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For the sixth year, Melbourne’s community radio station 3CR (855AM) will conduct live radio broadcasts with Indigenous prisoners during NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) Week. But 3CR Indigenous broadcaster and musician Kutcha Edwards, who has been part of these unique broadcasts since they began in 2002, would rather they weren’t necessary.

Nigeria’s combative working-class movement has shown its strength and militancy. An overwhelmingly observed four-day nationwide general strike, which began on June 20, succeeded in rapidly forcing the country’s new president to back down on an announced doubling of value-added tax and increased fuel prices. The degree of popular support for the strike revealed that the 23-day-old regime of President Umaru Yar’Adua is already thoroughly discredited and despised.

“One week after American forces mounted their assault on insurgent strongholds in western Baquba, at least half of the estimated 300 to 500 fighters who were there have escaped or are still at large, the colonel who is leading the attack said Monday”, the June 26 New York Times reported.