When Labor came to power in November 2007, new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "Today, the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward, to plan for the future, to embrace the future and, together as Australians, to unite and write a new page in our nation's history."
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At Christmas time, 1989, Leonard Bernstein conducted a version of Beethoven鈥檚 9th symphony in Berlin in which he changed one word in the well-known Ode to Joy in the fourth movement. "Freiheit" ("Freedom") replaced "Freude" ("Joy"), to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall that had occurred weeks previously
US officials in Afghanistan have unveiled a 鈥渘ew鈥 detention facility within the US military-run Bagram Airbase called the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFP).
Socialist Alliance member and author Terry Townsend launched his new book The Aboriginal Struggle & the Left on December 2 at the Brisbane Activist Centre.
The call by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the International Encounter of Left Parties in Caracas last month to begin to launch a ``Fifth Socialist International鈥欌 could not have been better timed.
December鈥檚 United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen were a key topic of discussion at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), held in Trinidad and Tobago in late November.
Honduran Supreme Electoral Commission (TSE) magistrate Enrique Ortes announced on November 29 that the election run by a regime installed by a military coup had been won by the 鈥淗onduran people鈥 and it was to be a day 鈥渞ecorded in gold letters鈥.
SYDNEY 鈥 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's welcome for right-wing Israeli vice PM Silvan Shalom on December 3 was protested against by about 100 people in Martin Place.
In September, the Victorian district committee of the mining and energy section of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) adopted the recommendations of the Crisis in Power report written by Dave Kerin.
Australian governments, both Liberal and Labor, have had a policy of treating refugees as enemies for at least 20 years. Probably the most infamous occasion was the Coalition鈥檚 November 2001 federal election victory, where the major parties adopted a joint policy of turning back 438 refugees who had been saved from drowning by the Norwegian freighter the MV Tampa.
A performance of Caryl Churchill鈥檚 play Seven Jewish Children was to be held at Fremantle鈥檚 multicultural centre Kulcha in November but was scrapped due to pressure from the Jewish Community Council of Western Australia (JCC). Churchill wrote the play in response to Israel鈥檚 brutal invasion of Gaza in December and January.
On the face of it, 2009 is drawing to an end with a new outbreak of political madness.
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