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“How long must we stay like this, don’t they realise our hardship?”, a Tamil detainee in the Christmas Island detention centre asked when he called Green Left Weekly on April 8.
Disgraced ex-rugby league player turned celebrity Matthew Johns made his return to TV on March 25, with the “family-friendly” Matty Johns Show being hailed a “success” by reviewers.
Indigenous and trade union activist Chicka “The Fox” Dixon (1928-2010), was farewelled by more than 1000 people in a state funeral in Sydney Town Hall on March 31.
Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It has taken capitalism about 250 years to generate enough waste and pollution to press dangerously against nature’s limits. With such a damning record, there should be no grounds to expect a different outcome in the future.
This Is What We Said: Australian Aboriginal People Give Their Views on the Northern Territory Intervention. Compiled & published by ‘concerned Australians’ 71 pages, hard cover with Aboriginal cover design, $15
Outraged by the six Aboriginal deaths in custody this year, the Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) organised a public meeting at the Redfern Community Centre on April 9 to tell the stories and call for justice.
Right-wing Republicans won an important battle in the “history wars” on March 12 when the Texas Board of Education approved a new social studies curriculum.
On Saturday April 3, a fully laden bulk carrier ran aground on Douglas Shoal off Rockhampton, Queensland, producing an oil spill threatening the Great Barrier Reef. The Shen Neng 1, carrying about 65,000 tonnes of coal to China, leaked about two tonnes of oil onto the reef before being contained.
The following was released on April 10 by the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), Working People's Association (PRP) of Indonesia, People’s Democratic Party (PRD) of Indonesia, Turn Left Thailand, Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) of the Philippines, Socialist Alliance of Australia

Coal threatens Queensland

It is not a good look for Queensland internationally and here at home with the Chinese coal ship having run aground on the Great Barrier Reef, leaking oil and about to break up.

The massive mines of the Hancock and Waratah coal companies, together with the coal mines of the Bowen Basin coming through with the Northern Missing Link, mean that upwards of 230 million tonnes per annum of coal will be going through the nationally wetlands of Caley Valley and exported through the newly constructed port at Abbot Point.

As the Liberal-National Coalition strives to make “border control” a vote-changing issue and the Rudd-ALP government continues to claim its approach is best at keeping the “people smugglers” and the “queue-jumpers” under control, do we face the dark prospect of another refugee-bashing federal election?
The following is abridged from an April 7 press release on behalf of Alyawarr walk-off spokesperson Richard Downs and senior Pitjantjatjara elder Murray George.