Issue 1246

News

David Dungay Jnr's mother Leetona outside the Coroners Court in Lidcombe on November 22.

Cries of pain erupted as the findings were read out to a room packed with family and supporters. Dungay’s indefatigable mother Leetona, the Dungay family, activists and community members say justice has not been delivered.

Water for Rivers Newcastle launch on November 17.

A new grassroots group, Water for Rivers, has been set up in Newcastle with the aim of raising awareness about the causes of about the dire situation in the Murray Darling Basin and helping to bring life back to the rivers.

Sydney in solidarity with Colombia's National Strike on November 21.

Initially called by trade unions, the National Strike has grown to involve numerous sectors of Colombian society that oppose the nation's right-wing government headed by President Ivan Duque.

Protest at GHD's shareholders meeting in Perth on November 13.

Protesters demanded that GHD live up to its stated commitment to sustainable development by pulling out of working with Adani on its Carmichael coal mine in Central Queensland.

Blockade IMARC activists outside Melbourne‘s Magistrates Court on Nov 18.

Blockade IMARC activists rallied outside Melbourne‘s Magistrates Court on November 18 in solidarity with people who were arrested during the protests outside the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in October.

Chile solidarity protest in Fremantle on November 16.

Members of the Chilean community and supporters held a protest in Fremantle on November 16 against the Chilean government's repression of recent protests.

Bolivia solidarity protest in Sydney on November 17.

Members of the Bolivian community and Latin America solidarity activists rallied in Sydney on November 17 to oppose the coup against Bolivia’s first Indigenous President Evo Morales.

Galilee Rising protest, Brisbane, November 13. Photo: Alex Bainbridge

Galilee Rising held its first protest outside Adani’s Brisbane headquarters on November 13.

Julian Assange

Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer for imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, believes the United States’ application to extradite him from a British prison is a "very serious threat to free speech and journalism in the US and all over the world."

Bomana prison annex

Australia has spent $22 million on the Bomana prison annex for asylum seekers. Yet, the government denies any responsibility for the treatment of detainees, despite the fact they are in Papua New Guinea because Australia sent them there.

Analysis

What will happen to the pernicious cashless debit card scheme after the election? Labor has promised to make the scheme voluntary and the Coalition claims not to have a plan to expand it. But can either be trusted? Alex Bainbridge and Vivien Miley report. 

The the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition blurs the distinction between anti-Jewish racism and criticism of Israel, argues Jake Lynch.

Rick Grzyb has been helping people fill out exit application forms to get off the Indue Cashless Debit Card for a few years. He spoke to Petrina Harley, Dirk Kelly and Cody Jensen.

Workers are being told that a pay rise to match inflation will hurt the economy and “fuel” inflation. William Briggs takes issue with those arguments.

Melbourne March for Our Future in December, 2018. Photo: Takver/Flickr

The climate movement has to take up the issues of refugees, war and global inequality to ensure a just climate for all.

An Extinction Rebellion protest in Brisbane on October 11.

The climate crisis is the greatest threat ever faced by humanity. The survival of the human race is at stake. The reality of the heating of the planet can no longer rationally be denied.

Sydney Climate Strike on September 20.

As the climate crisis and global economic inequality intensify, the need to build a mass movement against the rich and powerful becomes more urgent.

Justice for Patrick Fisher rally in Sydney on February 11, 2018.

Patrick’s death resulted from an operational procedure that took place while he was evading arrest, raising the question as to why police did not avoid taking actions that ultimately contributed to this outcome.

Construction unions has won separate women’s toilet facilities on numerous job since the late 1990s. But now it appears this right — along with many others — is under attack.

Steve O'Brien

Over the past 150 years, Hunter Workers has continued to be a voice for regional needs that has promoted a broad social vision.

Middelgrunden offshore wind farm in Denmark

In the face of government inaction, unions are determined to do what they can to secure permanent, well-paid, sustainable industry jobs for their members.

A protest against fracking in Carnamah, WA, last year.

