Indigenous Mapuche People Struggle Against the Chilean State and Private Companies

Most recent hunger strike by imprisoned activists over “politically motivated prosecutions” and state application of Antiterrorist Law comes to a close as conflict between Mapuche communities and the Chilean state intensifies.

The Real News

What Would Jesus Buy

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt.)

Full movie here

Tolkien Estate Sues Warner Bros. Over 'Lord of the Rings' Slot Machines

Mere weeks before the release of the first film in the long-anticipated big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit, the estate of author J.R.R. Tolkien has sued the film's producers, claiming they are overstepping their rights when it comes to merchandising the property and The Lord of the Rings.

In an $80 million lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the Tolkien estate and its book publisher HarperCollins claim that Warner Bros., its New Line subsidiary and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz Co. have infringed the copyright in the famous books and breached a contract. The crux of the suit is the estate's contention that a decades-old rights agreement entitles the studio to create only "tangible" merchandise based on the books, not an "online slot machine" or other digital exploitations that the estate calls highly offensive.

Read the full lawsuit here.

Hollywood Reporter

London 2012 Olympic photo ban 'unenforceable'

Olympic bosses have admitted their ban on spectators posting videos and images on websites will be unenforceable. In the terms and conditions of ticket purchases for the London 2012 Games it states ticket holders cannot publish images, video or sound online.

However, Sir Keith Mills, deputy chairman of organisers Locog, said "we live in an internet world... and there's not much we can do about it". He said a "common sense approach" would be used to protect media rights. Spectators will be able to watch many events, including the cycle road race, triathlon and marathon, without a ticket.

But the ticket conditions as they currently stand prohibit ticket holders from posting photos and personal footage of the Olympics on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

BBC News

Thank God for the Olympic sponsors

The Olympic games trundle ever closer, and already you can smell the excitement in the air, because it's being wafted in by gigantic corporate excitement blowers. Try as they might to engage us, we're not on tenterhooks yet. On paper it's virtually illegal to be anything other than thrilled to self-pissing point at the prospect of hours of running, jumping, swimming etc filling our minds and airwaves for several weeks, but in reality, the majority of Britons appear to be acknowledging the forthcoming games with little more than an offhand shrug. We're just not that arsed – not right now, anyway. That'll change the moment any of our athletes gets within sniffing distance of any kind of medal – then it'll be all cheering and jubilant BBC montages – but until then we're being very British about the whole thing by largely ignoring it, aside from the odd quiet moan about the negative effect it'll have on the traffic.

Well, for starters we could make that fake smile frosty-white by brushing our teeth with an Oral-B electric toothbrush. "Oral-B is getting behind the London 2012 Olympics," cheers the Boots website. "Share the excitement with their Professional Care 500 floss action electric toothbrush." Yes: the exhilaration, the agony, the sheer elation experienced by athletes operating at the peak of their physical aptitude – all this can be yours in the form of a vibrating twig you stick in your mouth.

The Olympic rings have been whored around so much they've become valueless: a status symbol for a few corporations to tote like a badge for several weeks, impressing almost no one except themselves. It's bizarre, and it's increasingly far removed from the event itself, which, last time I checked, chiefly involves running around and jumping over things. And, if you're British, moaning about the traffic.

Charlie Brooker on The Guardian

Napoleon theme park

A theme park dedicated to Napoleon, just 40 miles from the Arc de Triomphe that le petit caporal commissioned in 1806: that's the latest project of rightwing French MP and former Sarkozy minister Yves Jégo. Abroad, observers could be forgiven for almost choking on hearing this news: why not a Stalin or a Kim Jong-il theme park too? In France, however, no raised eyebrows; the news just came and went. At my local cafe in Paris, a regular remarked: "What a good idea, and while we're about it, let's close down Disneyland. What did Mickey Mouse do for the world, exactly?"

Napoleon's case is an odd one in France, his place in history not exactly contentious. Although hardly taught in schools, his legacy is everywhere to be seen: from the "N" adorning almost every bridge in Paris and monument in France to the country's 2,626 lycées, one of his many creations. We owe him the civil code, the baccalaureate, but also the administrative, judicial and educational framework in France and many other countries.

The Guardian

The Big Fat Illuminati Wedding

Today, the British public – grinding under massive austerity budget cuts, unemployment, poverty wages, social deprivations and crumbling services – are thrown scraps of feelgood comfort from the much-hyped wedding between Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton. William is the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and son of the heir apparent to the British throne, Prince Charles. Fawning media coverage will present it as a day of romance, nationhood, nostalgia and pride. Full article on globalresearch.ca

Middleton shares many ancestors with Prince William. The closest relationship via William's mother is a common descent from Sir Thomas Fairfax (d. 1520/1) and his wife Agnes Gascoine. The closest relationship via William's father is a common descent from Sir William Gascoine (d. 1487) and his wife, née Lady Margaret Percy. The Daily Mail also contends they both are descended from Sir Thomas Leighton (ca. 1530–1610), Governor of Guernsey from 1570 to 1609, and his wife Elizabeth Knollys (1549–1605), who was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. (Wikipedia)