World

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.

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.

Robert Meeropol is the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 in an infamous case of US judicial murder as alleged Soviet spies. The government case depended on the perjured evidence of David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, who saved himself from by lying. Meeropol now directs the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which supports the children of imprisoned US political activists. He posted the statement below on the Rosenberg Fund’s website on June 30. * * *

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.

A British TV documentary and a United Nations-commissioned report have confirmed long-standing Tamil allegations that the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) committed large-scale war crimes in the course of its May 2009 victory over the pro-independence Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Before they could have a face-to-face meeting with the Australian mining company company Lynas Corporation, a dozen resident activists from Kuantan, Malaysia, took a journey all the way to Sydney to launch a protest outside Lynas headquarters on July 5.

In the final days of Alan Garcia’s rancid presidency, crimes against the Peruvian people are still being committed. The department of Puno, bordering Bolivia in the country’s south-east, has now been added to a long list of locations where anti-mining protesters have been gunned down by security forces. On June 25, six indigenous activists were reportedly killed and dozens more wounded when Peruvian police opened fire on a 4000-strong crowd occupying the Manco Capac airport in the city of Juliaca.

Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj, a federal member of parliament in Malaysia, was one of 30 activists of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) detained without trial on June 25.

The message below from Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, MP for Sg Siput, was dictated to Edmund Bon and Mohd Redzuan Yusoff on July 5 at Jinjang police station.

No sooner had information come out that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was undergoing surgery in Cuba than the international media was full of speculation and rumours regarding his imminent demise. Projecting their hopes that an illness could succeed in removing Chavez where military coups and assassination attempts had failed, the right-wing Venezuelan opposition went into overdrive. They demanded the president step down and hand over power to the vice president.

In June, four Australian set sail as part of the second Freedom Flotilla to Gaza with the aim of highlighting the suffering of its people at the hands of Israel’s illegal blockade. The flotilla, involving a dozen boats with hundreds of activists from more than 50 countries, aims to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory. The convoy coincides with the deep process of revolt occurring across the Arab world — against regimes that often collaborate with Israel.