Take a moment to commiserate with Glen Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia who, after a year working hard for the budget bottom line, only received a pay rise of 4.3%. By contrast, last year he scored a 6% increase for his efforts.
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Who says Australians are too laid back, lazy and spend most of their time holidaying? This myth has been shattered with the findings of a global survey conducted by online travel company Expedia, which revealed that of all study participants Australians were the least likely to take their annual leave entitlements.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a heroic struggle in which, between October 1987 and June 1988, in some of the fiercest fighting in Africa since the Second World War, the South African Defence Forces (SADF) were humiliatingly defeated by liberation forces in Angola.
On June 9, PM Kevin Rudd announced that Australia would be forming an international commission to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Fuel price hikes have always sparked widespread mass protests in Indonesia since the overthrow of the dictator Suharto in a popular uprising in 1998. However, the timing this year was special.
A Filipino left activist wrote in a June 12 post on the Green Left discussion list: The fuel-hike protests in the Philippines are now underway. As I write 100 trucks and 500 pedi-cab (tricycle drivers) are marching to Mendiola, Malacanang Palace.
The minister for Indigenous affairs, Jenny Macklin, announced a review committee on June 6 for the federal intervention into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The announcement came as the widely criticised intervention — often referred to as the "NT invasion" — approaches its 12-month anniversary on June 21. The terms of reference for the review are limited to assessing the intervention's progress and improving its implementation and "service delivery".
“The Penobscot Nation is committed to continue our efforts until the fish, wildlife and plants are safe to eat, and the sacredness is restored to the river. Only then will our culture be whole again …”
Venezuela, along with Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, criticised the final declaration of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Summit in Rome on June 5, arguing that the document failed
to identify the true causes of rising food prices, such as agricultural subsidies and unequal trade policies imposed by developed countries.
“Once they got their wages, [the workers] occupied the installations and demanded that the company go, then they occupied the offices and demanded that the administration of Sincreba [Merida Waste Incineration and Recycling System] retire”, Simon Rodriguez told Green Left Weekly on the peaceful take-over by its workers of the Solid Waste Processing Plant in Merida in September last year.
Below is a June 3 statement from the International Trade Union Confederation. Visit http://www.ituc-csi.org.
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