Issue 1328

News

Find out about Sydney's feminist and LGBTIQ+ history of struggle on this Green Left walking tour of Sydney. Rachel Evans reports.

Protester holds up a sign opposing Vimy Resources' proposed uranium mine at Mulga Rock.

Protesters gathered on November 26 to oppose Vimy Resources' proposal to mine uranium at Mulga Rock, reports Sam Wainwright.

Juliet Lamont outside Bowen Bowen Magistrates Court on December 2. Photo: Frontline Action On Coal

A new report by Greenpeace, Global Warning: the threat to climate defenders in Australia, has identified an alarming escalation in repression against climate activists. Fred Fuentes reports.

Alex Bainbridge reports that the Socialist Alliance has submitted a list of 1650 members to the Australian Electoral Commission to maintain its electoral registration.

Protesters took their cricket game to the foyer of the State Bank of India to demand it rule out loaning Adani almost $1 billion. Coral Wynter reports.

Climate protesters are targeting National Australia Bank for lending billions of dollars to fossil fuel corporations. Coral Wynter reports.

After a year of job cuts, Federation University has just announced a restructure of its academic portfolio, which will make teaching and learning harder, John Smith reports.

NSW parliament

In a major victory for democracy, Suzanne James reports that the NSW lower house has passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill after decades of public debate and community protest.

Scarborough Gas Action Alliance activists blockaded the primary road serving Burrup industrial hub

The response to Woodside’s announcement that it is proceeding with its Scarborough gas field exploitation project has been swift, with protests and direct actions organised in Murujuga and Perth. Sam Wainwright reports.

Sergio Herbert

Sergio Herbert was sentenced to 12 months’ jail for taking non-violent direct action as part of Blockade Australia’s mobilisation against coal. Kathy Fairfax reports.

Analysis

Under the cover of applying “one vote, one value” to elections for the Legislative Council, last month WA Labor also pushed through legislation that disadvantages smaller political parties, writes Sam Wainwright.

The proposed Migration Amendment (Strengthening the Character Test) Bill 2019, which is currently before parliament, will significantly extend the powers of the character test, lowering the threshold for those who might be rejected on character grounds, writes Joanna Psaros.

We are now seeing blowback from global vaccine apartheid in the form of a new COVID-19 variant, writes Peter Boyle, but once again, the world’s richest countries are responding by shutting their doors to poorer nations.

A protest against Black deaths in custody in Sydney on December 7. Photo: Zebedee Parkes

Three more deaths in recent weeks have taken the number of First Nations people who have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody to 485. Chloe DS reports.

Controversy has surrounded Victoria's Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. Leo Crnogorcevic breaks down the bill and how should progressives respond to it.

Community-minded people can successfully challenge powerful interests, and the governments that serve them, to create communities that are sustainable, affordable, socially just and inclusive, writes Steve O'Brien.

Green Left speaks to Professor Mark Beeson about his latest book Environmental Anarchy? Security In the 21st Century. 

Stuart Macintyre was a major contributor to the history of Australian Communism and played an important role in documenting the left and labour movement, writes Jim McIlroy.

Peter Boyle argues that AUKUS represents a deliberate and dangerous escalation of the US-led confrontation with China that must be challenged.

Jeff Sparrow sits down with Green Left to speak about his new book Crimes Against Nature: Capitalism and Global Heating.

Photo of corflutes for candidates in the Inner West Council elections in December 2021.

Without sufficient regulations, independent oversight or practical compliance measures to protect people’s rights and safety, the elderly and disabled are in danger of being injured or forced out of overcrowded, outsourced council-owned facilities. Bernadette Smith reports.

The campaign to demerge councils is about shifting power back to residents and away from developers, the biggest beneficiaries of the forced amalgamations argues Pip Hinman.

Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been shaped by the basic realities of contemporary capitalism and neoliberalism, argues Dave Holmes.

World

Protest in Sudan

It is time to dismantle Sudan's Janjaweed militias and freeze their assets to ensure a transition to civilian and democratic government, write T Hassan and W Madit.

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December 1, 2021, marks 60 years since the state of West Papua came into being. But Papuans are still struggling to achieve their independence, writes Yamin Kogoya.

Ebrahim Ebrahim, "Terror" Lekota, Harry Gwala, Nelson Mandela and Chris Hani at an ANC rally.

Ebrahim Ebrehim was an exemplary comrade in the South African struggle for freedom, who until his death was a committed internationalist, writes Sidney Luckett.

Following Xiomara Castro’s victory in the Honduran elections, Bertha Zúniga Cáceres discusses what this means for people’s movements in the country.

Delegates from the Progressive International Observatory witnessed the election of Xiomara Castro in Honduras on November 28.

Black people in the United States felt a great sense of relief when a jury of eleven white people and one Black person voted to convict three white men on November 24 in Brunswick, Georgia, writes Malik Miah.

The Indian farmer's movement is a demonstration that people power can preserve the public sector and has become an inspiration for labourers around the world to take on neoliberalism and fascism, writes Gauri Gandbhir.

A 9-day strike by 22,000 metalworkers in the Bay of Cadiz looked certain to continue dominating media coverage, writes Dick Nichols. Yet within 24 hours, the two sides announced they had reached an agreement.

tim_kaine_inspects_a_makeshift_memorial_to_heather_heyer

The civil trial of the organisers of the racist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed and 19 others seriously injured, resulted in a partial victory, writes Barry Sheppard.

When the United States left Afghanistan in August it also froze almost all foreign aid to the country. Now, Afghanistan is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, writes Barry Sheppard.

Save the NHS

Britain's Health and Care Bill, which will undermine the country's National Health System, was effectively designed and fast-tracked by US insurer UnitedHealth, write Stewart Player and Bob Gill.

Malaysian Socialist Party secretary general Sivarajan Arumugam addresses the question of how socialists in government would have handled the pandemic at the #Socialism2021 conference.

There is a well-orchestrated operation by the United States to bring down Cuba’s political regime, writes Ian Ellis-Jones.

Members of the “dynasty triad”, from left: Bongbong Marcos, Sara Duterte and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Three of the country’s most powerful political dynasties – the Marcoses, Arroyos and Dutertes – have entered into an unholy alliance with the hope of consolidating power in 2022 and beyond, writes Sonny Melencio.

The decision to field presidential and vice-presidential candidates represents a bold — and unprecedented — move for the Philippines left. Sonny Melencio explains why the Partido Lakas ng Masa has taken this step.

In the United States, John Deere workers began militant strike action in the country’s mid-west in October, reports Malik Miah. They stood up against a powerful employer — and, when necessary, their own national union leadership — and won.

Culture

The Last Duel film

Isaac Nellist reviews Ridley Scott's medieval epic detailing the last judiciary trial by combat in 14th century France.

Protest albums from November 2021

Mat Ward looks back at November's political news and the best new music that related to it.

Black Swan State Theatre Company's modern interpretation of The Tempest showcases how it remains courageous in searching out new frontiers in theatre, writes Barry Healy.

Usually a vaccine takes 5–10 years from conception to production and injection into people’s arms. Vaxxers, writes Coral Wynter, describes how a safe vaccine against COVID-19 was produced in only 10 months.