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Resistance national conference motion in solidarity with Pakistani political prisoner Baba Jan. Moved 22 July 2012. Adelaide South Australia.

Members of the socialist youth organisation, Resistance, came from around the country to Adelaide over July 20-22 for the 42nd Resistance Conference. The conference consisted of plenaries on Australian politics, international politics, plans to build Resistance and “Perspectives for the Left”.
Neighbours watched in horror as police in Anaheim, California first shot Manuel Diaz in the back of his leg ― and then executed him with a bullet to the head in the courtyard of their apartment complex on July 21. The Anaheim Police Department proceeded to terrorise residents who gathered to confront the cops about the murder they had just witnessed. Police responded by opening fire with rubber bullets and tear gas at a crowd that included young children.
Victoria's severely stressed public housing system is under threat from the state's Liberal government, with cutbacks and sell-offs being discussed under the guise of “reform”.
Since the idea of Zionism (a Jewish state in historic Palestine) first gripped the minds of a few intellectuals, the state of Israel has represented its colonisation of the land of Palestine, and its uprooting of the Palestinian people, as a rejuvenation of the earth.
There is a lot of discussion about the nature of the Chinese economy and its developing role in global capitalism. Much of the debate has focused on the tensions between a seemingly declining United States and rising China ― and possible changes in the global distribution of power. In the context of a global domination of US-backed neoliberalism, the “Chinese model” has been put forward by some as a possible alternative. However, not only is China's rise far from inevitable, its “model” has its own contradictions ― as the rise of labour struggles helps reveal.
Tens of thousands marched in June from 110th Street in Harlem down to billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s swank residence on 79th street in Manhattan. The demonstrators protested the huge levels of police racial profiling and harassment in New York City, that has developed over the past decade. The overwhelming majority of marchers were African Americans and Latinos. A multiracial contingent of LGBTI people also participated, reflecting another group singled out by the city administration.
Two leaders of the Labour Party Pakistan and the Progressive Youth Front (PYF) narrowly escaped torture by a special interrogation unit due to prompt protests in Pakistan and around the world, Farooq Tariq, LPP national spokesperson for the LPP, told Green Left Weekly. Baba Jan and four comrades were jailed last September for standing up for people's rights in the Hunza Valley, in the remote province of Gilgit-Baltistan, after their villages and farmlands were flooded in 2010.
The Dark Knight Rises Directed by Christopher Nolan Starring Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway In cinemas now The Dark Knight Rises, the last in the trilogy of Batman films by director Christopher Nolan, may well become a favourite for many of those who despise, fear or distrust the working class.
Snow White & the Huntsman Directed by Rupert Sanders Staring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth In cinemas now Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the most derivative of them all? I suppose to even ask that of a Hollywood movie is foolish. Hollywood thrives on figuring what has previously interested the audience and recycling it through its cultural mashing machine to produce what it knows best: schlock.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced on July 25 that Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzon would represent his case to fight extradition to Sweden, from where he fears he will be extradited to the United States. Garzon is known as a campaigning magistrate who pursues social justice cases. In 1998, Garzon was the investigating magistrate in the case where Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested. Pinochet died in 2006 before being convicted.
And the winner is: solar power. Residents in the South Australian town of Port Augusta have voted overwhelmingly for solar over gas to replace the town’s coal-fired power stations. The result, announced on July 22, was 4053 votes for a concentrating solar-thermal power plant, 43 for gas. In the end, 98% of voters favoured solar. The result is testament to newly-formed local group, Repower Port Augusta, whose dedication ensured that almost one-third of residents voted, an impressive outcome for the voluntary exercise.