Analysis

The following statement has been issued by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
The June 3 Apache Energy gas facility explosion on Veranus Island, 100 kilometres west of the port of Dampier in WA, is the latest in a long history of social irresponsibility in the global oil and gas industry.
In Scandinavian folklore, a troll is a bogeyman. In the jargon of the Internet, it is someone who posts false and provocative information.
On June 21, Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced that her government would begin to end funding for infrastructure to remote Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities that she deemed were “economically unviable”. This is the Rudd Labor government’s first major attack on Aboriginal land rights since taking power.
According to the official website for World Youth Day (WYD), Sydney will “look different” from APEC. Really? With 600-plus areas now officially “declared areas”, not to mention proscribed airspace throughout July, and officials with the right to decide who is annoying and who isn’t, it doesn’t seem very different. If anything, it’s worse.
Adelaide City Council’s zero-emissions solar electric bus, Tindo, which is the Kaurna Aboriginal word for sun, is a great example of what sustainable public transport looks like.
On World Youth Day on July 19, protesters are planning to send this message to the pope: “Gay is great and homophobia is unacceptable.”
The expected showdown in the struggle over the NSW Iemma government’s proposed electricity privatisation has stalled.
“Speeding towards dangerous climate change” was the name of the public forum at which the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) launched its “Every Ten Minutes to Everywhere” campaign on June 15.
The Toyota Motor Corporation, in a dead heat with US giant General Motors (GM), is now the most profitable car maker in the world. Last financial year TMC was valued at US$215 billion. This, however, didn’t stop the federal government from offering Toyota even more money.
Fred Fuentes, who has spent a year working in Venezuela, will be a special guest speaker at the Resistance National Conference in Sydney, June 27-29. Green Left Weekly’s Trent Hawkins caught up with Fuentes just before he left Caracas for Australia.
Between July 5 and 9, hundreds of students and activists from around Australia are expected to attend the annual Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference at the University of Newcastle.