Barcelona – Five hundred participants, representing more than 50 solidarity organisations from across the Spanish state, attended the conference, “Yesterday South Africa, Today Palestine”, held here October 19-21.The conference, the first of its kind in the Spanish state, was organised with the aim of raising awareness about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and strengthening the

A “white tide” swept through central Madrid on December 9, in protest at health sector budget cuts and hospital privatisation plans announced by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) regional government.

Today the global capitalist economy faces its greatest crisis in 80 years. First there was the credit crunch beginning in August 2007, when governments around the world stepped in to bail out the banks. Then, in September 2008, there was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, precipitating the greatest financial crash since 1929.

Soria, Spain – On September 25, tens of thousands of activists from all over Spain heeded a call to “encircle” the Spanish parliament demanding the resignation of the Popular Party (PP) government, headed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, and a constitutional reform process.

One hundred and fifty thousand people poured onto the streets of Madrid on the evening of July 11 to greet tens of thousands of Spanish miners, who had participated in an 18-day marcha negra (black march) from Spain’s northern coal mining regions of Asturias, Leon, Palencia and Aragon.

According to UNESCO, nearly 1 billion people – 26% of the world's adult population – can't read or write.

The French multinational Veolia will be “the major target for its boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign work in 2012”, Friends of Palestine WA resolved at its annual general meeting on February 4.

One thousand people marched through Perth’s CBD on October 28, the first day of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), despite a massive security presence. The protest, organised by the CHOGM Action Network (CAN), united activists from numerous campaigns behind the slogan “Justice and Climate Action, Not Racism and War”.

On November 20, the governing Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), led by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of voters angered by the harsh austerity measures imposed upon them.

“Protesters vow to break CHOGM security lines” is how the August 23 issue of the Perth daily West Australian headlined an article accusing CHOGM protesters of being “on course for a confrontation with police at key CHOGM events”.

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of bankruptcy. At the centre of the European debt crisis is Greece, whose government and investors owe US$130 billion to European banks. Ireland, Portugal and Spain have public and private loans of US$463 billion, US$194 billion and US$642 billion respectively to European banks.

Angered by rising unemployment and a deepening social crisis, and inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, tens of thousands of Spanish youth have taken to the streets, occupying city squares throughout Spain. Solidarity protests have taken place throughout Europe.

On the morning of March 20, waves of NATO jet fighters and bombers launched an air attack against Libya’s air force, air defence systems, airports, roads, ports and ground forces with hundreds of cruise missiles, under cover of UN Resolution 1973, pushed through the Security Council on March 17.

Only a month after a university-educated street vendor burned himself to death, a mass movement forced dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee Tunisia on January 14. Tunisia’s upheaval sparked massive demonstrations in Algeria against rising food prices, forcing the country’s military regime to reintroduce food subsidies.

Following the hasty departure of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, Tunisia’s uprising has continued to mobilise across the country against the fake “national unity” government imposed upon it by the dictator’s cronies, desperate to cling to power.

On November 10, French President Nicolas Sarkozy signed into law his conservative government’s pension reform plan, under which the minimum age of retirement will be increased from 60 to 62 years, but those retired workers who wish to claim full pension benefits will be forced to wait until they reach the age of 67 instead of the present age of 65.

Madrid – Ten million workers – more than half of Spain’s workforce – joined a general strike on September 29, and around 1.5 million participated in street demonstrations, according to the Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (CCOO) and General Union of Workers (UGT), Spain’s two major trade union federations.

“I’ve been waiting for [this] for a long time”, tweeted Daniel Ellsberg, in reference to the release of more than 92,000 pages of classified US military documents by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks, on July 25.

On July 1, US President Barack Obama signed into law a new bill that imposes unilateral US sanctions targeting foreign companies that sell petroleum products to Iran. On July 26, the European Union followed suit. New EU sanctions include a ban on the sale of equipment and services to Iran’s energy sector.

The West Australian public sector is under attack. Under Liberal Premier Colin Barnett’s privatisation plans, public sector agencies delivering services in industries such as forestry, health, education, and electricity and water supply are being asked to identify activities that may be sold off to private businesses.

