It鈥檚 been a fascinating few weeks in Tasmanian politics.
On June 16, the Labor-Greens government handed down a shocking budget that cut funding to public health, education, police and other services.
Thousands of public service workers gathered on parliament lawns that day to condemn the plan, saying that services were already struggling to meet demand.
The education cuts included a plan to close 20 schools. Education minister and Greens leader Nick McKim started a process of 鈥渃onsultation鈥 with affected school communities around the state.
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Community Voice 鈥 a united grassroots ticket to contest Wollongong City Council elections 鈥 was officially launched on July 8 at Wollongong Town Hall.聽
鈥淯S computer giant Apple has culled a Palestinian application from its iPhone offerings at the request of Israel,鈥 a June 27 IOL.co.za article said.
鈥淭he Arabic-language app ThirdIntifada, released by Apple just days ago, provides users with details of upcoming anti-Israel protests, access to news articles and editorials, and links to Palestinian nationalist material.鈥
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators pointed out the term intifada, which means mass uprising, did not refer to violence.
No sooner had information come out that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was undergoing surgery in Cuba than the international media was full of speculation and rumours regarding his imminent demise.
Projecting their hopes that an illness could succeed in removing Chavez where military coups and assassination attempts had failed, the right-wing Venezuelan opposition went into overdrive.
They demanded the president step down and hand over power to the vice president.
The Greek parliament defied huge popular opposition, including a 48-hour general strike, to pass the latest set of extreme austerity measures demanded by the 鈥渢roika鈥 (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) in return for fresh loans.
However, many commentators have pointed out it is one thing to vote up the measures and another to force them on an increasingly discontented populace.
When the multi-award-winning journalist John Pilger needed researchers for his latest film, The War You Don鈥檛 See, he turned to David Edwards and David Cromwell. The pair run media-analysing website Media Lens, which is set to turn 10 years old on July 9.
Here, they answer some of the 鈥渕ore interesting鈥 questions posed by their readers, plus a couple from 麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Mat Ward.
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Why did you start Media Lens?
If you are reading this column, then 麻豆传媒 Weekly has successfully completed its move to its new home in Sydney.
In the process, we have missed only a week of publication thanks to the volunteers who joined the ant army that carried all we needed down those flights of stairs in our old home, loaded the hire truck and emptied it into the new office 鈥 over and over again.
Our sparkling new premises is wheelchair friendly and accessible through a lift. So moving in was a lot easier than moving out 鈥 and the latter is far from over.
The Perth community has witnessed in past weeks an inspiring mobilisation of people affected by homelessness or as they like to be called, the 鈥渟treeties鈥.
It started as a small rally to protest against the treatment of those living on the streets during the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and against insensitive comments made by Liberal police minister Rob Johnson. Now it has broadened to challenge the government on homelessness.
The 28th Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan was killed on July 4. In what is becoming a routine, Prime Minister Julia Gillard used the occasion of giving the nation鈥檚 condolences on July 6 to harangue an increasingly sceptical public about the necessity for the occupation to continue.
The Afghan war鈥檚 self-evident failure to achieve any of its shifting official objectives has meant questioning the war has become unavoidable.
Resistance organised a visit to Villawood detention centre on July 3. Twenty people came to show solidarity with the asylum seekers inside.
We visited four different 麻豆传媒 that house families and single people from many countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq.
I spoke with a family who live in Villawood with their three young children. The youngest two had never known life outside detention.
They live in their own small house, and once a week a member of the family is allowed to go shopping, with guards, so the family can cook for themselves.
Thirty five people attended a forum on June 25 entitled 鈥100% Equality鈥 hosted by WA Greens MLC and spokesperson for diversity, gender and sexuality, Lynn Maclaren.
The forum discussed the campaign for marriage equality and other issues facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex community.
Joint international solidarity statement to free the PSM detainees.
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