THOUSANDS of people have rallied across Australia in the last week to protest Israel's recent military bombardment and siege of the Gaza strip. 

by Giles Ji Ungpakorn,

from Turn Left Thailand

The appointment of "Democrat" Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new Thai Prime Minister is the final stage of the second coup against an elected government.

Refugee groups today called for the permanent closure of the high security immigration detention facility on Christmas Island.

Panos Garganas from Greece reports on the mass movement sparked by the police killing of 15-year old, which has detonated wider anger against the government over cutbacks in response to the economic crisis

The following is an article from Workers Solidarity the paper of our sister organisation in Greece (translated from Greek)

About 40 people rallied in the Coburg mall in Melbourne on Saturday December 6 for government intervention to save ABC childcare centres.

Turnbull’s call for the re-introduction of temporary protection visas shows how much the Liberal opposition is in thrawl to the failed policies of the Howard era, according to refugee groups.

Eviction notices given to student occupiers in the Student Housing Action Collective (SHAC) at Melbourne University have been withdrawn, with the university re-entering negotiations with the students.

When life long socialist Jeff Goldhar died in 1997, he left a bequest. Set up at the end of 1998, the Jeff Goldhar Project is now celebrating 10 years of activities.

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn in Bangkok

Today the Constitutional Court dissolved the democratically elected governing party in Thailand for the second time, forcing the government to resign. This follows the refusal of the armed forces and the police to follow government instructions to clear the two international airports blocked by armed PAD fascists.

20,000 teachers at meetings around the state have voted to take 48 hours of industrial action from the start of the 2009 school year, in the event of the NSW government not abandoning its attacks on wages, conditions and the staffing of public schools.

Solidarity believes the federal government should take over ABC Learning Centres, CFK Childcare and any other "unprofitable" centres.

Immigration detainees at Villawood detention centre in Sydney have suspended their hunger strike after three days. The Refugee Action Coalition has been releasing daily updates on the hunger strike, which we republish here.

Socialist Worker in the US interviewed activists following Obama's victory for their understanding of the importance of his win

National protests have been called in response to the guilty verdict in the trial of Lex Wotton, announced this week.

Leaflet distributed by Solidarity students at Sydney University seminar on the financial crisis

What does it do for the union movement’s credibility when its elected leader joins the government?

The extraordinary waves of panic that have swept through global financial markets in the past few weeks have filled ordinary working people around the world with a mixture of anger, bewilderment, and fear.

The era of neo-liberal market madness has crashed. It is not the end of capitalism by a long shot, but it is the end of capitalism as we have known it

Socialist Worker - our sister publication in Britain - answers the crucial questions raised by the collapse of leading investment banks and the recent turmoil in glabal markets

Join the campaign to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Solidarity speaks to Marcus Strom, a member of the Fairfax union house committee, about the ongoing dispute at Fairfax.

Paula Pfoeffer in Cochabamba, Bolivia, reports that the Morales government in Bolivia has been under attack by right-wing forces.

The Thai political crisis took another farcical turn today when the courts ruled that Prime Minister Samak must resign because he appears on a TV cooking programme.

2000 union delegates attended a mass meeting to defend Noel Washington, CFMEU official facing 6 months jail for refusing to be interrogated by the Howard era Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC). The ABCC wanted to question him about what was said at a union meeting that took place outside of work hours.

“We are puzzled that the Minister seems to have pre-empted his Parliamentary Enquiry, but the changes to immigration detention announced today by the Minister for Immigration are a welcome move in the right direction”, according to Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

In another victory for the right to protest, one of the few court
convictions over the APEC demonstration was overturned on appeal yesterday in
the District Court.

Climate Camp, a protest against the coal industry in Newcastle NSW, was a success and an important step forward in continuing to build a movement for real solutions to stop global warming. It brought hundreds of activists together for a week of discussion and protest, and the main protest on Sunday drew 1000 people with the goal of shutting down a coal train line for the day. This direct action was a breath of fresh air, compared to the mainstream environment movement's focus on individual action and lobbying politicians.

Over two hundred students from across Australia converged on Melbourne University last week for the annual Queer Collaborations conference, this year themed 'Freedoms are Won, Not Given'.

Unions in Victoria are set to escalate their campaign against the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a WorkChoices-era relic. For the first time since Howard introduced the ABCC a unionist, Noel Washington, will face court for refusing to attend an interrogation by the commission.

NURSES IN NSW have accepted a pay deal in exchange for a raft of “trade offs” that strip back work conditions. The nurses’ is the latest in a string of public sector disputes where unions are battling state Labor governments’ below-inflation pay caps.

About 4000 people rallied in central Melbourne on Saturday July 5, addressed by Greens Senator Bob Brown, among others.

On June 21, people from ten cities around Australia took to the streets to protest the ongoing NT Intervention. One year since John Howard and Mal Brough announced the Intervention in the NT the vast majority of it continues to be rolled out, full steam ahead, by Kevin Rudd.

Solidarity has produced a climate change position paper to coincide with the Climate Camp in Newcastle in July. It runs through, in some detail, our critique of the climate camp's focus on coal exports, the myth of the individual carbon footprint, and what sorts of demands and organisation are needed to constitute a movement post-climate camp.