The July 20 movie theatre massacre in Aurora, Colorado ― in which 12 people were killed and 58 wounded ― is reckoned by some sources to be the 36th mass shooting to have occurred in the US in the past three decades.
On top of these crazed rampages, the annual attrition of gun-related deaths accounts for about 30,000 victims across the US.
It would be bad enough if the seemingly unchallengeable dogma of the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment’s “right to bear arms” contributed to the deaths of only US citizens. Yet US “gun culture” is a lethal problem for the rest of the world as well.
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Hundreds of armour-clad thugs from a private strikebreaking firm raided the site of a peaceful protest against a management-imposed lockout at the SJM car parts factory in Ansan, South Korea, on July 27.
Thirty four workers were injured and many were taken to hospital for treatment of serious injuries. The private strikebreakers were fitted in full riot gear with helmets, shields, sharp iron parts and meter long clubs. They sprayed fire extinguishers to obscure the workers' vision as they went on a club-weilding rampage.
The Olympics are a sporting and social phenomenon without parallel. The Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics was watched by close to 1 billion people.
Viewers for individual events can be remarkable. The website Sporting Intelligence said 184 million people watched a live women’s volleyball match between China and Cuba at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A further 450 million people watched part of it.
British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne's desperate efforts to put an Olympic shine on Britain's economy are failing to get off the starting blocks.
As they postured on the sidelines, the world saw the reality of an economy teetering on the brink of an unprecedented triple-dip recession.
Asset management company Schroders chief economist Azad Zangana believes gross domestic product (GDP) will rise by 0.5% this quarter due to the Olympics.
US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney generated a backlash with his claims in Jerusalem that the vast (20:1) disparity in income between Israelis and Palestinians can be explained by a superior Jewish Israeli culture and “the hand of providence” ― rather than by the systematic depradations of Israeli occupation on the economy of Palestinians.
United States: Cops taser 12-year-old
“A police officer tased a 12-year-old girl inside a Victoria's Secret [on] Wednesday afternoon at South County Center [in St Louis County, Missouri].
“Police say the officer came into the Victoria's Secret looking for the teenager's mom, who had warrants for her arrest. But it was the teen who got tased.
“'This one goes in my chest. It was stuck in there so she had to keep on pulling trying to pull it out,' said Dejamon Baker, as she pointed to a small wound on her chest ...
The campaign for marriage equality in Australia has been waged for almost a decade. That federal parliament, despite repeated polls showing support for equal marriage rights regardless of sexuality, has failed to legislate for marriage equality has caused widespread anger.
A sign of the growing momentum for marriage equality came with the announcement at the Tasmanian state Labor conference on August 4 that the Labor-led Tasmanian government would aim to pass legislation this year to legalise same-sex marriage in the state, should federal parliament fail to do so.
As semester two begins at the University of Sydney, it’s worth reflecting on what student activists have learned so far in our campaigns this year.
We've learned that our university is being managed in line with the profits-first agenda of the 1% that run the government and the economy. We've learned that under Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence, corporate research partners and “good economic management” take priority over students, staff and society.
In the space of a decade, Australia’s mining sector has come to dominate the country’s economic life. In June, Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said mining investment is tipped to “be about as large as business investment in the rest of the private economy combined” by mid 2014.
Workers on Bovis Lend Lease building sites across the country have won site allowances and improved pay and conditions. Union and community action forced the company to complete negotiations on a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) with unions on July 31.
Strikes and protest action across 22 Lend Lease sites were launched on July 25, after the company failed to reach agreement with unions on conditions including restored site allowances, improved job security, improved pay and conditions for subcontractors, and union right of entry.
Student activists at La Trobe University have begun a campaign against a proposal to slash funding to the Humanities and Social Sciences faculty.
About 150 students and staff protested at the university’s Bundoora campus in Melbourne’s northern suburbs on July 31. Students marched to the administration building where security guards wrestled with a protester and locked the students out.
Undeterred, students marched to the office of Humanities and Social Science dean Tim Murray where they were also locked out but occupied the corridor outside the office.
This winter, I experienced the hospitality of Jarrod McKenna, Teresa Lee and their son Tyson. They’re a family of peace activists, who ruggedly live out communal economics and radical permaculture in Peace Tree Community in Perth. They opened their home to me so that I could take a week out to write in peace.
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