Resistance calls on high school students to boycott the NAPLAN tests next week. While the Australian Education Union (AEU) has backed down on their plan to not administer the tests, the government agreement with the AEU is a potentially empty gesture.
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More than 350 people participated at the human ring in Sydney on May 8 and urged Australian government to be a lifesaver and protect refugees. They called the politicians not to score political points by punishing the most desperate of people.
Amnesty International Australia organized the human ring at Bondi Beach to show the politicians on all sides that they’ve got it wrong — Australians do care about saving lives and they won't accept punishment of people to win votes.
There were also speeches by human rights activists at the event.
Thousands of anti-NAPLAN supporters outnumber solitary pro-NAPLAN person!
Resistance, socialist youth organisation
Despite the Australian Education Union dropping its boycott of NAPLAN testing, protest on the social networking site Facebook shows overwhelming opposition to the tests - from teachers & students alike. One group which has over a thousand supporters is calling on students to "strike" against the tests, which have been linked to the production of League tables to simplistically rank schools.
Palestinian civil society has called on Elton John to respect their call to boycott Israel and cancel his June 17 concert in Tel Aviv. If he does so, he'll be joining artists Santana and Gil-Scott Heron, who recently cancelled planned concerts in Israel. This video suggests six reasons why Elton should join the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.
For more info, please visit:
www.bdsmovement.net
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
The following joint statement of solidarity has been signed by a number of left and progressive organisations, in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. If your organisation would like to sign on, please email international@socialist-alliance.org
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Support the struggle for democracy and social justice in Nepal
May 6, 2010
JB Hi-Fi staff at the company’s Wellington store have engaged in a series of strikes and protests as part of a campaign by the Unite union to win higher wages for retail workers. The strikes are the first at one of the company's stores in either Australia or New Zealand in over 27 years of the company's history.
The Unite Union has been negotiating with JB Hi-Fi management for over six months for a collective agreement but the Australian bosses are refusing to raise wages for staff this year.
The Socialist Alliance released the following statement in response to the developments in the anti-league tables campaign.
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The federal executive of the Australian Education Union (AEU) resolved on April 12 to impose a ban on implementing National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests, after damaging league tables were published in newspapers, based on 2009 NAPLAN data.
Socialist Alliance supports the principled stand against league tables taken by teachers.
Across the United States, large rallies were held on May Day (May 1, the international workers’ day). Opposition to attacks on immigrants were a major theme in big cities and small towns. Organisers of the march in Los Angeles estimated 250,000 immigrants and supporters staged a boisterous march in opposition to Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB1070 law.
In Tucson, Arizona, 15,000 protested against the racist law. About 30,000 people protested in New York and about 3000 marched in Washington D.C.
On May 3, students protested at the entrance to the University of Wollongong to call for 100% renewable energy on campus. The action was a part of nationwide events calling for renewable energy across Australia.
More than 2000 students have signed a petition calling upon the university to increase its purchase of renewable energy from the current 15% to 50% by the end of 2010, and then to 100% by the end of 2015.
On May 8, 70 people from local groups joined with Socialist Alliance to march through Brunswick’s Barkly Square shopping centre, demanding management allow community stalls, including those held by the Socialist Alliance, to resume.
Protesters had a replica of the original cage that radical artist and Communist Party of Australia member Noel Counihan spoke from in the 1933 free speech battles in Brunswick. A speak-out was held in the shopping centre, defying police and security guards.
Dukens Raphael, secretary-general of the Confederation of Public and Private Sector Workers of Haiti (CTSP) told the April 24 convention of the Canadian Union Public Employees (CUPE), British Columbia division of the dire situation facing Haiti’s people after the January 12 earthquake: “If you arrived in Port au Prince today, you would ask, ‘Did it happen yesterday?’”
We have just finished a very successful May Day brigade to Venezuela, organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN). The majority of the 14 participants were from Australia, with two Canadians and one from the US also taking part.
May Day was, of course, a highlight of the 10-day tour: more than 1 million marchers, all in red t-shirts. Brigadistas were greeted with cheers of welcome — we were easily identified by our Australian solidarity activists shirts and banner.
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