Michael Kumarasamy, one of the asylum seekers accused of being involved in a riot between Tamil and Afghan detainees at Christmas Island detention centre in November 2009, attended his trial on June 18 鈥 about two hours late.
Kumarasamy鈥檚 lawyer, Simon Freitag, had emailed Perth Immigration Detention Centre to ensure staff there knew when the case was on. When his client was late, he again rang Perth IDC.
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Refugees and climate change
Today (June 20) is World Refugee Day, observed each year as a way of raising awareness on the plight of refugees. Given the increasingly regressive policies being adopted by the federal government when it comes to asylum seekers, this day is needed more than ever.
On June 22, Queensland unions won a court victory with the ruling that Queensland Rail had broken the law by not consulting workers over privatisation plans.
鈥淨ueensland Rail has been slapped with a $600,000 fine after it failed to consult its workers over plans to privatise part of the company鈥, the June 23 Courier-Mail reported. 鈥淎 Federal Court ruling earlier this month found QR breached 20 of its enterprise bargaining agreements by not consulting workers about the planned sell-off before it was announced.鈥
In July, Socialist Alliance election candidates will be taking a trip to the Northern Territory to personally witness conditions under the federal government's intervention into Aboriginal communities.
SA youth candidates 鈥 and Resistance members 鈥 Jess Moore, Zane Alcorn and Ewan Saunders will join Indigenous activists, students, community groups and campaigners from across the country in Alice Springs for an important gathering of intervention-affected Aboriginal communities.
The United States has renewed military aid to Honduras with a donation of 25 heavy trucks valued at US$812,000, Spanish website infodefensa.com said. On June 18, US ambassador Hugo Llorens also announced Washington would give Honduras $75 million through USAID for various development projects and $20 million as part of the Merida Program to enhance 鈥渟ecurity鈥.
Sydney-based fringe magazine Spunk has announced it plans to use its latest fundraiser event, Possessed, to raise awareness and support for the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative, which is threatened with imminent eviction by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.
Organisers are expecting about 400 people to descend on Adelaide for the Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference over July 4 鈥 8.
The conference is held annually for students and activists involved in environment and social justice movements. Over the four days, workshops will be held on topics as diverse as climate change, guerrilla gardening, Indigenous rights, campaigning for renewable energy on campus and many more.
SoS gives participants the confidence, practical skills and motivation needed to campaign for a cleaner and healthier Earth.
Our children are still being fed racist messages by toy manufacturers and stockists. A recent browse through Northlands K-Mart toy department led me to wonder: If all Baby-Borns are white, where did Wrestler Action Man come from?
Despite catering to one of the most multicultural parts of Melbourne, Northlands K-Mart does not have a single non-white baby doll in its massive display.
The deaths of three Australian commandos in a helicopter crash on June 21 should bring home the message: it's time to leave Afghanistan.
The deaths bring the total number of Australians killed in the occupation to 16. This, not to mention the countless thousands of Afghan deaths, should be enough reason to call an end to Australian participation in this war.
On March 10 Veronnica Baxter, a 34-year-old Aboriginal woman from the Cunnamulla country, south-west Queensland, was arrested by Redfern police and held on remand. She dressed, appeared, and had identified as a woman for 15 years and was known by family and friends as a woman. Yet she was placed at the all-male NSW Silverwater Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre. Six days later, after a 14-hour break between checking her cell, she was found dead, hanging in her single cell.
What鈥檚 Wrong With Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History
By Marilyn Lake & Henry Reynolds
UNSW Press, 2010, 183 pages, $29.95 (pb)
On April 25 in Australia, it is humanly impossible to escape the slouch hats, the Dawn Service, the Last Post, the khaki uniforms and the military ceremonies endlessly recycled in the establishment media. The cult of Anzac Day is pervasive, the culture of war unavoidable.
On June 25, federal trade minister Simon Crean signed a deal to export up to 20 million tonnes of dried brown coal to Vietnam. The deal was signed with ironically-named Victorian company Environmental Clean Technologies (ECT). Fifty people protested outside the venue in Southbank where the deal was signed, despite the rain and only a few hours notice of the event.
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