News

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the referendum that acknowledged Aboriginal people as citizens in their own country. Forty years seems like a long time — so how much has really changed?

The scale of the death, misery and horror unleashed on Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion is almost beyond comprehension. In October, British medical journal The Lancet published a study conducted by Iraqi physicians in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University that put the death toll among Iraqis as a result of the war at 655,000. Hundreds of people are being killed, wounded or abducted each day. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Iraq is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world, with 1.6 million Iraqis internally displaced and almost 2 million refugees having fled the country altogether.

The announcement that charges have been laid against 31-year-old Australian man David Hicks, who has now been held in US military custody in Guantanamo Bay for more than five years, has been welcomed by the Howard government, which is unable to charge Hicks with any crime under Australian law.

Hobart Resistance organiser Mel Barnes took part in the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network brigade to Venezuela in December, to see the revolutionary process for herself. The brigade was timed to coincide with the presidential election in which President Hugo Chavez won another landslide victory as people voted to deepen the Bolivarian revolution.

When US President George Bush visits Australia in September for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, thousands are expected to hit the streets in opposition to the man perhaps most known for his extensive war crimes and suspect election “victories”.

Following years of a sustained campaign by the ruling elite to vilify Islam, the 2007 federal election is shaping up to be a “Muslim” election, with the two major parties trying to out-do each other with racist slurs against Arabs and Muslims.

The Socialist Alliance will launch its campaign for the NSW election with a rally and concert on February 24.

Private train operator Connex is under fire after tests revealed its fleet of new Siemens trains were unable to brake if soapy water was on the tracks.

With the NSW elections looming, Labor Premier Morris Iemma seems determined to try to outdo the federal government — from the right. On January 28, Iemma demanded that Canberra ban the Sunni Muslim organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was holding a conference in Lakemba in Iemma’s western Sydney electorate.

When questioned by the media about opposition in the US Congress to the George Bush administration’s “surge” of troops to Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney kept his message simple: “It won’t stop us.” In the January 24 interview with CNN, Cheney added, “We have to have the stomach to finish the task”.

Oliver Ressler, an Austrian artist and co-director (with Dario Azzellini) of Five Factories — Worker Control in Venezuela, hosted special screenings of his film in Melbourne and Sydney. Ressler’s presentations were part of the “If You See Something, Say Something” exhibition and were sponsored by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), LASNET and the Melbourne Bolivarian Circle.

One-hundred people gathered at Brisbane’s Riverside Centre on January 27 to discuss Indigenous self-determination and the United Nation’s draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is expected to be ratified this year.