SYDNEY 鈥 NSW Greens MLC John Kaye addressed a morning rally outside the Financial Review Energy Conference on October 23.
-
-
The Socialist Alliance鈥檚 Sam Wainwright was elected to the Fremantle Council on October 17. He was elected with 438 votes (33.44%) and will represent the Hilton ward.
-
About 100 people protested on October 22 against the Brumby government's proposal to allow brown coal exports to India.
News
-
Five hundred people gathered in West End's iconic Boundary Street on October 17 to protest against a Brisbane City Council development plan.
-
There are social expectations on everyone, men and women, to act in particular ways based on our sex. This is bad for everyone because it鈥檚 stifling, but it鈥檚 worse for women and queers.
-
The Australian Greens announced on October 23 that high profile economist and environmentalist Clive Hamilton would stand for the party in the upcoming by-election for the federal seat of Higgins in Victoria.
-
A motion calling for a halt to the Queensland ALP government鈥檚 plans to privatise public rail, port, road and forestry assets was passed with support of 70% of delegates at the ALP鈥檚 Far Northern regional conference on October 18.
-
With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese community in Australia, 91自拍论坛 Weekly is proud to publish a regular Arabic language supplement. The Flame covers news from the Arabic-speaking world as well as news and issues from within Australia. The October edition can be read at .
-
Hot on the heels of its hugely unpopular privatisation plans, the Queensland government has waded into more trouble. It announced plans to ramp up the cost of public transport in a five-year plan starting January 2010.
-
About 200 people attended a tribute dinner on October 17 to unionist and living legend Fred Moore.
-
鈥淎 revolution is sweeping Latin America, and Venezuela is at the centre of the process that is radically changing the social order there鈥, Jim McIlroy told a forum on October 22.
-
Community and conservation groups fighting the controversial Mary River Traveston Crossing Dam proposal, near Gympie, have recently held a series of campaign strategy meetings. This followed the Queensland coordinator general鈥檚 October 6 approval of the proposal, which attached 1200 conditions to the dam project.
-
More than 175 different climate change actions took place across Australia on October 24. The protests were part of the 350.org international day of climate action.
-
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) national council meeting over October 9-11 adopted key resolutions around climate change amid significant and vigorous debate.
-
SYDNEY 鈥 On October 20, 200 people protested outside Parliament House against the Rees Labor government's moves to repeal 100-year-old laws requiring parliament to approve any sales of land reserved for railways. A wide range of groups were represented, including the transport unions, Greens, Socialist Alliance and transport action groups from around the state.
Analysis
-
The Australian government is getting desperate and showing its true colours. Not long after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd personally intervened to turn away a boat of 260 Tamil refugees in international waters, a second boat 鈥 also carrying refugees from Sri Lanka 鈥 sent out a distress signal off the coast of Sumatra.
-
A domestic violence shelter in Alice Springs told ABC radio鈥檚 AM on May 1 that between January 1 and mid-April this year, it provided accommodation for 157 children and 149 women. However, due to lack of funding, it turned away a further 158 women and 100 children seeking support.
-
The big nuclear push is on. The nuclear industry is trying to re-brand yellowcake as 鈥済reen鈥.
-
On October 10, a hole was burnt in the doormat of Gunns Limited chairperson, John Gay. Some crude graffiti was also drawn on his fence.
-
Balibo I Clinton Fernandes describes himself as a "consulting historian" to the movie Balibo. He is a former military intelligence officer, who has his own reasons for promoting the official line on whether Australian intelligence was forewarned
-
The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) 鈥 a right-wing economic think tank 鈥 released its What鈥檚 Next for Welfare-to-Work? report on October 15. As part of a strategy to push more people off welfare, the report called for a fall in the minimum wage and a tightening of eligibility rules for the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
-
It is a pattern that is being repeated over and over worldwide. Security agencies conduct secret surveillance of suspects, record their conversations, then convict them under anti-terrorism laws so broad that expressions of opinion and radical talk are sufficient to define a terrorist.
