GLW issue number 895

Pakistan: Activist arrested, tortured for helping flood victims -- support needed

Baba Jan, a federal committee member of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), surrendered himself to an "anti-terrorist court" in Gilgit Baltestan in early September. He had been on the run after police opened fire on a demonstration demanding compensation for those affected by the Atta Abad Lake floods last year, killing two Jan has since been taken from jail and the LPP fears the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is torturing him. Jan’s “crime” was to organise rallies and demonstrations against the police killings.

Pakistan's floods -- 'this is not a natural disaster'

Last year's floods were the worst in Pakistan's history. Twenty million people were affected and about 2000 lost their lives. Now there is record flooding for the second year in a row. “This is not a natural disaster”, Farooq Tariq , the national spokesperson for the Labour Party Pakistan, told Green Left Weekly. He was referring to widespread and unprecedented monsoonal flooding that has hit Pakistan over the last few days, already killing hundreds of people and making nearly a million homeless. And this is just the beginning of the monsoon season.

Australian News

Statement of solidarity with the Chilean students

To: All the female and male Chilean students, and to their families. In the face of the attacks on education by the Chilean government and the accompanying pressures of national and international financial corporations, a strong, sizeable and inspiring student movement exists. Student activists are doing everything possible to protect public education because education is a right for everyone and should not be sold. We state that: We sympathise with and we fully support all Chilean students. Education should be free and accessible.

Queensland water bill undermines regulation of coal seam gas

The Lock the Gate Alliance, a national alliance of more than 105 community, industry and environmental groups concerned with the damage caused by coal and coal seam gas mining, released the statement below on September 6. * * *

Further Australian News

International News

Bolivia: Amazon protest -- development before environment?

The decision by leaders of the Sub Central of the Indigenous Territory and National Isiboro Secure Park (TIPNIS), to initiate a 500-kilometre protest march on Bolivia's capital of La Paz capital has ignited much debate about the nature of Bolivia’s first indigenous led-government. The Sub Central of TIPNIS unites the 64 indigenous communities within the park. See also Poverty, inequality in Bolivia -- some stats

Egypt: Everything up for grabs in ongoing revolt

After the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in February, a new chapter in Egyptian history is being written and its authors are the people themselves. Anything could happen and everything is up for grabs given the profound political, social and economic crisis in which Egypt's neoliberal system finds itself in. See also: Cairo eyewitness: Fresh protests demand real change

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Groups demand new approach to asylum seekers and refugees

The sign-on statement below was initiated by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS). To add your name or organisation to the statement, visit the ACOSS website. * * *

Let’s unite behind Green Left Weekly

For many years we were regular contributors to Green Left Weekly and proud supporters of the paper. We’ve now decided to resume writing for GLW and we urge other former contributors to consider doing the same. In May 2008, we and about 50 other former members of the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) launched the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the monthly paper Direct Action (DA) following a bitter internal dispute in the DSP that centred on the Socialist Alliance.

Further Comment and Analysis

Letters

Letters to the editor

Emissions rise under carbon price Labor proposes a carbon price plan to “tackle climate change” and create what it calls a “clean energy future” by an implied decrease in greenhouse gas pollution. However the Australian government-endorsed Treasury modelling report, “Strong growth, low pollution”, shows that under the carbon price plan, Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas pollution will increase to 621 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent in 2020, bigger than now or in 2000.

Resistance!

Resistance gears up for climate change, social change conference

Resistance is a co-sponsor of the Climate Change Social Change activist conference in Melbourne over September 30 to October 4. Green Left Weekly asked some Resistance members about their thoughts on this major event. * * * Hannah Reardon-Smith, Brisbane To me, events such as the Climate Change Social Change conference are essential for reigniting my enthusiasm and my energy for the good (but long) fight.

Cultural Dissent

Rapper Sesk is ‘Blacktown’s best-kept secret’

You can see that western Sydney Aboriginal rapper Sesk has turned his life around when he holds his head up high. Not only does it give him an air of self-esteem - it also reveals that the large tattoo across his neck reading "GUILTY" has another word inked above it: "NOT". "It was actually just 'GUILTY' first," he says. "I was getting a few weird looks, so I put a 'NOT' there. "I don’t really have regrets, but if I had the chance to rewrite my life, I would. I would focus more on my schooling and would not treat my parents and family the way I did."

The politics of integrity versus celebrity

Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story By Alan McCombes, Birlinn 2011 326 pages, pb £9.99 In the elections to the Scottish parliament in May 2003, the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) polled just under a quarter of a million votes and won six seats. By any stretch of the imagination this was a remarkable achievement for a party well to the left of Labour. It was a beacon of hope and inspiration for socialists the world over. By 2011, the SSP’s vote had slumped to below 9000. It failed to regain any of the six seats it had lost in 2007.

Fighting Fund

Warning: Work Choices to rise from the dead

When Liberal leader Tony Abbott promised in the last federal election campaign that the notorious anti-worker “Work Choices” laws of the former Howard Liberal-National government were “dead, buried and cremated” very few people believed him.

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