In January 2008, in Western Australia, Aboriginal elder, highly respected community leader and grandfather Mr Ward died of heatstroke in an oven-hot prison van driven by employees of prisons operator Global Solutions Ltd, now taken over by Group 4 Securitas (G4S).
-
-
The situation for women in Afghanistan is becoming worse than even during the period of rule by the Taliban, Afghan activist and feminist Shazia told an audience of 40 people at the Queensland Teachers Union office on June 15.
News
-
A seminar at NSW Parliament House on June 16 discussed the current dire situation for Tamils in Sri Lanka and the need for the Rudd Labor government to step up and help protect human rights there.
-
Jess Moore, Socialist Alliance member and national coordinator of Resistance, gave the following speech to the June 13 Wollongong Climate Emergency Rally.
-
Below is a statement from the Sydney G20 Solidarity Collective.
-
One hundred New South Wales TAFE teachers packed the hall outside Wollongong Labor MP Noreen Hays office on June 17 to reject new plans from the Department of Education and Training (DET) to change TAFE teachers conditions.
-
Climate activists in Newcastle, already the worlds biggest coal port, have been campaigning to stop a planned upgrade. The upgrade will double the ports coal export capacity and worsen climate change, they say.
-
Environmental author and commentator Clive Hamilton first compiled a list of Australias top greenhouse mafia dons in 2006.
-
Residents group Friends of Banyule staged a protest on June 20 outside a meeting with state roads minister Tim Pallas. The meeting was an information session about the proposed freeway link between the Eastern Freeway and the Western Ring Road.
-
Victorian paramedics began industrial action on June 19, after enterprise bargaining negotiations with the state government broke down following a year of discussions. A ballot returned 94% support for industrial action.
-
In the wake of the inquest into the shocking death in custody of Aboriginal elder Mr Ward, more than 1000 people rallied in Perth in rainy weather on June 20. Ward was roasted in a prison van on a four-hour journey on a 42ºC day.
-
The following article is based on a talk given to the Wollongong Climate Emergency Rally on June 13 by Vanessa Organo. Organo is the environment representative at Wollongong University Students Association and a member of Resistance.
-
The Victorian government released plans on June 17 to expand Melbournes Urban Growth Boundary for new housing developments. This overturns previous commitments in its Melbourne 2030" strategy for limited urban sprawl.
Analysis
-
“Tasers are not the ’non-lethal’ weapons the QPS [Queensland Police Service] leadership claims”, former state MP and former police officer Peter Pyke told the media in April. He predicted a Queenslander would die in 2009 from a Taser.
-
The NSW budget was handed down on June 16. NSW state treasurer Eric Roozendaal tried to spin it as a beacon of hope for the state.
-
On June 15, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) raised the rate of its standard variable mortgage by 0.1%. For home buyers with the typical $300,000 mortgage, this means repayments go up by $18 a month.
-
A visitor from Mars would have scratched their head raw about what big business is allowed to get away with in this country especially by so-called Labor governments.
-
Citing the dubious need for Queensland to keep its AAA credit rating, on June 2 Premier Anna Bligh announced the state would sell off $15 billion of public assets.
-
The Business Council of Australia (BCA) representing Australias largest 100 corporations has called for a higher consumption tax and for the company tax to be halved. It did so in a submission to the federal governments review of taxation (the Henry review) made public on June 14
-
Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim introduced a private members bill on May 26. If passed, it will legalise euthanasia in the state.
-
“Some may be disappointed in some parts of this bill”, deputy prime minister and workplace relations minister Julia Gillard told parliament on June 17.
-
End US blockade of Cuba Having been a recent visitor to both Miami and Cuba may I congratulate the American press on its commitment to free speech and the lively debate both pro and against lifting the embargo on Cuba. The plea [from Bob
-
Aboriginal residents living in remote communities in the Northern Territory have condemned the governments consultation about the NT intervention as farcical.
-
We would have loved for them to be bigger, but the June 13 national climate rallies were an unmistakable step forward for the climate action movement. More than 11,000 rallied nationally, making them the largest climate actions yet in the era of PM Kevin Rudd.
-
The Rudd government will send a 40-member delegation, led by deputy prime minister Julia Gillard, to an “Australia Israel Leadership Forum” in Jerusalem on June 25-26. The government’s decision is yet further confirmation of its desire to outdo the former Howard government in blind support for Israel.
-
Saharawi refugee and preschool teacher Fetim Sellami is a central character in the Australian documentary Stolen, a film set in the refugee camps in south-west Algeria that have been home to 165,000 Saharawi refugees since their country, Western Sahara, was invaded by Morocco in 1975. However, when she and her husband, Baba Hocine Mahfoud, attended its June 11 premiere at the Sydney Film Festival, they did not receive red carpet treatment, despite the long distance they had travelled.
-
Despite widespread opposition, forest giant Gunns Ltd is still pressing ahead with its proposed pulp mill in the pristine Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania. But the campaign against it shows no signs of going away.
-
In May, visiting US ecologist Bill McKibben spoke at a packed forum at the University of Sydney. He put a compelling case for emergency action on climate change. In short, we must act now and act decisively. Otherwise the planet will become uninhabitable.
-
“I would have been concerned if it was a dog or some other animal who died in those conditions, but since it was only a black-fella …”
World
-
Dr George Tiller, one of only three US doctors currently performing late-term abortions, was gunned down while acting as an usher at his church in Wichita, Kansas on May 31.
-
The article below is abridged from Tamilnet.com
-
With the Maoists no longer heading up the government, the Nepalese elites have collectively let out a sigh of relief.
-
On June 15, the US Supreme Court ruled against reviewing the case of the Cuban Five. The five men have been in US jails since 1998 for their role in spying on behalf of the Cuban government on right-wing anti-Cuban terrorist groups operating in Miami.
-
Since the June 12 Iranian presidential election, and the almost immediate announcement of a landslide victory for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Iran has been convulsed by mass protests alleging electoral fraud.
-
Here’s something you won’t hear from the corporate media: Cuba’s human rights record was examined by the United Nation’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and the country came out looking pretty good.
-
“Under the influence of your company, the Papua New Guinea government has imposed a virtual state of emergency in Porgera”, Jethro Tulin, from the Atali Tange Association (ATA) of the Porgera Valley in Papua New Guinea, said at the annual general meeting of Barrick Gold in Toronto on April 29.
-
The Salvadoran community media has always been different — alternative in the most hard-core sense of the word.
-
I interviewed Patria Jimenez in Coyoacan’s normally bustling markets. The onset of the swine flu crisis had emptied the streets.
-
Venezuelanalysis.com is one of the main sources of news and analysis in English on the revolutionary process in Venezuela. The following an abridged appeal for badly needed funds has been issued by its staff, Gregory Wilpert, Tamara Pearson and James Suggett. In order to help it to continue to play its invaluable role, please donate.
-
Mericio Juvinal dos Reis, or Akara as he is commonly known, is the executive director of Luta Hamutuk, a non-government organisation based in Dili, East Timor. Akara was an international guest at the World at a Cross Roads conference, hosted by Green Left Weekly, held in Sydney in April.
Culture
-
In proof that Fela Anikulapo Kutis radical legacy continues long after his death, Nigerian government authorities shut down his night club, Afrika Shrine, in Lagos on May 26.
-
In Search of Bony — Explores how Arthur Upfield came to create the unique and highly controversial fictional hero, Aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte. SBS1, Friday, June 26, 2.30pm. Message Stick: Intervention — Two years ago, the Howard
-
State of Play
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Tony Gilroy
With Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren
In cinemas -
Marvel Divas
Written by Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa
Marvel Comics, 2009