While the Western corporate media was swooning over the tour of army duty in war-torn Afghanistan by Prince Harry, the third in line to the British crown, scant coverage was given to US national intelligence director Vice-Admiral Mike McConnells admission that the situation facing the US and its NATO allies in Afghanistan is deteriorating, despite a doubling of their occupation forces since 2004.
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Fourteen divers at the Sydney desalination plant being built at Port Botany went on strike this week over safety concerns and demanding a union collective agreement walking off the job on Monday March 3. They are employed by Construction Diving Services (whose parent company is Dempsey Industries).
In the most recent edition of Green Left Weekly (GLW #742, links to all contributions in debate so far are below), well-known progressive anti-imperialist activist, Professor Stephen Zunes, has proclaimed that I am a liar.
It has to be one of the most unbelievable stories of the century: New Idea, a magazine that trades on gossip about royals and other celebrities, is blamed for exposing Prince Harry’s deployment in the British military intervention in Afghanistan. It is about as believable as the plot of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, in which a young prince swaps places with a street lad to see what life is like in “Paupersville”.
Over 4000 Victorian Independent Education Union (VIEU) members from Catholic schools stopped work for 24 hours on March 7 in support of their enterprise bargaining agreement.
Centrelink is to cut about 2000 of its 27,000 staff over the next financial year as part of new cost-cutting measures by PM Kevin Rudds Labor government.
Over 70% of long-day childcare services in Australia are delivered by business, according to Professor Deborah Brennan of the University of NSWs Social Policy Research Centre, writing in the February 29 Melbourne Age.
On March 6, a rally was held to commemorate the International Day of Tribute for the Victims of Human Rights Abuses. This international day of action was called by the Colombian National Movement for Victims of the State. Around 40 people gathered on the steps of Parliament House in support of the victims of paramilitarism, demanding a just, fair and free Colombia and an end to state terrorism.
The April 11-13 Climate Change/Social Change conference being organised in Sydney by Green Left Weekly aims to promote recognition that radical social change is necessary to solve the global climate crisis. This is a crisis that at threatens to make the Earth uninhabitable for the vast majority of humans and other species.
As the Iraq war approaches its fifth anniversary on March 20th, it is important to remember why the war was started. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 the US has looked to find new ways to justify its military interventions in order to increase economic prosperity and further expand its empire.
Contrary to federal government rhetoric, research conducted into the new Labor governments Forward with Fairness transitional bill has revealed that Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs individual contracts), or their replacement clones, the Interim Transitional Employment Agreements (ITEAs), could continue well beyond 2010.
Mothers Against Genetic Engineering (MAdGE) and the Gene Ethics Network launched a campaign on February 28 for local councils in Victoria to declare themselves genetically manipulated (GM) food-free zones. The campaign, launched at a protest rally on the steps of the state parliament, is in response to the Premier John Brumbys decision to end Victorias ban on GM canola on February 29.
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