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The great power of Vincent Lingiariʼs story is that it teaches us how this land sings to us all, how it holds us and nurtures us. This is the common ground that we share. When the Gurindji leader and his people walked off Wave Hill Station, camping by the Victoria River and then eventually by Wattie Creek at Dagaragu almost half a century ago, they understood that the land was their birthright and their destiny.
One in three women is a victim of domestic violence. I am one of those. The violence did not happen until I was pregnant and, as a result, vulnerable. I did not report it to the police as I was too scared: it was carried out in the privacy of our flat; there was no obvious injury and he was very contrite afterwards. I vividly remember him buying me breakfast at a cafe the next morning, an unusual event, while I sat too traumatised and depressed to say anything. Before that, I had never suffered a physical assault from anyone.
Tony Abbott’s government has managed, yet again, to delay making a decision about equal marriage. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of Australians supporting equal marriage — more than 70% support for marriage equality in the last poll conducted by Liberal Party pollsters Crosby Textor — but Tony Abbott continues to drag his feet.
The St Louis Rams players braved even greater hostility by entering with their hands raised in support of the Ferguson protesters and their “hands up, don't shoot” slogan. The police killing last August of unarmed 18-year-old Black man Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent protests have sparked a new Black freedom struggle and forever changed this country.
#SayYesToLove Volume 1 Featuring Jimmy Barnes, John Butler Trio, Josh Pyke & many more $16.99 via iTunes All proceeds to Australian Marriage Equality www.sayyestolove.org.au A group of prominent Australian musicians have joined forces to support the campaign for marriage equality, MusicFeeds.com.au said. Twenty-one acts have combined to launch the compilation album #SayYesToLove Volume 1 on July 17, with all proceeds going to Australian Marriage Equality's campaign.
The NSW Coalition blocked a Greens’ motion in the upper house on August 12 calling for long-term funding for violence prevention and specialist services. Funding for women’s refuges across NSW has been cut and the services tendered out to charities, including religious ones. The motion acknowledged that: · domestic and family violence is the leading cause of death and injury in women under 45; · this year, violence against women at the hands of someone they were involved with or knew, has claimed the lives of 34 women across Australia;
Protesters in Basra

Heat and corruption are a heady mix. As Iraq swelters in record-breaking temperatures, thousands of largely young Iraqis are taking to the streets to protest the miserable conditions they face. They are angry about the lack of electricity and water - and blame rampant government corruption.

Mexican-Lebanese actor and film producer Salma Hayek has said she never felt accepted by Hollywood. Talking with the Huffington Post, Hayek spoke out on racism in the United States and what it means to be an Arab Latina in the Hollywood industry. Promoting her new animated feature movie Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, based on Gibran's poetry book of the same name, Hayek said the US has a “very severe problem with discrimination that we try to overlook. It's there.”
It is now more difficult for unemployed people to find a job than it has been for 20 years. Official youth unemployment is 12% and the official national jobless rate has risen to a 13-year high of 6.3%. The last time employment prospects were so depressed was in the 1990s when the national unemployment rate was 8%. In South Australia, the official unemployment rate is now 7.9%, with employment growth a negligible 0.3%.
Antarctic glacier

World famous climate scientist James Hansen, known as the “father of global warming” for being the first to see the threat of catastrophic climate change in 1988, has issued a new warning. Sea level changes are likely to be much higher, less stable and happen much sooner than previous predictions.

The year-long vilification of Aboriginal AFL star Adam Goodes should not be trivialised and dismissed as simply ignorance or mob mentality. This is a valuable opportunity to reflect on race relations in Australia and the ways racism is perpetuated. After taking a brief break in the face of sustained booing that dogged him whenever he took to the field, the Sydney Swans star returned to the game for the Swans August 8 win over Geelong. The Geelong crowd warmly welcomed Goodes in a public demonstration of all that is humane and open-hearted in the Australian public.
The ABC has revealed that a report prepared for the Queensland government says that hundreds of square kilometres of prime agricultural land are at risk from an experimental plant operated by mining company Linc Energy. Queensland’s environment department alleges that the Linc plant at Chinchilla is responsible for the toxic chemicals and explosive gases that have caused “irreversible” damage to valuable Darling Downs farming land.