On February 16, ABC News featured the US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis vilifying Adelaide father of two David Hicks as a war criminal. Davis would not specify when Hicks would be brought before a military tribunal of the type that was ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court last June but reinstituted by Congress a few months later.
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As a schoolboy, Maximilien Robespierre gave a speech of welcome for King Louis XVI in a 1775 coronation ceremony at his college in Paris. Eighteen years later, Louis was decapitated by Robespierre聮蝉 revolutionary government. What, asks Ruth Scurr in her biography of Robespierre, had turned the dutiful student into a regicide, whose name in conventional history has left behind 聯no trace but terror聰?
MELBOURNE 聴 On February 13, a rally was organised by the Oromo Community Association to protest the treatment of Oromo refugees in Somalia since the US-backed invasion by Ethiopia.
Two months before the Howard government鈥檚 draconian Welfare to Work package went to federal parliament, Labor鈥檚 spokesperson for employment and workplace participation Penny Wong argued that the proposals were 鈥渢he most extreme attack on the social security system in history鈥.
Protests against tuition fees brought Canada to a standstill on February 7. In Toronto, as temperatures dropped to as low as -20掳C, more than 6000 students took to the streets, demanding the government increase funding to make post-secondary education accessible.
Four hundred people joined a protest rally and march at Hyde Park on February 11 to oppose Part 3a of NSW聮蝉 planning laws. The laws gave NSW planning minister Frank Sartor the power to override local councils and approve contentious developments even when they breach existing legislation.
Rachel Siewert, Greens senator for Western Australia, is concerned that the federal opposition hasn聮t come out more strongly against the government聮蝉 welfare package. 聯We would get rid of Welfare to Work and look towards better options that support people聰, she told 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
The Solomon Islands government wants the Pacific Islands Forum to initiate talks on an exit plan for the PIF聮蝉 Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), Solomons foreign minister Patterson Oti told a PIF consultative meeting in Honiara on February 12.
HOBART 聴 On February 12, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) secured an injunction from the English High Court preventing the British Natural History Museum from conducting any further tests on the remains of 17 deceased Tasmanian Aborigines before a full hearing scheduled for February 22.
Dita Sari is arguably the most well-known progressive activist in Indonesia today. A former trade union leader and political prisoner under the Suharto regime, she is now the chairperson of the People鈥檚 Democratic Party (PRD), which is the leading force in the new, broader National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas). Sari was interviewed in Jakarta by 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Peter Boyle after the founding conference of Papernas in January, which selected her as its candidate for the 2009 presidential elections.
Mike Sambo, the national coordinator of Zimbabwe聮蝉 International Socialist Organisation, explained to 91自拍论坛 Weekly聮蝉 Steve Marks on February 16 what lies behind the regeneration of class struggle in the country.
BRISBANE 聴 On February 13, 600 people attended a public meeting at the Brisbane Institute to hear Canberra-based Australia Institute executive director Clive Hamilton speak on the recently published book Silencing Dissent: How the Australian government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate, which he co-edited with UNSW politics lecturer Sarah Maddison.
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