The Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York in September last year and rapidly spread to hundreds of cities and towns across the United States, continues organising against the greed and exploitation of the 鈥1%鈥.
Occupy activists are mobilising against home evictions, supporting workers fighting for their rights and taking action against corporate exploitation and environmental destruction.
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Since its November 20 election triumph, the administration of Spanish Popular Party (PP) Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has launched such a blitzkrieg of neoliberal policies, less democratic rights, state centralism and conservative social values that at times it seems as if the country has gone back 40 years in four weeks.
Rajoy鈥檚 is not just one more example of a new government breaking promises due to 鈥渟hocking revelations鈥 that its predecessors had left the cupboard bare. (That old ruse has already led to public sector salary cuts of up to 鈧500 a month.)
When Aboriginal rapper Darah Morris uploaded his first music video, "Aboriginal Style", to YouTube, it became an instant hit. Then it got deleted. "After 15,000 views on YouTube it got removed for 'inappropriate content', which I find really ridiculous," he tells 麻豆传媒 Weekly.
Hearings began last month into the case of five West Papuan independence leaders on trial for treason. They were arrested with hundreds of others when Indonesian troops attacked the Papuan People's Congress on October 19 last year.
The conference had declared the Indonesian-occupied territory an independent state. West Papua was officially annexed by Indonesia's Suharto dictatorship in 1969 in a United Nations-supervised 鈥渁ct of free choice鈥, in which only 1022 Papuans were allowed to vote.
More than 50 people rallied outside the Perth headquarters of British multinational corporation Serco on March 9 to protest against the company's ongoing push to privatise and take over public services. Serco runs Australia鈥檚 immigration detention centres and is responsible for implementing the oppressive government policy of mandatory detention.
A telling quote in the film KONY 2012 says: 鈥淲ho are you to stop a war? 鈥 the question is, who are you not to?鈥 I think the question that the people behind KONY 2012, which went viral on the internet on March 7, need to be asked is: 鈥淲ho are you to start one?鈥 Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord鈥檚 Resistance Army in eastern Africa, is a bad man.
After eight months of campaigning by Victoria鈥檚 nurses to keep staff-to-patient ratios and win a wage rise there may be a breakthrough in the dispute.
On March 7, the Ted Baillieu Coalition state government finally offered to begin new negotiations with the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) though a conciliation process overseen by Fair Work Australia.
The advertising industry is insidious. A massive US$464 billion was estimated to have been spent in 2011. Next year it is tipped to grow by another US$22 billion despite the ongoing economic crisis in Europe and the US.
Sometimes it takes a truly dramatic event to really make you face up to a serious threat.
Photos by Peter Boyle
More than 500 women and their supporters marched through Sydney's CBD on March 10 for an International Women's Day protest.
Workers and their unions need strong labour law reforms. Two of many changes I urge can be adopted by the Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work in Australia and the federal government鈥檚 Fair Work Act Review are:
1. Amend the Fair Work Act to repeal the penal powers and have an effective right to strike.
2. Amend the Fair Work Act to restrict casual and other forms of precarious work to a limited period. Then require employment contracts for ongoing, more permanent work. Fair Work Australia should have the power to order the transition to more secure employment contracts.
The 2012 International Women's Day (IWD) march in Sydney, Australia, took place on March 10. Protesters marched from Town Hall to First Fleet Park near Circular Quay, where they held a IWD picnic.
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