A crowd outside the Federal Court stood in solidarity with Gomeroi people who are appealing a Native Title Tribunal decision to reject native title, allowing Santos to frack in the Pilliga Forest. David Killingly reports.
Issue 1387
News
The Australian Conservation Foundation welcomes the decision to listen to Traditional Owners and withdraw from a plan to establish a radioactive waste facility on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. Dave Sweeney reports.
Labor has decided (with Coalition support) to ensure that MPs and Senators have no real say over how Australia goes to war. Mark Robinson reports.
Neil Para, a Tamil refugee living in Ballarat, has begun a 1000 kilometre walk to Gadi/Sydney. He intends to finish at Anthony Albanese’s office in Marrickville. Chris Slee reports.
Speakers criticised the AUKUS pact and the proposed nuclear powered submarines at a bigger than usual Hiroshima Day protest. Paul Petit reports.
“No subs, no war, no US bases on our shore” rang through the streets as protesters commemorated the 78th anniversary of the US' nuclear assault on the city of Hiroshima and three days later Nagasaki. Alex Bainbridge reports.
Anti-war, climate and housing activists are among those who will be protesting outside Labor’s national conference. Others will be doing it inside. Alex Bainbridge reports.
Iván Barreto López from the Cuban Institute for Friendship Among the Peoples (ICAP) spoke to Alex Bainbridge about ending the US-imposed blockade of Cuba which he said has impacted “every Cuban”.
An interfaith gathering with the women of Manipur called on governments to investigate Hindu extremist organisations in Australia which have been accused of fuelling hate crimes in India. Peter Boyle reports.
A public forum on the housing crisis was told that while non-market solutions are ignored by governments the housing crisis will intensify. Jordan AK reports.
The Hiroshima Day rally, organised by the No AUKUS Coalition Victoria, heard a variety of speakers condemn the AUKUS nuclear deal. Jordan AK reports.
Another protest called on Labor to scrap the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal and to sign the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Peter Boyle and Pip Hinman report.
The Victorian government is planning on changes to harsh bail laws but it appears that they are not going to be implemented immediately. Chris Slee reports.
A giant letter demanding Anthony Albanese push harder to have Julian Assange released from Belmarsh Prison was read out, outside the Prime Minister's electorate office. Stephen Langford reports.
Two young Cubans, currently touring Australia with the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, are speaking at a public meeting on Cuba’s challenges and latest achievements. Allen Jennings reports.
Green Left journalists Isaac Nellist and Chloe DS go through the latest news from across the continent and around the world.
More than 150 peace activists, trade unionists and concerned citizens attended an IPAN forum about the dangers of AUKUS, which integrates Australia more closely into the US war machine. Stanley Blair reports
The Korean community group Sydney Candlelight Action joined a global peace action calling for an official end the Korean War, 70 years after the 1953 armistice. Peter Boyle reports.
The Sydney Climate Coalition organised a well-attended full-day conference to discuss how to build a strong enough climate movement to force Labor to act. Jim McIlroy reports.
Gumbaynggirr Custodians have been forced off their land by Forestry Corporation NSW and the NSW fire brigade, but they have not given up the fight to protect the Newry State Forest. Kerry Smith reports.
Peace activists from Australia joined guests from the Pacific at a speak-out against the Talisman Sabre war training, writes Alex Bainbridge.
Analysis
We can’t possibly mobilise the human and material resources needed to confront the climate crisis — the real threat to our security — while gearing up for a new Cold War, let alone a hot war, argues Sam Wainwright.
To challenge its drive to war and to force the government to invest in its people, students need to organise, argues Harrison Brennan.
Labor claims its amendments to strengthen the welfare safety net are “structural” and “calibrated”. But the changes are not enough to lift people out of poverty. Leo Earle reports.
Long-term activist Menang woman Megan Krakouer first opposed the Voice, but has now decided to support it. She spoke to Sam Wainwright about why.
The Anthony Albanese government looks likely to prevent delegates voting on the merits of the AUKUS alliance and to recognise Palestine as a state. Why is it so scared of dissent, asks Stuart Rees.
Labor ministers happily agreed to allow the United States to deepen and tighten militarisation of Australia at the AUSMIN 2023 talks. Bevan Ramsden reports.
A new housing and homelessness data portal shows the number of people who are homeless has almost doubled over 2021 to 2022. Rachel Evans and Karyn Brown report.
The AUSMIN 2023 talks between the US Secretaries of State and Defense and their Australian counterparts confirmed the increasing and unaccountable militarisation of Australia’s north. Binoy Kampmark reports.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's in-principle agreement to Australia's AUKUS nuclear submarines sets a risky precedent for 'nuclear sharing'. Pip Hinman reports.
