Alarm bells should be ringing as the threat of war looms on the horizon, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned in his July 18 weekly column.
The warning came after tensions again flared with neighbouring Colombia, and the Central American nation of Costa Rica agreed to 6000 US troops being deployed on its soil.
Chavez placed Venezuela on high alert and broke diplomatic relations with Colombia after a July 22 meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS).
846
When right-wing billionaire Ricardo Martinelli was elected Panama鈥檚 president in May 2009, political commentators heralded it as a sign that Latin Americans were becoming disillusioned with the 鈥減ink tide鈥 of progressive and leftist governments.
But one year later, the Martinelli government is facing a wave of resistance to its anti-labour and anti-union laws. Resistance has grown in the face of deadly repression.
鈥淭he poisoning of groundwater near Kingaroy is just the tip of the iceberg with coal seam gas [CSG] extraction鈥, climate change activist and Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Brisbane Ewan Saunders told 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
The contamination of groundwater by toxic chemicals was revealed two weeks ago, sparking calls for urgent action against the CSG industry, which is rapidly expanding in south-eastern Queensland.
In November 2008, Palm Island man Lex Wotton was convicted of "incitement to riot鈥 and sentenced to six years' jail. His charge followed the Aboriginal community uprising and protest after the death in police custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee in November 2004.
The Order of Mates celebrated beside Sydney Harbour the other day. This is a venerable masonry in Australian political life that unites the Labor Party with the rich elite known as the big end of town.
They shake hands, not hug, though the Silver Bodgie now hugs. In his prime, the Silver Bodgie, aka Bob Hawke or Hawkie, wore suits that shone, wide-bottomed trousers and shirts with the buttons undone.
A bodgie was an Australian version of the 1950s English Teddy Boy and Hawke鈥檚 thick grey-black coiffure added inches to his abbreviated stature.
This election campaign is crazy.
It鈥檚 crazy that so much fear is being whipped up about the few thousand of the world's 43 million refugees and displaced people who manage to get on a leaky boat to Australia.
But neither mainstream party is willing to stop sending troops to the decade-long military occupation of Afghanistan. This war is largely responsible for 2.8 million Afghan refugees worldwide 鈥 the same war is opposed by most in Afghanistan and most citizens of the countries whose armies occupy it.
A spectre is haunting the healthcare system 鈥 the spectre of Big Pharma.
Fears over the side effects of a widely used diabetes medication in Australia have revealed the power of big money and its influence on the healthcare system.
The medication 鈥 known as Avandia 鈥 is under fire for potentially causing heart attacks and strokes in patients. The manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), is accused of hiding evidence of the drug鈥檚 harmful side-effects.
91自拍论坛 Weekly spoke to Peter Boyle, the national convener of the Socialist Alliance, about the political climate of the 2010 federal elections.
* * *
Many progressive people are feeling depressed about the federal election. How do you see it?
Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition are in a 鈥渞ace to the bottom鈥, as Socialist Alliance lead Queensland Senate candidate and Murri community leader Sam Watson aptly put it.
Work on every wharf in every port across Australia stopped for 24 hours from noon on July 23 to allow wharfies to attend services to mark the tragic death of Steve Piper.
Piper was crushed to death by a steel beam on Melbourne's Appleton Dock on July 14. The 24-hour stopwork also called for special national waterfront safety regulations.
Piper is the third wharfie killed on the job this year. Fourteen Australian maritime workers have been killed at work in the past two decades. Alarmingly, half of those have occurred in the past five years.
On July 31, 100 anti-uranium mining protesters rallied outside the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, which was hosting the Australian Uranium Conference.
WA Liberal Premier Colin Barnett lifted the ban on uranium mining in November 2008 soon after winning office.
There are no commercial uranium mines operating in the state but the Australian Uranium Association has identified eight major uranium deposits in WA.
The Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA (ANAWA), which organised the protest, said there are 137 mining companies with uranium interests in the state.
On July 17, 25 members of Justice for Palestine (JFP) Brisbane met in the CBD to launch their boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli goods and services.
The target for the first BDS action was the Israeli Seacret cosmetics company that uses 鈥渕ineral-rich mud and natural mineral salts of the Dead Sea鈥. It makes no mention of the occupied Palestinian land from which the minerals are extracted or the apartheid conditions under which Palestinians live every day.
Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN) WA is organising a 鈥淐ompassion Caravan鈥 to the detention centre in Leonora, WA, where more than 30 families are being held, including more than 40 children.
Some of these families鈥 applications have been 鈥渇rozen鈥 by the Gillard-ALP government in a political ploy to placate xenophobic sentiment toward refugees. This not only violates international law, but also punishes the bulk of refugees coming to Australia.
To show that not all Australians agree with these policies, we will travel to Leonora to take gifts for the families being detained.
- Previous page
- Page 3
- Next page