A selection of this week's politically-relevant entertainment news.
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Brazil is in revolt. What started as a protest about a R$0.20 rise (about $0.10) in bus fares has turned into a mass nationwide movement against corruption, the rising cost of living, starved public services and money squandered on sporting mega-events.
Events are moving fast with protests growing and spreading to new cities each day, and it is far from clear when or how it will end.
The protests and demonstrations over the announced closing of the whole Greek Public Television and Radio Network (ERT) by the Greek government on June 11, are not only about the proposed firing of 2650 workers, nor are they simply a protest about the severe blow to quality broadcasting and entertainment.
Democratic Left pulled its ministers out of Greece's ruling coalition cabinet on June 21 after talks to resume state television broadcasts collapsed.
MPs from the party, which makes up the third part of the ruling coalition, were angered by the abrupt shutdown of broadcaster ERT on June 11 and met to decide whether to continue backing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
About 100 people attended a public meeting jointly organised by Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative in Sydney on June 25.
The meeting discussed how a united left would be in a stronger position to campaign against a conservative Coalition government. Speakers from both organisations, Pip Hinman and Dianne Fields, raised ideas about how a possible united socialist party could organise.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) recognised Venezuela on June 16 as one of 18 countries that had achieved exceptional progress toward reducing the prevalence of malnutrition.
Measuring progress from 1990-1992 until 2010-2012, the FAO determined that 20 countries had cut the proportion of hungry people by half, satisfying the first of the United Nations鈥 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) originally set for 2015.
For much of the past two years, Israel stood sphinx-like on the sidelines of Syria鈥檚 civil war.
Did it want Bashar al-Assad鈥檚 regime toppled? Did it favour military intervention to help opposition forces? And what did it think of the increasing visibility of Islamist groups in Syria? It was difficult to guess.
About 40 people gathered in Raintree Park, Darwin, to mark World Refugee Day on June 20.
Larrikiah woman June Mills opened the gathering with a rendition of Arafura Pearl, and an explanation of the Aboriginal practice of welcoming strangers to their land. Other speaker included Greens councillor Robin Knox, Tamil-Australian lawyer Kajaliny Ranjithkuma and Reverend Basil Schild.
A minute鈥檚 silence was held for the 62-year-old refugee from Afghanistan who was found dead at Darwin鈥檚 Wickham Point detention centre on June 15.
Sireen Khudiri is a 24-year-old Palestinian teacher, human rights activist and political prisoner. She studied computer science at the Open University in Tubas, on the West Bank.
Khudiri is an advocate of the rights of children in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank to have a decent education and has been active in non-violent campaigns against the abuses imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities.
Khudiri also writes to publicise the struggle of the Palestinian people for their rights.
Many protests took place last week. There were protests against government inaction on the climate emergency, against the mass sackings by a bank making record profits and a sad vigil for a 26-year-old Hazara man who died in an Australian immigration detention centre. More protests were also planned for refugee rights, Aboriginal rights and in solidarity with the new people's power movement in Turkey united around the defence of Gezi Park. This is not unusual in Sydney these days. There is a lot to protest about today but most of these campaigns are quite small.
Australian foreign minister Bob Carr is nothing if not committed to humanitarian causes. And anyone supporting humanitarian causes cannot be anything but especially concerned about the situation facing the people of West Papua.
And so it was that Carr bravely spoke out against the 鈥渃ruel鈥 forces oppressing the long-suffering Papuan people: the international solidarity movement with the Papuan people's struggle against Indonesian occupation and for self-determination.
Stop Income Management in Playford released this open letter on June 17.
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We the undersigned call for the suspension of the federal government鈥檚 compulsory income management, expanded to Playford and four other sites as part of programs that began in July last year.
We believe compulsory income management is humiliating, unfair, and unlikely to improve quality of life for recipients or their children.
We note the lack of solid evidence that this policy achieves its goals, and fear this approach will be counterproductive.
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