Prime Minister Gordon Brown looks set to break Labours 2005 election manifesto pledge to hold a referendum before Britain signs up to a new European Union constitution. At an August 22 press conference with German leader Angela Merkel, Brown announced that there was no need to hold a referendum and that the matter would instead be decided by parliament.
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“The internal situation will intensify over the next months, more contradictions will emerge, simply because we have no plans to hold back the march of the revolution”, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on March 24, speaking to more than 2000 promoters of the new socialist party being constructed in Venezuela. “These contradictions”, he said, would “intensify, because we are dealing with the economic issue, and there is nothing that hurts a capitalist more than his pocket, but we have to enter into this issue, we cannot avoid it”.
Whenever a socialist from the generation whose political ideas were shaped by involvement in the global movement against the US-led Vietnam War pay their first visit to Vietnam, it is a bit like a pilgrimage. It is an encounter with a symbolic home of our political hopes and convictions.
A report released on August 30 by the Australia Council Of Social Services (ACOSS) shows that the number of Australians living in poverty has increased over the past 10 years. Using an international poverty line of 50% of median income, the numbers increased from 7.6% to 9.9% of the population between 1994 and 2004, or nearly 2 million Australians. This measure is used extensively in OECD countries. Using the same poverty line used in the UK and Ireland, 60% of median income, poverty has risen from 17.1% of the population in 1994 to 19.8%, or 3.8 million Australians, in 2004.
A leaked document outlining PM John Howards climate action plan for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to be held in Sydney on September 8 and 9 once again confirms the Coalitions dangerously cavalier approach to global warming.
A new assessment by the CIA and 15 other US spy agencies of Washingtons counterinsurgency war in Iraq, released on August 23, argued that the addition since early February of 28,500 US troops to the 134,000-strong US occupation force has brought measurable, but uneven improvements in security. However the report provided no statistics to support this claim.
During a 24 hour visit in Haitis Plateau-Central, human rights organisation AUMOHD (Association of University Graduates Motivated for a Haiti with Rights), headed by lawyer Evel Fanfan, recorded interviews with hundreds of victims from the 2001-04 attacks by former soldiers in the area. During this period, three of the most heavily targeted Lavalas communities were Mirebalais, Lascahobas, and Belladeres. (Fanmi Lavalas is the party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian president ousted in a 2004 coup.) Human rights investigators visited all of these communities and held discussions with groups of the victims.
The lead singer of rock band U2, Sir Bono, was awarded his honourary Knighthood Commander of the Order of the British Empire in March. In an example of the power of the corporate media to paint black as white, the multi-millionaire Bono has somehow gotten a reputation as a progressive social activist, standing up for the downtrodden of the world.
Michael Barker’s reply (“Promoting ’democracy’ through civil disobedience”, GLW #722) to a letter-to-the-editor by Jack DuVall (GLW #718, online edition) contains some serious factual errors and misleading comments regarding the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), for which I serve as chair of the board of academic advisers.
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd spoke to 鶹ý Weekly’s Sue Bolton on August 20 about some Victorian unions’ plans for another mass mobilisation against the Work Choices legislation.
Climate change
We're on the fast track to climate meltdown unless greenhouse gases are slashed 60% by 2050. We teeter on the edge of ghastly feedback loops, as the Arctic soils melt and threaten to spew trillions of tons of methane into the air.
On August 30, the Tasmanian parliament approved an operating permit for Gunns Ltds proposed $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill. The independents-dominated upper house voted by 10 votes to four to allow the mill to go ahead.
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