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Protesters in Basra

Heat and corruption are a heady mix. As Iraq swelters in record-breaking temperatures, thousands of largely young Iraqis are taking to the streets to protest the miserable conditions they face. They are angry about the lack of electricity and water - and blame rampant government corruption.

The great power of Vincent Lingiari始s story is that it teaches us how this land sings to us all, how it holds us and nurtures us. This is the common ground that we share. When the Gurindji leader and his people walked off Wave Hill Station, camping by the Victoria River and then eventually by Wattie Creek at Dagaragu almost half a century ago, they understood that the land was their birthright and their destiny.
Antarctic glacier

World famous climate scientist James Hansen, known as the 鈥渇ather of global warming鈥 for being the first to see the threat of catastrophic climate change聽, has issued a new warning. Sea level changes are likely to be much higher, less stable and happen much sooner than previous predictions.

One in three women is a victim of domestic violence. I am one of those. The violence did not happen until I was pregnant and, as a result, vulnerable. I did not report it to the police as I was too scared: it was carried out in the privacy of our flat; there was no obvious injury and he was very contrite afterwards. I vividly remember him buying me breakfast at a cafe the next morning, an unusual event, while I sat too traumatised and depressed to say anything. Before that, I had never suffered a physical assault from anyone.
Tony Abbott鈥檚 government has managed, yet again, to delay making a decision about equal marriage. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of Australians supporting equal marriage 鈥 more than 70% support for marriage equality in the last poll conducted by Liberal Party pollsters Crosby Textor 鈥 but Tony Abbott continues to drag his feet.
The August 11 rally was joined by Newcastle and Port Kembla members of the MUA

"We have won the first battle in a long war," Paul McAleer, Sydney secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) told a rally of several hundred waterside workers and other unionists at the entrance to the Hutchison Ports terminal at Port Botany on the evening of August 13. He was speaking as news emerged of the important, if temporary, victory the union had achieved in winning a court injunction to order reinstatement of the sacked Hutchison workers in Sydney and Brisbane.

The NSW Coalition blocked a Greens鈥 motion in the upper house on August 12 calling for long-term funding for violence prevention and specialist services. Funding for women鈥檚 refuges across NSW has been cut and the services tendered out to charities, including religious ones. The motion acknowledged that: 路 domestic and family violence is the leading cause of death and injury in women under 45; 路 this year, violence against women at the hands of someone they were involved with or knew, has claimed the lives of 34 women across Australia;
The that a report prepared for the Queensland government says that hundreds of square kilometres of prime agricultural land are at risk from an experimental plant operated by mining company Linc Energy. Queensland鈥檚 environment department alleges that the Linc plant at Chinchilla is responsible for the toxic chemicals and explosive gases that have caused 鈥渋rreversible鈥 damage to valuable Darling Downs farming land.
Mexican-Lebanese actor and film producer Salma Hayek has said she never felt accepted by Hollywood. Talking with the Huffington Post, Hayek spoke out on racism in the United States and what it means to be an Arab Latina in the Hollywood industry. Promoting her new animated feature movie Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, based on Gibran's poetry book of the same name, Hayek said the US has a 鈥渧ery severe problem with discrimination that we try to overlook. It's there.鈥
Melbourne climate activists staged an 鈥淓nd of Coal鈥 parade on August 13. They were celebrating the Commonwealth Bank鈥檚 decision to cancel its involvement with Adani鈥檚 Galilee coal proposals. They called on all Australia鈥檚 Banks to stop investing in fossil fuels.
The year-long vilification of Aboriginal AFL star Adam Goodes should not be trivialised and dismissed as simply ignorance or mob mentality. This is a valuable opportunity to reflect on race relations in Australia and the ways racism is perpetuated. After taking a brief break in the face of sustained booing that dogged him whenever he took to the field, the Sydney Swans star returned to the game for the Swans August 8 win over Geelong. The Geelong crowd warmly welcomed Goodes in a public demonstration of all that is humane and open-hearted in the Australian public.

聽In 1972, Aboriginal rights campaigners successfully pressured the Whitlam Labor government to grant funds for the Aboriginal Housing Company to begin buying houses in Redfern for low-cost housing for Aboriginal people. Now, Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy (RATE) is fighting for The Block to retain this role instead of being sacrificed to greedy developers.