World

Over three days, starting on July 7, the students at the East Timor National University protested in opposition to the purchase of luxury cars for each parliament member. All up, the government of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao arrested 53 students.

Below is a statement released by the G8 Action Network in response to the communique released by the meeting of the G8 member nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US — at their July 7-9 meeting in Lake Toya, Japan. It is reprinted from http://asia-pacific-action.org.

The northern-most and thinly populated island of Hakkaido, Japan, has seen the extreme security measures taken against those wishing to protest against the G8 summit.

Venezuela’s environment ministry has proclaimed sweeping restrictions on mining in the Imataca Forest, in Venezuela’s south-east, according to a June 27 Venezuelanalysis.com article. Despite this, negotiations over mining permits continue with affected companies.

As Malaysian opposition parties and social activists, emboldened by advances in the March general elections, prepared to hold a giant protest against recent oil price hike (petrol up 41%, diesel up 67%) in Kuala Lumpur on July 6, a series of disturbing events unfolded.

The following article is abridged from a June 26 post on http://peruanista.blogspot.com. The full article, along with a series of videos on the struggle, can be found at http://links.org.au.

Below was posted at http://climateandcapitalism.com.

These are some of the corporations currently doing business with the Burmese military junta. For a full list, see the Burma Campaign UK’s “Dirty List” of corporations in Burma.

There have been nationwide protests against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s decision to raise the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas.

On June 30, the collective agreements covering actors in the US television industry expired.

In full campaign mode, as Bolivia prepares to go to the polls again on August 10 to decide the fate of the president and nine departmental prefects [state governors] in recall referendums, Bolivia’s left-wing indigenous President Evo Morales took time out to speak exclusively to Argentinian journalist Pablo Stefanoni in the presidential palace.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has expressed his support for the decision by coca growers in the Chapare region of Cochabamba to expel the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and reaffirmed that he would not “kneel down before the empire”.