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Socialist Alliance member Sanna Andrew speaks on the open microphone at the July 11, 2010 rally protesting the decision by the DPP not to lay charges in the case of Mr Ward.

July 7 proved to be an excellent day for the Australian business community. Citing the economic downturn as a key factor in his decision, Fair Pay Commissioner Ian Harper announced that there will be no increase the minimum wage.
A boat carrying 74 asylum seekers disappeared en route to Australia near the Komodo island in Indonesia last week. The boat was believed to have women and children on board and had vanished — feared to have sunk — when the Australian Federal Police was notified by a refugee rights advocate, Ian Rintoul, on July 7.
Five hundred people rallied and marched on July 10 in Melbourne to celebrate NAIDOC week. The theme of NAIDOC 2009 was Honouring Our Elders, Nurturing Our Youth.

Nazy (a pseudonym) is an activist with the Voice of Freedom and Democracy in Iran, which organised a protest outside the Iranian Embassy on July 9. She came to Australia on July 6 after attending the pro-democracy protests in Tehran that were organised in response to the Iranian regime’s repression of the mass demonstrations alleging vote-rigging in the June 12 presidential elections.

Michael Jackson died a lonely death on June 25. Since then, there has been a near continuous outpouring of grief by millions of fans around the world.
An appeal for action from US-based anti-racist group Colour of Change reported on the actions of the Vally Club just outside Philidelphia. The appeal said that “65 children from a summer camp tried to go swimming at a club that their camp had a contract to use. Apparently, the people at the club didn't know that the group of kids was predominantly Black.”
Indigenous Affairs minister Jenny Macklin was advised by her department against formally consulting with Aboriginal people over the compulsory acquisition of their land because it would be too expensive, tie up too many resources, and was unlikely to get the outcome the government wanted, leaked documents reveal.

Glued to the television, myself and my partner watched the entire July 5 showdown in the Central American nation Honduras play out from Caracas.

On May 15, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 was introduced in the US House of Representatives, purportedly “To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy”.
“The acquisition of farmland from the world's poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate”, the July 3 British Guardian said.
>Graham Brown is a retired coalminer and climate change activist. He’s also a member of the Upper Hunter Greens in NSW, and is helping build a union and community alliance aimed at creating a “just transition” to a carbon-neutral economy. Such a transition would ensure workers in the coal industry move into alternative employment. Green Left Weekly’s Zane Alcorn spoke to Brown, and this is the first of three parts of the interview.