On the northern outskirts of Barcelona, on La Rambla de Carmel, stands one of the most visually striking and symbolic monuments to the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of the International Brigades.

“David and Goliath”, designed by US sculptor Roy Shifrin and first unveiled in 1988, was the most prominent gathering point for the 80th anniversary of the departure of the International Brigades — anti-fascists who had come from around the world to fight against Francisco Franco’s forces — from Barcelona on October 28.

Organised by the Association of the Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) with the support of both the Barcelona City Council and the Catalan regional government, the events in remembrance of the departure of the volunteers took place over October 25-28 across Catalonia.

In 2019, European and legislative elections will take place in Portugal in a national political context different from anywhere else in the European Union (EU), where austerity policies still reign and the racist and xenophobic right is rising, writes Dick Nichols from Lisbon.

Over the past three years in Portugal, the minority Socialist Party (PS) government has been supported from outside by the Left Bloc, the Communist Party of Portugal (PCP) and the Ecologist Party-The Greens (PEV).

During that time wages and welfare payments have risen, privatisations have stopped, unemployment has halved to 6.3%, casual workers in the public sector have been made permanent, and the electricity and public transport bills of about 700,000 poor families have been cut.

In the 2019 budget, the maximum level of university fees will be cut by 20% and text books will become free for the period of compulsory education.

A combination of real estate capitalism and climate change has unleashed murderous fires in California, writes Phil Hearse.

Things are getting serious. On November 15, at least are 56 were confirmed dead with hundreds missing. Thousands of homes and businesses have burned down. Two major fires, in the north and south of the state, were still not under control.

The scenes could be the aftermath of a US or Russian bombing raid in the Middle East — bodies littered on the ground, people burned to death in their cars, families devastated with grief at the loss of homes and loved ones.

United States President Donald Trump has chimed in with the line propagated by Fox News for weeks, blaming bad forest management in a state that is — by US standards — liberal and anti-Trump. Fox News even claimed it was because the people running California are “socialists”.

Chanting “Not the church, not the state, women will decide our fate”,  supporters of women’s right to choose gathered outside NSW parliament on November 15 to oppose conservative MLC Fred Nile’s third attempt to introduce a foetal personhood bill in the Legislative Assembly.

The Darkening Age
By Catherine Nixey
Pan Macmillan, 2018
352 pp, $32.99

Do you remember the horror in 2015 when ISIS seized the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, killed archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad who had protected its monuments and attacked the 12-metre-high statue of Athena?

It wasn’t the first time that statue was attacked by religious fanatics. As Catherine Nixey records, in the 4th Century, Christian zealots attacked Palmyra and pulled the statue down. It lay in ruins until Muslim experts put it back together.

The fundamentalists were formed from Christian monks living in the desert. In the modern Christian telling, those “desert Fathers” were the originators of the peaceful and learned monastic tradition. Nixey depicts them as smelly, bearded illiterates, swarming to invade centres of civilisation, terrorise the inhabitants and force conversions.

Protesters gathered outside the SBS offices in Artarmon on November 15 to urge the national multicultural broadcaster not to screen Eurovision 2019, which will be held in Israel.