The big 鈥済reenwash鈥 of gas as the new 鈥済reen energy鈥 isn鈥檛 going down well in inner-city Sydney.
On November 14, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed gas exploration would start within two months in the inner-city suburb of St Peters.
The article said said Macquarie Energy, which is owned by Apollo Gas, received state government permission for exploration in March. The community had been kept in the dark; even the Marrickville Council, which partly covers the area, knew nothing.
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鈥淎 structural revolution in the Northern Territory is dismantling the whole infrastructure of self-determination鈥, Australian Workers Union national legal officer Zoe Angus said on November 15.
Along with Sean Marshall from the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), Angus was reporting back on a recent trade union delegation to investigate working conditions for Aboriginal people living under the NT intervention. She spoke at a public meeting organised by the Stop the Intervention Collective, Sydney.
鈥淭he Group of 20 countries [which met in Seoul over November 11-13] were supposed to have stamped out the financial market abuses at the heart of the global crisis but little seems to have changed since their last summit, analysts say. 鈥淗opes for reform after the market chicanery that brought down a series of 鈥榯oo-big-to-fail鈥 banks and sparked the worst slump since the 1930s have faded with the return of the 鈥榞et rich quick鈥 mentality, according to analysts.
Carly Dawson is a volunteer with Peace Brigades International (PBI), a non-government organisation that 鈥減rotects human rights and promotes nonviolent transformation of conflicts鈥. The organisation was formed during the 1980s and its first mission was to help counter the war in Nicaragua that was waged by US-backed Contras against the left-wing Sandinista government
Dawson recently returned to Australia after 12 months volunteer work with PBI in Colombia. She spoke to 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Aaron Roden.
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The contrast is striking. As Australia鈥檚 state and federal governments continue their bloody-minded corporatisation and privatisation of our few remaining public assets, the revolutionary government of Venezuela is bringing important industries and sectors into public ownership and control.
Burma鈥檚 November 7 elections 鈥 held under an undemocratic constitution in an atmosphere of repression and with the result crudely rigged 鈥 have been overshadowed by the release from house arrest of opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi on November 13.
Thousands of supporters lined the streets to her house and flocked to NLD offices to hear her speak.
Suu Kyi鈥檚 release has been compared to that of Nelson Mandela in 1990. However, unlike Mandela, Suu Kyi was not released from detention by a regime seeking negotiations.
鈥淎bout 15 per cent of US households 鈥 17.4 million families 鈥 lacked enough money to feed themselves at some point last year, a US Department of Agriculture report says. 鈥淭he study also found that 5.6 million of these households 鈥 with as many as 1 million children 鈥 had continuing financial problems that forced them to miss meals regularly. 鈥淭he number of these 鈥榝ood insecure鈥 homes 鈥 was more than triple the one in 2006, before the recession brought double-digit unemployment.
鈥淭he National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) expresses its energetic condemnation of the massacre against the campesino community in El Tumbador, Trujillo, in which our companeros Ignacio Reyes, Teodoro Acosta, Siriaco Munozm Raul Castillo and Jose Luis Sauceda were assassinated鈥, the FNRP said in a November 16 statement.
All of those killed were members of the Campesino Movement of Aguan (MCA). The campesino activists were killed by assassins hired by pro-US oligarch Miguel Facusse, who helped fund the coup that overthrew president Manuel Zelaya last year.
91自拍论坛 Weekly spoke to some of the progressive candidates running in the November 27 Victorian state elections.
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Stephen Jolly
Stephen Jolly is the Socialist Party candidate for Richmond. He was elected to the City of Yarra council in 2004. He first came to prominence in the campaign to reopen Richmond Secondary College. He spoke to GLW鈥檚 Narendra Mohan Kimmalapati.
What is your platform for the election?
In October, Kevin Harkins, a member of the Labor Left, won the ballot to become the new secretary of Unions Tasmania. Harkins was an electrician and then an organiser with the Electrical Trades Union in Victoria, before becoming ETU Tasmanian secretary in 2000. He spoke to 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Linda Seaborn.
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The recent Unions Tasmania election was the first contested ballot in years. Can you tell me about that?
Labor special minister of state Gary Gray must be stupid if he thinks we should feel sorry for him. Gray鈥檚 pay went from $675,000 a year to $130,000 when he left Woodside Petroleum to become a politician.
Gray wants to close the pay gap between corporate CEOs and politicians 鈥 and not by cutting obscene CEO pay. He would prefer to widen the gap between politicians and the people they represent.
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