Current Issue of The Guardian

August 23, 2017 - click here for index of articles.

ORGANISE, AGITATE, EDUCATE!

In its latest move against organised labour, the government brazenly lies that its “Ensuring Integrity” bill to amend the Registered Organisations Act protects the interests of workers and complies with International Labour Organisation Conventions. more ...

Editorial – Manus detention toll

Hamid, a 31-year-old Iranian asylum seeker, was found hanging from a tree near the school close to the East Lorengau Transit Accommodation, on Manus Island. more ...

Welfare card “no remedy”

The cashless welfare card is not a remedy to complex social problems, according to the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia (AHCWA). The peak body for Aboriginal health in WA, AHCWA is challenging the outgoing Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan, who wrote in an opinion piece for The West Australian about sexual abuse of children in remote Indigenous communities. more ...

Call for action on abuse of youth

The Change the Record Coalition has called for a national response to end the abuse of children in detention, following allegations of violence and mistreatment in ACT youth detention facilities. The most recent reports add to a growing list of revelations of abuse of children in detention around Australia, including Queensland’s Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, the Northern Territory’s Don Dale Detention Centre and Victoria’s Barwon Prison. more ...

Citizen Turnbull on thin ice

The Turnbull government is skating on very thin ice indeed. This week the High Court of Australia will begin hearing the cases of several parliamentarians, including three members of the government, who may be guilty of having violated Section 44 of the Australian constitution, which prohibits certain persons from taking parliamentary office, in particular Subsection (i), which bans them from being MPs if they hold dual citizenship. more ...

America’s policy of nuclear annihilation

The threats from US President Donald Trump and the Pentagon to “destroy the North Korean people” – said with such casual cold heartedness – shows that the American ruling class has no compunction about committing the supreme crime of genocide against innocent civilians. more ...

Stop drift to war

Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” statement, directed at the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea, and reinforced by even more intemperate language last Thursday, is the height of irresponsibility and increases the danger that some unforeseen incident will lead to a major war on and around the Korean Peninsula. more ...

Journalism is not a crime

Journalists in Turkey are some of the most courageous people I know. They work in conditions where they face daily threats and intimidation from the Turkish state and the constant fear of arrest. Newsrooms are often raided, equipment seized or destroyed and staff arrested and physically attacked by the authorities. more ...

Culture & Life – Who is the real “Rogue State”?

You have presumably noticed how Australian news bulletins invariably refer to the DPRK (North Korea) as “the rogue state”. The use of this term of opprobrium began, of course, with the Yanks but all of America’s assorted allies and clients quickly fell into line. In Australia, even the ABC uses it. But one has to ask: why? more ...

Quote of the Week

The bird of our country is a debilitated chicken, disguised in eagle feathers. We have never been a nation; we are only an aggregate of communities, ready to fall apart at the first serious shock.

George Templeton Strong, 1861, on the American Civil War

This web page was last updated: Wednesday, August 23, 2017