The open letter below was submitted to Prime Minister Tony Abbott on May 23 at the Australian book industry awards in Sydney. Released by the editors of literary journals Meanjin and Overland, it has been signed by dozens of writers. You can read the full list .
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Dear Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Treasurer Joe Hockey and Minister for Arts George Brandis.
1011
Sixty years ago, in June 1954, a CIA-orchestrated coup ousted the reformist Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. The coup installed a brutal right-wing regime and decades of bloody repression.
This event, so notorious in the annals of US imperialism, also Guevara. For it was in the Central American nation, where Guevara's Latin American road trip culminated, that the strands of his early thought Marxism, anti-imperialism, indigenismo were fused in a dramatic, galvanising moment.
The savage cuts to education announced in early May have stirred students into action across Australia.
On May 28, the University of Western Sydney Education Action Group (EAG) held a meeting on the Bankstown campus to organise students, and work with staff to defend quality tertiary education.
With two-thirds of Australian university students living below the poverty line and one in five students skipping meals, students are among the most financially vulnerable sectors.
While attacking pensioners, the unemployed, single parents and the marginalised, the Coalition government has stepped up its attack on the organised.
There are two inquiries aimed at unions underway 鈥 a Productivity Commission inquiry into the Fair Work Act and the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. Both are designed to emasculate an already legislatively constrained union movement.
For good measure, Attorney-General George Brandis has now added a third.
About 100 people rallied in Melbourne to call for justice for Reza Berati on May 28, the 100 day anniversary of his murder on Manus Island.
The rally called for an independent investigation of the murder, for all offshore prisons to be closed and for immigration minister Scott Morrison to be sacked.
By criticising the 2014 World Cup and the spending priorities of the Brazilian government, Brazilian football legend Pele has accomplished the rarest of feats in 21st century sports media: he has shown the capacity to shock and surprise.
鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that politically speaking, the money spent to build the stadiums was a lot, and in some cases was more than it should have been,鈥 Pele said during a lecture at Anahuac University in Mexico City.
Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance released this statement on May 30.
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The federal Coalition government plans to ramp up Work for the Dole for job seekers under 30.
From July 1, it will apply in 18 high unemployment regions across Australia, and will be rolled out nationwide from July 1 next year.
Sudan鈥檚 people are bearing the brunt of the country鈥檚 deepening economic crisis.
According to Bella Bird, World Bank director for Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, half the population is now living below the poverty line. Last August, Sudanese economist Hassan Satti estimated the real figure would likely exceed 95%.
About 150 people took to the streets of Brisbane on May 24 to protest against biotechnology corporation Monsanto, one of the foremost proponents of genetically modified (GM) technologies.
The event was part of an international day of action that called for all products with genetically modified organisms to be labelled, Monsanto products to be banned in Australia, and a more transparent handling of GM products by the Australian government.
Speakers described the history of Monsanto and neoliberal laws and free trade agreements that help the corporation.
If you were to take Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the Coalition on face value, they appear to be against debt.
All the pain imposed on the poorest in society by the federal budget and all the cuts to education, health and welfare are justified as being necessary 鈥渕edicine鈥 to solve a horrendous debt problem left to them by previous Labor governments. Yes, we've heard that line over and over again.
Never mind the fact that the government's debt as a proportion of gross domestic product is one of the lowest among the developed countries and lower than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.
Members of a number of unions rallied outside Brisbane Magistrates Court on May 26 in support of Electrical Trades Union (ETU) Queensland and Northern Territory branch secretary Peter Simpson, who was facing charges under the Transparency and Accountability Act.
Introduced last September, the law requires unions to conduct a ballot of all members before spending more than $10,000 on political campaigns and to publicly declare all expenditure (either on a union website or the Industrial Commission鈥檚 site).
Organic farmer Steve Marsh has lost his case in the Western Australian Supreme Court after seeking compensation for his crops being affected by genetically modified (GM) seeds.
Organic farmers fear the case will have dire consequences for non-GM farmers everywhere.
In a case which was the first of its kind, Marsh brought legal action against his neighbour Michael Baxter, who took advantage of changes in state legislation and began growing GM canola on his adjacent farm in 2010. Some seeds blew over the road onto Marsh鈥檚 property.
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