While the Western corporate media was swooning over the tour of army duty in war-torn Afghanistan by Prince Harry, the third in line to the British crown, scant coverage was given to US national intelligence director Vice-Admiral Mike McConnells admission that the situation facing the US and its NATO allies in Afghanistan is deteriorating, despite a doubling of their occupation forces since 2004.
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Fourteen divers at the Sydney desalination plant being built at Port Botany went on strike this week over safety concerns and demanding a union collective agreement walking off the job on Monday March 3. They are employed by Construction Diving Services (whose parent company is Dempsey Industries).
In the most recent edition of Green Left Weekly (GLW #742, links to all contributions in debate so far are below), well-known progressive anti-imperialist activist, Professor Stephen Zunes, has proclaimed that I am a liar.
As the quarantining of Indigenous welfare payments (50% of individual welfare benefits being received as gift cards for certain shops) rolls out across the Northern Territory, its alleged benefits need to be weighed against the possible cultural and economic consequences.
Venezuela
As an Australian person currently living and working in Venezuela, I feel there are many important aspects to the ExxonMobil issue that have been, perhaps deliberately, ignored by the mainstream media in Australia.
Legalities aside
Last May, the ALP announced a target for greenhouse gas emission reductions that, if observed generally across the world’s major emitting countries, would give humanity virtually no chance of avoiding climate catastrophe.
Former Democrat senator Sid Spindler died at his home on March 1, aged 75. He had dedicated his life to opposing injustice and campaigning for a more socially just world, even when this might have been unpopular. He was always prepared to stand up and be counted on social justice issues.
Just weeks after the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan governments called on Colombia to respect the need for peace and negotiation with the guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP), the Colombian of President Alvaro Uribe launched an extensive armed air and land assault against the insurgency movement.
Janet Giles, secretary of SA Unions, South Australias peak trade union body, resigned on February 18 from the board of the state governments WorkCover Corporation, stating that she could not defend the rights of injured workers while remaining on the board.
The breakout of the people of Gaza in late January provided a heroic spectacle unlike any other since the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the smashing down of the Berlin Wall.
The Melbourne Age reported on February 27 that child abuse charges against an Indigenous woman from the NT had finally been dropped after two years. The womans son has still not been returned to her by Family and Childrens Services Northern Territory (FACS), however.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced the Colombian state as a “terrorist state”, and said it had become “the Israel of Latin America”, following the Colombian military’s bombing of Ecuadorian territory on March 1 that killed up to 21 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Chavez argued the US government was behind Colombia’s actions.
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