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About 8000 people packed the Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid on October 18 and 19, with 150,000 taking part online, for the the final stages of the Citizens' Assembly “Si se puede” (Yes we can). The assembly discussed draft documents for the foundation of Podemos.

Akit and Aydinlik are two Turkish newspapers usually diameterically opposed. Akit is pro-government, and Islamic fundamentalist, while Aydinlik is the paper of the nationalist and Maoist Workers Party (IP). But on one day during the recent protests by the Kurdish people in Turkey in solidarity with besieged city of Kobane (also known as Kobani), in which almost 40 people were killed, they ran almost the same headline.

When New South Wales Minister for Resources and Energy Anthony Roberts cancelled the three coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licences held by Leichardt Resources near Kandos, Nowra and Moree on October 14, he said it was because the company had failed to fulfil its licence conditions. The alleged compliance breaches included failure to engage with the community. Roberts had earlier complained that it was the previous Labor government that made it easy for “speculators and cowboys” to be granted licences without proper regulatory oversight.

In Problems of Greater Britain, the English politician Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke concluded that high wages, cheap food and the time available for sporting and cultural activities made Australia a workers’ paradise. If Dilke’s observation in 1890 ever had any truth to it, it was a paradise soon lost. The average weekly wage did not recover from its fall in the 1891 depression until 20 years later. For the less skilled in the labour force, the 20% wage loss in the depression wasn’t clawed back until 1921.

Kamala Emanuel gave this speech at a rally against Islamophobia in Perth on October 18. *** Like many of you here, I remember when the world’s biggest anti-war demonstrations took place in many cities in 2003. Millions of people rallied around the world and came together to say no to the West’s intervention in Iraq. I think it is important that once again we build up the kind of movement that says no to Western aggression in the Middle East.