Democracy

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has denied reports his government lobbied the US to formally request for Australia to extend its involvement in the US-led air war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — and bomb targets in Syria, not just Iraq.

Photo: CUT. About 1 million people across Brazil protested on August 20 against right-wing attempts to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. The marches were joined by Brazil's big social movements, including the Movement of Landless Workers (MST) and the United Workers' Central (CUT), the largest trade union federation in Latin America.

Palestinians in Susiya demonstrate in May against Israel’s plans to destroy the village. Photo: Sarah Levy/Electronic Intifada. The Palestinian village of Susiya is at imminent risk of demolition. On May 5, Israel’s High Court of Justice refused to grant an interim order to freeze the demolition until the outcome of an appeal brought by villagers to prove the village’s legitimacy.

Running scared. That is the only explanation for the increasingly desperate and angry denunciations from the right wing of Britain's Labour Party, as Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn's campaign looks more and more likely to win party’s leadership election on September 12.

More than 6000 people and 500 group have participated in public meetings on a proposed land law with the government of President Rafael Correa.

Israeli bulldozers uproot olive trees on Palestinian lands to make way for a separation wall in Beit Jala. Palestinian farmers have called for international solidarity against ongoing Israeli destruction of their olive groves and livelihoods.

Tamils protest in Geneva to demand a UN investigation into Sri Lankan war crimes. Photo via Tamilnet.

The recent introduction of controversial laws by Israel, including 20-year jail sentences for stone throwers and the authorisation of force-feeding Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, would worsen an “already-precarious human rights situation”, the United Nations warned on August 19.

There were huge protests against the Trans-Pacific Partnership held across New Zealand on August 15. About 10,000 protesters marched in Auckland, 5000 in Wellington, 4000 in Christchurch and thousands more in other parts of the country.

Vigil of government supporters outside the presidential palace. After days of anti-government demonstrations, some indigenous groups aligned with the right-wing opposition have vowed to continue protests and strike against President Rafael Correa. The opposition has described its national strike as indefinite.

Since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's new wave of attacks on North Kurdistan within the Turkish state in the wake of Turkey's June election, people of all ages have joined the effort to defend and govern themselves in the area. Since the 1990s, the Turkish state has used tactics of denial, assimilation and annihilation in the North Kurdistan. Although the promises of peace that the Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) made when it first came to power awakened hope for many, 13 years later the promises remain unfulfilled.

Marines join protesting German workers in Berlin during the November 1918 revolution. The German Left & the Weimar Republic By Ben Fowkes Haymarket Books, 2015 399 pages, US$28. Socialist historian Ben Fowkes has given us a unique and vivid text documentary of the German workers’ movement during the tumultuous years of its greatest influence — from November 1918 to its defeat by Nazism 15 years later.