El Salvador's Legislative Assembly approved the Social Development and Protection Law on April 3. The law was presented by President Mauricio Funes last year to ensure the groundbreaking social services initiated by his administration continued.
These programs are designed to address the needs of historically abandoned and excluded sectors. The law mandates a 鈥渓egal framework for human development, protection and social inclusion that promotes, protects and guarantees the fulfillment of people鈥檚 rights鈥.
1005
Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) in Pakistan, will be one of the international guests at the 10th national conference of the Socialist Alliance, to be held in Sydney over June 7 to 9. He will speak on 鈥淭he Struggle for Democracy and Justice in Pakistan鈥 on June 7 at the Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville. Visit www.socialist-alliance.org for more details.
Ahead of his trip, 麻豆传媒 Weekly's Peter Boyle spoke to Tariq on Pakistani politics.
* * *
The Western Australia senate election re-run has resulted in a big drop in support for the major parties and significant swings to the Greens and the Palmer United Party (PUP).
Greens, PUP and Labor have won one seat each while the Liberals have won two seats. The final seat will be decided by preferences and is expected to go to either Liberal or Labor.
In 2012, neoliberalism catalysed a national 鈥淥ccupy Nigeria鈥 strike that nearly overthrew the government after the removal of a petrol subsidy, under direct pressure from the IMF, writes Patrick Bond.
The preparations for the federal budget, due to be handed down by Treasurer Joe Hockey on May 13, began on October 22 last year. This is the date on which Hockey announced a National Commission of Audit.
The commission is chaired by Tony Shepherd, who just happens to be the President of the Business Council of Australia, the organisation representing Australia鈥檚 100 largest companies. Shepherd鈥檚 appointment amounts to an invitation to big business to tell the government how it wants the economy to function in its favour during the Coalition鈥檚 term of office.
The Royal Commission into the use of union funds began on April 9. The commission is not an attempt to stamp out corrupt union practices, but a serious political attack on unions by the Tony Abbott government. It is designed to weaken the union movement and break militant union activity.
Comments made by Coalition ministers before the public hearings have started sets up a presumption of guilt in order to prejudice the public mind.
I am a Year 11 high school student, and when I heard they were trying to transfer more refugees from Villawood, I couldn鈥檛 stand by.
Standing outside the detention centre in the early morning of April 5 while waiting for the buses to move, I saw a Facebook status from one of the protest's spokespeople, Clo Schofield, who had just been interviewed on right-wing radio station 2GB. Schofield encouraged us to ring to air our grievances about Australia's cruel and heartless asylum seeker policy.
An ongoing blockade of an unconventional gas drill site in Bentley, 12 kilometres from Lismore鈥檚 CBD in NSW, has so far stopped gas company Metgasco from starting exploration in the area.
This test drill will help determine whether there are commercial quantities of gas available, and if so, up to 1000 wells could potentially be drilled in the area.
Hundreds of people are permanently camping on land next to the drill site, and at times numbers have swelled to 2000, as the community acts to stop heavy machinery from entering.
Most people have heard of the rant by Australia's richest billionaire, Gina Rinehart, against welfare and the 鈥渆ntitlement mentality鈥 of Australians 鈥 and . But have you heard about the US$694 million ($740 million) soft loan from US taxpayers?
More than 400 people turned out in Geelong on April 5 to demand that the government be more humane to refugees and asylum seekers.
The Combined Refugee Action Group (CRAG) organised the rally, and called on the government to: immediately end offshore processing and mandatory detention, re-install family reunion for refugees, and to end the indefinite detention of refugees with negative ASIO status.
When the NSW Coalition government was elected to office in March 2011, it put all new coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licences on hold pending an internal inquiry.
Sixteen months later, in September 2012, the government announced that the results of this 鈥渢horough investigation鈥 found all was in order and the industry could proceed apace.
The NSW government has now announced that all new CSG licence applications would again be frozen, this time for six months. The government said this was necessary to implement a "new regime" for allocating future licences.
The former Labor government tried and failed with its ill-conceived "people swap" deal with Malaysia in 2011. Now, the Tony Abbott government has said it may try a resettlement deal with the even poorer nation of Cambodia.
After talks with foreign minister Julie Bishop in February, her counterpart, Hor Namhong, said Cambodia was considering an offer to resettle refugees from Australia. Immigration minister Scott Morrison visited Cambodia again this month, to discuss "regional cooperation to deal with asylum seeker movement".
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page