In Marikana, South Africa, at least 35 striking miners were shot dead by police and another 78 wounded on August 16. The incident, which was caught on tape, took place as police were trying to clear striking miners from a hilltop outside of the Lonmin mine. In response to authorities firing stun grenades and tear gas, a number of miners began to charge. Without warning, dozens of officers opened fire with automatic weapons.
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Carolus Wimmer is a widely respected Venezuelan political scientist, educator and writer, lecturer and columnist nationally and internationally.聽Elected to the Latin American Parliament in 2005 he served as Vice-President from 2008 to 2011.
The aricle below is an August 18 editorial in .
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No event since the end of Apartheid sums up the shallowness of the transformation in this country like the Marikana massacre.
What occurred will be debated for years. It is already clear the mineworkers will be blamed for being violent. The mineworkers will be painted as savages.
After an armed attack killed 16 Egyptian guards on the border with Israel in the Sinai Peninsula, President Mohammed Morsi sacked defence minister and head of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) Mohammed Tantawi, and his second in command, Sami Anan.
The move is part of an ongoing battle that has taken place between the Muslim Brotherhood 鈥 main political force that emerged after the overthrow of former dictator Hosni Mubarak 鈥 and SCAF, which took governmental power after Mubarak stepped down.
In Australia, Treasurer Wayne Swan made headlines by saying he was a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen 鈥 despite implementing neoliberal economic policies of the sort Springsteen rails against. Mining billionaire and wannabe Liberal politician Clive Palmer jumped up to respond that his favourite band was Redgum 鈥 despite the famously left-wing folk band, active in the 1970s and '80s, representing politics that are the exact opposite politics to Palmer's.
The spectacle of the 2012 London Olympics should be subtitled 鈥淭he Bashing of the Chinese Athlete鈥.
On August 8, Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times published a much-discussed piece called 鈥淗eavy burden on athletes takes joy away from China's Olympic success鈥.
All kinds of 鈥渃oncerns鈥 were raised about the toll 鈥渢he nation's draconian sports system鈥 is taking on the country's athletes.
The highland agricultural community of Santa Rosa de Cajacuy, in Peru鈥檚 central Ancash department, has been severely affected by a toxic spill from the BHP Billiton and Xstrata-operated Antamina mine.
Antamina is one of the world鈥檚 largest sources of copper and zinc. It relies on a 300 kilometre high-pressure pipeline to pump resources from the mountains to coastal port facilities.
Venezuela and the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) have backed Ecuador against 鈥渢hreats鈥 from Britain, after Ecuador granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange diplomatic asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London on August 16.
ALBA is an anti-imperialist bloc of eight nations that includes Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia.
Swedish authorities want to extradite Assange from Britain to investigate allegations against him of sexual assault.
鈥淚n this time of crisis, when they are expropriating the people, we want to expropriate the expropriators, namely, the landowners, banks and big retailers.鈥
With these words Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, leader of the Andalusian Union of Workers (SAT), United Left (IU) member of parliament in the Andalusian regional parliament and mayor of the rural town of Marinaleda, justified the August 7 seizure of food by SAT members from two stores of the Mercadona and Carrefour supermarket chains 鈥 the Coles and Woolworths of Spain.
Coal seam gas (CSG) advocates are running a fear campaign against a backdrop of soaring electricity prices in New South Wales. They claim that unless CSG development in NSW goes ahead, household gas bills will triple.
This is a frightening idea, given the stress already caused by electricity price hikes.
Over the past four years on top of inflation. Users face a further 18% price hike this year.
Within a week of the government-appointed Houston panel鈥檚 recommendation that Australia return to the 鈥淧acific solution鈥 for asylum seekers, the toxic atmosphere of John Howard's 鈥渃hildren overboard鈥 era resurged powerfully in Australian politics.
On the same day the Houston report recommended indefinite refugee detention on Nauru and Manus Island for all asylum seekers arriving by boat, 67 asylum seekers taken aboard the Singapore-bound MV Parsifal were the subject of a tense stand-off at sea.
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