Issue 972

The Hazara community in Melbourne have been forced to hold another vigil after yet another bombing targeting the Hazara community in Quetta, Pakistan. On June 30, a suicide bomber attacked a Hazara neighbourhood and killed more than 30 people, including children. More than 1300 Hazaras have been killed in Pakistan over the past decade, with more than 4000 maimed, according to the Australian Hazara Students Group. Not a single perpetrator has been punished by the courts for these bombings which have become more frequent over the last three years.

No Maccas In Tecoma is a grassroots group campaigning to stop a McDonald’s store being built in the Dandenong Ranges. Hundreds of protesters have been holding a community picket line at the construction site since July 1. Four people are occupying the roof of the building in an attempt to delay construction. They released this statement on July 4. *** The Building Industry Group meeting today convened by the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) resolved to support the rights of the Tecoma community to protest against what they believe is an inappropriate development.

“Australia is at a crossroads,” said Liam Flenady, Socialist Alliance candidate for Griffith on July 5. “One path leads to more austerity, more oppression of minorities, more environmental destruction; the other leads to a just, equal and sustainable society. There is no middle path. “We require a fundamental change to our economic and political system to build the future we need.” Flenady has pledged to put a different kind of politics on the agenda in Griffith in the upcoming federal election, one that puts the needs of the 99% in front of the greed of the wealthy 1%.

Protestors called for more privacy protection at rallies held around Australia on July 6 in response to the revelations that US’s National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on the communications of most internet users. Sydney rally organiser Matt Watt from the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition said: “We demand freedom for Edward Snowden, a courageous whistleblower who revealed the wrongdoings by the NSA.

After days of non-stop rain, blue sky peeked out for a moment in Sydney. My partner and I grabbed the lead and took our dog for a much-needed walk in the park. But we hadn't gone two blocks down the road when to our shock we saw the front door of a long-time resident of our street covered with foul anti-Semitic graffiti. "Fuck Jews," it read, "Heil Hitler". It featured three Nazi swastikas. We were standing there in shock — even more so when we saw other people walking past without as much as batting an eyelid.

Fremantle city councillor and Socialist Alliance candidate for Fremantle, Sam Wainwright, spoke at a GetUp forum in Perth on June 14. *** Last week I passed a gathering outside a fundraiser for Julia Gillard at Victoria Hall in Fremantle. One of the chants initiated by the single parents action group was: “Pension cuts, no way. Make the mining bosses pay.”

Former US marine and anti-war activist Vincent Emanuele is making his second speaking tour of Australia during June and July. A member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Emanuele is speaking to audiences about the US military machine. At a meeting in Melbourne where Emanuele spoke on July 4, the film On the Bridge was also screened. The film is a series of interviews with Iraq war veterans opposed to the war, including Emanuele.

More than two years ago, the Syrian people, inspired by the Arab Spring, began a democratic revolution against the viciously authoritarian Bashir al-Assad regime, a revolution that we enthusiastically supported from its beginning and continue to support. For two long years now, we, like the rest of the world, have watched in horror as the Syrian government waged merciless war on its own people. Some of the revolutionaries argued that for strategic if not for pacifist reasons, the movement should have remained non-violent despite the mounting repression it faced.

Kate Hudson is a veteran British left-wing activist and former chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Hudson was a candidate for the left-wing Respect party in last year's Manchester municipal by-election, but stood down after Respect leader George Galloway made “unacceptable and unretracted statements about the nature of rape”. Since then, Hudson has joined other left-wing activists, including film maker Ken Loach, in pushing the Left Unity initiative for anew left-wing party, which has received support from thousands of people across Britain.

WL Central wrote on July 7: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has now been offered asylum in three American countries: Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. He has applied for asylum in six additional countries, according to WikiLeaks. And his chances for reaching a safe haven are growing further because of US interference in the process, according to Michael Bochenek, director of law and policy at Amnesty International.

Imagine the aircraft of the president of France being forced down in Latin America on “suspicion” that it was carrying a political refugee to safety — and not just any refugee but someone who has provided the people of the world with proof of criminal activity on an epic scale.

Brazil's government must ally itself with the people or pay the price, said Joao Pedro Stedile, national coordination of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), a powerful social movement with deep roots in the South American nation that fights for land reform. Pedro Stedile spoke to Brasil de FatoM amid the huge protest movement sweeping Brazilian cities, sparked by a rise in bus fares and fuelled by spending on big events such as 2014 World Cup while public services deteriorated.

Activists from across the Venezuelan labour movement met last weekend for the country’s first ever Workers’ Congress, where workers discussed workplace democracy and the construction of socialism. The congress, billed “I Workers’ Congress: Balance and Challenges of Worker Control and Workers’ Councils for the Construction of Socialism”, was organised by the National Worker Control Movement and saw the participation of over fifty groups from factories across the country.

World War Z Directed by Marc Foster Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale & Matthew Fox In Cinemas now It’s movie time — winter is upon us, kids are home for two weeks and there’s a glut of new releases at the cinemas. While providing the necessary action and suspense for my kids’ age group, the US$190 million production World War Z also glorifies US-style international relations in the fight against a futuristic global zombie takeover.