Sweeping new terror laws add to climate of fear
As the government considers escalating troop numbers in Iraq, it has pushed on with its anti-terror crusade at home. The second of three counter-terrorism bills—the Foreign Fighters Bill—was waved...
Sydney meeting builds opposition to Islamophobia
Around 80 people attended a public meeting in Sydney to oppose the wave of Islamophobia following the government’s theatrical anti-terror raids and its military deployment to Iraq.
Lydia Shelly, a...
Nauru vigilantes attack refugees: A sign of things to come?
At an institutional level, the government policies of offshore processing and mandatory detention are coming under sustained attack both domestically and internationally.
Ms Dhu: another WA death in custody
Relatives of Julieka Dhu and other Aboriginal people who have lost family members in police and prison custody led a major protest at the G20 summit in Brisbane on...
Communities held to ransom by mining industry
Aboriginal people at Borroloola and the surrounding Gulf region in the Northern Territory have stepped up protests against Glencore Xstrata’s MacArthur River Mine (MRM), the largest open cut lead...
Liberals facing defeat in Victoria after one term
Victorians are set to punish the Liberals at November’s state election. Labor was leading in the polls as we went to press, with the likelihood of the end of the Liberal government after one term.
Fairfield Council strike for pay and allowances
Fairfield Council workers downed tools for two days in September in the face of an aggressive management trying to slash workers’ pay, allowances and other entitlements.
Over 100 United Services...
Grassroots must use SRC to boost student movement
The victory of Grassroots in the Sydney University Student Representative Council (SRC) elections in September was undoubtedly a win for the Left. However, there are worrying signs that the chance to translate the election win into building the activism that can take the fight to uni management and Abbott in 2015 is being undermined by the bureaucratic attraction of wheeling and dealing for office-bearer positions.
NUMSA expulsion creates shockwaves in South Africa
South Africa is witnessing the most significant break to the left of the ANC since the end of apartheid, with immense potential consequences. The expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers from COSATU in November increases the prospects for the birth of a mass working class party campaigning for socialism.
Ayotzinapa—School of struggle that dares to challenge death in Mexico
The disappearance of 43 students in Mexico, after they were kidnapped by police and drug traffickers, has thrown the country into turmoil, exposing the close connections between the political elite and drug gangs.
Is the left breaking through in Europe?
Electoral earthquakes have rocked one country after another across Europe. Parties that dominated the mainstream for decades are seeing their support hollowing out or collapsing.
Imperialism no ally for Kurdish fighters in Kobani
The defence of Kobani against the reactionary and sectarian Islamic State (IS) has inspired many on the left. But it would be wrong to idealise the situation.
US war in Iraq brings more sectarianism and death
Barack Obama has doubled the US troop commitment to the latest war on Iraq, and used the APEC conference to ask allies including Australia to send additional contributions too. But Western intervention will solve nothing.
Islamic State: who are they and where do they come from?
The emergence of the group Islamic state is a product of Western intervention and imperialist power games in the Middle East, writes James Supple
Eastern europe and the Berlin Wall: 1989’s people power revolutions
The Eastern European regimes toppled by mass protests twenty five years ago had nothing to do with socialism, argues Victor Yang
Whitlam’s legacy and the death of social democracy
Following the show of continuing adoration for Gough Whitlam at his packed out memorial, Jean Parker reflects on his contradictory legacy
The IWW in Australia: Direct action against capitalism and war
The Wobblies combined opposition to the First World War with militant industrial organising, but their intransigence was also their undoing, argues Lachlan Marshall
‘The people who help asylum seekers the most are people smugglers’
Confessions of a People-Smuggler is a confronting, and revealing book. Dawood Amiri, a Hazara, tells his story of fleeing from the Taliban’s targeted killings in Quetta in Pakistan, to getting involved in people smuggling in Indonesia to fund his own trip to Australia by boat.
Backing bloodshed a long Labor tradition
Bill Shorten’s uncritical support for Tony Abbott’s renewed war in Iraq has handed the Liberals the political initiative and horrified many Labor voters. But his unquestioning approval of the rush to war has deep precedents in the ALP tradition.
Climate action requires challenging capitalism
Naomi Klein’s new book is a welcome intervention into climate politics. There is a hunger for serious responses to climate change. Over 2000 people turned up to Klein’s book launch in London.
