756

In a blow to the Northern Territory intervention policy, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) announced on June 15 that it will pull out of recruiting medical staff for the program, which it argued the government was dramatically underfunding.
On June 21, protest actions were held around Australia on the first anniversary of the federal government’s “intervention” into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, demanding an immediate end to the racist invasion of Aboriginal land that it entails.
The ZANU-PF government of President Robert Mugabe has its origins in the liberation struggle against the white supremacist Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith. How did a government that emerged from a mass struggle for liberation degenerate into the dictatorship that exists today?
On World Youth Day on July 19, protesters are planning to send this message to the pope: “Gay is great and homophobia is unacceptable.”
The Rudd Labor government has abolished the hated temporary protection visas (TPVs) that left refugees in limbo for years despite having their refugee status confirmed, and it has scrapped the “Pacific solution” — the shipping of asylum seekers to prison camps on Nauru and Manus Island. However, the bulk of the Howard government’s refugee policies remain in place.
The National Front (BN) government led by PM Abdullah Badawi has been shaky since the March general election that returned a much stronger parliamentary opposition — now largely united in a new People’s Front (Pakatan Rakyat).
The Socialist Alliance will contest the council elections on September 13 in the seat of Marrickville. At a meeting on June 17, the alliance pre-selected three long-term activists: Jill Hickson, Pip Hinman and Howard Byrnes.
Brisbane’s very successful Green Left Weekly Winter Fiesta on June 14 helped take our 2008 Fighting Fund to $101,936. Since the last issue $7921 has been collected in the form of donations and proceeds from events like the Brisbane Winter Fiesta. Proceeds from fundraising events in Newcastle and Melbourne also made a significant contribution.
Fifteen activists calling for a rapid conversion to renewable energy protested at the $2600-a-head Queensland Coal Conference 08 on June 16.
The New Spirit of Capitalism
By Luc Boltanski& Eve Chiapello
Verso, 2007
656 pages, $79.95
Standard Operating Procedure
Directed by Errol Morris
Cinema release July 3
Below is an open letter from Bolivian President Evo Morales to the European Union, appealing to it not to adopt the racist anti-immigrant “Return Directive”, which was voted up on June 18. This is abridged from http://boliviarising.blogspot.com.