Dates for Regional Elections Announced, Constituent Assembly Moves Forward in Venezuela

by RACHAEL BOOTHROYD-ROJAS

President Nicolas Maduro announced the details of the ANC electoral process this past Tuesday. (Prensa Presidencial)

Caracas, May 24, 2017 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has set December 10 as the date for gubernatorial elections, after they were controversially postponed in 2016.

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, CNE President Tibisay Lucena stated that the electoral body was close to concluding a six-month long registration process to validate Venezuelan political parties, meaning that election dates could finally be announced.

She also confirmed that elections to choose delegates to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) announced by President Nicolas Maduro on May Day will take place “at the end of July”.

Police Crack Down on Protesters Demanding Temer’s Ouster

IN PICTURES: Protesters swarmed the streets of Brazil’s capital to demand the resignation of scandal-marred President Temer.

teleSUR | May 24, 2017

Riot police officers clash with demonstrators during a protest against President Michel Temer and the latest corruption scandal to hit the country, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 24, 2017.Photo:Reuters

Protesters calling for the resignation of Brazilian President Michel Temer and new elections were met with brute police force Wednesday, with riot police firing rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray, and charging on horses at the over 150,000-strong crowd.

The latest protests come on the heels of the most severe scandal to hit the government after a wiretap recording revealed Temer had endorsed bribes to keep former president of the lower house Eduardo Cunha — who is not in jail — quiet.

The president has vowed that he will not step down over the scandal, saying in an interview with Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, “I won’t resign, oust me if you want.”

Jemna in Tunisia: An inspiring land struggle in North Africa 30

by Hamza Hamouchene

 Pambazuka News | April 20, 2017

Over the past several years, the people of Jemna, a region in southern Tunisia famous for its excellent quality dates called Deglet Nour (the dates of light), have been engaged in an important and inspiring struggle around land rights. It took around a century for this oasis community to score a victory, albeit precarious for now, through occupying and working their long-confiscated land in an astonishing experience of self-management and voluntarism that emphasised the centrality of the peasant question and the right to land and other natural resources such as water in revolutionary times.  Jemna is a challenge and a threat to the power of the neoliberal and counter-revolutionary elite and it represents resistance and an alternative to the kinds of neo-colonial, dispossessing and environmentally damaging forms of managing and exploiting the land.

South Asian Progressives In Canada Commemorate 50 Years of Naxalbari Uprising

Press Release

Countercurrents.org | May 26, 2017

South Asian progressive activists came together in Surrey, Canada this evening to denounce ongoing state violence against oppressed communities and minorities in India on the occasion of 50 years of Naxalbari uprising. At a rally organized by Radical Desi, speakers were unanimous in their criticism of the growing attacks on Dalits, Adivasis and religious minorities under the right wing Modi government. They agreed that the socio economic situation which contributed to the eruption of Naxalbari movement half a century ago continues to prevail as there is no end to repression and yawning gap between the rich and the poor.

Vietnam: Land and Disputes

A Journal of People report

The land issue is vital in any economy. Countries in South-East Asia are facing the problem. Land related recent incidents in Vietnam have brought the issue again.

In April 2017, residents of Dong Tam Commune, a village outside Hanoi, freed the remaining 19 hostages they were holding in a week-long stand-off over land rights. The release follows a meeting with the Hanoi police chief, who promised not to prosecute the villagers and to order a re-examination of local land use.

The villagers took 38 people captive in protest. The hostages included police officers and local officials. Some of them were released earlier. Rest of the hostages was freed later after a Hanoi official promised to launch an investigation which is due to conclude in 45 days.