Issue 756

  • A modest proposal to Kevin Rudd

    Dear Prime Minister, Six months into your term you stated: "We have done as much as we physically can to provide additional help to the family budget, recognising that the cost of everything is still going through the roof, the cost of food, cost

News

  • GLW taking a one-week break

    The current issue of 91自拍论坛 Weekly is a two-week issue, so that GLW staff may participate in the "Turn anger into action" national Resistance conference in Sydney from June 27-29. (Visit for full details.) The next issue

  • Protests demand: End the NT intervention!

    On June 21, protest actions were held around Australia on the first anniversary of the federal government聮s 聯intervention聰 into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, demanding an immediate end to the racist invasion of Aboriginal land that it entails.

  • More delays for Gunns\' pulp mill

    Five hundred people attended an anti-pulp mill public meeting in Launceston on June 10. It was organised by the Wilderness Society to pressure Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett into ensuring that no more public funds are used to support Gunns鈥 proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill or its pipeline.

  • Herons Creek power station canned

    On June 12, in the face of local outrage, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council pulled the plug on a controversial $110 million diesel-fired peak power plant in the iconic Camden Haven valley.

  • Jack Thomas faces new trial

    Lawyers for Jack Thomas are seeking leave to appeal to the High Court to prevent him being re-tried on charges under the 聯anti-terror聰 laws.

  • Why is Australia still mistreating refugees?

    The Rudd Labor government has abolished the hated temporary protection visas (TPVs) that left refugees in limbo for years despite having their refugee status confirmed, and it has scrapped the 聯Pacific solution聰 聴 the shipping of asylum seekers to prison camps on Nauru and Manus Island. However, the bulk of the Howard government聮s refugee policies remain in place.

  • Global warming and climate refugees

    Contaminated wells, dying marine life and crops being destroyed by extreme weather are just a few of the challenges facing the 11,000 residents of Tuvalu, a Pacific nation that is the second smallest in the world.

  • Activists challenge Marrickville council positions

    The Socialist Alliance will contest the council elections on September 13 in the seat of Marrickville. At a meeting on June 17, the alliance pre-selected three long-term activists: Jill Hickson, Pip Hinman and Howard Byrnes.

  • CFMEU official charged for non-compliance

    Noel Washington, vice-president of the Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), is to appear before the Geelong Magistrates Court on August 8 for refusing to attend a compulsory Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) hearing.

  • Climate movement: 'let's get serious'

    Growing concern about climate change has led to the formation of dozens of local community climate action groups across Victoria. Many of these are among the 45 endorsees of the July 5 Climate Emergency rally, at which Greens Senator Bob Brown will speak.

  • Clipsal to sack 200 workers, close Barossa factory

    On June 12, the South Australian-based manufacturing company Clipsal announced it would sack 200 permanent workers and close its Nurioopta plant based in the Barossa Valley. The company indicated that there would likely be unspecified 聯flow on聰 job cuts in its labour hire workforce.

  • AMA withdraws from NT intervention

    In a blow to the Northern Territory intervention policy, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) announced on June 15 that it will pull out of recruiting medical staff for the program, which it argued the government was dramatically underfunding.

  • Deported Chinese refugee commits suicide

    Bill Zhang, a Chinese refugee, killed himself after his forcible deportation from Australia, according to a June 16 ABC report. Zhang spent two years in Australia聮s Villawood refugee prison.

  • Protesters target coal criminals

    Fifteen activists calling for a rapid conversion to renewable energy protested at the $2600-a-head Queensland Coal Conference 08 on June 16.

  • Friday the 13th 鈥 a bad day for democracy

    I am not the least bit superstitious, but I can get suspicious. Like when Victorian community group Your Water Your Say (YWYS) failed its court challenge against the federal and state government decision to build a monstrous and unnecessary $3.1 billion desalination plant in Wonthaggi.

  • 91自拍论坛 Weekly\'s $250, 000 Fighting Fund: winter fiesta takes us over $100,000

    Brisbane鈥檚 very successful 91自拍论坛 Weekly Winter Fiesta on June 14 helped take our 2008 Fighting Fund to $101,936. Since the last issue $7921 has been collected in the form of donations and proceeds from events like the Brisbane Winter Fiesta. Proceeds from fundraising events in Newcastle and Melbourne also made a significant contribution.

