News stories by Federico Mayor Zaragoza

Apr 20 (IPS) - Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Former Director-General of UNESCO (1987-1999) and president of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace"If we don't do everything possible to democratize globalization, globalization will pervert national democracies", said the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, as President of the "International Panel on Democracy and Development" set up by UNESCO and chaired by the man who had worked so hard, at a global scale, in favour of giving voice to the peoples -as required in the first sentence of the Charter of the United Nations- to allow constant participation from citizenship as should be the rule in a genuine democracy.

We are all going through a period of great confusion and uncertainty.

The world can be fixed if democracy is consolidated and politicians take charge and, rather than cave in to pressure from financial institutions, replace the current speculation-based economy with one based on knowledge, writes Federico Mayor Zaragoza, ex-Director General of UNESCO, President of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and President of IPS News Agency.

The time has come to take a stand, to say calmly and firmly that humanity cannot continue to subject itself to the interminable throes of a system that has resulted in the current grave and multi-faceted (social, financial, food, environmental, political, democratic, ethical) crisis, writes Federico Mayor Zaragoza, ex director-general of UNESCO, president of the Culture of Peace Foundation and president of IPS.