On January 26, more than 500 people marched through Melbourne to mark Invasion Day and to call for an end to black deaths in custody and for justice for Mulrunji, who died in the Palm Island police station in November, 2004. Rally chair Brianna Pike announced at the protest that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley would be charged with Mulrunji’s manslaughter.
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“Celebrate what’s great” was the official theme of this year’s Australia Day, January 26. But for Aboriginal Australians, what was worth celebrating on the day that marks the brutal British invasion of their land was the decision to charge the police officer Chris Hurley with the manslaughter of Mulrunji Doomadgee.
TASMANIA — The Weld Valley in southern Tasmania was the site of a convergence on January 20-21. Activists discussed strategies and planned the next actions in the campaign to save the Styx and Weld valleys from logging. Addressed by Greens Senator Christine Milne, Tasmanian Greens member Tim Morris and Adrian Whitehead from Beyond Zero Emissions, an overriding theme of the convergence was climate change. On January 25, 30 people attended a submission-writing workshop and media conference outside the Department of Primary Industries and Water in Hobart. Their aim was to force the state government to recognise the role of forest conservation in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, something the government avoided in its their draft ‘Climate Change Strategy’.
The refusal by Tristar Steering and Suspension to pay a dying employee his work entitlements after he applied for a voluntary redundancy is just the latest in a long fight the company’s workers have waged to secure their rightful entitlements. Another 30 longstanding Tristar workers are still awaiting their own entitlements.
Despite right-wing intimidation, the founding congress of the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas) successfully concluded on January 20. A leadership was elected, which has already had its first meeting, preparing for a year of “all out” political campaigning.
Unions are increasingly concerned over Airline Partners Australia’s (APA) proposed $11.1 billion takeover bid for Qantas. The buy-out, by the Macquarie Bank-led private equity consortium, has yet to be formally submitted, though the Qantas board of directors has unanimously agreed to the $5.60 a share bid.
On January 24, water activists at the World Social Forum in Nairobi announced the formation of the African Water Network, to campaign against water privatisation. Hundreds of activists from groups and campaigns in more than 40 African countries committed to the new initiative. According to Ghanaian activist Al hassan Adam, The launch of this network should put the water privateers, governments and international financial institutions on notice that Africans will resist privatisation. We demand governments provide access to clean water through efficient public delivery. The network pledged to: fight against water privatisation; ensure participatory public control and management of water resources; oppose all forms of pre-paid water metres; ensure that water is enshrined in national constitutions as a human right; and ensure that the provision of water is a national project solely in the public domain.
MELBOURNE — On January 21, Melbourne held its 12th Pride March. Despite rainy weather, 3000 people marched in the parade, with 87 groups represented. Issues raised included calls to repeal the ban on same-sex marriage, to stop violence against
Them A-rab folks all look the same to me
"Last night I talked about a new strategy for Iraq ... In spite of the remarkable progress, 2006 turned out differently than I had anticipated. And it did because there's an enemy there that recognises that
A report released on January 22 by the Society for Threatened Peoples International (GfbV) showed a sizeable increase in human rights violations in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. The report showed that 685 people who had peacefully protested the Moroccan occupation in 2006 were arrested; and there have been regular incidents of torture and arrests of children. According to GfbV representative Ulrich Delius, Moroccos brutal actions against the civilian population in the West Sahara are aimed at intimidating the people and wiping out from the start any criticism of Moroccos arbitrary rule. To view the report, visit <http://www.gfbv.de/report.php?id=22>.
When the NSW police minister condemned magistrate Pat O’Shane two weeks ago for throwing out a case involving spitting at traffic cops, her response was: “There is an election coming up”. The same answer could well be given for the bipartisan barrage of Muslim-bashing from senior NSW politicians in the countdown to the March state election.
CDM's no solution
Chaim Nisism (Write On, GLW #695) wrote about the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): "My evaluation is that at least half of the projects are environmentally and socially positive". However, Nisism does not
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