Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, elected in May on a platform that combined pledging to defend ordinary citizens against a corrupt elite with carrying out extreme repression against drug users and other 鈥渃riminals鈥, gave his inaugural state of the nation address on July 25. The statement below was released by the socialist Party of the Labouring Masses in response.
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Mexico is leading a campaign to demand the World Health Organization declassify transgender identity as a mental disorder in its global list of medical conditions.
The petition is based on a study published on July 28 in The Lancet Psychiatry Journal. After more than two years of research, it concludes that transgender people are not 鈥渕entally ill鈥.
In a tableau becoming horrifyingly common, a transgender woman of color was found dead in Ohio on July 30, the victim of an apparent homicide.
Skye Mockabee was found unresponsive in a parking lot around 8 a.m. on July 30 in Cleveland, Ohio, reports Cleveland.com. Mockabee had an apparent head-wound, and the individuals who found her called EMS. She was declared dead at the scene. She was 26 years old.
Police are providing few details about Mockabee's death; no suspects have been arrested, and no possible motive for her murder has been given.
Industrial agriculture and financial sectors are hand-in-hand worsening climate change and then profiting from it, with an unprecedented number of land grabs over the last eight years, according to a report released in June.
The United States media鈥檚 latest offensive against Venezuela鈥檚 socialist President Nicolas Maduro targets a new sustainability program that transplants urban workers to farmland. Some quarters of the mainstream media have equated it with slave labour.
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to 鈥渞ebuild Britain鈥 on August 4 by creating 1 million jobs and homes. The socialist politician put full employment and house building at the heart of his bid for re-election as Labour's leader in a 10-point plan for the country.
In a newly released interview conducted last year with Chelsea Manning, the jailed US whistleblower said she was 鈥渁lways afraid鈥 of her government, which sentenced her to decades behind bars in a military prison.
鈥淚 am always afraid, I am still afraid of the power of government,鈥 said Manning, who leaked thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010, in an interview with Amnesty International published by The Guardian on August 3.
Lending further support to the United Nations' characterisation of the World Bank as a 鈥渉uman rights-free zone鈥, the notorious lender approved new policies on August 4 that have been widely condemned by rights advocates for endangering human rights and the environment.
Former National Assembly member Vestalia Sampedro has officially filed the right-wing Movement for Sowing Right's opposition to same sex civil marriage in Venezuela. Sampedro cited 鈥減ro-family鈥 as among the reasons for the conservative group's filing before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ).
When the 2016 Olympic Games began on August 5, it was the culmination of a harrowing, exhausting decade-long battle between the people of Brazil and the demands of those utterly unaccountable, scandal-plagued sports bodies, FIFA and the IOC.
Hosting the 2014 World Cup and then the Olympics back to back with one city, Rio, as the epicentre for both events, has never been done in history 鈥 let alone in the post-9/11 world. It would be a challenge for any country. Putting these mega-events in Brazil, for those in the West, must seem like madness.
Bolivia has approved a new law that allows transgender people to change their name, sex and gender on birth certificates and other official records. LGBTI rights activists in Bolivia see the law as a groundbreaking sign of growing tolerance in Latin America.
Forty people began the process to change their personal information on identity documents and bank accounts, and alter their professional titles on the day the law passed.
Reacting to what is reportedly the biggest financial scandal in history, US authorities have subpoenaed documents from Goldman Sachs relating to the dealings of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Set up in 2009 by the Malaysian government, 1MDB is supposed to generate growth and establish the country as a financial hub.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal, at least US$1 billion has gone into the pocket of a person referred to in Department of Justice documents as 鈥淢alaysian Official 1鈥 鈥 widely reported to be Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
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