On November 16, NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled that five journalists from Australias Seven and Ten commercial TV networks who died in the East Timorese town of Balibo on October 16, 1975, were not killed by crossfire (which is what Australian authorities have previously maintained) but were deliberately murdered by invading Indonesian forces, on orders from above in what Pinch ruled to be a war crime.
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A report on a November 17 Perth rally against the NT intervention was accompanied by a photo incorrectly credited to Barry Healy. The credit should have read: Photo by Jodi Hoffmann/courtesy Aboriginal Legal Service of WA.
There were emotional scenes in the Perth Coroners Court on November 28 as deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker read her findings into the death of a 35-year-old Aboriginal man, Carl Woods, in police custody in the suburb of Parmelia on April 11 last year. Woods relatives wept and expressed anger at Vickers finding of accidental death.
Ecuador began to implement its citizens revolution called for by left-wing President Rafael Correa on November 29 with opening of the constituent assembly, made up of elected delegates tasked with reforming the states institutional framework and drawing up a new constitution.
Over 50 military and civilian dissidents remain in custody following the storming of the Manila Peninsular luxury hotel on November 29 by troops loyal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to dislodge a group of soldiers who had seized the hotel and used it to hold a press conference calling for a “people’s power” uprising against the unpopular president. Civil society and religious leaders joined the rebels at the press conference.
A 19-year-old Saudi Arabian woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail following an incident in 2006 in which she was kidnaped and gang-raped by seven men. When the kidnapping occurred, the woman was in a car in the company of a man who was not an immediate relative, a crime in the Saudi kingdom.
@body intro = BREAKING NEWS — As Green Left Weekly goes to press, the Venezuelan government has released video evidence of a violent destabilisation campaign being planned by US-funded opponents of the Chavez government and the process of change. The campaign is based on rejected the outcome of the referendum being held on December 2. Speaking to up to a million supporters of the constitutional reforms and the revolution on November 30, President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil supplies immediately to the US, in retaliation against any violent attacks.
Since the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in October, there has been little in the mainstream media coverage of events in Burma. During the crackdown, many people were killed or disappeared by the military as society was placed under curfew.
The November 24 rout of the Howard government owed much to the work of the organised labour movement. Of the marginal Coalition seats targeted by the Your Rights at Work (YRAW) campaign, 20 of 24 have fallen to Labor (including John Howards own seat of Bennelong); the other four remain in doubt. Most of those who voted for Labor did so believing that Labor would abolish Work Choices, as promised by Kevin Rudd on October 14, the official start to the election campaign. Yet Labors industrial relations policy Forward with Fairness promises only minimal changes, replacing the Coalitions legislation with Work Choices Lite.
Kevin Rudds election provides an opportunity for Australia and Aboriginal people to repair the damage caused by the Howard years. Rudds intention to apologise to the Stolen Generations already indicates a positive change of national policy towards Aboriginal people and should he remove the NT emergency laws, Aboriginal reconciliation will be further enhanced.
A thousand steps
Away from the ballot box
To vote for freedom
A thousand steps
From armed men
With orders to shoot down
Anyone who votes for freedom
A thousand steps
When you have chains
On your hands and feet
To stop you from taking
A step of a single yard
Towards freedom
A thousand steps
From the grave
Where you will be buried
If you take a step
To vote for freedom
A thousand steps
From your dreams
Where you dream
That you can vote
For freedom
@auth poem = Arif Viqar
Away from the ballot box
To vote for freedom
A thousand steps
From armed men
With orders to shoot down
Anyone who votes for freedom
A thousand steps
When you have chains
On your hands and feet
To stop you from taking
A step of a single yard
Towards freedom
A thousand steps
From the grave
Where you will be buried
If you take a step
To vote for freedom
A thousand steps
From your dreams
Where you dream
That you can vote
For freedom
@auth poem = Arif Viqar
While the tyrant reign of John Howard is over, another is just beginning. The need to fight a Rudd government is quite clear. Many of Kevin Rudds so-called reforms are just slight changes to Howards monstrosities.
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