In a contribution to the magazine Viento Sur, Real Democracy Now! activist Nacho 脕lvarez looked at the challenges facing the Real Democracy Now! movement three weeks after May 15. Excerpts of the article are published below.
* * *
Collective reflection about what to do, how to channel people鈥檚 anger and how to structure a sustained and massive protest movement now grips the streets and squares of hundreds of Spanish cities.
882
Media outlets from the Dawn Media Group, Pakistans leading media house, published the first set of WikiLeaks files relating to Pakistan on May 20.
The leaked US cables revealed that the Pakistani military is complicit in US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas, bordering Afghanistan.
Each set of cables published by the group has had a ripple effect, with the leaked US cables widely reproduced.
At first, embarrassed military spokespeople and politicians exposed by the leaks denied the contents. Later, they tried to ignore them.
Global greenhouse gas emissions rose faster than ever last year and the market-based schemes set up to bring emissions down are in trouble. That鈥檚 the bad news from two recent reports by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the World Bank.
It鈥檚 been a year since the 鈥渕emorandum of understanding鈥 between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Greek government was signed. It is now clear it has failed to deliver the country鈥檚 promised economic recovery.
As confirmed by the treasury data, Greece鈥檚 debt has risen rather than fallen.
At the same time, the impact on Greek people of the austerity measures demanded by the IMF has been devastating.
Official unemployment has reached about 16% 鈥 an all-time high. There are 787,000 people unemployed 鈥 181,000 more than last year.
The editor-in-chief of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, told the Belfast Telegraph that the United States was working behind the scenes to put WikiLeaks and himself out of business.
Since the 1980s, Friends of the Earth's (FoE) annual Radioactive Exposure Tour has exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of 鈥渞adioactive racism鈥 and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear industry.
The tour is a 10-day journey into the heart of the breathtaking semi-arid landscapes of South Australia and its atomic history and current uranium mining operations.
Aboriginal community leader Sam Watson called a rally outside state parliament on June 1 to demand a new Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.
The rally also condemned the Queensland Police Union (QPU), who have demanded the Queensland government pay the legal costs incurred by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley during his defence case about the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Domadgee.
Watson told the rally: 鈥淲e as taxpayers should not be paying for the legal costs of Hurley and the QPU.
More than 60 people rallied outside parliament house on June 2 in support of rights for homeless people. This was the largest of three protests organised since the issue was raised in state parliament in April in relation to the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
鈥淭his is going to be the biggest environmental campaign this country has ever seen,鈥 Drew Hutton, acting president of the Lock the Gate Alliance, told a rally of several hundred people outside the Sofitel Hotel on May 31.
He was addressing the crowd outside a major conference of the coal seam gas (CSG) industry.
鈥淭he coal seam gas sector and governments are hungry for cash, and are quite willing to tear up our countryside to get it. Every part of the country will be affected,鈥 he said.
The not-guilty verdict in October for a young woman and her partner put on trial for using the drug RU486 to induce an abortion came as a big relief to many. The Cairns jury took less than an hour to deliver long-awaited justice.
Now the campaign has turned to smashing the anti-abortion laws that put the Cairns couple on trial in the first place. The case showed the urgent need to decriminalise abortion and realise that the right of women to control their fertility is a fundamental human right.
The deal to restructure the collapsing timber industry in Tasmania is struggling to make headway. Logging continues in old-growth forests at the same time as sawmills and woodchip mills close and more workers lose their jobs.
Anti-logging protests are being held weekly outside the premier鈥檚 office in Hobart, and the talks between environment and industry groups continue despite a key player pulling out in frustration.
The Wilderness Society (TWS) suspended its involvement in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement on May 18, citing a failure of leadership from state and federal governments.
About 40 people joined a 鈥渇lash mob鈥 action in the Myer Centre, Queen Street Mall, on June 3 to protest Seacret, as an Israeli company operating in Australia.
Seacret is a cosmetics firm that uses minerals from the Dead Sea, which is part of the Palestinian territory stolen by Israel over decades of invasion and oppression.
Participants in the flash mob occupied tables in the food court at Myers and chanted a song, beginning with the refrain, 鈥淲e will boycott Israel! We will boycott Israel!鈥
They then trooped through the centre, chanting, 鈥淔ree, free Palestine!鈥
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page