On March 31, a group of Christian peace activists from the Bonhoeffer Peace Collective entered a secretive military base on Swan Island off the coast of Victoria.
Swan Island is a training base for Australia's elite SAS soldiers, who play the most active combat role in Australia鈥檚 deployment to Afghanistan.
The activists wanted to shed light on the brutal ongoing occupation and war in Afghanistan. They switched off power to a satellite dish and one sector of the base: a symbolic act to call on the government to 鈥渉it the emergency stop button鈥 on the war.
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The Fair Work ombudsman began legal action on May 19 against a 7-Eleven store operator in Geelong who owed hundreds of hours in unpaid wages to four workers.
The decision came after a two-year campaign by the Unite union, which organises workers in part-time and casual work.
The ombudsman alleges that four workers were owed a total of $85,408 for work over 2005-09. One worker alone was underpaid $40,583.
On the first anniversary of Australia signing a key international treaty outlawing torture, an independent monitor of detention appears no closer, despite a recent surge in custodial deaths.
The final report of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Manfred Nowak, was released in February. It identified a global phenomenon of overcrowding, prolonged isolation and high numbers of pre-trial 鈥 all key issues for Australian custodial detainees.
Sergio Arriasis is the head of the office of strategic development for Vision Venezuela Television (ViVe), a government-funded channel inaugurated in 2003. Arriasis is in charge of future planning and development of its communications. Coral Wynter, a 91自拍论坛 Weekly journalist based in Caracas, spoke with Arriasis about the struggle to counter the private corporate media in Venezuela, and create a radical alternative.
How is ViVe different from other TV channels?
Hundreds of Tamils turned out in Sydney鈥檚 Martin Place on May 18 to mark the first anniversary of the Sri Lankan army鈥檚 capture of the last bit of land held by the pro-independence Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the country.
In driving rain, families lined up to place petals in front of a statue of a grieving mother. They heard from community speakers, the Greens, the Council for Civil Liberties (CCL) and the Socialist Alliance.
Right, who knows a way of making 鈥淐onservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition, out out out!鈥 scan properly?
Events haven鈥檛 been made easier by the news coverage, which involved reporters telling us: 鈥淥h my God, it鈥檚 historic, and the two of them look so lovely together, and they鈥檙e in the garden, ooohhh, I haven't cried so much since I last saw Breakfast at Tiffany鈥檚."
Tamil and refugee rights groups have demanded the Rudd government reverse its suspension of refugee claims from Sri Lanka. This follows the release of an international report that provided more evidence that the decision to suspend the claims was based on a lie.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) released War Crimes in Sri Lanka on May 17, a report into the Sri Lankan Army鈥檚 assault on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the entire Tamil population in the country鈥檚 north and east between January and May last year.
US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told an audience at a journalism conference in April that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan, a May 12 Rawstory.com article said.
Hersh helped break the story that US jailers were torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In 1969, Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre by US forces in Afghanistan.
At the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva, Hersh said US forces are engaged in 鈥渂attlefield executions鈥.
The New South Wales offices of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) construction division, was firebombed on Thursday May 13.
鈥淚t is a miracle no one was killed or injured鈥, Howard Byrnes, CFMEU state councillor and delegate at Botany Cranes, told 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
Recently declassified documents from US archives have shed further light on the extent of US complicity in Guatemalan human rights crimes, one of Latin America鈥檚 most brutal examples of population control.
The hard-working farmers of Dos Erres, in Peten department, had never asked for much 鈥 just a few acres of recently-cleared land from which to scratch a meagre living in a country racked by violence.
A customs officer at Melbourne airport has said the passport of the Australian founder of Wikileaks will be cancelled 鈥渟oon鈥.
Julian Assange, formerly from Melbourne, now stays in several countries while running the high-profile Wikileaks website. He usually avoids publicity, but became famous in April when his site released a classified video of US forces laughing after killing 12 people in Iraq, including two staff from the news agency Reuters.
鈥淥ne of the great scandals of Australia's history: Aboriginal labour in the 20th century鈥, was a the title of a lecture by Dr Ros Kidd in the Queensland Trades and Labour building on May 20.
The Alex Macdonald Memorial Lecture attracted about 80 people. It was organised by the Brisbane Labour History Association and sponsored by the Queensland Council of Unions (QCU).
Kidd's latest book, Trustees on Trial, documents the abuse and misappropriation of Aboriginal wages during the last century. "The fight for justice is still going on鈥, Kidd said.
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