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Fifty delegates from the Queer Collaborations student conference, held in Hobart from July 9 to 13, rallied on July 12 in solidarity with Northern Territory Indigenous communities that are being invaded by federal police. The conference voted to support the Indigenous community in the NT against the Howard government’s interference. The rally then marched to Liberal Senator Eric Abetz’s office to hand him the statement written by the elders of the Mutitjulu people, which asked for community assistance but not police intervention.
The 10th national Labour History Conference on June 4-6 delved into the labour movement’s past, but also featured interesting debates about present-day concerns.
“John Howard is more than happy to welcome war criminal George Bush to Sydney in September, but he won’t even give the time of day to struggling workers, such as Botany Cranes union delegate Barry Hemsworth, who is still on the grass more than 300 days after being unfairly sacked”, Socialist Alliance activist Pip Hinman told Green Left Weekly.
Coinciding with the release of a report by Human Rights Watch exposing endemic human rights abuses in West Papua and the refusal to allow a member of the US Congress to visit the province, protests featuring the Morning Star flag were held.
Money for nothing "The 11th annual study of 71 countries by investment bank Merrill Lynch and consultancy firm, Capgemini found that buoyant economic growth across the world pushed the riches of 'high net worth individuals' (HNWI) up by a hefty
Ali Humayun, the queer Pakistani locked up in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, is suing VIDC management and the federal government for negligence of care.
During the visit of US aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk to Sydney, Stop the War Coalition activists held two anti-war protests — on July 5 and 8. Under the gargantuan shadow of the Kitty Hawk activists handed out anti-war material, held a banner calling for the end of the occupation of Iraq, and spoke out for the withdrawal of Australian and US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Indonesian police routinely torture, rape and kill with impunity in West Papua and risk fanning separatism there, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on July 5.
In a judgment against the police that was describing as “scathing” by Sydney Morning Herald journalist David Marr, magistrate David Heilpern dismissed all charges against the two “tranny cops” who were violently arrested at a protest against US Vice-President Dick Cheney on February 23. This brings to four the number of Cheney protesters who were charged and acquitted.
A bill recently pushed through federal parliament has the potential to threaten state moratoriums on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by granting new powers to the federal agriculture minister, a WA anti-GMO activist told Green Left Weekly.
In an unexpected backdown, the Queensland University of Technology agreed in the Federal Court on July 12 to continue paying the salaries of the two lecturers who were suspended after they criticised a documentary titled Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains, produced by QUT PhD student Michael Noonan.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) ruled on June 28 that the 2001 conviction of Libyan citizen Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi — sentenced to 27 years’ jail for allegedly bombing Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people — “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice”. The SCCRC referred al Megrahi’s case to Scotland’s appeal court.