Stu Harrison

The mainstream media has gone into a frenzy over Indonesian claims that thousands of new refugees will soon seek refuge in Australia.
Despite the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which waged an armed struggle for an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka’s north-east, life for the Tamil minority remains one of oppression and suffering.
“Tasers are not the ’non-lethal’ weapons the QPS [Queensland Police Service] leadership claims”, former state MP and former police officer Peter Pyke told the media in April. He predicted a Queenslander would die in 2009 from a Taser.
The Hezbollah-led opposition March 8 Coalition has conceded defeat in the June 7 Lebanese federal elections, which were marked by increasing US interference in the elections. For its part, the Israeli government raised fears a victory for the opposition would lead to war.
My Name is Rachel Corrie
From the writings of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner
Directed by Shannon Murphy
With Belinda Bromilow
Seymour Centre, Sydney until June 20
Tickets from $20
Visit www.seymour.usyd.edu.au/boxoffice/bite_rachel09.shtml
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).
The Bolivian people, led by the government of President Evo Morales, are continuing their campaign to bring former president Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada and members of his cabinet to justice over the government-ordered massacre of dozens of protesters in 2003.
“We don’t live in the territories, we cannot throw stones and we cannot participate in the legitimate resistance against occupation”, Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) told Green Left Weekly.
The Sri Lankan government’s war against the Tamil minority has again exposed the extent to which the corporate media reinforces the status quo — no matter how unjust.
Israel calls it the anniversary of independence. But for Palestinians, May 15 commemorates terrible ethnic cleansing.
Seven activists associated with Israeli anti-military recruitment groups New Profile and Target 21 have been arrested in the latest attack on internal dissent in Israel, Ha’aretz said on April 27.
Australian property developers are pushing the Indigenous people of Vanuatu, the Ni-Van, off their land.