When the National Party and the corporate media start fretting about farmers, greenies and lefties uniting to confront the mining industry, you know something good is happening.

World

In Hong Kong, students are continuing their campaign for democratic measures, following their successful push to force the Carrie Lam administration to retreat on the unpopular extradition bill.

Hong Kong riot police stormed the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), one of the prestigious universities in Hong Kong, on November 12, despite making several promises to the university administration that they would not.

The British Labour Party has promised to “kick-start a housing revolution” as it unveiled its election manifesto, including commitments that would bring about Britain’s biggest public housing construction program for decades.

With a crowd of 500,000 people, Montreal’s march for the climate was the largest in the world during the September 20-27 week of climate action. Despite provincial labour laws preventing unions from striking over political issues, 7500 workers formally voted to go on strike for a day, reports Alain Savard.

Unite Union, which represents fast food workers in New Zealand, announced on November 18 it had reached an agreement with fast food giant McDonald's, which will see tens of thousands of its current and former staff receive payment for miscalculated holiday pay.

West Papuans and their supporters around the world traditionally raise the Morning Star flag — the symbol of an independent Papua — on December 1. This is an act of defiance, as flying the flag is outlawed by the occupying Indonesian government.

New Zealand-based West Papua solidarity activist and author Maire Leadbeater looks the new uprising in West Papua and the repression being carried out by Indonesian security forces while governments, including NZ’s, remain silent.

Evo Morales was the first democratically elected Indigenous president of a nation that has the highest percentage of Indigenous people in all of South America. He gave people hope, and he made people believe Indigenous people can be leaders and teachers, and that we can be taken seriously, too. That’s why he is so precious to us.

It took the popular uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon, following the earlier uprisings in Sudan and Algeria this year, for the Iranian masses, especially unemployed and student youth, to gain the courage to go out into the streets in large numbers again. For the first time since the December 2017–January 2018 uprising, they are mobilising to call for an end to the Islamic Republic.

On November 7, the Brazilian Supreme Court declared it illegal to jail defendants before their appeals’ processes have been exhausted. Within 24 hours, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was released to an adoring crowd of hundreds. Despite this, the corporate media is continuing its smear campaign against him.

Hong Kong riot police stormed the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), one of the prestigious universities in Hong Kong, on November 12, despite making several promises to the university administration that they would not.

Students are continuing their campaign for democratic measures, following their successful push to force the Carrie Lam administration to retreat on the unpopular extradition bill.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, regarded by many Tamils as a war criminal, won the Sri Lankan presidential election on November 16 with 52.3% of the vote.

He was defence secretary in 2009, when the Sri Lankan armed forces massacred tens of thousands of Tamils in the final stages of their war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE were fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka.

Protests against the civic-military coup have been growing in strength across the country and security forces have responded with brutal repression.

Culture

Considering the terrors that Mikhail Sholokhov lived through and nearly perished from in Stalinist Russia, it is a wonder that the Soviet novelist retained any sense of humour. Yet he did.

Margaret Atwood's 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel The Testaments is her response to the question of readers of The Handmaid's Tale: how did Gilead fall? She's had 35 years to come up with the answer, and she doesn't disappoint.

Donald Duck helping stop a revolution

How to Read Donald Duck
By Ariel Dorfman & Armand Mattelart, translated by David Kunzle
Pluto Press, 2019 
192 pp, $17.00

Today, as the streets of Chile burn with rebellion, it is timely to look back on this book, which was burned by the military during the 1973 overthrow of the socialist Salvador Allende presidency.

Based upon Marcia and Thomas Mitchell's 2008 book The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War, director Gavin Hood  shows how Gunn leaked an email exposing the fact that the US government was eavesdropping on other countries in order to win United Nations approval in the lead up to its March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Reviewed by Alex Salmon.

Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus takes a look at six books that belong on the bookshelf of ecosocialists.

Great films spark debates, perhaps even controversy. Todd Phillips' Joker certainly has.