Stuart Munckton

“Constant fighting and threats to health workers have forced the closure of at least 11 of the 38 health facilities across [Kandahar] province, the population of which is estimated at over one million”, provincial health officials said, IRIN reported on September 17.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has been declared “World Hero of Mother Earth” by the United Nationals general assembly, EFE said on August 29.

“The Cuban Five must be released”, Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon said in a televised August 11 speech, an El Habanero article said the following day. Speaking directly to US President Barack Obama, Alarcon said: “You could and should free them immediately.”

“BHP Billiton and two other leading US energy companies operating in Australia have been caught up in a lobbying scandal that was aimed at defeating the landmark US climate change bill”, the Sydney Morning Herald said on August 13.

Anyone with a basic sense of humanity can take heart from the fact that 2DayFM radio host Kyle Sandilands lost his lucrative $1 million contract to judge Australian Idol.

On July 28, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the withdrawal of Venezuela’s ambassador and diplomatic staff in Colombia. His move was in response to the decision by the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to allow five US military bases on Colombian territory.

Afghan prisoners of war at the US military-run prison at Bagram, outside Kabul, have refused to wash or leave their cells in protest at their indefinite imprisonment since at least July 1, the Sydney Morning Herald said on July 17.

“The US Vice-President, Joe Biden, says America will not stand in the way of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities”, a July 7 Sydney Morning Herald article said.

“Business is back on Wall Street”, the July 2 Wall Street Journal said. The WSJ said “lofty pay packets may be set for a come back as well”.

The July 1 Australian carried an extraordinary attack by Ilan Grapel on Green Left Weekly and its monthly Arabic insert the Flame titled “A willing ally to Hamas’s hatred”. Both publications are guilty of a “radical anti-Israel stance”, Grapel said.