鈥淲hen we went out, it was like a Zombieland,鈥 Zoreen Agustin, a student at the University of the Philippines鈥 (UP) Tacloban campus told me on December 2.
鈥淎 lot of people were walking around, some with no shoes and their clothes all torn, a lot of people were covered in cuts.鈥
She was referring to what she saw after Tacloban, and much of the Eastern Visayas region, were demolished by Super Typhoon Yolanda (known as Typhoon Haiyan outside the Philippines) on November 8. The storm, one of the strongest on record to hit land, killed anywhere between 5000 and 10,000 people.
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Nearly 50 years ago, in 1964, Nelson Mandela 鈥 along with many other comrades in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa from racist white domination under apartheid 鈥 was sentenced to life in prison.
His , made when he was facing the real threat of execution, remains a historic demonstration of defiance and resistance.
The death of Nelson Mandela on December 5 has focused attention once more on the global struggle against South Africa's aparthied regime. The heroic struggle of the Black population inside South Afica and the solidarity shown by ordinary people around the world was essential to winning Mandela's freedom and dismantling apartheid.
About 200 people gathered outside the Liberal Party headquarters in Melbourne on December 4 to protest against the decision to restrict abortion in Victoria.
The Victorian Liberal Party state conference voted on December 1 to wind back Victoria's abortion laws, which were amended in 2008 to decriminalise the procedure and to require a doctor with a conscientious objection to abortion to refer a woman to another doctor without prejudice.
Under the guise of 鈥渓aw and order鈥 鈥 to protect the community from 鈥渃riminal bikie gangs鈥 and 鈥減edophiles鈥 鈥 Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has rushed through several new laws. These are the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act, Tattoo Parlours Act, Criminal Law Amendment Act and Dangerous Sex Offenders Act.
Together with laws relating to the G20, and, amendments to industrial legislation, these laws have implications for the civil rights of the wider community.
"The war in Colombia has been ongoing for decades, with little public discussion internationally," Oliver Villar, from the University of Western Sydney and Macquarie University, told a Sydney forum on November 30. The forum was organised by the solidarity organisation United for Colombia.
"The roots of the conflict, and why peace is so difficult, lie in the country's history. It is a story of US imperialist domination, and Spanish colonialism before that, which left a semi-feudal system almost intact.
It鈥檚 wrong to think that we can campaign to stop climate change in the same way we might campaign to end a war. All the evidence says we are well past that stage now. That is, even if by some impossible, magical course of events all carbon pollution on Earth was stopped tomorrow, we鈥檇 still be in really, really deep trouble.
So many greenhouse gases have been pumped into the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere that we have rushed far past the safe upper limit 鈥 the famous 350 parts per million of CO2, the number that climate action group 350.org took for its name.
Samuel Johnson famously said, 鈥淧atriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,鈥 and so it was that Attorney-General George Brandis insisted ASIO's raid against a former spy who exposed Australia's spying operation against East Timor in the interests of Woodside Petroleum was in 鈥渢he national interest鈥.
The raid targeted a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer who exposed the spying program Australia ran against the East Timorese government in 2004 during negotiations for the $40 billion Timor Sea oil and gas fields to which Woodside held the rights to develop.
This is the last issue of 91自拍论坛 Weekly for the year. We are taking a break for a few weeks and the next issue will be out on January 22.
Early next year, GLW will be celebrating its 1000th issue. This is a huge milestone for an independent newspaper that does not rely on advertising to survive. Instead, it is the support of hundreds of people who write for, distribute and donate money to the paper year after year that keeps it going.
Communities in the firing line of the East-West Link road in Melbourne have been agitating not merely against the tunnel, but for a shift of transport priorities to public transport. Labor politicians, including Richard Wynn in the City of Yarra, have supported the campaign, and promised an alternative transport plan.
In early February 1978, on the strength of a claimed turnover of $1 billion, the Australian Financial Review reported that 鈥渁t this sort of growth rate Nugan Hand will soon be bigger than BHP.鈥
AID/WATCH, an independent monitor of Australia鈥檚 aid and trade, released the statement below on December 4, in response to allegations of AusAID involvement in spying on the East Timorese government.
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AID/WATCH has responded to the allegation that Australian government agencies, including AusAID, were involved in spying on the East Timorese cabinet room during sensitive meetings about oil and gas negotiations.
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