Issue 993

News

  • Socialist youth conference big success

    Resistance and the Socialist Alliance held a joint educational conference called 鈥淗ow to Make a Revolution鈥 for young people in Brisbane over December 13 鈥 15. About 80 people from around the country attended over the weekend, mostly young people wanting to discuss all things political, activism and more importantly what strategies socialists should be using in Australia to take the movement forward. Throughout the conference there was a running theme of mass action strategy, and the importance of forming alliances with the broadest layer of people to win demands.

  • 91自拍论坛 launched amid anti-war campaign

    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. *** It鈥檚 February 1991. Bob Hawke is Prime Minister (though not for much longer). Average weekly earnings are just under $600, about half the average in 2013, but petrol is 70c a litre and a middy (285mL) of beer is $1.50. Interest rates are about 14.5%.

  • Abbott turns back boats, with force

    Journalists have confirmed that up to five boats carrying asylum seekers to Australia have been turned back to Indonesia since December 10.

  • Help us celebrate 1000 issues of 91自拍论坛 Weekly

    On March 12 this year the 1000th issue of 91自拍论坛 Weekly will be published. We will be marking this significant milestone in the pages of the paper and in cities across the country. Come along to help make sure that Australia's most-read progressive media project remains in good shape.

  • Freeway protesters delay tunnel building

    Every day at 5.30am, residents and supporters gather in the Collingwood area around Alexandra Parade to protest against test drilling for the government's proposed East-West Link tollway tunnel. Keith Fitzgerald stands to lose the house he has lived in for 69 years if the tunnel is built. He told 91自拍论坛 Weekly the protests are about more than just his home. 鈥淭hey've got no right to take our heritage, our history, our parks and our clean air away from us. These are the vital things that we're fighting for and will continue to fight for.

  • Coles workers turn up the heat on pay, conditions

    About 400 members of the National Union of Workers took a day's strike action on January 17, with a picket line at the Coles/Linfox warehouse facility in Truganina, on the western fringe of Melbourne. The strike action was in support of the union's demand for a site agreement, something other Coles warehouses have. The workers are asking for a range of improvements in conditions, including an extra paid rest break per shift and a fair pay rise. NUW delegate Mathew Davies told 91自拍论坛 that the workers are demanding 鈥渇air pay for everyone.鈥

  • Thousands protest shark cull

    About 4000 people gathered at Cottesloe Beach on January 4 to protest against the Western Australian Liberal government's plan to cull sharks. This policy would have Perth鈥檚 beaches lined with drum lines and baited hooks a kilometre out from the coast and shark fishermen instructed to kill any tiger, great white or bull sharks spotted in the designated zones.

  • Villawood refugees receive the gift of solidarity

    A lawyer, families, high school and university students, unionists and many long-time activists took part in a joint Christmas visit to the Villawood detention centre in Sydney鈥檚 west on December 21. Visit coordinator Rachel Evans told NewZulu.com that Serco, the private company that operates Villawood, tried to confuse and put off visitors, by insisting that forms be faxed to the office 24 hours before the visit, and even phoning some people who had submitted forms.

  • Builder falls to his death at Sydney鈥檚 Barangaroo site

    Five hundred construction workers walked off the job following the death of a young worker, who fell 30 metres from scaffolding at the Barangaroo construction site in Sydney on January 9. The NSW Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) said emergency services were called to the site at 8.30am after Lend Lease construction workers reported that a man had plunged about 30 metres to the ground. Workmates on site attempted CPR, but the 26-year-old was pronounced dead when the paramedics arrived on site.

  • Photos: Gay man wins reprieve from deportation

    Campaigners for equal rights had their first win for 2014 as a Pakistani-born gay man, Ali Choudhry, obtained a temporary deportation reprieve just as nation wide protests began on January 7.

