The streets of Oakland, California, echoed with the voices of tens of thousands of people determined to take a stand on November 2. Workers, students, activists and people from all walks of life responded to the call for a general strike by Occupy Oakland. The last general strike in the United States was in 1946 (also in Oakland).
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Two civilian boats, the Canadian Tahrir (鈥淟iberation鈥), and the Irish Saoirse (鈥淔reedom鈥), carried 27 people from nine countries to try to reach the beleaguered Gaza Strip to challenge Israel鈥檚 ongoing criminal blockade of the territory.
On November 4, the two ships were illegally boarded by the Israeli military in international waters. All passengers, including Australian activist Michael Coleman, were detained by Israel.
In October, the Sydney branch of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society (ACFS) toured Dr Merita Armindo Monteiro, an East Timorese doctor trained for free in Cuba. Armindo Monterio is also an activist in the Timor Leste-Cuba Friendship Association.
Since 2004, Cuba has undertaken a large-scale medical training program for East Timor and sent hundreds of Cuban medical personnel to work on the island. Cuban medical collaboration in the region has since been extended to Kiribati, Nauru, Vanuatu, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. Papua New Guinea may soon benefit from Cuba鈥檚 generosity as well.
On election night in Tunisia, as it became clear that moderate Islamist party Ennahda had won most seats in the Constituent Assembly and would be forming government, many Tunisians feared for the revolutionary struggle that has continued since the uprising that overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January.
In the final count, Ennahda received just under 37% of the popular vote, and won 90 seats out of the 217-member assembly. The next largest vote was won by the centre-left Congress for the Republic Party (CPR), with 30 seats.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the expropriation of the British agricultural company Agroflora.
The company is a subsidiary of Britain鈥檚 Vestey Group that focuses on the commercial production of beef.
Chavez said the company鈥檚 290,000 hectares of farmland would be expropriated and brought under direct 鈥渙perational and administrative control鈥 of the state through the country鈥檚 Food Security and Sovereignty Law.
This law allows the government to forcefully expropriate land in 鈥渆xceptional circumstances鈥 relating to issues of national food security and the public good.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams led a dramatic walkout from the Dublin parliament (Dail) on November 2. The protest was over the coalition government鈥檚 decision to hand over more than 鈧700 million to an unknown private investor in the failed Anglo Irish Bank.
Finance minister Michael Noonan admitted in the Dail there was no legal obligation to refund the bond investment, which was not covered by the former government鈥檚 bank guarantee.
With the government refusing a debate on the matter, Adams led the walkout of Sinn Fein and United Left Alliance parliamentarians.
Thousands of New South Wales high school and primary school teachers stopped work for two hours on November 2. They voted overwhelmingly to reject the Coalition O鈥橣arrell state government鈥檚 salary offer.
Ninety-nine percent of teachers at the stopwork meetings also voted to hold a 24-hour stopwork action on November 29 if the government refused to make a reasonable salary offer.
Teachers will consider further industrial action at the start of 2012 if a reasonable offer is not made by then.
Occupy Melbourne has re-established its occupation at Melbourne鈥檚 Treasury Gardens. Its general assemblies are still held in City Square, the original Occupy Melbourne site.
Since being violently evicted from City Square on October 21, Occupy Melbourne has become a travelling occupation. When the Occupy Melbourne march arrived at the Treasury Gardens on October 29, it was met with a big police contingent, including police on horses. The police had threatened to arrest anyone who tried to pitch tents.
If you speak out against the widening gap between wages and CEOs鈥 salaries, the corporate media will accuse you of stoking the 鈥減olitics of envy鈥. Workers who dare take industrial action to get a few more crumbs from the bosses鈥 table are cast as class war dinosaurs.
In the space of barely more than a weekend, the deal that was supposed contain the euro crisis has unravelled entirely. The call for a referendum on the so-called rescue package by Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, later retracted under huge pressure, merely capped its rapid unravelling.
The prospect that the European Unions鈥 principal victims could be asked their opinion of the policies inflicted on them provoked near-hysteria in respectable quarters. EU leaders, Greek politicians, and the financial markets united to denounce the threat of an unseemly democratic intrusion.
From November 9 to 15 Australian Taxation Office staff will vote on management's proposed enterprise agreement. This is the second time a staff ballot has been held. The first version of management鈥檚 proposal was rejected in June by a majority of 59% to 41%.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is recommending that staff vote 鈥渘o鈥, because the pay offer of 9% over three years is less than the expected rate of inflation.
A ballot of CPSU members endorsed this position following a recommendation by union鈥檚 Tax Section Council.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce grounded all Qantas aircraft, locked out Qantas workers, and disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers, including visiting heads of state, on October 29.
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