Latin America

Amid simmering tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, a key pro-Israel U.S. senator has tabled legislation that would effectively ban international financial companies that do business with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from participating in the U.S. economy.

After two months of holding New York City’s Zuccotti Park despite repeated threats of eviction, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists were forcibly removed from the site by hundreds of police in riot gear early Tuesday morning.

Tunisian women poured into the streets armed with the vote, their latest weapon, when the country voted in its first democratic election since a popular uprising unseated former president Zine Abidine Ben Ali, ending his 27-year- long stronghold on the country.

Though relatively few demonstrators took part in the Oakland, California vandalism, next- day news stories featured smashed windows, graffiti, and protester stand-offs with police.

A significant gap between the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and staunchly pro-Israel majorities in both houses of Congress appears to have emerged over what to do in reaction to Tuesday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on possible military applications of Iran’s nuclear program.

If Chinese detractors of liberal democracy and unbridled market development ever needed more fodder for their attacks on the West, then last week’s Greek farce provided plenty. But behind the headlines announcing “the collapse of Europe” there is little sense of ideological triumph. Instead Beijing is busy drawing up contingency plans for the breakup of the euro zone and absorbing the lessons of welfare state excesses.

“What makes this movement revolutionary is that there are new organizational forms taking place that haven’t been tried yet and it’s truly a new moment,” said Mary Clinton a 25-year-old activist.

Unless civil society activists launch their own program of action at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro next summer (Jun. 4-6), the event will be little more than an expensive talkfest.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama announced Monday that it would immediately cut U.S. funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, just hours after UNESCO’s governing board voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine full membership.

Inspired by the ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in the United States, thousands of Japanese youth and workers, dissatisfied with growing unemployment and harsh working conditions in the world’s third largest economy, have taken to the streets to demand stable jobs and government reforms.