Europe

Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement for democracy in Burma is hanging in the balance this week, with the regime threatening a brutal response to her call to free political prisoners. Activists have appealed to the world for help, saying international pressure is crucial to tipping the balance. Avaaz calls people to sign a petition

We go on with the publication of Ivo Ghignoli’s Chronicles from the garrison of Maddalena, where NO TAV militants are peacefully protesting against the construction of the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway line; the line will pierce a mountain and disrupt the entire hydro-geological structure of Val di Susa, near Turin.

While members of the Spanish 15M Democracy Now were attempting to demonstrate at Wimbledon where their beloved tennis hero Rafael Nadal was due to play, in Glastonbury U2’s Bono (“Saint Bono”) was being given a hard time by Art Uncut for dodging taxes by moving part of his huge wealth into a tax haven used by big corporations responsible for much of the poverty he criticises.

The right to food is a human right, and unless governments follow up on their pledges, it will remain a utopia. Broad-based social movements and human rights defenders the world over should therefore continue to demand change, says Olivier De Schutter, an independent United Nations watchdog.

THIS IS NOT A DEBT IT IS A FRAUD!

We, the indignant at the Bastille, in Paris, declare our solidarity with the general strike to be held June 30th in the UK against proposed austerity plans.

There are no weather forecasts for that, so you must do it by yourself. Just watch the sky every time you can as it might rain atomic bombs. It is not about any fiction tall– a technical problem, a new virus or a hiker attack, could order drones (unmanned aircrafts) to empty their full-of-nuclear-weapons’ stomach on your head.

Athens has succumbed to the onslaught of the God of the Market, more powerful even than the Gods of Mount Olympus. Despite the 48 hour strike and the thousands of demonstrators surrounding Parliament, within the building they voted by a majority of 155 to 138 in favour of the plans for measures that will create a debt of the Greek people three times its Gross Domestic Product.

15-M takes to the streets after taking the squares and the neighbourhoods. A great march composed of 7 columns will reach Madrid on the 23rd of July. The Marches have left from each one of the cardinal points of the state and will take 30 days. Another March is taking place around the Canary Islands.

It’s more than two thousand years since Greece was a superpower, yet its leaders prefer bombs to books, says Steve McGiffen. “The fact that the principal suppliers of these arms are two of ‘austerity’s’ biggest proponents, the USA and Germany, should not surprise us. Year on year, Greece has been spending money it does not have on weapons it does not need.”

Ivo Ghignoli, NO-TAV militant, humanist, regional leader of ARCI, reports on the brutal actions of the police at the nonviolent barricade, put in place to defend the sacrosanct right of people to self-determination of their destiny. It’s been years that in Val di Susa, north-west of Italy, the NO-TAV movement asks that the works for High-speed trains not be carried out.