The fallout from recent revelations of US spying operations on its “friends” in Europe continues. The US’s European allies are embarrassed by revelations of the personal mobiles of government leaders being violated and are questioning whether US agencies can be trusted with shared intelligence. India and several other countries are looking at setting up their own internet systems to avoid their communications passing through the US, as they do at present. Indonesia is joining Brazil and Germany in asking the UN General Assembly to pass a resolution calling on all countries to respect the right of privacy under international law.  more ...

With the rapid growth in trade with China and other Asian nations, there is increased interest by foreign and local corporations in agricultural production. Dairy produce is already Australia’s third largest source of agriculture exports after beef and wheat.  more ...

Wharfies are 14 times more likely to die on the job than the average Australian worker. The waterfront has seen massive productivity improvements over the last two decades and this intensification of productivity (and exploitation) has seen risks associated with working on the waterfront escalate.  more ...

It was with great sadness that the Communist Party of Australia received the news of the passing of legendary activist and communist Brian Manning on November 3 at the age of 81. It is not an easy thing to summarise the life’s work of such an energetic and capable communist over long decades of struggle.  more ...

Prime Minister Tony Abbott hasn’t waited for the findings of his Audit Commission to set the wreckers’ balls and steamrollers loose on the Australian Public Service (APS). By the time the Audit Commission’s report is handed over, government agencies (including departments) will have lost thousands of staff and vital public services and research will have been savaged.   more ...

BERLIN: It was a good try, anyway – and an adventurous one. Three men flew from Berlin to Moscow, were taken in a car with tinted glass windows to a secret location – where they met Edward Snowden and his partner-in-(alleged)-crime, Sarah Harrison.  more ...

I have written in these pages many times now about the calamitous state of the US economy and with it the US standard of living. The USA may be the richest country in the world but its image of itself as the envy of the world has seldom been less true. For most of the last 100 years or so the US has been viewed with either admiration or fear, depending on whether the viewer was trying to emigrate there or was being bombarded by US warships.  more ...