There is a dangerous escalation of transphobia happening right now. The political right in the United States and the United Kingdom are rolling back civil rights for trans people specifically and LGBT people more broadly. This is being driven by an amalgamation of mainstream conservative parties, the far right, Christian fundamentalists and right-wing shock jocks and tabloids.
Prominent Sri Lankan trade unionist and Ceylon Teachers’ Union General Secretary Joseph Stalin was arrested in his office on 4 August for taking part in a large anti-government protest in May.
In 1915, Rosa Luxemburg wrote The Crisis of Social Democracy while in jail for her anti-war activism. In it, she criticised the leaders of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) for betraying working-class internationalism with their support for the First World War. The pamphlet was smuggled out in April that year and published a year later. Distributed illegally under the pseudonym Junius, it’s commonly known as the Junius pamphlet.
Cleaners at Calvary Public Hospital in Canberra have won a dispute with their contractor, Compass Medirest. Calvary, Australia’s 37th largest private company, made more than $1.3 billion last financial year. Cleaners there haven’t received a pay rise in nearly three years, and prior to the strike were paid $3 less than cleaners at the neighbouring Canberra Hospital.
The real looters in the US today aren’t those smashing their way into Target and scoring themselves a pair of jeans, designer sneakers or some toys for their kids. American capitalism was built, from the ground up, on theft. Not petty theft by the poor, but systematic, everyday theft by the rich, whose immense wealth and power was built on the back of a history of slavery and exploitation.
South Australia became the first state to declare a climate emergency on 25 September, joining more than 1,000 jurisdictions around the world. It follows the ACT and 54 local councils across Australia, including most capital cities.