A conference organised by Indonesian Solidarity, in association with the University of Sydney Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies聮 West Papua Project, was held on August 9-10, gathering West Papuan government and NGO representatives, academics and international solidarity activists to discuss the current obstacles to justice and prosperity faced by West Papua.
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Popular resistance to neoliberal 鈥渞eform鈥 was the underlying cause of Peru鈥檚 July general strike. On July 5, public schoolteachers walked off the job over government plans to privatise education. Within days, discontented workers from other industries joined the embattled teachers. Before long, schools, mines, factories and construction sites were shut down as tens of thousands of striking protesters took to the streets of every major city demanding higher pay, improved conditions and revisions to the US-Peru free-trade agreement. Peasant farmers joined the mass mobilisation, closing roads and paralysing transport networks.
On August 6, East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta appointed his predecessor, Xanana Gusmao, prime minister and asked him to form a government without Fretilin, the largest party in the parliament elected on June 30. Despite the constitutional legitimacy of this being unclear, Gusmao聮s government was sworn in on August 8. Since Ramos Horta聮s decision there have been outbreaks of rioting and arson, as well as protests that were tear-gassed by UN police and the Australian-led International Stabilisation Force (ISF).
On August 15, 150 of Western Australia聮s lowest-paid workers took strike action and rallied in a campaign to win better wages. Staff at the Royal Perth Hospital, including orderlies and kitchen staff, are seeking a $3 increase to their $16 hourly wage.
The Worst Jobs in History
Presented by Tony Robinson
Sunday, ABC 7.30pm
Presented by Tony Robinson
Sunday, ABC 7.30pm
In a new initiative for a political party in Australia, the Socialist Alliance is using the web to open up the organisation of its federal election campaign. Mainstream parties have generated a lot of media attention with their self-promotion on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, but the alliance is enabling open access to the way its campaign is run.
Three years on from the passage of the federal ban on same-sex marriage, people have not given up on fighting back. Around 3000 people protested nationwide during an August 12 national day of action calling for same-sex marriage rights, civil unions and adoption rights.
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography
By Nicholas Stuart
Scribe Publications, 2007
288 pages, $32.95
By Nicholas Stuart
Scribe Publications, 2007
288 pages, $32.95
Around 50 activists gathered on August 11 in the Maritime Union of Australia offices to nominate Socialist Alliance Senate candidates in WA and plan campaigns.
鈥淭he British have basically been defeated in the south [of Iraq]鈥, the August 8 Washington Post reported being told by a US intelligence official in Baghdad. In the first six months of this year, 37 British troops were killed in Iraq, the highest number for any six-month period of the war and 14 more than died in the whole of 2006.
East Timor: Beyond Independence
Edited by Damien Kingsbury and Michael Leach
Monash University Press, 2007
302pages, $36.95
Edited by Damien Kingsbury and Michael Leach
Monash University Press, 2007
302pages, $36.95
鈥淎ustralia has failed to implement the human right to adequate housing鈥, concluded a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council addressing adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living.
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