Marino Busdachin of the Federal Council of the Radical Party read an exhaustive report on the 5 petitions proposed by the Radicals in the Soviet Union concerning the request of a law on conscientious objection, the abolition of the norms that restrict the free circulation and the abolition of visas, a law for the safeguard of the environment and for the abrogation of the death penalty and a proposal to open a European federalist debate between the European Community and the Soviet Union.

In the course of the debate, that lasted 4 hours, Irina Podlessova, Nikolaij Khramov, Sasha Pronozin, Juris Lomanovskis, Pavel Belij and many others intervened.

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Soviet Union

SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS. PRESIDENT LANDSBERGIS OPENS THE SESSION. A RADICAL DELEGATION PRESENT.

Leningrad, 2 September 1990. Over 1500 people coming from all parts of the world took part in the Second International Conference on Human Rights. This conference followed the one held in 1988 in Krakow, Poland. Originally it had been decoded to hold it in Vilnius, Lithuania, but the Soviet government denied the permission. It is only thanks to the work carried out by the Mayor of Leningrad, Anatoli Sobchak and by other radical deputies of the Soviet that the conference could finally be held in Leningrad.

The conference was opened by the President of Lithuania Landsberghis, followed by the speeches of the President of the Human Rights Commission of the Polish Senate, Zbigniew Romaszewski and of Anatoli Sobchak.

The radical delegation was composed by Lorenzo Strik Lievers of the European Federalist Group at the Italian Senate, Marino Busdachin of the Federal Council of the Radical Party, Irina Podlessova, Nikolaij Khramov, Sasha Pronozin, Soviet radicals, Pavel Timco, Czechoslovakian Radical.

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Hungary

THE RADICAL PARTY MEETS A DELEGATION OF THE RUMANIAN ENVIRONMENTALIST AND HUMANIST PARTY.

Budapest, 4 September 1990. A meeting was held in the offices of the Radical Party with the Rumanian Environmentalist and Humanist Party, based in Arad, Banat. Emil Iovanescu, Massimo Lensi and Olivier Dupuis were part of the radical delegation. The Environmentalist and Humanist party was represented by its vice-presidents, Gheorghe Nicolaita, former member of the temporary Rumanian Assembly, Calin Marcel Hotaran and by its treasurer, Vasile Oprea.

Both parts agreed to cooperate as from now on the European environmental and federalist themes. Moreover, the Rumanian guests showed great interest in the Radical Party as such. Another meeting, to be held at the end of September in Rumania, has already been established, with the aim of better defining the terms of the cooperation and to collect the first memberships to the transnational and transpartisan Radical party that the Rumanians counted on.

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Italy-Cuba

DEATH PENALTY: ITALY PROPOSES A THREE-YEAR MORATORIUM FOR ALL CAPITAL EXECUTIONS IN THE WORLD AT THE UNITED NATIONS.

STATEMENT BY PAOLO PIETROSANTI.

Rome, 5 September 1990. In a statement delivered to the press, Paolo Pietrosanti, federal counsellor of the radical party and one of the founders and activists of the "Do Not Kill Coordination", among other things stated: "The proposal made in Havana by the Italian delegation at the United Nations Against Crime Congress of a three-year suspension of the death penalty in all countries of the world, allowing also to consider, in the course of the same suspension, the final suppression of capital punishment, is the first act - apparently - by which the Italian government fulfils the commitment entrusted to it by the Parliament (...)". The initiative assumed by Havana is in itself important, but seems to be a cheap alibi to cover the non-fulfilment of the Executive, which could and should have acted with far more energy for the enforcement of the parliamentary deliberations that were the result of major civil mobilizations.

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*** Italy

MARCO PANNELLA AT THE FESTA DELL'UNITA'.

