Campaigners vowed today to challenge the use of “extreme” pressure-point tactics to break the anti-fracking blockade tagretted operations of energy giant Cuadrilla in Balcombe, Morning Star said on August 22.
Sussex Police used the “mandibular angle” technique to drag people away from a peaceful sit-in on the road to the site on August 19, the article said. The martial arts-style move involves applying force to a pressure point just behind the ear and delivers excruciating pain but no lasting injury.
Economy
A few years ago, in the run up to the 2009 climate negotiations at Copenhagen, the fossil fuel industry seemed on the defensive, with pressure to cut carbon emissions mounting.
With energy prices rising and doubts raised about the industry’s ability to increase oil production, it seemed like a dinosaur struggling to survive.
Today that same industry is on the offensive. Far from facing constraints, is actively driving a huge expansion of fossil fuel extraction into new areas of the globe.
From denial to an 'engineering problem'
In a move aimed at demobilising and splitting the opposition, the leaders of Tunisia's governing party, Ennahda, reached out to Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of the secular ex-regime party Nidaa Tounes. It was part of a bid to resolve the political crisis that has crippled the north African nation for weeks.
Chelsea Manning, a private in the US Army who worked as an intelligence specialist, was sentenced on August 21 to 35 years in jail for leaking hundreds of thousands of ecret cables to WikiLeaks.
Formerly known as “Bradley”, Manning announced via her lawyer on August 22 that she would undergo hormone treatment to transition to a woman and was now known as Chelsea.
Australian attorney-general Mark Dreyfus has claimed that Manning, and NSA whisteblower Edward Snowden, should not be considered whistleblowers as they supposedly did not reveal any government wrongdoing.
Workers in fast food companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, KFC and others took to the streets in mobilisations at the end of July in seven cities.
They highlighted miserable wages and working conditions, and demanding the right to form unions in the virtually non-union sector.
The actions took place in New York, Chicago, St Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Flint, Michigan. It is likely that these actions will spread in the coming weeks.
Detroit public-sector workers, pensioners and residents filed objections on August 19 against the city council's request for bankruptcy protection. They want federal judge Steven Rhodes to block the bankruptcy request by unelected emergency manager Kevyn Orr.
Individual creditors began filing objections in person and by early evening more than 100 had been filed, including by the city's biggest union AFSCME, several smaller city unions and pension schemes.
Elysium
Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp
Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga
In cinemas now
In the mid-22nd century, Earth has become a crowded, polluted, poverty-stricken slum. While the poor, mostly black and brown residents of Earth, struggle with dangerous working conditions, substandard public services and brutal robot police, the 1% have escaped to Elysium, a pristine floating space station orbiting Earth.
“There will never be strikes in my company,” Foxconn CEO Guo Taiming once proclaimed. But just last month, 1800 workers struck at two Foxconn factories in China — following the example of other Foxconn workers in Taiyuan and Chengdu last year.
Foxconn produces cell phones and other products for Apple and others, and owns property worth US$6 billion. It has 1.2 million workers and is the largest sweatshop of ill repute in China.
The Passion Of Bradley Manning: The Story Behind the WikiLeaks Whistleblower
Chase Madar
Verso, 2013
181 pages, $19.95 (pb)
The issue in the trial of Bradley Manning, the source of tens of thousands of US military and state secrets leaked to WikiLeaks, is, in some eyes, simple.
“He broke the law,” lectured United States President Barack Obama, conveniently overlooking, as Chase Madar comments in his book on Manning, the routine violation by the ruling elite of the principle that “rules are rules”.
Jim McIlroy, the lead NSW Senate candidate for the Socialist Alliance (ticket AM), explains the party's policy in support of workers' rights and union organising.
Peter Boyle, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sydney, confronts the racism of Liberal and Labor, and explains Socialist Alliance's pro-refugee alternative.
Workers at Diana Industries have welcomed the appointment of a new company manager, claiming victory in their fight to prevent the “imposition” of businessperson David Mendoza as head of the worker-run company.
Nationalised in 2008, production at Diana Industries is organised by workers through assemblies and a Socialist Workers’ Council. The company produces cooking oil, margarine, soap and other products, 80% of which are destined for state-run distribution networks.
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