GLW issue 721, published 2007-08-22.

Laywers to video police during APEC protests

A group of 30 lawyers and law students have established a group to film police behaviour during protests against the September Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to ensure that the police do not use unnecessary violence or break the law.

South Australia defenceless

Hundreds of people in South Australia could soon be left without defence lawyers, part of a nationwide crisis in the under-funding of essential legal services.

Loose Cannons

Showing them the red card "I want America to go out. Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn't invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon." — Iraqi soccer team captain Younis Mahmoud, speaking

Multimedia and radical organising

In a new initiative for a political party in Australia, the Socialist Alliance is using the web to open up the organisation of its federal election campaign. Mainstream parties have generated a lot of media attention with their self-promotion on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, but the alliance is enabling open access to the way its campaign is run.

Further

Australian News

WA socialists plan campaigns

Around 50 activists gathered on August 11 in the Maritime Union of Australia offices to nominate Socialist Alliance Senate candidates in WA and plan campaigns.

Iraq war veteran condemns occupation

“The only way this war will end is if we end it” — this was the central point of a talk by Matt Howard to an audience of around 100 people at the University of Sydney on August 14. Howard, a former soldier and a member of the US-based group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), was in Sydney as part of a national speaking tour.

Further Australian News

International News

Reviving the phoney 'peace process'

Now that the dust has settled from the US-backed coup carried out by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party against the Hamas-led “national unity” government, Abbas and unelected PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad have revealed that they’ve nothing to offer the Palestinian people except a rerun of the failed post-1993 “Oslo peace process”.

Anti-racist student protesters acquitted

Seven Jewish and Palestinian Israeli students who held an anti-racism speak-out at Haifa University have been cleared of all charges of “provoking a commotion” by a university disciplinary hearing on August 13.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Combating global warming requires a social revolution

Twenty years ago, a UN special commission produced a report, Our Common Future, that predicted rising CO₂ levels would lead to a mean temperature increase of up to 4.5^oC within 50 years, which would cause catastrophic climate change. The report proposed that immediate action be taken to counter global warming through massive investment in renewable energy sources, with the onus upon wealthy industrialised nations to take the lead.

1907: Birth of socialism's great divide

For socialists, this August marks a significant anniversary. One hundred years ago, a congress of the Second — or Socialist — International took a bold stand in the struggle against capitalist war. The congress pointed the way toward the Russian Revolution of 1917 and provided an enduring guide for socialists’ anti-war activity.

Further Comment and Analysis

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Peaceful protest In response to Benjamen Standing (Write on, GLW #719): There is absolutely nothing sectarian about advertising a peaceful protest as "a peaceful protest". Further, there is no contradiction whatsoever between organising a peaceful

General

Green Left Weekly's $250,000 Fighting Fund: Australia's bad example

On August 8, I attended a noisy demonstration by trade unionists in Malaysia who were demanding that the government bring in a minimum wage of 900 ringgit (A$300) a month. I had come to the picket with a group of some of the country’s lowest-paid workers — rubber-plantation workers whose ancestors had been brought from India generations ago by the former British colonial rulers as indentured labourers.

Resistance!

Students wake up, arts and humanities put to sleep

Starting with Melbourne University and spreading around the country like a fire in a library, universities have announced major cuts in arts and humanities departments.

Get your Stop Bush Bag!

On August 17, activists organising the September 5 national student walkout against US President George Bush’s visit to Sydney launched a “Stop Bush Bag” containing items to help publicise the student strike.

Cultural Dissent

Social history with a sly grin

The Worst Jobs in History
Presented by Tony Robinson
Sunday, ABC 7.30pm

Kevin Rudd: The opposition leader who won't oppose

Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography
By Nicholas Stuart
Scribe Publications, 2007
288 pages, $32.95

Further Cultural Dissent

East Timor: discussing the problems

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Lib-Lab budgets: Following the dodo on a race to extinction

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