On July 29, Queensland University of Technology staged a protest on QUTs open day to symbolically lay to rest the school of humanities and human services, and mark the death of critical thinking and freedom of speech at QUT.
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US President George Bush and PM John Howard are the worlds biggest climate criminals. The United States emits 25% of the worlds carbon emissions, and Australia is the largest carbon polluter per person in the world. Both countries are the only two developed nations that havent signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. For their entire political lives Bush and Howard denied climate change was even happening, but when people all around the world started to see the climate chaos taking place and put pressure on them, they grudgingly acknowledged that it is a reality.
While the US corporate media trumpeted on the last day of July that US troop fatalities in Iraq were the “lowest for eight months”, according to the final Pentagon figure for the month, 80 US soldiers were killed — one less than the number killed in March. The July 2007 death toll was the highest of any July since the war began and was almost double the number killed in July 2006, when 43 US troops died. As of August 1, total US troop fatalities in Iraq since the March 19, 2003, invasion had reached 3659. As of June 30, a total of 54,100 US troops had been wounded since the invasion, with 35,600 of them requiring medical air evacuation out of Iraq.
Hundreds of people packed out the State Cinema in Hobart to watch the premiere of The Wilderness Society’s (TWS) pulp mill film Tasmania’s Clean Green Future: Too Precious to Pulp. The short film was made by award-winning film-maker Heidi Douglas, who is one of the “Gunns 20’’ defendants being sued by Gunns for previous films. It aims to counter the Tasmanian government’s latest propaganda campaign supporting the proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, which consists of television and newspaper ads and large glossy brochures.
Survival International reported on August 2 that a large group of uncontacted Indians had fled to Bananeira, a remote village across the border in Brazil. It is believed that the Indians were escaping illegal loggers, who have been destroying their lands in their search for “red gold” (rare mahogany) in Peru’s rainforests. Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, head of the Indian Protection post near the Peru border, said in an urgent alert to the Brazilian government that, “We are on the verge of disaster. Illegal logging in protected areas in Peru is pushing the uncontacted tribes into Brazil, which could cause conflicts and lead to their appearance in places where they have never been seen before.” Because of their isolation, the Indians, among some of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, do not have immunity to diseases that could be contracted by contact with outsiders. Survival International director Stephen Corry said: “If it’s not ‘black gold’, it’s ‘red gold’. The Peruvian government must act now to stop the logging on the uncontacted tribes’ land. If it doesn’t, they could be the first people to be made extinct in the 21st century.” Visit <http://survival-international.org>.
An estimated 8000 people rallied at South Bank and marched to state parliament on August 3 to protest the Queensland Labor government’s plan for the forced amalgamation of 156 local councils into 72. The majority of the marchers were residents of Noosa shire, who were opposing the inclusion of their council into a Sunshine Coast super-council, involving Noosa, Maroochydore and Caloundra.
On July 28, 80 people attended a public forum to hear speakers in support of state Labor MP Candy Broad’s parliamentary bill to remove abortion from the Victorian criminal code.
Eighty people gathered on the steps of Parliament House on August 4 to mark Hiroshima Day, chanting “Land rights — yes! Uranium — no! Johnny Howard has got to go!”
In a landmark case, a South Australian court has ordered the state government to pay $525,000 compensation to 50-year-old Aboriginal man Bruce Trevorrow for damages related to being taken from his mother and given to white foster parents.
For the last week, Ive woken up each morning at five to join ordinary Hanoi residents exercising in Lenin Park, which surrounds one of several huge lakes in the centre of the city. The first time I went out of curiosity, but it was such a buzz Ive returned every morning.
On August 2, the federal government announced it would legislate to stop same-sex couples adopting a child from overseas. The move follows the landmark adoption of a boy by two gay men in Western Australia in June.
The Illawarra Aboriginal community led more than 200 protesters through the centre of Wollongong on August 2 in a day of action to express disgust and outrage towards the Howard government’s Northern Territory intervention plan.
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