India GDP continues slowdown; Spain youth joblessness at 56%; Australian aborigines have a dream, too

1 India GDP continues slowdown (BBC) India's economy continues to slowdown according to the latest government figures. For the April-to-June quarter, it grew at a rate of 4.4%, compared with the same period in the previous year. It was a weaker performance than most economists had been expecting and was a slowdown from the first three months of the year, when growth was 4.8%. A contraction in mining and manufacturing activity was behind the slowdown.

Friday's figures show the economy is now expanding at the slowest rate since 2009. It adds to the pressure on Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who earlier addressed parliament over the nation's economic problems. In his statement to parliament, made before the figures were released, the prime minister said India was not facing a repeat of the crisis in 1991. Back then, India's foreign currency reserves became so depleted that it had to borrow from the International Monetary Fund to pay its import bills.

The prime minister highlighted the impact of developments in the US, where the economy is improving and officials at the central bank have started to talk about cutting back on stimulus measures. The Indian government has raised the import duty on gold and increased deposit rates to stem the outflow of money.

2 Spain youth joblessness at 56% (Stephen Burgen in The Guardian) Youth unemployment in Spain has reached a new high of 56.1%, a quarter of the 3.5 million under-25s jobless across the eurozone, according to the latest Eurostat figures. The number of young Spaniards belonging to what has become known as the lost generation is up 2% since June to 883,000. Only Greece has a higher percentage of young people out of work, at 62.9%.

Among adult males, Spain has the highest unemployment at 25.3%, higher even than Greece. Despite the government's claims that the worst has passed and that employment reforms will encourage firms to hire, the figures suggest it will be a long time before any upturn in the economy is reflected in a declining jobless rate. With the holiday season coming to a close, the numbers are likely to rise as workers on seasonal contracts go back on the dole.

With close to six million Spaniards out of work, unemployment is so entrenched that there was no political reaction to the latest figures, neither from government nor the opposition. Indeed, mentioning the economy at all has become virtually taboo across the political spectrum. Meanwhile, Spaniards and recent immigrants are deserting the country in search of work, with 500,000 leaving in 2012, 60,000 of them Spanish nationals, most of them to Latin America and Europe.

The total number of unemployed across the eurozone is 19.2 million, 15,000 fewer than in June. Across the EU the figure was 26.7 million, down 33,000 from June. As the continent still grapples with the effects of the financial crisis five years on, a board member of the German central bank warned that the European financial system is still not equipped to cope with a bank failure of a similar magnitude to 2008's collapse of Lehman Brothers.

3 Australian aborigines have a dream, too (Sol Bellear in The Sydney Morning Herald) ''I have a dream'' was delivered in 1963, when Aborigines were still classed as ''flora and fauna''. It would take another half a decade before Australia voted to count Aborigines in the census, and afford us citizen status. But the great promise that the referendum held forth - justice and equality before the law - has never fully materialised. I'm not suggesting there haven't been some gains in Australia. The activism of the 1970s and '80s, strengthened by the determination of men such as King and women such as Rosa Parks, brought us modest land rights.

In NSW, there exists a land rights system that costs the taxpayer nothing, and which is leading economic development in many metropolitan and regional Aboriginal communities. The 1970s also saw the creation of Aboriginal Medical Services, community-controlled groups that resulted in Aboriginal people solving Aboriginal problems. The health services were also inspired by the US civil rights movement. The health of Aborigines today is among the worst on Earth, but there's broad consensus it would be far worse were it not run by Aboriginal people.

Why, 50 years after King's speech, does the most basic human right - self-determination - still elude my people? Why, today, do we seem further away from this dream than ever before?

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott recently promised to appoint a national indigenous council if he is elected to office. Hand-picking our leaders to get the advice you want to hear didn't work in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s. It won't work now. It's as far from self-determination as you can get.

And why is the other most basic of human rights - justice - still denied Aboriginal people? Mr Abbott is promising compensation for Australian victims of global terrorism, including legislation to compensate for victims of the 2002 Bali bombing. Aboriginal people have always had the solutions to Aboriginal problems. Martin Luther King dreamed of a day when his people would be judged not on the colour of their skin, but on the content of their character. Fifty years on, I dream of a day when Australians will face up honestly to the failures of their past, regardless of the kindness of their intent. I dream of a day when non-Aboriginal Australians demand not a dream about a future for my people, but a simple plan to restore our basic human rights.