1091

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a Kurdish-led party that has united a swath of Turkey’s broad left, has proposed a new law in parliament to establish peace and legally guarantee all peace talks regarding the Kurdish question. The move comes as the Turkish government, having ended peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) last year, carries out a brutal war on largely Kurdish areas in Turkey.
About 130 people attended the Socialist Alliance election launch in Sydney on April 15. The night launched the campaign to elect Peter Boyle in the seat of Sydney and the Senate team of Ken Canning, Susan Price, Sharlene Leroy-Dyer and Howard Byrnes. It was a very positive night with Aboriginal activists, unionists and activists signing on to the People's Movement.
Victoria has become the first state in Australia to legalise the use of medicinal cannabis. Children with severe epilepsy will be the first to access the drug in 2017, Victoria's Health Minister Jill Hennessy said, after the Access to Medicinal Cannabis Bill 2015 passed parliament.
Sherpa — Trouble on Everest Directed by Jennifer Peedom & Renan Ozturk The Sherpa are a Nepalese ethnic minority who have a reverent regard for the world’s highest mountain, Chomolungma — known in English as Everest.
The Beyond Coal Gas Conference held over April 9 to 11 at Myuna Bay invited many Aboriginal leaders involved in the struggle against fracking or coalmining on their country to share their stories and promote solidarity with their campaigns. Speakers over the three days included Kylie Sambo from SEED, the Indigenous youth climate network; Gadrian Hooson from the NT campaign against fracking in Borroloola and other Aboriginal communities; Paul Spearim from the Gamilaraay People and Clan Groups against CSG and Coalmining; and Balai elder Mabel Quakawoot.
Twenty of Sydney's wealthiest private schools received $111 million in public money last year, allowing them to build tennis courts, flyover theatre towers, multi-story carparks and swimming pools with underwater cameras. According to MySchool data, the five most expensive schools in Sydney have received more than $92 million in state and federal government funding since 2012, equivalent to the total cost of building three new public schools.
The revelations from the Panama papers continue to reverberate around the world. While the Australian angle has so far been a bit anticlimactic, it did kick off a discussion about the banking sector and tax havens. Bill Shorten, in an uncharacteristic display of spinal-cord solidification, seized the initiative and announced that the Labor Party would conduct a Royal Commission into the banking industry if elected.
More than 300 doctors have signed an open letter demanding the state government develop a plan to shut down the Latrobe Valley's brown coal power plants because of the health damage they cause the local community. The letter, organised by Doctors for the Environment, argues a transition away from brown coal-fired power — responsible for 85% of Victoria's electricity generation — is necessary because its pollution is responsible for local disease, and even death, and poses a broader health threat through its contribution to climate change.
About 200 unionists, refugee activists and students rallying in Melbourne on April 8 outside a Liberal Party fundraiser to celebrate 20 years since the election of the Howard government, were attacked by police on horses and the indiscriminate use of pepper spray.
Fifty years ago building worker activists took back control of their union, the NSW Builders Labourers Federation (BLF), from a leadership clique that ignored the members. Under the new leadership of , the re-energised BLF created high standards for workplace safety, decent pay, union democracy, accountable leadership, community engagement and, most famously, Green Bans.
"Let's take the big banks head on over their crimes and their attempts to cover up their massive financial rip-offs, and nationalise them under workers' and community control," Peter Boyle, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sydney in the upcoming federal election, said on April 14. Boyle was responding to reports the banks were considering a huge advertising blitz against plans by the Greens and the Labor Party to launch a Royal Commission into the banking and finance sectors.
I moved to Sydney at the start of this year. For months I have spent every Sunday I'm not working rushing around the Inner West being interviewed as a flatmate, only to suffer rejection after silent rejection.
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