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
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.
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.
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.
Isn't this excellent news? The International Monetary Fund (IMF) say the British government's strategy for sorting us out is going to work.
Every time they've been asked to comment on a country's economy they've insisted it must cut wages, restrict the unions and privatise everything. So the government must have been really nervous as to whether they'd approve of the strategy of cutting wages, restricting unions and privatising everything.
It must have felt like waiting for your A-level results.
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.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has claimed successes for the war in Afghanistan, while acknowledging growing opposition.
The June 8 Age reported that Gillard said: 鈥淚 understand there would be many Australians who over the past two weeks have asked themselves what are we doing there, why are we still there, should our soldiers be there?
鈥淚 do want to say to the nation we know why we're there, we are very clear about our mission and our mission is being accomplished.
鈥淲e are doing what we intended to do and we have a timeline for achieving our goal.鈥
US warplanes and drones have been bombing anti-government forces in Yemen amid the uprising against long-time US ally President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, two US officials said on June 9 that US forces launched an air strike on June 3 against Islamist militants in the south of the country to keep al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot from taking advantage of the uprising in the Gulf state.
The attack followed a May 5 drone strike on alleged militants, they said.
The path for Maori liberation, debates on left perspectives and the 30th anniversary since the 1981 Springbok tour were some of the discussions at 鈥淲orkers Power鈥, the national conference of the Workers Party held in Hamilton over June 3 to 5.
The recent formation of the Mana Party was a focus of the discussions.
Prominent Maori leader and MP Hone Harawira initiated Mana after leaving the Maori Party, frustrated over its deals while in coalition with the right-wing National Party.
Harawira resigned his seat to force a by-election and stand again as a Mana candidate.
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%.
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