Issue 1028

News

  • Marrickville Council supports campaign to cancel CSG licence covering Sydney basin

    Media statement by Sydney Stop CSG Stop CSG Sydney President Pip Hinman has welcomed Marrickville Council's decision at its meeting tonight to support the campaign to extinguish the CSG licence covering the whole of the Sydney basin. The unanimous council decision came on the same day as the Minister for Energy and Resources Anthony Roberts announced he had cancelled three PELs in NSW.

  • Solar, not coal, the future for Newcastle

    Steve O鈥橞rien is standing as a candidate for the Socialist Alliance in the Newcastle byelection on October 25. The sitting Coalition MP, Tim Owen, resigned in August after he admitted he lied to the Independent Commission Against Corruption about accepting an illegal $10,000 donation from a property developer. O鈥橞rien said: 鈥淎 strong vote for a socialist would send a powerful message to the political establishment that Newcastle is not for sale and that Newcastle people support the public sector.鈥

  • Millers Point residents protest auction sale

    Residents and supporters of the Save Millers Point campaign protested outside the auction of another public housing property on October 8. About 30 protesters gathered outside Ray White Real Estate in Double Bay, holding placards and chanting, "Aristocrats, shame on you."

  • Sydney uni students vote to divest from fossil fuels

    Fossil Free Sydney University released this statement on September 25. *** In a historic referendum at the University of Sydney, voters overwhelmingly supported fossil fuel divestment. Eighty percent of the students demanded the Vice-Chancellor commit to divesting from fossil fuels. In a first step last August the University froze further investment in all fossil fuels, pending review and consultation with stakeholders. Since then, all major student representative organisations have called upon the University to divest in full.

  • Pension rate set to drop

    As well as forcing people to wait until the age of 70 before reaching the retirement age, the federal Coalition government also intends to push these septuagenarians into poverty. The retirement pension for a single person is currently set at 27.7% of Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE) and is indexed every six months. The National Commission of Audit set up by Treasurer Joe Hockey in October last year has conveniently provided the government with a recommendation to reduce this rate.

  • Student candidates target education cuts

    Progressive activists are contesting this year鈥檚 student campus council elections at the University of Western Sydney鈥檚 Bankstown campus. RES Out West 鈥 Resisting Education Slashes 鈥 will run two activists for positions on the council and campus paper editors for 2015. Both are first year students and members of Resistance 鈥 Young Socialist Alliance. Ian Escandor, also known as Esky, is a progressive hip-hop artist, community worker and student activist. He is studying Community Welfare and is active in the campaign to fight the education cuts on UWS Bankstown campus.

  • Melbourne community protests against racist bashing

    A community protest has condemned the assault of a 26-year-old woman on the Upfield train in Melbourne on September 25. The woman was attacked by a female passenger as the train pulled into Batman Station in North Coburg, and then thrown from the carriage while the train was still moving. The assault was accompanied by racist and Islamophobic abuse directed at victim. Community activists gathered at the station on October 1 to condemn the racist attack.

  • Urgent need for coal seam gas catchment ban

    NSW鈥檚 Chief Scientist and Engineer, Professor Mary O'Kane, released on her review into coal seam gas (CSG) in the state on September 30. Former premier Barry O鈥橣arrell commissioned the review 18 months ago in response to intense public opposition to the industry.

  • Soldiers 鈥榓ssault peace activists on Swan Island鈥

    Swan Island Peace Convergence released this statement on October 2. *** Before dawn on October 2, eight peace activists entered the top secret Swan Island military base near Queenscliff, Victoria. The group entered the base to nonviolently disrupt preparations for the imminent war in Iraq. Four of the activists were discovered, detained and assaulted by SAS soldiers on the base. The treatment of the activists by the SAS bordered on torture.

  • Leadbeater鈥檚 possum threatened with extinction

    Since 1971 the Leadbeater's possum has been a faunal emblem of Victoria. This possum is now critically endangered due to loss of habitat from decades of clearfell logging and bushfires. The Leadbeater's possum is restricted to small pockets of remnant old growth mountain ash forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, north-east of Melbourne.

Analysis

  • Nauru refugees protest 鈥楥ambodia solution鈥

    Continuous protests in the Nauru refugee detention camp peaked with up to 600 people breaking out of the family compound just after midnight on October 10. An asylum seeker told Sydney鈥檚 Refugee Action Coalition (RAC): 鈥淒ay to day, night to night, the situation on Nauru is getting more serious for us.鈥 The protests have been accompanied by self-harm and suicide attempts, including one person hanging themselves, a 15-year-old girl swallowing detergent, others ingesting washing powder, lip-stitching and a hunger strike.

  • Our Common Cause: New security laws an assault on our freedoms

    In an atmosphere of manufactured hysteria about 鈥淢uslim terrorists鈥 in our midst, the Coalition government has introduced sweeping attacks on civil liberties in Australia. Prime minister Tony Abbott declared that the 鈥渂alance between freedom and security may have to shift鈥 and that 鈥渢here may be more restrictions on some so that there can be more protection for others鈥.

