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Direct action halts coal seam gas rig

The NSW Nature Conservation Council released the statement below on July 5. * * * In a first for NSW, peaceful protesters have this morning stopped a coal seam gas exploration rig in the Pilliga Forest, south of Narrabri. One protester in climbing gear is suspended high above the ground at the top of a 25 metre rig at an Eastern Star Gas operation, with another group of protesters on site.

Fukushima: the political fallout in Australia

Several months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, we鈥檙e beginning to get a sense of the likely long-term impacts. Radiation has spread across much of the northern hemisphere and parts of the southern hemisphere, including northern Australia. Japan鈥檚 Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency estimates the radioactive release at 770,000 terabecquerels in the first week of the crisis. Total radiation releases will probably fall somewhere between 10-40% of those from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Radiation releases have not been stopped and will continue for some months.

John Pilger: Australia invaded, not 'settled'

The City of Sydney has voted to replace the words 鈥淓uropean arrival鈥 in the official record with 鈥渋nvasion鈥. The deputy lord mayor, Marcelle Hoff, says it is intellectually dishonest to use any other word in describing how Aboriginal Australia was dispossessed by the British. 鈥淲e were invaded,鈥 said Paul Morris, an Aboriginal adviser to the council. 鈥淚t is the truth and it shouldn鈥檛 be watered down. We wouldn鈥檛 expect Jewish people to accept a watered-down version of the Holocaust, so why should we?鈥

Police make vicious attack on Palestine solidarity protest

More than 100 Victorian police viciously attacked a peaceful protest in support of Palestine on July 1. People were peacefully protesting outside the 100% Israeli-owned Max Brenner Chocolates store when police charged the demonstration.

Not coal seam gas but renewable energy

The Socialist Alliance adopted a coal seam gas policy at its June 26 National Council meeting. The policy appears below. * * * The gas industry is rapidly increasing its scope in the Australian energy market. Gas is talked up by some as a clean energy source, or as a 鈥渢ransition fuel鈥, while we develop renewable energies. But gas is a fossil fuel. Burning it creates carbon emissions. For a safe climate, we need to cut net emissions almost totally within the next decade. In fact, we then have to move below zero net emissions: to draw down more carbon than we produce.