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On March 12, 100 people joined a community assembly at the Sydney desalination plant site to protest against the sacking of a Maritime Union of Australia divers’ delegate for raising health and safety issues. It was also to protest the failure of Construction Diving Services (a subsidiary of Dempsey Industries) to negotiate a collective agreement with 14 divers on the site. Apart from MUA members, delegations from the Fire Brigades Employees Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union attended.

Nearly 200 people filled Wollongong’s Town Hall on March 11 to demand a Royal Commission into council corruption and for the people of Wollongong to be able to exercise their democratic right to take part in the NSW local government elections, scheduled for September.

February 28 marked a further deepening of the political crisis and polarisation in Bolivia, when the national congress, in the middle of a blockade by a section of Bolivia’s main social movements, approved a law to hold two national referendums on May 4.

Cradling my niece in my arms, she was white as a sheet and lying lifeless with the sedative effects of the medication — and only 3 weeks into this world. Heartache, uncertainty and concern.

The profit-driven, multi-billion-dollar treatment of depression has been exposed as little less than a fraud. The selective publication of trials has meant that large corporations have been able to make misleading claims for their drugs.