  • John Pilger: War, circus and injustice down under

    There are times when farce and living caricature almost consume the cynicism and mendacity in the daily life of Australia's rulers. Across the front pages is a photograph of a resolute Tony Abbott with Aboriginal children in Arnhem Land, in Australia鈥檚 remote north. "Domestic policy one day," says the caption, "focus on war the next."

  • Australian corporations caught dodging tax

    The Who Pays for our Common Wealth report into tax contributions by the S&P ASX 200, Australia鈥檚 200 top stockmarket listed companies, has found that 84% of them paid less than the company tax rate of 30% in the period between 2004 and 2013. This amounts to $80 billion in forgone taxation revenue.

  • Abbott backs down on jobseeker plan

    Tony Abbott鈥檚 government has backed away from the ludicrous proposal to force unemployed people to apply for 40 jobs a month to receive the paltry Newstart allowance. The proposal would have generated 30 million job applications a month for the 147,000 jobs available to the 746,000 unemployed. But it was not an attack of common sense that led to the decision 鈥 it came after 7000 protesting 鈥渃over letters鈥 were sent to Employment Minister Eric Abetz, together with complaints from small businesses that they would be inundated with applications for non-existing jobs.

  • Government backs income management, despite evidence

    Last week the federal government released its first evaluation of how its controversial income management policy has fared in five locations where the scheme was introduced in July 2012. This discriminatory government policy, which allows for Centrelink clients to have their payments quarantined and restricts how they can spend their money, has also been been explored in two recent government reports that have proposed extending the scheme.

  • Carlo's Corner: Plastic sword a perfect symbol for fake terror scare

    So it turns out the 鈥渟word鈥 confiscated during the September 18 terror raids in Sydney's north-west 鈥 you know Australia's largest terror raids ever 鈥 . That would be the 鈥渟word鈥 the cops had placed in a plastic bag that the media made such a big deal out of to terrify us all with the 鈥渢hreat鈥 of a 鈥渞andom beheading鈥. Plastic. It was a fucking plastic sword.

  • The rise and fall of free education

    By the mid-1880s, all of the Australian colonies had passed education Acts based on the principal of 鈥渇ree, compulsory and secular鈥 education. This mirrored similar legislation in Britain where the Factory Act of 1833 had made it unlawful for children under nine years of age to be employed in textile factories. In 1878, the Factory and Workshops Act extended this to all factories and limited the working hours of children under 14 years of age.

  • Now the economists complain we're not shopping enough

    The latest by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found department stores suffered a 2.9% fall in business in August, in seasonally adjusted terms. Indeed, overall retail trade was flat and was only saved from collapsing by people still buying food and basic necessities.

  • Socialists urge solidarity with Rojava, Kurdish struggle

    Below is the first part of a statement initially released by Socialist Alliance in Australia on September 24 and updated on October 4. In Sydney, on Friday morning (October 10), members of the community will a protest fast in Sydney Town Hall Square from 9am.

World

  • Pakistan: Campaign underway for jailed activists

    Awami Workers鈥 Party (AWP) general secretary Farooq Tariq has appealed for international support for 12 activists jailed for 鈥渢errorism鈥 for helping climate change victims. In to 鈥渟olidarity networks鈥 around the world, Tariq said Baba Jan, an activist in Gilgit, and 11 others had been sentenced to life in jail by a Gilgit 鈥渁nti-terrorism鈥 court. Jan is a vice-president of the AWP. The activists were arrested over their role in protests in favour of the rights of flood victims in 2011.

  • Brazil: Main parties to face off once more

    In the first round of the Brazilian presidential elections on October 5, the results were 鈥渓ogical鈥. President Dilma Rousseff, standing for re-election as the candidate of the Workers' Party (PT), will face ex-governor of Minas Gerais, Aecio Neves from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) in the second round on October 26.

  • Catalan national struggle enters critical phase

    The normally torpid Spanish legal system had an attack of extreme speed on September 29. Its highly abnormal Usain Bolt-like behaviour was caused by the Catalan regional government formally decreeing its long-awaited November 9 non-binding consultation of Catalan public opinion on the region's political status.

  • India: Students declare 'let there be uproar!'

    About 100,000 people marched in Kolkata on September 20 against police violence and for gender justice. I have known the city all my life and have not known of a demonstration of that size since the 1960s. The march was in response to a huge police crackdown on a peaceful student protest on Jadavpur University campus, one of the leading universities in the state.

  • Bolivia: Morales wins crushing victory in poll

    "This win is a triumph for anti-imperialists and anti-colonialists," Bolivia's left-wing President Evo Morales told thousands of supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace on the evening of October 12 after a crushing win in that's day's presidential poll, .

  • El Salvador: 100 days of FMLN's Sanchez Ceron administration

    The administration of Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren celebrated its 100th day in office last month, taking the chance to report on actions taken to advance towards equality. Among the achievements of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) administration is the opening of 43 new community health clinics, along with the first specialised pharmacy for patients with chronic illnesses.

  • Ten reasons Evo Morales will be re-elected

    Latest polls suggests Bolivian President Evo Morales will be reelected for a third term in a landslide victory on October 12. One week before the vote, Morales' support hit 57.3%. The latest statistics from pollster Tal Cual Comunicacion Estrategica indicate a huge win for the left-wing Morales, first elected in 2005 on the back of huge protests against neoliberialism.

