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Efrain Rios Montt Will Still Face Justice--And So Should Henry Kissinger

By Van Gosse History News Network
Despite the May 20 ruling by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, which overturned the original verdict on procedural grounds, the May 10 conviction of that country’s former head of state, General Efrain Rios Montt, for the genocide of Guatemala’s Mayan people, could be a defining event in modern history.

Protesting Walmart: The New Freedom Riders

By Berry Craig LA Progressive
Called the “Ride for Respect,” the demonstration at Walmart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, will be modeled on civil rights volunteers who rode buses into the South in the 1960s to protest Jim Crow racial injustice.

Retailers Key to Bangladesh Worker Safety

Mike Hall AFL-CIO
A coalition of faith organizations, investors and labor groups—including the AFL-CIO—is urging major U.S. retailers, including Walmart, Gap, Sears and others, to sign on to a binding workplace and fire safety plan to prevent tragedies such as the recent building collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 garment workers and two 2012 fires that claimed the lives of more than 400 Bangladeshi clothing workers.

Chiefs Declare Keystone XL Invalid, Walk Out on State Department Officials

ICTMN Staff Indian Country Today
Elders and chiefs of at least 10 sovereign nations walked out of a meeting with U.S. State Department officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Thursday May 16 in which the government was attempting to engage in tribal consultation over the Keystone XL pipeline.

How America Became a Third World Country 2013-2023

Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford TomDispatch
How America Became a Third World Country TomDispatch regulars Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford of the invaluable National Priorities Project look at the "homeland" a decade into the future, as the effects of Congress's austerity policies sink in. Put the two together and what a grim scene you have: a country investing in war in distant lands as it crumbles here at home.

Media Bits & Bytes - Hacking, Stalking and Spying Edition

Portside
Kochs to Buy L.A.Times? Unions Say "No!"; Massive Biometric Database Proposal Hidden In Immigration Bill; NSA Releases Guide to Internet Spying; Scandal Sheets on the DoJ/AP Leak and Bloomberg Reporters Stalking Their Customers; Hollywood Challenges Books for the Blind; Girl Coder Beats the Boys in Hackathon Competition

Unpacking the idea of “Islamophobia”

Merdith Tax openDemocracy 50.50
The term “Islamophobia” is everywhere, but its meanings work at cross purposes - to liberals, it refers to discrimination and hate crimes that can be addressed through existing laws, but to fundamentalists, it refers to offenses against religion that must be addressed through censorship or death.