Last week, Angelina Jolie recently wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times where she revealed that she had a double mastectomy. She had tested positive for a faulty BRCA1 gene, which, she thought, gave her an 87 % risk of breast cancer and a 50 % risk of ovarian cancer.

The fact that her mother died of ovarian cancer after a nearly 10-year struggle at the age of 56 was another major factor in her decision.

Jolie herself noted that:

Meet Ritchie Boucher, the chief executive of Bank of Ireland who was paid €843,000 last year.

He thinks he is worth far more than ordinary folk and he deserves all he gets.

Far more, for example, than staff nurses, who are stressed out trying to cope with up to ten or fifteen nurses at a time. Last year, a young staff nurse at the start of her career was paid €24,041.

The G8 summit will take place near Enniskillen on 16 and 17 June. The most powerful world leaders will gather to co-ordinate policies for defending privilege and inequality. It will be an occasion for protestors to gather and voice demands for global justice.

So far, the ICTU is planning a march in Belfast on Saturday 15 June. A counter summit is being organised by G8 Alternatives on Sunday 16 June in Belfast. And a major protest is scheduled for Enniskillen on Monday 17 June. There will also be public meetings in various locations to explain the role of the G8.

The death toll in the sweatshop collapse in Bangladesh has now risen to 290. It will surely rise more as the rubble clears.

Massive protests by tens of thousands of workers protesting against the conditions for garment workers have erupted across the region.

The protests erupted as reports emerged that the workers were threatened and forced back to work after noticing cracks in the building.

The building itself had extra floors added to squeeze in more workers.

In Tunisia you cannot escape the revolution. On arrival at my hotel in Tunis the bell boy took the opportunity to update me on “el thawra” (the revolution) as we travelled in the lift. “There is progress,” he said “but it is going to take time.”

My morning walk along the Avenue Bourgibathat that cuts through the capital was interrupted by a protest from a group of women.

They were attempting to invade the ministry for women and the family. It quickly became an impromptu public meeting.

World leaders will touch down in Fermanagh on June 18th armed with their golf clubs and ready to discuss business. Lough Erne golf resort- will host the G8.

It was a venue once worth £30 million but after the property bubble burst is now priced at £10m in administration.

Although much like past G8 gatherings – in Gleneagles in 2005 and Chicago in 2011 the outcome of the discussions by the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world is likely to be a flash in the pan.

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez Frias has died in hospital after a long fight with cancer. Mike Gonzalez looks back at Chavez’s life and ideas—and the Venezuela he leaves behind

If revolution is the moment when the masses take to the stage of history, then Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution began on 11 April 2002.

A right wing coup kidnapped him and proclaimed a new government. It lasted barely 48 hours.

Tens of thousands of Chavez supporters surrounded the presidential palace demanding his return.

Editorial by Eamonn McCann on the retirement of Pope Benedict.

The resignation of Pope Benedict was presented as a piece of poignant theatre - the world-weary pontiff retiring to live out his days in prayerful contemplation while the faithful thronged to bid him a fervent farewell.

Powerful interests all over the world sent statements of respect and reverence. News footage of his helicopter departure from the Vatican wasn’t accompanied by a symphonic soundtrack, but it might as well have been.