A few hundred activists protested Pauline Hanson and raicism in Bourke Street Mall, Melbourne on 7th October.
Photos by Alison Eldridge.
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A crude and jingoistic appeal to Australian patriotism is the last refuge of the pro-war scoundrels as we approach the Australian parliamentary debate on Afghanistan. Australia sent troops to Afghanistan in October 2001, but it has taken nine years for parliament to discuss this act of war. Is this how Australia鈥檚 celebrated democracy works?
Australian troops were sent to wage wars on an impoverished, already war-devastated and traumatised country without even a discussion in parliament, let alone a vote.
The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is an extraordinary drama filled with pathos and heroism. It is also a media windfall for the Chilean government, whose every beneficence is recorded by a forest of cameras. One cannot fail to be impressed. However, like all great media events, it is a facade. The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile and is the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile's gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits.
Workers and students mobilised in their millions on October 12 in the fourth and largest mobilisation in the last month against laws that will reduce the pension entitlements of French workers.
The political situation in France is dominated by the mobilization against the proposed reform of the pension system. This reform is at the heart of Sarkozy鈥檚 austerity policy. Although it is presented as an obvious demographic necessity, it is meeting increasing opposition in public opinion.
Andres Pelaez is the first secretary of the Uruguayan embassy in Australia. He will be speaking at the Sydney Latin America Solidarity Conference over October 16-17 (visit www.latinamericasolidarity.org for details). Below, he provides a theoretical look at the nature of the capitalist state and its relation to the struggle for socialism.
The issues he raises are being debated by the Latin American left. Throughout the region, popular struggles have given rise to a number of governments led by new or traditional left parties.
Despite pre-election poll predictions, the centre-left Workers Party (PT) presidential candidate failed to win outright in the first round of Brazil鈥檚 October 3 presidential elections.
PT candidate Dilma Rousseff, who won 46.7% of the vote, is seeking to succeed President Ignacio 鈥淟ula鈥 da Silva. Lula was the first PT president and was elected in 2002. He still enjoys a record-high 80% popularity rating.
Dilma, a former guerrilla and Lula鈥檚 cabinet chief, will face off on October 31 against right-wing Brazilian Social Democratic Party candidate, Jose Serra who scored 33%.
The marvellous part about a transport strike, such as the one on the London Underground on October 4, is the reports on the news afterwards.
This is where we鈥檙e told: 鈥淥ne plucky commuter beat the strike by breaking into the Imperial War Museum and stealing a Spitfire, which he used to ferry grateful passengers who鈥檇 been left stranded by the union in a swamp with little hope of ever seeing their children again.
Sombat Boonngamanong, a cultural activist and NGO organiser, was not a central leader of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (popularly known as the Red Shirts) when their mass protest camp at the Ratchaprasong intersection in the heart of Bangkok was bloodily dispersed by the Thai military on May 19.
Thousands were injured and 91 killed in the crackdown. Hundreds remain political prisoners.
But Sombat has since emerged as a popular figure in the dramatic Red Shirts' resurgence over the last month.
Popular Thai newspaper Prachatai has reported that, a woman was arrested on October 3 at a freedom bike ride by United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship supporters (popularly known as the Red Shirts) in Ayutthaya for selling slippers with Thailand鈥檚 military-installed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva鈥檚 face on them.
The slippers were printed with the message, 鈥淧eople died at Ratchaprasong鈥 鈥 referring to the May 19 military massacre against the Red Shirts鈥 mass protest camp in Bangkok.
Alina Canaviri Sullcani is a Bolivian indigenous peasant now visiting Australia. Canaviri is active in Santa Cruz as a leader of the National Federation of Indigenous Peasant Women of Bolivia 鈥淏artolina Sisa鈥 and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party led by President Evo Morales.
Canaviri spoke at the Latin America solidarity conference in Melbourne over October 8-9 and will be a featured guest at the solidarity conference held in Sydney over October 16 and 17 (visit www.latinamericasolidarity.org for details).
Report: unions key to wellbeing
A new report has found that trade unions improve the general well-being for union and non-union citizens in several industrialised countries, an October 7 InTheseTimes.com article said.
The findings, which appear in the September issue of Social Indicators Research, 鈥渉ighlight a link between union density and life satisfaction based on data from fourteen developed nations鈥, the article said.
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