734

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In the years following the revolution, its leaders initiated the formation of the Communist (Third) International (Comintern), an international grouping of communist parties. In Venezuela, the leadership of the country’s unfolding socialist revolution have issued a call for a new international of Latin American left parties. In this article, part of a series on the early years of the Comintern, John Riddell looks at the relationship between communist revolutionaries and colonised peoples.
Airport security workers at the Oakland airport held an organising meeting on November 21 and received food in a food distribution organised by Filipino Association of Workers and Immigrants; Filipinos for Affirmative Action; Service Employees Local
Since the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in October, there has been little in the mainstream media coverage of events in Burma. During the crackdown, many people were killed or disappeared by the military as society was placed under curfew.
After more than one-and-a-half decades of constant erosion under Beijing’s pro-capitalist policies, China’s public sector has shrunk to less than 40% of the country’s economy, and an even smaller share of industry and services.
“It’s time for a new page to be written in our nation’s history” — Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, November 24.
Dear Green Left Weekly reader,
What a relief to finally see the back of John Howard and his despised Coalition government!
The first negotiations between the state government and Victorian teachers following a 10,000 strong November 21 stop-work meeting bore no fruit according to a November 30 press release by the Australian Education Union’s (AEU) Victorian branch.
The Federation of Community Legal Centres has criticised Victoria’s Office of Police Integrity (OPI) and the Ethical Standards Department (ESD) for allowing “police corruption, misconduct and violence to go unchecked” despite “several damning reports and public hearings” this year, said Will Crawford, a federation spokesperson, on November 28.
The November 24 rout of the Howard government owed much to the work of the organised labour movement. Of the marginal Coalition seats targeted by the Your Rights at Work (YRAW) campaign, 20 of 24 have fallen to Labor (including John Howard’s own seat of Bennelong); the other four remain in doubt. Most of those who voted for Labor did so believing that Labor would abolish Work Choices, as promised by Kevin Rudd on October 14, the official start to the election campaign. Yet Labor’s industrial relations policy — Forward with Fairness — promises only minimal changes, replacing the Coalition’s legislation with “Work Choices Lite”.
ABC Online reported on November 29 that the Australian Capital Territory’s attorney-general, Simon Corbell, intended to introduce a bill that would give legal recognition to same-sex “civil unions”.

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