The Olympics are a sporting and social phenomenon without parallel. The Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics was watched by close to 1 billion people.
Viewers for individual events can be remarkable. The website聽Sporting Intelligence said 184 million people watched a live women鈥檚 volleyball match between China and Cuba at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A further 450 million people watched part of it.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne's desperate efforts to put an Olympic shine on Britain's economy are failing to get off the starting blocks.
As they postured on the sidelines, the world saw the reality of an economy teetering on the brink of an unprecedented triple-dip recession.
Asset management company Schroders chief economist Azad Zangana believes gross domestic product (GDP) will rise by 0.5% this quarter due to the Olympics.
US Republican presidential nominee with his claims in Jerusalem that the vast (20:1) disparity in income between Israelis and Palestinians can be explained by a superior Jewish Israeli culture and 鈥渢he hand of providence鈥 鈥 rather than by the systematic depradations of Israeli occupation on the economy of Palestinians.
The campaign for marriage equality in Australia has been waged for almost a decade. That federal parliament, despite repeated polls showing support for equal marriage rights regardless of sexuality, has failed to legislate for marriage equality has caused widespread anger.
A sign of the growing momentum for marriage equality came with the announcement at the Tasmanian state Labor conference on August 4 that the Labor-led Tasmanian government would aim to pass legislation this year to legalise same-sex marriage in the state, should federal parliament fail to do so.
United States: Cops taser 12-year-old
鈥淎 police officer tased a 12-year-old girl inside a Victoria's Secret [on] Wednesday afternoon at South County Center [in St Louis County, Missouri].
鈥淧olice say the officer came into the Victoria's Secret looking for the teenager's mom, who had warrants for her arrest. But it was the teen who got tased.
鈥'This one goes in my chest. It was stuck in there so she had to keep on pulling trying to pull it out,' said Dejamon Baker, as she pointed to a small wound on her chest ...
Hundreds of armour-clad thugs from a private strikebreaking firm raided the site of a peaceful protest against a management-imposed lockout at the SJM car parts factory in Ansan, South Korea, on July 27.
Thirty four workers were injured and many were taken to hospital for treatment of serious injuries. The private strikebreakers were fitted in full riot gear with helmets, shields, sharp iron parts and meter long clubs. They sprayed fire extinguishers to obscure the workers' vision as they went on a club-weilding rampage.
The July 20 movie theatre massacre in Aurora, Colorado 鈥 in which 12 people were killed and 58 wounded 鈥 is reckoned by some sources to be the 36th mass shooting to have occurred in the US in the past three decades.
On top of these crazed rampages, the annual attrition of gun-related deaths accounts for about 30,000 victims across the US.
It would be bad enough if the seemingly unchallengeable dogma of the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment鈥檚 鈥渞ight to bear arms鈥 contributed to the deaths of only US citizens. Yet US 鈥済un culture鈥 is a lethal problem for the rest of the world as well.
If the official government line is to be believed, Australia is only a minor player when it comes to our greenhouse gas emissions.
In this view, Australia is powerless to bring about international action to cut emissions. Indeed, any such efforts are only likely to amount to economic self-sabotage.
, demolishes these arguments. Far from being an inconsequential emitter, Australia鈥檚 carbon footprint is immense.
Despite some complications, oil giant this year.
This just goes to show how things usually have a way of working out. Here we were worrying peak oil was just about upon us. But thanks to global warming caused by burning oil, the Arctic ice melt opens up more and more oil for the oil giants to burn.
Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, spoke to 麻豆传媒 TV鈥檚 Peter Boyle at a protest against deaths in custody in Sydney on July 27. He spoke about Tasers, shackling and the death of Aboriginal man Mr Clarke in Alice Springs. Watch the GLTV video of the interview, a transcribed extract of which is below, .
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The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) could have been a flagship policy that restored dignity to people with disabilities. Instead, ALP timidity and Coalition intransigence have left Australia with a woefully inadequate policy.
On July evenings, most people in Toronto are just trying to find ways to escape the heat and humidity. On July 30, more 150 people filled the room for a meeting on Contested Futures: Tar Sands and Environmental Justice.
Many had to sit on tables or stand to hear from two indigenous leaders of environmental justice actions in Ontario and two delegates to the People鈥檚 Summit Rio +20.
The meeting was initiated by the Greater Toronto Workers Assembly (International Solidarity Committee) and Toronto Bolivia Solidarity; a further 20 groups endorsed and helped build the event.
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