There have been three constant themes in the Rudd government's rhetoric about the global financial crisis.

The struggle over who will pay for the growing economic crisis has begun. Across the world banks are collapsing and economies are heading into recession.

Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced her government will ignore two key recommendations of the review commissioned into the Northern Territory intervention.

THE RECENT anti-intervention convergence on Alice Springs has galvanised the commitment of activists to step up the fight against the NT intervention. The Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS) has called for a rally on December 13 to coincide with international human rights day, and will be seeking endorsements from unions, human rights organisations, community organisations and the local Indigenous community.

After a trial lasting almost three weeks, and two days of deliberation, an all-white jury found Lex Wotton, an Aboriginal plumber from Palm Island, guilty of rioting with destruction. As a result, Chris Hurley, the police officer responsible for the death of an Aboriginal man is free, while someone who protested at this injustice sits behind bars.

Last issue Solidarity reported that Telstra workers in the Wholesale and Service Advantage area had voted down a non-union collective agreement. It was a serious blow to Telstra's divide and rule strategy of pushing such agreements onto poorly-unionised sections of the company.

TRAIN DRIVERS in the Pilbara region of Western Australia have taken strike action as part of a struggle to establish a collective union agreement with mining giant Rio Tinto.

In the midst of global panic last month, the University of Sydney's Vice-Chancellor announced shock budget cuts of up to 9 per cent because of a shortfall of $100 million in investment income.

NSW teachers will continue their campaign for salary and staffing justice with statewide stopwork meetings on November 19.

Two of Australia's most high-profile anti-terrorism cases, those of Dr Mohamed Haneef and Jack Thomas (the first person to be charged under the federal anti-terrorism laws) are once again calling the Howard governments anti-terror legislation into question.

AFTER EXTENSIVE debate in the Victorian state parliament, opposition from the anti-abortion lobby and threats from the religious right, the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Bill was passed by the upper house on October 10.

Last month 50,000 Iraqis hit the streets in protest at a new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) being pushed by the US which would enshrine the right of foreign forces to remain in Iraq.

Review of The Duel: Pakistan on the flight path of American power
By Tariq Ali
Simon & Schuster, $34.95

As Solidarity goes to print, Democratic candidate Barack Obama is set to win the most passionate US presidential election campaign in generations.

Last month Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi told people how they could stave off financial disaster—buy shares in two national energy companies—yet by the end of that days trading they had lost 7 per cent and 8 per cent in value. It was because of this stupidity, and for many other reasons, that Italy is engulfed in a wave of protests.

As Solidarity goes to print, many mainstream economists are claiming the worst of the banking crisis is over.

Following the dot.com crash in 2000 and the 9/11 attack in 2001, US workers were told it was their patriotic duty to spend. This was Bush's strategy for avoiding a deepening recession." We must promote home ownership for all Americans", he told an economic forum in 2002.

The current economic crisis has shaken belief in the capacity of neo-liberal “free market” policies. Tom Orsag examines where neo-liberalism came from—and where it is going

The Great Depression of the 1930s strikes fear in the hearts of working class people around the world, with memories of skyrocketing unemployment, homelessness and hunger.

Shannon Price looks at the history of the Great Depression and the prospects for the coming year.

The economic devastation that gripped Australia during the 1930s dealt an almost fatal blow to the organised labour movement. In the face of mass sackings and wage cuts, there was little political clarity about how to respond to the attacks on the working class and even less confidence that resistance was possible.

In the 1970s the Builders Labourers’ Federation led inspiring struggles in defence of the natural environment. Emma Torzillo looks at the history of an inspiring struggle when workers took industrial action and declared the social responsibility of labour

Review: Stop Global Warming: Change The World
By Jonathan Neale
Bookmarks, $30.00 from Solidarity

Review: “Now or never”, Quarterly Essay 31
By Tim Flannery
Black Inc, $15.95

Review: The Land of Plenty
By Mark Davis
Melbourne University Publishing, $36.95

Review: The Henson Case
By David Marr
Text Publishing, $24.95

THOUSANDS OF building workers across the country are set to strike on December 2, when Noel Washington, senior vice president of the Victorian branch of the CFMEU, goes on trial for two days in Geelong.