Analysis

  • Every 10 minutes to everywhere

    鈥淪peeding towards dangerous climate change鈥 was the name of the public forum at which the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) launched its 鈥淓very Ten Minutes to Everywhere鈥 campaign on June 15.

  • Business gains in National Employment Standards

    鈥淓mployers win in IR overhaul鈥, was the front-page headline of the June 17 Australian Financial Review, reporting the outcome of the Rudd Labor government鈥檚 new National Employment Standards (NES), released on June 15.

  • The big read: Six of the \'best\' Labor promises

    Under the title 鈥淔irst steps in closing the gap鈥, the Indigenous affairs budget papers reveal that Labor has committed itself to six bold targets. They鈥檙e commendable goals, but are they achievable? National Indigenous Times鈥 managing editor, Chris Graham, gives his assessment of how PM Kevin Rudd鈥檚 first federal budget will impact upon Indigenous people.

  • Big Oil 鈥 enemy of people and planet

    The latest surge in the spot price of crude oil (to US$139 a barrel 鈥 87.4 cents a litre) dramatises the urgent need for society to wean itself off 鈥渂lack gold鈥. The longer we remain hooked the greater the devastation both to our environment and to the living standards of millions, especially the poorest peoples of the planet.

  • Venezuela and the change of eras

    Fred Fuentes, who has spent a year working in Venezuela, will be a special guest speaker at the Resistance National Conference in Sydney, June 27-29. 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Trent Hawkins caught up with Fuentes just before he left Caracas for Australia.

  • No more subsidies to vehicle industry!

    The Toyota Motor Corporation, in a dead heat with US giant General Motors (GM), is now the most profitable car maker in the world. Last financial year TMC was valued at US$215 billion. This, however, didn鈥檛 stop the federal government from offering Toyota even more money.

World

  • Britain: 'Humiliating victory' in war on civil liberties

    On June 11, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown聮s proposals to extend the time that police are allowed to detain 聯terrorist suspects聰 without charge narrowly scraped through a vote in the House of Commons. The MP vote was 315 to 306 to back Brown聮s proposal to extend the limit on detention without charge from 28 to 42 days.

  • Zimbabwe: Behind &#145Comrade&#146 Mugabe's regime

    The ZANU-PF government of President Robert Mugabe has its origins in the liberation struggle against the white supremacist Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith. How did a government that emerged from a mass struggle for liberation degenerate into the dictatorship that exists today?

  • Venezuela: What a pro-worker government looks like

    This year鈥檚 May Day solidarity brigade to Venezuela, the seventh brigade from Australia to be organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), had 12 participants representing various unions. One of those was Chris Spindler, an organiser for the Victorian Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU). Spindler was sent on the brigade as an official AMWU representative, to report back on how the Bolivarian revolution being led by President Hugo Chavez鈥檚 government was improving the lives of workers and the poor. On June 11, the Victorian AMWU voted to affiliate to the AVSN and to send a message of solidarity and congratulations to the workers of the giant steel plant Sidor 鈥 which was nationalised in April following a long struggle by its workforce. 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Trent Hawkins spoke to Spindler about the his impressions of the revolution.

  • Malaysia: Fuel heats governmental crisis

    The National Front (BN) government led by PM Abdullah Badawi has been shaky since the March general election that returned a much stronger parliamentary opposition 聴 now largely united in a new People聮s Front (Pakatan Rakyat).

  • Chavez threatens to cut Europe's oil over racist law

    In response to the extreme, racist anti-immigrant 鈥淩eturn Directive鈥 law, passed by the European parliament on June 18, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to stop oil sales to any country that applied the directive.

  • Peace requires justice 鈥 end the Gaza siege

    Despite raids by Israel that left six people dead in the Gaza Strip and numerous rockets launched by Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad the previous day, a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas government in Gaza took effect on June 19. At the official start of the ceasefire at 6am, both sides appeared to be holding the truce.

  • Bolivian 'Minister of death' gets US asylum 鈥 Why they let the cockroach in

    The article below, by Jean-Guy Allard, is reprinted from Cuban newspaper Granma on June 16. According to a June 18 Xinhuanet.com article, thousands of people protested outside the US embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, against the decision and demanding Carlos Sanchez Berzain聮s extradition 聴 prompting the US to recall its ambassador to report on the situation. Bolivian President Evo Morales defended the protests, stating that the protest 聯isn聮t any attack聰, but 聯is the reaction of the people against US government policies聰, which grant asylum to genocide suspects and protect criminals.

Culture