Two of the central figures in a major media and government scandal that erupted in the lead-up to the launch of the Northern Territory intervention will speak in Sydney on September 3, in their first public engagement together.
Tjanara Goreng Goreng, a former Howard Coalition government official-turned-whistleblower, and Chris Graham, the founding editor of the National Indigenous Times, will speak address a public forum, at the University of Technology, Sydney, hosted by the Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS).
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The Gulf of Mexico is still threatened with an ecological catastrophe, but the US government and British Petroleum (BP) are trying to cover up the scale of BP鈥檚 Macondo oil well disaster.
About 4.9 million barrels of oil escaped into the sea after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers. BP capped the well on July 15, but work on the relief well to permanently plug the spill is expected to be delayed until early September, Bloomberg.com said on August 20.
Dick Smith鈥檚 Population Puzzle, a documentary that aired on ABC1 on August 12, made no modest claims. It went for the direct, hard sell. Its message: 鈥淐utting immigration to Australia is a great product, and you should buy it.鈥
It said a smaller Australia would not solve just one or two social problems, but more than a dozen.
Greg Eatock, a well-known Indigenous activist in Sydney, passed away aged just 51 on August 24. His early death, from chronic health problems, was more proof of the shameful 11.5-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous males in Australian.
One of Greg's brothers, Ronald, had already passed away, aged 27.
Greg came from a family with a four-generation history of political activism. His great grandmother, Lucy Eatock, and her husband William were veterans of the great 1890s shearers鈥 strike. Lucy later moved to Sydney from Queensland.
The following statement was released on August 20 by the Labour Party Pakistan (Karachi) and Pakistan鈥檚 National Trade Union Federation. See for more information.
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The recent floods represent the worst disaster in Pakistan鈥檚 history. The country has been devastated from the northern areas to its southern tip.
"It seems that the whole narrative of politics is going through a seismic shift鈥, said Greens lead candidate for the NSW upper house at the 2011 state election, David Shoebridge at an August 25 forum discussing the post-election political landscape.
Shoebridge told the meeting, which was organised by Socialist Alliance, that the result would impact on upcoming state elections in Victoria and NSW. In NSW, Labor is particularly hated.
On July 26, Wikileaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented. In file after file, the brutalities echo the colonial past.
With floods caused by the heaviest ever recorded rainfall sweep down the Indus River toward the Arabian Sea, a fifth of Pakistan was under water by late August.
More than 16,000 people have been killed and 20 million displaced. The death toll is likely to rise due to hunger and disease. Food insecurity and malnutrition were endemic in Pakistan before the catastrophe.
On August 25, the United Nations reported 120,000 cases of suspected dengue fever and malaria and more than 600,000 cases of acute diarrhoea.
The outlook for farmers who have lost all means of livelihood is grim.
A powerful new film about the Northern Territory intervention, Our Generation, is being shown to audiences across the NT, and will screen in places across Australia.
The film-makers, Sinem Saban and Damien Curtis, spent three years with 鈥渏ust a camera and a microphone and lots of tape stock and time鈥 and no script, allowing Yolngu people in North-East Arnhem Land to tell their stories about how the policies of the intervention 鈥 introduced by the Howard government and continued by Labor 鈥 have changed their lives.
To give yourself a stressful and futile day, try telling people there are no plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero.
You鈥檒l get nowhere, although the truth is there are plans to build an Islamic centre, with a swimming pool open to everyone, two blocks away from Ground Zero site of the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
The federal election result was a breakthrough for all who dream of being liberated from the Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee politics that has been foisted on Australia for many years. By denying the major parties a majority mandate, and by swinging strongly to the Greens, the possibility for a very political future has been opened up. Of course, there are many challenges ahead.
Over the weekend of August 14-15, a 鈥淐ompassion Caravan鈥 left Perth to visit the Leonora immigration detention centre.
Organised by the Refugee Rights Action Network of Western Australia (RRAN), the caravan included 22 people (including university lecturers and children) and a cargo of gifts for the 195 mothers, fathers and children in the remote Leonora detention centre.
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