On May 31, Israeli defence force commandos boarded an aid ship in international waters. The ship was trying to break the illegal military blockade of the Gaza strip and transport much-needed food and medical supplies. Nine aid activists were killed and several snap actions were held in Australia to condemn Israel鈥檚 actions and call for an end to the blockade.
On June 1, 250 people rallied in Brisbane to condemn Israel鈥檚 attacks on the Gaza aid fleet. ALP vice-president Wendy Turner, and socialist activist and lecturer in creative industries Gary MacLennan, spoke.
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Sydney-based journalist and author Antony Loewenstein is an outspoken critic of Israeli policies and author of the best-selling 2006 book My Israel Question. He is the co-founder of advocacy group Independent Australian Jewish Voices and is a board member of Macquarie University鈥檚 Centre for Middle East and North African Studies. Articles and commentary by Loewenstein can be found at .
This must be a momentous occasion. According to the May 22 Sydney Morning Herald, the Dalai Lama 鈥 a major leader of a major religion 鈥 has declared himself 鈥渉alf Marxist half Buddhist鈥.
First we must ask questions about Buddhism itself. Is Buddhism a single religion, or even a religion? Would the two main streams constitute a schism? The Dalai Lama is the largely undisputed global figurehead of Mahayana Buddhism. There is no equivalent figurehead in the other dominant stream, Theravada, which stretches from South Asia to South-East Asia.
The most serious controversy that has emerged in the climate movement this year is probably about the role of natural gas in a transition to a zero-emissions society.
The national climate summit in March did not debate gas, but decisions taken there have influenced the debate. A decision of that summit was to campaign to 鈥渞eplace Australia's dirtiest coal-fired power station, Hazelwood, with clean energy by 2012鈥.
In July 2009, members of the Alyawarr people in the township of Ampilatwatja, approx 350 kls north east of Alice Springs in Central Australia, after sewerage flowed into their backyards, walked out of the government proscribed area into the desert and set up a protest camp.
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