released this statement on May 1.
***
As workers around the world take to the streets to celebrate May Day, we are sharply aware that the capitalist system has reached a point of development where it threatens the habitability of the planet on which we all live.
963
This weekend unionists around Australia will march to celebrate the achievements of working people. While May 1 is the traditional day to remember the struggle of workers to form unions and fight for a better life, in Australia the marches and parades usually occur on the first weekend of May.
This year, a range of socialist and activist groups will be marching together in joint contingents across Australia behind banners saying, .
As the packed galleries burst into an impassioned version of 鈥淧okarekare Ana鈥 (a well-known traditional Maori love song) in response to the passing of the Marriage Amendment Bill by 77-44 votes on April 17, a crowd of more than 1000 celebrated outside parliament in Wellington.
The vote made New Zealand the 13th nation to legalise same-sex marriage. France has since become the 14th.
A mob led by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka attacked a clothing shop owned by Muslims in March, setting fire to clothes while police looked on.
The attack on the Fashion Bug shop in Pepiliyana, a suburb of Colombo, followed the spreading of a false rumour that a Sinhala Buddhist employee had been raped by a Muslim employee on the premises.
About 10,000 workers rallied in Melbourne on April 30, demanding better safety on Grocon construction sites.
The rally marched to the Grocon-owned site in Swanston street where a wall collapsed onto a public footpath in March and killed three people.
The march then moved to another Grocon site where a crane operator was killed earlier this year.
Protesters demanded industrial manslaughter laws for bosses be introduced.
International support for West Papua grows with push to include the occupied nation in regional body
West Papua has been gaining international support recently, especially in its pursuit of inclusion in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a regional intergovernmental organisation that has supported the independence movements of its members.
Controversially, Indonesia, which has occupied West Papua for decades, has had observer status in MSG since 2011.
The 39th anniversary of Portugal鈥檚 1974 鈥渞evolution of the carnations鈥 that overthrew a 48-year-long dictatorship, was marked on April 25 by a huge march against austerity in Lisbon.
The symbols of that revolution 鈥 the carnations and the song 鈥淕randola, Vila Morena鈥 (broadcast in the early hours of April 25, 1974 as the signal to start the revolt )鈥 were massively present.
They now stand for the need for another rebellion, this time against the austerity imposed on the country by the 鈥渢roika鈥 -- the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
A selection of this week's politically-relevant celebrity news... Rebel Diaz Arts Collective finds new home http://bit.ly/11ztAet Cuban video game recreates revolutionary history http://gu.com/p/3enpq/tw Pussy Riot member denied early release from prison: http://gu.com/p/3fedq/tf Hear the new Neon Neon concept album about Italian publisher and leftwing activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. http://gu.com/p/3fak2/tw Rapper Danny Brown Gets Oral Sex On Stage, Continues Rapping http://bit.ly/ZUUbEF
Kings Konekted have just released some of the choicest cuts in Australian hip-hop - and they were inspired by some of the whackest cuts in Australian politics.
In the wake of Margaret Thatcher's departure, I remember her victims. Patrick Warby's daughter, Marie, was one of them.
Marie, aged five, suffered from a bowel deformity and needed a special diet. Without it, the pain was excruciating. Her father was a Durham miner and had used all his savings. It was winter 1985, the Great Strike was almost a year old and the family was destitute.
An article by journalist Elizabeth Farrelly, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 11 titled 鈥淧rotecting a cultural right to abuse鈥, starts by posing the question, 鈥淎t what point does autonomy slide into apartheid?鈥
The citizens of the Spanish state awoke on April 14 to shocking news 鈥 acts of 鈥減ure Nazism鈥 were spreading across the country.
Not only that, but they were being organised in concert with 鈥渆lements close to ETA鈥 (the armed Basque independence group that has declared a permanent ceasefire).
Who was responsible? A Spanish equivalent of the Greek neo-Nazi outfit Golden Dawn? Some surviving cell of the Falange (one-time shock troops of the Franco dictatorship and admirers of Hitler鈥檚 New Order in Europe)?
- Page 1
- Next page