Socialist Aotearoa

Prime TV- second news story 3 minutes and 11 seconds in here On the picket line, braving horrendous weather Working class women hold the picket line Mels from local community Grassroots Action Group on the meg. Summons served on Bully Bennett to face the People's Court next week. More protest pictures at Resistance Photography. Reps from Unions, student associations, disability groups and community organisations nailed a summons to the doors of National MP Paula Bennett's Henderson office today, giving her seven days notice of a public assembly where she can meet the people who her cuts affect the most. Anger at the cuts to the Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) coverage for undergraduate tertiary students who are on the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB), Widow's Benefit, Invalids Benefit and Emergency Maintenance Allowance has been spreading. "Education is a right, not a privilege" said Joe Carolan from Socialist Aotearoa. "In the

Stop Bullying Beneficiaries Reinstate Training Incentive Allowance now Paula Bennett must go ! Paula Bennett's onslaught against beneficiaries is a disgrace. Not content with axing the Training Incentive Allowance for people on the Domestic Purposes and Invalids benefits, The National/ACT government has unleashed a wave of hatred against beneficiaries and declared open season on anyone who dares to challenge their assaults on the working class and poor in our society. In a year when MPs decided that it was not in the public interest to reveal the details of their own inflated expense claims, it is an outrage that the government thinks it is acceptable to publish the details of the benefit entitlements of single parents who had the courage to speak out over government cuts. Education is a right The Training Incentive Allowance is there to enable those least likely to be able to participate in education and pay back student loans the chance to study, with the aim

Cops attack the ocupation with Tasers and Tearbombs Workers Tasered in the face with 50,000 volt barbs Occupation takes place against backdrop of deeply unpopular Conservative Presidency Riot cops beat family members attempting to bring food and water to the workers Pitch battles fought outside occupied plant- red flag still flies overhead despite repression Report by Jacob Lee(Socialist Aotearoa member and Activist of ‘ AllTogether ’) It’s been over 65 days since the first factory-occupation by the workers in ‘SSangyong Motors’. That company is the third biggest group producing cars in South Korea. On this April, the management declared that they would dismiss 2646 numbers of workers (36% of entire workers of the company) to get assistance from the government and banks. The South Korean government and creditors have not called any responsibility at all to the ‘ShangHai Motor Capital’ which had purchased SSangyong Motors dirt cheap and charged high. Recently, the 2MB government has pus

The ousted president of Honduras has briefly crossed the country's border with Nicaragua, in a symbolic move the US has described as "reckless". Manuel Zelaya has been in exile for nearly a month after he was forced from his position by a coup, and had previously tried to return by plane. The interim government had said it will arrest him if he sets foot in Honduras. Earlier, soldiers fired tear gas at hundreds of Mr Zelaya's supporters who were waiting for him near the border. Talks in Costa Rica aimed at resolving the political crisis collapsed two weeks ago with no agreement reached. 'Not crazy' Mr Zelaya, surrounded by supporters and journalists and talking into a mobile phone, lifted the chain marking the border between Nicaragua and Honduras in the

help us staff the stalls- mass petition of the Warriors Game, Sunday 26th July 3-4pm, Mount Smart Stadium, Beasley Avenue, Penrose.

Socialist Aotearoa Pre-Conference Discussion Document no1. Introduction. Socialist Aotearoa is now a little over a year old. It was founded on the 1 st of May, 2008, and has since gained new supporters and grown modestly in size. This document is intended to begin a discussion amongst comrades on changes we need to make to our media, meetings and internal democracy to enable us to grow in our second year. We are holding our first Annual Conference on the weekend around August 1 5th , and we are encouraging members and supporters to prepare position papers that we can discuss in the Pre-Conference period. Socialist Aotearoa was founded by dissident members of Socialist Worker who opposed that group's decision to launch the Residents Action Movement as the new party of the broad left in New Zealand for the 2008 National elections. We felt that this organisation was neither broad- it did not involve other key activists on the Left from outside the SW orbit in groups such as U

a film explaining the history of Afghanistan's opposition to rival imperialisms by Stop The War officer John Rees for the Islam channel.

Protests by the Muslim Uighur minority in the west of China are an explosion of rage against their persecution Hundreds of people were killed, with hundreds of others injured and arrested, during protests by the Muslim Uighur people in the Xianging region in the west of China this week. Simmering tensions produced by the Chinese state’s long-term oppression of the Uighur people have boiled over. These are some of the most serious clashes between protesters and authorities since the Tiananmen Square revolt of 1989, which shook the country’s rulers. The 20th anniversary of that rising has just passed, and the Chinese ruling class is still nervous about the threat of mass movements to its rule. It has launched crackdowns on any opposition, such as the mass protests in Tibet last year. The Uighur people are ethnically Turkic Muslims and have suffered discrimination for generations. In 1949, a short-lived break­away Uighur state, known as East Turkistan, was conquered by the new Chin

You may have heard that the government is putting on a series of public “consultation" meetings about what NZ's Climate Change emissions reduction target should be – meetings will be happening across the country for the next few weeks. The first of these meetings will happen in Auckland this Tuesday. The UN climate talks will not solve the climate crisis. We are no closer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than we were when international negotiations began fifteen years ago: emissions are rising faster than ever, while carbon trading allows climate criminals to pollute and profit. At present, the talks are essentially legitimising a new colonialism that carves up of the world’s remaining resources. Faced with the profound crisis of our civilisation, and the destructive impacts of the climate crisis on already marginalised communities, all we get is a political circus playing to the interests of corporations. We cannot trust the government, the polluters and their markets wit

We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration.... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us.... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really s

by Cameron Walker, Socialist Aotearoa Blair Peach Branch, Auckland Uni. We were happy to see that Chris Trotter featured our planned vigil against the right-wing coup in Honduras on his blog. Obama’s condemnation of the coup is certainly a positive development. It is a great improvement on the behaviour of George W. Bush, who nearly immediately recognised the coup government that briefly toppled Venezuela’s socialist President, Hugo Chavez, in 2002. However, it would be more believable if the Obama Administration could back up its fine words on Honduras with some concrete actions that would be greatly appreciated by all those struggling for democracy around the Americas. Currently the US has an air force base in Honduras, where 550 US military personnel are stationed. For many years US and Honduran forces have engaged in regular training missions together. During the 1980s Soto Cano was used as a venue for the staging of the vicious US funded Contra war on the revolutionary Sandinista