There is something incredibly frustrating about the fact that the Red Hot Chili Peppers played a concert in Israel, ignoring international pleas for them to cancel and observe the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
Admittedly, I wasn’t even quite aware of just how much their decision stung until the day after their appearance at the Pic.Nic festival in Tel Aviv.
941
Love & Capital: Karl & Jenny Marx & the Birth of a Revolution
By Mary Gabriel,
Little, Brown & Company 2011
707 pages, $39.99
The spectre of Karl Marx still haunts the capitalist world. Only 11 people attended his funeral in 1883 and the corporate press still loves to dance on his grave, constantly declaring that his ideas are irrelevant. Yet with every economic crisis all eyes return to Marx's masterpiece, Capital, to understand what is really going on in our economic system.
Independent journalist, political activist and author Antony Loewenstein discusses his new book After Zionism, at Sydney's Gleebooks on October 2.
At least 50,000 protesters rallied in Athens on October 9 to tell visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel she was not welcome.
Thousands of police officers cordoned off whole sectors of the city to prevent demonstrators embarassing Merkel, though police still detained more than 50 people during the day. Even in unrestricted areas pedestrians were stopped and searched.
But the crowds made their message clear, gathering outside parliament and chanting: “History is written by the disobedient.”
Residents of the Nad Ali district staged a demonstration on October 6 against NATO-led troops in Lashkargah, the capital of southern Helmand province, Pajhwok Afghan News said that say.
About 100 protesters accused the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers of killing innocent civilians during operations in the district, PAN said. District security was recently handed to Afghan forces.
The article said: “[O]ne tribal elder claimed Afghan and foreign forces killed his son during a nighttime raid two days back.
Two recent events dramatised the state of economy and politics in the Spanish state: the Red Cross announced that this year the takings of its annual Flag Day would go to fight poverty and social exclusion in Spain, and education minister Jose Ignacio Wert told the national parliament that changes to the national education syllabus were aimed at “Spanishing” students in Catalonia.
The Red Cross decision came as a shock across the country. People knew things were bad, but that bad?
NSW Coalition Premier Barry O’Farrell has been accused of lying about his pre-election promise to protect farmland and drinking water catchments from the burgeoning coal seam gas (CSG) industry.
The government finally released its Strategic Regional Land Use Policy on September 11. It outlines how the government will manage the CSG industry. After 18 months of promising to protect sensitive areas such as farms and bushland from the new industry, the policy revealed that no part of NSW has been ruled out for CSG mining and exploration.
On October 7, the Socialist Alliance adopted as a key focus for its next federal election campaign a call to bring the mining industry and the banks under public/community ownership and control, so they can be run in a way that respects Aboriginal rights, the environment and social justice. The urgent need to address climate change alone demands that these industries be immediately taken out of the hands of the billionaires and their global corporations and operated as not-for-profit public services under the democratic control of the majority.
Elections are coming up for local councils across Victoria. Many candidates are reflecting community campaigns, but others are reflecting the interests of developers and other business interests.
Because council ballot papers don’t identify candidates’ party affiliation, the Liberal and Labor parties often don’t endorse candidates. Instead, members of the Liberal and Labor parties run as “independents”.
I constantly scan the internet for breaking news, but I first found out that Prime Minister Julia Gillard's speech mercilessly lambasting opposition leader Tony Abbott for being a misogynist was going viral from my 16-year-old daughter.
She temporarily disconnected from the multiple social media she inhabits to call out to me: “Dad, have you seen that AWESOME Julia Gillard speech? EVERYBODY is talking about it!”
An hour later it was in the news headlines: PM's speech goes viral.
The Daily Telegraph slammed those so-called asylum seekers once more on October 11 in a hard hitting front page expose by Gemma Jones entitled “Sell house and sail away to better lives”. Jones wrote: “Sri Lanka's navy revealed that most of the 2279 people arrested leaving on 52 boats this year from 24 locations were 'economic migrants' looking for a better life in Australia.”
Buswell lies to attack wharfies
The Maritime Union of Australia has slammed as false West Australian Transport Minister Troy Buswell's claims that maritime workers are striking for a 20% pay rise.
On October 11, MUA national secretary Ian Bray said the dispute was about safety of workers, noting last month's workplace death of Newcastle waterfront worker Greg Fitzgibbon, who was crushed by a 20 tonne pallet.
Bray said Buswell should "investigate the concerns of workers to avoid further fatalities on the Australian waterfront".
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page