Democracy

Refugee rights activist Stephen Langford was at Waverley Court on June 29 facing charges for writing "Omid" on the electorate office of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Omid Masoumali was a young asylum seeker detained in Nauru who died after he set himself on fire. After an initial hearing, the case was adjourned to July 27. Langford made this speech outside the court. * * *

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is the account of the life of a Singaporean comic book artist who started drawing at the age of 16. From that point, his work depicts his life story in parallel to that of the history of Singapore.

Regardless of which major party, or coalition of parties, forms government after the July 2 election one thing we can be certain of is that the struggle for a people's movement will still be as necessary as ever. The attacks on our class will not stop; of that we can be sure. We have one common enemy. For decades and decades governments have been trying to annihilate unions and this has got to stop.

"How do you exaggerate the greatest bleaching event on the planet? How do you exaggerate that one quarter of the world's largest reef is dead? You don't," Tony Fontes, a prominent Great Barrier Reef diver and tourism operator, told a crowd of up to 2000 at Steyne Park, Double Bay, in the heart of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's electorate of Wentworth on June 26. The rally was organised by a coalition of groups, including GetUp, Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society and the Nature Conservation Council.

More than 20 prominent Australians have called for emergency-scale action on climate change in an open letter to the new parliament, published in The Age on June 23. Signatories include business leaders, scientists, a former Australian of the Year and a Nobel Laureate. The open letter and associated website and petition are part of a growing campaign by a coalition of more than 20 grassroots climate action groups to pressure political leaders to step up and do what is needed to address the climate crisis.

About 500 people attended a Stop WestCONnex community rally in the inner city suburb of Rozelle on June 26 to call a halt to the project and for an end to federal funding of the controversial tollway. The rally was organised by the WestCONnex Action Group; No WestConnex: Public Transport; Save Newtown from WestCONnex; Save Ashfield Park; and Rozelle Against WestConnex.

The following statement by the left-wing, Kurdish-led Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chairs was released on June 29: We condemn the attack in Istanbul, Atatürk International Airport. Unfortunately 36 civilians lost their lives and 147 people were injured as a result of this inhumane attack. We wish that God rests the souls of all departed, we extend our condolences to their families and friends, and wish the wounded quick recovery. We share the great sorrow with the whole society and harshly condemn the terror attacks that target civilians and the humankind.

Ten thousand people rallied in support of Labour's left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn — elected leader last year in a landslide vote that marked a rejection of pro-austerity politics — outside of Westminster on June 27, as right-wing Labour Party MPs took advantage of the fallout from the Brexit vote to move against the party leader.

On June 25 a vigil was held outside the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne to pay tribute to the Mexican teachers who were murdered by police during protests organised by the CNTE teachers' union in Oaxaca last week.

The attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 dead (including the shooter) and more than 50 injured was the largest single violent attack on LGBTI people in US history. It claimed more victims than the 1973 arson at another nightclub in New Orleans that killed 32 people. This massacre punctuated the daily instances of violence, including murder, against LGBTI people that occur frequently in the US.

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right Jane Mayer Doubleday, 2016 449 pages Like “dark matter” — the vast amount of invisible mass that holds the cosmos together — “dark money” is the astronomical quantity of hidden corporate money that holds the conservative US political universe together.

It is no exaggeration to say that a strip of land along Syria’s northern border with Turkey is home to the most radical experiment in democracy and gender equality, not just in the Middle East, but in the whole world.