Region

The mainstream mass-media have been silent about the protests and the example of a popular revolution that took place in Iceland two years ago, when citizens made the government step down and rewrite the constitution. Because the events in Iceland are a model for how to make a popular revolution, the information has been hushed up.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faces trial hearings for bribery and for paying for sex with a 17-year-old girl on Monday, as the Italian leader fights off growing unpopularity and financial woes. Berlusconi, 74, is a defendant in three ongoing trials but is only due to attend the corruption hearing in which he stands accused of paying a bribe to his former British lawyer.

Following a long absence from Venezuela for surgery in Cuba to remove a reported pelvic abcess, Chavez flies back to Havana for more treat. Chavez, who was accompanied by his daughter Rosa, will stay here for an undisclosed period of time.

Brushing off protests from China, Barack Obama welcomed the Dalai Lama to the White House, urging respect for human rights and cultural traditions in Tibet. China immediately lodged a protest and accused Obama of undermining relations between the world’s two largest economies by meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has spent more than a half-century in exile.

Despite attempts by Chinese authorities to suppress any form of social change, young Chinese people both in and out of the country are constantly finding new ways to be heard. In 2010 alone there were 320,000 incidents of civil unrest. A move is underway to unite the diverse protests and rebrand them the “Jasmine Revolution”, following in the footsteps of Tunisia.

The Water Sanitation and Hygiene Group (EWASH) issued a report saying that even though Israel announced last year that it will ease the blockade; Gaza Strip residents still don’t have clean water running from their taps as up to 95% of water for domestic supply in the Gaza Strip is still below the minimum WHO standard for drinking water and unfit for consumption.

Echoing the recent protests in Egypt and Spain, it is the turn of Israeli youth to take to the streets and start camping to draw attention to the excessive cost of rents in Tel Aviv and other major population centres of the territory. An emergency session of the Israeli Cabinet is convened to try to deal with the situation.

The Israeli government is under heat now also from citizens who are normally indifferent to its immoral conduct. After a successful boycott of cottage cheese that forced the producer to put down the prices, hundreds of Israelis are now taking to the streets in protest of lack of affordable housing, building a tent town on Tel Aviv’s fashionable Rothschild Boulevard.

Nery Jeremías Orellana, 26, the manager of Radio Joconguera in the town of Candelaria, in the western department of Lempira, was gunned down yesterday morning, bringing the number of Honduran journalists killed since the start of the year to three. A total of 12 journalists have been killed in the past 18 months in Honduras without any of their murders being solved.

Politicians, pushed by the “ward lords”–the military, spend over 90 billion dollars a year, from taxpayer’s pockets, on nuclear weapons. This figure amounts to the UN budget for 45 years, and to 3/4 of the total annual sum spent on development aid. The U.S. alone spends over 50 billion dollars annually–enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals on poverty alleviation.