Issue 906
News
Police violence has been increasing against the Occupy Melbourne camp, now located at Flagstaff Gardens. There have been a number of extremely questionable police actions in recent days against Occupy Melbourne.
"The cleaners united will never be defeated," chanted cleaners and their supporters at a lively rally outside Westfield Sydney Shopping centre on December 8.
About 1000 refugee rights activists marched on the national conference of the Australian Labor Party in Sydney's Darling Harbour.
About 10,000 people marched on the Australian Labor Party national conference to demand equal marriage rights on December 3 in Sydney. The ALP conference adopted policy supporting equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, but also voted to allow ALP members a "conscience vote" on the matter in parliament. The crowd was not impressed with this, which would likely see a vote lose, and vowed to continue the struggle.
Analysis
Despite a significant, if partial, win for the marriage equality movement, the right-ward shift of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) continued apace at its recently concluded national conference.
Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra responds to the 'second intervention' otherwise known as 'Stronger Futures in the NT', a new Commonwealth Government initiative which will maintain key powers introduced through the NT Intervention.
WikiLeaks releases The Spy Files - exposing uncontrolled mass spying.
The State of Surveillance | TBIJ
WikiLeaks won the 2011 Walkley award for the “most outstanding contribution to journalism” on November 27. The Walkleys are annual awards for excellence in Australian journalism. In giving the award, the Walkley Foundation said WikiLeaks had “shown a courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency.
World
Leaders of the Congolese community in Australia, at a meeting organised by the Latin American Social Forum in Sydney, explained the crisis the Democratic Republic of Congo is facing after more than 50 years of exploitation by the Western countries and their local allies, and appealed for solidarity from the international socialist movement.
The savage austerity in Greece has affected people’s lives in many different ways. The hardship faced by Greek people has been directly reflected in their psychological condition.
“There is money.” That was the major election campaign slogan of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in October 2009.
“Preliminary results from Congo’s presidential election show incumbent Joseph Kabila leading,” Associated Press reported on December 3. For several reasons, this is not surprising news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Culture
The strategy of most people when they hear a racist or xenophobic comment is to be silent and hope that it will go away. The problem is, that strategy just tends to embolden the racists. So it has proved with Tony Greig. His constant derogatory remarks about Indians or “the Indians”, as he refers to them, are not only offensive, they are part of a pattern of blatant racism and xenophobia that Greig has shown through his playing and commentating career.
Because there is a better way A safer way to touch and cradle humanity Because understanding starts with understanding And understanding that is just the start.