Perth Indymedia

Which country has suffered the worst ever outbreak of cholera, with more than a million cases and over 2000 deaths recorded in the past year? You’d be forgiven for not knowing the answer is Yemen. Described by Amnesty International as the “forgotten war”, Yemen is in the fourth year of a conflict which has left over 10 000 people dead, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The war has entered a vicious new phase, with Saudi-led coalition forces launching an assault on the port city of Hodeida. Alex Whisson had the opportunity to speak to Helen Lackner, a research associate at the London Middle East Institute in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and author of the recently published, Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State. Lackner began by outlining the 2011 protests in Yemen, which brought down the long term ruler of the country, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Last year the McGowan state Labor government announced a ban on fracking in Perth, Peel and the southwest, and a three year moratorium in every other part of the state. Yet the fight against fracking is far from over, with several corporations, including Boro and Mitsubishi, waiting in the wings and continuing to curry favour with the government. Alex Whisson spoke to Frack Free WA campaigner Jane Hammond to get a better understanding of the current state of play.

Wages paid illegally below award rates, dodgy individual contracts, unpaid penalty rates, summary dismissal. Such exploitative practices are suffered by many a worker in many an industry. But what if you’re a young worker, new to the world of work, with no understanding of your rights and entitlements in the workplace, and no knowledge or experience of what collective struggle can achieve? That’s where organisations like the Young Workers Centre have a crucial role to play, providing an entry point in to the labour movement for vulnerable and disenfranchised young workers. Alex Whisson caught up with the director of the Young Workers Centre, Keelia Fitzpatrick. He began by asking how the centre first came into existence.

Refugee advocates and activists were shocked and dismayed when the CFMEU and AWU joined forces to pass a gag motion at the recent Victorian Labor Party conference, shutting down debate on refugee policy. It was a devastating blow for those inside the Labor Party fighting for a refugee policy consistent with international humanitarian law and the basic standards of common human decency. Alex Whisson spoke to Pauline Brown, President of Labor for Refugees Victoria, and the seconder of that motion. The motion itself read, in part, “when in federal government, to close offshore detention centres, transit centres and other camps on Manus and Nauru within the first 90 days, and to bring all the children, women and men who are refugees or seeking asylum remaining there to Australia”. Pauline began by explaining the rationale behind that motion, and why it ought to be supported by a future federal Labor government.

Felicity Ruby has, to say the least, an impressive resume. The former director of the United Nations’ Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a former senior communications adviser to Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, a founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an organisation which received last year's Nobel Peace Prize, Ruby is currently working on a PhD at Sydney University, on the topic of political movements resisting mass surveillance. Alex Whisson caught up with Felicity to discuss Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s proposed expansion of domestic intelligence gathering powers. Felicity began by addressing the question of the Australian Signals Directorate, the highly secretive government agency, which has historically gathered intelligence overseas.

Nationally-celebrated college football star, prize-winning orator, world-famous singer, Hollywood actor, political activist of great renown, master of a dozen languages or more with a law degree under his belt, Paul Robeson was unarguably one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. Yet today, to many people, his name is unknown, his achievements unrecognised. Alex Whisson spoke to Jeff Sparrow, author of No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson. Sparrow began by explaining exactly how and why he came to write a book about the great Robeson, some four decades after his death.

Russiagate, Trump, Trump and Trump. It's all we ever hear about the United States. Meanwhile, there are some amazing political developments taking place in what is still the world's only superpower. One such development, which has received virtually no media coverage at all here in Australia, is the extraordinary wave of teachers' strikes that has swept the nation, starting in West Virginia in February, and then quickly spreading to Kentucky, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Carolina and as far afield as New Jersey. Alex Whisson spoke to Attica Scott, representative of the 41st district in the Kentucky state house, and herself a former union organiser. The conversation began with the question of how, bizarrely, a bill relating to sewage in the state legislature somehow turned into a so-called pension reform bill, one designed to gut teachers' retirement schemes.

22-year-old Ahmed Alnaouq is a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, a freelance journalist, and a project manager with We Are Not Numbers, which aims to disseminate Palestinian stories to an international audience. He was an active participant in the Great March of Return protest movement and present on the day of the May 14th massacre.

Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela has come under increasing attack from both Western governments and the international capitalist press. With prices doubling every month and poverty reportedly on the rise after years of social improvement for the mass of the people, the Maduro administration also faces fierce criticism from at least some elements of the left. Journalist, political commentator and co-author of Latin America's Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-First Century Socialism, Federico Fuentes, addressed the question of whether this latest election was illegitimate or even rigged, as claimed by much of the Western press.

Supporters of the labour movement across the country experienced a real shot in the arm last Wednesday, when an estimated 100 000 people marched through the streets of Melbourne in support of the Australian Council of Trade Union's Change the Rules campaign. Alex Whisson had the opportunity to speak to one of the organisers of the march, Assistant Secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council Wil Stracke.

