After years of eluding justice, notorious Chilean torturer Adriana Rivas has finally been arrested and her extradition request by the Chilean state accepted by Australian authorities.
While the political establishment in Ireland is determined to downplay the need for an Irish unity referendum, it is plainly obvious that the appetite for such a poll is growing by the day.
Up to 20,000 Indian students and their supporters from around the country took to the streets of Delhi on February 7 to protest the Modi government’s attacks on students and universities, and to demand the right to education and employment.
Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers & Each Other
Matthew Sweet
Picador, 2018, 351 pages
When a group of American GIs in Vietnam deserted in 1968 and “joined a movement that wanted to bring that conflict to an end and build a more just and equitable world”, only to “then meet Lyndon LaRouche and kiss reality goodbye”, their idealistic revolt descended into the “batshit crazy” politics of one of the weirdest cults of all time, says Matthew Sweet, writer and BBC broadcaster, in Operation Chaos.
The soldiers’ individual acts of rebellion became collective and political when, having found asylum in Sweden, they joined the American Deserters Committee (ADC), an anti-war movement which organised the thousand or so military refuseniks and draft resisters exiled in Stockholm.
Aboriginal children are currently being removed at five times the rate they were in 1997, the year when the Bringing Them Home report was brought down by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.
Refugee rights activists protested outside Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Cronulla office on February 9.
School students went on strike outside Labor leader Bill Shorten’s Melbourne office on February 8.
TJ Hickey’s mother Gail Hickey led a march through Redfern to NSW parliament on the 15th anniversary of TJ’s death on February 14.
Campaigners for gay, lesbian and transgender rights have urged a boycott of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv in May.
More than 60 LGBTI groups from around the world have joined a new call to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians. In a statement, the groups accuse Israel of “shamelessly using the Eurovision competition” to distract from war crimes.
The organisation alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society contends that Israel is engaged in pinkwashing — the cynical use of LGBTI rights by states and corporations to downplay their negative activities.
Palestine solidarity activists protested outside Eurovision’s Australia Decides event on the Gold Coast on February 11.
