Gadigal Country/Sydney

The Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition released the statement below on August 16. * * * Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Ricordo Patino, has confirmed that UK police have threatened to invade the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and arrest Julian Assange. This would be an unprecedented and scandalous violation of international law.

“The Palestinian people will never surrender. We will win in the end,” Shamikh Badra, youth and students coordinator for the Palestinian People's Party in the Gaza Strip, told a public forum in the Resistance Centre on August 14. The forum was sponsored by Socialist Alliance and Resistance. He passed around graphic photos of Israeli military attacks on Gaza to the audience. The photos showed “the war crimes of Israel; how the Palestinian people suffer from the Israeli occupation”. He asked: “Where is the rule of international humanitarian law in this.”

Up to 200 people crowded into the Mori Gallery on August 8 to attend the official opening of the Beautiful Art for Innocent Children exhibition. The exhibition was sponsored by Agent Orange Justice to aid “the innocent children being born now in Vietnam with horrific birth defects as a consequence of Agent Orange/dioxin remaining in the soil and the consequential genetic damage continuing for generations”.

About 1000 people rallied in Sydney on August 11 as part of a national day of action for equal marriage rights. The rallies took place on the eighth anniversary of the former Howard government's decision to ban lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people from marrying.

Carolus Wimmer, a longstanding member of the Latin American Parliament and International Relations Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela, spoke at a Sydney forum on Latin America in revolt on August 11, sponsored by the Communist Party of Australia. During his Australian tour, he also addressed meetings in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Cuba solidarity activists, members of Australia’s Latin American community and leftists from around the country will take part in a two-day conference in Sydney to pay homage to Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro. Video messages of support for Fidel from renowned leftist personalities will be screened alongside a full agenda of talks focused on Castro’s ideas, thoughts and legacy for the 21st century.

The Congolese Community of Australia held a rally on August 10 calling for an end to violence in the Congo. It focused on recent violence in eastern region led by the M23 Rebellion. Patrice Neyembo, president of the Congolese Community of Australia, said: “The M23 Rebellion is not really a rebellion, it is an invasion by the Rwandan government with the backing of Western allies. The aim is to take the land and legalise the exploitation of minerals in the so-called ‘neutral’ area.”

Housing Action, a ticket running in the September 8 council elections in the City of Sydney, released the statement below on August 9. * * *

More than 200 people, including newly arrived asylum seekers, will receive an Aboriginal passport. The passports will be issued by Robbie Thorpe of the Treaty Republic and Ray Jackson, President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association.

Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal supporters sent Olympic boxer Damien Hooper a message of support and solidarity for his action in wearing an Aboriginal flag T-shirt at the Olympics.

The University of Sydney Student Representative Council (SRC) has condemned university management’s plans to “dismantle” the Koori Centre, which has supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at the university since 1989. The Koori Centre also coordinates the teaching of Indigenous Studies. The university says the Koori Centre’s functions will be incorporated into a broader “Centre for Cultural Competencies”. Management has assured staff no jobs will be lost in the process, but many students and staff feel that have been inadequately consulted about the changes.