-
A wave of deep moral revulsion swept through everyone in this country with a social conscience after Labor PM Kevin Rudd uttered that ugly sentence: 鈥淭his government makes no apology for a hard-line approach to people smuggling and border security.鈥
-
Let鈥檚 start by establishing some common ground between myself and anti-nuclear campaigners like Jim Green. Green and I both understand the seriousness of the climate crisis and the imperative for a rapid transformation of our energy system to technologies that emit no carbon when generating power.
-
Simon Butler precisely explains his concerns about the inadequacy of the Greens鈥 climate change amendment proposals (鈥淭he good and the bad of the Greens CPRS amendments鈥, GLW #814). However, like the mainstream media, he overlooks some of the Greens鈥 visionary bills on efficiency and renewables-friendly demand management.
-
Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced in May that the federal Labor government would reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act by the end of October. But she has also said key policies of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) would remain 鈥 discriminatory policies that required the suspension of the RDA to be passed.
-
The Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2009 is scheduled for Senate debate on October 26. The bill would change the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 (BCII Act). This would affect the building and construction industry鈥檚 watchdog, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
-
There are three main problems with the nuclear 鈥渟olution鈥 to climate change 鈥 it is a blunt instrument, a dangerous one, and it is unnecessary.
-
The following statement is by Geelong Trades Hall Council secretary Tim Gooden.
World
-
The article below is abridged from an October 18 report.
-
US-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger points out in her books exposing US intervention into Venezuela that the constant stream of lies about Venezuela and its popular President Hugo Chavez are best seen as the leading edge of an integrated strategy of destabilisation and 鈥渞egime change鈥 for the socialist-oriented, oil-rich nation.
-
Before the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement was ratified in 2007, many Peruvian and international human rights and environmental organisations said the deal would lead to increased social destabilisation and drug production.
-
Can we expect decent climate policy when most of the decision-making elite are ignorant of the real scientific imperatives, or believe they can negotiate with the laws of physics and chemistry? The answer is bleak, judging by the lead-up talks to the climate summit in Copenhagen in December.
-
A massive protest was held on October 17 in Donostia/San Sebastian in the Basque Country to protest against the Spanish government鈥檚 new wave of arrests against the Basque pro-independence and labour movement.
-
Almost eight years after choosing Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan government, Uncle Sam would like to give him a pink slip.
-
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in climate action protests in the Danish capital of Copenhagen during the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in December.
-
The mass resistance of the poor majority to the coup regime that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28 continues after nearly 120 days. Talks between the coup regime and Zelaya to resolve the crisis, which is costing the Honduran economy millions of dollars, were finally declared dead by Zelaya on October 23.
-
United States measures for resisting progressive changes in Latin America have included funding for right-wing opposition groups, military deployment throughout the region, and the reactivating of the US Navy Fourth Fleet for monitoring the continent.
-
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has tried to buyoff electricity workers facing redundancy as part of his campaign to privatise the state-owned power company Luz y Fuerza, by offering free English lessons on top of redundancy payments.
-
The struggle of striking British postal workers against privatisation plans is as vital for democracy as any national event in recent years. The campaign against them is part of a historic shift from the last vestiges of political democracy in Britain to a corporate world of insecurity and war.
-
The seventh summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), a nine-nation anti-imperialist trading bloc established in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela, was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia over October 16-17.
-
Thousands of people from various sectors of society protested to mark the inauguration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as president and Boediono as vice-president near the national parliament on October 20. Yudhoyono was elected to his second five-year term.
Culture
-
Steven Sodebergh鈥檚 epic films, Che Part I & II, give a detailed portrayal of the experience of Argentinean-born socialist revolutionary Ernesto 鈥淐he鈥 Guevara in the Cuban revolutionary war and his failed Bolivia campaign that ended in his execution on October 9, 1967.
-
Balibo By Jill Jolliffe Scribe Publications, 2009 416 pages, $29.95 (pb)
-
The Global Fight for Climate Justice: Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction Edited by Ian Angus Resistance Books, London, 2009 286 pages, $49 (pb)