A selection of the past fortnight's politically-relevant entertainment news.
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"Ngurragah," says Barbara McGrady, and smiles. The word, pronounced "nuh-ruh-gah", is one of her favourite utterances. But this committed activist and community photographer won't be using it to describe her latest exhibition, being held as part of Head On, the second largest photography festival in the world.
Twenty years ago, Aboriginal Australian Football League player Nicky Winmar famously responded to racist taunting by Collingwood fans by pulling up his jumper and defiantly pointing at his black skin.
“Heartbroken” Aboriginal Sydney Swans star Adam Goodes created another iconic image when he was snapped — shocked and furious — pointing at a Collingwood fan.
Goodes was responding to a 13-year-old girl abusing him as an “ape”. It was only one of two examples of racial abuse directed at Aboriginal Swans players by Collingwood fans during the game that came to light.
Northern Ireland: The Reluctant Peace
Feargal Cochrane
Yale University Press, 2013
368 pp, $38.00
Reginald Maudling, the Tory Home Secretary who oversaw the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland, perfectly expressed the British ruling class’s blend of condescension and indifference towards Ireland when he blurted out to his staff: “For God’s sake bring me a large Scotch — what a bloody awful country.”
As his policies created mayhem on the streets of Ulster, he coined the cute phrase “acceptable level of violence” to describe what was going on.
Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control
Medea Benjamin
Verso, 2013
246 pages, $24.95(pb)
“Never before in the history of warfare,” boasted the Wall Street Journal, “have we been able to distinguish as well between combatants and civilians as we can with drones”.
The Obama administration has helped in this claim, writes Medea Benjamin in her book on the “unmanned aerial vehicle”, by conveniently defining every military-age male in a drone strike zone as a “combatant”.
Lynne Stewart, a movement attorney who was jailed for the “crime” of being the defense lawyer for alleged terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, is dying in prison of stage-four cancer.
Her family and supporters, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, are asking that she be granted compassionate release so she can live out her final days outside prison walls.
The warden of Stewart's prison has approved her compassionate release, however the Department of Prisons has so far refused to grant it.
Venezuela and Bolivia have agreed to raise cooperation to a “higher level” following Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s visit to Bolivia on May 25.
During bilateral meetings held in Cochabamba, Maduro and Bolivian President Evo Morales signed key accords in food production, industrial development and communications.
“It’s necessary to place the strategic map of bilateral cooperation at a higher level, including a more organised one,” said Maduro.
Documentary about the national refugee rights convergence to the Yongah Hill detention centre near Northam in April 2013. Features interviews with Jay Fletcher, Liz Walsh, Ben Solah, Mark Goudkamp and others. See also Green Left's live blog from the convergence with photos, videos and other reports.
The Obama administration appears to be getting closer and closer to approving the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline aims to transport tar sands oil from Alberta Canada to the United States.
In May 13 mid-term elections for both houses of Congress, and provincial and municipal-level local governments, the control of electoral politics in the Philippines by a small number of powerful, nepotistic families became a big issue.
It was the left-wing Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM) that put the question of political dynasties onto the agenda.
However, not all the PLM’s impact on the election translated into votes and, due to fraud, not all the votes the PLM received in the ballot box translated to votes in the official tally.
Turkey’s government, facing a continuing wave of public protest, which began when the authorities brutally repressed a May Day rally at Taksim Square, must end the confrontation with its own people, and release detained trade unionists, the International Trade Union Confederation and its Global Unions partners said.
Dr Mona El Farra, Vice President of the Red Crescent Society for the Gaza Strip, answers questions at a forum hosted by Friends of Palestine WA on 4 June 2013 and was part of a national tour by Palestine solidarity groups in Australia.
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