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New national refugee action network formed

The Australian Refugee Action Network (ARAN) held its inaugural conference on May 20-21 at the Australian National University in Canberra. It brought together more than 150 activists and representatives of 48 refugee advocacy and activist groups from around the country. 

Participants included a large number of activists from Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) groups. RAR held its own national meeting over the conference, and elected a new leadership. The proposal to form ARAN came out of discussion at last year’s RAR conference.

How the rich avoid tax and stay rich

French economist Thomas Piketty argued in his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century that capitalism arose from feudalism and is in many ways reverting to it.

Philippines: Duterte imposes martial law in new authoritarian step

Filipino police and military forces in the small city of Marawi on the island of Mindanao attempted to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf criminal gang, on May 23. By the end of the day, President Rodrigo Duterte’s government had declared martial law throughout the island for 60 days and launched a military assault.

By June 2, that ongoing assault, including air strikes, had killed at least 160 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

This dramatic escalation represents the further slide of Duterte’s administration towards authoritarian rule and a betrayal of his election campaign promise to pursue a negotiated end to Mindanao’s multiple insurgencies.

Ending hunger strikes, Palestinian prisoners declare victory

After 40 days without food, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners have suspended their hunger strike in Israeli jails.

The end of the strike came after 20 hours of intense negotiations between the strike’s leaders, including imprisoned Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti, and the Israel Prison Service, according to a statement issued on the morning of May 27 by the prisoners solidarity committee.

Amid difficult election campaign, Britain’s left is pushing back against hard-right Tories

An eco-socialist and international coordinator for the Greens Party of England and Wales, Derek Wall is challenging Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May as the Greens candidate for May’s seat of Maidenhead under the slogan “Make June the End of May”.

Campaigning against racist migration controls, austerity and May’s support for fox hunting is giving Wall’s campaign traction, and it enjoys strong support from the Kurdish community.

Philippines: Socialists condemn imposition of martial law in Mindanao

The following statement was released by Filipino socialist party Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) on May 25 in response to the government's May 23 declaration of martial law in Mindanao for a 60-day period.

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Protest demands Labor end support for Adani

Two hundred people came from as far away as Gympie, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba to join a Thursday morning protest outside Queensland parliament. The protest was against the proposed Adani coal mine in the Galilee basin.

GREEN LEFT VLOG || The Uluru Statement, Portland Murders

In this week's video, Blair Vidakovich discusses the Uluru Statement and how the left-wing activists should respond to the resurgent fascist-minded alt-right in the US and in Australia. This is particularly pressing in the context of the racist Portland murders.

Tamil human rights activists arrested in India

India: Human rights activists jailed for commemorating 2009 massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka

Since 2011, a Remembrance Day commemoration of the 2009 massacre of Tamil liberation fighters and their famiies in Sr Lanka has been held in Chennai's Marina Beach in the form of a mass candle-light vigil. But this year, the police violently dispersed the crowd and arrested several leading Tamil human rights activists, including Thirumurugan Gandhi , Daison Jose , Ilamaran and Arun.