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Spain's left-wing Podemos party would win a general election if it were held today, a Metroscopa poll released on April 12 found. General elections are scheduled for December. Podemos, which was founded in January last year, came first with the support of 22.1% of those questioned. The opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) regained lost ground to come second with 21.9% of the vote. The ruling conservative Popular Party (PP) would come third with 20.8% of the vote.
Lines of grey muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grasping fists, Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop! — Siegfried Sassoon. Implausible as it might seem, it was the violent protest of a group of Bosnian high school students that sparked World War I.
Australian Nuclear Free Alliance released this statement on April 14. *** A delegation of Australian nuclear free campaigners travelled to Canada to present at the World Uranium Symposium being held in Quebec City on April 14 to 16. The group included representatives from Aboriginal communities impacted by nuclear projects and national environment groups.

A video released by Minority Rights Group on April 8 shows the aftermath of the “Paniai massacre” in West Papua in December last year, bringing to light Indonesia's human rights abuses.

Last week the Minister for Social Services Scott Morrison announced that from January 1 next year parents who do not vaccinate their children for reasons of “conscientious objection” will be denied access to child care payments (Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate) and the Family Tax Benefit Part A end of year supplement. These payments are worth up to $15,000 a year.
In December last year, minister for employment Eric Abetz and Treasurer Joe Hockey announced the terms of reference for an inquiry into Australia’s workplace relations framework by the Productivity Commission that was established by John Howard’s Coalition government in 1998. In a paper released in January, the Productivity Commission indicated that what was up for grabs were the minimum wage, penalty rates, unfair dismissal laws and the role of unions in collective bargaining.
Four Jobs for Women leaders in front of the steelworks in the early 1980s. Photo: Jobs for Women Facebook In Wollongong in the early 1980s, jobs for women were scarce. They either had to wake at dawn to travel to Sydney on the diesel train or they sewed in backyard sweatshops for minimal wages.
Environment Victoria released this statement on April 14. *** Environment Victoria has labelled new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) identifying 2300 job losses in the renewable energy sector in just two years as proof that the Tony Abbott government’s anti-renewable energy policies are hurting the economy. The ABS analysis of employment in the renewable energy sector is a first, and comes following a failure of the Abbott government to negotiate an outcome over the Renewable Energy Target (RET).
Federal education minister Christopher Pyne has given $4 million to Danish climate sceptic Bjørn Lomborg to set up the Australian Consensus Centre at the University of Western Australia. Lomborg is a well-known climate policy sceptic and the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, whose funding was cut by the Danish government in 2012.
The Palestine Action Group released the following statement on April 9. * * * Today, April 9, we remember 67 years since the Deir Yassin massacre. Over 100 Palestinians were murdered, with many children left orphaned. Palestinians soon began to leave their homes after witnessing such atrocities, even before the mass exodus that came with the Nakba. And still 67 years on, the effects of diaspora are being felt harshly by Palestinians. After being forced to flee their homeland, Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp are under attack yet again.
Clashes erupted on April 15 at the Wickham Point detention centre in Darwin when refugees resisted attempts to send them back to the Australian-run concentration camp in Nauru where they have suffered serious human rights abuses.
Protesters demanding widespread reform of the police took the streets on April 14, as killings of unarmed black men have become all-too frequent in US headlines. Activists from various civil rights groups rallied in different cities throughout the country. Signs carried by the protesters in New York read: “Stop Police brutality and mass murder.” Protesters spread the message on social media websites using hashtags, including the popular #BlackLivesMatter.