“The current protests are part of a growing response to an admission by the ruling National Party that more than $200 million was stolen from the coffers of the country’s social security fund under their watch. The National Party took power in the wake of the 2009 coup d’état that overthrew progressive president Manuel Zelaya and ended the process to re-write the constitution of the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. President Juan Orlando Hernández also admitted that some of the stolen money was funnelled into his 2013 election campaign. An election that at the time was denounced as…

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“The BRICS are having their annual summit in Ufa, Russia this week. Prime ministers of the BRICS bloc have been meeting annually since the 2007-08 financial crisis and issuing statements on global political and economic affairs. This year’s event will see the launch of the BRICS ‘New Development Bank’ (NDB). Heralded as an alternative to the World Bank (the BRICS has already set up an alternative IMF), the NDB is being touted as a way to bring much-needed financing to the infrastructure and energy sectors of developing countries. The African continent in particular has been singled out as having an…

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“Best estimates are that about 3,000 people have been killed since the start of the Saudi bombing campaign. About one million displaced. You have more children now fighting than are in school. The bombings are horrible enough, but what’s worse now is that more people are probably dying because of the blockade and food shortages. And all sides of the conflict are responsible for this. The Saudi bombings have taken out bridges — why do that? About 100,000 Yemenis each year would go to Egypt for medical care. Now the Egyptian government (a Saudi ally) has for the first time…

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“The landslide victory shows that the political establishment which governed Greece between 1974 and 2015, and campaigned viscerally for the Yes vote has lost its grip on the electorate, despite fear mongering by the media (domestic and international); and of course, outright political interventions by the creditors as well as the shutting off of liquidity in order to force the Yes vote. The Greek electorate essentially voted against austerity — even if the consequences of the No vote may be unclear. The vote also had clear class characteristics: working class areas voted overwhelmingly No (in some cases by close to…

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“This time around not only did Greek citizens get the chance to have a say on their future, but they were also brave enough to resist the campaign of ideological terrorism unleashed on them by the media controlled by Greek oligarchs, as well as by business owners threatening them that they would lose their jobs if ‘no’ prevailed, and by European officials threatening that Greece would be ejected from the eurozone if ‘yes’ did not win. The referendum result may not end austerity in Greece, but it does create a better environment for Greek anti-austerity forces to keep fighting. As…

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“BP got off cheap. The settlement is not enough to cover BP’s legal obligations, to restore the Gulf, or to stop any other oil company from engaging in this type of grossly negligent behavior. This is particularly dangerous as Shell edges ever closer to the Chukchi Sea to drill in the Arctic. The day after the settlement was announced, BP’s stock price rose and market commentators ‘cheered.’ Rumors of an ExxonMobil merger are also growing. On the other hand, it is also a truly sizable amount of money and a lot more than many of those impacted by this disaster…

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“The ‘FBI, like all agencies of the government, does not operate in a political vacuum. Emphasizing the ‘ISIS threat’ at home necessarily helps prop up the broader war effort the FBI’s boss, the president of the United States, must sell to a war-weary public. The incentive is to therefore highlight the smallest threats. This was a feature that did not go unnoticed during the Bush years, but has since fallen out of fashion.’”

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“The news that Cuba and the United States will move forward on opening embassies in each other’s countries is certainly a welcome, though not unexpected, step in the gradual restoration of relations. Unfortunately, President Obama continues to couch every announcement in terms of the longstanding U.S. policy of unwarranted intervention in Cuba’s internal affairs. Our unremitting hostility towards Cuba’s independence over the past 50 years wasn’t wrong, the president suggests, it just ‘isn’t working.’ With more open relations, the United States will be able to ‘increase our contacts with the Cuban people’ including ‘civil society and ordinary Cubans who are…

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“The Greek debt is an unserviceable debt. It didn’t get invested in useful assets. Much of the debt was actually accrued after Greece adopted the Euro — which itself was done under dubious circumstances — with German and French banks lending money to the Greek government for weapons. Then, when the financial crisis — which wasn’t Greece’s fault — hit, these private banks got paid off and institutions like the IMF assumed much of Greece’s debt. Those institutions are harder to deal with than private creditors. Now, the EU, rather than deal with this like a bankruptcy situation and taking…

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“We have no reason to believe that Marianne’s capture was ‘uneventful,’ because the last time the IDF said something like that, in 2012, the people on board the Estelle were badly tasered and beaten with clubs. Back in 2010, ten passengers of Mavi Marmara were murdered by the IDF during a similar operation in international waters. … Israel’s repeated acts of state piracy in international waters are worrying signs that the occupation and blockade policy extends to the entire eastern Mediterranean. We demand that the Israeli government cease and desist the illegal detainment of peaceful civilians travelling in international waters…

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