Issue 1247

News

Activists expressed solidarity with communities suffering from bushfires and raised money for fire services. One woman spoke about “apocalyptic” scenes as her family home was burned down on her 18th birthday. She invited Prime Minister Scott Morrison to her community and tell them that climate change is not causing the fire storms.

An Iraq solidarity protest in Brisbane on November 23.

Millions of Iraqis are protesting an economic system that is delivering a spike in unemployment, corruption but has failed to deliver basic services, such as electricity.

 

A vigil for West Papua outside the Indonesian consulate in Sydney.

There has been a recent upsurge in activism around West Papuan independence, including among Indonesians, despite intimidation and serious consequences for activists.

A Colombia solidarity protest in Sydney on November 24.

A National Strike called by trade unions on November 21 became one of the biggest mobilisations in Colombia's recent history as student, environmentalist, human rights and women's groups, among others, joined together to reject the neoliberal policies of President Ivan Duque's government.

Pauline Jensen

Pauline Jensen will be missed enormously, but she lives on in the hearts and memories of many. A fighter for a better world and a moral and ethical voice on all injustices, she taught us all how to live life well.

A Pill testing saves lives rally in Sydney on November 23.

The state government and police have ruled out implementing recommendations made by a coronial inquest into drug-related deaths at music festivals. The inquest recommended introducing pill testing at festivals and an end to sniffer dogs and strip searches.

Sam Watson. Photo: Alex Bainbridge

History will show that Uncle Sam was indeed a giant of the Australian Aboriginal struggle and of the broader fight for a just, cooperative society free of racial oppression.

Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer

This latest scandal involving Westpac underlines the fact that these banking giants are a law unto themselves, despite the limited role of various regulatory agencies.

School Strike 4 Climate WA activists speak at Blockade RTS in Perth on November 27.

School Strike 4 Climate WA challenges Premier Mark McGowan to meet them outside a conference of fossil fuel industry corporations.

Analysis

Inequality is rising, and the trends are not new, as Fred Fuentes explains.

Q&A's deliberate decision to exclude any Palestinian point of view follows a long pattern of misrepresenting and ignoring Palestinian voices in the corporate media.

As Australia burns amid record-breaking temperatures and ongoing drought, and report after report confirms the dire consequences of global warming, it is obvious what we must urgently do: ban climate protests.

It is what the Quiet Australians in parliament and Sky News studios are clamouring for.

An Extinction Rebellion protest in Melbourne in October.

In response to the climate emergency and growing social inequality, socialist parties and campaigns in Europe and North America have proposed socially transformative green new deals. But what could one for Australia look like?

Darling River, Wilcannia, New South Wales

As climate disasters push us to the edge of environmental and social apocalypse, governments must be forced to switch their priorities from boosting corporate profits to protecting farmers and natural resources.

Melbourne Save Animals in Laboratories president Doug Leith spoke with Green Left Weekly’s Mary Merkenich about the real motivations behind animal testing.

A Change the Rules rally in Sydney on October 23, 2018.

This bill is about giving even more power to a billionaire class that has shown itself to have absolutely no integrity.

A Chile solidarity protest in Sydney on October 27.

Chile has blatantly breached its international obligations to preserve human rights, and Australian business, politicians and the community must not condone those violations, says academics, journalists and activists. 

United Firefighters Union national secretary Greg McConville

United Firefighters Union ACT branch secretary and national president Greg McConville, together with representatives of the local Indigenous community, Farmers for Climate Action and The Greens, addressed the “Our federal government fiddles while Australia burns: Let’s put the heat under them” event outside federal parliament in Canberra on November 25. This is what he had to say.

Briefing on the popular revolt in Iraq by Iraqi activist Louay Alzaher on November 24. Features comments also by Dr. Rawaa Abdul Jabbar.

World

Since November 21, people have mobilised across Colombia to reject President Iván Duque’s anti-people and neoliberal policies.

On November 27, hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, workers and members of feminist, human rights, Indigenous, peasant and social organisations as well as trade unions, participated in mobilisations across the country.

In the capital Bogotá, huge numbers of people gathered at the National Park and marched to the Plaza de Bolívar, to reject the national government’s austerity measures and the heavy police repression of social protests.

Since early October, there has been a spontaneous wave of demonstrations in Iraq’s capital Baghdad and other cities against widespread corruption, unemployment and poor public services.

Green Left Weekly’s Susan Price spoke to Sydney-based Iraqi human rights activist Abeer Hasan Abdulazeez about the significance of this movement.

Pro-choice campaigners are hopeful that Argentinian president-elect Alberto Fernández will act on his promise to put a pro-choice bill to Congress.

Capitalism cannot solve the climate crisis, and Chinese capitalism is no exception, writes Chris Slee.

Britain goes to the polls on December 12, in what could be the most important general election in a generation. Boris Johnson’s increasingly right-wing and chaotic Conservative Party is generally seen as the likely victor, but Labour’s left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn could once again surprise, writes Derek Wall.

The Democratic impeachment inquiry began when a “whistleblower” revealed that US President Donald Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation of former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine and made a White House visit by Zelensky — which the new Ukrainian president dearly wanted — conditional on him stating publically that such an investigation was underway.

Now in its second month, the uprising in Lebanon is revealing its nature and cultural character.

The word inscribed upon the wrist of the iconic 6-metre high fist in downtown Beirut — which was firebombed early Friday morning but was rebuilt the following day — is ثورة (thawra); meaning revolution, and this is what is going on here.

Protesters set up roadblocks around the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on November 17, initially to prevent the same police attacks as happened at the Chinese University of Hong Kong a week before.

Police attempted to seize control of the main roads and subsequently laid siege to the university, accusing the protesters and students of causing the chaos.

Culture

Political albums from November 2019.

Here are the best new albums that relate to this month's political news, including the album of the year. If you read to the end, there's also a bonus. What albums would you suggest? Comment on TwitterFacebook, or email

While there are serious flaws in Inside the Greens, author Paddy Manning is too good a journalist to suppress vital information. Some of it is explosive.

For instance, during the recent conflicts in the Australian Greens between The Greens NSW and Bob Brown devotees, some in the later camp pushed for the wholesale expulsion of the former.

That was not the only example of such blow-up-the-ship thinking.

The Professional Footballers Association (PFA), the union representing Australia's professional football (soccer) players, registered a third straight year of record membership at its November 20 Annual General Meeting.

Leah Cowan reviews a book that systematically unpicks the myths that are spread in order to preserve the status quo.

The red and green shelf is overflowing! Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus looks at nine important new books address topics ranging from ecosocialism and rising seas to trees, growth and global poverty.