After 25 years, it is clearer than ever that privatisation of electricity in Australia has been a disaster for people and the planet.
In the early 1990s, prior to privatisation, energy prices in Australia were some of the lowest in the world and had been dropping for decades. That trend was sharply reversed following privatisation. Today, households are paying skyrocketing prices and growing numbers of Australians are now living in “energy poverty”.
Months after missing its March deadline for financial closure on its Carmichael mine and rail project, Adani has relaunched its PR offensive with claims its finances are almost stitched up.
In an interview on July 17, Karan Adani, son of the company’s owner Gautam Adani, told Indian TV it was now finalising the rail project’s financing.
In the aftermath of Turkey’s June 24 elections, “won” amid fraud and intimidation by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the alliance between his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Muhsin Yorulmaz takes a look at the post-election climate.
Candlelight vigils were held in Colombia and cities around world on July 6 to demand an end to the political violence that since January has cost the lives of more than 125 social leaders in the South American country.
Political violence against social activists has risen in recent years despite the signing of a peace accord between the government and the leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to Colombia’s Ombudsman, more than 311 political murders have been registered since the accords were signed in November 2016.
Colombia’s authorities seem unable or uninterested in curbing the wholesale slaughter of the country’s social leaders that has occurred since a peace process came into force, with nine leaders being murdered in the last week of June alone.
The violence is threatening Colombia’s peace process that not only sought the demobilisation of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), but also the increased political inclusion of the left and minorities in general.
“REJECTING ROOM”, screamed the front page of the Herald Sun on July 6, in a very clever pun on North Richmond’s safe injecting room that had opened a few days earlier.
“Addicts snub injecting facility” and “Nothing changed in heroin hotspot” sat above the main cover slogan to emphasise the point about ungrateful “druggies”.
Manjib is an ethnically diverse city in northern Syria. In 2014, it was occupied by ISIS (also known as Daesh). In 2016, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, an alliance of armed groups supporting the model of grassroots democracy associated with the Rojava Revolution) had liberated the city.
Emel Dede is one of the Manbij Turkmen women who lived under the Syrian regime first, and then the Free Syrian Army and Daesh. She has been working for two years now for her future and the future of Manbij. She talked to Bêrîtan Sarya and Axin Tolhildan about this.
More than 300 truckies, their families and supporters protested around the country on July 16 to demand an end to the pressure in the industry that is killing hundreds of people on the roads every year. In the past 12 months, 184 drivers have been killed in truck crashes.
After 12 days on strike, workers at Laverton Cold Storage voted on July 6 for their first union workplace agreement.
Emma Kerin from the National Union of Workers told Green Left Weekly that the striking workers had voted unanimously to return to work after endorsing a new EBA that includes significant gains for the workers.
Activists can see the light at the end of this very long tunnel, and are pushing for the Queensland parliament to vote to legalise abortion rights.
In this age of neoliberal cut-backs and privatisations, the NSW Teacher's Federation is fighting back to maintain and extend the gains it has won over many years.
“We call on the federal government to scrap the [NewStart Allowance] ‘demerit points plan’ and stop demonising the unemployed,” NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon told a public forum at UnionsNSW on July 4.
The forum was hosted by the national and Western Sydney branches of the Australian Unemployed Workers Union (AUWU). The AUWU is conducting a nationwide campaign, called “Dump Your Demerit Points”, to educate members on how to fight back against this punitive system.