Five revolutions in postwar Latin America have seen illiteracy as a neocolonial battleground.
Salvador Allende鈥檚 Chile 鈥 birthplace of How to Read Donald Duck, an iconic attack on cultural imperialism 鈥 reduced illiteracy from 15.2% to 6.3% in under two years (1971-73), triple the rate of any regime before or since.
In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas slashed the Somoza dictatorship legacy of 50% illiteracy to just 13% before the end of its first full year in power (1980), catapulting women to cultural and political prominence in the process.
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Environment Tasmania (ET), the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and The Wilderness Society (TWS) launched television and radio advertisements on March 30 that call for an end to logging in native forests.
The ads feature University of Tasmania biologist Peter McQuillan, who says: 鈥淲e need government to implement the agreed forest solution鈥.
鈥淧eace is not just the absence of violence; but the presence of justice,鈥 Samah Sabawi, Palestinian-Australian writer, and co-author of Journey to Peace In Palestine, told an audience of about 80 people at the University of Queensland on March 31.
She was commenting after a showing of Michael Weatherhead鈥檚 excellent documentary Return to Gaza. The documentary is based on the journey of her brother, Fetah Sabawi, who returned to Gaza with his wife and child in 2006 to visit family members and set up a music school for young Palestinian refugees.
I was having a conversation about the likely outcome of the NSW elections on Radio SkidRow, a Sydney community radio station, just days before the March 26 election.
鈥淲e know what is going to happen after [the Liberals'] Barry O鈥橣arrell wins the election, don鈥檛 we?鈥 I said. 鈥淗e鈥檒l wait a couple of weeks then he will announce that Labor has left the cupboard bare so they鈥檒l have to bring in an emergency budget.
US progressive journalist and author Joe Bageant died on March 26. Bageant is best known for his 2007 book Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America鈥檚 Class War, in which he writes about his home town of Winchester, Virginia.
In the book, Bageant investigated how the betrayal of poor whites by the Democrats led to many supporting the Republican Party, despite it being against their interests. He also wrote many articles and essays. His last book, published in September 2010, was Rainbows: A Redneck memoir.
Two days before a March 23 rally against the government鈥檚 proposed carbon price took place in Canberra, Liberal MP Dennis Jensen gathered outside parliament house why he opposed the policy.
He held up a piece of charcoal and dropped it to the ground. 鈥淒oes anyone know what that is? Charcoal, also known as carbon,鈥 he said. 鈥淚f you notice when I let it go, it doesn't float into the air.鈥
Things haven鈥檛 been going well for the Israeli occupation over the past few years. Numerous Israeli atrocities, such as the invasion and blockade of Gaza and the killings of civilians on the aid flotilla, have made many people aware of the truly oppressive situation facing the occupied Palestinians.
Lately, Israel has hardened its repression against the Palestinians even further in response to the popular revolts breaking out in the surrounding Arab countries and the loss of its ally, the Mubarak regime in Egypt.
Residents of Queensland鈥檚 Western Downs and their supporters have witnessed arrests, police harassment and some exciting victories over the past week in their fight to prevent coal seam gas expansion on the Tara estate, near Chinchilla. During a protest organised by Lock the Gate Alliance on March 29 Friends of the Earth campaigner and Queensland Greens co-founder Drew Hutton was arrested and charged with impeding the construction of a coal seam gas pipeline. Mr Hutton refused bail conditions and faced 30 days prison, but was soon released on unconditional bail.
Ireland鈥檚 new Fine Gael (FG)-Labour Party (LP) coalition government has set out an agenda of continuing the savage austerity and spending cuts of the Fianna Fail (FF)-Greens coalition ii has replaced.
The cuts are enforced by the International Monetary Fund-European Union bailout of the Irish government.
In the February 26 elections, FF and the Greens were thrashed in a backlash against the bail-out and the anti-worker austerity that goes with it. The Greens failed to win a seat in the Dail (Irish parliament) and FF slumped from 77 seats to 20.
Manufacturer BlueScope Steel has been at the forefront of the campaign against the carbon price proposed by Labor and the Greens.
Chief Executive Paul O'Malley has argued it could spell 鈥渢he end of steel manufacturing in Australia鈥; something the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott agreed with during a recent tour of BlueScope's steelworks in Port Kembla.
Both have said that a price on carbon would threaten the company's profitability and therefore force operations offshore in search of cheaper labour.
Israeli forces have sealed the occupied West Bank village of Beit Ommar since March 24 for an indefinite time.
Soldiers continue to arrest young Palestinian residents and hold them in Israeli detention centres.
In a move akin to the four-year-long economic blockade against the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers have closed the six entrances to the village of 17,000 inhabitants.
It has imposed a widespread prohibition policy against all major imports and exports from the village. This includes gasoline, produce, raw industrial materials and basic supplies.
Good politicians are few and far between, but British health secretary Andrew Lansley is among the worst. In 2008, he was forced to apologise after saying recessions brought "good things" such as people being able to spend more time with their families.
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