By Natasha Lennard - May 13, 2013

Following the death of father of four, David Sal Silva last week, his family’s attorneys are calling for police to release bystander video evidence that reportedly shows California Highway Patrol officers brutally beating the 33-year-old. A video from a surveillance camera...has been released and shows the man repeatedly struck with a baton.

Massacres and unspeakable atrocities are committed. Women are raped. Civilians are treated like combatants. Official coverup and denial follow.

With the world's attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night.

By Thomas Gaist - 15 May 2013

US forces have long conducted bloody counter-insurgency operations in [Warduk] province, just west of Kabul, prompting repeated accusations by local villagers that they torture and murder civilians. In February, responding to popular outrage, President Hamid Karzai demanded Special Forces cease operations in the province.

Manufactured national security threats, silencing dissent, targeting whistle-blowers, and challenging press freedom subvert constitutional rights.

In Marinaleda, he has promoted equal wages policies, scrapped the police force and offered mortgages on previously state-owned properties, which cannot be sold on for profit, of just €15 a month.

By Kaitlin McNabb - May 14, 2013

So there it is. Vancouver's charming ultimatum to existing [Downtown Eastside] businesses and communities: Pay the high rent or get out. For a city wanting to be the next big cultural "it" place, it sure seems to be alienating the existing community that got it on the map in the first place. If Vancouver is not careful, it will whitewash over every unique aspect of a fledgling city and end up with a cookie-cutter version of itself.

By Alice Walker - May 15, 2013

Today, only a few years older than Assata Shakur, and marveling at the unenviable state of humanity’s character worldwide, I find I can only pray for all of us...[T]hat the US government can now offer two million dollars for the capture of a very small, not young, black woman who was brutally abused, even shot, over three decades ago, as if we don’t need that money to buy people food, clothes, medicine, and decent places to live.

Obama continues lawless Bush practices. Torture remains official policy. Innocence is no defense. Crimes of war, against humanity and genocide continue.

Obama's using Turkey as its missile against Syria. Both countries share a common border. CIA elements infest the region. They're very much involved in Turkey. They're recruiting, arming, training and directing insurgent fighters. They're likely doing it on both sides of the border.

By Tom Carter - WSWS

The drive towards the establishment of an American police state, initiated under the Bush administration, has shifted into high gear under Obama. For nearly twelve years, the phony “war on terror” has been used as the overarching pretext for illegal imperialist war abroad and a methodical assault on democratic rights at home. The basic structure of authoritarian rule is now emerging into plain view.

On May 11, thousands of Israelis protested publicly. They did so for social justice.

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side.

In 1949, the American Zionist Council (AZC) was established. It operated until 1962. It was ordered to register as a foreign agent. It failed to do so. It transferred its responsibilities to AIPAC. It calls itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby. It operates as an unregistered foreign agent.

By PATRICK COCKBURN - May 13, 2013

...[A]s the 20th century settlement of the Middle East collapses, the outcome is unlikely to be peace and prosperity. It is easy to see what is wrong with the governments in present-day Iraq and Syria, but not what would replace them. Look at the almost unanimous applause among foreign politicians and media at the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, then look at Libya now, its government permanently besieged or on the run from militia gunmen.