Thousands of people across Australia have been coming out to refugee rights rallies in the wake of the Guardian's Nauru files documenting the systemic abuse of refugees in the Nauru detention centre and the PNG Supreme Court
Refugee activists demanded the government immediately close all the detention centre's, end boat turnbacks and resettle all refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island in Australia.
Melbourne
Photos by Chelsea Dennison









French philosopher Guy Debord's The society of the spectacle plays out on newer, modern terms at a Moreland Says No To Racism rally in May.
Protesters march from trains with banners, flags and masks straight into a containment web of fences, barriers, police lines and the steam of horses breathing out wet air. The tactical police wave us into lines.









Sacred Stone Camp.
Growing in number and spirit, the Standing Rock Sioux protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline is swiftly gaining strength, as a federal hearing delayed a decision on the controversial project on August 24.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Ivan Marquez shake hands while Cuban President Raul Castro looks on.
After the historic announcement on August 24 that negotiations have concluded in the Colombian peace process between the Colombian government and the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), here are the five key points that have been agreed on.
***
1. End of violence

The CEO of a former Fortune 500 company, who is also the daughter of a U.S. senator, is under fire for jacking up the rates of life-saving anti-allergy device known as the EpiPen.
Heather Bresch, whose father is U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., became president of Mylan Pharmaceutical in 2009 and CEO in 2012. She is no stranger to controversy: She moved Mylan's headquarters to the Netherlands last year after a corporate “inversion” merger with Abbott Laboratories.
Sylville Smith (left) and protests against his killing in Milwaukee.
With the media awash 24/7 with the charges and counter-charges between the two candidates for president from the major capitalist parties, police murders of African Americans and protests against them continue apace — receiving only cursory media attention.


Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate sponsors of the August 5–21 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes on the money they earn due to a tax exemption law that is set to cost Brazil hundreds of millions of dollars.
Colombians in Bogota watch the announcement of the final peace deal in Havana, Cuba, August 24.
A groundbreaking peace deal has been signed between the government and left-wing Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels. But while the more than 50-year-long war is finally over, difficult times still lay ahead to fully realise the promise of peace in the South American nation.

Forests in Cuba now make up 30.6% of the country’s land area, thanks to a reforestation initiative carried out by the socialist government, a new report has found.
Titled Environmental Outlook: Cuba 2015, the National Office of Statistics and Information report details recent improvements in Cuba’s forest coverage, up from 27.6% in 2010.
Cuba started the reforestation program in 1998. It is part of a select group of developing countries that have been able to maintain sustained forest growth.
Residents of the favela of Horto protest against the imminent demolition of their community.
“I am absolutely convinced that history will talk of the Rio de Janeiro before the Games and the much better Rio de Janeiro after the Olympic Games,” said Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee.

Aftermath of ISIS attack on HDP members' wedding. Gaziantep, August 20.
The bombing of the wedding of two members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in the southern city of Gaziantep on August 20 killed 54 people, including 29 children. ISIS appears to be responsible, although like other attacks by ISIS in Turkey over the past year and a half, the targets have been opponents of the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Economic Freedom Fighters' members.
After the August 3 local government elections, it is not just the ruling ANC that is licking its wounds. The left also has very little to celebrate, outside of the consolidation of the anti-neoliberal Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) as the third biggest party in the country.
United States President Barack Obama has carried out classically colonial, imperialistic policies towards Africa during his time in office.
John Feffer, from the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, said in a Common Dreams article: “Strip away all the modern PR and prettified palaver and it’s an ugly scramble for oil, minerals, and markets for U.S. goods.”

Jeremy Corbyn addresses supporters.
Despite a range of undemocratic measures by the Labour Party establishment in the face of hundreds of thousands of new members enthused by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's left-wing politics, Corby n looks set to win Labour leadership elections that finish on September 21.


HDP MPs hold copies of Özgür Gündem in parliament, August 17.
[This
Radical Radio: Celebrating 40 years of 3CR
3CR.org.au, $49.50
I love this book. It is a showcase of four decades of Melbourne community radio station 3CR — one of Australia’s oldest and most progressive broadcasters, intertwined with the local and national landscape of political struggle from the mid 1970s until today.
Page after page of informative, entertaining stories make for great reading.
Chanting “I love Celtics”, Palestinians have released a video praising the fans of Scottish football team Celtic FC for “one of the biggest solidarity actions in European football history”.
It came as Celtic fans raised more than £100,000 by August 23 for Medical Aid Palestine — who deliver health and medical care to those “worse affected by conflict, occupation and displacement” — as well as to the Lajee Center for equipment to start a youth league, TeleSUR English said that day.
