GLW issue number 909

VIDEO: Message to Senators from Muckaty traditional owners

Many Muckaty Traditional Owners are opposed to establishment a radioactive waste dump on the Muckaty Land Trust, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. This is a short video appeal to Senators calling on them to oppose Minister Ferguson's National Radioactive Waste Management Bill, which would entrench Muckaty as the only site to be actively considered for the dump.

Egypt: Protesters say revolution must continue

The streets of Cairo were full of protesters on January 27, two days after the first anniversary of the beginning of the revolution on January 25 last. The day was called “Friday of Pride and Dignity". The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) was again defeated by the huge participation of Egyptians in the demonstrations. The protesters' slogans and chants demanded the overthrow of SCAF and direct transition of powers to the parliament. The attempts by SCAF to transform the anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising into celebrations were a failure.

Australian News

Group vows blockade if coal seam gas work starts

Stop CSG Illawarra released the statement below on February 2. * * * Stop CSG Illawarra members have decided to organise a community blockade if any work starts on the local coal seam gas (CSG) project. A meeting of local residents voted unanimously to take this course of action if needed. Spokesperson Jess Moore said: “If the government won’t protect this community, we’ll have to do it for ourselves.

Miranda Gibson breaks Tasmanian tree-sitting record

The statement below was posted on the Observer Tree blog on February 3. * * * Today Miranda Gibson has broken the Tasmanian record for the longest time spent at the top of a tree. Miranda has been on a platform 60 meters from the ground for 52 days, and will remain there to highlight the ongoing destruction of Tasmania’s forests.

Further Australian News

International News

Japan: Australian activists address global anti-nuclear conference

Five anti-nuclear activists travelled from Australia to attend the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World held in the Japanese port city of Yokohama, over January 14–15. The conference was attended by 11,500 people over the two days including 100 international participants from 30 countries.

Burma: Homelands confiscation continues in Arakan

Early in January, the Sa-Ka-Kha-9 military division based near the ancient Falom village seized about 50 houses and a mosque that had been built at the village's edge. It is one of 36 that are Rohingyan (a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority) in the Kyauktaw township in the western Burmese Arakan state along the Kaladan River. These lands had been re-bought from the military by Falom villagers. For 17 years, until re-buying the land, the village consisted of 280 houses and some farm lands. The mosque was demolished by the military in 1995.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Adelaide: 'Respect the Port's history and environment', says left candidate

Bob Briton, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) by-election candidate for the seat of Port Adelaide, launched his campaign at a function on January 21. Below is his speech at the election launch. * * * Thank you friends and comrades for turning out in such good numbers at a difficult time of the year given holidays and family commitments. We’ve been encouraged that there appears to be momentum from the campaign we conducted for Lee in 2010.

Julia Gillard's empty words of 'respect' to Aboriginal Australia

Moments before Julia Gillard was whisked away from the angry crowd, losing her shoe in the process, she began an awards ceremony speech with these words: “Can I start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and in the spirit of reconciliation pay my respects to elders past and present.” It was an expression she had used many times before, like an eastern mantra. A brief check of her press website shows she had said these exact words on 19 and 20 January 2012, 18 November 2011, 21 and 4 October 2011, and 1 Jan 2011.

Further Comment and Analysis

Editorial

Big miners must be reined in

Nearly 10 years of a mining boom has made big changes to Australia’s economy and environment. Resource companies have made record profits. This has given Australia’s rich mining billionaires an inflated sense of entitlement. When the Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT) was proposed we saw Gina Rinehart speaking to an anti-tax rally from the back of a truck along with fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest, who wore a high-visibility work shirt as though he was just another struggling worker.

Resistance!

Young people sidelined by 17% unemployment

Recent national figures published by the Sydney Morning Herald show the rate of youth unemployment in Australia is well above the national average, hitting 17.3%. The figure is more than triple national unemployment, which stood at 5.2% in December. Almost one in five people aged 15 to 19 and not studying are out of work.

Refugee protest travels 800kms to detention centre

Activists from Western Australia’s Refugee Rights Action Network traveled more than 800 kilometres from Perth to the remote Leonora detention centre over January 27-29. The journey sought to draw attention to the 160 unaccompanied minors locked up in the detention centre. Immigration minister Chris Bowen had previously promised that all children would be moved out of detention centres by June last year.

Cultural Dissent

The Corporation author takes on ugly side of Facebook

Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Ruthlessly Targets Children Joel Bakan Random House, 2011 277 pages Parents who read Joel Bakan's new book, Childhood Under Siege, may find themselves un-liking Facebook. In it, the law professor ― whose previous book The Corporation was made into Canada's biggest-grossing documentary ― describes the effect of the social media giant's applications on his 13-year-old daughter.

Capitalism's destructive car mania detailed

Stop Signs: Cars & Capitalism ― On the Road to Economic, Social & Ecological Decay By Bianca Mugenyi & Yves Engler RED Publishing & Fernwood Publishing 2011, 259 pages, $27.95 (pb) The car, say Canadian authors Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler, who took a bus ride across the United States, is a doomed jalopy going nowhere. It fails, especially in the “home of the car”, on every green count. Cars are the single largest contributor to US noise pollution and 40,000 people in the US die from car accidents each year (one million across the globe).

Fighting Fund

Billionaire Rinehart's media control bid reveals corporate influence

The mainstream media’s “impartial and balanced” fig leaves began to slip on January 31, revealing their corporate genitalia for all to see. Australia’s richest person, billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, had begun buying more shares in Fairfax Media, increasing her stake towards 15% and raising questions about media impartiality. Fairfax journalists scrambled to report the news, tying themselves in knots over how much to admit about the corporate nature of their media outlets and whether Rinehart could have any influence on editorial input.

Sam’s Freo report

Even PCYCs are not safe from Barnett’s cuts

A looming staffing problem in Western Australia's 26 Police and Community Youth Centres (PCYC) is exposing premier Colin Barnett and the Liberal government's disregard for youth services and the complete hypocrisy of the law and order rhetoric that crops up at every state election. PCYCs are formally independent non-profit organisations, supported by the state through the provision of police officers as full-time centre managers.

On the box

Film: Hunger ― A harrowing, award-winning drama on the final months of Irish republican prisoner Bobby Sands, as he went on hunger strike to protest the treatment of political prisoners by British prison guards. SBS2, Wed Feb 8, 9.35pm.

FEATURED CONTENT

Lib-Lab budgets: Following the dodo on a race to extinction

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