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PM John Howard’s new “intervention” policy in the Northern Territory has begun with federal and state police storming into Indigenous communities.
PM John Howard and ALP leader Kevin Rudd have both attacked Unions NSW secretary John Robertson for comments, secretly recorded and leaked to the media, made at a Bennelong Your Rights at Work meeting in late June.
In the two weeks following the Sharm el Sheikh Summit on June 25, at which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners from Israeli jails, Israel abducted more than 300 members of Fatah in the West Bank.
The annual rally for NAIDOC week on July 13 drew a crowd of 1500-2000 people. While officially a day to celebrate the survival and revival of Indigenous culture and heritage, outrage at PM John Howard’s recent intervention in the Northern Territory was palpable in the crowd. A sea of placards and banners made reference to the importance of protecting land rights, and fears about children being taken away.
Arumugam Rajeevan, an Australian cirizen of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, was arrested in Sydney on July 10 on terrorism charges. This follows the May 1 arrest of two Tamils in Melbourne on similar charges.
A report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC), launched on June 22, recommends that laws discriminating against gays be removed. The report comes at a time when record numbers of Australians are in favour of gay marriage.
“We’ve tried to enter Palestine by land. We’ve tried to arrive by air. Now we’re getting serious. We’re taking a ship”.
I am sure readers would agree that the real swindlers were exposed in the discussion after the much-watched screening of Martin Durkin’s Great Global Warming Swindle on ABC TV last week.
On June 30, 45 people met to prepare the next phase of the Save Ralph’s Bay (SRB) action group’s campaign against a proposed canal housing estate being built by the Walker Corporation, owned by billionaire Lang Walker, inside the publicly owned Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, in the Derwent river estuary.
Internationalism was a strong theme of the 36th Resistance conference held in Sydney over July 5-8. Apart from hearing from Julia Espinoza from Socialist Worker in New Zealand and Gusti Galuh Ratna Sari from the Indonesian National Student League for Democracy, the whole conference took part in a separate one-day forum on July 7 organised by the Venezuelan Embassy.
“Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional US and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41% higher in June than in January, according to unofficial health ministry statistics”, the July 4 Washington Post reported.
Thousands of people rallied on July 13 and 14 around Australia during NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) week. Around 400 people gathered in Brisbane on July 14. Speakers from as far away as the Torres Strait Islands spoke out against Howard’s invasion of the Northern Territory, Aboriginal deaths in custody, inequality in health and housing, and the Beattie government’s plans to forcibly amalgamate councils. New Zealand activist Julia Espinoza spoke about Maori solidarity with Aboriginal people.