Indigenous

British parliament sat late into the night on December 2 before eventually voting up Prime Minister David Cameron's proposal to join the US-led air war in Syria. Opposition Labour Party leader and veteran anti-war activist Jeremy Corbyn argued strongly against bombing Syria, as did protesters outside parliament. However, many right-wing Labour MPs supported the government.

Family members and supporters gathered on December 2 outside the inquest into the death in custody of 22-year-old Ms Dhu. The protest was a response to the shocking evidence of neglect and institutionalised racism revealed at the inquest and the fact that the conclusion of the inquest has been delayed so that police testimony won't be heard until at least March 2016.

On November 10, it was 20 years since Ken Saro-Wiwa, president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), and eight other Ogoni leaders were hanged by Nigaria's military dictatorship in Nigeria. Known as the Ogoni Nine, their crime was demanding a share of the proceeds of oil exploitation. The Niger Delta covers a huge area of some 27,000 square miles on Nigeria’s southern coast. Once almost all tropical rainforest, it has one of the highest levels of biodiversity on earth and is home to 31 million people. Ogoniland comprises 400 square miles in the eastern delta.

The campaign against fracking in the Northern Territory ramped up a few notches last week, with the government announcing a successful bidder in the North East Gas Interconnector project coming amid allegations of a conflict of interest for a key NT government advisor.

The appointment of nuclear power advocate Alan Finkel as Australia's next Chief Scientist led to speculation that the federal government might be softening up Australians for the introduction of nuclear power. But that speculation is likely misplaced. Finkel is not the first Chief Scientist to support nuclear power. It goes with the turf: boys like toys and Chief Scientists like nuclear power. Finkel's comments were actually quite nuanced and at least as supportive of renewables as nuclear power.

Darwin’s Bagot community launched its Painting Home Project on November 7. It was the culmination of a seven-week collaboration between Aboriginal artists, Bagot residents, street artists from as far away as Melbourne, and other arts and cultural workers.

Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) attended the launch of a “guiding principles document” in Tamworth on November 9 to be implemented by Tamworth Family and Community Services (FACS). The document was negotiated with GMAR after a series of protests last year that targeted the Tamworth FACS office, which had removed an unprecedented number of Aboriginal children from their families. The campaign forced FACS to admit that the situation needed to change.

The text of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership — negotiated by 12 Pacific rim nations including Australia — was released on November 5 after a negotiating process shrouded in secrecy. The release of the much-guarded text of the deal has renewed calls for action to stop the TPP as a “toxic deal” and “disaster for democracy”.

Melbourne-based author and community radio presenter Iain McIntyre has been documenting and celebrating Australian radical history since the 1990s. A series of zines he created entitled How To Make Trouble And Influence People were compiled into an expanded edition by Breakdown Press in 2009 with a second edition released in conjunction with US publisher PM Press in 2013.

Fadang Randal is a representative of the United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti — PCJSS), who visited Australia in September. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's Tony Iltis * * * The PCJSS is working for the social and political rights of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. We are very much concerned now with the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord — a treaty signed in 1997 between the government and the PCJSS.

Radical Ideas is a 3-day conference of discussion, debate and ideas for radical change, from December 4-6 in Sydney. We are lucky to have a number of guest speakers confirmed so far, including well-known campaigners involved in various movements and Socialist Alliance and Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance activists.

Statue of Guaicaipuro. Photo: Correo del Orinoco. A statue of Caribe indigenous resistance hero Guaicaipuro was unveiled on October 12 by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to commemorate the Day of Indigenous Resistance. Guaicaipuro, an indigenous chief of the Caribes, led one of the most successful resistance campaigns against invading Spanish colonial forces throughout the 1560s and is revered by many of Venezuela’s grassroots movements.