Raul Connolly

Photographer David Hoffman had his London home visited by British police on the day of the May 6 general elections. They forcibly removed a poster from his window featuring a photo of Conservative Party leader (and now prime minister) David Cameron and the word “wanker”, the British Guardian said on May 11. Hoffman said police threatened him with arrest and handcuffed him during the visit, claiming the poster was “offensive campaign material”. Hoffman said police “went completely over the top”, the Guardian reported.
“The time of big energy was supposed to have faded with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency”, Billy Wharton wrote in a May 12 www.counterpunch.org article. “Then, a humble Coloradan, with a cowboy hat that seemed permanently affixed to his head, named Ken Salazar ambled to the microphone to accept Obama’s nomination to be the new Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI).”
Cuba provides the best conditions for motherhood among developing countries, Save the Children's State of the World's Mothers 2010 report has found. The Times of India reported on May 5 that the report “examines 160 countries — 43 developed and 117 developing ones — and analyses the best and worst places to be a mother based on 10 factors such as the educational status, health, economic circumstances of the mothers, as well as the basic well-being of children”.
A British lawyer has launched a campaign to have the mass destruction of ecosystems recognised by the United Nations as a serious crime on par with crimes against humanity and genocide, the April 9 British Guardian said.
Burma Campaign Australia said on March 30 that Burma political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), will not register in the forthcoming national election in Burma.
More than 20 African countries are selling or leasing land for intensive agriculture on a shocking scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era, a March 10 Alternet.org article said.
“At least 11 people have been injured by Israeli air strikes targeting Gaza's airport, Palestinian officials say”, BBC News reported on March 20.
Bolivia’s foreign minister David Choquehuanca said on February 8 that Bolivia is very concerned about the inadequacy of the greenhouse gas reduction commitments made by developed countries in the Copenhagen Accord at the United Nations climate summit in December, PWCCC.wordpress.com said.
US rock group the White Stripes has protested at what it says is the unauthorised use of an instrumental version of its song “Fell in Love With a Girl” in a recruiting ad for the US military, the New York Times said on February 9.
There has been much ink spilled in the corporate press about the number of dollars and soldiers being committed to Haiti by “the international community”, but as a January 20 US ABC News headline bluntly put it: “In rebuilding Haiti, opportunity knocks and companies profit.”
The revival of death squads in Honduras has resulted in a significant increase in the abduction, rape, torture and murder of opponents of the regime that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya last June.
Thirty Thomas Cook workers involved in a four-day occupation of the travel companies Graffon Street premises in Dublin were forcibly evicted by police., the August 4 Irish Times said.