Malalai Joya is a writer, activist and former parliamentarian in the national assembly of Afghanistan. Prior to speaking at two Overland events at the 2011 Melbourne Writers’ Festival, she discussed occupation and resistance in Afghanistan today.
894
In July, in response to a polemical document issued by a number of critics of the Morales government, Bolivian vice-president Alvaro Garcia Linera published a lengthy response.
An advertising campaign to promote coal seam gas (CSG) in a bid to “balance” the mounting community opposition to the industry has been launched by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA).
APPEA have dubbed the effort “We want CSG”, and say it is an “information campaign” designed to focus on “investment, jobs, environmental benefits, and enormous opportunities that this industry generates”.
The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released the statement below on September 4.
* * *
The Refugee Action Coalition has called on the government to drop all aspects of offshore processing.
“Taking Tony Abbott’s offer to amend the Migration Act to re-open Nauru would be a serious mistake,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.
“The Pacific Solution Mark II would be no better than mark I. Nauru would be Christmas Island only more remote and 10 times worse.
Will the host city for the November-December United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) clean up its act?
The August 23 launch of a major Academy of Science of South Africa (Assaf) report, Towards a Low Carbon City: Focus on Durban, offers a chance to test whether new municipal leaders are climate greenwashers.
Will they try to disguise high-carbon economic policies with pleasing rhetoric, as their predecessors did?
At the end of the night of Wollongong's council elections, September 3, it seemed likely voters had elected Gordon Bradbery, a progressive independent, as lord mayor.
Bradbery won 33.9% of the primary vote and is expected to win on preferences. The Liberals’ John Dorahy won 23.4% of the primary, Labor’s Chris Connor 19.7%, the Greens’ Jill Merrin 5.9% and Community Voice’s Michael Organ 4.1%.
Votes in the wards were still being counted as Green Left Weekly went to print, but it’s clear the once Labor dominated council will have a very different make up.
Black Swan
By Carolyn Landon & Eileen Harrison
238 pages
Allen & Unwin, June 2011
Bestselling author Carolyn Landon says the main revision she had to make in writing her latest book, Black Swan was editing all her anger out of it.
"I had difficulty with my own voice," she tells Green Left Weekly about the book, a memoir of Koori artist Eileen Harrison.
"Mainly, it was getting my own angry and ashamed responses to what Eileen was telling off my chest. After I let off steam in the drafts, I eliminated most of my reactions.
Last year, the Sydney Underground Film Festival hosted the Australian premier of Oliver Stone's documentary on Latin America's revolutions South of the Border. This year, the festival is taking place this year on September 8-11 at the The Factory Theatre in Marrickville.
Festival organisers have five double passes to giveaway for the film Better This World (see below) to Green Left Weekly readers. Be one of the first to email stefanie@suff.com.au with the subject line “911” to win.
“At least 87 [Greek university] departments were under student occupation, with the number increasing by the hour,” OccupiedLondon.org said on August 31.
“General Assemblies are happening all of this and next week and it is very likely that the number will increase dramatically.
“There seems to be a completely unprecedented agreement between students across almost the entire political spectrum for mobilisations against the voted law: this is rapidly becoming a stand-off between the Student community and the Parliament.”
The problem, apparently, is red tape.
It's stifling business and preventing growth, because red tape is evil, and you can no more argue in favour of red tape than say: "I don't wish to contribute to the fight against cancer as I think we should have more of it."
For example, Conservative Party Member of the European Parliament Julie Girling wrote on August 30 that red tape is preventing businesses from making agency staff work more than 48 hours a week, which “costs companies £2 billion [$3 billion] a year”.
Our Way to Fight
Michael Riordon
Pluto Press, 2011
“People safely outside the situation sometimes ask ‘Why don’t more Palestinians use non-violent protest?’ says Michael Riordon is his concluding chapter to Our Way To Fight.
“The question ignores the long history of Palestinian attempts to seek justice through non-violent means, and the equally long history of official Israeli violence in suppressing these attempts.”
I am and have always been a pro-active pacifist.. I long and pray for a peaceful caring world. A world of respect and sharing. Whats happened in London and Birmingham and Liverpool and what will be the rest of the country deeply upsets me.
- Page 1
- Next page