  • Venezuela: Thousands commemorate slain revolutionaries, Uribe banned from country

    The Venezuelan National Assembly swore in grassroots leader Juan Contreras to assume the vacant post of the late deputy Robert Serra on October 7. Serra, a 27-year-old socialist deputy, was stabbed to death alongside his partner Maria Herrera in their Caracas home on October 1. Legislators also voted to ban former right-wing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe from entering Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused Uribe of being linked to the killings.

  • Islamic State gives West excuse for war

    鈥淭hings are looking positive and the wind is with us,鈥 Major General Craig Orme, commander of Australian forces in the latest war in the Middle East, told AAP on October 11. If the US-led military coalition has a strategy against its latest enemy, the terrorist gang that calls itself the 鈥淚slamic State鈥 (IS), Orme was not revealing it. 鈥淚f they want to stay in one spot, we are very happy for them to do that,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e will just bomb them. When they do mass we will smack them and smack them hard.鈥

  • Kobane: Epic resistance increases pressure on US and Turkey

    Kobane鈥檚 epic resistance against the assault of the genocidal Islamic State (IS) gangs had entered its fourth week by October 10. The defence had held out against overwhelming odds. The defenders had been forced back, but their lines had not been broken. In some neighbourhoods, street fighting was taking place.

  • Kurdish leader: 鈥榃e are resisting, despite Turkey, West鈥

    A desperate battle by progressive Kurdish-led resistance fighters is seeking to defend Koban锚 from ISIS fundamentalist forces. Koban锚 is in Rojava, or Western Kurdistan, is a predominantly Kurdish area in northern Syria that is a semi-autonomous 鈥渓iberated zone鈥 experiencing a social revolution.

  • Rojava under threat, Turkey must end ISIS support -- statement by People's Democratic Party (HDP)

    The statement below was released by the foreign affairs committe of the Turkish left-wing People's Democratic Party (HDP) on October 3. The HDP is a strong support of Kurdish rights. HDP presidential candidate, Kurdish activist Selahattin Demirtas, won almost 10% o0f the vote in Turkey's presidential elections in August. The statement is reprinted from and has been edited for clarity. ***

  • Hong Kong: Workers the key to Umbrella Revolution's demands for change

    Amid ongoing large protests in support of democratic reforms, Chinese authorities warned of 鈥渃haos鈥 on October 2 if protesters carried through their threat to storm Hong Kong government buildings if the region鈥檚 Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying did not resign, the that day.

  • Venezuela: Socialist deputy and partner killed in their home

    Robert Serra, a 27-year-old legislator of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and the National Assembly's (AN) youngest parliamentarian, was found dead in his Caracas home yesterday. Authorities confirmed last night that Serra and his partner Maria Herrera had been murdered in their residence. According to daily newspaper Ultimas Noticias, unofficial reports say that Serra鈥檚 body showed signs of torture before he was killed.

  • Maduro meets Bronx community leaders, invites Puerto Rico to join ALBA

    After speaking at the United Nations climate change summit on September 23, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro seized the chance to visit community leaders, local activists and grassroots groups in an event hosted by Hostos Community College of the South Bronx in New York City. About 1000 people attended the event, which was organised by Citgo, a subsidary of Venezuela's state-own oil company. Many arrived early to wait outside for good seats and to hold signs welcoming Maduro as 鈥減resident of the people鈥. The Bronx community

  • Venezuela: Gov't takes over closed factory, workers to restart production

    The Venezuelan government initiated a takeover of the abandoned Clorox factory on September 25, with Venezuelan Vice-President Jorge Arreaza calling an assembly of the company's 475 workers to reactivate the plant's activities. Clorox Venezuela called workers and left voicemails stating that their jobs were liquidated due to the company's decision to leave the country. The US-based company claims that economic challenges influenced its decision to close the factories doors.

Culture

  • Grenada's 'big revolution in a small country'

    We Move Tonight: The Making of the Grenada Revolution By Joseph Ewart Layne St. George鈥檚, Grenada: Grenada Revolution Memorial Foundation, 2014 Paperback 203 pp. 鈥淎 big revolution in a small country鈥 is allegedly how Fidel Castro described the overthrow of Grenada鈥檚 authoritarian government when being questioned on the matter back in 1979.

  • Klein's most important book says capitalism's climate crisis a chance for change

    This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate By Naomi Klein Simon & Shulster, 2014 Award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein, who wrote The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, is back with her long-awaited new release: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate. Now, she is taking on the biggest issue of our time 鈥 climate change, and exploring the implications of the climate crisis for social change today and into the future.

  • Corporate greed and government neglect in New Jersey

    Toms River: A Story of Science & Salvation Dan Fagin Bantam Books, 2013 538 pages, $43.95 (hb) In yet another chapter of the well-thumbed book of 鈥渃orporate avarice and government neglect鈥, writes Dan Fagin, the town of Toms River in New Jersey, two hours south of New York, paid a high price in cancer for the pollution of the chemical giant, Ciba-Geigy.