Things haven’t been going well for the Israeli occupation over the past few years. Numerous Israeli atrocities, such as the invasion and blockade of Gaza and the killings of civilians on the aid flotilla, have made many people aware of the truly oppressive situation facing the occupied Palestinians.
Lately, Israel has hardened its repression against the Palestinians even further in response to the popular revolts breaking out in the surrounding Arab countries and the loss of its ally, the Mubarak regime in Egypt.
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Residents of Queensland’s Western Downs and their supporters have witnessed arrests, police harassment and some exciting victories over the past week in their fight to prevent coal seam gas expansion on the Tara estate, near Chinchilla. During a protest organised by Lock the Gate Alliance on March 29 Friends of the Earth campaigner and Queensland Greens co-founder Drew Hutton was arrested and charged with impeding the construction of a coal seam gas pipeline. Mr Hutton refused bail conditions and faced 30 days prison, but was soon released on unconditional bail.
Ireland’s new Fine Gael (FG)-Labour Party (LP) coalition government has set out an agenda of continuing the savage austerity and spending cuts of the Fianna Fail (FF)-Greens coalition ii has replaced.
The cuts are enforced by the International Monetary Fund-European Union bailout of the Irish government.
In the February 26 elections, FF and the Greens were thrashed in a backlash against the bail-out and the anti-worker austerity that goes with it. The Greens failed to win a seat in the Dail (Irish parliament) and FF slumped from 77 seats to 20.
Manufacturer BlueScope Steel has been at the forefront of the campaign against the carbon price proposed by Labor and the Greens.
Chief Executive Paul O'Malley has argued it could spell “the end of steel manufacturing in Australia”; something the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott agreed with during a recent tour of BlueScope's steelworks in Port Kembla.
Both have said that a price on carbon would threaten the company's profitability and therefore force operations offshore in search of cheaper labour.
Israeli forces have sealed the occupied West Bank village of Beit Ommar since March 24 for an indefinite time.
Soldiers continue to arrest young Palestinian residents and hold them in Israeli detention centres.
In a move akin to the four-year-long economic blockade against the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers have closed the six entrances to the village of 17,000 inhabitants.
It has imposed a widespread prohibition policy against all major imports and exports from the village. This includes gasoline, produce, raw industrial materials and basic supplies.
AC4 are a hardcore punk band from Sweden who are touring Australia in April with US punk group Star Fucking Hipsters. Green Left Weekly’s Chris Peterson spoke to AC4 lead singer , also of The (International) Noise Conspiracy, who toured Australia last year.
If there were an Olympics for climate amorality, Australia’s capitalists would be hauling in the medals.
Just consider this quote from Queensland coal baron Clive Palmer in the December 15 Australian: “The Galilee Basin overall has got 100 billion tonnes of thermal coal, so it’s a great reservoir for Queensland in the future, so you’d be crazy not to develop it.”
And it’s not just coal, but any greenhouse-polluting fuel that can be can be dug or drilled from the landscape or seabed. Take Australia’s natural gas industry, poised now for a vast expansion.
About 2000 people rallied in Melbourne on March 26 to support equal marriage rights.
Speakers included Sally Goeldner from Trans Victoria, comedian Joel Creasey and James Campbell from the Melbourne-based gay and lesbian underage group and Minus-18.
Protesters marched to the Marriage Registry at Treasury Place.
For more information on the campaign, visit www.equallove.info
Good politicians are few and far between, but British health secretary Andrew Lansley is among the worst. In 2008, he was forced to apologise after saying recessions brought "good things" such as people being able to spend more time with their families.
The Australian government recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the government of Afghanistan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
It permitted the forcible deportation of Afghan refugees — including children separated from their families — from Australia back to Afghanistan.
Refugee advocates have sharply criticised the MOU. They say it does not guarantee the safety of returned asylum seekers and point out that the Afghanistan puppet government is illegitimate and corrupt.
The largest anti-nuclear protests in German history were held on March 26. About 250,000 people marched in Germany’s four largest cities.
Under the slogan “Fukushima Warns: Pull the Plug on all Nuclear Power Plants”, more than 120,000 took to the streets of Berlin, 50,000 in Hamburg, 40,000 in Koeln and upward of 40,000 marched in Muenchen.
In state elections held the next day, the German Greens won a historic victory in Baden-Wuerttemberg. They will form Germany’s first-ever Green-led government.
They also tripled their vote in elections in Rheinland-Pfalz.
A vicious smear campaign against the Greens candidate for Marrickville Fiona Byrne in the NSW state election reveals just how worried the powers-that-be are about the prospect of the NSW Greens winning a lower house seat.
This smear campaign focused almost exclusively on the Greens pro-Palestine stand, in particular their support (along with ALP councillors) for Marrickville council’s decision to sign on to the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
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