Modena, 5 September 1990. For the first time, in Modena, a radical took part in a debate at the Festival dell'Unità. Marco Pannella, together with Vittoria Foa (editor of the Communist Party's newspaper, L'Unità) and Claudio Petruccioli, (of the Communist Party's secretariat) discussed the relation between liberal-democratic values and the birth of a new party from the Communist Party and from other Italian political forces, and especially of the relation between radical party and communist party.

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*** Italy

ASSEMBLY OF MEMBERS

Modena, 5 September 1990. About 250 members took part in the "assembly of the members of Northern and Central-Northern Italy in Modena". The meeting, which was presided by Marco Pannella, Sergio Stanzani, Paolo Vigevano and Emma Bonino, was attended by the elected radical members and by the former elected in Parliament, in the regions, in the main municipalities.

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*** Italy

PRISONS: DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PIERLUIGI CONCUTELLI, PRISONER, MEMBER OF THE RADICAL PARTY, INTERROGATION PRESENTED TO THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE.

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Rome, 10 September 1990. In their interrogation to the Minister of Justice, members of Parliament Mauro Mellini and Peppino Calderisi, members of the Radical party, ask if the fact of not granting Pierluigi Concutelli (presently detained in the prison of Rebibbia serving a 14 year sentence) the permission to visit his mother, who is dying, is not a voluntary discrimination against a prisoner member of the radical party and active in the battle for the respect of the rights of prisoners.

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Italy

ELECTORAL REFORM. LIMIT AND ALLIANCE ARE A COUNTER-REFORM. THE REFERENDUM THAT PROPOSES THE UNINOMINAL SYSTEM IS THE ONLY POSSIBILITY FOR A TRUE REFORM.

Rome, 11 September 1990. In reply to those who attack the initiative of the referendums for a reform of the electoral system, Peppino Calderisi, president of the European parliamentary federalist group at the Chamber of Deputies among other things stated: "The proposal of the threshold and of the alliances is not a reform but a counter-reform. Making all the other parties into satellites of the Christian Democrat Party, of the Communist Party and of the Socialist Party does not ensure the governability, nor does one reform the political system, but on the contrary this will increase its present defects. (...)"

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Czechoslovakia

OPEN LETTER OF THANKS FROM THE CZECHOSLOVAKIAN RADICALS TO PRIME MINISTER CALFA.

Prague, 13 September 1990. In their letter to Prime Minister Calfa, radicals Pietrosanti, Soukop and Stokar among other things wrote: "convinced that the only way to construct a united Europe based on democracy and freedom is that of creating common institutions, common rules and laws: a European federal state, with a government and a parliament, in other words the United States of Europe, (we thank you) for the things you wrote in the letter you have sent to President Jacques Delors". And especially that "the Czechoslovakian government is interested in starting survey negotiations on the adhesion to the European Community already next autumn" and that it "considers the expansion and the growth of the political, economic, financial, scientific, technological, ecological, legal and cultural cooperation with the European communities its foreign policy priority".

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Czechoslovakia

THE RADICALS MAKE A PRESENT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH MILTON FRIEDMAN TO THE MAIN INFORMATION ORGANS.

Prague, 13 September 1990. In the occasion of the visit to Czechoslovakia of Nobel Prize for Economics Milton Friedman (a private visit, during which Friedman however met the Czechoslovakian economic and financial ministers and granted interviews), the radicals sent the editors of the main information organs the translation of an interview granted by Friedman to Le Figaro, in which he takes a strong stance in favour of an antiprohibitionist policy on drugs.

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Italy

PRISONS: LETTER OF THE PRISONERS TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC AND TO ALL ITALIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS.

Rome, 14 September 1990. After a long tour of Italian penitentiaries last summer, radicals Emilio Vesce (antiprohibitionist regional councillor) and Alessandro Tessari (member of Parliament, member of the European federalist group) sent the letters of the prisoners of Porto Azzurro and Gorgona to the President of the Republic and to all Italian parliamentarians. In this letter, the prisoners urge the intervention of the President of the Republic so that pardon will not be an act of benevolence, but an act of justice. In fact, after the launching of the new Code of Penal Procedure a difference has emerged in dealing with prisoners who have been judged with the old code and those that are judged with the new one. An institutionalized injustice which is felt by the prisoners every day.

