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Powerful US free-market think tank The Heartland Institute is reeling after leaked internal documents were posted on the Desmogblog website on February 14 showing the powerful corporate interests behind its well-known campaign against climate science.

Desmogblog said the leaked documents “expose the heart of the climate denial machine”, which “relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from US businesses”.

A rally to oppose the Western Australian government's plans to redevelop the Perth city foreshore attracted about 1000 people on February 26.

The Colin Barnett government plan would involve flooding the Esplanade and building large high rise developments on the new water's edge.

Speakers at the rally said there was no public consultation about the plan before it was presented, that the plan involves cutting Riverside Drive leaving only one east-west thoroughfare through the city and that the heritage value of the Esplanade will be ruined.

Governments and commentators keen on promoting a war against Iran should be stridently opposed, not so much because of the threat to world peace, but because their reasons display a shocking lack of imagination.

The most common one is that Iran has "Weapons of Mass Destruction". How pathetic to pick the same excuse twice in a row. They should make it more interesting, by revealing evidence that Ahmadinejad has built a Terminator, or plans to fill the Strait of Hormuz with a giant Alka-Seltzer so the Persian Gulf fizzes over Kuwait.

The Stop the War Coalition Sydney released the statement below on February 26.

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Stop the War Coalition opposes sanctions against Syria – steps towards a military intervention – by the United States, Israel, NATO or any other foreign power.

We oppose the violence by the Syrian state and the armed mercenaries and agent provocateurs, which, in many cases, are being supported by foreign powers.

More than 400 people crowded into a lecture theatre at the University of Technology Sydney on February 17 for a public forum, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”. The forum was organised by the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition.

Will the Spanish economy benefit from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy government’s anti-worker labour market reform?

How tens of millions of people answer that question — and act on their answer — will determine the course of Spanish politics this year and beyond.

The law was announced on February 10 and already in force as a royal decree before adoption by parliament.

See also
Spain's 'Work Choices Super' at a glance
Spain: Millions march against labour law

“Something is badly amiss when Queensland bushies embrace Green Left Weekly, and the opposite ends of the political fringe, the Greens and Bob Katter’s Australian Party, find a common cause,” began a February 22 editorial in Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian, the only national daily newspaper in this country.

Fifty-seven Spanish cities and towns came to a stop on February 19. Up to 2 million people marched in protest against the new labour “reform” of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party (PP) government.

The marches brought together veterans of the struggle for union and worker rights under the Franco dictatorship, activists from the 1970s “transition to democracy” and today’s indignados.

“Old” slogans (“If you don’t fight, you lose”) mixed with new (“They piss on us and say it’s raining”).

The abridged statement below was initiated by the British Coalition of Resistance and signed by dozens of groups and individuals around the world ― including Australia's Socialist Alliance. See Coailiast of Resistancefor the list of signatories and to add your name.

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