GLW issue number 908

VIDEO: WikiLeaks supporters hold vigil in Sydney

As the last appeal hearing on Julian Assange's extradition to Sweden began in London, a group of supporters in Sydney begin a vigil at the Sydney Town Hall. Speakers at the vigil included pro-WikiLeaks activist Jann Dark and NSW Greens MLC John Kaye.

ASU welcomes equal pay ruling

Community workers have today been handed long awaited pay rises in a historic decision by Fair Work Australia in the equal pay case. The case was lodged by the Australian Services Union on March 11, 2010, to address the gender-based undervaluation of the community services sector and deliver long overdue pay increases. Australian Services Union (ASU) Victorian and Tasmanian Assistant Branch Secretary Lisa Darmanin said this was a day community workers around Australia would never forget.

Australian News

Protests to pressure ANZ on pulp mill finance

Friends of the Tamar Valley released the statement below on January 24. * * * ANZ branches around the country will be targeted tomorrow by the community seeking to halt Tasmanian logging company Gunns Ltd’s controversial Tamar Valley pulp mill. ANZ Bank is due to make a decision about extending a debt facility to Gunns at the end of the month.

ANZ urged to cut pulp mill finance

Friends of the Tamar Valley released the statement below on January 25. * * * Between 40 to 50 people gathered outside the Launceston branch of ANZ on January 25 as part of a coordinated series of rallies urging the bank to provide no further financial support for Tasmanian logging company Gunns Ltd’s controversial Tamar Valley pulp mill.

Further Australian News

International News

Death sparks new controversy over mine waste dump

Tensions were high after a prominent supporter of the controversial Ramu nickel mine near Madang in Papua New Guinea died suddenly on January 3. This comes after the PNG Supreme Court rejected an appeal on December 22 against the decision to allow the Ramu mine operators to dump 100 million tonnes of toxic mine tailings into Basamuk Bay over 20 years.

Cuba seeks new socialist model

The Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), held in April, “endorsed for the first time a fundamental change in the political and economic model”, said Cuban political scientist and Temas editor Rafael Hernandez. This does not mean abandoning Cuba’s socialist project, but renewing this project after two decades of the post-Soviet “Special Period”. This is a deep structural crisis in Cuba’s post-capitalist, centrally-planned economy and an ideological and ethical crisis of the nation’s socialist vocation.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Don’t stop the boats, stop the need for boats

The article below is republished from Refugee Rights Network WA. * * * The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Myths, facts and solutions says: “Today resettlement is offered to less than one percent of the world’s refugees, between 1912 and 1969, nearly 50 million Europeans sought refuge abroad and all of them were resettled.

Pokies politics: how good intentions were derailed

Tension around pokies reform came to a head on January 21 when Prime Minister Julia Gillard broke her agreement with independent Tasmanian MHR Andrew Wilkie to implement timely reforms to address problem gambling. Wilkie subsequently withdrew his support for Gillard’s minority government and noted he would “only support motions of no confidence in the event of serious misconduct and not support politically opportunistic motions”.

Further Comment and Analysis

Resistance!

Fight back against racism

Historically, racism has given rise to the belief that different human populations possess different capacities, some superior and some inferior, based on aspects such as cultural traits and genetic makeup. At its crudest, racist views often hold that genetic makeup can imply specific traits and characteristics, and has been used as a tool to separate people in our society. This kind of view became widespread across the world, justifying crimes such as the mass enslavement of Africans, the genocide committed by the Nazis, and the “white Australia” policy, initiated in 1901.

Australians line up to defend land against CSG

The small town of Kerry, located on the Scenic Rim in Queensland's Beaudesert, is a prime food-producing area one hour from Brisbane. The land is now the site of a coal seam gas (CSG) exploration well. The community hasn't let this happen quietly. The property on which the drilling occurred has also been the site of a significant protest. A community blockade against foreign-owned CSG company Arrow Energy stopped work on the site for almost 10 days, until the company's trucks broke through by driving over dozens of hats laid down in protest on January 21.

Cultural Dissent

Immortal Technique: Radical rapper rocks Sydney

Peruvian-born Harlem emcee Immortal Technique rocked a full house at the Metro in Sydney on January 19 as part of his debut tour of Australia and New Zealand. The Afro-Peruvian Technique grew up alongside other poor African Americans and Latinos in New York and steered clear of offers from record labels (“offered me a deal, and a blanket full of smallpox!”, he sings in “Industrial Revolution”). Instead, he built up a substantial following as an independent artist.

New doco on Black death in custody denied footage

The Tall Man Screening SBS ONE, Feb 5, 8.30pm. The director of a documentary about the death in custody of Aboriginal man Mulrunji Doomadgee says the family wanted him to use footage of the death, but he was blocked from accessing it. "We tried and failed to get access to it," Tony Krawitz tells Green Left Weekly. "So I've never seen it — it screened in court, but can't be released." Krawitz's multi-award winning film, The Tall Man, is based on the critically-acclaimed book of the same name by journalist Chloe Hooper.

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