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Hundreds of people joined the #GlobalNoise protest in Melbourne in October 13. Similar protests took place during the Global Noise week of action, from October 12 to October 20.

Under the banner of the Lock the Gate Alliance, about 100 demonstrators assembled outside Brisbane鈥檚 Convention Centre for the Queensland Gas Conference and exhibition on October 9 to protest their exclusion from the Australian Petroleum and Production Association鈥檚 (APPEA) inaugural Coal Seam Gas (CSG) Conference and Exhibition. Lock the Gate formally requested that its observers be permitted entry to the conference seminars concerning 鈥渟ocial licence to operate鈥.

Sydney Stop CSG organised a human sign action at Sydney Park, St Peters, as its part of an Australia-wide week of action on this issue. A thousand people participated in this successful event.

Nothing quite prepares you for a first visit to Venezuela 鈥 especially when the country is polarised between two very different visions for the future. This is how it was just before the October 7 presidential elections, which socialist President Hugo Chavez won with 55% of the vote in the largest turnout, more than 81%, in Venezuelan history.
There is something incredibly frustrating about the fact that the Red Hot Chili Peppers played a concert in Israel, ignoring international pleas for them to cancel and observe the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Admittedly, I wasn鈥檛 even quite aware of just how much their decision stung until the day after their appearance at the Pic.Nic festival in Tel Aviv.
Love & Capital: Karl & Jenny Marx & the Birth of a Revolution By Mary Gabriel, Little, Brown & Company 2011 707 pages, $39.99 The spectre of Karl Marx still haunts the capitalist world. Only 11 people attended his funeral in 1883 and the corporate press still loves to dance on his grave, constantly declaring that his ideas are irrelevant. Yet with every economic crisis all eyes return to Marx's masterpiece, Capital, to understand what is really going on in our economic system.

Independent journalist, political activist and author Antony Loewenstein discusses his new book After Zionism, at Sydney's Gleebooks on October 2.

At least 50,000 protesters rallied in Athens on October 9 to tell visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel she was not welcome. Thousands of police officers cordoned off whole sectors of the city to prevent demonstrators embarassing Merkel, though police still detained more than 50 people during the day. Even in unrestricted areas pedestrians were stopped and searched. But the crowds made their message clear, gathering outside parliament and chanting: 鈥淗istory is written by the disobedient.鈥
Residents of the Nad Ali district staged a demonstration on October 6 against NATO-led troops in Lashkargah, the capital of southern Helmand province, Pajhwok Afghan News said that say. About 100 protesters accused the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers of killing innocent civilians during operations in the district, PAN said. District security was recently handed to Afghan forces. The article said: 鈥淸O]ne tribal elder claimed Afghan and foreign forces killed his son during a nighttime raid two days back.
Two recent events dramatised the state of economy and politics in the Spanish state: the Red Cross announced that this year the takings of its annual Flag Day would go to fight poverty and social exclusion in Spain, and education minister Jose Ignacio Wert told the national parliament that changes to the national education syllabus were aimed at 鈥淪panishing鈥 students in Catalonia. The Red Cross decision came as a shock across the country. People knew things were bad, but that bad?
The reality of the Vietnam War as a brutal, imperialist adventure has been carefully omitted from official ceremonies in the United States held to mark the 50th anniversary of the war鈥檚 beginning in 1962. Starting this year, the government will implement 鈥渁 13-year program to honor and give thanks to a generation of proud Americans who saw our country through one of the most challenging missions we have ever faced鈥.
Colin Fox addresses thousands of supporters of Scottish independence, Edinburgh, September 22.

Tommy Docherty, the legendary wit and former manager of Manchester United, once quipped after his team had suffered a humiliating defeat, 鈥淲e lost 4-0 and frankly we were lucky to get the nil鈥. The Tories in Scotland know just how he felt, for they are so hated that out of 56 MPs they have just one, and they were lucky to get that!