A snap vigil in Martin Place on January 31 was called by the General Union of Palestinian Workers and others in the Palestinian community to demand an end to the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Forty people attended the vigil, held near the US consulate. They held candles in solidarity with Gazas 1.5 million residents, deprived of basic living necessities, including electricity, by the siege.
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On February 1, 100 people gathered outside the State Library of Victoria to protest the Israeli siege of Gaza. The protest was initiated by the Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network and organised by a wide range of groups including Australians for Palestine, Women for Palestine, Melbourne Stop the War Coalition, Federation of Muslim Students and Youth, Socialist Alliance and Resistance.
At 6am on January 29, environmental activists from the Bellarine Seastar — an arm of the Blue Wedges Coalition — crammed onto the Point Lonsdale pier, on the western side of the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, to protest the arrival in the bay of the giant Dutch dredging ship, the Queen of the Netherlands.
On January 28, 40 people gathered at Latin America Plaza, outside Central Station, to mark the 155th anniversary of the birth of Cubas national hero, Jose Marti.
Palestinian resistance fighter and founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), George Habash, died on January 26 from a heart attack, aged 81.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received widespread popular acclaim when he toured the Central American countries of Guatemala and Honduras in mid-January, Rafael Pacheco, from Australian Solidarity with Latin America and the Committee in Support of the FMLN in Brisbane, told a meeting on January 28. The meeting was hosted by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network.
Confronting Power & Sex in the Catholic Church, Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus
By Bishop Geoffrey Robinson
John Garratt Publishing 2007
307 pages, $34.95
By Bishop Geoffrey Robinson
John Garratt Publishing 2007
307 pages, $34.95
The National Tertiary Education Unions class action around AWAs against the University of Ballarat has ended with an out-of-court settlement. The action commenced early in 2006 out of a long-running dispute over enterprise bargaining. As Green Left Weekly reported at the time, the university offered AWAs (individual contracts) to break the NTEUs bargaining position. A strong campaign by the union resulted in a collective agreement in August 2006.
Demanding, impatient, spoiled, bad at communicating allegedly these are the character traits of Generation Y. Originally used in 1993 to describe children born between 1980 and 2000, the label has been featured in the media quite a lot lately.
On January 27, Germanys newest and third-largest party, Die Linke (The Left), scored historic victories in two important state elections, as anger grows at the failure of the economic boom to close the gap between rich and poor.
Indigenous Affairs Minster Jenny Macklin announced on January 30 that the federal government will make a formal apology to the stolen generations the 13,000 Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their parents as part of a government policy of assimilation on February 13, the day after the first sitting of the new parliament. Despite calls by Aboriginal groups to include a compensation plan, PM Kevin Rudds government has continued to rule out any national compensation fund to go with the apology.
The Last Breath
By Denise Mina
Random House Australia, 2007
352 pages, $32.00 (pb)
By Denise Mina
Random House Australia, 2007
352 pages, $32.00 (pb)
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