The Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu, in the Pacific Ocean, is facing a severe shortage of fresh water.
Australia Network News said on October 10 that a state of emergency had been declared and Tuvalu's disaster co-ordinator Sumeo Silu said there was only about three days of water left. Tuvalu is in the midst of a crippling drought and had no rain for months.
ANN said Australia and New Zealand would deploy a large desalination plant to the island, home to about 10,000 people.
899
More than 13 million people are facing extreme food insecurity in the Horn of Africa in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.
Almost 30,000 children have already died in Somalia in 90 days.
Famines in the region have become common enough for the Western media response to be cliched. Out-of-context images and sound-bites depict hopeless Africans needing Western charity yet again, and references to conflict making the situation worse depict conflict as local failing that Western intervention may be able to remedy.
The occupy movement is spreading, and in more ways than one. It’s spreading across the globe — by October 11 occupytogether.org could boast of 1273 occupy events planned worldwide. But the movement, united under its slogan “We are the 99%”, is also reaching out to, and involving, other established social movements. Environmentalists and climate campaigners have linked up with Occupy Wall Street protests in New York. Hundreds of climate activists joined a 5000-strong march there on October 5. Their message was well received by other protesters.
What stance should the European left take towards the euro and its galloping crisis?
This issue, which began as a theoretical discussion among radical economists in late 2009, has increasingly acquired practical political urgency: left parties are being challenged to define their position in the face of rising popular resentment at governments forking out billions in taxpayer euros to bail-out banks and indebted “Club Med” countries.
“I’ve come to believe that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.”
This statement was released by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee.
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We are part of the world’s 99% yearning for freedom, justice and equal rights! If a people one day wills to live. Fate must answer its call. And the night must fade. And the chain must break
― Abou-Al-kacem El-Chebbi (Tunisia)
The Last Stand released the statement below on October 8.
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Today, over 30 actions took place around the world as part of 24 hours of action targeting retailer Harvey Norman for their role in helping to drive the destruction of Australia’s native forests.
Five forest campaigners were arrested after two climbers abseiled down the Sydney Opera House and unfurled a giant banner. Two campaigners were arrested at Harvey Norman’s Preston store in Melbourne after occupying the roof and displaying a large banner.
Mothers and wives of Palestinian prisoners quickly gathered outside the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza after a prisoner swap deal was announced on October 11 between Israel and Hamas.
These women have not seen their loved ones, imprisoned by Israel, for five years.
For the past five years, the families of 950 Palestinian prisoners from Gaza have been protesting weekly outside the ICRC’s headquarters, demanding their right to visit their sons, husbands and relatives inside the Israeli jails, a right denied to them by Israel.
Occupy Sydney activists have been buoyed by motions of endorsement by the NSW State Council of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Canterbury-Bankstown Teachers Association, the Maritime Union of Australia and the NSW division of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).
Lupe Fiasco, a US hip hop artist, wrote the following poem in support of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. It was published in the second edition of The Occupied Wall Street Journal, which is published by activists in the OWS movement.
At 11.30am on October 15, about 750 people converged on City Square in Swanston Street in Melboune’s CBD as part of the global Occupy Together movement. It is a movement inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement that has initiated similar movements in hundreds of cities worldwide.
Walk With Us: Aboriginal Elders Call Out to Australian People to Walk with them in their Quest for Justice
Compiled and published by Concerned Australians
$15, 71 pages, hard cover
wwww.concernedaustralians.com.au
Walk With Us is the long awaited sequel to the highly regarded and recommended This Is What We Said — Australian Aboriginal People give their views on the Northern Territory Intervention, published in February last year.
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