The third round of March Australia rallies were held over the weekend of August 30 to 31. More than 40,000 people were estimated to have marched in 40 events around the country.
Participants were marching about issues that included budget cuts, refugees, education, welfare and the environment.
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Australian resident Natalie Lowrey was refused entry into Malaysia on August 31. She was travelling as an observer to the trial of 15 environmental activists who were arrested for protesting against Australian rare earth mining company Lynas.
On arrival in Malaysia, Lowrey was held by customs officials who said she had been blacklisted by Bukit Aman 鈥 the police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur 鈥 and that she would be deported home. Lowrey was informed of a strict denial of entry to Malaysia. No reasons were given.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fought for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka.
The group was formed in response to discrimination against the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan government, after peaceful protests had been repeatedly met with violent repression. It waged an armed struggle for nearly three decades.
The LTTE was militarily defeated in 2009, and no longer exists. Yet people are still being penalised for alleged links with the group. This is happening in Sri Lanka, in Australia, and in other countries.
鈥淚t鈥檚 socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us in Britain鈥 writes Owen Jones in on August 29.
Jones鈥 argument is based on the bailouts given to the banks and subsidies given to big businesses by the British government in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. These government bailouts allowed the banks to survive, but individuals suffered and received limited government intervention or support.
A petition is calling on the Monash University Clubs and Societies Executive to overturn its decision to deregister the Socialist Alternative Club.
The text of the petition is below. .
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Nick Riemer gave this speech to the March Australia rally in Sydney on August 31. He is an activist with the Refugee Action Coalition.
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The Gadigal and the other first peoples of this country were 鈥 and still are 鈥 the objects of a relentless war of attrition.
That merciless frontier war has been hidden and denied. Another war that the government tries to conceal and rationalise away is its war on asylum seekers.
Rallies were held in cities around Australia on August 30 to demand the extradition to Chile of former Pinochet regime secret police agent Adriana Rivas.
This follows revelations shown on SBS last year about her involvement in repression of political prisoners as a member of the National Intelligence Agency of Chile during 1976-77.
A 24 year-old Iranian asylum seeker, Hamid Khazaei, who was flown from Manus Island to Brisbane in a medical emergency on August 27, was declared 鈥渂rain dead鈥 on September 1. His life support was switched off and he died on September 5.
The Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney reported: 鈥淏y the time Hamid was sent to Brisbane, he was suffering septicaemia from an infection spreading from a cut foot and went directly into intensive care in the Mater hospital. He had sought medical attention for days on Manus Island for the pain and the infection.
Scientists at the CSIRO have published research that shows chance that rising temperatures are caused by human activity.
Writing in The Conversation they say: 鈥淚gnoring the problem is no longer an option.鈥
The University of New South Wales acting vice chancellor Iain Martin cancelled a Town Hall meeting on September 3, organised to brief staff on the University鈥檚 response to proposed fee deregulation.
UNSW students had planned to protest their exclusion from the meeting.
In cancelling the meeting, Martin told staff: 鈥淲e have been advised this morning by police and security that the meeting was being targeted by protest groups, which we understand were predominately external to UNSW. Our advice is that the intention was to disrupt the Town Hall.鈥
Two representatives from Irish republican party Sinn Fein toured Australia from August to September 7, speaking to hundreds of people at public meetings about the campaign for Irish reunification.
Sinn Fein vice-president and member of the Dail (Irish parliament) Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Fein MP for Mid-Ulster in Ireland's north Francie Molloy, spoke in support of the campaign to end partition and unite the six counties still claimed by Britain with the 26 counties that make up the southern state in a democratic republic.
The United Motorcycle Council has taken the Queensland government to the High Court to challenge the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment (VLAD) Act.
Introduced last year, the laws make it an offence for more than three members of an outlawed group to meet in public. Penalties include six months to three years in solitary confinement for being 鈥渁ssociates鈥 of a designated motorcycle club.
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