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Soviet Union

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: INFORMATION

Moscow, 16 September 1990. During the demonstrations for the dismissal of the Soviet government, the muscovite radicals distributed over one thousand leaflets explaining their initiatives for the acknowledgement of conscientious objection in the Soviet Union.

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Italy-Yugoslavia

PRESS CONFERENCE BY MARCO PANNELLA

Rome, 19 September 1990. Situation in Kossovo, initiatives of the Radical Party in Yugoslavia, EEC/Yugoslavia relations: these were the topics dealt with by the European parliamentarian Marco Pannella in his meeting with the journalists.

According to Pannella, the news coming from Kossovo are extremely serious. The extremely harsh policy enacted by the Serbian government is literally incomprehensible. What is comprehensible but serious is the situation of impotence of the Central government. Another aspect that is generally disregarded by the observers is the extremely delicate and dramatic situation of any person in Serbia who refuses to agree with the Republic's policy. According to Pannella, there is an increasing risk that the nationalist policy of the Government will result in the loss of the few political and civil democratic formal liberties of the Serbian citizen as such. For these reasons, Pannella believes it necessary to firmly resume the activity of the Radical Party on this front.

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Italy-European Community

PANNELLA CONSULTS ANDREOTTI ON THE SITUATION IN KOSSOVO

Rome, 17 September 1990. During the meeting of the political Commission of the European Parliament with Giulio Andreotti, President for a semester of the EEC, Marco Pannella intervened on the issue of Kossovo, listing a series of particularly alarming news, and especially:

1. the confiscation on the part of the Serbian authorities of all food aids destined for the Albanian population;

2. the dismissal of all Albanians working in public firms (corresponding to 15% of the active population);

3. the forced closing down of 1,400 private Albanian firms;

4. the lay-off and the replacement of all Albanian physicians with Serbian staff;

5. the complete isolation of at least three villages in Kossovo, circled by the Serbian police, which does not allow the inhabitants to move or to have contacts with the outside world.

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*** Yugoslavia

OVER 200 PEOPLE AT THE ASSEMBLY WITH MARCO PANNELLA AT THE DOM OMLADINE

Belgrade, 23 September 1990. "We are here to operate in defence of human rights in Kossovo. There is no state reason to justify the repression against the Albanian minority in the formerly-autonomous region of Kossovo. We are here because we want a democratic Yugoslavia in the United States of Europe".

"The Serbian policy as regards Kossovo must change. If the Commission of the European Parliament on Yugoslavia will not consider to need to come to Belgrade, as it has not being doing for almost a year, then we radicals will bring thirty parliamentarians here in Serbia in order to attempt to impose a dialogue and to stop a policy which is leading Yugoslavia to disaster and a civil war."

These were the words with which Marco Pannella started his speech at the debate organized by the radical party yesterday in Belgrade. In spite of the late hour, the events followed one another until two o' clock in the morning, when, for technical reasons, it was no longer possible to continue. The debate, at times even fiercely polemic, enable many citizens of Belgrade to express their opinion freely on topics unfairly considered taboo in the Serbian capital.

the debate was also attended by many Serbian nationalists, the presence of which, it was feared, might have impeached the meeting, but all went well; so much that toward the end even some young Albanians intervened. Among those who intervened in the debate: Lazar Stojanovic, director, Slobodan Lang, editorialist, Vito Cesmadziski and Marino Busdachin of the Federal Council of the Radical Party.

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*** Yugoslavia

MEETING BETWEEN THE RADICAL PARTY AND THE PARTY FOR DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL-LEAGUE OF COMMUNISTS OF CROATIA.

