The Honoured Dead
By Joseph Braude
Scribe Publications, 2011
336pp, $32.95
This fascinating documentary book gives insights into the roots of the Arab Spring that is sweeping dictatorships away across the Middle East and North Africa.
Written as a first person narrative by US reporter Joseph Braude, The Honoured takes the reader into the lived experience of the poor in Morocco, explaining a good deal about the country’s history and culture in the process.
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Say no to the system that produces record profits for the 1% by impoverishing the 99% of us; say yes to a fair city and a better world.
May Day was celebrated in Adelaide on Saturday May 5 with a march through the city streets.
A sizable Left Unity block marched down together from the Adelaide Activist Centre. They marched under a Left Unity banner, but also carried individual banners representing the participating groups.
The Left Unity contingent included Socialist Alliance, Resistance, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) Adelaide branch, along with other independent members of the left.
The parties that have ruled the country since the end of the military dictatorship in 1974 -- New Democracy (ND) and the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) -- have collapsed in the May 6 parliamentary elections.
In all elections since 1974 (except 1990-91) one of these two parties was able to gain a clear majority in the parliament and form government, jointly scoring from 70% to 90% of the vote. On May 6, their combined vote was 33%.
You can join Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and many others around the world in signing the open letter in support of Labour Party Pakistan activist Baba Jan, jailed and tortured for fighting for compensation for flood victims.
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For the past eight months Baba Jan Hunzai and four fellow activists have languished in various jails of Gilgit. Twice in this period he has been removed from jail and tortured by military and police agents.
Green Left columnist Carlo Sands takes "Carlo's Corner" to Green Left TV, hailing Clive Palmer's decision to seek pre-selection for the Liberal National Party to challenged Treasurer Wayne Swan. You can read Carlo's Corner columns and subscribe to Green Left TV.
Activists in the biggest staff-student campaign to defend education seen in Australia for decades have won a partial victory against an attempt by the University of Sydney administration to cut hundreds of teaching and non-teaching jobs.
The immediate job cuts have been reduced to 23 under pressure from the campaign. But staff and students are keeping up the fight. The photos below are of a rally and march of 500 people held on May 7, during which the administration called in the police and riot squad.
The Bring Back the Buses Action Group released the statement below on May 7.
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A quiet street in Melbourne northern suburb Mill Park is to be the scene of an angry protest against the Baillieu government’s recent cuts to bus services.
Rail link bus route 571 and Northlands-Greensborough bus route 563 were axed in a large scale northern suburbs bus restructure, which coincided with the opening of South Morang Station last month. A further six buses were re-routed, many of which now terminate at the new South Morang rail-bus interchange.
Together
Ngaratya
www.myspace.com/ngaratya
Female acoustic duo Ngaratya have received advice from the best in the business in starting their musical journey.
Help from the likes of Aboriginal hip hop pioneer Wire MC and soul singer Emma Donovan has given the sisters' debut EP Together an accomplished, mature sound that belies their teenage years.
Much of the world’s population continues to pay for the global financial crisis with their jobs, homes, education and health. Bankers continue to award themselves millions of dollars in bonuses, such as the British bank Barclay’s chief executive, who last year earned US$26.9 million.
The Venezuelan government, however, has raised the percentage of net profits banks must grant in credit to national social programs. In doing so, it is demonstrating to the rest of the world what a regulated and socially oriented banking system could look like.
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