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During the visit of US aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk to Sydney, Stop the War Coalition activists held two anti-war protests — on July 5 and 8. Under the gargantuan shadow of the Kitty Hawk activists handed out anti-war material, held a banner calling for the end of the occupation of Iraq, and spoke out for the withdrawal of Australian and US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

A gathering of 150 unionists and political activists stood outside the Queensland ALP conference held at Brisbane’s Exhibition and Convention Centre on June 30. Organised by the state branches of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union, the protest called on the ALP to maintain the promise made at the ALP national conference to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). After the national conference, Labor’s industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard announced that a Labor government would keep the ABCC until 2010.

In an unexpected backdown, the Queensland University of Technology agreed in the Federal Court on July 12 to continue paying the salaries of the two lecturers who were suspended after they criticised a documentary titled Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains, produced by QUT PhD student Michael Noonan.

July 5 marked 196 years since Venezuela declared its independence following a long struggle led by the country’s Indigenous people and a black slave revolt. To mark Independence Day, the embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela hosted a public conference in Sydney on July 7.

Some 80 people packed the Resistance Centre on July 1 for a Latin America solidarity conference organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), Australia Solidarity with Latin America (ASLA) and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) committee.