GLW issue number 934

GREEN LEFT TV: Police to move in on out of control parties

In a "stunning victory for civil liberties", the Barnett government has announced that they will introduce legislation to enable police officers to enter private houses without a search warrant and without the permission of the property owner. The Evening News investigates the implications of this move in a fair and impartial way. More videos from Green Left TV.

John Pilger: ‘The whole point about Julian Assange is courage’

Author and filmmaker John Pilger sent the speech below to be read out at an August 19 protest outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London to defend Julian Assange. * * * I have known Julian since he came to London and gave the world vital information about Afghanistan and Iraq, which governments had suppressed and denied.

Australian News

Art auction supports Vietnamese Agent Orange victims

Up to 200 people crowded into the Mori Gallery on August 8 to attend the official opening of the Beautiful Art for Innocent Children exhibition. The exhibition was sponsored by Agent Orange Justice to aid “the innocent children being born now in Vietnam with horrific birth defects as a consequence of Agent Orange/dioxin remaining in the soil and the consequential genetic damage continuing for generations”.

Venezuelan revolutionary speaks about struggle for socialism

Carolus Wimmer, a longstanding member of the Latin American Parliament and International Relations Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela, spoke at a Sydney forum on Latin America in revolt on August 11, sponsored by the Communist Party of Australia. During his Australian tour, he also addressed meetings in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Further Australian News

International News

Lessons from Manila floods on climate change, responses

As the Philippine government dithered and made excuses for its grossly inadequate response to the catastrophic floods — which inundated 80% of the country's capital, Manila — Sonny Melencio was leading a grassroots relief effort that brought the first food supplies in days to some of the poorest and most badly affected communities.

WikiLeaks condemns Britain’s intimidation of Ecuador

WikiLeaks released the statement below on August 16. * * * In a communication this morning to the government of Ecuador, the UK threatened to forcefully enter the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arrest Julian Assange. The UK claims the power to do so under the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987. This claim is without basis. By midnight, two hours prior to the time of this announcement, the embassy had been surrounded by police, in a menacing show of force.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Community to act on Hunter coal dust threat

The Coal Terminal Action Group this week launched a community-led dust and health study, following the application by Port Waratah Coal Services to construct yet another coal terminal in Newcastle (T4). For many years, communities living around the port, along the coal train lines and near the mines have been calling for the NSW government to do the research to find out what health impacts all the coal dust and diesel emissions are having on them.

Malcolm Fraser, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre dismayed at expert panel report

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre released the statement below on August 14. * * * The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is shocked and disappointed with the release of the expert panel’s recommendations as they focus on deterrence, punishment and breach the very reason the Refugee Convention was established — offering protection to people fleeing persecution. The recommendations are a step backwards in Australia's humanity and will affect our reputation as a defender of human rights.

Further Comment and Analysis

Cultural Dissent

Morello: 'Ryan embodies the machine our music rages against'

In Australia, Treasurer Wayne Swan made headlines by saying he was a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen ― despite implementing neoliberal economic policies of the sort Springsteen rails against. Mining billionaire and wannabe Liberal politician Clive Palmer jumped up to respond that his favourite band was Redgum ― despite the famously left-wing folk band, active in the 1970s and '80s, representing politics that are the exact opposite politics to Palmer's.

Winning medals in China-bashing

The spectacle of the 2012 London Olympics should be subtitled “The Bashing of the Chinese Athlete”. On August 8, Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times published a much-discussed piece called “Heavy burden on athletes takes joy away from China's Olympic success”. All kinds of “concerns” were raised about the toll “the nation's draconian sports system” is taking on the country's athletes.

Further Cultural Dissent

POEM: Peace crimes

Fighting Fund

The 'moral bankruptcy of our ruling classes'

The “moral bankruptcy of the ruling classes” is a thought readers would have shared as the Labor, Liberal and National parties came together in an unholy alliance to return to the cruel and shameful practice of locking up asylum seekers indefinitely in detention camps on Nauru and Manus Island, PNG. And again when the British government threatened to storm the embassy of Ecuador in London to arrest WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who has now been granted asylum by Ecuador's progressive Rafael Correa government.

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John Pilger

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