On May 10, 60 people attended a public meeting opposing the closure of the humanities department of the Queensland University of Technology. The meeting was held at QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus.
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As PM John Howard prepares to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) in Sydney in September to which US President George Bush and around 21 world leaders have been invited a debate has opened over tactics for protests against the summit.
On May 8, 150 unionists rallied outside the NSW parliament to protest against the move by the John Holland construction company to abandon the NSW workers compensation scheme in favour of the federal governments Comcare.
The proposed Anvil Hill coalmine in NSW is rapidly becoming a central battleground in the fight against climate change.
On May 3, Adelaide lost one of its strongest defenders of human and Indigenous rights with the death of Aunty Veronica Brodie, a widely respected and loved elder of the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri peoples of South Australia. On May 11, more than 500 people attempted to crowd into the small Centennial Park Cemetery chapel to farewell her. To accommodate the hundreds of people who had travelled from around Australia to pay their respects, chapel staff took the remarkable decision to broadcast the commemorative service over the PA throughout the foyer and hallways.
Students across NSW are getting organised for a Stop Bush! Stop Howard! student conference on June 1 aimed at building the protests when the US president comes to Sydney for APEC in September.
HOBART Thirty people greeted foreign minister Alexander Downer on May 11 with chants and fliers critiquing Australia foreign policy in Iraq. The lecture hosted by the University of Tasmania was about diplomacy. The demonstration was organised by the Hobart Peace Coalition and protesters explained that war is not diplomacy and that the occupation of Iraq must end.
On May 5, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its final working group report, the third in a series, as a part of its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), aimed at evaluating global warming. The IPCC published its first assessment report in 1990, a supplementary report in 1992, a second assessment report in 1995, and a third in 2001.
Well-known left-wing academic Dr Gary MacLennan and his Queensland University of Technology colleague John Hookham are facing possible suspension or dismissal without pay on charges of straight misconduct over their public criticism of a PhD project approved of by the QUT ethics committee.
Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) general secretary Farooq Tariq was released from detention in the early hours of May 7. Tariq and more than 1000 others were rounded up the previous Friday in a failed attempt by the government of General Pervez Musharraf to weaken a mass reception for a visit by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to Lahore. Chaudhry was suspended for being too independent of the Mushurraf regime and too respectful of the rule of law.
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