#151; A report in the August 2 Herald Sun has Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Trevor Dobbyn calling for ticket inspectors to be issued with handcuffs, because he says, Our officers get publicly vilified for what looks like an assault on someone, but in fact they are trying to restrain them after theyve been arrested.
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Imagine a world where international trade was fair. Where, instead of sending troops and police overseas, the Australian government sent thousands of doctors and teachers to poor countries to provide free medical care and education to help the people there improve their lives. The Australian government is not doing this. It has sent hundreds of troops to help steal Iraqs oil and sends police to the Solomon Islands and other places in the Pacific to guard the theft of these countries natural resources.
The following is abridged from a July 29 report by the Residents Action Movement (RAM).
#151; The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is on the verge of formal affiliation to the ALP despite many members expressing their opposition. The proposed affiliation was endorsed in March by the unions governing council, reversing a decision two years ago not to affiliate to the ALP.
When US President George Bush comes to Sydney this year, it will be vital that we use his visit to draw attention to the ongoing struggle for same-sex marriage rights and an end to all homophobic policies. PM John Howard and Bush top the list of threats to civil liberties, including some of the most basic rights queers are still fighting for.
About 1400 nurses in Fiji, who began a strike on July 25, were joined on August 2 by thousands of teachers and other public servants, resulting in at least half of Fijis 20,000 public sector workers being on strike.
On July 29, Queensland University of Technology staged a protest on QUTs open day to symbolically lay to rest the school of humanities and human services, and mark the death of critical thinking and freedom of speech at QUT.
US President George Bush and PM John Howard are the worlds biggest climate criminals. The United States emits 25% of the worlds carbon emissions, and Australia is the largest carbon polluter per person in the world. Both countries are the only two developed nations that havent signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. For their entire political lives Bush and Howard denied climate change was even happening, but when people all around the world started to see the climate chaos taking place and put pressure on them, they grudgingly acknowledged that it is a reality.
While the US corporate media trumpeted on the last day of July that US troop fatalities in Iraq were the “lowest for eight months”, according to the final Pentagon figure for the month, 80 US soldiers were killed — one less than the number killed in March. The July 2007 death toll was the highest of any July since the war began and was almost double the number killed in July 2006, when 43 US troops died. As of August 1, total US troop fatalities in Iraq since the March 19, 2003, invasion had reached 3659. As of June 30, a total of 54,100 US troops had been wounded since the invasion, with 35,600 of them requiring medical air evacuation out of Iraq.
Hundreds of people packed out the State Cinema in Hobart to watch the premiere of The Wilderness Society’s (TWS) pulp mill film Tasmania’s Clean Green Future: Too Precious to Pulp. The short film was made by award-winning film-maker Heidi Douglas, who is one of the “Gunns 20’’ defendants being sued by Gunns for previous films. It aims to counter the Tasmanian government’s latest propaganda campaign supporting the proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, which consists of television and newspaper ads and large glossy brochures.
Survival International reported on August 2 that a large group of uncontacted Indians had fled to Bananeira, a remote village across the border in Brazil. It is believed that the Indians were escaping illegal loggers, who have been destroying their lands in their search for “red gold” (rare mahogany) in Peru’s rainforests. Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, head of the Indian Protection post near the Peru border, said in an urgent alert to the Brazilian government that, “We are on the verge of disaster. Illegal logging in protected areas in Peru is pushing the uncontacted tribes into Brazil, which could cause conflicts and lead to their appearance in places where they have never been seen before.” Because of their isolation, the Indians, among some of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, do not have immunity to diseases that could be contracted by contact with outsiders. Survival International director Stephen Corry said: “If it’s not ‘black gold’, it’s ‘red gold’. The Peruvian government must act now to stop the logging on the uncontacted tribes’ land. If it doesn’t, they could be the first people to be made extinct in the 21st century.” Visit <http://survival-international.org>.
An estimated 8000 people rallied at South Bank and marched to state parliament on August 3 to protest the Queensland Labor government’s plan for the forced amalgamation of 156 local councils into 72. The majority of the marchers were residents of Noosa shire, who were opposing the inclusion of their council into a Sunshine Coast super-council, involving Noosa, Maroochydore and Caloundra.
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