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David Rovics has been described as the musical voice of the progressive movement in the US. In this interview with Green Left Weekly’s Matt Clark, he explains his motivations, his influences and his take on politics today.

On June 21, Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced that her government would begin to end funding for infrastructure to remote Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities that she deemed were “economically unviable”. This is the Rudd Labor government’s first major attack on Aboriginal land rights since taking power.

Five thousand people attended the vibrant Climate Emergency Rally in Melbourne on June 5. Grassroots environment activists and groups came from all over Victoria to protest numerous environmentally destructive projects currently underway or proposed, demanding action instead be focused on renewable energy and public transport.

Professor Ross Garnaut’s draft review of climate change policy options for the Australian government was released on July 4, with climate change minister Penny Wong due to release a green paper canvassing policy options on July 16. Garnaut’s report looks at the “costs” and “benefits” of mitigating drastic climate change through a carbon polluting trading scheme. It suggests tax cuts and “welfare reform” to compensate low-income households, which will be hit hard by energy price rises.

In full campaign mode, as Bolivia prepares to go to the polls again on August 10 to decide the fate of the president and nine departmental prefects [state governors] in recall referendums, Bolivia’s left-wing indigenous President Evo Morales took time out to speak exclusively to Argentinian journalist Pablo Stefanoni in the presidential palace.

Venezuela’s environment ministry has proclaimed sweeping restrictions on mining in the Imataca Forest, in Venezuela’s south-east, according to a June 27 Venezuelanalysis.com article. Despite this, negotiations over mining permits continue with affected companies.

On July 2, an operation by the Colombian military succeeded in freeing French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who had held her prisoner since 2002. Betancourt was the highest-profile FARC-held prisoner and the action, which also liberated 14 other prisoners, captured world headlines.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has expressed his support for the decision by coca growers in the Chapare region of Cochabamba to expel the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and reaffirmed that he would not “kneel down before the empire”.

The following article is abridged from a June 26 post on http://peruanista.blogspot.com. The full article, along with a series of videos on the struggle, can be found at http://links.org.au.

The last time I saw Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of Burma’s National League for Democracy (NLD), was in 1996.