Essays From Near & Far
James Dryburgh
Walleah Press, 2014
130 pages, $20
http://walleahpress.com.au
The Tasmanian establishment like to promote the idea that their state is separate to the rest of Australia; that its isolation means things are done differently and that鈥檚 just the way it is.
It鈥檚 an attitude that keeps newly arrived residents as outsiders and maintains acquiescence to the status quo in politics and business.
1036
The 18th South Asian Associations for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit took place at Kathmandu, Nepal on November 25 and 26. The heads of the eight states of South Asia took part in the summit.
Kathmandu was a showcase of what has happened repeatedly in the three decades since the birth of the SAARC. Leaders make rhetorical speeches and spend time on expensive retreats and sightseeing 鈥 then head home forgetting what was said in the summit hall.
鈥淓bola emerged nearly four decades ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has historically been . The [research and development] incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.鈥
Japan is the world鈥檚 third largest economy, Australia鈥檚 second largest export market, and third largest import market. It is also a country whose economy has been stagnant since the land market crash of 1990.
This stagnation, accompanied by a rise from 30% to 40% in the number of workers without permanent full-time jobs since 2002, validates the 鈥渟tagnation thesis鈥 that Keynes advanced in his 1836 book General Theory.
Two thousand activists for free and public education gathered in the Indian city of Bhopal on December 4.
This meeting was the culmination of a month-long series of marches and public meetings organised by the All India Forum for the Right to Education (AIFRTE). This action, under the banner of the All India Struggle for Public Education (AISSY), has been carried out across all of India鈥檚 five geographic regions with the aim to raise public consciousness about the assault on public education by pro-market and religious fundamentalist right-wing forces.
You know a government is in some serious trouble when a morning TV host tears the prime minister to shreds. And when the most likable member of the government appears to be Julie 鈥淒eath Stare鈥 Bishop, it has less good options than a drunk at closing time in Canberra. A little over a year in office, and Tony Abbott's one big achievement is he has made Bill Shorten look electable.
Days before the Victorian elections on November 29, the Labor opposition promised to scrap the East West Link, a massive road project in Melbourne with an estimated cost of $18 billion.
On the back of a large community campaign to stop the project, this position helped Labor win the election.
The history of the campaign to stop the tunnel provides lessons on how the community can successfully beat the power of corporations and governments.
Almost 70% of NSW voters oppose the partial sale of state-owned electricity "poles and wires" assets, according to a Fairfax/Ipsos opinion poll reported in the November 24 Sydney Morning Herald. Only 29% say they support the NSW Coalition government's plan to lease 49% of the power facilities to private corporations.
The same 69% of people also believe that electricity prices would rise if the sale goes through; while only 7% think prices would fall. About 20% consider prices would remain the same.
As parliament wound up for the year, the Coalition government was desperate to salvage a symbolic 鈥渨in鈥 in the Senate to save some face. It was reeling from the defeat of the one-term Liberal government in Victoria, which was seen as a vote against Prime Minister Tony Abbott in the second most populous state in Australia.
When Labor claimed victory in the Victorian elections, many of the smaller parties also celebrated their electoral success.
The Greens won their first seat in Victoria鈥檚 Lower House, with the victory of Ellen Sandell over the incumbent Jennifer Kanis, the only Labor MP in the Legislative Assembly to lose a seat.
Sixteen concerned residents of Kuantan travelled all the way from Malaysia to Sydney to protest at the November 28 shareholders' annual general meeting of an Australian rare earth mining and refining company.
Lynas Corporation's toxic refinery in the outskirts of Kuantan (population 700,000) on Malaysia's east coast is deeply unpopular with local residents and other concerned Malaysians who, together with Australian supporters, have mounted protests in Sydney at the past four AGMs.
The news came through on December 3, as I write this, that another grand jury has refused to indict a white cop for murdering an unarmed Black man.
In this case, the murder was caught on video in New York City on July 17.
The widely watched video, taken by a bystander, showed 43-year-old Black man Eric Garner being set upon by a group of cops for selling individual cigarettes on the street.
One cop is seen putting Garner in a chokehold. The other cops pile on, and Gardener is choked to death. The cops then arrested the man who shot the video and his girlfriend.
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