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Supporters of the Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions assembled on April 11 at the Iberoamerican square to commemorate the failure of the April 2002 US-backed coup against the government of Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez.

According to a report by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights, between September 2000 (the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada) and July 2006, 68 pregnant women were forced to give birth at Israeli checkpoints in the Occupied Territories after Israeli soldiers barred them from crossing the road blocks to access hospitals and medical centres. Thirty-four infants and four pregnant women died at these checkpoints.

While the Howard government has succeeded in partially defusing David Hicks’s unjust imprisonment as an election issue, it has still not convinced most people that Hicks’s guilty plea means he is a terrorist.

“There is no future for oil-dependent agriculture”, well-known Columban priest and Philippines-based anti-GMO campaigner Brian Gore told the WA launch of Say No to GMO (genetically modified organisms) on April 5.

In early April, Independent Liquor worker and member of the Unite Union Steve Tipene took his own life, just eight days after he was sacked from his job. Unite had filed a challenge against the dismissal at the Employment Relations Authority shortly before hearing of his death. Unite reported on April 13 that Tipene’s family believed the sacking was a major factor in his death and according to the union, the company has a long history of anti-union practices and workplace bullying. Unite organiser John Minto described 46-year-old Tipene as a strong unionist who understood the importance of workers sticking together. “Steve took part in the strikes last year which gained the first collective agreement at Independent Liquor for 20 years. He has helped make it a bit easy for the employees who follow him at Independent. He was a good man.”