Democracy

Co-chair of Turkey’s left-wing, Kurdish-led Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş has told the media that the Turkish government had transformed into a perverted cult that bombs mosques and massacres civilians. Demirtaş made the comments on a visit to the vigil for jailed academics in Bakırköy Women’s Closed Prison on April 26. Co-chair of Turkey's left-wing, Kurdish-led Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş has told the media that the Turkish government had transformed into a perverted cult that bombs mosques and massacres civilians.

Valeria Silva is a deputy in the Bolivian Plurinational Assembly for the governing Movement for Socialism (MAS) party of President Evo Morales, and a leader within the MAS youth wing.

Residents of public housing towers in Waterloo, inner Sydney, rallied on April 23 against the NSW Coalition government's plan to forcibly evict tenants so it can sell off their homes. The community is fighting the government's plan to begin relocating residents from mid-next year, before demolishing the Waterloo apartment towers to build new private high-rise apartments.

As South Australia's economy continues to tank, local business leaders and the state Labor government have snatched at the nuclear option. Leading the hopes for salvation is a proposal for a giant underground waste dump to store some of the world's spent reactor fuel.

A massive wave of repression against the militant but peaceful peasant movement — the Anjuman Mozareen Punjab (AMP) — is underway. Most of its leadership have been arrested on false charges under anti-terrorist laws. Dozens are missing while more than 50 remain behind bars. All have been declared “terrorists” by the Okara district police, working hand in hand with the Military Farms administration, which mainly serves military officers.

In many ways, environment minister Greg Hunt's attendance at the New York signing of the Paris Agreement on April 21 underscored the Coalition government's resistance to in taking real action to curb toxic carbon dioxide emissions.

In 1989, 96 fans of Liverpool FC were crushed to death in a disaster at the Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield. Neglect of stadium conditions, lack of concern for the welfare of working-class football fans and — specifically — woeful dereliction of duty by South Yorkshire Police on the day all led directly to one of the world’s worst football tragedies.

The US government has admitted to killing 20 civilians in Iraq and Syria over five months, a death toll far below that estimated by independent observers. Washington had previously acknowledged 26 civilian casualties. In a statement released on April 22, the US Central Command insisted that the killing of the civilians, and the injuring of 11 others, was legal.

Whoever cares about an issue can stand up, write a corresponding committee name on a sheet of paper, sit on the square and start discussing the subject with others — and just like that a new committee is born. During the protest on March 31 against France's new labour law, a few protesters handed out leaflets which read Nuit debout (“rising up at night”), echoing Etienne La Boetie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude: “Tyrants appear great only because we are on our knees”.

Left wing group Socialist Alternative led a split in the Perth rally to defend the Safe Schools Coalition on April 23.

Palestine has sent 19 rescuers to Ecuador in the aftermath of the South American country's devastating earthquake — which is 19 more than the US, who have sent none at all, TeleSUR English said on April 21.

In a stunning rebuff to the party establishment, delegates to the federal convention of the Canada’s social democratic New Democratic Party, meeting in Edmonton, Alberta April 8-10, voted to reject Thomas Mulcair as their leader. They voted to begin reorienting the party to become a leader in Canada’s climate justice movement.