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Protest against India's state terror

One of India’s leading Maoists Kobad Ghandy is facing charges under India’s repressive laws which have been denounced by human rights activists.

Kobad is a campaigner for liberation against Indian state terror.

Join the demo to free Kobad Ghandy and protest against Operation Green Hunt, India’s war on the poor.

12 midday Thursday 29 April
High Commission of India, 180 Molesworth Street, Wellington

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Planned economy not planned unemployment

The Spark April 2010
Jared Phillips

In the first part of its first term the current National government strengthened its centrist positioning with a job creation agenda (national and regional job summits), redundancy packages (Job Support Scheme, transitional relief packages), and youth employment incentives (youth opportunities package). As was the international order-of-the-day, corporate welfare pervaded most of the policy that emerged. Now, outside of National and Labour’s struggle for the political centre, New Zealand’s increasing margins – the unemployed, the underemployed, the transient workforce – are up for direct punishment.

Key and Bennett launched Future Focus (aka beneficiary bashing)

As  soon as John Key and Paula Bennett announced Future Focus benefit reforms in late-March 2010 One News let the game begin with a headline story about Work and Income NZ fraud by an ex-gang member’s partner, who they’d ambushed with cameras at her court appearance. On queue, The New Zealand Herald (25/3/10) chimed the bell with its editorial ‘Benefit reform a step in the right direction’, in which there was a mouth-off about `Young women who regard the domestic purposes benefit as an open-ended career choice’, and a citation of John Key’s ‘breeding for business’ theory in regard to ‘unmarried women’ who ‘get pregnant’. This is the way in which the government has come out to front the mass unemployment problem. Continue reading “Planned economy not planned unemployment”

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Search & Surveillance Bill – public meetings

Wellington Public Meeting: April 8th:

What’s all the fuss about the Search & Surveillance Bill? Public meeting 8 April 2010 at 7pm Old Government Building Lecture Theatre 2 (VUW Law School)
Chief justices, the privacy commissioner, Amnesty International, the Council for Trade Unions and the Human Rights Commissioner have all come out in opposition to the Search and Surveillance Bill saying it is a major threat to human rights and a major attack on fundamental freedoms. This bill is now before parliament and will be reported back on 1 May. Find out what is going on.
Speakers include: Warren Young, deputy president of the NZ Law Commission and Michael Bott, Chairman of the Wellington Council for Civil Liberties.
The moderator for the programme will be Dr. Sandra Grey, Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University. http://stopthebillnow.blogspot.com StopTheBillNow@gmail.com

Auckland Organising Meeting

Saturday April 24th is going to be a national day of protest action to oppose the Search and Surveillance Bill.
We will be having a meeting to plan an Auckland protest for the national day of action on:
7pm Thursday the 8th of April, Meeting room one in AUSA house, University of Auckland,Alfred Street.(That is the big old wooden house on Alfred Street, across the road from the University General Library).

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A land grab, or just free trade?

Ever since the global food crisis of 2008, countries such as China, as well as South Korea and the oil-rich but food-poor nations of the Middle East, have been buying up large amounts of land for agricultural production in places like sub-Saharan Africa, sparking concerns about a “new land grab” and “re-colonisation” of the continent. These terms certainly appear to be accurate, the neo-colonial relationship African countries have shared with the West since the end of colonialism proper has kept them poor and susceptible to unequal trade relationships, not just with the Western world, but with emerging economic powers as well. It is surprising however, that similar rhetoric has been used to describe the announcement that Chinese company Natural Dairy NZ plans to buy NZ$1.5 billion worth of farmland, cows and milk processing plants in New Zealand. Continue reading “A land grab, or just free trade?”

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No Israeli Embassy in Wellington [NIEW] Mission Statement

Alastair Reith
http://noembassy.wordpress.com/
On 26 March 26th 2010, Palestine activists from around Wellington met to plan a campaign of resistance to the re-opening of an Israeli embassy in our city. The decision was made to form a coalition involving all interested groups and individuals.
We are calling on all groups opposed to the Israeli occupation and specifically to the opening of an Israeli embassy in our capital to sign on and declare support for this mission statement, and to contribute in whatever ways they can to this campaign. Continue reading “No Israeli Embassy in Wellington [NIEW] Mission Statement”

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Eyewitness to the revolution in Nepal: Interview with Ben Peterson

By The Spark reporters

Ben Peterson

In 2009, Ben Peterson, a young Australian member of Socialist Alliance, spent four and a half months in Nepal, spending much of his time there with the Maoist revolutionaries and speaking to them about the revolutionary process taking place there. He had been reading everything he could find on the Nepali revolution while still in Australia but, frustrated by the lack of accurate information in the media, decided to go to Nepal to see and experience the revolution for himself.
This March Ben made a speaking tour of New Zealand in a visit organised by the Workers Party and Socialist Worker, with support from the Alliance in Christchurch and the International Socialist Organisation in Dunedin. The tour was organised to promote awareness of the revolutionary process in Nepal, especially as the revolution moves towards a critical phase there. We interviewed Ben at the beginning of the NZ speaking tour. Continue reading “Eyewitness to the revolution in Nepal: Interview with Ben Peterson”

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Arundhati Roy on India's revolutionaries

In February 2010, unannounced, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India’s Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribespeople many of whom have taken up arms to protect their people against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She recorded in considerable detail the first face-to-face journalistic “encounter” with armed guerrillas, their families and comrades, for which she combed the forests for weeks at personal risk.

 http://kasamaproject.org/

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Strike rights threatened

Mike Kay
A Private Member’s Bill introduced by the National Party MP Tau Henare has been drawn from the ballot to be debated in Parliament. The Bill proposes to amend the Employment Relations Act as follows:
“A strike may not proceed under this Act, unless the question has been submitted to a secret ballot of those employees who are members of the union that would become parties to the strike if it proceeded.”
The Council of Trade Unions has announced its “support in principle” for the bill, “as it largely reflects current practice.”
The British experience may be of some use in analysing the effect of secret ballots. Over there, the law has required a secret ballot prior to strike action for nearly 30 years. I asked an official with the Postal section of the Communication Workers Union his opinion on the issue. This is his response: Continue reading “Strike rights threatened”

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PFLP Solidarity Campaign transfers funds to Palestinian Resistance

Press release  Date: 18/03/2010
Due to the generosity and support of progressive people in New Zealand for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestinian cause, the PFLP solidarity campaign are happy to announce the first transfer of funds. One Thousand NZ Dollars raised by the campaign has been received by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for their use in whatever manner they deem most effective in resisting ongoing Israeli oppression, racism and military occupation.

Wellington March 2010 protesting imprisonment of PFLP leader

The majority of the money has been raised through the sale of “Resistance is not Terrorism” t-shirts throughout the country. A new t-shirt is being designed featuring Leila Khaled, PFLP activist and resistant fighter, and will be released at a nationwide launch on the anniversary of the creation of the Zionist state of Israel, known by Palestinians as the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, on May 15th. Continue reading “PFLP Solidarity Campaign transfers funds to Palestinian Resistance”