At first glance, you might have mistaken London鈥檚 packed streets on November 10 for a Mardi Gras carnival. There young faces and large grins, combined with incessant whistle-blowing, trumpet-blasting and drum-beating. All mixed together to form the din of student protest.
The noise took shape and all of a sudden burst from the centre of the crowd, picked up by everyone else: 鈥淣o ifs, no buts, no education cuts鈥 鈥 the main chants of the 50,000 students marching forward from Westminster to the destination of the Milbank headquarters of the Conservative Party.
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Demonstrators marched in Santa Cruz, the capital of Spanish-ruled Canary Islands just off the north-west African coast, on November 11 against the week-long assault on a protest camp in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
James Tweedie wrote on Ositorojo.blogspot.com that day that more than 1000 people, many Sahrawis but mostly Spanish Canarians, marched through the city centre to demand an end to the police and military operation.
Cuba and Venezuela condemned on November 11 the repression by Moroccan forces against Sahrawi people in El-Aaiun, the Venezuelan News Agency (AVN) said that day.
Cuban and Venezuela鈥檚 ambassadors to Algeria, Hector Michel Mujica and Eumelio Caballero, condemned the attack by Morrocco, which is illegally occupying Western Sahara. The ambassadors are also the accredited diplomatic representatives of their nations to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the independence of which is being denied by Morocco.
GasLand
A film by director Josh Fox
In Palace cinemas from November 18
www.GasLand.com.au
In September 2006, theatre director and part-time banjo player Josh Fox received an unexpected letter in the mail: a natural gas company offering him $100,000 for permission to explore his family's upstate New York property, in the lush Delaware River Basin area.
The Refugee Advocacy Network organised a rally against mandatory detention on November 7, in response to the federal Labor government鈥檚 huge expansion of the system. About 400 people attended the protest.
A keynote speaker at the rally was visiting Afghan activist Malalai Joya. She drew the link between the occupation of her country (in which Australia takes part) and Afghans becoming refugees.
鈥淎fghans are leaving because of catastrophe in their country鈥, she said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 bring democracy with occupation.鈥
A Union and Community Summer School, Winning Our Rights, will be held over December 10-11 at Melbourne Trades Hall.
Most left political traditions will take part in the school, which aims to strengthen unity on issues for which there is agreement.
The approach will be one of problem-solving. To usefully tackle the big challenges confronting the union movement 鈥 such as the fight against anti-union laws and the struggle for a sustainable economy 鈥 it begins by setting out the concrete questions these challenges pose to unions and labour movement activists.
More than 100 people attended a Brunswick candidates鈥 forum about planning issues on November 11. The high attendance reflected anger at the many high-rise buildings planned for the inner-Melbourne area. Six state election candidates addressed the meeting.
Socialist Alliance candidate Trent Hawkins said residents must be involved in decision-making. Planning minister Justin Madden has "called in" 230 projects so far this year, allowing him to overrule local council decisions. Hawkins said development decisions must involve the community.
The Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) released by treasurer Wayne Swann on November 9 shows that Labor is betting on the minerals boom continuing. While admitting that the global economy remains tenuous, and that the whole house of cards could collapse, it has no 鈥減lan B鈥.
鈥淭he update forecasts strong growth, falling unemployment and a big pipeline of investment that鈥檚 gathering momentum鈥, Swann said.
A November 4 World Bank and International Finance Corporation report, Doing Business 2011: Making a Difference for Entrepreneurs, ranked Colombia as the 39th most 鈥渂usiness friendly environment鈥 in the world.
Colombia鈥檚 鈥淒oing Business鈥 score, which measures how much the country has improved for business, showed Colombia as the best improving economy in the region.
Missing from the report were the more than 500 unionists killed in Colombia over the past eight years, making up 60% of all unionists killed globally.
Federal Liberal/National Coalition leader Tony Abbott left Normanton, in far north Queensland鈥檚 gulf country, on November 10, having failed to win Aboriginal elders' backing for his bill to repeal Queensland's Wild Rivers legislation.
The existing Wild Rivers legislation aims to protect the wilderness rivers of the tropical north, and provide Aboriginal control of employment and economic development in the region.
The easy view to adopt after the drubbing received by the Democrats in the November 2 midterm elections would be that we鈥檙e back to normal, and Americans are just mental.
That is because the people leading the hatred of US President Barack Obama are characters such as Glenn Beck, spokesperson for the right-wing Tea Party. Beck hosts a TV show in which, during the last 18 months, he鈥檚 likened Obama to Hitler 349 times.
Every night, he must tell viewers that Hitler started out with a healthcare plan, then things spun out of control so he invaded France.
Seventy people from across New South Wales took part in the Socialist Alliance state conference on October 7 to discuss politics and political campaigns in NSW and plan for the March 2011 state elections.
The conference decided to run a 鈥渞ed-green鈥 election campaign based on the slogan 鈥淣SW not for sale, community need not corporate greed!鈥
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