GLW issue 723, published 2007-09-05.

Videos: Sydney APEC 2007 protest videos

'We are the majority'

The following speech was delivered by Pip Hinman, a member of Sydney’s Stop the War Coalition and the Socialist Alliance, to the September 8 “Stop Bush” protest in Sydney.

Loose Cannons

Shipping costs "The US Defense Department said on Thursday that a flawed system designed to rush supplies to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan let a small-parts supplier improperly collect $998,798.38 to ship two 19-cent washers … The lock-washer

Walk against Warming march in Brisbane

On August 25, 500 people braved unseasonal rainstorms to participate in a Walk against Warming rally for urgent action on climate change. The event was sponsored by the Queensland Conservation Council and other environment groups.

Further

Our Common Cause: All out against Work...

Australian News

Tas parliament approves Gunns' pulp mill

On August 30, the Tasmanian parliament approved an operating permit for Gunns Ltd’s proposed $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill. The independents-dominated upper house voted by 10 votes to four to allow the mill to go ahead.

Protest targets Toyota

A spirited demonstration outside Toyota’s Melbourne headquarters on August 28 highlighted the company’s abuse of workers’ rights in the Philippines.

Further Australian News

International News

New strike wave hits China

On August 22, more than 5000 workers at a mobile phone component factory in Shenzhen, southern China, struck against their bosses’ attempt to increase their work hours without extra pay.

Saudi Arabia: Migrant workers beaten to death

“The brutal killings of these Indonesian domestic workers occurred in an atmosphere of impunity fostered by government inaction”, argued Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW), on August 17. Varia was referring to the deaths in early August of Siti Tarwiyah Slamet, 32, and Susmiyati Abdul Fulan, 28 — two Indonesian women domestic workers beaten to death by the Saudi family that employed them.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Brian Boyd: 'Maintain the independent voice of unions'

Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton on August 20 about some Victorian unions’ plans for another mass mobilisation against the Work Choices legislation.

An open letter to Rudd & Gillard

The following open letter to federal ALP leader Kevin Rudd and ALP industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard was issue on August 29 by Michele O’Neil, national assistant secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA).

Further Comment and Analysis

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Climate change We're on the fast track to climate meltdown unless greenhouse gases are slashed 60% by 2050. We teeter on the edge of ghastly feedback loops, as the Arctic soils melt and threaten to spew trillions of tons of methane into the air.

General

Green Left Weekly's $250 000 Fighting Fund: Naked emperors and the inconvenient truth

A report released on August 30 by the Australia Council Of Social Services (ACOSS) shows that the number of Australians living in poverty has increased over the past 10 years. Using an international poverty line of 50% of median income, the numbers increased from 7.6% to 9.9% of the population between 1994 and 2004, or nearly 2 million Australians. This measure is used extensively in OECD countries. Using the same poverty line used in the UK and Ireland, 60% of median income, poverty has risen from 17.1% of the population in 1994 to 19.8%, or 3.8 million Australians, in 2004.

GLW APEC coverage and publication schedule

Green Left Weekly is taking a one week break as our staff will be attending the APEC protests. The next issue will be dated September 19. However, coverage of the APEC protests will be posted on our website, http://www.greenleft.org.au.

Resistance!

Join Resistance - and help fight for a better world

The world that we live in is crumbling around us. Imperialist nations such as the US use fear and violence as a means to an end — an end that favours the interests of the rich and the powerful. The Iraq war provides an example: Had Iraq been the world’s biggest producer of, say, potatoes, and not oil, Saddam Hussein would have been left to his misguided, vegetable-driven devices.

'Every high school an anti-war high school'

The September 5 student strike against US President George Bush’s visit, initiated by Resistance, has triggered a wave of anti-war activism on high schools across Sydney. Students from more than 20 high schools, including Mosman High, Pennant Hills High and North Sydney Girls High, have pledged to walk out of classes to protest Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war, to call for genuine action against climate change and to defend the right to protest.

Cultural Dissent

Music in the face of repression

Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden
By Andrew Stafford
University of Queensland Press, 2004
$32.95

Paul Kelly returns to his roots

Stolen Apples
By Paul Kelly
Capitol, 2007
11 tracks, $25.99

Further Cultural Dissent

FEATURED CONTENT

Bob Brown: 'Green Left Weekly is the paper for activists'

Support glw

"Australia has the most restrictive media in the western world. Censorship by omission denies Australians their democratic right to make sense of whole stratas of political and foreign policy. That's why Green Left Weekly is a beacon, doing a job of honourable journalism, as an agent of people, not power."
John Pilger

Donate securely online - every cent you donate helps us to keep going.