“Business is bustling at the lavish boutiques, restaurants and nightclubs that have reopened in the breezy hills above the [Haitian] capital [of Port-au-Prince], while thousands of homeless and hungry people camp in the streets around them, sometimes literally on their doorstep”, the March 27 New York Times reported.

“Aboriginal people are treated worse than second class citizens”, Paul Haywood told a rally in Perth on March 17. Haywood, whose brother Deon Woods died in the Perth watch-house on March 14, told protesters, “Deon’s son is here today. Now he hasn’t got a father. I haven’t got a brother. My mother has lost her son and my sister in law has lost her man.”

On January 28, 2010, singer, songwriter and socialist Alistair Hulett died from cancer at just 58 years old. I recall first seeing Hulett perform at the Sandringham Hotel, in Newtown, Sydney, in 1989.

Inside the revolution: a journey into the heart of Venezuela
Directed by Pablo Navarrete
65 minutes
Alborado Films 2009
Available at http://alborada.net/

On January 19, one week after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, Agence France Presse reported that hundreds of Haitians looked stunned as several helicopters landed 100 US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in the grounds of the Presidential Palace.

Sam Wainwright, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the Fremantle City Council (FCC) ward of Hilton, was elected to the FCC on October 17 with 33.4% of the vote. Wainwright received 438 out of 1310 valid votes, 100 more than his nearest competitor, Dave Hume, a member of the Australian Labor Party. (The election was first past the post, not preferential.)

On May 15, Ark Tribe, a rank-and-file member of the South Australia branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) construction division, became the second person to be charged by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) for refusing to attend an interview.

Havana – On May 1, international workers’ day, at least half a million Cubans marched cheerfully and defiantly through Havana from the Plaza of the Revolution to the US Interests Section. Hundreds of thousands more rallied in other cities throughout the Caribbean island.

San Salvador – As voting centres across El Salvador closed at 5 pm on March 15, the streets around the San Salvador headquarters of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) filled with supporters determined to defend and to celebrate the party’s first presidential election victory. Chants of “Si, podemos!” (Yes, we could!

Salvadorans will vote for a new president on March 15. For the last 12 months, former independent journalist Mauricio Funes has held a double-digit lead over his rival, Rodrigo Avila, a former chief of the national police.

On November 25 – a day after the first anniversary of the election of the Rudd Labor government – deputy PM and workplace relations minister Julia Gillard introduced the government’s Fair Work bill into federal parliament. She said the bill would “sweep away” the Howard government’s Work Choices laws and deliver on Labor’s election promises.

Over the weekend of November 7-9, 2008, socialists from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Sweden and Taiwan gathered near Kuala Lumpur for Socialism 2008, a conference hosted by the Parti Socialis Malaysia (Malaysian Socialist Party, PSM).

On September 6, Western Australians will be voting in a state election to determine which of the two big-business parties can best manage WA’s resources export boom for the big end of town. WA Premier Alan Carpenter called an early state election on August 7, just one day after WA Liberal Party leader Troy Buswell resigned.

On August 12, ACTU president Sharan Burrow called on the federal Labor government to introduce new industrial relations laws into parliament before the end of the year.

Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto
By Max Lane
Verso 2008 312 pages
RRP (Australia) $49.95

“Imagine the CEO of a national bank declaring the whole enterprise was geared to make no profit and their goal was to support the creation of a socialist society. Daily life in Venezuela is full of such rich contrasts to wealthy Australia”, Ian Jamieson explained to me when I caught up with him about his experiences on a recent fact-finding brigade there.

Written and directed by Clifton Ross
PM Press 2008
Bilingual with subtitles in Spanish and English
85 minutes

“Nine decades ago a revolutionary journalist from New York, John Reed, published a book of his findings of a great revolutionary upheaval, the Russian revolution, titled Ten Days That Shook the World”, Ian Jamieson, a Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) delegate who participated in the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) May Day brigade to Venezuela, told a May 28 public me

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on April 14 show an alarming decline in union membership. In the 12 months to August 2007, unions lost 89,000 members (5% of their membership). Union density declined from 20.3% to 18.9%. Only 14% of private sector workers are union members, compared with 41% of public sector workers, according to the ABS data.