Six In The Morning

Anti-fascist fury in Athens after far-right MP hit rival


Athens Saturday 09 June 2012
Greeks gathered for anti-fascist rallies across the country last night to protest against the actions of a far-right politician who punched a female opponent on a television show and then went on the run. Ilias Kasidiaris, the Golden Dawn spokesman, attacked a left-wing candidate, Liana Kanelli, and threw a glass of water at another opponent in the heated debate on Thursday morning. He continued to evade police last night, with his arrest warrant due to expire today. A police spokesman, Athanassios Kokkalakis, told state TV: "We've been checking all the usual spots were this particular man could be."

Blogger and symbol of Syria uprising wins Front Line human rights award
The Irish Times - Saturday, June 9, 2012

MARY FITZGERALD, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
SYRIAN BLOGGER and activist Razan Ghazzawiyesterday paid tribute to citizen journalists in her country who have“died trying to tell the world what is happening in Syria when the traditional media have failed to do so”. She made the remarks in a statement read on her behalf after she was announced the winner of this year’s human rights defenders at risk award by the Dublin-based organisation Front Line Defenders. Ghazzawi, a US-born English literature graduate from Damascus University who has become a symbol of the Syrian uprising, is on trial before a military court charged with “possessing prohibited materials with the intent to disseminate them”.

Crucial new details of exchange that brought down China's Bo Xilai


Edward Wong June 9, 2012
CHONGQING, China: In the chill of late January, about the time China was celebrating New Year, the police chief of this south-western metropolis pressed Bo Xilai, the Communist Party official who ruled the area, with evidence his wife had been involved in a murder. That meeting, supposedly on January 28, led to Mr Bo's downfall and the nation's biggest political scandal in years. But what transpired between Mr Bo and his longtime ally Wang Liju has been a bit of a mystery.

Ethiopian dam threatens Lake Turkana
The fishermen and herders eking out an existence on the shores of the majestic Lake Turkana risk having their way of life destroyed by a giant dam under construction in Ethiopia.

Sapa-AFP
Glittering jade under the scorching sun, Lake Turkana is a fragile jewel in an arid environment already hit by global warming. At 250 kilometres (150 miles) long by 60 kilometres wide at its largest point, it is the world's biggest desert lake. "This is a precious lake, an amazingly beautiful one and maybe in 60 years from now you will not see the people here, nor the fish. and you will have a dead lake," Joseph Lekuton, a local legislator, warns. Flowing down from the north, the river Omo supplies Lake Turkana with 80 percent of its water.

Is Mexico's leading presidential candidate a retreat from democratic progress?
Presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is leading in polls, but he hails from a party that ruled Mexico with a heavy hand for 71 years.

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer
Backroom deals.Rigged elections. Pacts with drug lords. Those are the accusations thrown at Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) after 71 years in power, an era that Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa dubbed the “perfect dictatorship.” When the PRI lost the presidency in 2000, for the first time since its founding in 1929, there was overwhelming excitement and relief. And yet, just 12 years after Mexico's transition to democracy – amid a public wearied by violence and skeptical about how deep Mexico’s democratic transition really was – the PRI seems to be making a comeback.