鈥淩ise like lions after slumber/In unvanquishable number!/Shake your chains to earth, like dew/Which in sleep had fall鈥檔 on you/Ye are many 鈥攖hey are few.鈥
These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley鈥檚 鈥淢ask of Anarchy鈥 from 1819 may seem unattainable. I don鈥檛 think so.
Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a British government spreadsheet.
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Malalai Joya is an Afghan feminist and anti-war activist who opposes the US-led occupation of her country. An opponent of both the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban and the equally fundamentalist and corrupt warlords in the US-backed regime of President Hamid Karzai, Joya was the youngest member elected to Afghan parliament in 2005.
Demonstrators marched in Santa Cruz, the capital of Spanish-ruled Canary Islands just off the north-west African coast, on November 11 against the week-long assault on a protest camp in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
James Tweedie wrote on Ositorojo.blogspot.com that day that more than 1000 people, many Sahrawis but mostly Spanish Canarians, marched through the city centre to demand an end to the police and military operation.
A High Court decision concerning the Refugee Status Assessment (RSA) process may undermine the government's offshore processing system.
On November 11, the court upheld a case put by two Tamil asylum seekers, who'd had their claims for asylum rejected.
Known as M61 and M69, the Tamils put the case that they had been denied the right to challenge their rejected claims in court.
The current two-stage RSA "offshore" process discriminates between asylum seekers who arrive by boat, known as "irregular arrivals", and those who arrive by other means, such as by plane.
The federal election result and the surging Green vote have livened up the Victorian election campaign. The latest Newspoll figures show 19% support for the Greens, the and major parties are struggling to work out whether to launch a full-frontal attack or whether that would deliver more votes to the Greens.
The Greens are eating into Labor鈥檚 support base on the left and Labor is worried.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has voted for further industrial action, as vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer still refuses to negotiate in good faith on improvements to job security, pay and other conditions for staff.
A November 10 NTEU meeting voted for an indefinite ban on processing student results at the end of the second semester.
This is the second time staff have voted to carry out results bans this year. The dispute made headlines in July after management鈥檚 decision to stand down about 70 staff without pay.
Federal Liberal/National Coalition leader Tony Abbott left Normanton, in far north Queensland鈥檚 gulf country, on November 10, having failed to win Aboriginal elders' backing for his bill to repeal Queensland's Wild Rivers legislation.
The existing Wild Rivers legislation aims to protect the wilderness rivers of the tropical north, and provide Aboriginal control of employment and economic development in the region.
Having lived on the farm right next to the Northam army barracks since 1934, Eric Fox has seen a lot of people use the camp (and his farm) over the years.
鈥淭he army used the farm extensively [in the early years of World War Two] as an extension of their training ground鈥, Fox told 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
鈥淟ater in the war, when the Italian prisoners of war were there, they weren鈥檛 very solidly interned 鈥 they walked over the farm as well. That didn鈥檛 worry us. They didn鈥檛 bother us.
A Union and Community Summer School, Winning Our Rights, will be held over December 10-11 at Melbourne Trades Hall.
Most left political traditions will take part in the school, which aims to strengthen unity on issues for which there is agreement.
The approach will be one of problem-solving. To usefully tackle the big challenges confronting the union movement 鈥 such as the fight against anti-union laws and the struggle for a sustainable economy 鈥 it begins by setting out the concrete questions these challenges pose to unions and labour movement activists.
West Papuans and their supporters staged protests worldwide to coincide with US President Barack Obama's visit to Indonesia. Large protests were held in West Papua.
In Melbourne, about 50 activists protested at Federation Square on November 10, demanding action against the Indonesian government and its atrocities against West Papuans.
The last Aboriginal residents of the Redfern Block will be evicted on November 19 to make way for a new development by the Aboriginal Housing Corporation.
Aboriginal Housing Corporation CEO Mick Mundine told ABC TV鈥檚 November 8 Lateline that the development involved commercial interests, which would put money back into the corporation to support affordable housing for local Aboriginal people.
ALP activist Craig Giddins was one of six members of the Port Curtis and Hinterland branch who recently resigned in protest against Queensland Premier Anna Bligh鈥檚 public assets sell-off, especially QR National.
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