Democracy

Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, is seeing an unprecedented surge of energy for her campaign in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Stein said donations to her campaign increased tenfold in the 24 hours after Sanders’ July 12 endorsement. Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, is seeing an unprecedented surge of energy for her campaign in the wake of Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

A Black Lives Matter protest in New York on July 9. Once again the deep racism and racial divide in the United States has burst upon the national scene, dominating newspapers, TV and social media. Since 2014, videos taken by witnesses of police murders of Black people spurred the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. In spite of the overwhelming visual proof of the guilt of the police murderers, they have almost all gotten away with it.

Young Queenslanders for the Right to Choose organised a public forum attended by up to 150 people in the Queensland Parliament House on July 12. A similar forum took place in Cairns the next night. Full audio of the forum can be found above.

British Labour Jeremy Corbyn's name should automatically be on the ballot paper in the Labour Party's leadership contest, the party's national executive committee (NEC) ruled on July 12.

The Venezuelan government announced on July 11 that it had seized a factory of the US company Kimberly Clark Corporation — producer of numerous personal, feminine, and baby care brands including Huggies, Kotex, and many others, TeleSUR English said that day.

The following statement was released by the Filipino socialist party, the Partido Lakas ng Masa, on July 11 in response to death squad killings of alleged drug dealers in the Philippines since the recent election of President Rodrigo Duterte. * * * Stop the killings! Prosecute the Generals and the top henchmen of the illegal drug trade! In less than two weeks, more than a hundred alleged drug pushers and petty drug traffickers were killed in the war against drugs called by the Rodrigo Duterte government.

French unions protested on July 5 as the government forced a bill attacking workers’ rights through a hostile parliament. “This is a counter-productive law, socially and economically,” said Marie-Jose Kotlicki, a member of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). “The government is making a mistake in underestimating the level of discontent over this law.”

US soldier Chelsea Manning, jailed for handing over classified files to pro-transparency site WikiLeaks, was hospitalised, her attorney said on July 6. The comment came after media reports that Manning had attempted suicide. One of Manning's attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said she was outraged over the release of her client's confidential medical information to the media.

A truck bomb exploded in Baghdad on July 3, killing at least 292 people and wounding hundreds of others. The bombing, for which ISIS claimed responsibility, had the highest death toll of any terrorist bombing in Iraq since the US, Britain and Australia invaded the country in 2003.

French unions protested on July 5 as the government forced a bill attacking workers’ rights through a hostile parliament. “This is a counter-productive law, socially and economically,” said Marie-Jose Kotlicki, a member of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). “The government is making a mistake in underestimating the level of discontent over this law.”

President Barack Obama, calling Afghanistan's security situation precarious, said on July 6 he would keep US soldier levels in the country at 8400 through the end of his administration. He had pledged to cut soldier numbers to 5500 by the year's end. Obama's plan still calls for a cut in US soldier levels from the current roughly 9800.

The entire population of Burma supported Aung San Suu Kyi when she fought to get rid of the military dictatorship of Burma (Myanmar) during the 1990s. She received tremendous support from all communities, including non-Buddhist ethnicities and Muslim communities. No one considered what her policy on other religions and ethnic areas was. People just wanted to get rid of the regime.