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Australian man Jock Palfreeman was assaulted by a guard at Sofia’s Central Prison in Bulgaria on July 8. Palfreeman has been serving a 20-year in the prison since being found guilty of murder in 2007. Andrei Monov was killed during a street brawl in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. He was the only son of two well-connected people in the Sofia legal fraternity. Palfreeman says he went to the defence of a young Roma boy who was being attacked in the street by Monov and others. When Palfreeman intervened, he was also attacked and acted in self-defence.
If there is one thing Prime Minister Tony Abbott will not stand for, it is attempts by the powerful to bully the weak. Reports recently emerged that 10 mothers jailed indefinitely in the Christmas Island detention centre had attempted to take their own lives. With sick children, the women apparently believed the children might have greater chance of better treatment if they were unaccompanied.
Days of Israeli bombings had killed more than 100 people in the Gaza Strip by July 11, ElectronicIntifada.net said that day. The dead included many children. It comes after large-scale raids and many arrests in the occupied West Bank. In response to this drastic escalation in “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) national committee issued the statement below.
A front page article in the Australian on July 11 reported claims that “asylum-seekers are coached and encouraged to attempt self-harm by refugee advocates who then use the incidents as political capital”. The allegations were made by former director of offshore processing Greg Lake, who said when he worked at what is now the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, “some refugee advocates were clearly urging asylum-seekers to self-harm as a form of protest so they could put out a press release about it”.
Pasi Sahlberg is an educator and past policy advisor in Finland, author of books on education and currently a visiting Professor of Practice at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. He spoke to a meeting of teachers and union activists in Melbourne on June 19. He agreed with what Australian teachers have argued for years: that great schools are well funded on a needs basis, are not publicly ranked for performance, have small classes, have teachers that are highly regarded and trusted and value all subject areas equally.
A recent death on the Melbourne waterfront on May 20 was the latest fatality in the stevedoring industry in Australia, and the latest safety issue on a workplace controlled by Toll Holdings. Statistically, waterside workers are more likely to be killed on the job than any other Australian worker.
More than 45,000 people rallied against the federal budget in cities around the country on July 6, with sizeable crowds in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. The “Bust the Budget” Sydney rally was organised by Unions NSW. Union flags were prominent in the crowd, which reached more than 10,000, making it one of the bigger union mobilisations in recent times.
Women’s crisis shelters in New South Wales are in a state of upheaval. There are concerns that critical services are about to be shut down. In inner-Sydney there will be no women’s only, specialist refuges operating in the near future. The New South Wales government’s “Going Home Staying Home” reform plan will force at least in metropolitan Sydney 20 specialist women’s shelters to close so that more services in regional areas across the state can be opened.
The Nordic Model is touted as a way to abolish the sex industry without harming or criminalising sex workers. Under the Nordic Model, at least in theory, providing sexual services in exchange for money is not criminalised, but paying for sexual services or living off the earnings of another’s sex work are criminal acts.
New red-green electoral alliances, a turn to ecosocialism and a deepening of the US International Socialist Organization's rethink on feminism were key features of its well-attended Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago. The gap between rich and poor in the US is large and growing. It has sparked a popular campaign for a minimum wage of US$15 an hour for low-paid workers, and in defence of jobs of teachers and other social service providers.
The Interim Report of the federal government’s long-awaited and much-feared welfare review, A New System For Better Employment And Social Outcomes, was released on June 29. Former Mission Australia CEO Patrick McLure, who also chaired the 2000 welfare review for the John Howard government, is chair of the review.
Students of Sustainability (SOS) is an annual conference dedicated to environmental activism. About 400 students travelled to the Australian National University in Canberra for this year’s event over June 30 to July 5. The event was organised by the Australian Student Environmental Network (ASEN). The conference had guest speakers from environment and labour movements, international guests, and academics and activists from around Australia.