The world faces a “1930s moment”, as the IMF warned in late January. Five years after the economic crisis erupted in 2007, global capitalism has failed to recover.

Premier Anna Bligh’s unpopular privatisations should mean Labor is headed for a trouncing in the Queensland state election on March 24. But the more voters see of Liberal National Party (LNP) leader Campbell Newman the less they like him.

Eight years after the shocking deaths and police cover-ups of the killings of TJ Hickey in Redfern and Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island, there are all the signs of another disgraceful death in custody and cover-up in Alice Springs.

From April 6-9, refugee rights activists will again focus attention on the reality behind the detention wire. This Easter activists will converge on Darwin, which is quickly becoming the detention capital, with up to 1000 imprisoned in three detention centres.

On February 8-9, an important case went before the High Court. The outcome—which won’t be known until at least March—will determine whether the Federal government can push ahead with plans to forcibly deport scores of so-called “failed” Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers, and others considered by the government to be “out of process”.

At Labor’s national conference in December, Julia Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen managed to drag Labor’s refugee policy even further to the right.

Protests celebrating the Aboriginal Tent Embassy have been subject to a vicious media campaign, after a snap protest directed at Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. This ridiculous beat-up was an attempt to discredit legitimate demands for Aboriginal rights and self-determination.

The Australian newspaper is on the warpath against The Greens and Left Senator Lee Rhiannon again.
The Murdoch rag famously called on voters to “destroy” The Greens in September 2010 and played a major role in attacking the Green-dominated Marrickville Council’s support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against apartheid Israel in 2011.

The University of Sydney is in a bid to slash 340 jobs. A staff and student campaign is gearing up to push them back.

After a ten week lock out, 150 United Voice workers at Schweppes distribution and processing factory in Tullamarine, Victoria, are back inside the gate.

Julia Gillard has caved in to business complaints about her workplace laws by announcing a review of the FairWork legislation. This comes after months of howling from business that the laws do not provide “flexibility” and have not allowed the gains in productivity the Labor government promised.

The leadership of the NSW Teachers Federation has shamefully squandered an opportunity to strike a serious blow against the O’Farrell Liberal NSW government.

Over 50 enthusiastic Sensis Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) members held a lunchtime protest last October to stop the company’s attempt to undermine their union agreement (the Advertising and Design Agreement). Workers were angry at the move by Sensis to try to rob their working conditions by rolling their union agreement into a larger non-union one (the Enterprise Agreement 2).

The US and Israel have ratcheted up threats and sanctions against Iran. The media presents Iran as aggressive and a danger to the region, hell bent on developing a nuclear weapon. But the real provocations are coming from the US and Israel, whose actual concern is not Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but the threat Iran poses to US domination of the Middle East and its oil supply.

Syrian President Assad’s brutal crackdown on the city of Homs has killed up to 400 people in the space of a week, as the country’s heroic revolt continues after ten months. But so-called “humanitarian interventions” into the region have been a disaster and Syria won’t be any different.

In January an angry crowd of some 2000 people stormed the offices of the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) in Benghazi, the birthplace of the Libyan revolution. NTC leaders were planning to announce the publication of the new electoral law that evening but were forced to transfer the announcement to Tripoli.

The establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972 was one of the high points of the Aboriginal rights movement. Forty years on, Clare Fester looks at what it achieved and its relevance today

Mass people power brought down Mubarak’s dictatorship one year ago. Amy Thomas and Ernest Price look at where Egypt’s continuing strikes and demonstrations are heading

Ralf Ruckus is a labour researcher and activist studying Chinese workers’ struggles. His work can be found at www.gongchao.org. He spoke to Solidarity on a recent visit to Australia.

Tom Orsag begins a series on Labor Party history with a look at the major split in the party during the campaign against conscription in WWI

Solidarity would like to offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Oliver Butterfield who died in a car accident on December 29, 2011.

Weekend
Directed by Andrew Haigh
Out now, selected release

The Iron Lady
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
In cinemas now