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About 500 people rallied at City Square against coal seam gas (CSG) extraction in Seaspray on August 17. Many at the rally were cattle farmers in the Gippsland area. Protesters expressed concern that CSG mining would destroy farmland, contaminate water, threaten the health of their rural community and create seismic activity. Some farmers expressed their dilemma over whether to stay and fight the CSG companies, or sell their properties before CSG becomes established in the area.
Chelsea Manning, a private in the US Army who worked as an intelligence specialist, was sentenced on August 21 to 35 years in jail for leaking hundreds of thousands of ecret cables to WikiLeaks. Formerly known as “Bradley”, Manning announced via her lawyer on August 22 that she would undergo hormone treatment to transition to a woman and was now known as Chelsea. Australian attorney-general Mark Dreyfus has claimed that Manning, and NSA whisteblower Edward Snowden, should not be considered whistleblowers as they supposedly did not reveal any government wrongdoing.
“We of course recognise that this is it — make or break time for us to make the long overdue change occur now and are thus in it for the long haul,” said Todd Ashker, a representative of hunger strikers in the Californian prison system, who has been on hunger strike for 44 days. “The sacrifice is minor compared to what we've endured for 30 years.”
The Army private and WikiLeaks whistleblower formerly known as Bradley Manning announced, in a statement via lawyer David Coombs, the decision to transition to life as a woman and a request to be referred to as Chelsea and with female pronouns. Visit here for more information on Manning's case. * * * The Next Stage of My Life
The Palestinian prisoners holding Jordanian citizenship have suspended their hunger strike following concessions from the Israeli prison authorities to allow them regular family visits from their family members in Jordan. This was reported in a press conference held in Amman by family members of the prisoners on August 11. The five Jordanian hunger strikers are Abdullah Barghouthi, Mohammad Rimawi, Muneer Mar'i, Hamza Othman al-Dabbas and Alaa Hammad. They had been striking since May 2 for 100 days.
The following is a transcript of the statement made by United States Private Chelsea (formerly "Bradley") Manning as read by David Coombs at a press conference on August 21 after Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks that exposed serioous war crimes. (Born -- and tried -- as "Bradley", Manning has announced she wishes to be known as Chelsea and plans to undergo hormone therapy. "I am Chelsea Manning, I am a female," Manning said in a statement released by her lawyer David Coombs.
Detroit public-sector workers, pensioners and residents filed objections on August 19 against the city council's request for bankruptcy protection. They want federal judge Steven Rhodes to block the bankruptcy request by unelected emergency manager Kevyn Orr. Individual creditors began filing objections in person and by early evening more than 100 had been filed, including by the city's biggest union AFSCME, several smaller city unions and pension schemes.
“There will never be strikes in my company,” Foxconn CEO Guo Taiming once proclaimed. But just last month, 1800 workers struck at two Foxconn factories in China — following the example of other Foxconn workers in Taiyuan and Chengdu last year. Foxconn produces cell phones and other products for Apple and others, and owns property worth US$6 billion. It has 1.2 million workers and is the largest sweatshop of ill repute in China.
South Korea: Hyundai workers strike About 46,000 Hyundai workers will launched a four-hour strike over two days in order to press the South Korean car-maker for higher wages and benefits, union officials said on August 20. Spokesperson Kwon Oh Il said that talks had made little progress, Morning Star reported that day. The union has demanded increased wages and benefits during three months of annual negotiations.
Elysium Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga In cinemas now In the mid-22nd century, Earth has become a crowded, polluted, poverty-stricken slum. While the poor, mostly black and brown residents of Earth, struggle with dangerous working conditions, substandard public services and brutal robot police, the 1% have escaped to Elysium, a pristine floating space station orbiting Earth.
Workers in fast food companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC and others took to the streets in mobilisations at the end of July in seven cities. They highlighted miserable wages and working conditions, and demanding the right to form unions in the virtually non-union sector. The actions took place in New York, Chicago, St Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Flint, Michigan. It is likely that these actions will spread in the coming weeks.
The Passion Of Bradley Manning: The Story Behind the WikiLeaks Whistleblower Chase Madar Verso, 2013 181 pages, $19.95 (pb) The issue in the trial of Bradley Manning, the source of tens of thousands of US military and state secrets leaked to WikiLeaks, is, in some eyes, simple. “He broke the law,” lectured United States President Barack Obama, conveniently overlooking, as Chase Madar comments in his book on Manning, the routine violation by the ruling elite of the principle that “rules are rules”.