Issue 1020

About 200 unionists rallied outside the Ausreo factory in Wetherill Park in western Sydney on August 7 in solidarity with 24 workers who were locked out by the company seven weeks ago. As the rally progressed, more Ausreo workers walked out to join the protest.

The Lock the Gate Alliance released this statement on August 7.

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About 30 farmers and residents of villages in the Gloucester Valley held a protest vigil on August 7 at the site where AGL plans to frack for coal seam gas on farmland in the area, vowing to begin a sustained campaign of peaceful direct action to stop the work after the NSW government failed to act on long-standing community concerns about the impacts of the project.

About 1000 people marched from parliament house to Victoria Square in Adelaide on August 2, to show opposition to the proposal to turn farmlands into gaslands.

The rally and march, organised to show the danger to South Australia’s food bowl, water and tourism, was jointly organised by the Limestone Coast Protection Alliance, Stop Invasive Mining Group — Eyre Peninsula, and the Yorke Peninsula Landowners Group.

It had a strong rural focus, with people travelling from all over rural and urban South Australia to attend.

More than 1000 Palestinian citizens of Israel have been arrested by the Israeli police since the country's military offensive in Gaza began in early July, Al Jazeera said on August 5. The article said the figure came from a lawyer representing a number of the detainees.

Dozens are currently being held without charge. Al Jazeera said many say they have been detained based on policemen's "lies", while some have been beaten to the point of needing medical care.

Friends of the Earth International wrote an account of the climate meeting organised by the Venezuelan government in July, which is abridged, from the FOEI website, below. read the Margarita Declaration the meeting adopted here.

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Under the unfortunately red-hot slogan: “Stand up for Peace — In Solidarity”, about 300 participants and many day guests from nearby Berlin and Brandenburg came together from July 23 to 27 for the Ninth Summer University of the European Left.

Constructive, concentrated, and communicative, people from at least 32 countries worked together during this unique annual event of the Party of the European Left and Transform! Europe.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has decided to cancel his visit to Israel, where he had planned meetings with government officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, teleSUR English said on August 6.

Correa cancelled the visit in protest against the atrocities being committed by Israeli forces against the people of Gaza.

The United States launched a second round of bombings in northern Iraq on August 8. Earlier on Augus 7, the US jet fighters bombed areas close to the Kurdish town of Erbil.

The US government has said they would be limited to a defensive response, but with the second round, the bombings appears to have intensified.

The US military is using an armed drone and four warplanes to bomb artillery positions and a vehicle convoy near the beleaguered city of Irbil, the Pentagon said.

Many commentators have written about the growing divide in the United States between capitalists and workers (and other producers) ― although they eschew the terms “capitalists” and “workers”.

They prefer to talk about levels of income and wealth abstracted from the role different classes play in the production process.

Nevertheless, their figures give an insight into the real growing disparity between the two main classes under the capitalist system, which was first brought to national attention by the Occupy movement in 2011.

Palestine solidarity activists in Britain declared victory on August 4 after the National Executive Council of the Nation Union of Students voted to pass a motion in solidarity with Palestine, and for an arms embargo against Israel, Electronic Intifada reported the next day.

The NEC motion condemned Israel’s lethal assault on and blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The social welfare cuts proposed in the federal government's May budget are a direct attack on working people and the poor. If implemented, they would represent a huge shift in income from the poor to the rich. This harsh reality is backed up by partial figures released by Treasury to Fairfax Media under Freedom of Information.

The 157 Tamil refugees who refused “a very good” deal to be deported to India now face the orchestrated despair of detention on Nauru.

The refugees were delivered to Nauru on August 2 without the knowledge of their lawyers and reportedly showing “clear signs of manhandling and trauma”. Human rights lawyer George Newhouse said he had “not had the opportunity to inform our clients of their rights and options.

The serious financial fraud that surfaced in the scandal-ridden Health Services Union (HSU) provided the federal government with a handy excuse to establish the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

Although the commission has powers wide enough to inquire into all unions, the HSU is one of five organisations specifically mentioned in its terms of reference alongside the Australian Workers Union, Communications Electrical Plumbing Union, Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union, and the Transport Workers Union.

“Everybody needs to be part of Team Australia,” said Prime Minister Tony Abbott, raising one very big question: which prick gave Abbott a DVD player and a copy of the South Park makers’ joke film Team America?

Coz that kinda shit is not funny. Seriously, this guy makes laws. Don’t go fucking around with hilarious practical jokes like this, coz next thing you know it will be a real government program.

As, indeed, it already is.

Here is the latest “deal” from the self-proclaimed Captain of Team Australia that you are not allowed to refuse: He'll withdraw his law change that will give people the right to be bigots and in return his spooks will have access to the past two years of your metadata.

My meta-whaaat???

The gains of the first and second waves of the women’s liberation movement were groundbreaking. Yet in Australia today, 14% of women live below the poverty line. Why?

The answer is that since the 1970s, and as part of the overall neoliberal offensive, Labor and Coalition governments have both presided over cuts to funding of women’s services, attacks on child care, education, health, and aged and disability care. New threats are also being posed to women’s reproductive rights.

Revolutionary Minded 4
Marcel Cartier
Released July 26, 2014
http://bit.ly/1qYcIQ7

US rapper Marcel Cartier's lines usually ring out with the clarity of a clarion call - and the messages on his latest album are as loud and clear as ever. As he tells Green Left Weekly's Mat Ward, much of the material comes from first-hand experience with struggles around the world.