It鈥檚 been a fascinating few weeks in Tasmanian politics.
On June 16, the Labor-Greens government handed down a shocking budget that cut funding to public health, education, police and other services.
Thousands of public service workers gathered on parliament lawns that day to condemn the plan, saying that services were already struggling to meet demand.
The education cuts included a plan to close 20 schools. Education minister and Greens leader Nick McKim started a process of 鈥渃onsultation鈥 with affected school communities around the state.
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鈥淯S computer giant Apple has culled a Palestinian application from its iPhone offerings at the request of Israel,鈥 a June 27 IOL.co.za article said.
鈥淭he Arabic-language app ThirdIntifada, released by Apple just days ago, provides users with details of upcoming anti-Israel protests, access to news articles and editorials, and links to Palestinian nationalist material.鈥
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators pointed out the term intifada, which means mass uprising, did not refer to violence.
No sooner had information come out that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was undergoing surgery in Cuba than the international media was full of speculation and rumours regarding his imminent demise.
Projecting their hopes that an illness could succeed in removing Chavez where military coups and assassination attempts had failed, the right-wing Venezuelan opposition went into overdrive.
They demanded the president step down and hand over power to the vice president.
The Greek parliament defied huge popular opposition, including a 48-hour general strike, to pass the latest set of extreme austerity measures demanded by the 鈥渢roika鈥 (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) in return for fresh loans.
However, many commentators have pointed out it is one thing to vote up the measures and another to force them on an increasingly discontented populace.
If you are reading this column, then 91自拍论坛 Weekly has successfully completed its move to its new home in Sydney.
In the process, we have missed only a week of publication thanks to the volunteers who joined the ant army that carried all we needed down those flights of stairs in our old home, loaded the hire truck and emptied it into the new office 鈥 over and over again.
Our sparkling new premises is wheelchair friendly and accessible through a lift. So moving in was a lot easier than moving out 鈥 and the latter is far from over.
When the multi-award-winning journalist John Pilger needed researchers for his latest film, The War You Don鈥檛 See, he turned to David Edwards and David Cromwell. The pair run media-analysing website Media Lens, which is set to turn 10 years old on July 9.
Here, they answer some of the 鈥渕ore interesting鈥 questions posed by their readers, plus a couple from 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Mat Ward.
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Why did you start Media Lens?
The Perth community has witnessed in past weeks an inspiring mobilisation of people affected by homelessness or as they like to be called, the 鈥渟treeties鈥.
It started as a small rally to protest against the treatment of those living on the streets during the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and against insensitive comments made by Liberal police minister Rob Johnson. Now it has broadened to challenge the government on homelessness.
The 28th Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan was killed on July 4. In what is becoming a routine, Prime Minister Julia Gillard used the occasion of giving the nation鈥檚 condolences on July 6 to harangue an increasingly sceptical public about the necessity for the occupation to continue.
The Afghan war鈥檚 self-evident failure to achieve any of its shifting official objectives has meant questioning the war has become unavoidable.
Sixty people, representing a broad cross section of the activist left and progressive movement, met on July 5 to discuss the implications of the vicious police assault demonstrators protesting outside Israeli-owned chocolate company Max Brenner on July 1.
The key issue debated was whether to set up a broader civil liberties campaign or whether to keep the focus on the 19 people who had been arrested at an action as part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
A small but spirited group of protesters braved driving wind and rain outside Fremantle鈥檚 Notre Dame University on the evening of June 30 to express their opposition to the university playing host to British climate change denier Christopher Monckton.
Earlier that day, Perth's daily newspaper The West Australian had obligingly provided free publicity for Monckton鈥檚 impending speech in an article occupying most of its front page.
The NSW Nature Conservation Council released the statement below on July 5.
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In a first for NSW, peaceful protesters have this morning stopped a coal seam gas exploration rig in the Pilliga Forest, south of Narrabri. One protester in climbing gear is suspended high above the ground at the top of a 25 metre rig at an Eastern Star Gas operation, with another group of protesters on site.
The 12,000 who rallied outside parliament house against NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell鈥檚 鈥渨orse than WorkChoices鈥 laws on June 15 showed how much anger there is about his attack on public sector workers.
A continued campaign of protests and industrial action can make it impossible for him to use these laws.
It's not good enough to simply focus on the hope of voting out O'Farrell at the next election 鈥 which is four years away.
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