Refugee Action Collectives have launched an open letter asking the Minister for Home Affairs Clare O'Neil to help refugees stranded in Indonesia.
Ten million workers are struggling but Australia’s national net wealth, if redistributed, could end the crushing poverty which directly accounts for at least 10% of the suicide toll. Gerry Georgatos reports.
Suzanne James asks if Australia can really find its way back to Whitlam-style free education policy when so many are ensnared in a hunger-games economy, driven by the greed of the privileged, privately-educated few?
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has welcomed Labor’s plan to give casual workers the option of permanent work rights. Others say more needs to be done to resolve the “casual problem”. Jim McIlroy reports.
One of the concerns of First Nations activists in the progressive No camp is that the Voice will not be truly representative. They have reason for concern, argues Peter Boyle.
The recent AUSMIN talks showed up just how fast Australia is being a client state of the United States, argues Binoy Kampmark.
This video by Alex Bainbridge is from the "AUKUS: What does it mean for Australia and the Asia Pacific?" panel at the Calling for a Peaceful Pacific conference organised by the Independent and Peace Australia Network.
Socialist Alliance adds it voice to the growing international chorus demanding the immediate release of Russian socialist Boris Kagarlitsky and the dropping of the trumped-up charge of “justifying terrorism”.
Workers need a fairer, democratically accountable, transparent and responsive alternative to the Reserve Bank of Australia, argues Graham Matthews.
The Robodebt letters were deliberately designed without a phone number for people to call, the intention being that they quietly pay up online. Peter Martin reports on the sinister science behind such decisions.
World
The new blockbuster film Oppenheimer has raised complex questions on the nature of the society that permitted such bombs to be developed and used and the stockpiling of nuclear arsenals that can destroy the world many times over, writes Prabir Purkayastha.
Left Bloc leader Jorge Costa discusses Portugal’s politics under the Socialist Party (PS) government and the party’s changing relation to it, with Green Left’s Dick Nichols.
Visiting Pacific peace activists Monaeka Flores (from Guahan/Guam) and Shinako Oyakawa (from Okinawa) warn that the United States military expansion in the Pacific has the dystopian objective of “winning” a nuclear war at the expense of the people on whose land these military bases are sited, reports Peter Boyle.
Algeria is being seriously affected by climate change, yet authorities have agreed to a dangerous new mine, a joint venture with South Australian based miner Terramin, reports Susan Price.
John Smith is the author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis. He spoke with Green Left’s Federico Fuentes about the realities of 21st century imperialism. This is the first of a two-part interview.
The recent coup in Niger follows similar coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, each led by military officers angered by the presence of French and United States troops and by the permanent economic crises inflicted on their countries, report Vijay Prashad and Kambale Musavuli.
Canadian dockworkers in British Columbia voted on August 3‒4 to accept a new tentative agreement with employers, reports Jeff Shantz.
Russian anti-war socialist Boris Kagarlitsky’s arrest is just the latest in an ongoing and escalating war against domestic dissent, writes Federico Fuentes.
Members of the All India Students Association and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) — Liberation gathered in central Kolkata on August 5 to mark 52 years since one of the party's founders, Saroj Dutta, was murdered, report Isaac Nellist, Jacob Andrewartha and Chloe DS.
Marcel Cartier recently spent time with leading figures of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), on a visit to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Rank-and-file members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU) in British Columbia have voted down an employment agreement foisted on them by a government mediator, reports Jeff Shantz.
A 16-year-old boy died in a Wisconsin sawmill while states loosen 80-year-old child labour laws, aiming to bring in super exploitable child labour, especially in non-unionised industries, reports Malik Miah.
Guahan (Guam) peace activist Monaeka Flores explains why she fights United States militarism and the expanding bases on her Pacific island nation and around the world.
The expansion of United States military bases in Okinawa, other islands in Japan, Guahan/Guam and Australia is a deadly threat to peace and to indigenous communities, warns Okinawa peace activist Shinako Oyakawa.
Culture
Chris Slee reviews Liang Hong's 2021 book, China in one Village, which examines the alienation from village life that accompanies China's reliance on rural migrant labour.
The brilliance of Barbie is its confrontation of patriarchy and power, writes Christine Hepsie.
Jonathan Strauss introduces a new collection published by Resistance Books in Australia, featuring the voices of Ukrainian leftists, Russian left anti-war activists and members of the international left who defend Ukraine’s right of national self-determination.
In an interview with Green Left Radio, musician, activist and filmmaker Izzy Brown said there is “power in people and when those people are dancing the cops don't know what to do”, writes Ruth Heymann.
Mat Ward looks back at July's political news and the best new music that related to it.