On May 30, Labor聮s industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard shocked many unionists when she announced at the National Press Club that a Rudd Labor government would retain the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) until January 31, 2010. This back flip comes a month after Labor decided, at its national conference, to abolish the hated body. ACTU president Sharan Burrow said she did not support the delay.
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Israeli military death squads assassinated two members of the Fatah-aligned Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah and Jenin on May 29. The public executions, which resulted in at least seven Palestinian civilians injured in Ramallah, were part of Israel聮s escalating campaign of assassinations and military assaults in the West Bank and Gaza.
The proposed 聯anti-terror聰 laws would allow police to demand people聮s names and addresses and question them as to where they have been and where they are going. Those giving unsatisfactory answers could be arrested and fined up to 拢5000 (about A$12,000). Under current British laws, police already have powers to stop and search people, but not to demand answers to questions or to issue fines for non-compliance. 聯Stop and question聰 powers are already in place in Northern Ireland.
The Fianna Fail party of current Taoiseach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern won a resounding victory in the May 24 elections with 41% of the vote. FF, which has held power for 10 years, fell five seats short of an outright majority. Ahern will likely form a centre-right coalition with the right-wing Progressive Democrats (PD) and independents, although there are also reports of contact with the Greens about forming a coalition. There is a June 14 deadline for the formation of the incoming government.
The arrest of two prominent Republican activists has strained the new power-sharing government in Stormont (the Northern Ireland Assembly), established between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party of Ian Paisley in May. In January, as a step towards a coalition with the DUP, SF agreed to recognise the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI); SF members took up positions on the Policing Board for the first time on May 31.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and Electrical Trades Union (ETU) have established an ongoing protest embassy outside the front office of Toyota's Altona assembly plant to protest the dismissal of AMWU delegate Tony Carvalho.
Carvalho was dismissed for allegedly bullying two employees who are currently on stress leave. The charges from the two complainants were drafted by a prominent law firm and were directed at Toyota. But Toyota management suspended Carvalho during an investigation, and ultimately sacked him on May 3.
In the wake of the Democratic Party taking control of the US House of Representatives and Senate in the November 2006 elections, hopes were high among the more liberal layers of the anti-war movement that it spelled an end to President George Bush鈥檚 Iraq war. No-one seriously doubted that behind the Democrats鈥 electoral resurrection was anger about the war, by that stage over three-and-a-half years long.
Sporadic fighting was reported to have erupted on May 29 on the edges of the Nahr al Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon between the Lebanese Army and a Sunni Arab Islamist group called Fatah al Islam. On May 21, the Lebanese Army had laid siege to the camp and its 45,000 residents after the pro-US government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora alleged that members of the little known Islamist group had carried out a bank robbery the previous day.
June 5 marks the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, during which Israel attacked and defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, seizing the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank from Jordan.
鈥淲e鈥檙e helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us鈥, the May 27 New York Times reported being told by US Army Staff Sergeant David Safstrom, who was commenting on the US-recruited and trained Iraqi Army.
On May 25, Moqtada al Sadr, Iraq聮s widely popular Shiite cleric whose Madhi Army militia has been accused by US officials of being responsible for a wave of killings of Sunni Muslims since February 2006, emerged publicly for the first time in months to deliver a Friday evening prayer speech in the southern holy city of Kufa, in which he called for US forces to get out of Iraq and vowed to protect Iraqi Sunnis and Christians.
Venezuela has been facing the most sustained campaign of destabilisation, including a barrage of media lies internationally and violent riots inside Venezuela, since the last serious attempt to overthrow the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez in 2004.
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