Messages of congratulations for 91自拍论坛's 1000th issue.
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Many people gasped when they read that an Oxfam study found that the richest 85 people in the world own the same wealth as the poorest half of the global population.
It is shocking and unconscionable. It is grossly unfair and unjust. But it is much more than this. This unimaginable concentration of wealth condemns the liveability of the planet and makes permanent war inescapable 鈥 for how else but through ruthless violence can this wealth and power of the privileged few be maintained?
January 26 is officially celebrated as Australia Day, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (and anyone who values the truth) it is known as Invasion Day or Survival Day. This is the day when British colonial authorities arrogantly laid claim to this continent, opening an era of brutal dispossession, genocide and racism.
A wave of protests has broken out in recent months against militias in Libya鈥檚 cities.
The militias are armed groups originally formed during the 2011 civil war. Most are based in a particular town or region, but they sometimes try to exercise power over a wider area.
There is widespread resentment at their arbitrary exercise of power. One protester told the Libya Herald that the militias 鈥渢errorise, steal and kidnap people鈥.
The Venezuelan government plans to continue its land expropriations this year in its push to move towards what it terms 鈥渁grarian socialism鈥.
In the 2014 national budget, the government鈥檚 National Land Institute (INTI) sets its aim to expropriate 350,000 hectares of land this year.
This compares with the goals of 350,000 and 397,000 hectares of land the government sought to expropriate in 2012 and last year respectively. The government began to increase the pace of land expropriations in 2011.
Communes and social movements have demanded the Venezuelan government combat the assassination of rural activists in the mountains of western Venezuela, which they say is undermining communal organising in the region.
About 300 West African refugees reached the German city of Hamburg early last year after a long and perilous journey from Libya.
They had, like countless other refugees travelling from north Africa, crossed the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa the name that the group of 300 later adopted for themselves.
The refugees had hoped to receive refugee status from the German state. However, authorities, deferring to European Union guidelines, refused to provide them with any sort of accommodation and tried to expel them from Hamburg.
If one country plays host to the armed forces of another, it has either been invaded or invited the second country in.
If the latter, this is indicative of some level of inadequacy on the part of the first country; an inability to fully take care of itself 鈥 the classical colonial situation, in which the superior country offers an inferior one 鈥減rotection鈥 from some third power presenting a threat.
Does Australia need protection? The northern coast of Australia was attacked during World War II, so the nation is clearly vulnerable to a military offensive.
The Manila Seedling Bank, a seven hectare area of small market gardens and big and small shops selling plants, was a rare green space among the traffic jams, shopping malls and slums on the intersection of Quezon and Edsa Avenues in Quezon City, Metro Manila.
It was also home to a community of hundreds of smallholding horticulturalists and their families. That was until January 20.
Five hundred ambulance workers rallied outside the Doncaster Ambulance Station in Victoria on January 22. Led by Ambulance Employees Australia (AEA), workers have been fighting for pay equity with ambulance workers in other Australian states and to protect their conditions for 18 months.
The rally began with spirited chants, such as 鈥渨on鈥檛 surrender, won鈥檛 back down, paramedics stand their ground.鈥 Many car drivers passing the rally blew their horns in support.
As 91自拍论坛 Weekly approaches its 1000th issue, more than 20 years after it first hit the streets, we will be looking back at some of the campaigns it has covered and its role as an alternative source of news.
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When 91自拍论坛 Weekly was launched in 1991, it was conceived as a way to bridge the gap between ecological and socialist politics.
At the time, environmental politics had emerged as an important new force, which was not always taken seriously by the existing left.
When the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) found that former union official, John Maitland, and former NSW ALP minister for primary industries, Ian Macdonald, had engaged in corrupt conduct over the granting of a coal exploration licence at Doyles Creek, they said the licence was tainted by corruption and should be declared void.
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