Rallies were held in Sydney and Melbourne on March 30 in solidarity with the Global March to Jerusalem that will take place on the historic Palestine Land Day 2012. This marks the events of March 1976, after the Israeli authorities confiscated thousands of dunums of private and public land in majority Palestinian areas.
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This article first appeared in on March 19.
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Aboriginal leaders in the Northern Territory have issued a strong warning that the Australian government鈥檚 new land grab in the form of the proposed 10-year extension of the intervention will send many communities into a dangerous downward spiral with still more death and misery.
The Australian system of mandatory detention for refugees is not, contrary to official government rhetoric, based on a policy of security. Rather, it is based on an age-old policy of demeaning and scapegoating foreigners.
Under international law, Australia is obliged to respect the right of refugees and settle them if they face genuine persecution, regardless of how they arrive in Australia or whether they have identification. But the policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers subverts these rights.
When you are the Only Democracy in the Middle EastTM you don鈥檛 need to worry about petty little things such as human rights. And so ABC Online reported on March 27 that .
The final outrage that forced Israel to cut ties was a UNHRC vote in favour of investigating whether illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank were, in fact, infringing the rights of Palestinians.
In several places around world, students are rising up, fighting for their rights and demanding real change.
In Quebec, university students have mobilised in record numbers to oppose attacks on their education. The government of Premier Jean Charest plans to introduce a massive 75% hike in tertiary education fees 鈥 on the back of fee increases of C$100 a year for the past five years.
In response, 200,000 students and supporters marched to oppose the cuts on March 22. By March 29, about 300,000 students had gone on strike, boycotting their classes to protest the fee hikes.
A new report by an international research body has called for detention of refugee children to be outlawed and for all countries to 鈥渆nsure the rights and liberty鈥 of children affected by immigration detention.
Australian immigration detention figures released on March 25 showed that even after the federal government 鈥渃ompletes鈥 transferring children to 鈥渃ommunity detention鈥, hundreds of underage asylum seekers will stay in immigration detention centres.
The African country of Mali suffered a coup d'etat against its elected government on March 21.
Mali, a landlocked former French colony in western Africa with a population of 15 million, was one month away from a national election. The coup was carried out by the country鈥檚 armed forces.
Phil Harrington is an economist, climate change policy analyst, consultant and activist with Climate Action Hobart. 麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Susan Austin asked him about his views on the federal government鈥檚 carbon pricing package and how to respond to it.
What do you think of the carbon pricing scheme that is being introduced?
It鈥檚 way too little, way too late. It is designed to give the appearance of action and is being used by the government to justify the position 鈥渨e鈥檝e fixed that now鈥 鈥 but in fact nothing is fixed.
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands is a tiny group of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean 2800 kilometres north-west of Perth and 900 kilometres from Java. It has a population of about 600.
These islands were nominally a British territory between 1858 and 1955, when they were transferred by a British act of parliament to Australia. Yet for the next 17 years, the Australian government allowed the islands to 鈥 just as the British had for 100 years before then.
On the afternoon of March 30, Friends of the Earth campaigner Cam Walker said on Twitter: 鈥淭his has been the week from hell for climate change politics in Vic. There's still a few working hours, maybe a nuke power plant is next?鈥
Climate targets, standards abandoned
Global opposition to unconventional gas mining is growing fast. Impacts on water, food, health and the environment, associated seismic risks and climate change contribution are just some of the many reasons.
Meanwhile, the industry is growing. Its potential growth in Australia is enormous, with large known reserves and billions to be made.
The campaign to protect Western Australia's Kimberley region from gas extraction will be the topic of an April 19 meeting in Sydney.
WA Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, The Wilderness Society national director Lyndon Schneiders and Beyond Zero Emissions' Geoff Cameron will address the public forum, Saving the Kimberley: Our Land or Gasland?
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