  • John Pilger's Utopia coming to Australia

    One of the most extraordinary films about Australia is soon to be screed across Australia. This is Utopia, an epic production by the Emmy and Bafta winning film-maker and journalist John Pilger. Utopia is a vast region in northern Australia and home to the oldest human presence on earth.

  • PHOTO STORY: Rallies tell Abbott 'Hands off Medicare!'

    The first of a number of rallies organised around Australia to protest a proposal of the Abbott Liberal-National federal government to introduce a $5-$6 "co-payment" for Medicare bulk-billed visits to the doctor was held on January 4 in Sydney. Organised through social media, about 500 attended on short notice. Rallies will be held in other major cities over the next week. These include: Perth 3:00 PM, Saturday, January 11, 2014 - Murray St Mall Melbourne

Analysis

  • Fight for land rights and justice for Aboriginal people

    The released this statement on January 16. *** Aboriginal Australians have the oldest continuous cultures and languages in the world. The first peoples cared for country for thousands of years and have intimate knowledge of its unique environment. Instead of helping to protect, learn from and collaborate with this knowledge, the Coalition government continues to endanger and destroy Aboriginal culture.

  • No new fees: defend Medicare

    A big attack on Medicare is on the cards after Prime Minister Tony Abbott refused to rule out forcing all patients to pay an upfront cost when they visit the doctor. Former health advisor to Abbott, Terry Barnes, has written a paper to the federal government's Commission of Audit recommending a $6 upfront fee to see a doctor. The commission was appointed by the federal government to propose business-friendly cuts to government spending before the May budget.

  • Climate change: When scientists become revolutionaries

    Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at Manchester University, said on October 29 last year: 鈥淭oday, after two decades of bluff and lies, the remaining 2掳C budget demands revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony.鈥 Anderson is one of Britain鈥檚 most eminent climate scientists. He is also deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Tyndall Centre senior research fellow and Manchester University reader Alice Bows-Larkin was more blunt in a November interview: 鈥淲e need bottom-up and top-down action. We need change at all levels.鈥

  • Newman concedes to bikie law anger

    Queensland Premier Campbell Newman recently hinted that his government鈥檚 controversial bikie laws were likely to be repealed after a mandatory review in three years. 鈥淯ltimately, in less than three years' time, these laws can disappear from the statute books in Queensland, because that's the intention of the government,鈥 he said. Newman claimed he never wanted the laws, saying: 鈥淚 didn't particularly want to see these laws implemented, but the sooner we can get rid of them the better.鈥

  • The bleak future from capitalism's past

    The Annual Climate Statement issued on January 3 confirmed that last year was the hottest year on record in Australia. Average temperatures were 1.2 degrees above the long-term average. Every month of the year had national average temperatures at least 0.5C above normal. The previous record was set in 2005 when the long-term average was up by 0.17C.

  • Chile requests Pinochet agent's extradition

    The Chilean Supreme Court issued a request on January 15 that the Australian government extradite a former agent of dictator Augusto Pinochet鈥檚 notorious secret police back to Chile to face charges of kidnapping and forced disappearances. The move comes after the revelation made public last September by SBS journalist Florencia Melgar that former National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agent Adriana Rivas had been in Australia since 2010, despite bail conditions imposed following Rivas鈥檚 2006 arrest prohibiting her from leaving Chile.

World

  • Philippines: Urban poor fight for their land (with photos)

    Residents in the urban poor settlement of San Dionisio in Barangay Cupang, Muntinlupa in Metro Manila, were woken on January 15 by a heavily armed police SWAT team. Brandishing a local government order that referred to an address in a different barangay (neighbourhood), authorities overrode objections of residents and started tearing down their homes.

