Flanked by military commanders, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was in the nation鈥檚 second-largest city, Mosul, on July 10 to announce the city鈥檚 liberation from ISIS.
An end to the three-year-long rule by the extremely violent and authoritarian terrorist group is obviously good news for the city's residents. But it seems unlikely the group鈥檚 defeat will mean an end to their suffering, which began long before ISIS captured the city in June 2014.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has raised strong objections to moves by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) to impose severe restrictions on public sector workers' personal use of social media. "It is completely unreasonable for a worker to face disciplinary action over a private email or something as benign as 'liking' a social media post," said on August 7.
Locals took to the streets of Penrith on August 5 to rally against a controversial plan by Dial A Dump and its director Ian Malouf to build a waste-to-energy incinerator at Eastern Creek, in Sydney鈥檚 west.
The rally marched to the electorate office of Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres. It was timed to coincide with an Upper House inquiry into energy-from-waste technology due to begin on August 7.聽
I know exactly where I was on August 9, 2007. It was a hot summer鈥檚 day 鈥 鈥渄ebtonation day鈥.
Bankers all over the world had lost their collective nerve and refused to lend to each other. The globally synchronised financial system froze, and began its descent into sustained failure. It then took more than a year, and Lehman Brothers鈥 collapse, before the world understood the gravity of the crisis.
Ten years on, that slow-motion crisis, a prolonged period of disinflation, noflation and deflation, is still playing out.
More than 300 unionists and local residents protested outside the electorate office of Liberal MP for Drummoyne John Sidoti on August 4.
Chanting 鈥淛ohn Sidoti鈥檚 got to go!鈥 and waving placards opposing the NSW government鈥檚 planned privatisation of public buses in the Inner West, the protest elicited much support from passing motorists and pedestrians. There was no response, however, from Sidoti鈥檚 office.
Flags from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and the Australian Services Union (ASU) were prominent.
US President Donald Trump's August 8 statement that any threats from North Korea would be 鈥渕et with fire and fury like the world has never seen鈥 should have made us all very worried. But it has .
More than 200,000 protesters marched through Mumbai, disrupting traffic and straining the railway network, to press their demands for quotas in government jobs and education.
Rising unemployment and falling incomes are driving farming communities across India to redouble calls for reserving jobs and education, especially for the underprivileged Maratha community in western India.
So the government is planning a plebiscite on equal marriage by means of post, presumably because it didn鈥檛 want to confuse elderly opponents of marriage equality with new-fangled technological developments like the telegram.
The whole project will cost $122 million for a vote that is not even binding, when all polls for years have shown a large majority in favour of marriage equality and the thing could be resolved in a matter of hours by a simple vote in parliament.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has launched the First Nations Workers' Alliance to represent the 30,000 participants in the federal government鈥檚 Community Development Program (CDP), most of whom are Aboriginal people.
The move followed a resolution adopted by the ACTU executive authorising all means at its disposal to be mobilised towards dismantling the program. The resolution will kick-start the exploration of legal and legislative challenges to the program, as well as the mobilisation of campaign resources.
Environmentalists from Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay marched on August 5 in the department of Paysandu, Uruguay, to protest against oil and gas exploration being carried out by Australian company Petrel Energy. The company鈥檚 exploratory works, and potential exploitation, threaten the integrity of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the world鈥檚 largest deposits of groundwater.
Since 2013, Petrel Energy has been the majority shareholder in the US company, Shues
A new campaign, , spearheaded by Dr Alex Wodak and GetUp!, has been launched in response to the federal government鈥檚 decision to deny income support payments to those who test positive to certain drugs.
Opponents of the controversial $18 billion WestConnex tollway have continued protesting around the Inner West, as public opinion is turning against the state government's growing network of tollways, road tunnels, exit ramps and polluting smokestacks.
The anti-WestConnex movement is now spreading into opposition to the government's proposed Northern Beaches Link and the planned F6 expansion threatening a section of the Royal National Park to the south.