The Tenants' Union of New South Wales, the state's peak organisation for tenants, has condemned the proposed sell-off of 293 public housing properties at Millers Point and The Rocks, announced by the Barry O'Farrell government on March 19.
The area is the historic heartland of the city of Sydney, and was previously saved from the developers' bulldozers by residents' action and Green Bans imposed by the NSW Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s.
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Images forge reality, granting a power to television and video and even still photographs that can burrow deep into people鈥檚 consciousness without them even knowing it.
I thought that I, too, was immune to the repetitious portrayals of Venezuela as a failed state in the throes of a popular rebellion. But I wasn鈥檛 prepared for what I saw in Caracas this month: how little of daily life appeared to be affected by the right-wing protests, the normality that prevailed in the vast majority of the city.
I, too, had been taken in by media imagery.
New Caledonia, a French-administered archipelago in the south-west Pacific, passed a law on February 13 banning the importation of genetically modified seeds for cereals and fruits.
Vegetables, however, are exempt from the law. A proposal for mandatory labelling of GMO products is still to be approved by the Congress.
More than five years since the global financial crisis, many OECD countries are still facing high rates of unemployment, losses in income and worsening social conditions. This was confirmed in the latest OECD social indicators report, Society at a Glance 2014, released on March 19. The reports says: "The financial upheaval of 2007-08 created not just an economic and fiscal crisis but also a social crisis ... Some 48 million people in OECD countries are looking for a job 鈥 15 million more than in September 2007 鈥 and millions more are in financial distress.
About 120 people attended the 麻豆传媒 Weekly 1000th issue celebration at the Annandale Neighbourhood Centre on March 15.
Greetings to the milestone event were given by NSW Fire Brigade Employees Union vice president Jim Casey, Greens Sydney City councillor Irene Doutney, and Latin American Social Forum member Paula Sanchez.
The speakers congratulated GLW on its achievement of 1000 issues, and noted the paper's special role in providing vital information on union, environmental and international campaigns.
To get elected, wait until the existing government makes itself unelectable. Say as little as you can about your real policies. Smile, and present a small target.
Those were the perspectives of South Australia鈥檚 Liberal opposition in the run-up to the state elections on March 15. The key Liberal slogan, outside polling places throughout the state, was 鈥淎 Fresh Start鈥. A start to what, specifically? Voters weren鈥檛 supposed to ask.
Socialist Alternative has denied allegations by the Jewish Students鈥 Society at the Australian National University (ANU) that members of the socialist group abused them with anti-Semitic slurs.
The Liberal Party swept to victory in the Tasmanian elections on March 15, winning 14 seats of the 25 seat parliament. The Labor Party, which had governed for the past three years in coalition with the Greens, received a swing against of 9.5%. It won only six seats.
The Greens were also heavily punished, losing two seats in an 8% swing against them. Party leaders Nick McKim and Cassy O鈥機onnor managed to keep their seats. Kim Booth looks likely to be re-elected as well.
A former welfare worker at the Nauru refugee detention camp says the July 19 riot that razed most of the Topside compound was an 鈥渋nevitable outcome鈥 of a 鈥渃ruel and degrading policy鈥, in a new book released last week.
The Undesirables follows several big whistleblower revelations that have come from Nauru since the camp was re-established by then-PM Julia Gillard in August 2012.
The March in March protests across Australia over March 15-17 were a resounding success 鈥 not just because of their size, focus and breadth.
Just as significant is the fact that March in March tore apart the idea 鈥 seeded by the cynical rhetoric of John Howard's spin doctors in the wake of the invasion of Iraq 鈥 that protests don't work.
This protest worked precisely because it brought between 80,000 and 110,000 people out of their homes and into the streets in a disparate yet united way against the Tony Abbott government's attacks.
As David Harvey reminds us, capital never solves its crisis tendencies, it merely moves them around. Since the turn to neoliberalism in the 1980s there has certainly been a lot of movement.
Throughout the 1980s there were big recessions in all of the rich countries. Across Africa, Latin America and Western Asia at that time there was a depression, although it was not called this because of a self-imposed taboo on the word by mainstream economic commentators since 1929.
In the strange furore surrounding right-wing columnist Andrew Bolt demanding an apology from the ABC over a guest on Q&A suggesting he was racist, it is Bolt's long-time readers and fans for whom I feel the most.
It must be something of a shock to see the strident opponent of 鈥渋llegal boat people鈥 and 鈥渇air-skinned鈥 Aboriginal people, a man who refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the Stolen Generations, insist that he is not actually racist after all.
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