  • Mark Steel: How 'leftie' academics hijacked the Great War

    Now the centenary of 1914 has got going, we should do as British education secretary Michael Gove suggests and celebrate the First World War, instead of taking notice of 鈥渓eft-wing academics鈥, who complain it was a regrettable waste of life. But the other day, on the radio, they played an interview with Harry Patch, the last man alive who fought for the British in the war. Harry said: 鈥淧oliticians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder.鈥

  • Basque Country: Huge march advances struggle for peace, national rights

    For decade, the People鈥檚 Party (PP) of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has believed it had a reliable political gun in its holster 鈥 unbending opposition to any group or proposal that could be portrayed as linked to Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA). ETA is the left-nationalist armed group responsible for more than 800 deaths in its 50-year-long fight against the Spanish state.

  • Britain: Protesters hold vigil for Duggan and police killing declared 'lawful'

    Hundreds of protesters held a peaceful vigil outside Tottenham police station on January 11 demanding justice for Mark Duggan, who was shot dead by police in August 2011. The killing sparked nationwide rioting. More than 500 demonstrators gathered to protest against the 鈥減erverse鈥 inquest decision last week that found police had lawfully killed Duggan when they shot him dead. Relatives of Duggan, including his mother Pamela, aunt Carole and brother Marlon, joined the vigil, which observed a minute's silence.

  • Letter from the US: Bad times for Big Brother

    A major rift has developed in the ruling class over the revelations by Edward Snowden of the huge spying by the NSA of every American and hundreds of millions worldwide. On December 16, Richard Leon, a conservative federal judge appointed by George W. Bush, ruled that the vacuuming up of phone 鈥渕etadata鈥 of US citizens was most likely a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution鈥檚 prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure.

  • Western Saharans condemn EU-Morocco fisheries deal

    Human rights conditions in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara remain dire according to activists, even though the territory is once again open for business to European fishing companies. Despite Moroccan pledges to improve conditions for Western Sahara's indigenous Sahrawi, head of the Sahrawi Centre for Media and Communication Mohamed Brahim said the situation is getting worse under Moroccan rule. 鈥淣othing seems to be improving,鈥 Brahim told 91自拍论坛 Weekly from Laayoune.

  • North American ice storm shows extreme weather dangers

    The ice storm that struck central and eastern Canada and northeastern United States, on December 20-22 should be viewed not only an important news event, but also a big climate change story. Not because the storm was a direct consequence of the Earth鈥檚 average warming temperatures. That would be a speculative claim. No, it鈥檚 because of the social crisis created by this weather emergency and what it illustrates about the challenges that are facing human society in a new and warming world. Power loss

  • Striking Cambodian garment workers killed in brutal repression

    An estimated 700,000 Cambodian garment, accessories and footwear workers (90% of whom are women) are among the lowest paid in this globalised industry. They produce fashionable products sold at high prices in the West under big brand names like Gap, Walmart, H&M, Puma, Nike, Adidas, Columbia and Levi Strauss. Major include Coles, Kmart, Target, Big W and Pacific Brands.

  • Sharon was a killer, not a hero

    The tributes and praise from various world leaders, including US President Barack Obama and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, for Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon who died on January 11, are vile but sadly predictable. But probably the most distasteful of all comes from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who 鈥渟addened by the death of Ariel Sharon鈥.

  • The Zapatista uprising: twenty years on

    The tide of history sometimes surges out of the most unexpected places. Twenty years ago, the Zapatista indigenous uprising broke out in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

Culture

  • Pilger's Utopia a devastating expose of Australian apartheid

    Utopia Directed by John Pilger The latest documentary by Emmy and BAFTA award winning film maker and journalist, John Pilger, contrasts two very different worlds: one of white aspiration on Sydney鈥檚 northern beaches, and the other the Aboriginal community in the ironically named town of Utopia, located in central Australia. The town has been assessed as the most disadvantaged and poorest community in Australia. The distinction could not be more stark.

  • Racist attacks on A-League fans a broader problem

    Well, January isn't even over and the race for Biggest Hypocrite of 2014 is well under way. And the ever-reliable contenders from Parliament House in Canberra already have some serious competition in the media.