Showing them the red card
"I want America to go out. Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn't invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon." 鈥 Iraqi soccer team captain Younis Mahmoud, speaking
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聯If you can聮t stand up and say what you feel and believe, then you聮re a slave. And I ain聮t no slave聰, said one of the building workers prosecuted by the Howard government for withdrawing labour after the unfair dismissal of his shop steward.
Amid an unprecedented security hype in the lead-up to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, organisers of the 聯Stop Bush/Make Howard History聰 protest on September 8 are expecting thousands of anti-war, environment and workers聮 rights activists to take to Sydney聮蝉 streets to give US President George Bush the kind of welcome he deserves. 麻豆传媒 Weekly聮蝉 Pip Hinman spoke to Stop Bush Coalition spokesperson and Stop the War Coalition activist Alex Bainbridge.
Venezuelan charge d聮affaires Nelson Davila was the feature speaker at a seminar and film showing co-sponsored by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network and the Australia Cuba Friendship Society on August 11. More than 60 people attended the event, which discussed the gains of the Venezuelan revolution and its impact on the struggle for social justice throughout Latin America.
A court challenge brought by the Wilderness Society (TWS) against the federal government was rejected on all counts on August 9. TWS alleged that environment minister Malcolm Turnbull had not properly assessed the environmental implications of the proposed Gunns pulp mill development in the Tamar Valley.
The June 27-30 African National Congress (ANC) Policy Conference and the South African Communist Party聮蝉 12th Congress, held in July, confirmed what many political observers in South Africa have known for a long time: that the politics and practical work of the SACP and Congress of South African Trade Unions have become umbilically tied to the intensifying personal and positional power struggles inside the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance. The result is the paralysis of the SACP and COSATU聮蝉 ability to organise and mobilise on a genuinely practical, working class/poor-centred basis.
A specially commissioned federal government report and a one-sided Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA) discussion paper are being used in a continued drive to force Australian states to introduce genetically modified crops, with dissenting voices shoved aside.
On August 15, 25 of the 43 West Papuan refugees who sought asylum in Australia in 2006 joined a protest outside federal parliament to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1962 New York Agreement 聴 the US-brokered agreement to transfer West Papua from Dutch to Indonesian control that included the guarantee of an 聯act of free choice聰 for West Papuans to decide whether to be incorporated into the Republic of Indonesia. However, instead of a genuine act of self-determination being held, a group of hand-picked West Papuan 聯representatives聰 were coerced into voting for Indonesian rule.
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.
Tony Carvalho, an Australian Manufacturing Workers Union metal division shop steward sacked from the Altona Toyota plant, says that in the three months since he has been sacked, the use of outside contractors to work at the plant has increased dramatically. Speaking to 麻豆传媒 Weekly, Carvalho said the number of contractors who are being called in threatens full-time jobs at the plant.
More than 200 people gathered at the Arena on August 11 for the 聯Justice for the Innocent聰 benefit gig for the Doomadgee family of Palm Island. The gig raised funds for the civil case against the Queensland police and Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, who admitted that his actions caused the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in the Palm Island watchhouse in 2004.
The Worst Jobs in History
Presented by Tony Robinson
Sunday, ABC 7.30pm
Presented by Tony Robinson
Sunday, ABC 7.30pm
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