The Refugee Action Collective Victoria released this statement on November 27.
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Omid, an Iranian asylum seeker, 35 years old has been on hunger strike for 47 days including four days of refusing water
A statement from asylum seekers on Nauru late last night (26/11/12)...
Between three and four hundred people marched through the streets of Perth on November 24 in the latest rally for marriage equality.
Speakers noted that recent votes in federal parliament had not resulted in equal marriage rights in Australia yet, however, internationally and locally the...
About 600 people rallied in Melbourne to defend Gaza on November 23. They gathered to protest against Israel's siege and to remember the victims of Israel's bombing attacks that killed 120 people that week.
Indigenous community leader Robbie Thorpe said "Australia is based on stolen land...
About 1500 people rallied and marched in Sydney on November 24 in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and war. Speakers were: As'ad Awashra, Palestinian student from the West Bank; Ahmad Mustafa, Palestinian Cultural Centre; Ray Jackson,...
About 600 people rallied for marriage equality in Melbourne on November 24. Other rallies took part around Australia.
Jason Ball, the first openly queer AFL player, was a guest speaker at the event.
"I figured I was gay when I was 16 years old," he said. "I knew that I would be...
The Western Australian government granted final approval to the Woodside gas hub at James Price Point, near Broome on November 19.
The statement below was released by the Broome Community No Gas Campaign on November 19.
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Over 200 people gathered on Cable Beach on...
This statement was released by the Sydney Refugee Action Coalition on November 24.
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Nauru asylum seekers have renewed their hunger strike protest after rejecting the Nauru Foreign Minister’s proposal to begin initial interviews for the asylum seekers. More than 40 people in...
The dispute between Little Creatures Brewery and Geelong’s workers over the use of sham contracting has continued into its fourth week. The dispute began on October 22.
Two unions have been hit with injunctions, preventing them from taking part in the protests.
A coach carrying...
About 300 people rallied in Melbourne on November 24 to oppose the ongoing harassment of Fertility Control Clinic patients and staff by Christian fanatics.
The rally was organised by Melbourne Feminist Action (MFA), a new initiative campaigning for women's rights.
Even though...
In the dead of night on November 22, 100 containers of concentrated rare earth ore mined in Western Australia began to be transported, under heavy police escort, through the port of Kuantan to a new refinery built by Australian company Lynas.
This took place just two days after 19 local...
Environment groups The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Australian Conservation Foundation signed a “forest peace deal” with the Forest Industry Association of Tasmania on November 22.
Still Wild Still Threatened and the Huon Valley Environment Centre released the...
Locals in Hobart held a rally on November 21 in support for the people in Gaza, Palestine. Photos by Kelly Tall.
An action was organised by the Refugee Action Coalition on November 23 to protest the re-opening of the Australian immigration detention camps in Manus Is (PNG) and Nauru. It was held outside the office of Tanya Plibersek, the federal minister for health, in Sydney. A letter of protest was...
The Wilderness Society released the statement below on November 18.
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Western Australian Environment Minister Bill Marmion’s approval of the James Price Point gas processing precinct in the Kimberley is so completely flawed that Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke can...
Activists in Melbourne rallied on November 22 to protest the decision to send asylum seekers to detention on Manus Island.
The first group of asylum seekers have been sent to Manus Island as part of the Australian government's expansion of offshore processing. The first group of 19 are...
Israel's latest attack on Gaza killed about 32 times more Palestinians than Israelis killed by Palestinian rockets. But few who followed mainstream media reports would realise this fact.
When the ceasefire was announced on November 21, 161 Palestinians and five Israelis had been killed...
The capitalist press has been overloaded with the sex scandal of General David Petraeus, former commander US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his resignation as head of the CIA.
The story has morphed into something wider, drawing in other high officers.
I’ll return to the saga...
Dr Mazim Qumsiyeh is Palestine’s leading intellectual. His recently published book Popular Resistance in Palestine is a meticulous history of non-violent resistance in Palestine since Ottoman times.
A professor who teaches and does research at three Palestinian universities (...
As soon as Israel attacked Gaza in its “Operation Pillar of Defence”, it was clear the context in which its war was launched was very different from “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008-09.
The shift in regional context is largely due to the Arab Spring, which has shaken the Middle East. The...
Thousands of people marched through Dublin on November 17 to protest against the death of dentist Savita Halappanavar, who died of blood poisoning after being refused an abortion.
More than 10,000 people gathered for a vigil and march over the death and the country's draconian abortion...
Wasn’t it somewhere in Switzerland where a mad scheme was hatched to join disparate parts together to create a new composite monster?
In Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel, the resulting creature has become popularly known as Frankenstein (actually the name of the monster’s creator)....
Politics in the Spanish state is a Rubik’s cube where all players must mark out their position on the axis of the rights of its nationalities, as well as class struggle and social justice.
All-out warfare on both fronts marked the final week of the campaign for the November 25 elections...
Renowned Jewish-American academic and author Noam Chomsky visited the Gaza Strip over October 25-30. The article below, on the suffering of the Gazan people, is areprinted from www.chomsky.info.
