World

As US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton led a team committed to delegitimising the politics of the late socialist president Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, secret emails published by WikiLeaks reveal. Clinton publicly welcomed improved relations with Venezuela as Secretary of State, but she privately ridiculed the country and continued to support destabilisation efforts, leaked emails show.

More than two-thirds of Brazilians oppose the coup government that replaced elected president Dilma Rousseff in May, a recent poll found. The Ipsos poll also found that more than half of Brazil supports holding presidential elections this year.

Santiago, July 24. Photo: EFE. Pressured by the recent large protests rejecting the private system of pensions inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet announced on July 26 that her administration would reform the system.

It is hard to imagine a sharper contrast than that between the 10th National Convention of Portugal's Left Bloc, held in Lisbon from June 24 to 26, and its predecessor, held in the same city 18 months ago. In 2014, the 9th National Convention of the radical left force — formed in 1999 to unite several left currents — had brought the organisation to the brink of a 50–50 split.

A mural for Freddie Gray in Baltimore.

"After years of inhumane treatment, and having been held in conditions that the UN considers to be torture, Chelsea Manning, the Guardian columnist and whistleblower who has been in prison for years serving a 35 year sentence for exposing some of the U.S. government's worst abuses, attempted to take her own life July 5th, 2016," FreeChelsea.com has reported. "Now, Army officials have informed her that she is facing serious new charges directly related to her suicide attempt." In a special statement and call to action, the site reported the new charges include:

Back in February, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a rally in the lead up to the first Democratic Party presidential primary in New Hampshire, there is a “special place in hell” for women who don't support Hillary Clinton. That same weekend, US feminist icon Gloria Steinem told a talk show that young women supporting presidential nominee Bernie Sanders over Clinton were chasing boys.

Qamişlo, July 27. On the morning of July 27, a bomb-laden truck exploded in a crowded area of Qamişlo in Rojava (northern Syria). This terrorist massacre, claimed by ISIS, killed at least 44 people and left about 150 injured. Many surrounding buildings were destroyed, and among the dead were a number of women and children.

At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week, it seems a sticker is all it takes to keep you out of a room—at least the rooms brought to you by the fossil fuel industry.

Turkey is shutting down more than 100 media outlets and is purging more than 1000 military personnel, it was announced on July 27 as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government continues to tighten its grip on power after a failed military coup on July 15. In all, 131 media outlets have been shut down, including television stations, newspapers and magazines. The government has begun detaining journalists, with 90 reporters ordered to be round up.

Although it was not deemed worthy of front page coverage in much of the Western media, the horrific attack against a demonstration in Kabul on July 23 should be known about and condemned by the whole world. More than 80 people from the Hazara minority were slaughtered in the terrorist attack. Their only crime was to assemble in a crowd to peacefully protest against discrimination and demand justice from the corrupt and puppet government of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.

“It is a war between the majority of [Labour] MPs and the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members — hundreds and thousands of them,” says Kate Hudson, the national secretary of English party Left Unity, on the struggle over Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. Hudson, who is also general secretary for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was speaking to Melbourne community radio station 3CR's Solidarity Breakfast show on July 23.