About 5000 people walked across Commonwealth Bridge and rallied in front of Parliament House on June 5, calling for real action on climate change now.
Speakers included former Liberals Leader John Hewson, Richard Dennis from the Australia Institute, 2010 Greens Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds and Bishop Pat Power.
Hewson said we needed to respond to climate change with a greater sense of urgency and in a way that recognised the magnitude of the problem.
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A subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney on June 3 has added to a growing list of official probes into investment bank and securities firm Goldman Sachs. Reuters said on June 3: 鈥淕oldman Sachs Group Inc now faces probes by several government authorities into derivatives trades it executed in late 2006 and 2007. 鈥淥n Thursday, sources close to the matter said Goldman received a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney, who joins the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in examining Goldman's actions.鈥
As many as 1 million people gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square and across Egypt on May 27 for a 鈥淔riday of Anger鈥. The huge march showed the revolution that ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak in February has reached a new stage.
The demonstrations were called by left organisations in defiance of Egypt's military rulers 鈥 as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and liberal groups that were part of the mass protests against Mubarak in February.
British Conservative PM David Cameron told a May 26 London press conference with US President Barack Obama that the world's biggest superpowers support the 鈥淎rab Spring鈥 uprisings.
He said the main task of the May 26-27 G8 meeting in Deauville, France the following day was promoting 鈥渄emocracy, freedom and prosperity鈥 in the Middle East.
Obama also expressed 鈥渟olidarity鈥 with the uprisings. 鈥淚t will be years before these revolutions reach their conclusion, and there will be difficult days along the way鈥, he said. 鈥淧ower rarely gives up without a fight.鈥
The German government announced on May 30 that Germany鈥檚 17 nuclear power stations would all be permanently shut down by 2022.
Germany鈥檚 seven oldest nuclear power stations 鈥 temporarily switched off after public outcry following the Fukushima disaster 鈥 will remain off-line and be permanently decommissioned. An eighth was already off line, and will stay so.
Six of the remaining nine stations will be shut down in 2021 and the final three will be turned off in 2022.
Secret Genocide: Voices of the Karen of Burma
Daniel Pedersen
Maverick House, 272pp
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma's national League for Democracy (NLD), might be relatively free, for now. There are many others in Burma, however, who are anything but free of the continual repression and brutality that is still being enacted by the nation鈥檚 military regime.
For the people of the country鈥檚 various ethnic minorities, such as the Shan and the Karen, life is little more than the day-to-day endurance of a seemingly endless civil war.
The Scottish government announced on May 20 that it was aiming to use only聽 renewable energy聽 by 2020, EarthTimes.org said on May 22 鈥 increasing its target from 80%.
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond, from the Scottish National Party (SNP), said: 鈥淏ecause the pace of development has been so rapid, with our 2011 target already exceeded, we can now commit to generating the equivalent of 100% of Scotland's own electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020.
鈥淥ffshore wind will play a key role in achieving our ambitions.鈥
Tunisia's first election since the downfall of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali may be delayed from July 24 to October 16, Kamel Jandoubi, president of the High Authority for the Elections, told a meeting of political parties on May 26.
But days later, the interim government reaffirmed its commitment to the July 24 elections for a constituent assembly.
Moez Sinaoui, spokesperson for the interim prime minister Beji Caid el Sebsi , told state news agency TAP on May 29 that the original date 鈥渋s a roadmap and a position of principle to prepare this important political event鈥.
In a contribution to the magazine Viento Sur, Real Democracy Now! activist Nacho 脕lvarez looked at the challenges facing the Real Democracy Now! movement three weeks after May 15. Excerpts of the article are published below.
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Collective reflection about what to do, how to channel people鈥檚 anger and how to structure a sustained and massive protest movement now grips the streets and squares of hundreds of Spanish cities.
Global greenhouse gas emissions rose faster than ever last year and the market-based schemes set up to bring emissions down are in trouble. That鈥檚 the bad news from two recent reports by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the World Bank.
The editor-in-chief of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, told the Belfast Telegraph that the United States was working behind the scenes to put WikiLeaks and himself out of business.
Since the 1980s, Friends of the Earth's (FoE) annual Radioactive Exposure Tour has exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of 鈥渞adioactive racism鈥 and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear industry.
The tour is a 10-day journey into the heart of the breathtaking semi-arid landscapes of South Australia and its atomic history and current uranium mining operations.
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