GLW issue number 919

HSU East takeover sets ‘dangerous precedent’

Geelong Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden released the statement below on April 27 about the move by the federal government to put the Health Services Union (HSU) East into administration. * * * I am very concerned by the announcement of minister Bill Shorten that the federal government will seek to have the HSU East put under the control of an appointed administrator.

Debt to East Timor remembered by soldiers, betrayed by governments

Debt of Honour: Australia’s first commandos and East Timor Exhibition at the Western Australian Museum Until May 20. When the Japanese entered World War II after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbour, they swept through south-east Asia and the Pacific.

Australian News

NSW parliament backs Bahrain uprising

The NSW Parliament passed a motion on April 4 in support of pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. The motion condemned the Bahrain government's repression of protesters, attacks on doctors, killing of 60 protesters by security forces, destruction of 40 Shi'a mosques, expulsion of journalists, and widespread use of torture.

Coal activists share their Great Barrier Grief

”No new coal! Save the Great Barrier Reef!" was the main theme of the rally held outside Queensland parliament on World Heritage Day, April 18. Six Degrees and Greenpeace Brisbane called the rally, which attracted about 50 people. The rally came after the April 12 announcement by deputy premier Jeff Seeney that Gladstone harbour, which is facing environmental destruction due to coal industry development, might be removed from World Heritage listing.

Further Australian News

International News

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur Occupy camp ambushed by thugs

At 2.36am, in the early hours of April 19, the student and Occupy Dataran encampment in Kuala Lumpur was violently ambushed by a big group of men. After the ambush, everyone sat down, and victims of violence started to tell stories of what happened. Here is a brief summary of the stories.

Malaysia: Bersih democracy movement to re-take the streets

The Coalition of Free and Fair Elections (known as Bersih — which means “clean” in Malay) called for a mass sit in on April 28. It did so due to suspicions that the country’s Barisan Nasional (BN) government was about to call a general election before addressing widespread electoral irregularities. The irregularities were confirmed by a review forced on the government by the previous Bersih 2.0 mass rally on July 9 last year.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

VIDEO: Northern Rivers community declares 'CSG-free' zone

Hundreds of committed citizens of Keerrong and The Channon form a human map of our roads and creeks. The legal system and governments have failed us. Now we're taking a stand. We won't let gas miners contaminate our water, air and land with toxic chemicals. Through grassroots public meetings and surveys, we reached a 99% majority decision to close our roads and valleys to coal seam gas mining.

Keep the pressure on Gillard to pull all troops out of Afghanistan

Prime minister Julia Gillard’s April 17 speech on Afghanistan was widely heralded as a change of policy. It is and it isn’t. It does set out a schedule for a partial withdrawal of troops — thereby bringing Australia belatedly into line with the US drawdown of troops by 2014. But it also affirms that Australia, like the US, will not withdraw all its troops.

Further Comment and Analysis

Cultural Dissent

Filastine battles political philistines

£OOT Filastine Muti Music Released April 3, 2012 www.filastine.com Genre-bending musician Filastine says he has taken so much flak for being political in his music that these days he tries to be a little more innovative in getting his message across.

Poem: Why Are We in Afghanistan?

“Belief in Winter’s iron music turns the lands of home to Spring.” Kenneth Patchen, “Nocturne for the Heirs of Light” Even your blood seems cold slush so we come, bearing scientific warmth and clean blades Of faith and all such crude early things we moderns strive to sharpen, your mystic heart alone beats most desperate beneath our lazer aim: true tempered love at gunship point thrusts in you bleeding you clear in sha'Allah by dread hand of surgeon- drone, bootkick- blessing, your shabby portal opens upon us we ash-cross your brow:

Further Cultural Dissent

Debt to East Timor remembered by...

FEATURED CONTENT

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

Support glw

"Australia has the most restrictive media in the western world. Censorship by omission denies Australians their democratic right to make sense of whole stratas of political and foreign policy. That's why Green Left Weekly is a beacon, doing a job of honourable journalism, as an agent of people, not power."
John Pilger

Donate securely online - every cent you donate helps us to keep going.