While Qantas workers聮 job security remains uncertain if the Airline Partners Australia (APA) $11.1 billion takeover bid for Qantas succeeds, executives at the national carrier stand to pocket millions.
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The first congress by the Preparatory Committee for the Acehnese People聮s Party (KP-PRA) was disrupted on February 28 when around 75 participants were rushed to hospital with suspected food poisoning.
After an epileptic seizure on December 15, Sharif Assad, a Syrian being held in Sydney聮s Villawood immigration detention centre, was transferred to Bankstown hospital against his will and tied to a bed.
On February 23 and 25, US and Iraqi forces raided the head offices of Iraq聮s national trade union centre, the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW). One of the union聮s security staff was arrested and later released. The soldiers destroyed furniture and confiscated a computer and fax machine. The union has condemned the attacks as unprovoked and is demanding a written apology from the occupation forces, the return of seized property and compensation for damages. Messages of protest can be lodged at: .
In Venezuela, after decades of class polarisation, neglect of the needs of the majority, corruption on a massive scale and unbridled bureaucracy, the magnitude of problems that Venezuela聮s Bolivarian revolution led by socialist president Hugo Chavez is attempting to tackle is enormous.
Hicks has spent five years, mainly in solitary confinement, at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, which the US set up on illegally occupied Cuban territory to ensure independence from the legal system of any country, including the US itself.
As right-wing death squads reassert their presence and gangs and organised crime with links to the highest levels of government operate freely, campesinos (peasants) and organised youth are being persecuted and beaten in the streets. On February 27, while holding a peaceful and legal protest against the regional free trade agreement CAFTA and the government聮s crackdown on civil liberties, 27 young activists were detained, charged with civil disobedience and brutally beaten by the civil police. Meanwhile the Popular Youth Bloc is awaiting information on the fate of Edwar Contreras Bonifacio, who was forcibly disappeared when he left college on February 7. An international solidarity campaign is underway and people are urged to write to the nearest Salvadoran consulate or embassy demanding his safe return, as well as the release of the 27 arrested youth. The youth and popular organisations are responding to this campaign of state-sponsored intimidation with the call to 聯Answer more repression with more struggle!聰
Pot calls kettle black
"Their [the Islamists] goal in the broader Middle East is to seize control of a country, so they have a base from which they can launch attacks against governments that refuse to meet their demands." 鈥 Lord Darth Cheney,
The Melbourne City Council is taking steps to introduce a partnership scheme that will allow Victorian same-sex couples to have their civil unions recognised by the council.
On February 24, Hy Vuthy, a leader of the Free Trade Union of the Workers of Cambodia (FTUWKC) was shot dead while driving home. The murder occurred shortly after Hy Vuthy successfully negotiated with a company for a one-day holiday for Khmer New Year. This was the third murder of a FTUWKC representative since the union聮s former president, Chea Vichea, was killed in 2004. On February 26, the International Trade Union Confederation called on the Cambodian government to investigate the crime, bring those responsible to justice, and to end the campaign of repression against trade unionists. For more information, visit .
鈥淐omfort women鈥 survivors and their supporters will rally in Sydney on March 7, as part of a global day of action, to protest against the human rights abuses suffered by hundreds of thousands of women during World War II. An estimated 200,000 women in were forced into sexual slavery and continually beaten, tortured and raped by Japanese soldiers during the war.
The South Korean anti-war movement is appealing for support in its campaign demanding the right to hold an anti-war demonstration on March 17, as part of the global weekend of action on the anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. The government has banned the protest. Korean Action against Dispatch of Troops to Iraq, an anti-war coalition comprising 351 organisations, is calling on international anti-war and pro-democracy groups to send letters of protest to, and organise demonstrations outside of, the South Korean consulate or embassy in your country. Messages of solidarity can be sent to <antipabyeong@empal.com>.
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