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Joe Solo is a “folk, punk and blues” artist from north Yorkshire, who sings about how it is in working-class Britain, without all the pretence and romance.

Drawing by S Nagaveeran. From Hell to Hell By S Nagaveeran Writing through Fences 2015 Email fenceswritingthrough@gmail.com for copies From Hell to Hell is the powerful new work of poems and drawings by S Nagaveeran, also known as Ravi. In detention for 33 months in Nauru, Ravi turned to writing and drawing as a way of dealing with the emotion and despair that overwhelmed him.
Liberal and Labor politicians, who govern for the big corporations at the expense of people, have overseen decades of cutbacks to social services, privatisations and attacks on our democratic rights. The neoliberal consensus has meant that our public health and education systems have been starved of funds and semi-privatised. It has also meant that our working lives are less secure and our work rights have been undermined.
Thousands of people gather at the University of Illinois

Anti-Trump protesters successfully shut down a Donald Trump rally in Chicago on March 11. Crowds started gathering early to protest Trump's appearance, as part of his campaign to win the Republican presidential primaries.

Sydney-based Kinetic Energy Theatre Company’s April season opens on April 1 with two plays. It starts with a new show about asylum seekers, Refuge (April 1-3, 8-10, 15-17), and ends with an acclaimed play about urban homelessness, Home (April 22-24).
In a Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami on March 10, against his rival Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders opposed US invasions, coups and interventions against Latin American nations. The socialist Senator also strongly opposed the ongoing US embargo against Cuba while praising the island for its social gains in health and education.
The United States used drones and manned aircraft on March 8 to drop bombs and missiles on Somalia, ending the lives of at least 150 people. As it virtually always does, the Obama administration instantly claimed the people killed were “terrorists” and militants — members of the Somali group al-Shabaab — but provided no evidence.
On International Women’s Day, three women locked themselves to habitat trees in the critically endangered Leard State Forest in north west NSW. Gomeroi women gathered on Leard Forest Road to show support and solidarity for the action.
"Remembering Fukushima: Resisting nuclear waste dumps!" was the title of a public forum held in Redfern on March 3. About 40 people heard a panel of speakers mark five years since the Fukushima tsumani and nuclear disaster in March 2011 and outline the growing opposition movement to federal government plans for a nuclear waste dump in rural Australia. "The nuclear industry has no place in a safe and sustainable future. Five years since the Fukushima disaster, it is time to break the nuclear chain," forum publicity stated. The forum was organised by Uranium Free NSW.
Protest against visit of Maithripala Sirisena to Britain, March 2015. The elaborate public facade carefully constructed by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, with the hidden assistance of India and the US, is crumbling by the day. Instead, the discomforting truth is revealed that despite Sirisena becoming president last year, Sri Lanka remains a brutal regime dominated by a military mindset.
The Refugee Action Coalition released this statement on March 9. * * * A 34 year-old Iranian refugee on Nauru was savagely attacked by two Nauruans on March 5 at about 10pm. Two Nauruans on a motor cycle approached the man who was walking alone near the Nibok settlement. The man was struck across the top of the head by a machete, while the attacking Nauruans said, “Fuck refugees”. The Iranian man was left with a deep head wound that required 8 stitches.
French President Francois Hollande awarded his country's most prestigious award, the Legion of Honour, to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef on March 4 for “countering extremism and fighting terrorism,” the Saudi Press Agency reported. This understandably received criticism from Human Rights Watch, but its grisly irony passed was largely shrugged off by the Western media and political establishment. The HRW statement referenced Saudi Arabia's appalling human rights record. But it did not mention the year-long Saudi-led air war in neighbouring Yemen that has killed thousands.