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The Pacific island-nation of Tuvalu is the first country to have evacuated some of its citizens because of the sea-level rise driven by global warming. The highest point on the eight coral atolls that make up Tuvalu’s 26 square kilometres of territory sits only five metres above sea level. Almost a quarter of the nation’s population have already been evacuated and the remaining 8000 Tuvaluans may also have to leave in future years.
Workers, students and families will take to the Yarra River on March 24-25 to raise funds for and create greater awareness about the situation faced by refugees and asylum seekers in Australia.
A March 9 Venezuelanalysis.com article reported that the previous day Venezuelan authorities had arrested two National Guard officers over an alleged plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the country’s socialist president. Agents from Venezuela’s Military Intelligence Directorate took retired General Ramon Guillen Davila and his son, Capitan Tomas Guillen, into custody. They will be tried for instigating rebellion.
It seems the Howard government’s relentless attempts to blast opposition leader Kevin Rudd for meetings last year with disgraced former WA Labor premier and current “political lobbyist” Brian Burke have missed their target, or even backfired. A poll, published in the March 12 Sydney Morning Herald, showed Labor’s potential vote and approval for Rudd continuing to climb, with support for the Coalition and PM John Howard’s ratings declining further.
'Welfare cheats' The Howard government has spent the past decade misrepresenting the facts to justify frequent "crackdowns on welfare cheats". There are around 3000 convictions for welfare fraud per year, or 0.05% of the total number of
The federal Coalition, some state Labor governments and the corporate media have been justifying racist policies by claiming they are defending women’s rights. This argument has been one of several “justifications” for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for why we should all be worried about refugee arrivals.
Sekai Holland, a long-time leader of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and a champion of women’s rights, was detained by police on March 11 in the latest violent crackdown by President Robert Mugabe’s increasingly unpopular regime. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai was also arrested and later taken to the intensive care unit of a Harare hospital with severe injuries resulting from police beatings.
Tens of thousands of people continue to suffer the effects of the world’s worst industrial disaster — the chemical explosion and leakage of deadly gasses in 1984 at the Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal, which killed thousands of people. Survivors have launched a hunger strike to demand urgent assistance from the Madhya Pradesh government, including decent health care, uncontaminated drinking water, jobs, and pensions for those who are too ill to work. Wells in Bhopal are poisoned by toxic chemicals leaking from the abandoned factory — which Dow refuses to clean up — including agents known to cause cancer and birth defects. Survivors are also demanding reparations from the company. While the victims and their families continue to suffer, Dow corporate executives have not been brought to justice and continue to live in luxury in the US. Send a message of solidarity to the survivors at . For more information visit http://www.bhopal.net.
On March 16 police arrested Satur Ocampo, a member of Congress from the left-wing Bayan Muna party list. Ocampo, who had been in hiding for eight days, was taken into custody shortly after he filed a court petition to quash the arrest warrant. He faces charges of killing military spies in the ’80s, according to a March 17 Philippine Daily Inquirer report.
The March 1 British Guardian reported that an “elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq — or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat”.
The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement is protesting the March 13 promulgation of the Water Authority of Fiji Bill, which according to public service and public sector interim minister Poseci Bune will provide more “effective management” of water, including “opportunities for competition in the provision of water” and facilitating the “corporatisation of the Water Authority of Fiji”. Opposition to water privatisation sprang up last July when organisations including the Fiji Human Rights Commission protested the inclusion of five major private sector figures in a nine-person committee established to prepare a charter on water and sewerage. In a March 15 statement, FWRM executive director Virisila Buadromo said that “Water is a basic human right, and we are very worried about the commercialisation of this essential resource. We are appalled that water, as essential to life as air, will be treated like a business — especially in light of clear community concerns on the issue.”
Morris Iemma’s calculatedly boring “I’m-so-predictable-so-vote-for-me” campaign has virtually put NSW to sleep. More than ever before, interest in the NSW state elections has dwindled to the point where even the Fairfax-owned Sydney Morning Herald is desperately trying to generate interest by running the hapless opposition’s election campaign for it.