It鈥檚 8pm and I鈥檓 sitting in the main section of the carriage. A weathered, middle-aged man in a tracksuit and peak hat is swaying around by the doors, muttering. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he ambles over.
鈥淗ow鈥檚 it going?鈥 He slurs.
鈥淵eah good mate.鈥
The train soon shudders to a stop, the doors open and he springs out like some manic racehorse into the night.
1037
The day before the huge January 11 demonstration in Paris against the killings at the Charlie Hebdo office, another demonstration marked another set of killings in the French capital.
On January 10, tens of thousands of Kurds and their supporters marched to mark the assassination two years earlier of three Kurdish women activists of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and to protest the French government鈥檚 foot-dragging on clarifying the truth about the crime.
In the search for a rationale to justify his assault on pensioners, the poor and the welfare dependent, Scott Morrison has reached back to the 17th century work of the English political theorist and philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
Hobbes published Leviathan in 1651, a work that gave rise to social contract theory. He was an advocate of strong central government, without which, he maintained, life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
NSW Labor has anointed a new leader less than three months before the state election in March. With the , it must have calculated that it has nothing to lose by dumping former leader John Robertson.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency has declared 2014 the hottest year ever recorded. Other meteorology organisations around the world are on track to confirm this as they process their records over the next few weeks.
This means that 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century.
Sharlene Leroy-Dyer is an Aboriginal woman who is standing for the Socialist Alliance for the Legislative Council in the March NSW state election. 麻豆传媒 Weekly's Pip Hinman spoke to her about her interests and why she is standing.
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Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, an Aboriginal woman and descendant of the Wiradjuri and Dharug peoples of NSW, is heading the team for the Socialist Alliance ticket in the legislative council in the NSW state elections.
鈥淚鈥檓 standing because neither a Labor nor a Liberal-National government can meet the needs of the community", Leroy-Dyer said.
While GLW was on its break over the New Year period, the news came that a snap election is to be held in Greece on January 25.
GLW has been regularly reporting on the situation in Greece in recent years 鈥 the imposition of vicious austerity measures by the European Union and the Greek government and the rising popularity of the left-wing coalition SYRIZA.
As the election approaches, polls put SYRIZA in the lead. It is likely to win, though may have to enter a coalition in order to form government.
January 26 marks Invasion Day and the ongoing fight for Aboriginal rights. Join rallies and events in your city. Check for details.
Australian roots band Blue King Brown has released their new video which profiles freedom for West Papua. Watch the video and get involved in the campaign.
The national conveners released this statement on January 9.
* * *
The Socialist Alliance condemns the massacre of journalists, cartoonists and others at and around the offices of the Paris-based publication Charlie Hebdo.
However offensive anyone may have found some of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo, this act of brutal violence is not justified.
On January 5, with most of the country still in holiday mode, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman called on the acting governor (even the governor was still on holidays) to issue writs for a state election on January 31.
The Liberal National Party (LNP) won government three years ago in a landslide against the Labor government鈥檚 privatisation of public assets, reducing the ALP to a rump of seven seats (now increased to nine after two byelection victories).
麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Chris Peterson spoke with Jacob Rumbiak, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of West Papua -- a government-in-exile of the Papuan terrritory occupied by Indonesia since the 1960s. Its new foreign affairs office is in Melbourne.
Rumbiak is one of five officials of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, a new consultation body set up at a conference in Vanuatu in December.
A rally was held in Melbourne on January 16 to support refugees protesting in Wickham Point detention centre near Darwin and Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea.
Many of the asylum seekers are on a hunger strike and it is feared that a 33-year-old Iranian asylum seeker may have only days to live.
The man, known as 鈥淢artin鈥, was on hunger strike for 53 days until December 21. He resumed the hunger strike on December 27, and has entered a critical stage. He may have already suffered permanent organ damage.
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