 Hello, you are watching the Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the top stories from around the world. Let's take a look at the headlines. Countries reject exclusionary summit of the Americas, hunger grows amid UK's cost of living crisis, Palestinian health activists sentenced to prison, New Zealand health workers to go on a strike. A number of Latin American and Caribbean states have threatened to boycott the summit of the Americas. The meeting will be hosted by the United States in the city of Los Angeles in June. While formal invitations have not been sent, outrage has grown over reports of the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Leftist leaders have warned that they will not attend the meeting, if fellow countries are not invited. President Lopez Obrador has stated that if there is exclusion, then he will not be a part of Mexico's delegation to the summit. President Pablo has also urged the US to seize its hostile policy towards Cuba, describing it as a genocide. Bolivian President Luis Arc announced that if the exclusion of brother peoples persisted, he would not participate in the meeting. The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Brown, expressed the same position. The 14 member countries of the Caribbean community or CARICOM have threatened a boycott. This will also hold if US-backed figure Juan Guado is invited instead of democratically elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The presidents of Argentina and Honduras have urged that all countries in the region to be included. The US continues to impose illegal and unilateral coercive measures against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. 18 US lawmakers have now called on President Biden to lift the sanctions on Venezuela. Meanwhile, progressive leaders in the region are building ties via alternative means which challenge US imperial hegemony. These include forums for regional unity like CELAC. In one in seven households in the UK have been forced to cut back on food or skip meals in the past month. The number of people struggling to buy food has increased by 57% since January. These figures were released by the Food Foundation based on a survey of 10,000 adults. 4.6% of people said that they had not eaten for a whole day. Over 7 million adults and 2.6 million children live in homes where people had either gone without food or could not get it in the last month. The UK is seeing an escalating cost of living crisis leaving many struggling to afford food and fuel. Food insecurity has reached levels seen at the start of the pandemic due to rising costs and poverty. Families are now increasingly relying on food banks with people requesting meals which do not require gas cooking. Inflation reached a 40 year high of 8.5% in April. Meanwhile, the government also imposed an unprecedented hike of almost 700 pounds in the energy price cap for households. Poor and already vulnerable people will be the worst hit by this crisis. The poorest 50% of the households could see their actual income fall by 1.7 to over 10% between 2022 and 2023. These projections have been released by the New Economics Foundation. People are demanding that the government raise benefits according to inflation and expand programs including free school meals. Moving on, Palestinian nurse and health activist Shata Audey has been sentenced to 16 months in prison. The ruling was issued by an Israeli military tribunal on May 12th which is also the International Nurses Day. Audey has been ordered to pay a fine of $9,000. Additionally, she was handed a five year suspended sentence on the condition that she would not provide health services. Audey was arrested in July 2021 after Israeli occupation forces raided her home in Ramallah. She was taken to the offer military camp and then to the Hasharon prison and finally to Israel's Damoun prison. Audey was the director of the Palestinian Health Work Committees or HWC. She was instrumental in securing healthcare for over 40,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. She was arrested a month after Israel shut down the HWC's office in Ramallah. This left a major gap in health access for Palestinians who are routinely denied critical care by the Israeli occupation. Many prosecutors charged Audey with several offenses linked to her in the HWC. This included a 2020 order which was not notified to the NGO which declared it an unlawful organization. This became a part of a rising crackdown on Palestinian rights groups and NGOs. On May 12th, Defense for Children International Palestine stated that one of its researchers had been attacked. Settlers accompanied by Israeli forces assaulted Hani Nasir near the evacuated illegal Hormish settlement. He had been investigating the severe abuse of a Palestinian child detained by Israeli forces. And finally we go to New Zealand which is set to witness a major strike next week. 10,000 allied health workers from over 70 professions will stage a walkout on May 16th. These include laboratory technicians, pharmacists, clinicians, mental health professionals and other frontline workers. The strike is taking place after the Public Service Association rejected the 11th wage offer by the district health boards. The two sides have been negotiating a new contract for over 18 months. Union rejected the latest offer calling it completely inadequate and a kick in the guts. Ahead of Monday's strike, the PSA launched a nationwide work to rule action this week. This means that workers will perform only those duties which have been stipulated in their contract. The action will remain in place until May 20th along with scheduled mass time-offs and a refusal of overtime work. The union has not released details regarding the workers' demands stating that it is confidential. However, workers have spoken of low pay, poor working conditions and staffing issues. Over 90% of workers had voted in favour of industrial action back in February. However, a planned set of strikes were cancelled by a last-minute ruling by the Employment Court. That's all for today's episode. For more such stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.