Latin America

A historic election is underway as Egyptians head to the polls for the first presidential election since their ouster of Hosni Mubarak. For the first time in the country’s history, the winner is not a foregone conclusion. We go to Cairo for an update from Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

Following a weekend that saw nearly 100 arrests of protesters at the NATO summit in Chicago, we speak with National Lawyers Guild attorney Sarah Gelsomino, who represents one of the five activists charged with terror-related crimes.

Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has been released on bail in Germany following his arrest for possible extradition to Costa Rica on decade-old charges stemming from a confrontation between a Sea Shepherd vessel with shark fin poachers off the coast of Guatemala.

Hundreds of protesters marched to the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff, on Saturday to oppose Emanuel’s cutting of social services while funding a massive security operation during the NATO summit.

Iraq Veterans Against the War held a ceremony where nearly 50 veterans discarded their war medals by hurling them down the street in the direction of the NATO summit. We hear the soldiers’ voices as they return their medals one by one from the stage.

World leaders are convening at the heavily guarded Camp David in Maryland today for the G8 Summit. Leading nonprofits such as Save the Children and Oxfam are urging G8 leaders to live up to a 2009 pledge of $22 billion towards food security in developing nations of which only a quarter has been met.

The European economic crisis is expected to top the agenda at the G8 meeting tomorrow at Camp David. In Greece, voters will soon head to the polls for another round of elections which will be viewed by many as a referendum on the euro.

Legendary Chicago activists Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers talk about this week’s protests in Chicago, where NATO will hold its largest summit to date. Thousands of protesters from a diverse coalition of organizations including unions, antiwar groups, immigrant rights organizations and Occupy are expected to march in the streets.

A “Russia Today” news program on Tuesday presented evidence of extrajudicial detention as well as physical and psychological torture practiced by US authorities at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The program was hosted by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the USA, is under fire after losing at least $2 billion in derivatives trading it was warned carried high risk. The loss has renewed calls for tougher regulation of Wall Street, with critics saying JPMorgan could have avoided it under regulations the bank opposed.