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Indonesian environmental refugees protest

A massive environmental disaster in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, has forced 15,000 people to leave their homes in the past two years. An enormous eruption of hot mud that began in May 2006 continues to flow at a rate of 148,000 cubic metres a day. Activists

Cairns discusses sustainable transport

Fifty people attended the first public meeting of Cairns Action for Sustainable Transport (CAST), on March 11 at the Serbian Centre in Edge Hill. Attendees engaged in a lively discussion about improving Cairns’s public transport and bikeways.

Tackling the sustainability emergency

Climate Code Red: the Case for a Sustainability Emergency
By David Spratt (Carbon Equity) & Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute)
91 pages.
Published by Friends of the Earth.
$12/$10 or free PDF from http://climatecodered.net.

Israel murders four in West Bank

Israeli forces have killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to a March 13 AAP report, just hours after Hamas called a halt to Israeli aggression in order to for a ceasefire to be observed. Three of those killed were members

NTEU members discuss bargaining strategy

A February 12-14 “national bargaining forum” of lead negotiators for the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) set a determined course for industrial and political campaigning over the next three years. Key outcomes include an aggressive bargaining strategy and a linked public policy campaign that will be both national and grassroots.

Offsetting democracy

Carbon trading and offsets distract attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches to climate change involves moving away from the blinkered reductionism of free-market dogma, the false economy of supposed quick fixes and the short-term self-interest of big business.

Philippines: Women workers call for system change

Thousands of union members at Fortune Tobacco Corporation in Marikina and members of the Labour Party (PM) celebrated International Women's Day (IWD) on March 8 with a demonstation from their factory gate to the town plaza. Marilyn Calilap, the

Protest at desalination plant

On March 12, 100 people joined a community assembly at the Sydney desalination plant site to protest against the sacking of a Maritime Union of Australia divers’ delegate for raising health and safety issues. It was also to protest the failure of Construction Diving Services (a subsidiary of Dempsey Industries) to negotiate a collective agreement with 14 divers on the site. Apart from MUA members, delegations from the Fire Brigades Employees Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union attended.

Desalination plant damned by government's own figures

Campaign group Your Water Your Say (YWYS) has warned that Victorian state government policy will see the state “swimming in water but drowning in water bills” by 2014 if the proposed $3.1 billion desalination plant goes ahead at Wonthaggi.

Wollongong: Residents call for council elections

Nearly 200 people filled Wollongong’s Town Hall on March 11 to demand a Royal Commission into council corruption and for the people of Wollongong to be able to exercise their democratic right to take part in the NSW local government elections, scheduled for September.

Venezuela: Mass revolutionary party 'to make history'

Addressing the founding congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on March 2, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez proclaimed the new party to be “a party for the social battle, for the defense of the homeland”.

Bolivia: Referendum plan raises tensions

February 28 marked a further deepening of the political crisis and polarisation in Bolivia, when the national congress, in the middle of a blockade by a section of Bolivia’s main social movements, approved a law to hold two national referendums on May 4.