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The world economy is being ripped apart by financial turmoil which more and more mainstream economists have dubbed the worst crisis to engulf global capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The crash that began in the US subprime housing market has spread to the rest of the US housing market, the share market, the leading Wall St brokerage houses and nearly all the top banks. Even the institutions that were supposed to provide a bailout for the housing crisis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now have had to be rescued in an enormous bailout by the US government. The situation is set to get worse. Wall St analysts predict that as many as 150 more US banks could fail in coming months.

The financial crisis that has been working its way through the world capitalist economy for over a year threatens to devastate the lives of hundreds of millions of workers. Yet at every step of the crisis, the powers that be who control world capitalism have attempted to downplay the scale of the disaster their system is about to impose upon the rest of us.

Skyrocketing food prices are pushing tens of millions into destitution, and the signs of environmental destruction loom ever more plainly around the globe. But at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan on July 7-9, the heads of the world's most powerful governments failed to do anything more about these crises than mouth empty rhetoric.

Children going hungry. Homeless people enduring freezing nights outside. Elderly people unable to afford heating. Although these may sound like scenes from a poor or developing country, increasingly they are becoming a fact of life even in first world countries.

Climate change: "diabolical...harder than any other issue of high importance in living memory", according to Ross Garnaut. It might sound positive that politicians recognise there is a problem; at last there is some recognition that something has to be done to prevent cataclysmic global devastation. But there is a problem at the heart of the debate.

Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is a joke if you're big business and don't want things to change much, a tragedy if you actually want to see climate change reversed.

After a long period of quiet since Rudd was elected last November, there are signs that the unions could be preparing to take a concerted stand against the government over aspects of its industrial relations agenda. In particular, there is growing hostility to the draconian powers of the construction industry commission, the ABCC, which Labor is refusing to abolish before 2010.

Same-sex couples hardly needed a government audit to tell them that they are discriminated against. They are denied the tax reductions offered to married couples, the childcare rebate, discounts and reductions related to Medicare and the PBS discount. A grieving gay or lesbian can lose their home if their partner dies without writing a will. They can lose their partner's inheritance because they have fewer rights than a blood relative. They may be prevented from visiting a sick or dying partner in an intensive care unit. At work, same-sex partners may be denied compassionate or carer's leave. These are only a few areas of discrimination.

I've known Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer for four years now. He always amazes me with his admirable dedication to tell the truth to the world despite all the odds. He touches my heart with his moving accounts of Gaza.

From the moment China got the nod as this year's Olympic host, there have been many voices raised in protest. Critics have pointed to China's appalling record on human rights, its ruthless suppression of dissent, its terrible treatment of the millions of workers whose sweat and blood underpin China's rise as an economic powerhouse and the environmental devastation that is the price of this growth.

One of the skeletons in my family's closet is a film that well-known art critic, Kevin Rudd, would no doubt describe as "frankly, revolting". This film depicts my siblings and I cavorting in a garden on a summer day, wearing only some rather exotic headgear (we were playing cowboys and Indians).