received the following open letter from indpendent filmmaker and journalist John Pilger reporting very disturbing events in progress. Visit www.johnpilger.com for more of Pilger's work.
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Dear Noam...
883
The June 5 national elections in Portugal produced a sharp lurch to the right.
The two main conservative parties, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Democratic and Social Centre-People's Party (CDS-PP) won 50.4% of votes and 57.1% of seats in the single-chamber parliament. (The results for the four seats determined by overseas Portuguese voters will be announced on June 15.)
Compared to the 2009 poll, the PSD vote rose from 29.1% to 38.6%, and CDS-PP from 10.5% to 11.7%.
Delegates from Community, a trade union representing workers in iron and steel, clothing, textiles, footwear and betting industries, delivered a crushing blow on June 7. They opposed the union executive's attempt to force through a resolution aimed at undermining the Trade Union Congress's policy of boycotting Israeli goods produced in illegal settlements.
At the union's biennial conference in Southport, members accused the leaders of seeking a 鈥渞etrospective mandate鈥 to support Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (Tulip), which they labelled 鈥渁n apologist鈥 for Israeli war crimes.
In April, the Washington, DC-based National Security Archive posted a 5500-page document tranche detailing the extent of Cincinnati-based food giant Chiquita鈥檚 dealings with Colombian death squad United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).
The documents shed further light on the relationship between multinationals and Colombia鈥檚 murderous right-wing paramilitaries.
The Refugee Art Project (RAP) was established in 2010 by Safdar Ahmed and Dr Omid Tofighian. They run free art classes at the Villawood (NSW) and Broadmeadows (Victoria) detention centres.
Some of the artworks, created by the asylum seekers, were on display at the recent Platform Art Space as part of the Human Rights Art and Film Festival. RAP is also organising the fear + hope exhibition featuring works by detained asylum seekers at the Mori Gallery in Sydney from June 20 to July 8. Visit TheRefugeeArtProject.com for more information.
Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual
By Michael Scammell
Faber & Faber, 2011,
720 pages, $32.99 (pb)
Arthur Koestler had a taste for political drama.
As a communist, he spied against Franco's fascists in the Spanish civil war; as a Jew, he escaped from the Gestapo in France by joining the French Foreign Legion; he saw the inside of five jails; he wrote a famous novel of Stalin's show trials; he became a vociferous anti-communist; and he enjoyed a fashionable vogue for his 1970s books on parapsychology.
Peruvian stocks lost a record 12% of their value as local and global investors jettisoned mining shares after left-leaning nationalist Ollanta Humala won the second round of Peru's presidential elections on June 5.
The multi-billion dollar plunge reflects the fear and hostility that 鈥渕arket forces鈥 instinctively bear toward an expression of the popular will in 鈥渄eveloping鈥 resource-rich nations like Peru.
Humala defeated the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori with 51.3% of the vote. Keiko is the daughter of jailed ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori.
Pity the stressful life of police ministers in Spain and its autonomous communities (states).聽
For weeks, the central plazas of big cities and towns across Spain have been the site of the camps of the 鈥渙utraged鈥 (los indiganados) of the M-15 movement 鈥 so-called after the large May 15 national protests that sparked the movement.
The movement, which opposes the savage austerity imposed on ordinary people to pay for the crisis and the undemocratic nature of the political system, is now spreading into the suburbs of the larger cities and out into smaller regional towns.
鈥淭he troubled sky reveals/The grief it feels.鈥
Those two lines were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem 鈥淪now-Flakes鈥, published in a volume in 1863 alongside his epic and better-known 鈥淭he Midnight Ride of Paul Revere鈥.
Much of the news chatter this week has been about Sarah Palin鈥檚 flubbing of the history of Revere鈥檚 famous ride in April 1775. Revere was on a late-night, clandestine mission to alert American revolutionaries of an impending British attack.
The revolutionary struggle for democratic and economic freedoms continues to grow in Tunisia and Egypt in the aftermath of the ousting of dictators Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak.
Western powers are working to block these struggles 鈥 just as they supported the fallen dictators until the very end.
Vast sums of money have been pledged by the United States, European Union and the Group of Eight (G8 鈥 the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Russia and Japan) to aid what British Prime Minister David Cameron termed 鈥渄emocracy, freedom and prosperity鈥 in the Middle East.
The Venezuelan News Agency published the article below on June 5. The decision to freeze relations with the US government came after the US imposed sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, over economic ties with Iran.
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Relations between Venezuela and the US are frozen, said Venezuela's foreign minster Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro said the government of President Hugo Chavez has tried to restore respectful dialogue with Washington.
Maduro said the Venezuelan government aspired to have relations of respect and open communication.
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who performs solo under the name , was inspired by the huge struggle in Wisconsin against a savage anti-union law to release a benefit EP of songs dedicated to workers' struggles.
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