Democracy

Despite a decisive victory on April 19, providing further confirmation of her likely nomination, in many respects Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton emerged from the New York primary more damaged and her party more divided.

The biggest barrier to the rational economic policies of Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist leader of the British labour Party, is the huge profits the super-rich are making from irrational ones. The Bank of England has shelled out £375 billion in “quantitative easing” since the 2008 crash. It has, quite literally, created electronic money out of nowhere and used it to buy up financial assets held by the banks. The idea has been to pump “liquidity” — lendable money — into the economy.

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.

Left-wing supporters of Scottish independence in the 2014 referendum campaign. Is There A Scottish Road to Socialism? Edited by Gregor Gall Scottish Left Review Press Third edition, 2016 £5.99, 164 pages This is the third edition in a series previously published in 2007 and 2013. A range of left-wing activists and commentators debate the question of whether Scottish independence would help or hinder the prospects for socialism in Scotland.

Sarah Eleazar is a Pakistani journalist and member of the socialist Awami Workers Party (AWP). She co-edits Tajdeed, a left research journal in Urdu. Eleazar will be a featured guest at the Socialist for the 21st Century conference in Sydney on May 13-15. She spoke with Green Left Radio on Melbourne community station 3CR in March about the fight for women’s liberation and socialism in Pakistan. The first part of an abridged transcript is below. ***

The struggles of Kurdish women in Rojava Kurdistan (Northern Syria) became known to many people in the world during the brutal attacks of ISIS against the city of Kobanê in September 2014.

Save Safe Schools WA organised a protest in Perth on April 23. The Safe Schools program is an important anti-bullying program that began in 2010 in Victoria and has since been extended throughout the country.

The electioneering has begun. In a campaign set to be dominated by economic issues, the Coalition and Labor are locking horns over who can best manage our finances, protect jobs and make housing more affordable. The Greens predictably decry the major parties, including their cavalier climate change policies.

This month marks 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody tabled its national report. With five volumes of research, investigative accounts of 99 deaths in custody, and 339 recommendations, the report was meant to be a blueprint for reducing the disproportionate incarceration of Indigenous Australians and deaths in custody. But a quarter of a century later, the situation is actually worse. The impetus

The first screening of the cinematic tale of women fighting for jobs at Port Kembla steelworks screened to 250 people at the Gala Cinema in Warrawong on April 17. Set in 1973, The Women Who Were Never There tells a dramatic story, based on real events, of women who chained themselves to the front gates of BHP to protest the lack of jobs for women. The film brings to life the drama of the women who took on Australia's biggest corporation in their fight for equality.

There is a joke in Australia that there will be a high-speed rail service linking the major cities on the Eastern seaboard that will run about once in every three years — whenever there is an election looming. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has, like the previous Labor government, again floated the idea.