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Tom Lewis, 83, is a long-time 鶹ý Weekly subscriber in a small town between Bundaberg and Gin Gin, Queensland. His eyesight is rapidly failing and he can no longer read. But last week he renewed his subscription to the paper and made a $100 donation to our fighting fund.
On May 13, the Left party won 8.4 % of the votes in Germany’s smallest state, the adjoining north-western cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. This was sufficient for the party to enter a west German state parliament for the first time, with seven MPs.
May 27 will be end of the 20-year concession granted by the Venezuelan government to the RCTV corporation — owned by multi-millionaire Marcel Granier — to use the state-owned Channel 2 broadcasting signal. The Venezuelan government has announced that the channel will become a public station, similar to a number of stations in Europe, based on programs made by independent producers
Big performer “Allan Moss is worth 446 construction workers, 669 graduate teachers, 335 GPs or 108 prime ministers. The head of Macquarie Bank, who was paid $33.49 million last year, is worth 747 times the average Australian worker, who was paid $862 a week. It would take Mr Moss just three hours to earn that worker’s yearly income of about $45,000… But Mr Moss only gets paid so handsomely if he performs. Virtually all of his pay is tied to the bank’s profit performance, and his day-to-day salary is just $670,819 a year.” — Sydney Morning Herald, May 16.
On May 13, the Left party won 8.4 % of the votes in Germany’s smallest state, the adjoining north-western cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. This was sufficient for the party to enter a west German state parliament for the first time, with seven MPs.
John Howard was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for his “friendship and commitment” to Israel at a gala dinner at Melbourne’s Crown Casino on May 20. The award, by the Zionist Federation of Australia, the State Zionist Council of Victoria and the World Zionist Organisation, includes the “John Howard Negev Forest”, which will be planted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) over an ethnically-cleansed Bedouin village.
While public support in the US for Washington’s counterinsurgency war in Iraq has collapsed, the Pentagon has drawn up plans to almost double the number of US combat troops deployed in the oil-rich country by the end of this year.
“Australian Tamils demand protection not persecution” was the theme of a gathering of more than 500 members of the Tamil community outside the Victorian parliament on May 22.
“A social movement is essential for changing government and opposition policies to halt the climate crisis”, Dr Mark Diesendorf told a May 22 public meeting at the University of NSW to launch his book Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy. Diesendorf told the audience of around 200 people that individual and household solutions are not sufficient.
On May 20, a group of women activists in Indonesia’s northern-most province of Aceh declared the formation of a new local political party — the Acehnese People’s Alliance Party for Women’s Concern (PARAPP).
On May 10, British PM Tony Blair finally made his long-awaited resignation statement. Blair will stand down as prime minister with effect from June 27. He will also stand down as leader of the Labour Party, and preparations for the election of the next Labour leader — who will simultaneously become PM — got underway immediately.
In June, Australia will host the largest military exercises ever undertaken in peacetime. Talisman Sabre 07 will involve 12,400 Australian and 13,700 US troops converging on various locations for their biennial “war games”.