A few weeks ago we promised to bring you a range of perspectives on the Syrian war. We've already spoken to Leila Al-Shami, blogger and co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War. We also heard from Mark Goudkamp of the Sydney Stop the War coalition. Today we speak to Jay Tharappel. Jay is a PhD researcher at Sydney University's Political Economy Department, an anti-war campaigner with Hands off Syria, and a prominent political commentator on social media. We began our conversation with the question of the recent Western bombing of Syrian government targets, in the wake of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma by the Syrian Arab Army.

"The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." That’s the wording of the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution, enshrined in law after a referendum in 1983. There’s now another referendum scheduled for May 25th to repeal that amendment. Shauna Stanley is a campaigner with the Melbourne Irish Abortion Rights campaign. She began by explaining what the amendment has meant for Irish women’s ability to choose to have an abortion.

The world was stunned early last week to hear Dr Mahathir Mohamad, long term former autocratic ruler of Malaysia, had won the right to form government. The opposition coalition he led received a 12% swing and gained some 54 seats in the national parliament. Alex Whisson spoke to Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, who it’s confirmed has lost the seat he held for the Malaysian Socialist Party since 2008. Dr Kumar began by giving his assessment of the political factors behind Mahathir’s return to power.

The Change the Rules campaign is an initiative of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Its goal is to, as the name suggests, change the laws and regulations governing industrial relations in this country. From unpaid penalty rates to record low wage growth, to the fact one third of big businesses in Australia don’t pay any tax at all, the hope is this campaign will focus public attention on the lack of economic justice and basic fairness in this country. It’s already breathed new life in to a labour movement long struggling for relevancy and indeed its very survival. Yesterday the architect of that campaign, newly elected Secretary of the ACTU Sally McManus, was in Fremantle to address the annual May Day festival.

The current protests in Gaza have involved tens of thousands of people. It’s the largest sustained mobilisation of Palestinians in many years. Despite the largely peaceful nature of the protests, at least 48 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Army, and many hundreds wounded. Dubbed the Great Return March, this new movement has given birth to a flowering of creative, non-violent resistance to the Zionist occupation. Palestinian scholar and author Dr Ramzy Baroud has written for many years on the history and politics of the Palestinian struggle. Alex Whisson interviewed Dr Baroud ahead of his Australian speaking tour, beginning with the question of why the Palestinian struggle for justice and nationhood has for so long been grossly mischaracterised as terrorism and nothing but terrorism.

Independent journalist and commentator Michael Brull recently wrote a three-part special report for New Matilda on conflict within the NSW Greens. The piece focuses on a dispute, which eventually made its way to the NSW Supreme Court, over the validity of Cate Faehrmann standing for preselection in the upper house of state parliament. Faehrmann, who won the court case and is now expected to take up the Legislative Council seat vacated by Mehreen Faruqi, is a person of some standing within the party structure, having served as Richard Di Natale’s chief-of-staff from 2015 until March of this year. It’s fair to say the prospect of her nomination was not welcomed by all party members. Indeed, some media commentators, as well as people inside the Greens, have characterised this dispute as one shaped by an ongoing, increasingly bitter civil war between the hard left and so-called moderate factions of the state party branch. Alex Whisson caught up with Michael Brull and began by asking him to outline what the d

Last week we spoke to Mark Goudkamp from the Sydney Stop the War coalition to get his perspective on the Syrian war. Today we turn to Leila Al-Shami, co-author with Robin Yassin-Kassab of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, published by Pluto Press. Alex Whisson began by asking Leila to start at the beginning, to go back to what happened in the early months of 2011, when massive street protests broke out against the Assad regime.

Many observers, including many people on the left, accept the Assad regime carried out a chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma on April 7th, killing some 60 people and injuring dozens of others. And many people, with a gut instinct against war, support the idea of the so-called international community responding to such attacks with limited, targeted airstrikes. Others take the view the strikes are part of a Western imperialist agenda and that, in the long run, they will only serve to increase the suffering of the Syrian people. Alex Whisson spoke to Mark Goudkamp of the Sydney Stop the War Coalition to address these vitally important questions. He began by asking exactly why the British, French and American bombing of Syrian government targets ought to be opposed.

Though there will be May Day events around the country this weekend, there are few people who would seriously argue they’re not a pale shadow of the past. With only around 15% of workers members of a trade union, and only one in ten in the private sector, the truth is the labour movement in Australia is at a historical ebb. Alex Whisson spoke to Liz Humphrys, political economist at the University of Technology Sydney, and author of the upcoming book, How Labour Built Neoliberalism, to get a better understanding of this sorry state of affairs. Liz began by explaining the historical importance of Bob Hawke’s signature achievement in government, the Prices and Incomes Accord, in the decline and degeneration of the Australian trade union movement.

Karun Cowper talks to independent journalist and filmmaker Cathy Vogan about the latest developments in the Cambridge Analytica debacle.