Labor gears up to deport refugees
As Solidarity goes to press The West Australian carried a report that Chris Bowen hopes to have an agreement with the Afghan government to accept deportations "within months".Hundreds of...
Big business to set agenda of carbon price committee
The Labor government has given nineteen businesses a seat on a roundtable that will operate behind the scenes of the new carbon price committee. The government’s press release said...
No to market solutions, says union climate conference
Melbourne's trade union climate conference in October was a big step forward for the climate movement in Melbourne. The conference, organised by Victorian Trades Hall Council’s Climate Change Working Group...
Aboriginal workers exploited by the Intervention win support
The fight against the racist NT Intervention has taken a step forward with the launch of new campaign demanding ‘Jobs with Justice’ for Aboriginal workers. In October, Mark Fordham,...
Gurundji stop work over NT Intervention
On October 20, more than 200 Gurindji people joined an 11am stop work meeting in Kalkaringi, 470kms South-West of Katherine, NT. The rally was attended by workers from across...
Workers occupy to fight redundancy at Securency
Workers occupied the canteen at Securency, the banknote manufacturer 50 per cent owned by the Reserve Bank, in mid-October. The workers’ anger boiled over after management announced redundancies and...
Racist police can’t be trusted with Tasers
Police in Western Australia have been caught on videotape tasering an Aboriginal man, Kevin Spratt, 13 times as he was held in an East Perth watch house. The Corruption...
Victory in Cairns abortion case, now it’s time to change the law
It took a Cairns jury less than an hour to find Tegan Leach and Sergie Brennan not guilty on charges of procuring an abortion. It was a cause for...
Report shows class divide kills
“Health Lies in Wealth” is the conclusion of a new report by Catholic Health Australia, which asked the question—how well do the most disadvantaged groups of Australia’s population of...
Student protest stops cuts at Sydney Uni
Students at Sydney University have saved two geosciences subjects from the axe by taking protest action.Staff were given 24-hours notice that four subjects in the school of Geosciences would...
Workers are the real force for democratic rights in China
Liu Xiaobo is a well-known Chinese dissident currently serving an 11-year jail sentence for co-authoring a pro-democracy manifesto known as Charter 08. Xiaobo is now even better known after...
Britain’s Tories declare war on the poor
Britian's Tory government has announced massive spending cuts, signalling the biggest shake up of the UK welfare state since WWII.Around 50,000 took to the streets across the UK in...
Revolt against pension reform rocks France
A massive wave of strikes and protests has gripped France, as workers battle to stop the raising of the retirement age. Workers showed their potential power to defeat the...
Debate ignores reality—Afghan war is lost for US
Just about everyone recognises that the US has failed in Afghanistan and the war is lost. Even right-wing commentator Greg Sheridan, The Australian’s foreign policy guru, says he has...
Clara Zetkin—women’s suffrage and socialism
Lucy Honan continues the Solidarity series on the lives and politics of revolutionary womenThe German socialist, Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) is probably best known as the woman who led the...
Crisis and despair in Obama’s America
David Glanz looks at the problems haunting Barack Obama in the face of swing against the Democrats in the mid-term electionsMORE THAN 130,000 workers lost their jobs across the US...
Venezuela: Revolution stalled?
After recent elections showed a drop in enthusiasm for Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution Ernest Price and Ian Rintoul look at where the revolutionary process is heading.Disappointment at the slow...
Understanding redneck America
Rainbow Pie: a redneck memoir
By Joe Bageant
Scribe, $35All too often the word “redneck” brings up connotations of slack-jawed yokels, wilfully uneducated in everything other than in how to aim...
Exposing raunch culture and the new sexism
Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism
By Natasha Walter
Virago, $35Living Dolls is a compelling must-read for all those interested in understanding sexism today. Through interviews and research, author Natasha Walter...
Equal love, equal rights: rediscovering the red in the rainbow
Amy Thomas reviews Hannah Dee’s The Red in the Rainbow, an essential look at why fighting homophobia means fighting the systemSince the federal election Julia Gillard has continued to...
