Members of the Iranian community and their supporters protested outside the NSW state parliament on May 13 after the executions of five union activists in Evin prison in Tehran on May 9.
Shirin Alam-Houli, Ali Heydarian, Mahdi Islamian, Farzad Kamangar and Farhad Vakili were hanged after being convicted of Moharebeh 鈥 鈥渨aging war on God鈥. Four of the activists were members of Kurdish opposition groups.
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Since March 14, Bangkok has been paralysed by mass pro-democracy protests. The protesters known as 鈥淩ed Shirts鈥, have demanded the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and new elections. Abhisit came to power in December through the overthrow of a democratically elected government by right-wing 鈥淵ellow Shirt鈥 gangs, assisted by the military and elements of the royal family.
Did you hear the one about the election everyone lost? On May 6, Labour, the party in power, lost 100 seats and with it the chance to continue in government after 13 years. The Conservatives lost the victory all the polls had been promising them for the past 18 months.
The Liberals suffered perhaps the most devastating humiliation after Cleggmania turned out to be a complete and utter mirage. The man who apparently wowed us so much in the TV leadership debates actually lost a number of seats rather than gaining any.
The following is an abridged speech by Bolivian President Evo Morales to a meeting of the G77 and China, which brings together 130 developing countries, at the United Nations on May 7. The World People鈥檚 Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia over April 19-22. For more information on the conference, and for the full resolutions adopted, visit PWCCC.org.
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Since October, dozens of social leaders have been shot and eight killed in the struggle between Spanish-based oil and gas multinational Union Fenosa and communities in the west of the country.
On October 24, Victor Galvez was shot 32 times as he left his office, where he was meeting with neighbours whose electricity supply had been cut off by one of Union Fenosa鈥檚 subsidiaries.
Opposition to Union Fenosa began with the privatisation of electricity supply in 1999, with the multinational as the main beneficiary.
The Liberal Democrats have committed to support about $10 billion in public spending cuts as part of their coalition deal with the Conservative Party, said in a May 12 article. An abridged version is below.
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Liberal Democrat (LD) leader Nick Clegg is deputy prime minister (not bad for a leader who lost seats in the election) and another four members of his party will be in cabinet as part of the power-sharing deal signed with the Conservative Party (Tories).
鈥淭he time of big energy was supposed to have faded with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency鈥, Billy Wharton wrote in a May 12 article.
鈥淭hen, a humble Coloradan, with a cowboy hat that seemed permanently affixed to his head, named Ken Salazar ambled to the microphone to accept Obama鈥檚 nomination to be the new Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI).鈥
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally announced that the Labor government would block a proposed open-cut coalmine near Scone in the Upper Hunter Valley on May 14.
The decision puts an end to the Bickham coal project, which would have mined coal for the next 25 years, threatening to contaminate the Pages River and other water sources for local farmland. The decision also permanently bans any open-cut coal mines at the Bickham site.
Keneally said: 鈥淭his mine is simply not compatible with the unique rural characteristics of this locality, including the horse-breeding industry.
Newspeak in the 21st Century
by David Edwards & David Cromwell
Pluto Press, 2009, 299 pages, $25
Review by John Smith
News-analysing website Media Lens isn鈥檛 liked by the corporate media.
Perhaps no other sector better exemplifies the challenge the Bolivian government faces in lifting the country out of the poverty and dependency afflicting South America鈥檚 poorest nation than its all-important mining industry.
Mining minister and former miners鈥 union leader Jose Pimentel told 91自拍论坛 Weekly: 鈥淏olivia has been a mining country for more than 500 years, ever since the Spanish came and discovered the legendary wealth [of the silver mines] of Potosi.鈥
A near-disaster involving toxic waste in the southern Perth suburb of Hamilton Hill has revealed that working class neighbourhoods are exposed to potential carcinogens local resident and Socialist Alliance candidate Sanna Andrew said.
The Fremantle Steam Laundry in Hamilton Hill burst into flames in the early hours of May 13. Fire fighters ordered some nearby residents to evacuate because the factory had a stockpile of the dry cleaning chemical perchloroethylene (PCE).
鈥楶erish the Privileged Orders鈥: A Socialist History of the Chartist Movement
By Mark O鈥橞rien
New Clarion Press Revised Edition 2009, 119 pages
Review by Alex Miller
If you believed the corporate media, you might think that the greatest threats to parliamentary democracy in a country like Britain have come from Kaiser Wilhelm鈥檚 armies in World War I or 鈥 today 鈥 from Al Qaeda and Islamic jihadists. In fact, the greatest enemies of representative democracy in Britain over the centuries have been the British ruling classes themselves.
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