September 11 is a date forever associated with mass murder of civilians — and this was the case nearly three decades before the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York.
This year, September 11 marks the 40th anniversary of the US-organised military coup that overthrew the elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende and installed a brutal dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet.
The day was the start of a nightmare for Chileans, as a reign of terror crushed left-wing groups, trade unions and popular organisations.
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Verbal Reality Volume 2
Provocalz
Coming October 2013
www.provocalz.bigcartel.com
Rapper Provocalz has dedicated a song to Australia's Liberal and Labor parties on his new album - but it won't be music to their ears.
On his track "Liberals or Labor", the Indigenous emcee suggests the two big parties are so contemptuous of voters that some, like him, might consider swapping their ballots for bullets:
Liberals or Labor, they both leave us to rot
So it's criminal behaviour, politicians get shot
Pop pop pop pop!
It's that real hip-hop, hip-hop
Venezuela has agreed to sell oil to the Palestinian Authority (PA) at a “fair price” as part of new energy agreements with the Middle Eastern government.
The deals, made during a meeting between Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jaua and his PA counterpart Riyah al-Malki in Caracas on August 24, include the training of Palestinians in the handling and distribution of oil.
Jaua referred to the deal as “an agreement of cooperation and solidarity … the sale of fuel at a fair price”.
An uprising of the rural poor (campesinos) in Colombia entered its 11th day on August 29. An estimated 250,000 people took part in strikes and highway blockades across the South American country's highlands, where most of Colombia’s population of 42 million is concentrated.
The central objective of the uprising is to guarantee minimum prices for agricultural products, and to annul Colombia’s free trade agreements (FTAs) with the United States and the European Union.
In 1986, Israeli scientist Mordechai Vanunu took a courageous moral stand against nuclear weapons.
Vanunu exposed Israel’s secret nuclear weapons arsenal to the world after becoming disillusioned with his work as a technician at Dimona Nuclear Research Centre in Israel.
Vanunu revealed Israel had hundreds of advanced nuclear warheads ― the sixth largest stockpile in the world. Under a policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel still officially denies it has nuclear weapons, despite Vanunu’s revelations and other widespread evidence to the contrary.
From Mexican revolutionaries to Argentine street kids, Pinochet’s Chile to Mayan eco-warriors, the Eighth Sydney Latin American Film Festival shines the light on Latin America’s dark past as well as its ongoing struggle against corporate imperialism and environmental destruction.
From September 4 to 15, the festival screens 22 new-release feature films and documentaries from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, the US and Australia.
The Philippines’ Million People March, against the so-called pork barrel system of corruption, is the latest in a series of huge protests worldwide, which exploded with the United States’ Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring of 2011.
The Luneta rally was attended by at least 200,000 people (according to government estimates). However, aerial footage of the event showed attendance was almost certainly higher.
The Luneta rally was part of nationwide and global protests, involving a further 500,000 people in major cities in the Philippines and by Filipino communities worldwide.
In response to a chemical weapons attack by unknown perpetrators on August 21, US President Barack Obama, in a “coalition of the willing” with the governments of Britain and France, has made escalating threats for a military attack on Syria.
With the likelihood of Russia and China opposition in the UN Security Council, Obama has indicated that his coalition, calling itself the “international community”, may strike Syria unilaterally.
Liam Flenady is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the Brisbane seat of Griffith and a member of Resistance. This is an extract from a talk he gave to a forum titled: “People and planet before profit: A plan for a democratic Australia.”
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You might ask why we need a plan for a democratic Australia. Don’t we already have one? We elect our representatives at local, state and federal level, don’t we?
Gippsland Trades and Labour Council secretary John Parker is standing as an independent candidate in the seat of MacMillan. Green Left Weekly’s Susan Price spoke to Parker about his campaign.
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What prompted you to stand as a candidate?
Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett admitted on August 21 that his government faced a tough start to its second term. This followed fee rises and controversial attacks on the public sector in the August 8 state budget, which provoked a backlash including an August 30 decision by school teachers to plan an industrial campaign.
Peter Boyle is the Socialist Alliance candidate for Sydney. He gave this speech to a rally for single parents rights in Redfern on August 24.
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Together with Dianne Hiles, the Greens candidate in the same electorate who just spoke, I am campaigning against the cruel cuts to single parent entitlements by the former Julia Gillard Labor government and campaigning for a break from major party rule, from conservative major party policies and from the corrupted, old politics those parties stand for.
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