Analysis

Thousands of Australians will march in every major Australian city and more than 20 regional centres on December 12, to again demand genuine climate action from our government. The rallies are part of a global day of action that will take place during the Copenhagen climate summit.
The following article is from the soon-to-be published, updated What Resistance Stands For manifesto. Resistance branches around the country will be launching this exciting new document, and selling it at Walk Against Warming rallies on December 12.
It has reached that time of year when Christian churches commemorate the birth of a child in a stable to homeless parents because “there was no room at the inn”. It is also a time of year when there is increased demand on homelessness services because of, among other reasons, family relationship breakdowns, domestic violence and mental illness.
When Labor came to power in November 2007, new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "Today, the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward, to plan for the future, to embrace the future and, together as Australians, to unite and write a new page in our nation's history."
The call by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the International Encounter of Left Parties in Caracas last month to begin to launch a ``Fifth Socialist International’’ could not have been better timed.
December’s United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen were a key topic of discussion at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), held in Trinidad and Tobago in late November.
Five years ago, Mulrunji Doomadgee was arrested by senior sergeant Chris Hurley for “disorderly conduct” and taken to a police cell on Palm Island, near Townsville. Within an hour, the Aboriginal man was dead.
A total lockdown was imposed on the Christmas Island detention centre for three days after fighting broke out on November 21.
The federal senate was bogged down in debate about Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) in the last week of November. The proposed scheme, already condemned by most environmental NGO’s and climate action groups as a sham, was “browned down” even more after the Rudd government accepted a series of Liberal Party amendments.
Do you have that sinking feeling? As though you have to run faster just to stand still? Are you having increasing problems making ends meet? Well, you’re not alone. It’s official — wages growth has fallen behind inflation. While the economy goes through “recovery”, we’re going backwards.
In an interview with Green Left Weekly, one of the Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers who have been stranded on a boat at the Indonesian port of Merak since October 11, Sanjeev “Alex” Kuhendrarajah, said conditions on the boat are dire.
The Sydney-based Refugee Action Coalition's Ian Rintoul has sent a letter to the International Organisation of Migration in Indonesia asking that it urgently intervene to provide medical care to the asylum seekers on the boat at Merak.