Stuart Munckton

In his January 25 State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama called for a freeze on government spending and for lowering the corporate tax rate. In response, Reuters reported on January 26, the US stock index figures rose. Meanwhile, the situation for US workers and poor remains dire. A January 14 Socialist Project article explained that, “as of November the slump in U.S. housing prices had surpassed that of the 1930s. For 53 consecutive months American home prices have fallen.

The significance of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks can be measured by the hysterical and panicked response of the powerful to it. Wikileaks’ ongoing release of thousands of secret US government cables and other secret documents is being met with outrage, assassination threats, censorship, a corporate boycott and legal action. Much of this has centred on Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange. The allegations of sex crimes (for which no charges have yet been laid) have been used to hound him through the courts.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of rock star John Lennon’s assassination. Lennon was also an anti-war activist and, in the most radical period of his life in the early 1970s, an unashamed socialist. (You can read an interview given by Lennon and his partner Yoko Ono to British revolutionary socialist magazine Red Mole in 1971 here.)

The streets of Ayala, Manila, were taken over by about 5000 people on November 25 in a protest against the growing use of contract labour.

A successful 2010 Southeast Asia Socialism and Feminism conference was held at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Metro Manila over November 27 and 28.

The streets of Ayala, the old financial capital of Manila, were taken over by about 5000 people on November 25 in a protest against the growing use of contract labour. Philippine Airlines, owned by the Philippines second richest man, is the latest company to sack its workforce and rehire them as contract workers – with lower wages and without the benefits and security guaranteed to formal, permanent workers.

An “army” of European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials arrived in Dublin on November 18 “seeking to foist a large loan on Ireland in a bid to prop up the country’s embattled banking sector and save the European currency”, the Morning Star said that day. Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan told MPs that Ireland, the EU and the IMF were exploring the prospect of forming “a contingency capital fund that would stand behind the banks”, the article said.

On October 20, thousands of students and workers marched on Downing Street in London to protest against the savage cuts in social spending announced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, Counterfire.org reported that day. The protest was organised by the Coalition of Resistance, Camden Trades Council and the People’s Charter. The cuts in public spending announced by British chancellor George Osborne that day amount to 81 billion pounds.

In recent weeks, media commentary on the use of illicit drugs by professional sports players has exploded again. The first cause was the recently retired Australian rules football star and recovering drug addict Ben Cousin’s documentary Such is Life: The Troubled Times of Ben Cousins. It aired on Channel 7 on August 25 and 26. The second was the overdose on GHB of Travis Tuck, a player for Australian Football League (AFL) club Hawthorn, on August 27.

One of Venezuela’s state-run food supply networks increased by 70% its sales in July, Edward Ellis reported in the Correo del Orinoco International on August 13. Ellis said commerce minister Richard Canan told Venezuelan television program Desperto Venezuela of a record income for the Bicentennial Markets, which took in a total of US$56.5 million in July. Ellis said Canan, a member of socialist President Hugo Chavez’s government, reported a 2.1 million people visited the markets in July, an increase of 35%.

More than 850 people packed into the Sydney Town Hall for a “Save Sydney from Over-development” public meeting organised by Friends of Barangaroo on August 3. The meetings was organised to in response to a proposed development of the harbour-side Barangaroo area. There are serious community concerns about the plan to hand over public space to private developer Lend Lease, which plans to build a large hotel on the land.

“Yes, the notable features with iPhone 4 — both the device and the iOS4 — are mostly tweaks”, said a June 22 review on the popular site BoingBoing.net. “But what tweaks they are.” In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll admit I have no idea what “iOS4” means. But my eye was caught by the admission that the iPhone 4, launched in Australia on July 29, was almost the same as the iPhone 3. Corporations use “inbuilt obsolescence” as part of artificially creating markets. This means the products they sell are deliberately made to break down — so we have to keep buying more.