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More photographs here.

8 people have been arrested over the past week, two of them today, for protesting outside the ASB Tennis Centre due to the presence of Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer. The protests are part of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, initiated in 2005 after an appeal from 170 Palestinian civil society organisations including trade unions, political and social organizations, and women’s and youth groups. The campaign calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.

According to Global Peace and Justice Auckland, the organisation behind this weeks protests, “A campaign around BDS of Israel has a power in NZ precisely because of its association with similar, successful campaigns against South African apartheid.” In the 1970s and 80’s New Zealand had a large anti-apartheid movement that targeted New Zealand’s sporting contacts with South Africa. John Minto, founder of Halt All Racist Tours (HART) one of the main organisations in that movement, was among those arrested at yesterdays protests.

Continue reading “8 Arrested at tennis match protesting Israeli occupation”

Activist John Minto and four other protesters were arrested outside the ASB Tennis Centre in Auckland today.

An organisation calling themselves Global Peace and Justice Auckland continued their demonstrations during Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer’s matches at the WTA tournament for a third straight day.

Today was Peer’s first match on centre court and the protesters’ numbers doubled to 16, again using loud hailers to call for Peer to withdraw from the event because of Israel’s occupation on Palestine.

Minto and one other protester were using loud hailers while an elderly woman had a microphone and speaker.

After police had given three warnings they stepped in to arrest Minto and two other protesters and also confiscated their loud hailers.
Continue reading “John Minto & four comrades arrested”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCfiv1xtoU]

January 5th 2010, by Emir Sader – Pravda, reprinted on Venezuelanalysis.

The 1990s was the worst that America has ever lived. The debt crisis — with its consequences: IMF, letters of intent, tax adjustments, etc… — Military dictatorships opened the way for it to impose neoliberal governments in almost every continent. We became the world region with the greatest amount of neoliberal governments and their more radical procedures.

The responsiveness of Latin America has proven its ability to dramatically reverse this situation: we become the region that concentrates governments elected by the rejection of neoliberalism, which houses regional integration processes irrespective of the USA, which promotes innovative ways of integrating out the mercantile.

Latin American leaders such as Lula, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, among others, are regarded internationally for their ability to embody the needs of their people. Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela have joined Cuba, with countries that — according to UNESCO — ended illiteracy.

Continue reading “Latin America’s Decade”

Fundraiser for the upcoming Occupation and Resistance exhibition. Featuring performances by Mr Sterile Assembly, Steven Jackson, Cherry Gemstone and Tengu – door entry $5.

9pm Thursday, January 14th

Bar Medusa, Vivian St

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes]

Reprinted from Comrade Alastair.

Nepal’s Maoists are often accused of being anti-worker, Stalinist, bourgeois nationalist and so on by many on the Western ‘left’, particularly anarchists and Trotskyists. As ‘evidence’ towards this, it is often claimed that while in government earlier this year, they ‘banned strikes’.

Let’s set the record straight.

The Maoists never banned strikes. All the militant, class struggle fighting unions are Maoist unions, and since their change in tactics in 2006 and the shift of the struggle to the urban areas the Maoists have essentially taken over the trade union movement in Nepal, as well as the bulk of the student unions. They regularly lead strikes for both political issues and bread and butter issues like pay and conditions. They have strongholds amongst the teachers, hotel workers, petrol workers, workers in many SEZs and industrial zones, and more. They never stopped leading strikes – they just called a three day general strike across Nepal!

Continue reading “Setting the record straight: did the Nepali Maoists ban strikes?”

The Nevada girls’ big stomper from ‘64 (contributions from The Kasama Project and Ian Anderson.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBJrrz6mKcs]

“Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn’t. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.”

From Mao Zedong U.S. IMPERIALISM IS A PAPER TIGER, July 14, 1956 [Part of a talk with two Latin-American public figures.]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8]

Reposted from Kasama.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Ym3FmxOEs]

A group of activists from Aotearoa Climate Camp ’09 today blockaded the stock exchange in opposition to carbon trading, a scheme which allows finance capitalists to benefit from environmental degradation. Protestors chanted the slogan, “Resist! Resist! Fight the capitalists!”

Activists were detained by the police force, then released without charges.

Climate Change Leaflet attached.