16.10.1946 鈥 02.02.2013
My memories of Bill Gluyas are mostly from Union Solidarity picket lines. It did not matter how early a picket line started or how far away it was, Bill was always there.
What many people who supported those picket lines didn鈥檛 know is that Bill funded much of the Union Solidarity infrastructure 鈥 the picket line BBQ and the PA system. Bill didn鈥檛 like the limelight and didn鈥檛 want thanks. He just wanted to know that he was helping workers fight for their rights.
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More than 30,000 Victorian teachers and education support (ES) staff walked off the job on February 14 in their campaign for better pay and conditions.
Government figures show that 65% of school staff took part in strike action and 300 schools did not have students. Meredith Peace, Australian Education Union (AEU) state president, also reported that more than 300 schools were brought to a standstill and that every school in the state had some form of disruption.
Figures released by the department of immigration showed the number of refugees held in Australian mainland detention peaked at 10,271 in November last year, the highest since mandatory detention began.
This included housing and alternative places of detention, but not the almost 400 men held on Nauru by that time.
Children made up 1221 of those held in detention as at December, another record high. The last time more than 1000 children were held in detention, the government was forced to allow more than half to be released.
Mental illness will affect someone you know and love. Forty-five percent of Australians will experience a mental health problem and 20% of the population is affected each year in a serious way by conditions including anxiety disorders, depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, to name just a few.
Many people with mental illnesses want to work and are able work. But the barriers to suitable employment are much higher than for most. This is why the Disability Employment Services exist for all people with disability, be they mental, physical or psychological.
February 23 marks the 1000th day in which alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, 24-year-old US Army intelligence officer Bradley Manning, has been jailed by US authorities without trial.
A pre-trial hearing in January in the case of Manning, concluded that his defence would be restricted to arguing motive during his trial, scheduled for June 3.
Manning has been accused of leaking thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, which revealed a wide range of US war crimes, as well as evidence of corruption and lying by a range of governments.
Simon Butler was a 25-year-old activist who helped organise the mass mobilisations in Sydney in February and March 2003 against the invasion of Iraq. He was also a leader of the socialist youth group Resistance and the student anti-war movement Books Not Bombs, which Resistance initiated.
A picket line that lasted for two weeks at the site of a water treatment plant in Werribee has been disbanded. reported that the protesters left the site on February 14 after 鈥減olice and the water authority warned them they were trespassing鈥.
The picketers 鈥 established by unemployed tradespeople 鈥斅爓ere protesting the employment practices of Tedra Australia and its associated subcontractors.
Jesus Posada, the right-wing People鈥檚 Party (PP) speaker of the national Spanish Congress of Deputies, received a delegation on February 12 presenting a People鈥檚 Legislative Initiative (ILP). The initiative had the support of more than 1.4 million signatories, 900,000 more than required by law.
Protesters gathered in Redfern on February 14, to mark the ninth anniversary of the death of the 17-year-old Aboriginal youth TJ Hickey and repeat the call for an inquest into his death.
In 2005, police pursued Hickey causing him be thrown off his bike and land on a spiked fence.
The Knitting Nannas Against Gas staged an anti-coal seam gas (CSG) protest outside the office of Lismore MP Thomas George on February 13. The protest was held to coincide with a stop-CSG action in Casula, Sydney, outside the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, which hosted a luncheon with NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell.
The Knitting Nannas Against Gas, who have been actively supporting the blockade to stop CSG mining at Doubtful Creek, sent this message to be read out at the Casula action.
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Around 200 people turned out for the February 13 protest in Casula to tell Barry O鈥橣arrell to "lock the state" on coal seam gas companies. The protest was initiated by Socialist Alliance and Greens activists in Western Sydney.
The breadth of growing anger against the CSG industry was on display through the number of groups that supported and spoke at the rally. This included representatives from the Scenic Hills Association, SOS Rivers, NSW Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham as well as Stop CSG groups from St Peters, Ingleburn, Blacktown, Blue Mountains and Illawarra,
The assassination of left-wing leader Chokri Belaid has thrown the interim government of Tunisia, led by Islamist party Ennahda (the Renaissance), into a deep crisis. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has threatened to resign if his proposed "technocratic" solution can't be implemented.
The death of Belaid, a well-respected leader of the united left group Popular Front, , including tens of thousands on the streets of Tunis for his memorial on February 8.
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