Economy

The crisis embroiling the government of Papua New Guinea has taken new turns as sections of the establishment struggle for power. Public outrage has grown against new laws that undermine the country's constitution. Just days after pledging it would not use the new powers of the Judicial Conduct Act to suspend judges, the government of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill suspended Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia and Justice Nicholas Kirriwom on April 4.

A series of protests, or Hikoi, will take place across New Zealand from April 24 to May 10, under the banner “Aotearoa Not For Sale”. The demonstrations are being organised against the pro-privatisation, pro-mining and anti-social agenda of the National Party government, led by Prime Minister John Key. The Hikoi will kick off at the top of New Zealand's north island at Cape Reinga on April 24.

“April 13, the great day of victory 10 years ago, opened the way to the independence and unity of our Latin America and the Caribbean,” Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on April 13. He was speaking during a commemoration of the uprising that toppled a short-lived military coup that aimed to crush the Chavez presidency . “We showed that a people united will never be defeated.”

At the insistence of the United States and Canada, Cuba was excluded from the Sixth Summit of the Americas, an intergovernmental conference held in Cartagena, Colombia, over April 14-15. As a result of opposition from many Latin American nations over Cuba's exclusion, as well as Argentina's claim to sovereignty over the Malvinas (Falklands) islands, the summit ended with no final declaration signed. The summit, involving all nations in the Americas except Cuba, is ostensibly designed to facilitate dialogue, understanding and cooperation between nations of the region.

Tasmania is facing a series of big, interlinked problems. These include: • a health system in crisis, • job losses in other public services causing big service inadequacies and unacceptable workloads and stress on frontline staff, • bleeding of skilled professionals and new graduates to other states, • the highest unemployment rate in the nation, • an economic recession, and • a rising cost of living.

At 2.36am, in the early hours of April 19, the student and Occupy Dataran encampment in Kuala Lumpur was violently ambushed by a big group of men. After the ambush, everyone sat down, and victims of violence started to tell stories of what happened. Here is a brief summary of the stories.

There’s no election quite like a French presidential contest. It is a six-month-long race in which nearly every political stable usually has a runner and where the handicapping system is less rigged against “outsiders” than in many other countries.

The Lorax Starring Danny Devito, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift & Ed Helms, directed by Chris Melandandri and Kyle Balda Now showing in cinemas. Adapted from the 1971 Dr Seuss book of the same name, The Lorax is a great analogy for the destructive nature of capitalism. The story is set in “Thneedville”, a walled city in which everything is made of plastic, metal and synthetic material. It is controlled by the mayor and owner of a bottled oxygen company, Aloysious O’Hare, who sells the residents their bottled water.

Power loom workers in Faisalabad, a big industrial centre in central Pakistan, launched a series of strikes and demonstrations in mid-2010. Six leaders of the organisation of power loom workers, the Labour Qaumi Movement (LQM), were arrested by the police. The six were charged under anti-terror laws and sentenced to a total of almost 490 years' jail (served concurrently). The jailed LQM leaders are also members of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP).

Tintaya is an open-cut copper and gold mine 4000 metres high in the district of Yauri, Espinar province, southern Peru. It is a spectacle of modern industrial devastation that contrasts jarringly with the timeless beauty of the surrounding altiplano landscape. Finally, after years of aggravated environmental abuse, the mine's owner, Swiss-based Xstrata, will be investigated by Peruvian authorities. After the discovery of large deposits, a copper mine was established at Tintaya in the mid-1980s. Extractive operations were hugely expanded when BHP bought the site in 1996.

So it has been reported that Clive “Stop Taxing Me” Palmer's main private company, Mineralogy, hasn't paid tax for three years. He really is pulling out all stops to be the best cardboard cutout evil capitalist he can. You have to wonder what he'll do next. My guess is call a press conference to announce he's established a paramilitary organisation of Nazi kittens dedicated to wiping out what's left of Australia's native fauna.

There is a country blessed with enormous natural resources whose head of state is a monarch who resides thousands of miles away from its shores. Every time Her Majesty comes to her dominion she lays flowers in the Cenotaph, visits schools where children wave flags that carry in one of their corners a symbol of a colonial past and talks to her subjects in civic centres. During her stay she is dutifully escorted by her representative in the host country and its political, economic and military classes.