After Cyclone Pam caused widespread destruction on Vanuatu, a South Pacific archipelago, on March 14, Prime Minister Baldwin Lonsdale said the devastating cyclones increasingly hitting his nation were directly linked to climate change.
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Student activists dropped a huge banner from Sydney University鈥檚 Fisher Library which read "No cuts, no fees, no dereg. Fightback now!" to raise the alarm about the federal government鈥檚 looming attempt to deregulate university fees.
Six students also locked themselves to the Vice-Chancellor's office, to demonstrate their opposition, and called on all university Vice-Chancellors to oppose the bill.
I take issue with Ben Courtice鈥檚 and Emma Murphy鈥檚 criticism of my review of Bill Gammage鈥檚 book, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia in the January 28 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
I have two major arguments with their criticism. First, Gammage has made a major contribution to our understanding of how Aboriginal Australians cared for the land for more than 60,000 years right across the continent.
US bars UN torture investigator from jails and Guantanamo
The United Nations special investigator on the use of torture criticised the US on March 11 for stalling for over two years in granting the international human rights body access to inmates at Guantanamo Bay and other federal US prisons.
The following was released by Aid/Watch, an independent monitor of international aid and trade, on March 5.
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Australia spends $577 million a year on aid for Papua New Guinea (PNG). Two key focus areas are anti-corruption related 鈥 law and justice, and governance.
PNG has concurrently undertaken a number of national processes to combat corruption without Australian support.
Experience proves that left-wing movements can win government, but nevertheless not hold power. Democracy, in other words the exercise of power by the people and for the people, requires much more.
The problem is now being faced in Greece with with radical left party SYRIZA, which won elections in January. It will have to be faced in Spain if the new anti-austerity party Podemos wins November elections.
Some 20,000 people marched through central London on Saturday, in the Time to Act! protest, demanding that climate change be taken seriously by political parties in the coming General Election.
Time to Act!, launched by the Campaign Against Climate Change, brought together a wide coalition of environmental and left wing organisations.
The march was young, vibrant and diverse: placards from the Greens, Socialist Worker and Left Unity mixed with banners and flags from Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Peoples鈥 Assembly and trade unions.
Jenny Leong is the Greens candidate in the NSW seat of Newtown 鈥 an area often called the most progressive in the country. 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Pip Hinman spoke to her about the Greens鈥 platform and approach to the election.
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What are people telling you about the proposed WestConnex tollway and Labor's response?
The government wants to dump 10 lanes of traffic on the south end of King Street and spend billions on a tollway that won鈥檛 solve Sydney's transport needs.
Staff at the University of NSW took industrial action on March 11 in response to stalled enterprise bargaining negotiations.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is seeking a pay rise of 3.5%, employment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and greater job security, including opportunities for permanence for casual staff, some of whom have been employed on a casual basis for many years.
Classes were cancelled for the day and about 100 NTEU members and students picketed six gates around the campus.
Refugees on Nauru have defied government and police attempts to ban protesting, as the United Nations adds to the growing body of evidence that Australia's asylum policy is violating human rights.
The Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) said 300 refugees on March 11, 鈥渏ust one week after Nauruan police staged mass arrests on the island in a bid to stifle the campaign of non-cooperation being waged by the refugees鈥.
Members of the United Services Union (USU) at Liverpool City Council, NSW, stopped work on March 11 to discuss management鈥檚 attacks on members鈥 working conditions. The stopwork took place in Bigge Park in the centre of Liverpool from 10am.
USU state secretary Graham Kelly told the meeting that Liverpool chief executive officer Carl Wulff had begun talking to councillors in August last year about the outsourcing of the council鈥檚 customer services.
The NSW government鈥檚 just before a state election raises more questions than it answers.
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