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Thousands of protesters marched on Downing Street on April 9 to demand British Prime Minister David Cameron resign after revelations about his tax affairs emerged in preceding days in fall out from the huge Panama Papers tax haven leaks.
The Spanish parliament was the scene of a sharp clash on April 6 over the March 18 European Union-Turkey “pact of shame” that will return up to 50,000 asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey. The asylum seekers — most fleeing from the Syrian civil war — will then be placed in an archipelago of detention centres. Acting Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, of the conservative People's Party (PP), defended the agreement, saying “things are getting better, we have a procedure”.
Jasmine Pilbrow faced court on April 7 after she stood up for a refugee who was being deported on her Qantas flight.
On March 27, international award-winning artist Gurrumul Yunupingu was admitted to Royal Darwin Hospital vomiting blood and unable to talk. The treatment he received there has led to accusations of structural racism in the NT health system. Gurrumul has suffered from Hepatitis B since he was three years' old, and his liver started bleeding as a result of his condition, causing him to vomit blood. His friends and family had taken him to hospital and left him there, confident he would be quickly treated and come home safe.
Australia's consumer affairs ministers have adopted a definition of "free range" eggs that allows eggs from hens kept at a stocking density of up to 10,000 birds per hectare — one bird per square metre — to be sold as "free range". This definition reflects pressure from industrial egg producers. Animal welfare advocates had supported the CSIRO's Model Code of Practice, which sets a limit of 1500 birds per hectare.
Vice-Chair of the socialist Workers' Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) David Pestieau, spoke to French paper L'Humanite Dimanche on March 31 about the March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels and the latest anti-terrorist bill. An abridged version, translated from French, is below. *** What state is Belgium in after the terrorist attacks?
Protest by members of the Wer'suwet'en First Nation against tar sands oil pipelines. Ian Angus is a Canadian ecosocialist activist and author. The editor of Climateandcapitalism.com, Angus is also the co-author of Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis with former Green Left Weekly editor Simon Butler (Haymarket, 2011).
Sanders addresses rally outside his childhood home in Brooklyn, New York. April 8. A McClatchy-Marist poll, conducted at the end of March, puts self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders ahead of establishment favourite Hillary Clinton by two percentage points in the Democratic presidential race, TeleSUR English said on April 5.
Every so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of the state jams; the veils of consent are torn asunder and the tools of power appear disturbingly naked. Brazil is living through one of those moments: it is dreamland for social scientists; a nightmare for everyone else.
Jafri is an anti-racism campaigner who protests with his distinctive sign every Friday outside Melbourne's Flinders Street Station. This is his story. * * * I started doing this campaign last year. I was racially abused at the Royal Melbourne Hospital by a doctor. I complained to the hospital but they denied it. So I complained to the Health Service Commissioner and after contacting the hospital, no one could help me.
The Immigration Department is reviewing Wilson Security's lucrative role at the Manus Island and Nauru offshore detention camps following allegations it was secretly controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Thomas Kwok, who is serving five years in jail for bribery, and his brother. Wilson Security has denied allegations that the brothers concealed their ownership and control of Wilson after the claims emerged as part of the Panama Papers, the leak of millions documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca, based in Panama.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton announced on April 2 that for the first time in a decade there were no children in Australian detention centres. “When I got the call,” he said, “it was something I was proud of.” With the announcement came news that 196 of the 267 asylum seekers who lost the High Court case challenging the government's legal right to deport them to Nauru would be moved to community detention in Australia.