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Indonesia has repeatedly fire-bombed a highland village in West Papuam, where indigenous Papuans have lived for thousands of years, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) said in a July 16 statement.

The Washington insider crowd was absolutely outraged and appalled by Donald Trump’s performance at Helsinki, Juan Cole notes, as he violated all the principles of American hawkishness.

Trump sat next to Vladimir Putin, leader of a rival power, signaling that Russia is a peer. He sided with Putin over the assessments of the CIA, the National Security Agency and other US intelligence organizations.

Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, approved the controversial nationality bill on July 19 declaring Israel a nation-state for the Jewish people and downgrading the status of Arabic from official language to “special status”, TeleSUR English reported. Arabs make up 21% of Israel’s population.

The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) is an umbrella group of left-wing organisations in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran that adhere to the ideology of Kurdish revolutionary leader Abdullah Ocalan (known as “Apo”), currently in jail in Turkey. Forces associated with the KCK have helped lead the Rojava Revolution in Syria’s north, which marked its sixth anniversary on July 19, the day Kurdish-led forces staged an insurrection.

Donald Trump is the rallying symbol for the new nationalist hard right globally. Andy Stowe writes that his visit to England and Scotland on the weekend of July 13 and 14 was an opportunity to gauge just how much he is loathed.

It was a test of strength between the left and neo-fascist right in Scotland as well as several English town and cities. It was a big victory for the left.

US President Donald Trump made a fool of himself when he stood next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that’s not the only thing he did in Europe. An editorial in US Socialist Worker, abridged below, says the left needs to keep its eye on the deeper threat.

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MOVIMENTU KONTRA OKUPASAUN TASI TIMOR (MKOTT)

Public Statement on the prosecution against Witness K and Bernard Collaery by the Australian government

Díli, 20 July 2018

The Tamil Refugee Council has reported that asylum seeker Thileepan Gnaneswaran, who was deported on July 16, separating him from his wife and 10-month-old daughter, was arrested on unknown charges on arrival in Sri Lanka and later released.

His wife and daughter were both granted safe haven enterprise visas on July 11, two days before Gnaneswaran was issued with a removal notice after his claim for protection was rejected. Their separation will almost certainly be permanent as her visa does not allow for family reunion and she cannot return to Sri Lanka.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has called on the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to investigate the role of intelligence services in the bugging of East Timor's cabinet rooms while the two nations were negotiating a deal on accessing offshore oil deposits. Wilkie has the support of Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim and South Australian Senators Tim Storer and Rex Patrick.

A “Homes not Prisons” event in Fitzroy on July 18 attracted more than 100 concerned public housing residents and community members from across Melbourne to the Atherton Gardens public housing precinct.

The aim was to highlight the staggering inequity of expenditure by state and federal governments on prisons compared to public housing for the vulnerable in the community.

The Australian Border Force is an authoritarian and undemocratic body that does not serve the interests of ordinary people in Australia. It should be abolished.

Five years since the reopening of the refugee torture centres on Manus Island and Nauru, the results are clear. Refugees have suffered cruel and unusual punishment which has: not saved lives at sea, not “stopped the boats” and not benefited ordinary Australians.

July 5 marked the final breaking point between the increasingly right-leaning government of Lenin Moreno and his leftist predecessor, Rafael Correa, writes Denis Rogatyuk from Quito,

After 25 years, it is clearer than ever that privatisation of electricity in Australia has been a disaster for people and the planet.

In the early 1990s, prior to privatisation, energy prices in Australia were some of the lowest in the world and had been dropping for decades. That trend was sharply reversed following privatisation. Today, households are paying skyrocketing prices and growing numbers of Australians are now living in “energy poverty”.

Months after missing its March deadline for financial closure on its Carmichael mine and rail project, Adani has relaunched its PR offensive with claims its finances are almost stitched up.

In an interview on July 17, Karan Adani, son of the company’s owner Gautam Adani, told Indian TV it was now finalising the rail project’s financing.

In the aftermath of Turkey’s June 24 elections, “won” amid fraud and intimidation by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the alliance between his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Muhsin Yorulmaz takes a look at the post-election climate.

Candlelight vigils were held in Colombia and cities around world on July 6 to demand an end to the political violence that since January has cost the lives of more than 125 social leaders in the South American country.

Political violence against social activists has risen in recent years despite the signing of a peace accord between the government and the leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to Colombia’s Ombudsman, more than 311 political murders have been registered since the accords were signed in November 2016.

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