The offshore detention hellholes of Nauru and Manus Island are becoming increasingly unviable as more damning reports are published, court cases in Papua New Guinea continue, private service providers under the pressure of boycott campaigns decline to reapply for contracts and protests grow in Australia.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s latest plan — third country resettlement in the United States — is a reaction to this pressure, while also maintaining the policy of boat turnbacks, border security rhetoric and denying asylum seekers the right to be resettled in Australia.

'OUR COMMON CAUSE'

The offshore detention hellholes of Nauru and Manus Island are becoming increasingly unviable as more damning reports are published, court cases in Papua New Guinea continue, private service providers under the pressure of boycott campaigns decline to reapply for contracts and protests grow in...

RESISTANCE IN ACTION

The feminist movement has been sent into a spin following the election of Donald “Grab her by the pussy” Trump in the US. While the consensus is that the election of Trump is a disaster for women, the debates around the would-be benefits of Hillary Clinton remain fierce.

Misogyny was a...

Australian news

Monday, November 21, 2016

Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale expressed his strong support for the embattled Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey. The left-wing party has a strong base among the country’s oppressed Kurdish community

Speaking at a November 17 Kurdish solidarity meeting at Melbourne’s...

Friday, November 18, 2016

The first time residents in Newtown — one of the oldest suburbs in Sydney — heard of a new Westconnex tunnel route under their homes was when a couple of test drill sites were set up in the neighbourhood. They immediately responded with a series of early morning protests at these sites.

...

International news

Monday, November 21, 2016

On November 18, the burial of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Heroes’ Cemetery (Libingan ng mga Bayani — LNMB) was hurriedly and secretively carried out, with military-style logistical support.

Marcos ruled the Philippines from 1965 until he was overthrown in the Peoples Power...

Monday, November 21, 2016

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association Maina Kiai issued a blistering condemnation on November 15 of the militarised response to the Standing Rock water protectors’ peaceful protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“Marking...

Comment & Analysis

Friday, November 18, 2016

Asbestos is a thriving industry and asbestos lobbyists have set their sights on south-east Asia as the next frontier for new trade markets in the Third World. This was outlined at the recent annual South East Asian Ban Asbestos Conference, held in Jakarta in November.

The conference...

Friday, November 18, 2016

Mardi Gras — now the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, (LGBTQI) pride march in the world — started in June 1978 when New South Wales police viciously assaulted queer people dancing through Oxford Street. 

Police arrested 53 people and continued to beat many...

Cultural Dissent

Monday, November 21, 2016

Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis
By John Smith
Monthly Review Press, 2016

On April 24, 2013 a clothing factory in Rana Plaza, Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed, killing 1133 workers and injuring 2500 others....

Friday, November 18, 2016

As an openly racist president was elected in the US, artist-activists reacted to Donald Trump across Latin America and the Caribbean. Below is a selection, abridged from...