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Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be...
In a clear indication of Israel’s shocking callousness and disregard for civilian lives, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon today told PRI’s The Takeaway that most of those killed and injured in Israel’s eight day long bombardment of the Gaza Strip “deserved it.”
“If you compare the...
In Peter Watkins' remarkable BBC film, The War Game, which foresaw the aftermath of an attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb, the narrator says: “On almost the entire subject of thermo-clear weapons, there is now practically total silence in the press, official publications...
The Israeli army has hidden from public view a YouTube video that suggested UN-run schools in Gaza were used as rocket launching bases after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) strongly denied the allegations.
UNRWA had objected to the Israeli army’s...
To start with, why do the news channels ask Tony Blair for his advice on conflict in the Middle East? It’s like asking Gary Glitter for advice on what to do about Jimmy Savile.
But somehow it fits with the rest of the coverage. A report yesterday morning began with the sentence: “Rockets...
Let's start with a fact. On November 16, the Israeli Air Force bombed the 10,000-seat Palestine Stadium “into ruins”. The stadium also headquartered the centre for youth sports programs throughout the Gaza Strip.
This is the second time Israel has flattened the facility. The first was in...
Abdel Jabbar Madouri has been a militant in Tunisia from his early secondary school days. He was jailed three times (in 1987, 1993 and 2002) because of his political activism. After every arrest, he was tortured, then sentenced to more than 12 years in jail.
...
Shawan Jabarin is the director general of Al Haq, the first human rights organisation in Palestine, formed in 1979. Jabarin has won many human rights awards, was Amnesty's first Palestinian prisoner of conscience, and has been denied travel outside the West Bank for many years.
Finally...
Groups campaigning to stop the roll out of coal seam gas (CSG) mining have slammed federal resources minister Martin Ferguson for his attack on two Southern Cross University scientists who released results of their research into the CSG industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The results —...
Socialist Alternative has sparked a debate about whether socialists should be involved in feminist campaigns in an article published on its website on November 22 "Jill Meagher, Reclaim the Night and the political right".
This is an excerpt of an interview by Joel Cosgrove of the New...
Calls for greater transparency for the Victorian legal system have been issued after it was revealed a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy was locked in solitary confinement for almost four months in an adult prison.
Following an escape attempt from Parkville Youth Justice Precinct in July, the...
Britain is a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. But despite its international legal obligations as signatory to this and other human rights conventions, the reception granted to those knocking on Britain’s door in hope of protection is far from...
Jews Against the Occupation (JAO) respond to their critics on everything from claims that 'Israel is a democracy' to 'you are not real Jews', from why they support BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) to why they see Israel as an 'apartheid state'.
They also explain where their anti-...
Labor is making a full-scale assault on the right of refugees to seek protection, as it continues to fill the Nauru detention camp, forcibly deport hundreds back to Sri Lanka before hearing their claims for asylum and keep thousands in perpetual limbo in the name of “deterrence”.
Now,...
Hundreds of childcare workers rallied on the steps of the Victorian state parliament on November 17. The rally was organised by United Voice as part of its Big Steps campaign, a national push to improve wages and conditions in the childcare industry.
After speeches from union delegates...
NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian announced on November 16 plans to sack albout 700 railway workers and split up RailCorp.
Green Left Weekly’s Fred Fuentes asked Socialist Alliance member and railway union activist, John Coleman about the motives behind...
Simon Butler, coauthor with Ian Angus of Too Many People? Population, Immigration and the Environmental Crisis, gave the speech below to a November 17 seminar in Sydney, “Sustainable population: towards a meaningful dialogue,” organised by the Nature Conservation...
Adding to the list of punitive “law and order” measures that has been implemented in Victoria over the past few years is the latest installment of this agenda: the proposed “anti-bikie” laws, which are inspired in part by the federal “anti-terrorism” laws.
While popularly justified on...
Staff and students from across all six University of Western Sydney (UWS) campuses protested on November 21, in opposition to university management plans to axe several courses.
Among the courses to go are Arabic, Spanish, Italian, the Bachelor of Communication sub-majors in writing,...
The violence Israel has unleashed on the Gaza Strip is not a war.
On one side there is a highly militarised state, with one of the best equipped armed forces in the world, generously subsidised by billions of dollars in Western military and non-military aid. On the other side there are 1...
The federal government has begun “trials” of a controversial new plan for compulsory income management in five places around Australia. This policy began in the Northern Territory as part of the "NT intervention" in 2007, but is now expanding into other states and territories.
Under the...
Rod Quantock, the “Australian institution” of comedy, is set to headline a special one-off comedy show in Marrickville, Sydney, on December 8 in aid of the Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network (AFTINET).
Quantock ― winner of the Melbourne Comedy...
BHP used to be called “The Big Australian”. It is now BHP Billiton — a global corporation, the largest mining company in the world and the largest Australian headquartered corporation by market capitalisation.
Its CEO Marius Kloppers is described as being one of "the top 20 most powerful...