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Here is a list of all the countries in the world that fully privatised their water and sewerage systems: Now, here is a list of the countries with massive bill hikes, water companies teetering on the edge of collapse, and sewage dumping crises: Nobody else did this! It’s worth remembering our unique experiment in giving […]

The post Thames Water’s Collapse is a Warning to us all appeared first on Equality Trust.

American life today is characterized in no small part by nearly ceaseless exposure to LGBTQ propaganda. Everywhere you turn, you’re confronted with “the message,” be it in grade schools, on college campuses, while watching television or movies, or at work. There are no “safe spaces” sheltered from the deluge—not even FEMA’s hurricane recovery efforts have been spared.

How did such a small “community” capture America’s institutions? The answer is complex, but a new database by The Project to Expose Corporate Activism (PECA) shines a light on a significant part of the story.

PECA’s database shows that corporations have become the vanguard of the LGBTQ movement, donating vast sums of money to prop up an equally vast network of activists. The database does not merely rehash well-known examples like Anheuser-Busch’s support for transgender TikTok influencers but rather furnishes evidence of 1,588 companies’ support for more than 2,300 LGBTQ causes. These causes on the whole are quite radical. They range from Camp Brave Trails—a queer summer camp that has children’s drag shows and a “clothing closet for exploring gender expression”—to NGOs like Immigration Equality that facilitate the illegal migration of transgender and HIV+ “asylum seekers.”

Introduction

The Nuclear Truth Project (NTP) works towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons and associated nuclear harms. This includes redress and assistance for those who have been harmed, the remediation for the widespread health and ecological damage from past and present nuclear activities, and preventing future nuclear harms.

The NTP began in 2021 working with a small group of affected community members and organisational leaders from a diverse range of international groups, to discuss challenges when working within, alongside or for communities and individuals impacted by nuclear harms.

The NTP identified a need to establish Protocols to ensure any consultations and asks of affected communities were being practiced in good faith and with a ‘do no harm’ approach to engagement.

Goals

Educate

Document and demonstrate to people the genocidal nature of nuclear weapons and the harms that nuclear weapons and associated nuclear activities have caused and continue to cause;

Advocate

Build agency to empower people, including those who have suffered disproportionately and those who face nuclear annihilation;

On this episode of After America, Senator David Shoebridge, the Australian Greens Spokesperson for Defence and Veterans Affairs, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss cultural cringe, the Australian Government’s response to Trump’s tariffs and why the AUKUS submarine deal makes Australia less safe.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 11 February 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: David Shoebridge, Senator for New South Wales and the Australian Greens Spokesperson for Defence and Veterans Affairs // @davidshoebridge

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Show notes:

Standing up to Trump with Malcolm Turnbull, After America (November 2024)

Theatre is gay.

Don’t get me wrong—I love theatre. I’ve acted in college and community productions, worked backstage, directed high school plays, and attended a few dozen shows at various D.C. venues. 

But it’s very gay. 

It’s also—like much of the arts—resolutely Left. Playbills invariably frame the shows’ plots in progressive political terms, directors gleefully queer and gender-bend characters, and every theatre in town continued enforcing mask mandates long after they became a joke everywhere else.

So imagine my shock when D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, previously wreathed year-round in rainbow light, began instead to throw pure white illumination onto the dark waters of the Potomac. Theatre will remain at least somewhat gay, but get more based (a week ago, Trump announced Ric Grenell as the Kennedy Center’s interim executive director).

That wasn’t the end, though. Just hours later, President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social that the Kennedy Center’s days of hosting drag shows were over. “I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” he wrote. 

My new book, Globalizations: The Shape of Things to Come published in February 2025, explores the driving forces behind global history and politics. It is structured around three main themes: war and peace, focusing on the case of Ukraine and the OSCE; political economy and the drivers of historical change; and political theory, including justice, democracy, and global agency and institutions. The book stresses future orientation, emphasising how past and present developments influence possible futures and the role of learning in shaping those futures. A central theme throughout is reflexivity – the idea that human actions and interpretations shape history in open systems characterised by uncertainty. By engaging with historical and theoretical perspectives on recent world history the book aims to provide insights into the shape of things to come, not only in terms of acknowledging the uncertainties of historical processes – which nonetheless can to a certain degree be anticipated – but also of advocating for transformative possibilities.

