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Twenty years ago, Aboriginal Australian Football League player Nicky Winmar famously responded to racist taunting by Collingwood fans by pulling up his jumper and defiantly pointing at his black skin. “Heartbroken” Aboriginal Sydney Swans star Adam Goodes created another iconic image when he was snapped — shocked and furious — pointing at a Collingwood fan. Goodes was responding to a 13-year-old girl abusing him as an “ape”. It was only one of two examples of racial abuse directed at Aboriginal Swans players by Collingwood fans during the game that came to light.

Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control Medea Benjamin Verso, 2013 246 pages, $24.95(pb) “Never before in the history of warfare,” boasted the Wall Street Journal, “have we been able to distinguish as well between combatants and civilians as we can with drones”. The Obama administration has helped in this claim, writes Medea Benjamin in her book on the “unmanned aerial vehicle”, by conveniently defining every military-age male in a drone strike zone as a “combatant”.

Venezuela and Bolivia have agreed to raise cooperation to a “higher level” following Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s visit to Bolivia on May 25. During bilateral meetings held in Cochabamba, Maduro and Bolivian President Evo Morales signed key accords in food production, industrial development and communications. “It’s necessary to place the strategic map of bilateral cooperation at a higher level, including a more organised one,” said Maduro.

The Obama administration appears to be getting closer and closer to approving the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline aims to transport tar sands oil from Alberta Canada to the United States.

In May 13 mid-term elections for both houses of Congress, and provincial and municipal-level local governments, the control of electoral politics in the Philippines by a small number of powerful, nepotistic families became a big issue. It was the left-wing Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM) that put the question of political dynasties onto the agenda. However, not all the PLM’s impact on the election translated into votes and, due to fraud, not all the votes the PLM received in the ballot box translated to votes in the official tally.