Analysis

EM>District 9 'horrific'? I read Mike Ely's review of District 9 with some surprise, having enjoyed the film a few days earlier. Is its portrayal of Nigerian gangsters "horrific"? Definitely over the top, as is the scene where white scientists

In the last week of winter, something strange happened: bushfires raged across New South Wales, with major fires in the Shoalhaven and Eurobodalla in the south of the state.

“This is a very dangerous time for Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution and all of Latin America, and your solidarity now is extremely important”, Venezuelan ambassador to Australia, Nelson Davila, told the closing session of the Latin America Solidarity Conference in Melbourne.

"Forget ‘alternative’ energy — it can’t work!" That — and in almost those exact words — was among the messages of an article published in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekend Australian on August 8 by journalist Terry McCrann.

The recent resignation by NSW minister John Della Bosca over his affair with a woman revealed just how the big political parties and the corporate media trivialise Australian politics.

From desert-fringe villages and drowning atolls, global warming is predicted to set climate refugees on the move. But arguably, the first climate refugees to reach Australia’s major cities are arriving already. And the places from which they have come are not exotic — rural towns like Mildura, Renmark and Griffith.

Business economists and their paid media scribblers are frantically keen to announce the end of the financial crisis. Their aim is to return confidence in the market and to encourage working people to take on more debt.

In April 2008, workplace relations minister Julia Gillard set up the National Review into Model Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Laws to develop a new national OHS standard. The process is called “OHS Harmonisation”.

Conservative Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson will present the opening address to the Brisbane Writers’ Festival on September 9. Brisbane-based Indigenous leader Sam Watson, who will also speak at the festival, has challenged Pearson to a public debate.

August was a terrible month of climate vandalism in Western Australia.

The August 1 national day of action for equal marriage rights was the biggest demonstration for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights in Australian history.

Green Left Weekly is launching a “spring offensive” to help us reach our 2009 fighting fund target of $250,000. By the end of August, we had raised $147,550 — about 60%. We need a push to get to 100% or more.