917

Occupy Wall Street’s original Declaration of the City of New York, last September, listed a litany of issues, from foreclosures and bailouts to outsourcing and cruelty to animals. But it barely mentioned the environment and was silent on global warming and climate change. A resolution passed by consensus at a general assembly (GA) in January more than rectified the omission. It said: “We are at a dangerous tipping point in history. The destruction of our planet and climate change are almost at a point of no return.”

Street theatre from the "Adelaide March 4 Survival" on March 31. The protest was organised by CLEAN (the Climate Emergency Action Network). The action connected the dots between extreme weather and climate change, and demanding solar thermal for Port Augusta.

“I was a people smuggler,” said Hungarian refugee and refugee rights activist Peter Farago to a public meeting of about 70 people in Melbourne on March 27. The public meeting, titled “Smuggled to Freedom: behind the anti-people smuggling rhetoric”, was organised by the Refugee Action Collective Victoria to expose the rhetoric behind the government’s anti-people smuggling campaign.
OMG I'm Queer http://minus18.org.au OMG I’m Queer is a street magazine and resource produced by Minus 18. It is designed for same sex attracted and gender diverse young people living in the City of Melbourne. Created by and for young people, OMG I’m Queer takes on sexuality and gender identity, using real life experiences. It includes contributions from comedian Tom Ballard, youth mental health foundation Headspace and trans youth group Ygender.
Labor’s Conflict: Big Business, Workers & the Politics of Class By Tom Bramble & Rick Kuhn Cambridge University Press, 2011, 226 pp., $39.95 Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide By Tom Bramble Cambridge University Press, 2008 293 pp., $49.95 Tom Bramble and Rick Kuhn, through Bramble’s Trade Unionism in Australia and their jointly-authored Labor’s Conflict, offer substantial histories of two very important elements of the workers’ movement in Australia.
Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud, secretary general of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), died on March 22 in London, where he was undergoing medical treatment for an inoperable brain tumour. Thousands of people joined the funeral procession to farewell Nugud on March 25. His body was taken from the airport past his home and the SCP headquarters before being buried in the Al Farouq cemetery. Leaders of other opposition parties and representatives from South Sudan attended.
Protesters in Madrid

Since the global economic crisis broke out in 2008, the many-sided protest movement against neoliberal austerity has yet to gain enough strength to force any real retreats from governments doing the bidding of capitalism’s ruling elites.

The murder of Trayvon Martin in a gated community in Florida has dramatised the depths of racism in United States society. Martin was young, Black and male — that was enough for neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman to decide he was "suspicious", to stalk him and eventually to pull the trigger. African American families understand that Martin's fate could happen to their own children. That's why so many young Black men remember the time they had "the talk" — when family or friends tried to prepare them for dealing with racism in general and the police in particular.
A month after a Japanese distributor decided to stop carrying Ahava cosmetic products because of the company’s fraudulent practices and its profiteering from Israel's occupation, a major Norwegian retail chain announced it would also stop sales of Ahava products. Ahava products are made in the illegal West Bank settlement of Mitzpe Shalem, with resources taken from the Dead Sea in the West Bank. The cosmetics line profits that settlement and the settlement of Kalia, both of which are co-owners of Ahava.
The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a self-appointed "neighborhood watch captain" has provoked anguish, rage and now, at long last, resistance. We've seen rallies, demonstrations and walkouts at dozens upon dozens of high schools in Florida alone. Even more remarkably, this resistance has found expression in the world of sports. An impressive group of NBA players, from Carmelo Anthony to Steve Nash to the leaders of the NBA Players Association, have spoken out and called for justice.
In what has been described as New Zealand's most high-profile and bitter industrial dispute since the early 1990s, waterside workers went back to work, after a four-week strike. Auckland's port company agreed to end its lockout of 235 workers on March 30, and pay workers a week's wages for being illegally locked out. The New Zealand Herald reported that Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe told a huge workers' meeting: “You'll all go back to your jobs and until you go back you'll all get paid. “Everything we have done has fallen into place, thanks to your solidarity.”
George Galloway, running for the anti-war and anti-austerity Respect party, won a sensational victory in the Bradford West by-election on March 29. The scale of Galloway's win, turning a safe Labour seat into a 10,000 vote majority, is without precedent in modern British politics. All those who oppose austerity and war should be walking a little taller. Galloway and Respect fought a campaign on two simple premises: opposition to wars abroad and opposition to austerity at home.