Analysis

On April 21, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd finally conceded that “it’s inevitable that Australia … will be dragged into recession”.
On April 21, SBS screened two documentaries about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution he is leading. One of them was The Hugo Chavez Show, produced by Frontline, a program on the US-based PBS channel.
Blacktown ALP NSW MP Paul Gibson has openly urged Premier Nathan Rees to make public transport free.
Telstra has once again started to sack staff. The communications union fears up to 2000 workers will be “let go” by mid-year. This makes a total of close to 12,000 job losses over the four years since CEO Sol Trujillo took the helm.
Sometimes you have to hand it to capitalism. It’s sheer magic the way the system takes promising concepts, hands them over to the market and turns them into howling social and environmental disasters.
On June 13, rallies around Australia will launch a new grassroots climate campaign for 100% renewable energy by 2020.
When an asylum seeker vessel exploded on April 16 while being taken to Christmas Island, killing five people, many of the critically injured were first transported to an offshore oil rig before being transferred to hospitals on the mainland.
An April 28 mass protest called by six national building industry unions against the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) in Melbourne has received full support from the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC).
The following article is abridged from a speech given by Ian Angus, associate editor of Socialist Voice www.socialistvoice.ca in Canada, and founding member of the Ecosocialist International Network. The speech was delivered at the final session of the World at a crossroads Conference in Sydney, Australia, April 12.
The following open letter was sent to Greens Senator Bob Brown on April 16, the day before Brown met with Tamil hunger strikers.
The article below is abridged from the speech delivered by M. Saraswathy, deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia, to the final plenary of the World at a Crossroads conference. The conference, hosted by Green Left Weekly, was held in Sydney over April 10-12.
In an era of climate change, global warming, high carbon emissions and with renewable energy coming to the fore, it is astounding that a proposal for another “open cut” coal mine is set to reach the NSW planning department.