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Indian mining giant Adani has announced that it is ready to self-fund a scaled-down coalmine and rail project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. The company said that construction on the mine would begin next year.

The Western Australian Labor government announced it is opening up 5.2 million hectares — an area roughly the size of 75% of Tasmania — to potential fracking operations on November 27.

The recent death of 24-year-old Mapuche activist Camilo Catrillanca, who was gunned down in a police raid, has sparked wide condemnation and protests throughout Chile, writes Rodrigo Acuña.

For a party only launched in May, Victorian Socialists achieved some exceptional results in the November 24 state elections.

In 2008, the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations published a report titled US-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality. Timed to influence the foreign policy agenda of the next US administration, the report asserted: “the era of the US as the dominant influence in Latin America is over.”

Then, at the Summit of the Americas the next year, then-president Barack Obama promised Latin American leaders a “new era” of “equal partnership” and “mutual respect”.

Twelve months ago socialists from several different groups and backgrounds came together to see if they could get the first socialist elected to an Australian parliament in more 70 years.

Much of central Santiago de Chile has been brought to a standstill by protests against the police killing of 24-year-old indigenous Mapuche activist Camilo Catrillanca on November 14. Catrillanca joins Matiás Catrileo, Jaime Mendoza Collio, Alex Lemún, José Huenante and Rodrigo Melinaeo, all young Mapuche men who have been killed by Chilean police or disappeared while in police custody in recent years.

While the final results of Victoria’s November 24 state elections are yet to be announced, Labor looks set to go from 47 to 52 seats in the state’s Legislative Assembly, after receiving a primary vote of 43%.

The Italian government is facing a very delicate situation, with its two major measures in the process of being ratified by the parliament, writes Daniele Fulvi.

Both the far-right League and the populist 5 Star Movement (M5S) that make up the coalition government know their credibility depends on the approval of economic measures that will provide for the citizenship income (the key point of M5S’s agenda) and the security decree (strongly advocated by the League’s leader Matteo Salvini).

In recent weeks, a new protest movement called the “yellow jackets” took to the streets of France. They are protesting the rise of petrol prices, issued by President Emmanuel Macron in order to cut CO2 emissions.

The yellow jackets movement, seemingly spontaneously born on the internet, immediately spread on a national scale. It brought hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Paris on November 24. The protesters are worried because rising petrol prices will directly affect their everyday life.

French police attacked demonstrators with tear gas and water cannons on November 24 as hundreds of thousands demanded President Emmanuel Macron resign over the rising cost of living.

The “yellow jacket” protests, named for the yellow high-vis jackets French motorists are obliged to have in their cars in case of breakdown, were sparked by rises in fuel duty that the government says is aimed at encouraging people to switch to electric cars.

Demonstrators built barricades in the streets and some ripped up paving stones and starting fires.

Here are the best new albums that related to this month's politics. (There are actually far more than 10 - count them). What albums would you suggest? Comment on TwitterFacebook, or email. This column is taking a break and will return at the end of January.