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Privatisation The Sydney Morning Herald's campaign against state government corruption is missing one notorious breeding ground of corruption — government fire sales of public services, known as privatisation. The SMH's April 14 article
The April 11-13 Climate Change-Social Change conference ended with the production of a statement that tries to specify the elements of a strategy against global warming that would actually have a chance of success.
On April 2, the Queensland industrial relations departments’ Workplace Health and Safety agency issued a breach notice against the state government’s Queensland Health (QH) department for providing unsafe accommodation to nurses working on the Torres Strait islands.
The Noongar people’s native title claim to an area encompassing metropolitan Perth suffered a setback in a decision of the Federal Court full bench on April 23. The court upheld an appeal by the federal and state governments against a 2006 Federal Court decision that favoured a claim brought by the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC).
A landmark legal case has begun against mining corporation Xstrata over claims that it “wilfully and negligently” caused toxic contamination of large parts of the north-western Queensland city of Mount Isa over decades.
In an unannounced visit to Baghdad on April 20, US Secretary Condoleezza Rice praised Nuri al Maliki, Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, for “ordering” a military offensive last month in the Iraqi seaport city of Basra against anti-occupation Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
The following is an abridged version of a talk given by Terry Townsend at the recent Climate Change — Social Change Conference in Sydney. Townsend is a long-term member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective and the managing editor of Links online journal (<http://links.org.au>).
In an unannounced visit to Baghdad on April 20, US Secretary Condoleezza Rice praised Nuri al Maliki, Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, for “ordering” a military offensive last month in the Iraqi seaport city of Basra against anti-occupation Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
The 2020 summit was two days of political theatre for the new Rudd government. For 48 hours over April 19-20, film stars brushed white-board markers with Australia’s richest, and politicians mixed with Indigenous people, unionists and youth delegates.
On April 24, as day broke over Canberra, red flags with yellow stars moved in columns throughout the city, held in the hands of marchers, fluttering from car aerials and hanging in the windows of hundreds of buses.
On April 23, Chicago-based aerospace and military contractor Boeing reported a 38% jump in first-quarter profits for 2008, amounting to a whopping US$1.2 billion. “We’re off to a good start in what we expect to be another strong year of financial performance for Boeing”, chairperson, president and CEO Jim McNerney said.
Around 50 protesters occupied the construction site of Newcastle’s third coal loader at Kooragang Island on April 19, forcing work to be stopped for around an hour and a half. The protest was organised by the climate change group Rising Tide Newcastle.