GLW issue number 853

Thailand eyewitness: Red Shirts defy regime

Thailand Troubles said on September 19 that a motorcade of 150 vehicles made their way from Bangkok to Chiangmai for a rally of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), popularly known as the Red Shirts, that was expected to draw 10,000. A growing crowd of Red Shirts gathered since morning around Ratchaprasong Intersection, the site of the April-May mass protest camp of Red Shirts that was bloodily repressed by the military on May 19.

Villawood in chaos after refugee suicide

The statement below was released by the Sydney Refugee Action Coalition on September 20. VILLAWOOD IN CHAOS AFTER SUICIDE AS HUNGER STRIKES AND PROTESTS CONTINUE The suicide of a Fijian man facing deportation from the Villawood detention centre this morning has thrown the detention centre into chaos. The Fijian man died after throwing himself from the roof of a building in stage 2 of the detention centre.

Australian News

Megabolt staff make history

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union members at Megabolt in Campbellfield, Victoria went back to work on September 16 after taking successful protected industrial action to win their first union collective agreement. AMWU officials formed a guard of honour for the workers as they walked into the factory for the first shift. For the first time, many Megabolt workers’ pay has risen above the minimum wage with an immediate 10% pay rise, sign-on bonus and back pay to June 2. This will be followed by 4.5% raises over the following two years.

Yolngu Matha medical dictionary launched

A new dictionary to help deliver health care to Yolngu people of East Arnhem Land was launched in Darwin on September 7. Linguist Marilyn McLellan and Yolngu translator Yurranydjil Dhurrkay from the Elcho Island community of Galiwin'ku have produced a dictionary of 200 medical and anatomical terms in English and Yolngu Matha. The dictionary has been produced and published by the Aboriginal Resource Development Services (ARDS), a not-for-profit organisation based in Nhulunbuy and Darwin.

Further Australian News

International News

Did consumers cause the BP disaster?

After the April 20 Deepwater oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, many commentators have tried to explain why it happened. Many blame greed and arrogance in BP’s executive offices. Others blame it on the military-oil-government alliance that views free-flowing oil (and free-flowing oil profits) as something to promote at all costs. But some writers identify a different cause. Bonus-seeking executives, corrupt politicians and oil-hungry generals all played a role, but they were only front men for the real villains — consumers.

Palestine: A ‘peace process’ that isn’t

On September 2, direct talks began between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority with the US government acting as mediator. US President Barack Obama has declared the success of these “peace talks” to be a main foreign policy goal of the last two years of his term. But whatever their outcome, the talks cannot end the conflict because both sides are not evenly represented. The mediator, the US, is the major financial, political and military sponsor of one of the parties to the conflict, Israel.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Regulator bans euthanasia ad

On September 10, the commercial television regulator, Commercials Advice (CAD) withdrew approval for the screening of a pro-euthanasia ad by Exit International on September 12. Exit International condemned the decision as an attack on free speech. According to its website, Exit International is ”a leading end-of-life choices (voluntary euthanasia/ assisted suicide) information and advocacy organisation”.

Universities are more than skills factories

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) welcomed the announcement of Senator Chris Evans to a portfolio responsible for skills, taking in higher education and TAFE. It also welcomed the reappointment of Senator Kim Carr to the portfolio of innovation, industry and science, but reiterated concerns that a narrow focus on skills risks undervaluing the sector.

Further Comment and Analysis

Editorial

News Ltd’s attack on the Greens

After a record high vote for the Greens in the August 21 federal election, it did not take long for the corporate media to get its claws out. In particular, Rupert Murdoch-owned News Ltd’s flagship newspaper The Australian has been called out for its string of critical stories and headlines targeting the Greens. In a September 9 editorial, the paper responded to Greens Senator Bob Brown's criticism that the paper was openly attacking the Greens-Labor deal, saying the Greens “are bad for the nation; and ... should be destroyed at the ballot box”.

Resistance!

Pakistani activist: ‘Lift the debt to help flood victims’

Ammar Ali Jan is a 23-year-old activist in Pakistan who visited Australia earlier this year to speak at the Resistance national conference. He is an organiser of the Progressive Youth Front (PYF), which campaigns for democracy and against corruption. Last week, he spoke to Melanie Barnes from Resistance about what’s been happening in Pakistan, especially the devastating impact of the recent floods. * * *

Cultural Dissent

Titillating television, or the drab, painful reality of crime and punishment?

In 1992, Michael Franti from The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy warned that television was “the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation”. Almost two decades later, the addiction and the ignorance are accepted as the norm. Anyone who questions the authenticity of how crime is depicted on television must be an extreme sceptic who spends way too much time online, questions the material reality of the world and thinks The Matrix is a documentary.

History lives on in Queensland abortion law

Never Ever Again By Caroline de Costa Boolarong Press, 2010 www.carolinedecosta.com A teenager and her boyfriend are catapulted to national notoriety when they are charged with procuring an abortion under Queensland’s archaic Criminal Code. Their identities are plastered across the internet, their home is fire-bombed and religious zealots shriek triumphantly from the pages of the local rag. Is this Caroline de Costa’s latest novel? Think again. Welcome to Cairns in 2010.

Further Cultural Dissent

Fighting Fund

Government to spend up … on Oprah!

As the people of Australia face acute shortages in health, public transport, housing and welfare, the federal and NSW governments will spend about $3 million to get Oprah Winfrey — the US talk-show host and billionaire — to visit Australia. Wait a minute, WHAT? Winfrey will fly to Australia in December — with 300 members of her audience — to shoot several episodes of her talk show. It has been reported that the federal government will chip in $1.5 million to the trip; the NSW government with throw in a further $1-2 million.

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