News

The Stop Bush Coalition (SBC) is organising a rally at the Sydney Town Hall for 10am, September 8, to protest US war criminal George Bush’s visit to Sydney during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

The third anniversary of the death of Aboriginal teenager TJ Hickey will be on February 14. TJ was impaled on a metal fence while being chased by Redfern police. Had police followed proper medical practices, it is likely that TJ would have survived.

Last May 1, more than 1 million people joined the May Day celebrations in Caracas, Venezuela. Since then, Venezuela’s impoverished population, led by socialist President Hugo Chavez, has taken over more workplaces, set up more cooperatives, established hundreds of free public education and health programs, organised their neighbourhoods and taken big steps towards exercising “popular power” in their country.

A youth march will be held in Launceston on January 26, Invasion Day. The march organiser, Nala Mansell, told Green Left Weekly that Aboriginal young people from all over Tasmania will be coming together to say that they won’t be part of the “Australia Day” celebrations.

The struggle for justice for Palm Island man Mulrunji — who died on November 19, 2004, in a police watch-house from horrific injuries within one hour of being arrested — is growing.

The NSW Labor government has launched a broadside attack against Aboriginal magistrate Pat O’Shane in the lead-up to the March 24 state elections.

As “Australia Day” approaches, heralded by government advertisements telling us to “celebrate what’s great”, the question arises again: what is nationalism?

An Invasion Day protest to be held on January 26 will demand justice for Mulrunji and an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody. It will be the first time in many years that such a demonstration has taken place in Melbourne on Invasion Day.

It’s been more than five years since the first hooded, shackled men were brought to the US prison at Guantanamo and although not a single prisoner has been tried or convicted of any crime, more than 400 still remain, including David Hicks.

The trial of four activists who inspected the US-Australia top-secret spy base at Pine Gap for terrorist activity, is set to continue on May 29.

One year ago 43 West Papuan asylum seekers arrived in North Queensland fleeing Indonesian government oppression. Today in West Papua, the oppression continues, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) said in a January 18 media release.

A confidential report titled Partnerships Queensland was drafted last year by the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy. The report — which found there was an urgent need to improve the standard of living for Indigenous people and take “immediate and sustained action” — was withheld from public release before the September state election. Premier Peter Beattie’s government abolished the department after Labor’s re-election.