Officially Leonora is not a detention centre for refugees but an 鈥渁lternative place of detention鈥. Between January 21-23, the Refugee Rights Action Network鈥檚 second 鈥淐aravan of Compassion鈥 made the 1660km round trip from Perth to Leonora. Caravan participant and Resistance member Zebedee Parkes describes his weekend trip to the remotely located concentration camp.
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All those scenes from Cairo of mass demonstrations look like the perfect expression of the big society.聽So we can only assume British PM David Cameron wants us to try something similar here. It would certainly encourage more people to take an interest in politics.
List of protests in support of Egyptian democracy movement, against Western support for regime
After as many as 2 million people took over Tahrir Square and the streets of Cairo, with millions more across Egypt, on February 1 to demand on end to the US-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, the regime responded with a violent assault on protesters continuing to occupy the square.
International Socialist Review editor Ahmed Shawki reports from Cairo on the latest mass protests against Hosni Mubarak--and what the future holds for Egypt's uprising.
Based on Psalm 137
By the waterholes of Mother Country we slung down our yidakis, and cut our bodies and drugged our minds in grief, as we remembered the dreamtime.
And the settlers demanded from us a corroboree performance and a jail sentence, mutual obligation and a souvenir boomerang for the gift shop.
How could we dance and perform sacred traditions for their markets? We have become aliens and inmates, invisible in this eternal land.
When you fly over the earth鈥檚 oldest land mass, Australia, the view can be shocking.聽Scars as long as European countries are the result of erosion. Salt pans shimmer where once native vegetation grew. This is almost impossible to reverse.
reported on January 29 that new protests had erupted in the Middle Eastern nation of Yemen, which sits at the bottom of the Arab peninnsular, demanding an end to the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The site reported on January 28 that thousands had also taken to the streets in anti-government protests in Jordan, with people angry over price rises and unemployment.
On January 3, 170 cleaners and security guards at Hongik University in Seoul were sacked for forming a union and demanding better conditions.
The workers formed a union on December 1 and demanded decent working conditions. Since their sacking, the workers have held a sit-in protest at the university campus 鈥 eating and sleeping on the cold, hard floors of the Munheon Building.
Hongik University is South Korea鈥檚 most famous university for visual arts. Many graduates are showing their support for the workers through their art work.
The national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union (SDA), Joe De Bruyn, recently recommitted the SDA to a homophobic policy of opposition to equal marriage rights.
A member of the ALP national executive, De Bruyn said in November that were he in Prime Minister Julia Gillard鈥檚 position he would have 鈥渒illed the issue off once and for all鈥, ABC online said.
In our society, the heterosexual nuclear family is portrayed as the only legitimate model for relationships.
Over the course of one month, Australia has seen a series of major flood events in Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania.聽Early estimates put the recovery bill at about $10 billion. But the ABC reported on January 18 far higher estimates.
Hopes & Prospects
By Noam Chomsky
Haymarket Books, 2010
US$16
www.hopesandprospects.org
Noam Chomsky requires little by way of introduction.
Eminent professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Chomsky has been one of the world鈥檚 leading public intellectuals for the past 50 years. His advocacy and activism for countless causes, and his many books, have long been a source of courage and inspiration for those fighting for a more just, democratic and peaceful world.
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