Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera and President Evo Morales.
The “no” vote narrowly won with 51.3% of the vote in a February 21 referendum in Bolivia held to resolve whether left-wing President Evo Morales could run again in 2019.
The vote, involving an unprecedented participation rate of 90% of registered voters, was over whether to change the constitution to allow a president and vice-president to stand for re-election twice.
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Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera and President Evo Morales.
The “no” vote narrowly won with 51.3% of the vote in a February 21 referendum in Bolivia held to resolve whether left-wing President Evo Morales could run again in 2019.
The vote, involving an unprecedented participation rate of 90% of registered voters, was over whether to change the constitution to allow a president and vice-president to stand for re-election twice.
Proposals by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) to raise public transport fares on the Opal Card system covering public buses, trains and ferries are facing strong opposition from pensioners, retirees and the general travelling public.
The Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association said the government would face a major backlash if it decided to tighten the eligibility or raise the daily cap on the cost of travel for seniors.
With scores of anti-fracking protesters outside, the Australian Labor Party Northern Territory conference voted on February 13 to approve a moratorium on any development of the fracking industry while critical scientific studies on its impacts are carried out.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston, the Category 5 storm that slammed into Fiji on February 20, was the strongest storm ever to make landfall in the Southern Hemisphere and the second strongest ever in the world, with wind speeds approaching 300 kilometres an hour. At least 44 people were killed, and thousands left homeless, deprived of livelihood and at risk of water- and mosquito-borne diseases.
Spain could go without a government for several more months after left-wing anti-austerity party Podemos cancelled talks with the main opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), TeleSUR English said on February 24.
Podemos walked away from talks when the PSOE tried to make a deal with the right-wing Citizens party.
Two women peacefully occupied a fully-laden coal train in Werris Creek on February 21 and a man occupied the line on February 27 to call for a moratorium on coal and gas production in Australia. They said they wanted to send a message to coal companies and the government.
On February 18, a delegation of Victoria University staff and students delivered a letter to the office of Tim Watts, Labor MP for the federal seat of Gellibrand.
The letter, signed by 125 students and teachers — in only two days and before most students were back at university — pleaded with Watts to follow Premier Daniel Andrews' example and advocate that the 267 vulnerable asylum seekers, including 36 babies, not be sent back to Nauru.
Dear Prime Minister,
Following the High Court's recent decision in Plaintiff M68/2015 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, we, the undersigned law firms, community legal organisations, legal bodies and legal associations, jointly urge you to let the 267 individuals at risk of removal to offshore processing centres stay in Australia. We strongly advocate for the end of offshore detention and request you bring all asylum seekers and refugees in regional processing facilities back to mainland Australia.
Protestors took to the streets around Australia on February 20 against the federal government's proposed cuts to health care in #TheseCutsAreKillingUs rallies.
Protesters in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth came out to defend Medicare and to oppose government plans to charge for previously free pathology tests. This could lead to doctors having to charge at least $30 for blood tests, MRIs, X-rays, pap smears, urine tests, ultrasounds and more.
CSIRO researchers have uncovered a unique ability in bats that allows them to carry but remain unaffected by lethal diseases.
Unlike humans, bats keep their immune systems switched on all the time. Scientists believe this could hold the key to protecting people from deadly diseases.
Sam Wainwright, Socialist Alliance councillor on Fremantle Council, successfully moved the following motion at council’s February 24 meeting:
1. Supports the Palm Sunday Walk for Refugees — March 20, 1pm St George's Cathedral;
2. Calls on the Malcolm Turnbull government to let the 267 refugees that it wants to deport stay;
3. Commits Fremantle to stop doing business with companies who are contracted to run the detention centres, such as Broadspectrum and Wilson Security; and
4. Calls for an end to the offshore mandatory detention regime and boat "turnbacks".
At a talk given at the Newcastle Resistance Centre in the mid-1980s, visiting US activist Peter Camejo mentioned that a socialist, Bernie Sanders, had just been re-elected Mayor of the largest city in the state of Vermont.
Camejo described his meeting with Sanders in the Burlington City Hall. Banners were stacked in the corner and posters in solidarity with the Third World and women's, black and labour struggles decorated the walls.
“It was just like being in an activist centre like this,” he quipped.
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