Salvation Army staff members released this statement on July 23.
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In light of the recent events that have taken place in Nauru, a collection of former and current Salvation Army staff who have spent the last 10 months working with asylum seekers at the regional processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island would like to make a public statement.
974
Bring The Sun Out EP
Impossible Odds
Classik Nawu
Coldwater Band
July 2013
www.impossibleoddsrecords.com
"Land rights is a load of crap," says Kaylah Truth. They are not the kind of words you'd expect to hear from a radical, politically-savvy Indigenous rapper. But Truth, of militant Murri hip-hop group Impossible Odds, says she has learnt from bitter experience to pursue sovereignty instead.
On the band's album, Against All Odds, she raps:
I no longer need my fists to fight
I just write whenever those emotions do arise
Amnesty says Manning ruling a 'travesty'
A decision by a US military judge not to drop the charge accusing Private Bradley Manning of “aiding the enemy” is a travesty of justice, Amnesty International said on July 18. If Manning, who leaked secret US cables to WikiLeaks, is found guilty of the charge, he faces a possible life sentence in military custody with no chance of parole.
Big Oil is fracking California, and it does not want anyone to interfere with the damage it does to the environment.
But as part of a nationwide “Summer Heat” campaign of environmental activists pledging to take action against the fossil fuel industry, groups are organising a festival, march and nonviolent direct action at Chevron's oil refinery in Richmond, California, on August 3 to demand environmental justice. Those taking part include 350.org, Richmond community groups, the NoKXL Actions Council and other allies.
About 200 members of the Gabungan Bantah FTA (Anti-FTA Coalition) braved the morning heat to rally against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) deal on July 16, claiming the controversial deal would lead to the colonisation of Malaysia.
The crowd, led by Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) president Mohd Nasir Hashim, gathered outside parliament while chanting slogans such as “America, go back, leave Malaysia”, and brandishing homemade placards that read “People before patents” and “Patients before profits”.
“In God we trust, all others we monitor” — Interceptor Operators motto, NSA study, Deadly Transmissions, December 1970.
This chilling quote perfectly summarises the model from which the United States founded their Big Brother approach to intelligence, as more documents leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden show Australia plays a crucial role in the United States global surveillance operations.
In the small hours of July 6, just after midnight, a train hauling 73 cars of petroleum products derailed and exploded in the centre of the town of Lac Megantic, Quebec.
A large number of the rail cars caught fire and exploded in huge fireballs. The centre of the town was razed and the rail cars were still burning 36 hours later.
“We are certain that we will prevail,” said a statement by the more than 30,000 Californian prisoners on a hunger strike, “the only questions being: How many will die starvation-related deaths before state officials sign the agreement? The world is watching!”
Sick Justice: Inside the American Gulag
By Ivan G Goldman
Potomac Books, 2013
256 pages, hardcover
Justice is criminally unjust in the United States. Its predatory bankers and warmongers rarely face charges, but the nation's prisons are packed with impoverished small-time crooks.
If the cells were a city, it would be the largest after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago: 2.3 million Americans live behind bars. One in every 100 adults is a convict, a rate that rivals North Korea.
Left-wing Welsh rockers The Manic Street preachers were the first British rock band to tour Cuba and have dedicated songs to radical miners union leader Arthur Scargill.
Now the Manics have filed a suit against the English Defence League — the well-organised fascist street gang known for organising large anti-Muslim marches — for using their song “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” to promote an upcoming demonstration in Birmingham.
Roger Burbach, the co-author of Latin America's Turbulent Transitions: The Future of 21st Century Socialism, wrote this open letter to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on July 15. It first appeared at www.futuresocialism.com -- where you can also order the book.
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When Ecuador granted asylum to Assange in mid-2012, Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher accused Assange of “hypocrisy” for accepting asylum from President Rafael Correa, “one of the world’s leading oppressors of free speech”.
Annabel Crabb joined in, writing in the SMH: “A gazillion Assange Twitter fans [hailed] Ecuador and its president, Rafael Correa, as a hero of international free speech and human rights.
Pedro Filipe Soares is a Left Bloc MP in the Portuguese parliament. Soares attend the first congress of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) from July 10-14. Syriza, a coalition of left groups, decided to become a new political party after it came close to winning elections on an anti-austerity platform last year. The article was translated by Dick Nichols.
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The predominantly Catholic and nationalist community of Ardoyne in north Belfast has been subjected to a campaign of violence as part of the sectarian “marching season”.
In recent weeks, the six counties still claimed by Britain have been the scene of violence by “loyalists” — those who support ongoing British rule and the privileges given to the Protestant majority to ensure loyalty to British rule. The article below was published by Irish Republican News on July 19.
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Scarlet Alliance released this statement on July 19
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Recent murders and violent attacks on sex workers have sparked an unprecedented wave of international action calling for an end to discrimination and criminalisation of sex workers.
Scarlet Alliance, an Australian sex-worker association, along with our members and allies in Australia, joined the international protests in memoriam of sex workers Jasmine in Sweden and Dora in Turkey, murdered within one day of each other.
It is now depressingly clear for all to see that whether Liberal or Labor win the coming Australian federal election, we are going to end up with a government that is more right-wing than the last.
How did it come to this? And how can we escape the political spiral to a moral abyss?
The politicians in the ALP and in the Liberal-Nationals who have shaped this latest reactionary turn in the spiral — most notably around attacks on refugee rights and climate change — cannot be let off the hook.
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