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The call by Australian Greens’ leader Senator Bob Brown on February 9 for a long-term plan to phase out coalmining, exports and power generation has predictably stirred a barrage of outrage from the coal industry. Brown’s call also flushed out the Labor-Coalition bipartisan consensus of support for coal-company profits over the environment.
Mike Sambo, the national coordinator of Zimbabwe’s International Socialist Organisation, explained to Green Left Weekly’s Steve Marks on February 16 what lies behind the regeneration of class struggle in the country.
On the third anniversary of the death of young Aboriginal man TJ Hickey, his mother Gail told a rally of some 200 people at the site of his death in Redfern that her family was still being harassed by the cops. Hickey said police harassment of young people in Redfern must stop, or there would be more deaths like that of her son, who was impaled on a fence while being chased by police.
The Socialist Alliance is campaigning for urgent action to address the environmental catastrophe in NSW caused by drought and decades of bad management.
October 2007 will be the 40th anniversary of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s death in the mountains of Bolivia. It will also be the occasion of what will hopefully be the biggest anti-imperialist convergence Australia has seen in decades — the Latin American and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum.
MELBOURNE — On February 13, a rally was organised by the Oromo Community Association to protest the treatment of Oromo refugees in Somalia since the US-backed invasion by Ethiopia.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Global Footprint Network’s 2006 report, Living Planet, released last October, painted a grim picture of the calamitous state of the world’s environment. It warned that human activities are outstripping the natural world’s capacity to regenerate.
Protest Cheney’s visit! Join the protests against US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s visit. Sydney * 5.30pm, February 22, Sydney Town Hall * 8am, February 23, Shangri-la Hotel, cnr. Essex and George Streets, the Rocks Phone Simon on 0438 297 552 or Paddy on 0415 800 586 Canberra * 5pm, February 23, Garema Place, Civic Phone James on 0403 943 529
Four hundred people joined a protest rally and march at Hyde Park on February 11 to oppose Part 3a of NSW’s planning laws. The laws gave NSW planning minister Frank Sartor the power to override local councils and approve contentious developments even when they breach existing legislation.
Aslyum seekers On February 15, the US government agreed to offer asylum to 7000 Iraqi refugees who had left their homeland and had been waiting in third countries such as Jordan and Syria. A US team is scheduled to go to Amman, Jordan, on February
On February 15, PM John Howard’s government announced that it had agreed to the construction of a new US spy-satellite ground station at the Kojarena intelligence base 30 kilometres east of Geraldton. The new facility will transmit data to and from two US geostationary spy satellites focused on the Middle East and Asia.
“I voted yes and will always vote yes”, Reuters quoted Laurinda Duarte as saying. “Abortions will always take place so why not vote to allow women to carry them out under decent conditions? I am a Catholic but that does not mean I am not free to vote.”