Electrical Trades Union Victorian Secretary Troy Gray wrote this statement on the ETU Facebook page on February 6.
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Australian Workers Union Secretary Paul Howes is slitting the throat of Australian workers for his own political ambitions.
Recent headline grabbing statements by Howes have more to do with his naked ambition to be a politician and his resolve to distance聽himself from the AWU skeletons, than any attempt to improve the lives of working people or his own members.
996
The movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel has captured headlines around the world after actress Scarlett Johansson signed a promotion deal with Israeli company SodaStream.
Johansson signed the deal to become SodaStream's first 鈥済lobal brand ambassador鈥 on January 1. A Super Bowl halftime commercial starring the actress airing on February 2.
However, the deal resulted in an instant furore due to the company's use of an Israeli occupied industrial settlement zone in Palestinian West Bank to make their home soda machines.
Queensland woman Sheila Oakley has been left blind in one eye after being tasered by police outside her home on February 6.
Oakley underwent surgery after the metal barb from the Taser hit her in her left eye, the Guardian reported on February 7.
A senior constable, who is reported to be a qualified Taser instructor, fired the Taser.
Police said the woman was holding a table leg when they arrived at her home.
Well it's my first day back at work and already the year has started with the predictable attack on workers that usually accompanies conservative governments in their first term of office.
They always claim that unions are corrupt and should have special laws to prevent them from being involved in workplaces or politics.
War criminal and former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who died on January 11, led an infamous Israeli army terror group in the 1950s. Called Unit 101 and nicknamed the 鈥渁vengers鈥, it operated without uniforms.
The unit countered Palestinian resistance with terror attacks. It carried out many outrages inside Israel and across its borders.
In August 1953, Unit 101 attacked the refugee camp of El-Bureig in Gaza. About 50 refugees were massacred. In October 1953, Sharon鈥檚 unit attacked the Jordanian village of Qibya.
About 7000 people rallied at Cottesloe Beach in Perth on February 1 to protest against the shark culling policy of the Western Australian Liberal government.
This 鈥渃atch and kill鈥 policy requires the Western Australian Department of Fisheries to maintain baited drum lines 1.4 kilometres off the coast. 聽Federal Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt granted an exemption for this under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act because it is in the 鈥渘ational interest鈥 of protecting public safety and tourism.
The growing ecological crisis and impending environmental catastrophe is leading more on the left to recognise that we need both red and green in our politics 鈥 we have to be ecosocialists. One without the other is not going to work.
That is the strong message from the French Left Party, which has called for the founding of a European network, opposing the environmental degradation caused by capitalism鈥檚 relentless drive for profit.
With more than 99% of polling places reporting, the candidate for the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), Salvador Sanchez Ceren, easily won the first round of El Salvador鈥檚 presidential elections on February 2.
Sanchez Ceren scored nearly 49% of the vote, more than ten-points higher than Norman Quijano of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), who placed second with 39%. Former president Tony Saca garnered just over 11% of the vote. The FMLN and ARENA will head to a run-off on March 9.
鈥淏angladesh is a world leader in adaptation to natural disasters,鈥 Bangladeshi community organiser Nasima Akter told a Toronto audience January 8. 鈥淏ut now climate change threatens to wash away all our gains.鈥
Akter had been invited by East End Against Line 9, a neighbourhood committee formed to protest against a proposed cross-Toronto tar-sands pipeline. The East End committee wanted to learn about the implications of Canada鈥檚 reckless tar-sands development for a poor and vulnerable nation.
The irony of fracking is that it destroys the natural resource it needs most.
The tragedy for those living near fracking operations is that natural resource is the fresh 鈥 and increasingly scarce 鈥 water supply on which they, too, depend.
Fracking 鈥 or hydraulic fracturing 鈥 is the fracturing or rock by pressurised liquid. It is used to access several natural resources, such as shale gas and coal seam gas, in otherwise out-of-reach places.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he would take 鈥渢he most radical measures to protect our people's economy鈥 as a deadline for businesses to adhere to new price controls approaches.
鈥淲e will expropriate whatever needs to be expropriated,鈥 Maduro said during a February 4 speech in Caracas amid commemorations of the 22nd anniversary of a 1992 failed military rebellion.
The coup was led by Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Although he was jailed for the insurrection, Chavez became a popular figure with the poor majority. He won the 1998 presidential elections by a landslide.
Tens of thousands of people marched to Spain's parliament in Madrid on February 1 to protest against a proposed new law that would severely curb access to abortion.
Changes to the law would permit abortions to be carried out only in cases of rape or serious risk to health.
The rally was organised by dozens of women's groups fighting for reproductive rights. Participants travelled from across the Spanish state to take part, with trains full of protesters arriving in Madrid throughout the day.
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