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In recent years “making poverty history” has become the fashionable cause for ageing rock stars such as Bono and Sir Bob Geldof. As global poverty means that each year 9 million children die of preventable diseases, the need to achieve this goal is undeniable.
A flotilla of waterborne vessels — kayaks, rafts, canoes and even a yellow rubber duckie — joined in the ‘People’s occupation of the world’s biggest coal port’ in Newcastle Harbour on February 10. The protest demanded ‘No new coal mines’, ‘No new coal-fired power stations’ and “No new coal loader’.
An emergency February 7-8 Mecca summit sponsored by Saudi Arabia that brought together the leaders of rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah resulted in a power-sharing agreement between and a plan to form a national unity government. Palestinians hope a unity government can achieve the international recognition required to lift the crippling economic embargo against the Palestinian Authority that has been imposed by the West since Hamas won control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in last January’s elections.
On February 6, 400 people converged on the lawns outside the national parliament building in Canberra to protest of the continued detention of Australian citizen David Hicks at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Due to mistakes introduced during the sub-editing of Lynda Hansen’s obituary for Phil Perrier (GLW #697), he was wrongly described as a “Queensland Aboriginal activist”, rather than a “Queensland Aboriginal rights activist”, and the concluding section of the eulogy made by Sam Watson at the February 2 “Sorry” ceremony were mistakenly attributed to Bernie Neville.
A report from the bipartisan US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on the costs of the Iraq war released on February 1 revealed that US President George Bush’s plan, announced on January 10, to deploy an additional 21,500 US troops to Iraq this year could result in up to an extra 48,000 troops being deployed.
Fifty people heard leading Queensland Aboriginal activist Sam Watson announce at a February 7 public meeting held in the Sydney inner-west suburb of Leichhardt that Queensland Police Sergeant Chris Hurley was formally charged on February 5 with manslaughter and assault occasioning bodily harm for the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island Aborigine Mulrunji Doomadgee.
On February 2, ABC News Online reported the laying off of 110 workers by Melbourne carpet manufacturer Feltex. A spokesperson for Godfrey Hirst, which took over Feltex late last year, said the workers’ jobs would go with the closure of the Feltex factories in Tottenham and Braybrook in Melbourne’s west. This “vindicated” workers and unionists who had resisted attempts by Godfrey Hirst to take away their redundancy entitlements, Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union media officer Tommy Clarke told Green Left Weekly.
Green Left Weekly has received a desperate appeal from Papernas (the National Liberation Party of Unity) in Indonesia for emergency solidarity in the wake of severe floods in Jakarta and surrounding heavily populated areas.
GEELONG — A 40-strong community protest successfully picketed Boral's Geelong site on February 5. Boral management described the demonstration as an "unpeaceful protest". The protesters took a stand over safety conditions on the site after three
The queer rights activists of Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) believe that Peter Jensen, the Anglican archbishop of Sydney, should condemn a highly oppressive anti-gay law being introduced in Nigeria that is being backed by the Anglican Church in that country.
The Kosova people’s eight-year wait for the same right to independence allowed to other peoples of the former Yugoslavia some 15 years ago has finally reached … anti-climax.