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NEWCASTLE — Four activists from Newcastle climate action group Rising Tide scaled the roof of climate change minister Greg Combet's office on May 16. They attached solar panels to the roof and unfurled a banner that read: “Make polluters pay, fund renewable energy.” Rising Tide spokesperson Naomi Hogan said: “We have put these solar panels up on Minister Combet’s office to highlight the potential of renewable energy to power the nation.
No pulp protesters

Dressed mainly in black, with black flags and banners to show the death of democracy in Tasmania, 6000 people took to Launceston’s streets on May 14 to oppose Gunns’ proposed $2.3 billion pulp mill, to be built on the banks of the Tamar River.

The Illawarra community plans to take action on May 29 to press their case for a moratorium on coal seam gas mining in the area. A mass human sign to spell the words “Stop Coal Seam Gas!” is organised at 11am that day on Austinmer beach, north of Wollongong. The organiser, Stop CSG Illawarra, is confident of a large turnout. The group’s regular organising meetings have attracted 100 or more people. The group has letterboxed 30,000 leaflets publicising the event and outlining the dangers of coal seam gas.
Even though the US war on Vietnam ended nearly 40 years ago, the US’s saturation chemical bombing during that war is still wreaking havoc on the lives of at least 3 million people in Vietnam — including the newly born, making them third generation victims. Nobody knows when the congenital deformities, one of many horrific health consequences of the toxic chemicals, will end.
Sol plaza in Madrid occupied by thousands of protesters

“There are many Joses here, I’m not sure if its my turn or another Jose,” saidJose, a middle-aged man standing on the outer rim of a grupo de trabajo (work group) called at midnight on an adjacent street to Sol, the plaza known as point zero, in the heart of Madrid.

The illegal eavesdropping on famous people by the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid News of the World is said to be Murdoch’s Watergate. But is it the crime by which Murdoch ought to be known? In his native land, Australia, Murdoch controls 70% of the capital city press. Australia is the world’s first “murdochracy”, in which smear by media is power. The most enduring and insidious Murdoch campaign has been against the Aboriginal people, who were dispossessed by the arrival of the British in the late 18th century and have never been allowed to recover.
Price on carbon crude, wasteful The illusion of the necessity of capital is one of the most difficult to shake. Capital appears to contribute something in the production process so to the worker appears as indispensable. This illusion manifests in such beliefs as workers must not ask for too much or the business will go bust and jobs will be lost, jobs will not be created unless capitalists have a free rein, and that the super-profits of the mining companies can't be touched or the companies will take their capital elsewhere and Australia's prosperity will suffer.
Protests in Spain

Spanish people have taken to the streets in huge numbers, with public squares occupied by protesters opposed to anti-worker austerity measures and calling for real democracy.

In 2007, it was all about Kevin Rudd. Well … not so much the man, but the campaign slogan. Kevin07 was streamed from the rooftops, plastered on ALP propaganda and adorned the T-shirts of young and old alike. It was a brilliant, fresh campaign. But the joy was not to last. Three years later, the bandwagon that everyone had so merrily jumped upon had lost its wheels, its driver demoted and dejected. The campaign was just that, a campaign. Right for the time, but ultimately short on distance.
Below is the Resistance Action Plan, which was adopted by delegates at the Resistance national conference held in Sydney over May 6-8. * * * Resistance is Australia’s only socialist, feminist, social justice, environmental, revolutionary youth organisation. We seek to organise young people to fight the injustices we see in the world, from war and poverty, to environmental destruction and discrimination against minority groups.
Anti-racist proitesters

After planning an anti-migrant, anti-Muslim rally in 2010 and then failing to show up on the day, the racist Australian Defence League (ADL) staged a rally in Melbourne on May 15.

Three Australian activists will take part in the Freedom Flotilla 2, the successor to the first Freedom Flotilla to Gaza in May 2010 that was brutally attacked in international waters by Israeli commandos. Green Left Weekly’s Pip Hinman asked former NSW Greens parliamentarian Sylvia Hale why she has joined the Australian contingent on the flotilla. * * *