Peter Boyle

Two leaders of the Labour Party Pakistan and the Progressive Youth Front (PYF) narrowly escaped torture by a special interrogation unit due to prompt protests in Pakistan and around the world, Farooq Tariq, LPP national spokesperson for the LPP, told Green Left Weekly. Baba Jan and four comrades were jailed last September for standing up for people's rights in the Hunza Valley, in the remote province of Gilgit-Baltistan, after their villages and farmlands were flooded in 2010.

The world's super-rich have hidden between US$21 trillion and US$32 trillion of their wealth in various tax havens around the world, according to a new study by the London-based Tax Justice Network (TJN), a collection of tax experts and economists advocating the end of secrecy and tax evasion.

A small action in Sydney on July 27 outside the NSW Corrections Department - called by the Indigenous Social Justice Association - marked the latest Aboriginal death in custody: Peter Clarke who died in the Alice Springs on April 3, 2012. The rally was addressed by Ray Jackson (ISJA), Raul Bassi (ISJA), Diane Fieldes (Socialist Alternative) and Rachel Evans (Socialist Alliance). The ISJA has promised to hold a protest to make every Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal death in police or prison custody in Australia.

A popular uprising against the brutal tyranny of the Omar al-Bashir regime is sweeping Sudan. It began with protest led by women students at Khartoum University but has spread throughout the country.

A popular uprising against the brutal tyranny of the Omar al-Bashir regime is sweeping Sudan. It began with protest led by women students at Khartoum University but has spread throughout the country, a protester, Zaidah, told Green Left Weekly. Sudanese refugee communities around the world have started holding actions in solidarity with the uprising and on July 20 was the Sydney community's turn. It will be only the first of many more actions, the protesters vowed.

About 400 people rallied at Sydney Town Hall on July 16 to show their support for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. The protesters held a vibrant march through the city streets. Speakers at the rally included Kellie Tranter, lawyer and human rights activist, Paul McAleer, MUA Sydney branch secretary, Richard Neville, founder of Oz Magazine, Irene Doutney, Greens Councillor for the City of Sydney, Fred Fuentes, Latin American Social Forum, Jake Lynch, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and Gail Malone and Anne Picot from the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition.

Over the weekend of July 14-15, communities in 30 locations around Malaysia participated in a National Day of Stop Lynas action against a rare earth refinery project being built in Malaysia by the Australian company Lynas.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne and the party's MPs and Senators stood up to immense pressure from the big parties and the mainstream media to support some form of “offshore processing” of refugees (either in Malaysia, as the Gillard Labor government wants, or Nauru, as the Abbott Coalition opposition demands). The Greens stood firm against offshore processing and mandatory detention of refugees.

Susan Price, trade unionist and Socialist Alliance national co-convener, speaking at a solidarity protest with striking Toll Holdings workers at the Coles warehouse in Somerset, Victoria. The action outside Coles in Sydney CBD on July 13 was initiated by Socialist Alternative.

The Australian Labor government remains committed to big military spending - currently over $80 million per day. Australia's military spending will continue to be the highest regionally and, per capita, second only to the USA, the world's biggest military spender.

Teachers and public servants held a lunchtime protest on July 3, 2012 outside the NSW government offices to protest the O'Farrell Liberal-National government's attacks on public education and on public sector jobs. 

So now we have a carbon price in Australia. The sky hasn’t fallen in but neither are we getting anywhere near doing what needs to be done to respond to the climate change crisis. Australia currently gets its energy in this mix: • Fossil fuels: 95%, comprising coal: 39%, gas: 22%, petroleum: 35% • Renewables: a miserable 5%. According to the Labor government's own projections, with the carbon price, by 2035 Australia's energy mix will be: • Fossil fuels: 91%, comprising less coal at 21%, more gas at 35%, petroleum: 36% • Renewables: rising slightly to 9%.