Margarita Windisch is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the Victorian seat of Wills. This is an edited version of a speech she gave to a rally for equal marriage rights in Melbourne on August 17.
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Oscar Wilde once said that disobedience and rebellion are the original virtues of humanity.
It is through disobedience and rebellion that we have achieved real progress. This protest today is an important demonstration of rebellion against an unjust law.
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The Army private and WikiLeaks whistleblower formerly known as Bradley Manning announced, in via lawyer David Coombs, the decision to transition to life as a woman and a request to be referred to as Chelsea and with female pronouns. Visit for more information on Manning's case.
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The Next Stage of My Life
鈥淲e of course recognise that this is it 鈥 make or break time for us to make the long overdue change occur now and are thus in it for the long haul,鈥 said Todd Ashker, a representative of hunger strikers in the Californian prison system, who has been on hunger strike for 44 days.
鈥淭he sacrifice is minor compared to what we've endured for 30 years.鈥
Chelsea Manning, a private in the US Army who worked as an intelligence specialist, was sentenced on August 21 to 35 years in jail for leaking hundreds of thousands of ecret cables to WikiLeaks.
The Palestinian prisoners holding Jordanian citizenship have suspended their hunger strike following concessions from the Israeli prison authorities to allow them regular family visits from their family members in Jordan.
This was reported in a press conference held in Amman by family members of the prisoners on August 11. The five Jordanian hunger strikers are Abdullah Barghouthi, Mohammad Rimawi, Muneer Mar'i, Hamza Othman al-Dabbas and Alaa Hammad. They had been striking since May 2 for 100 days.
The following is a transcript of the statement made by United States Private Chelsea (formerly "Bradley") Manning as read by David Coombs at a press conference on August 21 after Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks that exposed serioous war crimes.
(Born -- and tried -- as "Bradley", Manning has announced she wishes to be known as Chelsea and plans to undergo hormone therapy. "I am Chelsea Manning, I am a female," Manning released by her lawyer David Coombs.
Workers in fast food companies such as McDonald鈥檚, Burger King, Wendy鈥檚, KFC and others took to the streets in mobilisations at the end of July in seven cities.
They highlighted miserable wages and working conditions, and demanding the right to form unions in the virtually non-union sector.
The actions took place in New York, Chicago, St Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Flint, Michigan. It is likely that these actions will spread in the coming weeks.
Detroit public-sector workers, pensioners and residents filed objections on August 19 against the city council's request for bankruptcy protection. They want federal judge Steven Rhodes to block the bankruptcy request by unelected emergency manager Kevyn Orr.
Individual creditors began filing objections in person and by early evening more than 100 had been filed, including by the city's biggest union AFSCME, several smaller city unions and pension schemes.
鈥淭here will never be strikes in my company,鈥 Foxconn CEO Guo Taiming once proclaimed. But just last month, 1800 workers struck at two Foxconn factories in China 鈥 following the example of other Foxconn workers in Taiyuan and Chengdu last year.
Foxconn produces cell phones and other products for Apple and others, and owns property worth US$6 billion. It has 1.2 million workers and is the largest sweatshop of ill repute in China.
South Korea: Hyundai workers strike
About 46,000 Hyundai workers will launched a four-hour strike over two days in order to press the South Korean car-maker for higher wages and benefits, union officials said on August 20.
Spokesperson Kwon Oh Il said that talks had made little progress, Morning Star reported that day. The union has demanded increased wages and benefits during three months of annual negotiations.
Elysium
Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp
Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga
In cinemas now
In the mid-22nd century, Earth has become a crowded, polluted, poverty-stricken slum. While the poor, mostly black and brown residents of Earth, struggle with dangerous working conditions, substandard public services and brutal robot police, the 1% have escaped to Elysium, a pristine floating space station orbiting Earth.
The Bracegirdle Incident: How an Australian Communist Ignited Ceylon鈥檚 Independence Struggle
Alan Fewster
Arcadia/Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013
173 pages, $39.95 (pb)
In 1937, Ceylon鈥檚 British Chief of Police reported that 鈥渋t is clearly dangerous鈥 to allow the Australian communist Mark Bracegirdle, to remain in the country 鈥渟tirring up feelings against employers of labour and against the British Government鈥.
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