Gunfire erupted from helicopters provided by the US State Department and carrying Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) trainers and Honduran police on May 11. The shots killed four Hondurans described by locals as fisherpeople. Two of them were pregnant.
Who did the shooting is unclear. US officials said the fisherpeople were caught in the crossfire of an anti-drug mission.
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Who's the vindictive bastard who made Tony Blair give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry?
This was heartlessly cruel, to all decent people who have tried to put Blair behind us and get on with our lives. But there he was again, tormenting us, making us feel like someone just coming to terms with their years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and then the bloke who used to electrocute us every morning comes on daytime television, justifying himself and leaving us screaming and dribbling and eating an eight-pack box of Toffee Crisps as all the memories come washing back.
Austin Mackell is an Australian journalist based in Cairo who reports on Egyptian politics, the labour movement and life on the street. In February, he was arrested in Mahalla el-Kubra while reporting on an attempted general strike. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's Patrick Harrison. A longer version of this interview can be found on here.
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The United Nations estimated in March that in the year since the Syrian uprising began, 9000 people had been killed, most by the regime of President Bashar Assad.
However, the opposition’s share of the killing has been rising. Wthin the Syrian opposition, the non-violent intifada has been increasingly overshadowed by sometimes foreign-backed armed groups and religious extremists, who have begun carrying out suicide bombings.
The political crisis in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has reached farcical new depths before elections later this month.
Peter O'Neill was elected prime minister by parliament on May 30 for a third time since August. It was a bid to undermine a Supreme Court ruling on May 21 that again reinstated Sir Michael Somare as prime minister.
However, the vote may be illegal, since parliament had already been dissolved before the upcoming election, Reuters said that day.
India exports food while millions go hungry
“At a time when [India's] total food stocks are likely to swell to a record 75 million tonnes by June 1, out of which nearly 25 million tonnes of the stocks will be piled up in the open for lack of storage space, the demand for allowing exports [of wheat, which is now banned] is already growing. Ministry of Commerce has already started an exercise to know how much quantity of wheat can be allowed for exports.
Students on strike Quebec have won public displays of support from Montreal-based rock band Arcade Fire and Quebecios actor and director Xavier Dolan.
Hundreds of thousands of students have been on strike across Quebec for more than 100 days against fee hikes, defying intense government repression.
MontrealGazette.com said on May 21 that members of indie rock band Arcade Fire appeared on the May 19 episode of Saturday Night Life, hosted by Mick Jagger, sporting the red squares, that have become a symbol of the student struggle, on their outfits.
Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) dramatically increased its vote in Greece's May 6 elections, to take second place on a clear platform of rejecting the savage austerity measures that seek to make Greek people pay for the capitalist crisis. Some polls show SYRIZA a clear first in the new June 17 elections, called after no party was able to form government.
Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom & Australia's Future
By Paul Cleary
Black Inc., 2011
156 pages, pb, $24.95
Paul Cleary’s book Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia's Future, published last year, raises important questions, and provides much useful information for answers.
But the real elephant in the room, coal mining, is largely left untouched.
Passersby were handed leaflets supporting striking Central Queensland coal mineworkers at a picket of the BHP-Billiton Brisbane office on June 1. The leaflet said the picket was being held “to show our solidarity with the striking coalminers in Central Queensland over their dispute with BMA company [BHP-Mitsubishi Alliance] concerning mine safety. This is a crucial fight for working rights and conditions, important for all Australian unionists right now.”
Press freedom in Sudan is rapidly deteriorating, with confiscation of newspapers by the security agency becoming a norm.
The scope of violations committed against publications and journalists by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) is widening by the day.
Since early May, the NISS has confiscated more than 14 editions of different newspapers in Sudan, suspended more than 13 journalists from writing in newspapers, and identified about 20 taboo topics not to be tackled by the press.
Politics in this country can sometimes seem like a magic trick aimed at young children. “Look over there! Do you see? Those Boat People are taking all your taxes and your homes and your bread! Look! What an outrage!” And then Gina Rinehart jumps up behind our backs and nicks all our resources.
And that stuff is non-renewable. Once the mining bosses have flogged it off to China to fill their bloated bank account balances, it’s gone for good. We’ll just be left with a bunch of holes in the ground.
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