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Two hundred dollars for the Cuban Hurricane Relief Fund was raised at a screening of the new documentary Salud!, which examines Cuba’s remarkable attitude to health care — both within Cuba and around the world.
“The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated”, US Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama told Fox News on September 4. Obama’s claim echoed Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain. Both candidates claim that the surge, which involved sending more than 20,000 extra US troops into Iraq, has reduced violence and “stabilised” Iraq, rescuing the occupation from the indigenous resistance.
On September 23, one of Burma’s longest-serving political prisoners, 78-year-old progressive journalist U Win Tin, was released from Insein Prison after more than 19 years. He was one of six political prisoners included in an amnesty of 9002 prisoners declared by the military junta.
Anti-union culture in Centrelink Union activists working at Centrelink have traditionally distributed printed material on workmates’ desks as a primary means of communication about workplace issues. This practice has now been prohibited by Centrelink management. This is not a consistent policy across government agencies.
On September 20, hundreds of people converged on Clifton Park in Brunswick to admire the work of talented graffiti artists.
In an “open letter to the national and international community” written from prison, Colombian trade union and human rights activist Liliana Obando denounced the government’s unprecedented “new witch-hunt against the political opposition in Colombia”.
Salisbury Council, in the northern suburbs, is a world leader in stormwater harvesting. It is on track to produce 20 gigalitres of water per annum by 2010, just short of 10% of Adelaide’s total water usage.
The West Australian Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM) is “a growing cancer” designed to drive renewable energy production to the fringes, a climate activist says.
Following a strike by Dandenong mail officers in June and an overnight picket by Union Solidarity in September, Australia Post has agreed to reinstate Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union delegate Hemma Lorenz to her original position. The campaign was triggered by Australia Post’s decision to transfer Lorenz to a city facility.
A dangerous precedent for an ambiguous anti-terrorism law has been set by the conviction of a majority of the 12 Melbourne Muslim men accused of constituting a terrorist cell. Almost all the charges were based on a law that turned on the definition of a “terrorist organisation”.
On September 17, federal IR minister Julia Gillard unveiled Labor’s “new” industrial relations system based on the IR policy it took to the federal election, Forward with Fairness (FwF). But rather than “tear up” Work Choices, Labor’s pre-election promise, its replacement IR system largely preserves it.
It’s hard to ignore a group of people dressed in mangy Koala suits outside NSW parliament house. It’s more difficult to ignore the campaign for the protection of red gum forests, which is what the September 23 Wilderness Society protest drew attention to.