World

How does political censorship work in liberal societies? When my film, Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia, was banned in the United States in 1980, the broadcaster PBS cut all contact. Negotiations were ended abruptly; phone calls were not returned. Something had happened. But what? Year Zero had already alerted much of the world to the horrors of Pol Pot, but it also investigated the critical role of the Nixon administration in the tyrant’s rise to power and the devastation of Cambodia.

Substantial changes proposed for East Timor’s Petroleum Fund law will expose the nation’s finances to high risk and open the door to corruption. Just a few years ago the fund was widely praised as a model of prudential and sustainable management, and a means of possibly escaping the “resource curse” of waste and corruption. That is all about to change. East Timor's AMP government, led by Xanana Gusmao, has a bill before parliament that removes most of the prudential controls on the fund.

A week after Malaysian authorities failed to stop people taking to the streets of the capital Kuala Lumpur on July 9 to demand free and fair elections, six activists from the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) remained detained without trial. The detainees include federal member of parliament Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj, who has been hailed by a prominent local writer as “the Malaysian saint of the poor”.

The scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch and his global media empire is giving the world a glimpse of what the face of power looks like today — and it’s ugly. The revelations of networks of patronage and power, which link politicians and the police to corporate interests that believe themselves to be above laws, ethics or scrutiny, are frightening. However, Murdoch’s reputation for deciding elections and dictating policies to governments, and the notorious right-wing bias (and looseness with inconvenient facts) of his media outlets, is not new.

In early July, Venezuela’s Social Investigation Group XXI (GIS) released new comparative data on electoral fairness in the country compiled by the Canada-based Foundation for Democratic Advancement (FDA) which found Venezuela’s elections to be “exceptionally fair, and thereby highly democratic”.

Pablo Solon completed his term as Ambassador for the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations on June 30. As representative of a small and poor country, Solon has played a key role in perhaps the decisive political struggle of this century: the fight against climate change and the unjust economic system causing environmental and social crisis. On behalf of the Bolivian government led by indigenous President Evo Morales, Solon has pushed for the UN to enshrine the right to water as a human right, and led efforts to implement a Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.

US right-winger: Gay bullying 'healthy peer pressure' “Anti-gay bullying is not bullying at all; in fact, it is 'peer pressure and is healthy.' That’s according to Rich Swier, an activist with the Tea Party Nation. “Swier was responding to a report from a Florida group that showed that '77% of all bullying victims are picked on due to sexual orientation, gender identity, or the perception of either.' The report also pointed out that 'LGBT youth are up to five times more likely to commit suicide than their straight counterparts.'

As rocks fly and tear gas wafts through the streets of Athens, Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou has warned of a coming crackdown on protesters and striking workers. Meanwhile, a new bailout for the banks is being prepared in the halls of power in Europe. Papandreou was able to secure breathing room for the Greek government with another round of emergency loans that saved it from the immediate prospect of default — the state failing to pay back some or all of its debts.

When it comes to comparing the cases of two publishers of secret information — WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch — the hypocrisy from politicians and media is huge.

Oh this is such fun. And every few hours it gets better, but always with an announcement there’s “still worse to come”, leaving us struggling to imagine what they might have done that’s worse. Presumably by tomorrow it will turn out they planted a bug in Heather Mills’s false leg and hacked into Stephen Hawking’s voicebox. The only thing that tarnishes it slightly is now everyone hates Murdoch. It’s like when you follow an obscure band and they become famous.

Protests at Cairo's Tahrir Square and other cities across Egypt on July 8 drew hundreds of thousands back to the streets to "save the revolution". The protests are part of the ongoing struggle to press for democracy in the aftermath of the popular uprising that overthrew dictator Hosni Mubarak in February. The protests, labelled “Friday of Justice for Revolution Martyrs” by the Facebook group We are all Khaled Said, has also been dubbed “Persistence Friday” in the media.

The results of Thailand's July 3 general election are a slap in the face for the dictatorship. They prove without any doubt that most people have rejected the military, the Democrat Party (PP) and the royalist elites. Pheu Thai Party (PTP), the party closely allied to the Red Shirt pro-democracy movement, won a clear majority. The result is all the more remarkable, given the election was held under conditions of severe censorship and intimidation of the Red Shirt democracy movement by the military and the military-installed PP government of Abhisit Vejjajiva.