Issue 801

News

A June 30 public meeting launched a community group to fight the Queensland Labor government’s planned sell-off of $15 billion worth of public assets.
Twelve emergency services officers (ESOs) who work at the Hazelwood power station suspended a 12-week-long strike at Hazelwood Power Station on June 26. However, their employer, contractor Diamond Protection, has refused to allow the workers to return to work.
Fifteen hundred trade unionists and supporters marched through the streets of Brisbane to state parliament on July 3 to oppose the ALP state government’s planned selloff of public assets.
On July 1, 60 people attended an emergency rally againt the coup in Honduras in the Latin American Plaza in Sydney. The emotionally charged rally was called at short notice by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) and the Latin American Forum to condemn the undemocratic coup carried out by a small group of military officers, members of the oligarchy and their political agents in Honduras.
The NSW Supreme court of appeal ruled on July 1 that a planned expansion of the Lake Cowal gold mine in the central-west of NSW cannot go ahead for up to three months.
On April 19, a huge mob of St Mary’s people made a pilgrimage out of a church and into the Trades and Labor Council (TLC) building, home of the Queensland Council of Unions.
An emergency protest was held on June 29 in response to the military coup that ousted Honduras’ democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya the day before. The action targeted Labor MP Duncan Kerr’s office, and demanded the federal government condemn the coup.

Analysis

As the government tries to pass its controversial carbon trading legislation, the latest polling indicates widespread public support for it. A recent Nielsen poll found 65% support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), while just 25% oppose it.
On June 10, the federal government’s new occupational health and safety (OH&S) peak body — the Safe Work Australia Council (SWAC) — held its first meeting. Workers in Australia took one more step towards eroded and unsafe working conditions.
The first person in Australia to die from H1N1 virus (or "swine flu") was an Aboriginal man from a remote community.
This year is the seventh year Melbourne’s Community Radio 3CR will broadcast its Beyond the Bars program.
The three crises facing capitalism — jobs, the environment and war— were the subject of Victoria's Socialist Alliance conference on June 27.
The mainstream media has gone into a frenzy over Indonesian claims that thousands of new refugees will soon seek refuge in Australia.
Low-paid workers in luxury hotels, including cleaners and kitchen staff, were the first to lodge an application with Fair Work Australia (FWA) when the federal government’s new industrial relations regime, the Fair Work Act 2009, came into effect on July 1.

World

When I returned from covering the Iranian elections recently, I was surprised to find my email box filled with progressive writers bending themselves into knots about the current crisis in Iran.
Protests against the June 28 military coup that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya are continuing on the streets of Honduras, amid international condemnation. Zelaya, who was kidnapped and flown to Costa Rica, is refusing to accept his overthrow and announced plans to return the Honduras on July 5 with the Organisation of American States (OAS) head Jose Miguel Insulza, Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.
Within minutes of the first reports, it was clear the world was going mad.
The far-right French National Front (FN) won 39% of votes in the first round of the Henin Beaumont by-election in Northern France on June 28. The by-election, in the Nord Pas-de-Calais department, was called after the incumbent Socialist Party (PS) mayor was charged with corruption.
Within minutes of the first reports, it was clear the world was going mad.
The US House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act on June 26. The bill, commonly known as the Waxman-Markey bill and supported by US President Barack Obama, will now go to the US Senate.
“Business is back on Wall Street”, the July 2 Wall Street Journal said. The WSJ said “lofty pay packets may be set for a come back as well”.
Green Left, an eco-socialist current within the Green Party of England and Wales, held its annual general meeting on June 20 in London. It discussed the work of the network over the past year in struggles against war, racism and environmental decay and in winning support for eco-socialism as a solution to the economic and climate crises.
The following article is compiled from an article by Dominggus Oktavianus and reports by Ulfa Ilyas and Rudi Hartono. It has been translated by Data Brainanta.
An Amnesty International report published on June 24, Unfinished Business: Police Accountability in Indonesia, said beatings, torture, extortion, and even murder are still habitually carried out by Indonesian police, although some improvements have been made to police culture in recent years.
June 30 was declared “National Sovereignty Day” by the Iraqi government to celebrate the withdrawal of US occupying troops from Iraqi urban areas into military bases.
Twenty-one international peace activists were seized by Israeli naval frigates in international waters on June 30 as their boat, The Spirit of Humanity, tried to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Three years ago, a number of news outlets reported on a troubling first-ever occurrence. The world’s obese people outnumbered the world’s starving.
The coup against Honduras President Manuel Zelaya is a last-ditch effort by Honduras’s entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade.
“The situation for women in Afghanistan today is like hell”, Afghan feminist, pro-democracy activist and illegally suspended parliamentarian Malalai Joya told Green Left Weekly."The situation for women in Afghanistan today is like hell", Afghan feminist, pro-democracy activist and illegally suspended parliamentarian Malalai Joya told Green Left Weekly. For Joya, who is currently touring Australia to promote her political autobiography Raising My Voice, it is a familiar situation.

Culture

The Burning Season
Written & directed by Cathy Henkel
Limited screenings nationally through July. Visit for details
Los dioses rotosDirected and written by Ernesto DaranasWith Silvia Aguila, Carlos Ever Fonseca, Ania Bu, Hector Noas and Yoel InfantaSydney Latin Film Festival, July 24-26, Tom Mann Theatre, Surry HillsVisit www.sydneylatinofilmfestival.org/cms
Worth Fighting For — Inside the Your Rights At Work Campaign
By Kathie Muir
University of New South Wales Press
242 pages, $27 (pb)
Transsexual in Iran — In the Islamic Republic of Iran, a country with strict social mores and traditional values, sex-change operations are legal for "diagnosed transsexuals" yet homosexuality is still punishable by death. SBS2, Monday July 13,

Editorial

The July 1 Australian carried an extraordinary attack by Ilan Grapel on Green Left Weekly and its monthly Arabic insert the Flame titled “A willing ally to Hamas’s hatred”. Both publications are guilty of a “radical anti-Israel stance”, Grapel said.

General

When Rupert Murdoch’s Australian published a racist and malicious attack (see page 8) on Green Left Weekly and particularly its Arabic-language supplement, the Flame, I rang the Flame
Green Left Weekly received dozens of solidarity messages for its 800th birthday from Australia and from around the world.

Resistance!

The news of a military coup in Honduras reached most Resistance activists as on the morning of June 29. There was much sadness, anger and frustration but also determination not to allow yet another coup to happen against a democratically elected leader in the Americas.
Over July 1 and 2, defence industry and government representatives met in Adelaide for the annual Defence Industry Exhibition (DIE).