Pacific region

It was almost a simple formality. Rejecting any attempt by the Greens to introduce rudimentary protections, the Australian Senate voted on May 16 to excise the entire country from the migration zone.

It will most likely be given approval by the lower house soon. If implemented, it will mean that for all asylum seekers who arrive by boat, Australia -- and by proxy the Refugee Convention -- will legally not exist.

West Papua has been gaining international support recently, especially in its pursuit of inclusion in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a regional intergovernmental organisation that has supported the independence movements of its members.

Controversially, Indonesia, which has occupied West Papua for decades, has had observer status in MSG since 2011.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement has the potential to become the largest “free trade” deal in the world. Negotiations began in Melbourne in March 2010, involving Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and the US. The combined GDP of these countries was about US$20.7 trillion in 2011. Japan is now close to being accepted into the negotiations.

Hall Greenland, a respected left-wing activist, writer and journalist in Sydney, is the Greens candidate for the inner-west Sydney seat of Grayndler. Greenland was a Leichhardt councillor for the Labor Party in the 1980s, and served a second term as an independent between 1999 and 2004.

He is president of the Friends of Callan Park, a community group which has waged a long struggle against the privatisation of a vital heritage area.

Greenland is also the author of Red Hot, a biography of one of Australia’s earliest Trotskyists, Nick Origlass.

These are stills (Part II) from film footage shot by Jill Hickson and John Reynolds for Actively Radical TV of the half a million-strong march on February 16, 2003 against the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.

[See Part I here.]

These are stills from film footage shot by Jill Hickson and John Reynolds for Actively Radical TV of the half a million-strong march on February 16, 2003 against the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.

The Ninth National Conference of the Socialist Alliance will be held in Geelong (Victoria), from January 18-20, 2013. It is open to all Socialist Alliance members and invited guests.

As this century progresses, the record high temperatures experienced across Australia in the past few months will no longer be dangerous departures from the norm, but a regular feature of Australian summers. This is one of the conclusions reached in a draft of the fifth assessment report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was leaked and published online last month.

The members and supporters of Socialist Alliance join progressive minded people across Australia and around the world in mourning the heart wrenching and tragically unexpected loss of Gavin Mooney and Del Weston.

Del and Gavin were as kind and loving in their personal dealings with everyone they met as they were committed to the liberation and freedom of all humanity. They were strong supporters of Green Left Weekly; making regular donations, hosting fund-raisers and recently making a significant contribution to the new Green Left TV project.