki Mimaki, representative director of the Nihon Hidankyo, attends a press conference after the group was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima on October 11, 2024. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapon is under pressure,” The Associated Press reported.
He said the Nobel committee “wishes to honor all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.”
Hidankyo chairperson Tomoyuki Mimaki, who was standing by at the Hiroshima City Hall for the announcement, cheered and teared up when he received the news.
“Is it really true? Unbelievable!” Mimaki screamed.
Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honored in the past by the Nobel committee. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the peace prize in 2017, and in 1995 Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won for “their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.”
This year's prize was awarded against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.
“It is very clear that threats of using nuclear weapons are putting pressure on the important international norm, the taboo of using nuclear weapons,” Watne Frydnes said in response to a question on whether the rhetoric from Russia surrounding nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine had influenced this year's decision.
“And therefore it is alarming to see how threats of use is also damaging this norm. To uphold an international strong taboo against the use is crucial for all of humanity,” he added.
Alfred Nobel stated in his will that the peace prize should be awarded for "the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Last year’s prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women’s rights and democracy, and against the death penalty. The Nobel committee said it also was a recognition of “the hundreds of thousands of people” who demonstrated against “Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.”
In a year of conflict, there had been some speculation before the announcement that the Norwegian Nobel Committee that decides on the winner would opt not to award a prize at all this year.
The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The Nobel season ends Monday with the announcement of the winner of the economics prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.