The Broome Community No Gas Campaign released this statement on January 15.
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Traditional custodians have responded to revelations that state minister Peter Collier has authorised Woodside to destroy sacred sites on the Kimberley coast, north of Broome, as part of its exploration and assessment work at the controversial James Price Point gas hub site.
Spokesperson and Goolarabooloo law boss Phillip Roe says he and senior law boss Joseph Roe had not been given prior notice of the decision and had learnt about it via the media.
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A group of women asylum seekers share their reasons for seeking protection from Australia and their dismay and despair at being transferred to Manus Island. Their letters are reprinted below unedited.
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Letter 1
I am a 33 years old Iranian woman and I have a son, nine years old. We had to leave Iran because of the personal hardship that I experienced there.
About 150,000 people converged on Merdeka Stadium, Kuala Lumpur, for an opposition-called People's Uprising rally (Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat) on January 12.
This huge but peaceful mobilisation was an implicit warning to the Barisan Nasional (BN) government not to “steal” the coming general elections through the intimidation, corruption, electoral registration fraud and gerrymanders that have been used to hang on to power since formal independence from British colonial rule in 1957.
The second day of the trial of Perth protester Kamala Emanuel ended on January 24 with no verdict from the magistrate.
Emanuel was charged with failing to comply with a police officer's direction to leave a legal, peaceful rally last April.
Twenty people protested outside the court in support of the right to protest without police interference.
Leichhardt Friends of Hebron released this statement on January 10.
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Since 2009, Leichhardt Friends of Hebron has been helping provide pre-school education facilities in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Palestine.
In Palestine, the path to education is not easy and straightforward. Children must pass through Israel’s military checkpoints, deal with soldiers and the fear of attack from residents of Israel’s illegal settlements.
The 2013 Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund was launched on January 19. To keep the project afloat, we again set the target of an ambitious $250,000. Last year we fell short, but still raised an impressive $209,000 for this vital, independent media project.
Tamil refugee Ranjini and her two sons made headlines last May when they were taken without warning to Sydney's Villawood detention centre and locked up after Ranjini was labelled an ASIO “security risk”.
The very next day, 33-year-old Ranjini learned she was pregnant.
She gave birth to Paartheepan (Paari) on January 15. The newborn boy has the right to live outside detention with his father, Ganesh, who married Ranjini a year before she was detained and lives nearby in Sydney.
Over 150 people attended a public rally to demand a memorial and park to commemorate two Aboriginal freedom fighters, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, on January 20 in Melbourne.
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were the first two men executed in Melbourne on January 20, 1842.
The rally was addressed by various activists, including anarchist Joseph Toscano and Socialist Alliance member Davie Thompson.
Toscano said the two men were among 16 Tasmanian Aborigines brought to Melbourne in 1839 to be “civilised.”
More than 60 people attended a meeting on January 24 to discuss the Coburg Structure Plan. This plan, put forward by the Moreland City Council, will allow the construction of 10-storey buildings adjacent to existing homes in Coburg, an inner-northern Melbourne suburb.
The meeting was called by newly elected Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton, whose electorate includes Coburg. Bolton told the meeting that most residents she had spoken to did not know about the plan.
Prominent Tasmanian Aboriginal lawyer Michael Mansell has renewed calls for Aboriginal Australians to take to the streets in light of Canada's growing Idle No More movement.
The campaign has had thousands of First Nations people march through major cities of Canada following their government's introduction of contentious legislation impacting Native Treaty rights.
Mansell says it's time for people in Australia to take "more direct action" on Indigenous issues.
Members of dozens of local Aboriginal Land Councils protested outside the office of the NSW Land Council on January 25. The peak body of Aboriginal affairs has been criticised for applying for exploration permits for uranium and coal seam gas in areas throughout NSW.
Chairperson of the Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council, Roy “Dootch” Kennedy, told Green Left Weekly they were protesting because of serious concerns about the effects of mining and the lack of consultation about the decision.
Venezuela's Vice-President Nicolas Maduro and government ministers marched with up to one million people on January 23 to defend the Bolivarian revolution, which has signficantly reduced poverty and promoted new forms of participatory democracy, on the country's Democracy Day. The right-wing opposition march turned out to be a small rally. Further, sectors of the far right have called on the armed forces to resist what they referred to as the “invasion” of “Castro-communism” in Venezuela.
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