Introduction 

Climate activists have often engaged a wide range of tactics in their efforts to bring down fossil fuel emissions and halt climate change. But what about the tactics used by fossil fuel companies to obstruct climate action and suppress critique?

If activists are to stand up against these powerful forces, understanding their strategies and tactics is important.

Drawing on the work of Lacy-Nichols and colleagues (2022), this article explores key methods used by fossil fuel companies to obstruct and suppress critique.

Strategic Areas

Grouping these methods under eight core strategic areas, the article offers insights to any activist trying to fight back against fossil fuel hegemony. 

The fossil fuel obstruction playbook (based on the corporate playbook developed by: Lacy-Nichols et al. 2022):

Introduction

Part history lesson, part preparation for today’s fight. There is a powerful history of anti nuclear movements across this continent.

This quote was from a panel discussion at a conference called FWD+Organise 2024 in Naarm | Melbourne. The session was presented by:

• Kirsten Blair, Australian Nuclear Free Alliance
• Sanne Deswart, Friends of the Earth

Participants heard from these two frontline anti-nuclear campaigners who shared lessons from their community building, creative tactics, organising and mobilising work from decades past. They explored what those experiences can teach us for the fight ahead. This article based on their session focuses on the campaign that stopped the Jabiluka Uranium Mine in the Northern Territory, Australia, and shares resources for future anti-nuclear campaigns.

Campaign Case Study: Stopping Jabiluka Uranium Mine

The Mirarr Traditional Owners led an extraordinary mass movement to stop the Jabiluka uranium mine – and won!

No such letter has been sent to others in the local and broader community, ensuring the safety of the endangered Maugean skate, the health of the harbour, the tourism industry or recreational fishing.

If legislation, reportedly proposed by the PM, does not take in to account a long-awaited review of the damage being wreaked upon Macquarie Harbour, it could undermine Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s commitment to no extinctions under her watch.

One third of the harbour is World Heritage listed and the only home of the endangered Maugean skate, recognised for its world heritage values, which date back to the dinosaur era.

Scientific evidence shows salmon farming operations in the harbour are “almost certain” to be “catastrophic” for the skate.

“Special legislation for foreign-owned companies that is likely to condemn the Maugean skate to extinction should not be rushed through in the dying days of this government,”  said Eloise Carr, Director of The Australia Institute Tasmania.

“If the reports are true, the Prime Minister is willing to introduce special new laws that will protect companies which employ only a handful of Australians and send the profits overseas.

“Introducing special legislation to protect the salmon industry would be highly unorthodox. It raises concerns that science could be ignored and due process undermined.

Trump’s administration is hostile to checks and balances and the rule of law. He has already pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists and signed various executive orders that are unconstitutional.

Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is horrifying. Making the announcement while standing beside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, is nauseating. It’s in direct violation of international law. Many world leaders condemned Trump’s remarks publicly, including UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese repeatedly avoided the opportunity to reject Trump’s plan, saying he would not be giving a “daily commentary” on remarks by the US President.

On one hand, that’s a sensible strategy. Albanese is trying to make sure Australia is exempt from Trump’s tariffs and avoiding stepping on any landmines in the lead-up to our federal election. And Donald Trump is nothing if not a firehose of chaos. He makes announcements and then backtracks, sometimes within the same sentence. There is no way leaders can respond to every last policy brain fart from him or his administration.

There were coyote tracks at the Missouri mine. They weren’t supposed to be there. No one understood how such a distant predator got in or how to keep it out. But that’s true about a lot of places in America these days.

We were wandering the ruins of Federal Mill Number Three, the largest lead mine in the US until its closure in 1972. For centuries, most lead came from Missouri. Ammunition for every war, toxic paint for every child’s classroom, noxious petrol for every parent’s car.

Lead spread from the heartland, made in America, and when we were poisoned, we were poisoned together.