750

According to a May 7 Prensa Latina report, the Ecuadorian government has denounced Colombia following the release of evidence that the Colombian military had executed four prisoners as part of its infamous March 1 assault on a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that was within Ecuadorian territory.
A new report released on May 5 by Greenpeace, False Hope: why carbon capture and storage won’t save the climate, puts the case against governments’ obsession with a technology they calculate will breath life into the dirty fossil fuel industry.
Western Australian public servants voted unanimously to continue their fight for a decent pay rise at a 1000-strong rally on the steps of Parliament House on May 8.
Cuba: How the Workers & Peasants Made the Revolution
By Chris Slee
Resistance Books, 2008
55pages, $6.00(pb)
Available from <http://www.resistancebooks.com>
The Rudd government has been rejecting asylum seeker claims at an extraordinary rate. A report by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), released on May 4, revealed that out of 42 ministerial decisions over five weeks, 41 appeals had been rejected — a 97.6% rejection rate.
“[It] would be imprudent to tip the winners in the race for low emission technologies”, wrote Barney Glover, University of Newcastle deputy vice-chancellor, in an April 10 letter defending the university’s research in so-called clean coal technologies.
In presenting the state budget on May 6, Premier John Brumby announced that “doing business in Victoria will become even easier”. The ALP government’s pro-corporate measures will cut almost $1.5 billion from taxes and costs for the big end of town.
The Australian speaking tour of Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) leader Jorge Schafik Handal Vega began in Sydney on May 6, with a public meeting attended by 50 activists, most from the local El Salvadorean community.
Plans are under way for the 2008 Resistance national conference, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney from June 27-29. This year’s theme is: “war, racism, environmental destruction, homophobia, sexism … Turn anger into action!”
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and state mines and energy minister Geoff Wilson were on hand in early May to celebrate Rio Tinto’s announcement that the company would double exports of coal from Queensland in the next seven years.
Five unions met in Brisbane on May 6 to launch a national campaign for the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
A May 8 meeting in Wollongong heard an eyewitness account of the political struggle within Venezuela from Carlos Sierra, a political leader in the radical Venezuelan youth organisation Frente Francisco de Miranda. The meeting was part of Sierra’s Resistance-organised tour which also took him to Newcastle and Sydney Universities.