As millions of households have been told to negotiate with their landlords for a rent reduction, groups are getting organised to demand state governments help residential renters, writes Jacob Andrewartha.
Issue 1264
News
The Bylong Valley Protection Alliance has formally been accepted as part of the court case battling to save a valley near Mudgee, New South Wales, from being destroyed by a huge open-cut coal mine, reports Jim McIlroy.
More than 300 people attended an online meeting on May 4 to discuss how to free detained refugees and defend the right to protest, reports Chris Slee.
Sheila Suttner will be remembered as an indefatigable worker who immersed herself in many struggles for justice, writes Michele Cohen.
Chris Slee reports on a meeting addressed by Priya, a Tamil refugee detained on Christmas Island.
Dr Deb Foskey, a decades-long fighter for the environment and long-time member of the Greens, died on May 1 after a 12-month struggle with cancer, writes Jim McIlroy.
Analysis
The slogan ‘There’s no going back to normal’ has gained considerable popularity as governments are forced by social necessity to take emergency steps they would not normally countenanced. Peter Boyle looks at how we can keep and extend these measures to cope with the next crisis.
Green Left’s Rachel Evans asked a number of environmental activists about the ongoing issues and organising despite the COVID-19 lockdown.
Aged care home Newmarch House has become the new epicentre of COVID-19 in New South Wales. Jim McIlroy reports how privatisation and deregulation of aged care has contributed to the neglect.
International students cannot survive the COVID-19 shutdown without government and university support, writes Adrian M.
Labor’s immigration spokesperson Kristina Keneally wants a post COVID-19 migration policy that privileges skilled workers. Pip Hinman argues that this calculated intervention is both racist and dangerous.
The federal Coalition government is exerting a lot of pressure on states to make schools re-open. But it should only happen if schools are safe for teachers and students, argue Mary Merkenich, David Linden and Vivian Messimeris.
World
Venezuela is confronting COVID-19 amid foreign sanctions, mercenary incursions and rising incidents of looting and riots. Green Left’s Federico Fuentes speaks to National Network of Commune Activists spokesperson Atenea Jiménez about the situation on the ground.
Already immersed in an overlapping health and economic crisis, Brazil is now also being engulfed by a political crisis. Sao Paulo University professor André Singer outlines some of the key dynamics underpinning the current situation in Brazil.
For those with economic or political power, the coronavirus pandemic is nothing more than a carnival of crisis and possibilities, writes Tamara Pearson.
Essential workers in the United States, who have been serving the general public during the COVID-19 shutdown, held a mass strike on May Day to demand hazard pay and better health and safety conditions, writes Barry Sheppard.
In Singapore, the novel coronavirus found the city-state's weak underbelly: some 300,000 lowly-paid migrant workers living in crowded dormitories, writes Peter Boyle.
The Venezuelan Armed Forces and the National Bolivarian Police repelled two attempted invasions by mercenaries on May 3 and 4, writes Kerry Smith.
The latest Stockholm International Peace Research Institute figures reveal a world in which arms spending is rising across most, if not all regions, writes Chris Nineham.
To date, there have been no cases of COVID-19 among the close to a million Rohingya refugees currently sheltering at camps in southern Bangladesh, writes Paul Gregoire. However, the danger of a mass outbreak is very real.
Anti-apartheid freedom fighter, Denis Goldberg spent more than a quarter of his life in jail before he was released in 1985. He spent the remaining years speaking out against oppression and injustice before dying on April 29 in Cape Town at the age of 87, writes Raymond Suttner.
Culture
Hearts and Bones is a compassionate portrayal of the refugee experience that empowers and dignifies, without romanticising the trauma and struggle, writes Annolies Truman.
For a film that claims to be about breaking the environment/climate movement away from the tentacles of capitalist-funded NGOs, Planet of the Humans fails to articulate a vision of what an alternative, people powered climate movement could look like, writes Zane Alcorn.