Furious emerging farmers in the Kareeberg municipality in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province have decided to stop paying rent for the municipal-owned land they are farming.
These farmers have been robbed, prevented access to and ownership of land by colonial conquest, segregation and apartheid.
Now, South Africa’s protection of capitalist property and its neoliberal state policies are keeping them landless.
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The ongoing student protests in Chile are an unwavering accomplishment aimed at combating the social injustice infecting the country's education system. What started out as a series of peaceful protests in May has become a movement that unites students, artists and much of the general population.
Israel has been rocked by weeks of ongoing protests against high house prices and the cost of living. To avoid being painted as “extremists”, the organisers have avoided the obvious ― the cost of the occupation of Palestinian territory and protecting the illegal Jewish settlers has directly contributed to the Israeli state's neoliberal austerity policies.
Independent and community media makers in Canada have passed a groundbreaking national motion to join the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
In June, the National Campus and Community Radio Association of Canada (NCRA) ― an umbrella organisation representing more than 80 radio stations across Canada ― adopted the motion at its annual meeting.
NCRA said: “In doing so, the NCRA is proudly the first national media organization in Canada to join the global movement for BDS.”
A confidential United States cable released by WikiLeaks on July 29 documents the arrest of controversial Malaysian blogger and Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin.
Kamaruddin had been outspoken in his criticism of the government.
On September 12, 2008, Kamaruddin was arrested at his residence under the Internal Security Act (ISA) ― which allows for detention without trial.
Kamaruddin’s arrest came days after Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi threatened to use the ISA to repress those purportedly stoking racial and religious tensions.
Nearly half a year after workers revolted over Wisconsin Republican Govenor Scott Walker's February announcement that he intended to bust Wisconsin's public-sector unions, voters went to the polls in nine recall elections.
Unions and their supporters hoped the polls would put the state Senate in the hands of Democrats ― whose 14 Senators left the state for a month after Walker announced his anti-union bill in a bid to block it.
Despite an obscene amount of money flowing into the state over the past few months, the union movement fell just one seat short of its goal.
Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution. Green Left Weekly’s Simon Butler asked Loewenstein about recent attempts to intimidate supporters of the boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) campaign against Israel.
“A White House investigation … uncovered a culture of complacency, cost-cutting and systemic failures and companies unprepared to deal with accidents and consequences.”
That was how ABC News on January 18 summed up the findings of the US inquiry into last year’s disaster at BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
The explosion caused 11 deaths, and unleashed the worst accidental marine oil spill in history. About 4.9 million barrels of oil escaped over nearly three months before the well was capped.
Renowned Marxist economist and ecologist John Bellamy Foster is a feature guest speaker at the World at a Crossroads: Climate Change Social Change conference, which will take place in Melbourne over September 30 to October 3.
He spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Peter Boyle about capitalism’s growing economic and environmental contradictions.
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About 100 people gathered on the steps of the Sydney Opera House on August 21 to show their support for the student movement in Chile, which is campaigning for free education.
As protests and strikes for free education rock the country, more than two dozen high school students have launched a hunger strike until the Chilean government agrees to make public education free.
A solidarity protest also took place in Brisbane’s West End on August 20 in support of the hunger strikers.
Ian Angus is a veteran of the socialist and environmental movements in Canada and internationally. He is a featured guest speaker at the Climate Change Social Change activist conference, which will take place in Melbourne, from September 30 to October 3.
Angus is the founder and editor of climateandcapitalism.com, an online journal that focuses on capitalism, ecology and the ecosocialist alternative.
There’s been much hoo-haa about cannabis possession lately in Western Australia, because now, if you are found with 10 or more grams of it, you’re a criminal.
As of August 1, just 10 grams — rather than the 30-gram amount under the previous Labor government — can land you a maximum $2000 fine or two years’ jail. Heavy, right?
And to top it off, those caught will receive a nice little criminal record to go with it. Get caught with less than 10 grams and you are in for a mandatory counselling session.
The new penalties have sparked an outcry from responsible users across the state.
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