Economy

“Preliminary results from Congo’s presidential election show incumbent Joseph Kabila leading,” Associated Press reported on December 3. For several reasons, this is not surprising news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s imminent $90,000 pay rise is more than twice the estimated median wage of all Australian full-time or part-time employees, aged 15 years or over. More than half of all Australian workers have a yearly pay packet smaller than the PM’s expected pay rise. The $40,000 pay rise expected for backbenchers will also be more than the total wage of many Australian workers.

Occupy began as a movement against the effects and causes of the global economic crisis and against the austerity measures pushed by governments for the benefit of the 1%. In Australia, many people were inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and the global movement it had sparked. When an international call for action on October 15 came out, we responded, and began our own occupations here.

Australian energy company Santos has met determined resistance to its coal seam gas operations in Australia. It is less well known that Santos was one of the companies responsible for a monumental environmental catastrophe in Indonesia in 2006. The accident drowned villages in the Porong subdistrict of Sidoarjo in mud, and displaced up to 50,000 people.

The phrase “organise, don’t agonise” has become a bumper sticker, a popular slogan in the feminist movement, the title of many speeches, conferences and newsletters. African-American civil rights activist Florence Rae Kennedy coined the term. Gloria Steinem quoted her in Ms magazine in 1973. Since then, this powerful slogan has circumnavigated the world many times — used by many activists and movements. It has lasted because the slogan reasonates strongly with the condition of the oppressed, exploited and persecuted.

As you read these words, disaster may be about to strike in the galloping crisis of the European financial system and the euro. Or it may not — yet. On November 30, the imminent threat of a banking system implosion stirred the European Central Bank (ECB), the US Federal Reserve, Bank of England and central banks of Japan, Canada and Switzerland, into taking the minimum action needed to prevent a “Lehman Brothers event” collapsing the European financial system.

WikiLeaks releases The Spy Files - exposing uncontrolled mass spying.

The State of Surveillance | TBIJ

Green Left Weekly's Peter Boyle spoke to Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon outside Lynas Corporation's annual general meeting on November 30 about Lynas's plan to build a rare earths refinery in Malaysia.

Tory attempts to belittle public-sector industrial action rang pathetically hollow on November 30 as millions of workers joined the fight against government-imposed pension cuts for public servants. Services across England, Scotland and Wales ground to a halt in the strongest show of union strength in a generation. Schools, courts, museums and job centres were paralysed in the 24-hour strike which also brought extensive disruption to transport, hospitals and government departments.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle was subjected to a barrage of harmless ideas by Occupy Melbourne.

"Lou Reed and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello are among the first signatories of Occupy Musicians”, a November 22 British Guardian article said. supports Occupy Wall Street and the global movement against inequality. The Guardian said the website aims to co-ordinate performances at Occupy sites and showcase new works by signatory artists. It said: "Occupy Musicians is a sister site to the bookish campaign at Occupy Writers, the lensing of Occupy Filmmakers and the speech-bubbles atOccupy Comics."

The Occupy movement spread to Durban for the start of COP17 (the 17th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), protesting at the perceived lack of access to the conference centre for members of the public.