GLW issue 797, published 2009-06-03.

Green Left Weekly is taking a break

Green Left Weekly will be taking a one week break. This means the next issue will be dated June 17.

Finishing what Howard started: major attack on land rights

New policies announced by the federal ALP Aboriginal affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, turn back the clock on Aboriginal land rights more than 30 years.

New government, same old racism

In his “Sorry” speech, delivered on February 13, 2008, PM Kevin Rudd said: “We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.”

Protect Upper Clarence waterways!

On May 29, the local council tried to move-on protesters in Coffs Harbour fighting to protect Upper Clarence waterways and forest wildlife from unsustainable logging by Forests NSW.

Further

Australian News

Media spin and war reporting

More than 120 people packed into a seminar “Media complicity: reporting Gaza and Sri Lanka 2009” on May 27 at the University of Technology.

Activists blockade minerals council conference

Canberra residents picketed the Minerals Council of Australia’s National Conference on May 28. The protest, organised by Climate Action Canberra, condemned the Rudd government’s free permits to Australia’s biggest polluters, worth $16 billion.

Further Australian News

International News

Pakistan: Appeal to help oppose the Taliban and government

Pakistan’s workers and peasants continue to be caught between the brutal military conflict waged between the Pakistani military, backed by the US, and the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban.

Israel to make history a crime

The rightward shift of the apartheid Israeli state has continued with a new law proposed that would make it a crime to commemorate the founding of the Israeli state as al Nakba (the catastrophe — which is how Palestinians remember the event).

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Ten reasons why population control can't stop climate change

Without doubt, climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. The scientific evidence of the scale of the threat is overwhelming, compelling and frightening. Climate tipping points — which, if crossed, will lead to runaway global warming — are being crossed now.

Coal-fired factories of death

Over a year ago I wrote to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain.

Further Comment and Analysis

General

Fighting Fund: The great murder trading scheme swindle

Imagine a government trying to sell to the public a new proposal to reduce murder rates by selling right to murder. The government brazenly names it the Murder Reduction Scheme.

Green Left Weekly is taking a break

Green Left Weekly will be taking a one week break. This means the next issue will be dated June 17.

Resistance!

Climate change: why time is running out

The climate is changing faster than we thought. Changes we believed would happen in 100 are starting to happen now.

Cut coal — no more business-as-usual

In a time of climate crisis, logic dictates we should be cutting carbon pollution and ending our reliance on burning coal for energy. Yet the opposite is happening in Australia.

Further Resistance!

Cultural Dissent

In occupied Jerusalem, politics hits lit fest

On its opening day, Israeli soldiers walked past piles of books for sale and commemorative PalFest’09 tote bags into the Palestine National Theatre in Jerusalem to tell the owner that the Palestine Festival of Literature was an event organised by the Palestinian Authority and therefore illegal.

Chavez: in memory of Mario Benedetti

On May 18, President Hugo Chavez sent condolences on behalf of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on the death the previous day of revolutionary Uruguayan poet, novelist and playwright Mario Benedetti. The following is abridged from Chavez’s letter.

Further Cultural Dissent

FEATURED CONTENT

Billionaire Rinehart's bid for media control

Above: GetUp! released video showing professional climate change denier "Lord" Christopher Monkton advising a room full of mining executives on how the industry must gain control of Australia's media. This week mining billionaire Gina Rinehart became the largest shareholder in the Fairfax media conglomerate, having already bought a stake in Channel Ten.