A Palestinian solidarity conference held in Sydney over May 14-15 brought together more than 200 people to discuss the campaign in Australia in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
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Thousands of people took to the streets in cities and towns throughout Syria on May 13, despite a week of intensified repression by the Baath Party regime of President Bashar al-Assad. On May 11, tanks shelled the city of Homs, one of the centres of protest, and mass arrests took place throughout the country.
Voting across Britain on May 5 resulted in a rejection of changes to the electoral system, but election results in Scotland may herald the end of Britain as we know it.
The referendum on introducing an “Alternative Vote” voting system (much like the preferential voting system in Australia) to replace the current “First Past The Post” system was decisively defeated. With a turnout of only 42%, 67.87% voted against the change.
In the first four days after Osama bin Laden’s assassination by US forces, the mass reaction in Pakistan is very mixed. In Punjab there is a general sympathy towards bin Laden, but not many are expressing it openly.
The pretext for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, now the longest war in US history, was the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But the vast majority of Afghans being carpet bombed, eviscerated by Predator drones and shot dead in night raids don’t even know what the 9/11 attacks were.
A public opinion poll in Kandahar and Helmand provinces — the focus of the troop surge and the scene of the great majority of bloodshed in the country — found that only 8% of young men know about the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Organisers of the 2011 Human Rights Arts and Film Festival (HRAFF) have informed Melbourne visual artist Van Thanh Rudd that his artwork titled Pop Goes the System, which depicts global pop icon Justin Bieber supporting Palestinian human rights, will be banned from this year’s festival.
Our goal, as socialists, is to raise women (and for that matter, all of humanity) to a level where they are regarded as true human beings.
By that I mean, people whose ideas, opinions and desires are worthy of consideration, rather than machines which exist to provide sexual pleasure, offspring, and free/cheap labour in the form of caregiving/housework.
Young women face much pressure in our society, in the form of media and pornography, which tell them how they must behave, look and relate to men.
Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States that killed about 3000 people, will not be mourned by many people around the world. But his killers used Bin Laden’s crimes to justify wars on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq that have killed many thousands more. These wars are continuing. The May 3 US Socialist Worker article abridged below says bin Laden’s death should not be used to justify further killings in the name of the “war on terror”.
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May 14 marked 63 years of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. The Palestinian Arabs know it as al Nakba, which translates as “day of the catastrophe”.
In preparation for Israel’s independence from Britain, the Haganah — a Zionist paramilitary, or, as it would be described by the FBI today, terrorist organisation — set about its two objectives.
After 12 hours on the road, travelling 800 kilometres from Newcastle through Gunnedah, Narrabri, Moree and Goondiwindi, just after sundown, our big blue bus pulled into Tara showground for four days of workshops and direct action as part of the Rock the Gate festival against coal seam gas mining.
The Roman Catholic Church has sacked the bishop of Toowoomba after 18 years of service for his belief that women can be priests.
In his 2006 Advent pastoral letter to priests in his diocese, Bishop William Morris questioned the practice of sourcing Catholic priests from Africa, and suggested the shortage of Catholic priests in Australia would be better addressed by considering admitting married men and women to the priesthood.
Morris met with Pope Benedict in 2009 about his views. He is now taking “early retirement” at age 67. The usual retirement age for bishops is 75.
Her long red nails jabbed and waved in the air like a conductor dramatically tracing an absurdist symphony of propaganda, cajoling, and threats.
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