Friends of the Earth (FoE) has expressed concern after the Northern Land Council nominated a site at Muckaty, near Tennant Creek, for a proposed nuclear waste dump.
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Organising is underway for demonstrations during the APEC summit, which PM John Howard is hosting in Sydney on September 8-9 and which US President George Bush and other world leaders will be attending. The Stop Bush collective is organising a convergence for September 8, aiming to draw people onto the streets to protest against the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. The protest will also call for urgent action to stop environmental destruction and for the defence of workers rights.
The City of Sydney Council wants to limit the distribution of printed material, something that Cameron Murphy, president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCLL), believes may violate the constitutionally implied right to freedom of political communication.
On May 23, Sydneys Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) issued a call for support for a Chinese asylum seeker at Villawood detention centre who has been on hunger strike for 57 days. There are reports that the man was transferred to hospital from Villawoods medical centre on May 22.
Led by the country’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan revolution is sending shockwaves through the corporate elite both within Venezuela and internationally. The Venezuelan people are waging a struggle to gain sovereignty over the country’s natural resources in order to rebuild the nation along pro-people lines.
On May 18 the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) expressed its support for Iraqi railways workers, who on May 15 began an indefinite strike to win a pay rise and basic rights. The strike action, backed by the vast majority of rail workers, paralysed the countrys main north/south rail corridor. Workers wanted improvements in salaries and conditions, as well as improved safety, protection from attack and fundamental workers rights. The ITFs Mac Urata commented: It beggars belief that the dictatorial anti-union laws of the Saddam Hussein era are still in place. Legislation denying rail and other public services workers the right to strike and belong to a union must be removed immediately. The ITF fully supports this legitimate action.
In a Brisbane court on May 25, Palm Island resident Lex Wotton was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in relation to riot charges, after Judge Phil Nase found that Wotton had been asked to plead illegally.
Just a week after Treasurer Peter Costello delivered the federal budget, which contained $31.5 billion in tax cuts over four years among other pre-election bribes, a Newspoll published in the May 15 Australian found that support for Labor had increased to 59% (on a two-party preferred basis) from 57% the previous month. Several other polls have since confirmed this trend.
On May 22, a jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the trial of peace activsts Philip Pritchard and Toby Olditch (known as the B-52 Two). The two were charged with conspiring to cause criminal damage at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in 2003 when they tried to safely disable US B-52 bombers to prevent them from bombing Iraq. The court heard the two men acted to prevent damage to life and property in Iraq, as well as war crimes. It was the second trial for the two; the first, in October 2006, ended with a hung jury. During the trial the prosecution accepted that even delaying the bombers would have prevented civilian casualties, as it would have allowed those fleeing cities more time to escape. Visit for more information.
The standard of health of Aborigines lags almost 100 years behind that of other Australians, according to the World Health Organisation.
According to the International Trade Union Confederation, the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria have called a national stay-away on May 29, the date of Nigerias presidential inauguration. The groups trade union centres are part of the Labour and Civil Society Coalition. President-elect Alhaji Umaru Musa YarAdua is accused of rigging the April 21 election. According to ITUC-Online, Fraud and ballot rigging were widespread during the elections, resulting in a major setback for democracy in Africas most populous nation, and leading to protests inside the country and heavy criticism from independent election observers.
Tom — not his real name — became a “person of interest” after taking part in the G20 protests in Melbourne last November. This softly spoken 24-year-old, a postgraduate student at Sydney University, is one of the latest victims of the police-state laws that seem designed to intimidate activists from organising, or attending, protests.
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