Portside

A surge in voter registration likely presages a significant demographic shift in election day turnout.

It may be a panel of judges that shut most Texas abortion clinics, but the law the court upheld began with a flood of money to antiabortion forces from the Koch network's "free enterprise" groups.

Last February British Columbia's Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint demanding to know why the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) considers critics of Canada's petroleum industry a threat to national security. But, last week the CSIS said the association's complaint was "overly broad," and took steps to limit the inquiry into why the agency was spying on environmental groups and sharing its information with the oil companies.

The number of Texas clinics providing safe abortion services to women were reduced to eight overnight. On Thursday, the conservative judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed an earlier court decision that had allowed 13 other clinics to remain operating in the country's second largest state. According to one clinic operator, Texas now "faces a health care crisis, brought on by its own legislators.”

The massive demonstrations in Hong Kong are an enormous test for China's commitment to its complex "one country, two systems" approach to Hong Kong, implemented after Britain's return of the region to Chinese sovereignty in 1984. Student demonstrators and others are challenging China's decision on how the next Chief Executive of Hong Kong will be selected and the very meaning of the "high degree of autonomy" promised to Hong Kong's residents.

Two articles on Venezuela. The first is on the takeover of an abandoned Clorex factory, by the Venezuelan government. The second is about the assassination of a young member of the Venezuelan Socialist Party.

Forty leading Jewish Studies Professors have denounced the pro-Israel group, AMCHA, for degrading the "currency of academic freedom." AMCHA is circulating a list of 218 professors it charges with "an anti-Israel bias" or "antisemitic rhetoric." The Jewish Studies Professors in North America said AMCHA's monitoring of university lectures and conferences is "deplorable " and "strains the basic principle of academic freedom."

Celebrations marked the 50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. The FSM, along with the Civil Rights Movement, the Southern Freedom Movement, and organizations like SNCC and CORE inspired a generation. Yesterday, marking the 50th anniversary, there were celebrations and a rally - today the struggle is continuing - in Berkeley, in the U.S., and worldwide, like the Hong Kong students are showing.

When President Obama spoke at the UN last week, it was as if climate change and war were distinct ontological categories when in fact climate change is both a catalyst of conflict and a result of it. Competition over resources - land, water, energy - has always been the ground of conflicts within and between nations despite the fact that they may be clothed in the trappings of ethnic, religious or national rivalries.

Israel is out of step with much of the world. Over time, nations have become more ethnically and religiously diverse; populations have become more urban and educated; and economies have become more commercial. In response to these social and economic changes, many nations have left behind the notion of a favored state religion. It is time for Israel to do the same. It must be a fully secular state.