A rebellion is developing across Britain in the face of huge spending cuts by the Conservative Party-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
The scale of the cuts is huge. The government is seeking to privatise huge swathes of the economy and hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs are under threat.
They have also cut corporation tax, but sharply increased the goods and services VAT tax from 17.5% to 20%, which hits those on lower incomes hardest.
By changing the inflation measure used to determine benefits and pensions, the government is plunging more people into poverty.
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Activists fighting to defend Sandon Point won an important victory in the Land and Environment Court in early February, opening the way for ongoing legal challenges to Stockland鈥檚 development at the site.
Stockland has been clearing the site to build the McCauley's Beach residential development. It is the last green strip from the escarpment to the coast in the northern Illawarra.
A community campaign against the development has been going for over 10 years. In late 2009, then-planning minister Kristina Keneally approved the development under Part 3A planning laws.
The flames of discontent continue to spread across the Middle East, in the wake of the toppling of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes in recent weeks.
A lot of my mates tell me that they're just not that into politics. However, I think what they really mean is that they're not into politicians. And too right, almost all of our politicians are decidedly uninspiring.
But these uninspiring politicians also are condemning, imprisoning and killing innocent people. And they are doing it in our name. This makes politics something we can't afford not to be interested in.
Leaked emails have revealed a plot by private internet security firms to bring down WikiLeaks. The plot was allegedly created on behalf of the Bank of America 鈥 the largest bank in the US.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange has said Bank of America will be the subject of future leaks.
Computer-hacker group Anonymous revealed the plot after stealing 50,000 internal emails from internet security company HBGary Federal.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered the federal government鈥檚 third 鈥渃losing the gap鈥 report on February 9. The report is an annual review of national efforts to address the mortality gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.
In an outrageous denial of the government鈥檚 failure, Gillard called for Aboriginal people to accept the blame for critical crises in health, education, employment and housing and chronic community breakdown.
In the lead up to the NSW state elections, several organisations and individuals have joined forces to demand the incoming NSW parliament pass a bill for equal marriage rights.
When the first issue of 91自拍论坛 Weekly came out on February 18, 1991, it was a dark time for the left.
The collapse of Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had capitalism鈥檚 mouthpieces loudly proclaiming the 鈥渆nd of history鈥.
But GLW saw it very differently. It was launched by members of the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP 鈥 which has now merged into the Socialist Alliance) to help regroup progressive forces to keep pushing for a pro-people alternative.
Sudan鈥檚 National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) is still holding dozens of protesters arrested during and after the January 30 protests against Omar al Bashir鈥檚 government. The protests were inspired by the Egyptian revolution.
The protesters are being held without charge. There are reports that many have suffered torture, including electrocution and sleep deprivation. Women detainees have been threatened with rape.
On February 14, I went to the seventh "Remember TJ Hickey" rally at Redfern. TJ Hickey was a 17-year-old Aboriginal boy who was killed in a dangerous police pursuit in 2004.
The state government and the NSW police moved to cover up their role in TJ's death. A coronial inquest exonerated the police involved.
But the inquest ignored important evidence, including witness accounts that said police had chased TJ moments before his death.
Australian illusions about Labor are likely to have more serious consequences in the very near future. Unable to charter any real alternatives to the neoliberal formula of war, privatisation and social exclusion, Labor鈥檚 pseudo-social democracy will fail, delivering us to neo-fascist regimes and multiple global crises.
The Labor government of Julia Gillard will be replaced by as ugly a bunch of thugs as we have ever seen; just as Obama will be replaced by the same neo-fascists that drew us into a series of bloody wars.
Father S.J. Emmanuel, president of the Global Tamil Forum, spoke at a Melbourne meeting of about 400 people on February 13. He said that while the civil war waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was over, the struggle for the rights of Tamils living in Sri Lanka continues in a new way.
The war officially ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the LTTE by the Sri Lankan army. But the Sri Lankan government is now carrying out what Emmanuel described as a policy of "genocide", attempting to wipeout any trace of Tamil existence in Sri Lanka.
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