The July 14 Age reported on unoccupied “ghost mansions” in the well-heeled Melbourne suburb of Toorak. These million-dollar houses have been bought by wealthy landowners and left unoccupied – in some cases for decades.
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The modern history of Sri Lanka represents “the wrecking of a country: from the ‘pearl of the Indian Ocean’, to ‘the killing fields of South Asia’”, Dr Brian Senewiratne told a meeting of the Brisbane city Amnesty International group on July 8.
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Local community activist, socialist, wharfie and unionist Sam Wainwright will stand in the Hilton ward in the October Fremantle Council elections.
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Australia’s unemployment rate has risen to a six-year high say Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures released on July 9.
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Thirty people at a July 6 meeting hosted by the Sydney Stop the War Coalition heard from Sara Poya, an Iranian-Australian anti-war activist and researcher, and Mansour Razaghi, from the Committee in Solidarity with Iranian Workers (Australia). Razaghi is also an organiser with the CFMEU.
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In his July 1 article in the Australian, Ilan Grapel, researcher with the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), accused Green Left Weekly and Resistance of supporting terrorism and violence by calling for Palestinians to resist oppressive Israeli rule.
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On July 4, 30 people gathered at Victoria Quay for a vigil against the presence of two nuclear- armed and powered US Navy vessels. The action, Called by the Fremantle Anti-Nuclear Group, was entirely peaceful — except for the extraordinary decision by the police to arrest and charge veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Jo Vallentine.
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Ratepayers in Perth’s southern suburbs are counting the cost of the collapse of the federal government’s Greenhouse Friendly voluntary carbon offsets trading scheme.
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The annual student environment conference, Students of Sustainability (SOS), was held at Monash University from July 6 -10, attracting 450 participants to workshops on climate change, activism, Aboriginal rights, uranium mining, and other social justice and environmental issues.
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The following is an abridged speech given by Judith Le Blanc, a Native American activist and organising coordinator for the US peace group United for Peace and Justice (UPJ). Le Blanc is touring Australia to campaign against the 2009 Talisman Sabre joint US-Australian military war games focusing on a Peace Convergence Weekend on July 10-12, at Rockhampton, central Queensland. She was speaking at a July 7 forum in Brisbane.
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On July 10, 100 people rallied for Aboriginal rights as part of National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) week.
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The Victorian state government has been forced to reveal that over 150 state schools have been closed or merged with other schools since 1999.