Indigenous rapper Caper says a backlash from his fans caused Facebook to reverse their banning of the video to his song "How Would You Like To Be Me?" (lyrics below). The song, which addresses racism in Australia, has enjoyed extensive radio airplay, becoming one of the most requested songs on Magic FM. The 30-year-old musician, otherwise known as Colin Darcy from Whyalla in South Australia, said in a post on the social networking website: "Whoever reported my new video 'How Would You Like To Be Me' as offensive has actually stopped it from being promoted on facebook.
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In a June 22 televised speech from the White House, United States President Barack Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 US soldiers from Afghanistan in 2011 and a further 23,000 in 2012.
This would leave US soldier numbers at about 70,000 the same as before the official "surge" by occuyping forces began at the end of 2009.
Britain’s Channel 4 said on June 24 that the reduction in soldier numbers would be partially compensated for by increased use of armed, pilotless drones.
Celebrated US author and poet Alice Walker is among 38 people who will join Audacity of Hope, the ship sponsored by US Boat to Gaza as part of an international effort to break Israel’s maritime siege of Gaza.
Walker has authored more than thirty books, the best known of which is the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Color Purple.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and his PASOK party government survived a June 21 confidence vote in parliament. This came ahead of a parliamentary vote scheduled for a week later on the austerity measures demanded of Greece in return for new loans from the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Greece is in the grip of a desperate economic crisis. The government bailouts, engineered by the EU and IMF, have come with demands to slash spending, cut the wages and benefits of workers, and privatise public enterprises.
“During the first years of the siege, we could still manage, but nowadays we have no alternatives,” says Dr Hassan Khalaf, deputy health minister in Gaza.
“It is a major crisis: many health services have stopped, and I’m afraid this will spiral out of control, because Gaza doesn’t have the essential medicines and supplies needed.”
Cancer, kidney, heart and organ transplant patients, as well as patients needing routine surgeries, including eye and dental surgery, have been suffering for the past five years under the Israeli-led, internationally-backed siege of the Gaza Strip.
On June 20, 20 workers, members of the Textiles Clothing and Footwear Union Australia (TCFUA), made their way from Melbourne Town Hall to a boutique called Scanlan and Theodore. The workers were employees of a company called Blossom Road, which made products for the high-end fashion label.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced and countless numbers killed in the north Sudanese government’s latest offensive in the region bordering south Sudan.
South Sudan is set to formalise its secession on July 9 after a near-unanimous vote for independence in the January referendum.
The federal Labor government put a new law before the Senate on June 14 to set up a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory.
The same day, opponents of the radioactive waste dump plan gathered outside Parliament House in Canberra to protest.
Federal resources minister Martin Ferguson has said the government’s preferred site is Muckaty station, 100 kilometres north of Tennant Creek. The proposed bill also gives the government the go-ahead to set up dumps elsewhere in the NT.
Over three nights last week, hundreds of thousands of people watched something very rare: a Reality TV show that actually showed some reality.
Australia’s public SBS television station showed a special three-episode program called Go Back To Where You Came From about the experience of six Australians (with widely varying views about refugees and asylum seekers) as they are sent on a 25-day trip to trace, in reverse, the routes that refugees have taken to reach Australia.
US man robs store to get health care in prison
“A North Carolina man robbed a local store for a dollar just so he could get health care in prison, he said.
“James Verone, 59, handed the teller a note demanding $1 and claimed he had a gun … He then walked away and sat down, waiting for police.
“[He said:] 'I wanted to make it known that this wasn't for monetary reasons, but for medical reasons.'
How is the government getting away with this idea that a public-sector pension is a “luxury”?
Is it something that suave bachelors show off, saying: “Once I’ve taken you for a spin in my Aston Martin, how about I show you the mid-range forecast for my teacher’s pension over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.”
A pension is a necessity, so you might as well say we simply can’t go on enjoying the luxury of a sewerage system, given that the amount of waste we’re flushing is 35% higher than in 1996, so from 2015 we’ve got to throw it out the window otherwise we’ll end up like Greece.
The Refugee Art Project’s Fear+Hope exhibition’s opened at Sydney’s Mori Gallery on June 20, during International Refugee Week. The exhibition showcased 20 refugee artists from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Iran, the Kurdish regions of the Middle East, Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia.
All of the artists produced their art locked up in Australia’s detention centres. Only three of the artists were released to be at their exhibition opening.
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