— Australia will face a moral duty to accept thousands of “environmental refugees” when rising sea levels caused by global warming displace the peoples of small Pacific island states in future decades, Clive Hamilton, director of the Australia Institute, told an audience of around 300 at the Irish Club on May 1.
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Christmas Island, 2800 kilometres north-west of Perth, 2500 kilometres from Darwin and 500 kilometres from Singapore, is one of Australia’s most remote Indian Ocean territories. It is where many asylum seekers first make their refugee claims. But since the 2001 arrival of the Tampa and the island’s excision from Australia’s migration zone, the island has been pivotal to the Howard government’s heartless response to asylum seekers.
The left-wing rebellion sweeping Latin America is one of the most significant events in politics today. It is a blow to US imperialism, which has dominated the region for so long, and it is an inspiring example to the rest of the world. Venezuelans, in particular, are openly debating the question of socialism and they are carrying out the first revolution of the 21st century.
Thousands of Venezuelan workers took control of foreign-owned oil fields yesterday as Hugo Chavez stepped up his battle with Washington in a new wave of nationalisation and an announcement that the country was leaving the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund [IMF], reported the British Guardian on May 2.
This year’s proposed US spending on the Iraq war is larger than the military budgets of China and Russia combined. The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to US$564 billion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Greedy property developers and corrupt government officials have forcibly driven tens of thousands of people across China from their homes. Most of these homeowners werent in a position to resist the developers strong-arm tactics.
On April 24, the Locals for Esperance Development (LED) residents' group told the WA south coast town’s local council they wanted a complete ban on the shipment through Esperance of lead for nickel to be transported in closed containers, and community consultation about further transportation of heavy metals through the port.
Some 53 million light bulbs in more than 5 million homes have been replaced with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs, according to an April 21 Bolivarian News Agency report. This marks the successful completion of the first stage of Mission Energy Revolution, a social mission inaugurated by Venezuelas government in November. As well the free replacement of energy inefficient bulbs with environmentally friendly ones, the mission aims to help develop the use of alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power.
On May 2, 200 students and staff rallied at the Carseldine campus of the Queensland University of Technology to demand that vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrakes foreshadowed closure of the QUT humanities and human services school be withdrawn.
Police clashed with protesters in a May Day demonstration in the Chinese territory of Macau. Around 2000 protesters demonstrated against state corruption and lack of jobs for local workers, which they blame on the use of foreign labour. They were
BRISBANE Around 50 people picketed the Sofitel Hotel on April 23 to protest a visit by Prime Minister John Howard. Howard was delivering a speech to a hand-picked audience at a $132-a-head luncheon. The protest was organised called for the repeal of
John Pilger is an award-winning journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, who began his career in 1958 in his homeland, Australia, before moving to London in the 1960s. He has been a foreign correspondent and a front-line war reporter, beginning with the Vietnam War in 1967. He is an impassioned critic of foreign military and economic adventures by Western governments.
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