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This is surely a country that could use a bit of good news. It has been a tough few weeks with raging bushfires, severe flooding and, just when it seemed it couldn't get worse, the heartbreaking news we will be subjected to the longest election campaign in Australian history.
A packed-out meeting of tenants from Fitzroy's Atherton Gardens public housing estate established a resident’s committee to lead a campaign against the government’s plans to sell off open space and playgrounds to developers. The meeting was initiated by Socialist Party Yarra councillor Steve Jolly, and was also attended by nearby private residents, including members of the local African, Chinese and Vietnamese communities, construction union members, Greens MP Adam Bandt and an ALP councillor.
This statement was released by the Refugee Rights Network on January 30. *** Refugee rights groups across Australia will be converging on the remote Yongah Hill detention centre in Perth on the long weekend of April 25 to 28. We will protest against the mandatory detention of asylum seekers in hellholes such as Yongah Hill and the offshore processing of refugees on Nauru and Manus Island.
A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. Reported by Associated Press on Christmas Day, this was missing from most Anglo-American media. The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism”, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China. Unlike China, the US and its allies are prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Palestine.