Analysis

Although 80% of current revenue from BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia comes from minerals other than uranium, recent drilling has shown that the site is home to the largest ore body of uranium in the world.
The Australian Education Union has called for a $2.9 billion investment into public education in order to support literacy and numeracy strategies. The AEU has called on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to make this the first step in his so called “Education Revolution”.
One of the 60 companies currently holding uranium exploration licences in South Australia, Marathon Resources, has admitted it’s investigating how 50-60 garbage bags containing what’s thought to be uranium tailings were dumped in the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges.
Green Left Weekly’s Zane Alcorn spoke to John Parker, Secretary of Gippsland Trades and Labour Council, about environmental and industrial issues surrounding electricity privatisation.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s, Cuba lost access to the oil, fertilizers and virtually all trading partners that the small island nation depended upon to survive. Cuba faced economic collapse virtually overnight.
On January 22, 1973, abortion was made legal in the US when the Supreme Court overturned a Texas interpretation of abortion law. The decision in the case known as Roe v Wade overrode state laws limiting women’s access to abortion during the first trimester — finding that they infringed upon women’s constitutional rights. While laws still remain on the books banning abortion in some US states, Roe v Wade prevents the enforcement of these laws.
The following statement was issued on January 25 by Brisbane Indigenous community leader and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson for the January 26 Invasion Day commemorations.
On January 9, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission released its report into mainland immigration detention facilities, based on HREOC visits to detention centres in August and November. The report noted a number of improvements in the system of immigration detention. However, there was yet another death in detention just days after the report was released.
The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change. Many now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and forestry practices. Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while allowing corporations to continue to profit from polluting our atmosphere and destroying our ecosystem.
There are two starkly different election processes underway right now, but most readers will probably have only been reading about one of them: the US presidential elections, which Forbes magazine estimates will likely cost as much as US$3.3 billion all up! In Cuba, just 145 kilometres from the coast of Florida, a very different election process is taking place.
The unforgettable tabloid headline “Greenie granny goaled” accompanied a picture of a smiling, backpack-toting Betty Downie being led away by two policemen from the Franklin River blockade sums up the fighting spirit of this wonderful activist. Betty died, aged 95, in a retirement home in Launceston on December 5, 2007.
On January 7, Indigenous activist Christine King made a statement to ABC Radio on behalf of the Stolen Generations Alliance. She called on the Rudd government to put its money where its mouth is and provide a national fund of $1 billion to compensate the stolen generations.