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Standard Operating Procedure
Directed by Errol Morris
Cinema release July 3
Below is an open letter from Bolivian President Evo Morales to the European Union, appealing to it not to adopt the racist anti-immigrant “Return Directive”, which was voted up on June 18. This is abridged from http://boliviarising.blogspot.com.
“Employers win in IR overhaul”, was the front-page headline of the June 17 Australian Financial Review, reporting the outcome of the Rudd Labor government’s new National Employment Standards (NES), released on June 15.
This piece on “tasks for ecosocialists in building a global movement against ecological destruction”, was posted at http://climateandcapitalism.com on June 10. It will be published as an editorial in a coming edition of British magazine Socialist Resistance.
I am not the least bit superstitious, but I can get suspicious. Like when Victorian community group Your Water Your Say (YWYS) failed its court challenge against the federal and state government decision to build a monstrous and unnecessary $3.1 billion desalination plant in Wonthaggi.
The latest surge in the spot price of crude oil (to US$139 a barrel — 87.4 cents a litre) dramatises the urgent need for society to wean itself off “black gold”. The longer we remain hooked the greater the devastation both to our environment and to the living standards of millions, especially the poorest peoples of the planet.
On June 5 the Eleventh Circuit of Atlanta’s Court of Appeals upheld the federal convictions for conspiracy against the Cuban Five — five Cuban citizens held in US prisons since their arrest on September 12, 1998.
Dear Prime Minister, Six months into your term you stated: "We have done as much as we physically can to provide additional help to the family budget, recognising that the cost of everything is still going through the roof, the cost of food, cost
The Toyota Motor Corporation, in a dead heat with US giant General Motors (GM), is now the most profitable car maker in the world. Last financial year TMC was valued at US$215 billion. This, however, didn’t stop the federal government from offering Toyota even more money.
The article below, by Jean-Guy Allard, is reprinted from Cuban newspaper Granma on June 16. According to a June 18 Xinhuanet.com article, thousands of people protested outside the US embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, against the decision and demanding Carlos Sanchez Berzain’s extradition — prompting the US to recall its ambassador to report on the situation. Bolivian President Evo Morales defended the protests, stating that the protest “isn’t any attack”, but “is the reaction of the people against US government policies”, which grant asylum to genocide suspects and protect criminals.
Fred Fuentes, who has spent a year working in Venezuela, will be a special guest speaker at the Resistance National Conference in Sydney, June 27-29. Green Left Weekly’s Trent Hawkins caught up with Fuentes just before he left Caracas for Australia.