NicaraguaÂ’s Sandinistas will never forget the night of November 5 and the four days of street celebrations that followed. The first official results of the election came in around 11pm. They foretold that Daniel Ortega, presidential candidate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), would win on the first round. Partisans of the Sandinista movement, which led the popular revolution of 1979, had waited 16 long, trying years for this day, ever since the Sandinista government went down to bitter defeat in February 1990.
693
As annual negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol were about to begin on November 7 in Nairobi, Kenya, Senator Ian Campbell, federal environment minister, claimed that the Kyoto signatories had agreed that a new agreement was necessary as the old agreement was not working. Campbell asserted that Australia would be going to Nairobi to begin negotiations on a “New Kyoto”.
Commissioned by the British government, the October 2006 Stern report on global warming was greeted sceptically by PM John Howard, and lauded by the ALP and green organisations. But does the Stern report go far enough, or is it an unholy compromise between the science of climate change and the economics of responding to global warming while trying not to rock the foundations of capitalÂ’s global order?
Nationalism is a central component of the ideological glue that holds capitalist society together, and just about all capitalist governments are happy to beat a nationalist drum. However the Howard government has been particularly noted for its efforts in this regard, not least in its championing of “Australian values”. They’ve been flogging the term for a decade but in recent months there’s been a bit of a “values” frenzy, with the added spectacle of Labor making an ill-conceived attempt to compete in the “values” stakes.
An error in "Organising against NT waste dump plans" (GLW #692), should have said that Natalie Wasley from the Arid Lands Environment Centre is concerned about the implications of amendments to the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act
On November 23, the SX News websire reported that Penrith City Library, in far western Sydney, had tentatively rejected a DVD promoting the “ex-gat movement” donated to its collection by the right-wing Christian Democratic Party.
On November 20, a meeting initiated by the NSW Greens marked Transgender Remembrance Day. Below is an abridged presentation by Rachel Evans, co-convener of Community Action Against Homophobia, National Union of Students female queer officer and NSW Socialist Alliance upper-house candidate.
Still 'staying the course'
"I supported our involvement [in the US war against Vietnam] at the time and I don't intend to recant that. I mean, I didn't hold any position of authority then, but I supported the reasons for Australia's involvement
On December 1, the anniversary of the 1961 raising of the West Papuan flag, 70 people rallied outside the Indonesian embassy in support of West Papuan independence.
Across Australia on November 30, hundreds of thousands of workers answered the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ call to protest against Work Choices. The ACTU estimated that around 270,000 people took part, the majority hooked up to the Sky Channel broadcasts from the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
In a November 25 media release, Michael Anderson, a spokesperson for the Gumilaroi Nation, accused the federal and WA state governments of “not having the intestinal fortitude to stand against the multinationals who seek to destroy Aboriginal culture”. He was commenting on the threatened destruction of ancient Aboriginal rock art on the the Dampier Archipelago, resulting from the $50 billion Pluto Gas natural gas project by Woodside Energy on the Burrup Peninsula.
Pressure from workers and students forced the University of Western Sydney’s Board of Trustees to review its rejection of a $250,000 SRC funding proposal on November 29. The proposal is designed to help UWS Student Association (UWSSA) survive federal “voluntary student unionism” (VSU) legislation and came on the back of UWSSA having its budget slashed from $2.5 million to $450,000 for three years.
- Previous page
- Page 4
- Next page