The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu is reputed to have said: 鈥淚f you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.鈥
This sums up the problem we face from human-caused climate change.
A 鈥渃limate scoreboard鈥 published by Climateinteractive.org calculates the impact of the current commitments by the world鈥檚 governments to cut carbon emissions.
It estimates that if the promised emissions cuts are carried out in full, the earth would still warm by about 4掳C by 2100 鈥 far above the maximum warming of 1.5掳C needed to maintain a safe planet.
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Nine Aboriginal people have sued Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt in Melbourne over four articles he wrote in 2009.
The court has heard the articles questioned the motives of 鈥渓ight鈥 or 鈥渨hite-skinned鈥 people who identified as Aboriginal.
The people taking the action under the Racial Vilification Act include activist Pat Eatock, former ATSIC chairperson Geoff Clark, artist Bindi Cole, academic Larissa Behrendt, author Anita Heiss, health worker Leeanne Enoch, native title expert Graham Atkinson, academic Wayne Atkinson and lawyer Mark McMillan.
Love Andrew Bolt or loathe him, you鈥檝e got to admit the right-wing Herald Sun columnist and radio shock jock is a master of the ambush interview.
Add in Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott鈥檚 slipperiness with any kind of truth 鈥 scientific, political or otherwise 鈥 and you have a media product so toxic it deserves to be trucked off for incineration by people in respirator suits.
Unfortunately, that鈥檚 the product that was all over the talkback airwaves and parliamentary reports for several days at the end of March.
If you change the names, the description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be a description of what is happening in South Africa. 鈥 South African anti-apartheid campaigner and Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1989
When Australian Football League player Nathan Lovett-Murray was growing up, his favourite record was 鈥淏lack Boy鈥 by Coloured Stone. 鈥淏lack boy,鈥 goes the song, 鈥渂lack boy/The colour of your skin is your pride and joy/Black boy/Black boy/Your life is not destroyed.鈥 Lovett-Murray still marvels at its power.
For more than a week, Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 The Australian has been on the warpath against green and left 鈥渆xtremists鈥. It began by attacking the NSW Greens for supporting the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid. The Greens are organised in independent parties in each state, but the Murdoch flagship demanded that Australian Greens leader Bob Brown bring its most left-wing branch into line.
BP has asked United States regulators for permission to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the New York Times said on April 3.
The request comes less than a year after the devastating oil spill in the gulf, caused by an explosion in BP鈥檚 Deepwater Horizon rig in which 11 workers died.
The NYT said: 鈥淏P is seeking permission to continue drilling at 10 existing deepwater production and development wells in the region in July in exchange for adhering to stricter safety and supervisory rules, said one of the officials.
鈥淎s Palestinians were preparing for their weekend this Thursday afternoon,鈥 ElectronicIntifada.net said on April 7, 鈥渁ll of a sudden barrages of Israeli artillery fire and air raids by warplanes struck several regions of the Gaza Strip鈥.
鈥淔ive Palestinians were killed and about thirty more injured. Israeli shells struck farm land, homes, a mosque and an ambulance.鈥
Israel has threatened to escalate its military assault on the Gaza Strip. ElectronicIntifada.net said on April 4 that more than 20 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks since the start of March.
At an insurance public forum attended by more than 150 people in Ipswich on April 5, victims of the Brisbane floods of early January shouted, sobbed and pleaded for help from elected council and federal representatives, and the head of the Insurance Council of Australia, Rob Whelan.
Matthew Cassel, assistant editor of Electronic Intifada, has recently been reporting from Egypt where he witnessed first hand the revolutionary upsurge that toppled the Mubarak dictatorship and continues to reshape the region.
Cassel will be speaking at the Resistance Conference May 6th - 8th, Redfern Community Centre, Sydney. For more information or to register visit: www.resistance.org.au/conference2011.
Resistance activist Patrick Harrison spoke to Cassel about his experiences and the revolutionary movements in the Middle East.
Residents on Camp Road, Broadmeadows, were surprised to see 300 people marching down their street on April 2, calling for an end to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers. The march ended with a rally at the Broadmeadows detention centre, known as Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation.
About 150 young asylum seekers between the ages of 13 and 17 are held in this centre. All of them are unaccompanied: meaning that they have no families with them.
The Israeli feminist organisation Coalition of Women for Peace released an open letter to Justice Richard Goldstone on April 6. It is published below. It is in response to Goldstone鈥檚 recent statements retracting some of the findings of the United Nations-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel鈥檚 2008-09 war on Gaza that were critical of Israel. It is abridged from Coalitionofwomen.org.
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Dear Justice Richard Goldstone,
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