Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston, the Category 5 storm that slammed into Fiji on February 20, was the strongest storm ever to make landfall in the Southern Hemisphere and the second strongest ever in the world, with wind speeds approaching 300 kilometres an hour. At least 44 people were killed, and thousands left homeless, deprived of livelihood and at risk of water- and mosquito-borne diseases.
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Proposals by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) to raise public transport fares on the Opal Card system covering public buses, trains and ferries are facing strong opposition from pensioners, retirees and the general travelling public.
The Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association said the government would face a major backlash if it decided to tighten the eligibility or raise the daily cap on the cost of travel for seniors.
Spain could go without a government for several more months after left-wing anti-austerity party Podemos cancelled talks with the main opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), .
Podemos walked away from talks when the PSOE tried to make a deal with the right-wing Citizens party.
A disability working group said at least 45,000 people with disabilities will remain in unsatisfactory housing, including nursing homes, living with aging parents and homelessness under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
While the key aim of the NDIS is to provide participants with independent living, most of the people with disabilities will not receive housing support.
Housing experts believe 110,000 people need appropriate accommodation, meaning about 40% will miss out on the help they need.
Kurdish women staged a sit-in in Strasbourg against the silence of European institutions over Turkey's crime
A coalition of pro-Kurdish European groups held a five day sit-in in front of European institutions in Strasbourg in eastern France, starting on February 23, to protest Europe's silence on the Turkish government's ongoing massacre of Kurds. The action targeted the European Court of Human Rights.
Palestinians protest in support of jailed journalist Mohammed al-Qeq
Thirty three-year-old Mohammed al-Qeq, a Palestinian journalist who has being held for more than six months in administrative detention without charge or trial in an Israeli prison, ended a 94 day hunger strike on February 26.
Al-Qeq ended the strike — the longest by any Palestinian prisoner — after Israel agreed not to renew his administrative detention order, which ends on May 21, AFP said that day.
Following the stand taken by doctors, teachers and church leaders to prevent the transfer of 267 asylum seekers from the Australian mainland to Nauru and Manus Island detention centres, an open letter was launched at a Law Institute of Victoria forum on February 24.
Sam Wainwright, Socialist Alliance councillor on Fremantle Council, successfully moved the following motion at council’s February 24 meeting:
1. Supports the Palm Sunday Walk for Refugees — March 20, 1pm St George's Cathedral;
2. Calls on the Malcolm Turnbull government to let the 267 refugees that it wants to deport stay;
3. Commits Fremantle to stop doing business with companies who are contracted to run the detention centres, such as Broadspectrum and Wilson Security; and
4. Calls for an end to the offshore mandatory detention regime and boat "turnbacks".
More than 1000 people rallied on the steps of Western Australia’s Parliament House on February 23 to protest against the Western Australian government’s anti-protest laws.
I am not sure if I fully understand recent political developments, but the message I am getting from the Malcolm Turnbull government is that we have to send babies to hellish prison camps or else the gay lobby will persecute Christian students.
And we need a big increase in military spending or house prices will tragically collapse, or tragically rise, depending on which tragedy you wish to choose. Say what you will about the Turnbull government, it offers no shortages of tragedies.
"The Malcolm Turnbull government's proposal to privatise the Medicare payment system is a slippery slope to selling off the whole of Medicare," Peter Boyle, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sydney in the upcoming federal elections, said on February 24.
"The Socialist Alliance strongly opposes any privatisation of our public health system, as well as any further pathology cuts, co-payments or attacks on our public hospitals."
I feel privileged to have been able to spend several hours on the community picket outside Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane where people were rallying in solidarity with Asha.
Asha is the refugee baby who was being treated for burns after an accident in Australia's notorious offshore refugee detention camp, in the increasingly dictatorial Pacific island state of Nauru.
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