GLW issue 746, published 2008-04-09.

May Day rally to join anti-privatisation protest

On April 1, the Sydney May Day Committee voted unanimously to accept a Unions NSW proposal to shift the traditional May Day march and rally from the first Sunday in May to Saturday May 3.

Muslim-oriented Palestine committee launched

At least 100 people attended the Palestine: Global Perspective conference, held at the Victorian State Library on March 29.

It\'s time to deliver on IR!

We all celebrated our fantastic victory in driving the miserable anti-worker Liberal government out of office. However the fact remains that we still have a lot of work to do to turn back the Howard agenda.

Australian News

CFMEU continues wage campaign

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) campaign to secure wage rises for construction workers across the country has attracted fierce criticism from the federal government, which is demanding the union apply “restraint” in order to keep a lid on inflation.

Building industry attack dog targets union militants

The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) is spreading its net further throughout the building industry in an attempt to intimidate unions from standing up for the interests of their members.

Further Australian News

International News

Palestine: Thousands mark Land Day

Thousands of Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel demonstrated on March 30, the 32nd anniversary of the killing by the Israeli security forces of six unarmed Palestinian demonstrators who held Israeli citizenship. They were participating in a protest against Israeli expropriations of Arab land.

Iraq: US-Maliki assault on Basra backfires

“The intense fighting in southern Iraq is entering its fourth day, bringing pressure on the Iraqi government to lead the country out of its plunge back into the prolonged sectarian violence of the past. The ceasefire announced by Iraq’s biggest sectarian militia last August, appears to be in tatters as Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki struggles to contain the country’s Shiite warlords.”

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

The Tibetan and Uighur struggles for justice

Chinese authorities had detained more than 1000 Tibetans by April 3 in the wake of protests and riots calling for self-determination that started on March 10, the BBC reported on April 4.

World Bank climate profiteering

The World Bank’s long-running identity crisis is proving hard to shake. When efforts to rebrand itself as a “knowledge bank” didn’t work, it devised a new identity as a “green bank”. Yes, it’s true.

Further Comment and Analysis

Letters

Letters to the Editor

'Holocaust' Jirri Booth's arguments (Write On, GLW #745) regarding the impermissibility of using the word "holocaust" to describe anything other than "the victims of Nazi genocide" are spurious. On February 29, Israeli deputy defence minister

General

Green Left Weekly\'s $250,000 Fighting Fund: Dancing with the \'R word\'

Ben Bernanke is the chairperson of the US Federal Reserve Bank. If he sneezes at the wrong time, the world’s sharemarkets take another dive and currency speculators rush for their global roulette table. So when he addressed the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on April 3 he was choosing his words very carefully. And there was one word he was wary about using: “recession”.

GLW publication schedule

We are taking a break from production to attend the Green Left Weekly Climate Change — Social Change conference (see ad on page 5). The next issue of GLW will be dated April 23.

Resistance!

Where to now for the student environment movement?

Following the first Fossil Fools’ Day actions, it’s a good time to look at how the day came together nationally and how we can make the next Fossil Fools’ Day — and all future actions of the environment movement — even more successful.

First Fossil Fools\' Day in Australia

Fossil Fools’ Day, an international day of action on April 1 around climate change, was marked by protest actions across Australia involving up to 500 young people demanding an end to the use of fossil fuels and an increase in renewable energy sources.

Cultural Dissent

Untangling the truth about Haiti

Damning the Flood: Haiti, Aristide & the Politics of Containment
By Peter Hallward
Verso, 2008
442p, US$29.95

The bubble world of the super rich

Richistan, A Journey through the 21st Century Wealth Boom & the Lives of the New Rich
By Robert Frank
Piatkus, 2007
263 pp.

Further Cultural Dissent

Bastards, the lot of them

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