On January 26, more than 500 people marched through Melbourne to mark Invasion Day and to call for an end to black deaths in custody and for justice for Mulrunji, who died in the Palm Island police station in November, 2004. Rally chair Brianna Pike announced at the protest that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley would be charged with Mulrunji鈥檚 manslaughter.
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鈥淐elebrate what鈥檚 great鈥 was the official theme of this year鈥檚 Australia Day, January 26. But for Aboriginal Australians, what was worth celebrating on the day that marks the brutal British invasion of their land was the decision to charge the police officer Chris Hurley with the manslaughter of Mulrunji Doomadgee.
A report released on January 22 by the Society for Threatened Peoples International (GfbV) showed a sizeable increase in human rights violations in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. The report showed that 685 people who had peacefully protested the Moroccan occupation in 2006 were arrested; and there have been regular incidents of torture and arrests of children. According to GfbV representative Ulrich Delius, 聯Morocco聮s brutal actions against the civilian population in the West Sahara are aimed at intimidating the people and wiping out from the start any criticism of Morocco聮s arbitrary rule聰. To view the report, visit .
When the NSW police minister condemned magistrate Pat O鈥橲hane two weeks ago for throwing out a case involving spitting at traffic cops, her response was: 鈥淭here is an election coming up鈥. The same answer could well be given for the bipartisan barrage of Muslim-bashing from senior NSW politicians in the countdown to the March state election.
CDM's no solution
Chaim Nisism (Write On, GLW #695) wrote about the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): "My evaluation is that at least half of the projects are environmentally and socially positive". However, Nisism does not
PERTH 聴 Protests were held outside Woodside Petroleum聮s office on January 22 and 25 against Woodside聮s Pluto gas project on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia聮s Pilbara region. Protesters highlighted that if work proceeds on the unique heritage site, it will result in the destruction of a large number of Aboriginal rock carvings. The protests were called by the recently initiated Friends of Australian Rock Art.
Prime Minister John Howard is to face trial in the NSW town of Bellingen on February 10. He is charged with offences including wilful and malicious damage to our national and international interests, aggravated indecent assault upon the working class and conspiring to pervert the course of democracy.
On January 21, Prime Minister John Howard condemned the organisers of the Big Day Out (BDO) music festival in Sydney for asking those planning to attend not to display Australian flags at the events as an 鈥渋nsult to the freedom it represents鈥.
Activists will descend on parliament house in Canberra on February 6 to demand that politicians do more to secure David Hicks聮 release from the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
Greens MP Lee Rhiannon slammed the police operation at the Big Day Out, saying that the use of sniffer dogs against recreational drug users had put people聮s health in danger.
Thousands of Canadian students and their supporters are expected to protest tuition fee hikes at a national day of action on February 7.
At a meeting in Brazil on April 26, 2006, plans moved ahead between Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil for a major transcontinental oil pipeline. The pipeline would be 10,000 kilometres long and would link the four countries plus Paraguay and Uruguay.
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