Hundreds of people attended the funeral service of Mavis Mary Moore on January 21. May, as she was known, passed away on January 17, aged 86. She lived a life dedicated to social justice and caring for friends, community and family.
Unionist Paddy Gorman delivered the eulogy. He said: 鈥淢ay was a remarkable woman, one of a kind, who inspired many. She and husband Fred were a formidable team in the struggle for workers鈥 rights and social justice.
鈥淢ay believed in equality for all and had complete contempt for the rich and powerful who exploited working people.鈥
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Lawyers for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange have accused Swedish authorities of secretly planning to extradite him to the US as soon as it has built a criminal case against him.
Lawyer Mark Stephens told the media on January 12: 鈥淲e are hearing that the Swedish are prepared to drop the rape charges against Julian as soon as the Americans demand his extradition.鈥
Ten-year-old Tamil refugee Brindha faces deportation to Sri Lanka after being rejected by the immigration department, the January 3 Australian said.
In March 2010, she told 麻豆传媒 Weekly the International Organisation for Migration was treating refugees 鈥渓ike animals鈥.
At the time, she was onboard the Jaya Lestari, a boat packed with 254 Tamil asylum seekers who had tried to reach Australia for protection from persecution.
People who grew up in Queensland can tell you about the afternoon storms that heralded the start of summer. Like clockwork, shortly after the kids finished school, the clouds would start to gather.
And then that strange quiet, before a great gust of wind would send leaves swirling and branches swaying. And then the rain would come.
Huge droplets of rain that would smash down for maybe an hour, maybe more 鈥 and then it was over.
Sure enough the next day it would come again 鈥 the monsoonal downpours that would cool everything down after a sweltering summer鈥檚 day.
A number of Wikileaks revelations have shown that US officials, despite their public stance, have been well aware of corruption and human rights abuses of regimes it has supported. In some cases, the US funded these regimes and trained their military.
* * *
Indonesia
A leaked September 2009 US cable indicates that US officials are aware that in West Papua, the Indonesian military (TNI) are responsible for serious human rights abuses and corruption.
Welcome to another year of 麻豆传媒 Weekly, a proudly independent voice committed to democratic, investigative journalism.
2010 ended on a high note as Wikileaks and Julian Assange showed what true journalism is: exposing the abuses of power that hide behind the veil of government secrecy.
Assange was demonised by much of the mainstream media as a 鈥渃riminal鈥 and a 鈥渢errorist鈥, but the US and other governments could not defend their real crimes, which were exposed by the Wikileaks cables.
The governments of Australia and Afghanistan have struck a deal to send back rejected Afghan asylum seekers against their will.
Australia promised $5.8 million to the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai to 鈥渋mprove the passport system鈥 and fund resettlement, but has been condemned for neglecting the interests of refugees themselves.
Immigration minister Chris Bowen signed the deal with a minister of the corrupt Karzai regime on January 17. Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation Dr Jamaher Anwary was in Sydney to take part in talks on 鈥減eople smuggling鈥.
The significance of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks can be measured by the hysterical and panicked response of the powerful to it.
Wikileaks鈥 ongoing release of thousands of secret US government cables and other secret documents is being met with outrage, assassination threats, censorship, a corporate boycott and legal action.
Much of this has centred on Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange. The allegations of sex crimes (for which no charges have yet been laid) have been used to hound him through the courts.
Marrickville Council has stayed firm in the face of criticism for its recent decision to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid in Palestine.
The council passed a Greens-initiated motion to support the BDS campaign on December 14.
Acting Nepali Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has argued that bullets, explosives and other munitions no longer constitute 鈥渓ethal military hardware鈥 as long as they are to be used for 鈥渢raining and other related works鈥.
MK Nepal was seeking to justify the decision to allow India to resume arms supplies to Nepal. He has never been elected and came to power after the Maoist-led government was brought down by a soft military coup in 2009.
A six week-long battle at Swift Australia Meatworks in Brooklyn, Melbourne, has ended with 140 National Union of Workers (NUW) members keeping conditions that were lost by the plant鈥檚 500 other employees two years ago.
Swift Australia locked out the picketers in early December after they took protected industrial action in the course of their enterprise bargaining negotiations. The strikers are mostly of migrant backgrounds, from all corners of the globe. Some are recently arrived refugees.
鈥淲ikiLeaks has had more scoops in three years than the Washington Post has had in 30.鈥 鈥 Clay Shirky
It is for this reason that Wikileaks has become an incredibly important news source, with its commitment to provide the public with information that is deliberately withheld by governments and corporations, and to expose corruption.
Its recent release of classified diplomatic cables revealing what our governments are really talking about behind closed doors has created a great divide in public opinion about just how much we, the people, really have a right to know.
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