GLW issue 768, published 2008-09-24.

British verdict a 'tipping point' in climate struggle

On September 10 a British jury acquitted six Greenpeace protesters who were on trial for trying to shut down a coal-fired power station on the grounds that they were trying to stop global warming.

Protests for victimised postie

Union Solidarity activists blockaded the Dandenong mail distribution centre overnight on September 19 in response to Australia Post’s proposed transfer of a union delegate who took strike action three months ago.

The Rudd government must help Cuba and Haiti

Everyone remembers the tropical storm that swept through Northern Queensland in 2006, destroying that year’s banana production, flattening houses and creating widespread misery. Now imagine if that hurricane had:

Australian News

Indigenous doctors: intervention a health hazard

In the lead-up to the release of a report from the federal government’s review into the Northern Territory intervention, the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association has blasted the policy. AIDA describes it as discriminatory, damaging to people’s health and completely unable to alter conditions of child abuse or neglect in remote Aboriginal communities.

Farmers protest against coal

People power came to Gunnedah in north-west NSW on September 15 as more than 300 farmers and their supporters rallied outside the Gunnedah Basin Coal Conference. They were protesting against a coalmining project in the agriculturally rich Liverpool Plains that was given state government approval in 2006.

Further Australian News

International News

Peter Miguel Camejo — 1939-2008

Supporters of social justice around the world were devastated to receive the news that renowned US socialist and fighter for a better world Peter Camejo had succumbed to cancer and passed away on September 13.

United States: Challenges to the corporate system

Until last month’s major party conventions, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s victory was looking the pretty likely. With his message of “change”, it isn’t hard to see why.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Billions to rescue what?

As I write this column the newspapers report that United States, Canadian, European and Japanese banks have combined to inject an extra US$180 billion (A$225 billion) into global financial markets. It is the latest desperate measure to try to stem the year-old global financial crisis commonly — and misleadingly — labelled the US subprime mortgage crisis.

Turnbull, Rudd and Australian plutocracy

The Macquarie Dictionary defines plutocracy as “the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy”. With the accession of Malcolm Turnbull, the richest person in parliament, to the leadership of the Liberal Party, this definition would seem to provide a pretty good description of Australian “democracy” also.

Further Comment and Analysis

Letters

Write On: Letters to the editor

Beauty myth I am writing in response to Pam Rankin's questions (Write On #767) regarding the way women dress and treat their bodies. To find the answer to who "forces" Western women to wax, pluck, chemical peal and worse, we don't have to look

Resistance!

Revolutionary youth fighting for the future

Amid growing tensions between the United States and Latin America, nearly 1200 young people — representing thousands more — met in the Venezuelan city of Puerto Ordaz on September 11-13 to found the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth (JPSUV).

Stopping the pulp mill

This article is based on a speech to a rally against Gunns’ proposed pulp mill, in Launceston on August 23. It was delivered by Stef Gebbi and Gabby Forward on behalf of Students Against the Pulp Mill.

Cultural Dissent

Manley and McKay: reform and revolution in the politics of the African diaspora

“In-Dependence” from Bondage: Claude McKay and Michael Manley Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora Relations
By Lloyd D. McCarthy
Africa World Press, 2007
US$24.95, Available from http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com

The Bones of September

Two vast and trunkless legs of steel Like silent Pharaohs over Wall Street stood Scraping the vast canvas of immortality @poetry = How many died erecting those towers: Welders of iron, exoskeletal beams? Manhattan is missing her two front

Further Cultural Dissent

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