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Feminism in the age of neoliberalism

International Women’s Day (IWD) — originally called International Working Women’s Day — was first proposed in 1910 as an initiative of the socialist women’s movement. The following year, on March 19, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.

Case dismissed against Tecoma chalker

No McDonald’s in Tecoma campaigner Richard Pearson was cleared of the charge of “defacing a public footpath” by a Melbourne Magistrates Court.

Ways to get active

BRISBANE Join the protest against Wicked Campers’ abusive tourist slogans. Saturday April 11 at 12pm. Reddacliff Place, Brisbane. MELBOURNE Come to a rally to stop the forced closures of Aboriginal communities. Voice your outrage at Colin Barnett’s forced closure of First Nations communities in WA. Friday April 10 at 5.30pm. Parliament steps, Spring St, city. PERTH Join the counter-protest to the xenophobic “Reclaim Australia” rally. No Pasaran! Saturday April 4 at 11.30am. Solidarity Park, Harvest Tce, Perth.

NGO in legal action over Taiji Cove dolphin slaughter

Australian NGO Australia for Dolphins (AFD) has launched legal action in Switzerland against the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), based in Geneva.

Weekend penalty rates under threat thanks to South Australian deal

Workers in the South Australian retail sector — particularly young, casual workers — could lose their penalty rates thanks to a deal between retail employers and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA).

Israelis vote for one state, but no solution

Israelis voted for the status quo in elections on March 17. The ruling Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were re-elected, as voters endorsed ongoing apartheid and military rule for the Palestinian population. Israeli Jewish society is itself wracked by economic and social crisis. It is also conflicted by class, gender, religious and ethnic divides. But like all Israeli elections, the campaign was fought over how Israel should relate to its subject Palestinian population.

Good news (for a change)

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT REPEALS ANTI-WIND FARM LAWS The Victorian Labor government has repealed the worst aspects of the Coalition's anti-wind farm laws. After a strong community campaign led by Friends of the Earth, the Andrews government announced it will remove the 2km right of veto that allowed householders to block wind farms. This measure will be replaced by a 1km buffer zone.

Assange won't leave embassy while US pursues case

Julian Assange will stay in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London as long as the United States government continues its case against him for his work on whistleblowing website Wikileaks, his lawyers said on March 19. The recent development of the Swedish prosecutors agreeing to question Assange over two cases of sexual assault in 2010 within the embassy has led to speculation that he could leave the building, where he has taken refuge for over 1000 days, if the Swedish charges are dropped. Assange, who has never been charged, has always denied the sexual assault allegations.

NSW taxpayers funding James Hardie’s asbestos debts

Mesothelioma is a particularly virulent form of lung cancer. From the date of diagnosis the average life expectancy of a person with the disease is just 155 days. There is only one way a person can contact mesothelioma: by exposure to the fine particles of asbestos dust that cannot be seen by the naked eye. The latent period from exposure to diagnosis can be many decades. So the first battle for sufferers seeking compensation was overcoming the legal hurdle in Commonwealth and state jurisdictions known as the statute of limitations.

Australia's leap into World War I

Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap Into The Great War Douglas Newton Scribe, 2014 344 pages, $32.99 (pb) Behind all the froth, then and now, about the noble cause of World War I — defence of freedom against German aggression — lay a far less exalted reality, writes retired University of Western Sydney historian Douglas Newton. The war’s “grand plan” for Britain, candidly called “The Spoils” by the British Colonial Secretary, was to divvy the world up among the victors.

NT government and gas miners told to ‘frack off’

More than 100 people gathered in a park in Katherine on March 24 to launch the Frack-Free NT Roadshow, a group of pastoralists, traditional owners and environmentalists doing community education and outreach in the Roper and gulf country.

Fighting Fund: About $540 bilion wasted on advertising globally

It seems you can’t turn around these days without having at least one of your senses assaulted by some form of advertising. It seems that is not about to change any time soon. In fact, judging by the amount of money that will be spent on advertising this year, things are about to get a lot worse.