Zagreb, 24 September 1990. Marco Pannella and the radical delegation made of Marino Busdachin, Alexandre De Perlinghi and Vito Cesmadziski of the Federal Council, and by Diana Rexepi, met the leadership of the Party for Democratic Renewal-League of Croatian Communists, headed by its President Ivica Racan and by Branko Caratan and Sdravko Tomaz, vice-presidents.

The meeting was held in Zagreb at the offices of the Central Committee, and lasted over three hours. Marco Pannella suggested to the Croatian communists to continue with a series of meetings between the Radical Party and the Slovenian and Croatian reformist formerly communist parties, on a series of points relative to the Yugoslavian Federation, human rights in Kossovo and the process of constitution of the United States of Europe.

Racan and Caratan declared themselves willing to continue the contacts and to find a solution together leading to concrete proposals. Finally, Marco Pannella said: "The present Yugoslavian policy, if it does not change, will lead both Serbia and Yugoslavia to a disaster, enhancing nationalist extremism, the only aim of which is one: the disappearance of Yugoslavia".

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*** Yugoslavia

THE RADICAL PARTY MEETS THE CROATIAN LIBERAL-SOCIALIST PARTY.

Zagreb, 24 September 1990. The radical delegation made of Marco Pannella, Marino Busdachin, Alexandre De Perlinghi, Diana Rexepi and Vito Cesmadzinski met yesterday in Zagreb with the president of the Croatian Liberal-Socialist Party, Budisa. The meeting highlighted many possibilities of an agreement for common initiatives between the two parties.

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*** Italy

REFORM OF THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND REFERENDUM

Prague, 26 September 1990. In an article published on the Communist Party's daily newspaper, L'Unità, Peppino Calderisi, president of the European Federalist Group and member of the Radical Party, among other things wrote: "(...) The aim of the referendums is not only the modification of the electoral law, but that of causing, through a radically different electoral system, a reform of the parties and of politics. To maintain the proportional system would mean to maintain the instrument that preserves the existing balance. (...) the tendentiously majority and uninominal system, creating a radical shuffling , would not privilege any of the exisiting parties, but force all of then to a radical renewal of political strategies and behaviours, on the basis of the choice of the persons to choose and appreciate."

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*** Italy - Europe - Gulf

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY CONCERNING SECURITY

Rome, 26 October 1990. The deputies of the European Federalist Group, the members of the radical Party, Cicciomessere, Calderisi, Bonino, Stanzani and Tessari, presented a proposal on the question of security and European unification.

The Chamber of Deputies,

- considering that the present mechanisms of political cooperation of the European Community provided in the 1986 Single Act do not consent EEC Europe to assume the full and democratic responsibility on security and defence;

- considering the simple transposition of the competences of the WEU (Western European Union) in the context of the European political cooperation to be insufficient;

- considering the increasingly urgent necessity for the European Community to be present as such in international affairs as such and in the management of the present Gulf crisis, also in order to no longer charge others with the effective decision on the political and military measures to be taken to re-establish the respect of international law;

commits the government

- to formally charge the European Council summoned for 27-28 October with the examination of a formal proposal to extend the competences of the European Community and its organs to matters of security and defence in order to assign a special mandate to the intergovernmental Conference on European Union, which will meet December 15;

- to adequately support the proposal suggesting the representation of the European Community in the context of the United Nations Security Council in the adequate EEC and international organs.

==================================================================*** Luxembourg - Europe - Africa-Caribbean-Pacific

DEATH PENALTY: THREE YEAR SUSPENSION

Luxembourg, 28 September 1990. On initiative of Marco Taradash, antiprohibitionist member of the European Parliament and member of the Radical Party's Federal Council, a motion requesting a three year suspension for all capital executions has been approved by the equal-basis PE-ACP assembly (the ACP are 66 countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, connected, through a series of special agreements, to the European Community.

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*** Hungary

DEATH PENALTY: IVAN PETO SIGNS

Budapest, 30 September 1990. The deputy of the Free Democrats (SzDz) at Parliament, Ivan Peto, signed the Radical Party's petition requesting the complete abolition of capital punishment.