The French Parliament, on the eve of Bastille Day, voted 335 to one in favour of preventing Muslim women wearing a full face-covering veil in public.
The July 13 Le Monde said the new law was strongly supported by the right. The gutless Socialist Party (PS), French Communist Party (PCF) and Green Party, while being 鈥渞esolutely opposed鈥 to the wearing of the niqab and the burka, abstained.
The PS鈥檚 big objection was that the legislation is a 鈥済ift for fundamentalists鈥.
Maybe. Mostly it鈥檚 a gift for every racist Islamophobe in Europe.
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Al-Sharq al-Awsat said on July 15 the Libyan aid ship, Amaltheal (鈥淗ope鈥) docked the night before at al-Arish in Egypt. The ship was bearing 2000 tons of aid supplies for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel.
The ship鈥檚 odyssey from Greece was marked by uncertainty and danger for the 21 passengers. It developed a mechanical problem that made it move very slowly on July 14. There was a question about whether its captain might try to take it right into Gaza, despite the Israeli military鈥檚 blockade.
Terrorism and the Economy 鈥 How the War on Terror is Bankrupting the World
By Loretta Napoleoni
Seven Stories Press, 176 pages
Review by Thomas Kollmann
With no end in sight to operations in Afghanistan, an incisive review of how the much-hyped international events of the last nine years have led us there is very welcome.
Economist Loretta Napoleoni is renowned for throwing light on the murky world of the financing of terrorist groups.
The Council of Single Mothers and their Children (CSMC) has taken a stand, in solidarity with Indigenous single mothers in the Northern Territory, against the income management and Basics Card scheme. These policies were part of the NT intervention, rolled out across Aboriginal communities in 2007.
Legislation passed in the Senate on June 21 amended the Social Security Act to allow income management to also be applied to non-Aboriginal people, across the NT and then eventually across Australia.
Fidel Castro Handbook By George Galloway MQ Publications, 2006 Review by Ramona Wadi In the introduction, to the Fidel Castro Handbook author George Galloway describes himself as 鈥渁 partisan for Cuba, for the revolution, for the leadership鈥. While a partisan view may be shunned in journalistic terms Galloway has no hesitation in embracing a revolution and being loyal to a cause that inspired working class and other exploited people throughout the world.
Twenty-four of the 50 Kennon Auto workers who are members of the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union have been on strike since July 1 for a pay rise. The rise has been denied to them for the past three years.
Police and the company are increasing the pressure to break the picket line, but the community has been mobilising to support the striking workers.
Workers at local factories have walked off the job at short notice to supplement the workers' protest at vital moments, preventing trucks from breaking through.
Peoplequake: Mass Migration, Ageing Nations & the Coming Population Crash
By Fred Pearce
Corgi Books, 2010, 352 pages
Review by Martin Empson
In the 200 years since the Reverend Thomas Malthus first penned his tract, An Essay on the Principle of Population, the question of the 鈥渃arrying capacity鈥 of the planet has repeatedly appeared.
Most recently, mainstream debates around how to solve the question of climate change have boiled down to the simplistic argument that 鈥渢here are too many people鈥.
Just days after the ALP replaced Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard as PM, Rio Tinto boss Tom Albanese delivered a blunt warning to governments around the world, especially Third World governments, not to be tempted to go for what he called 鈥渞esource nationalism鈥.
鈥淎s you know, the original May proposal for a super tax caused a furious national debate in Australia鈥, Albanese told a gathering of mining executives and big investors at Lord's in London.
Twenty years ago, superannuation was an employment benefit enjoyed only by public sector workers and management level employees in the corporate sector. Most workers had no access to superannuation.
Today 鈥渟uper鈥 is an 鈥渋ndustry鈥 of great value and interest to finance capital. The $1.3 trillion in superannuation funds came in handy when the ongoing 鈥済reat financial crisis鈥 (GFC) began in 2008. It was a lifeline for Australian corporations caught short.
What happened to create this behemoth?
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