Chris Slee

Chris Slee reports that refugees from Manus Island and Nauru, who are in Australia to receive medical treatment, are being detained in a hotel.

The Bashar al-Assad regime has captured more than a third of Idlib, a province in north-western Syria, which had been controlled by rebels. Chris Slee writes that in the process, about 900,000 people have been displaced according to United Nations figures.

Three solidarity activists who recently returned from Venezuela addressed a meeting organised by the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign in Melbourne on February 13, reports Chris Slee.

There is growing concern the university sector is not following best practice in dealing with the outbreak of the coronavirus, but is instead joining in the racist hysteria, write Yaji Spencer and Chris Slee.

Chris Slee reports that professional firefighters in Victoria have won a pay rise.

There are currently two wars being fought in northern Syria, writes Chris Slee.

Capitalism cannot solve the climate crisis, and Chinese capitalism is no exception, writes Chris Slee.

Bomana prison annex

Australia has spent $22 million on the Bomana prison annex for asylum seekers. Yet, the government denies any responsibility for the treatment of detainees, despite the fact they are in Papua New Guinea because Australia sent them there.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, regarded by many Tamils as a war criminal, won the Sri Lankan presidential election on November 16 with 52.3% of the vote.

He was defence secretary in 2009, when the Sri Lankan armed forces massacred tens of thousands of Tamils in the final stages of their war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE were fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka.

Defend Medevac protest in Sydney on November 9.

Refugee rights activists rallied across Australia on November 9 to defend the Urgent Medical Treatment Bill (Medevac), which was passed in February.

A popular uprising has broken out in Idlib, a province in the north of Syria, against the reactionary Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), according to Leila al-Shami, a well known Syrian activist and author.

The uprising began in the town of Kafar Takharim, when people refused to pay increased taxes imposed by HTS on goods and services, including bread, electricity and olive oil. They stormed HTS-controlled olive presses and police stations and evicted HTS from their community.

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Or, to be more precise, the border guards opened the gates and allowed crowds from East Berlin to cross into the west. People celebrated by climbing onto the wall and dancing.

The fall of the wall was widely seen as a victory for freedom. But things are not that simple.

In the three decades since 1989, new walls have gone up, and existing walls and other barriers to the free movement of people have been strengthened, in many parts of the world.