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Chelsea Manning starts hunger strike

Chelsea Manning, the US army private who leaked classified information about US war crimes to WikiLeaks, announced on September 9 that she has begun a hunger strike to protest the lack of respect and dignity from prison and military officials.

鈥淚 need help, I am not getting any,鈥 Manning said in a statement. 鈥淚 have asked for help time and time again for six years and through five separate confinement locations. My request has only been ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration.鈥

CFMEU stops heritage service sell off

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has scored a victory against the privatisation agenda of the state Coalition government after it abandoned plans to privatise the NSW Public Works Heritage Services, UnionsNSW announced on September 2.

About 40 stonemasons, scaffolders and roofers have been maintaining some of Sydney鈥檚 oldest buildings for more than 20 years, but in June last year Finance Minister Dominic Perrottet announced their jobs would be outsourced.

ASIO wants more power to detain without charge

Since 2003, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has had the power to detain people for up to seven days, without charge, for questioning in relation to a terrorism investigation.

That person does not have to be a terrorism suspect or even an associate of a terrorism suspect; is compelled to answer questions; and is forced to keep the detention and interrogation secret.

The political advantages of Lucy Turnbull

Early one morning last month, the Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) Lucy Turnbull 鈥 a lifelong resident of the city鈥檚 most privileged suburbs along the south-eastern edge of the harbour 鈥 quietly slipped across to Sydney鈥檚 inner west where she was taken on tour by a WestConnex manager of the M4 East tollway tunnel corridor. There she presumably saw for the first time the gigantic construction sites in Haberfield where scores of heritage homes, businesses, gardens, parks and trees stood until a few weeks ago.

France: New mobilisations called as campaign steps up to defend workers鈥 rights

French workers and students are set to hold a new national mobilisation against the 鈥淓l Khomri鈥 labour law, which undermines workers鈥 rights.

The protest is the 14th national mobilisation in the campaign against the law this year 鈥 but the first since the law was forced through parliament without a vote and since France's summer holidays.

Graf all you want, but don't you dare be poor!

Increased evidence of homelessness in Melbourne鈥檚 iconic graffiti laneway, Hosier Lane, has prompted outrage from government and local businesses in recent weeks.

Venezuela forum calls for solidarity

"We are facing severe economic and political destabilisation in Venezuela. The leaders of the right-wing opposition have been trying to create fear in the country for many weeks now," Eulalia Reyes, a Venezuelan activist in Australia, told a Sydney forum on September 3.

She was in Venezuela during the violent opposition protests in 2014, and more recently from October 2015 to June 2016. She presented an eyewitness account of what is really going on in Venezuela today.

Single mother: Our crumbling safety net

The responsibility of governments to help with the costs of child-rearing has been a part of Australian social policy since the early 1920s, when the first widows鈥 pension (1926) and child endowment (1927) schemes were introduced.

Australia has recognised this principle since the Harvester judgment of 1907, which raised the issue of how much income was appropriate for a family with child-rearing responsibilities. For most of the 20th century, this was recognised in taxation policy, as well as in income support policies.

Irish union supports CUB 55

Below is the Mandate Trade Union in Dublin鈥檚 solidarity message to the Carlton and United Brewery strikers.

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Mandate, the union for retail and bar workers in Ireland, has sent a message of solidarity to the 55 sacked workers of the Carlton United Breweries plant in Abbottsford, Victoria and urges all Irish workers based in Australia to support the workers as they struggle for their rights and their jobs.

Proposed private western Metro slammed

The NSW Greens have slammed reported plans by the state government to build a new privatised western Metro train line from the city centre to Parramatta.

NSW prison teachers protest against job cuts

Prison teachers at the Cessnock Correctional Centre stopped work for an hour on September 5. A similar action by staff at Long Bay Prison in Sydney took place on September 2.

They were protesting job cuts and the outsourcing of New South Wales prison education to staff without formal teaching degrees.

From February, prisoners in NSW will have most of their education delivered by staff from an external training organisation. Most of the prison teachers will be made redundant in December.

Activists present invoice on Threatened Species Day

National Threatened Species Day on September 7 is held each year to commemorate the day the last Tasmanian Tiger died in captivity in a Hobart zoo in 1936.

Environment groups Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO), Wildlife of the Central Highlands and Fauna and Flora Research Collective decided to commemorate the day this year by presenting an invoice for $2 million to the state government.

The groups called on the state government to better protect species such as the threatened Greater Glider and Victoria鈥檚 animal emblem, the critically endangered Leadbeater鈥檚 possum.