Just after becoming prime minister, Julia Gillard told media on June 24 she could understand 鈥渢he anxiety and indeed fears that Australians have when they see [refugee] boats鈥. She did not cite evidence for this claim. She said that, as PM, she would explain to the Australian people 鈥渨hat we are doing to manage our borders and what we are doing to manage asylum seeker flows鈥.
843
A Short Border Handbook
By Gazmend Kapllani
Portobello Books 2009
159 pages
Review by Alex Miller
This book, which the author describes as 鈥減art autobiography, part fiction鈥, is hard to assess. Each chapter is divided into two parts. The first part tells the story of a man (presumably Kapllani himself) who crosses into Greece from Albania when the border between those two countries opened in 1991. The second part consists of 鈥減hilosophical鈥 ruminations on issues raised by the story of the first part.
South Australian independent Bob Such announced on June 28 he would introduce a private member's bill into the state parliament that would, in effect, ban the wearing of the burqa or the niqab in banks and government buildings.
Such claimed his bill would not be discriminatory and would target any face covering where security might be a concern. However, all his public statements have specifically raised the burqa and its possible use in criminal activity.
Multicultural affairs minister Grace Portolesi said SA police have said they have no such concerns about the burqa.
The ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the April 20 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig has exposed the obscene behaviour of the world鈥檚 fourth-largest corporation, British Petroleum (BP).
Evidence has come from many sources revealing BP was aware of safety concerns, but did nothing about them.
Eighty people gathered at the State School Teachers Union offices in Perth for the Socialist Ideas Conference over the weekend of June 26-27. Speakers included Jeyakumar Devaraj, Socialist Party of Malaysia MP, and Richard Downs, spokesperson for the Alyawarr People's Walk-off in the Northern Territory.
The Canterbury Bankstown Peace Group, with the Justice for Aafia Coalition, is calling for the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui. The Pakistani doctor was found guilty on February 3 of shooting US soldiers in July 2008, while in Afghan police custody.
Siddiqui was accused of being an Al Qaeda agent and has allegedly spent time in secret prisons in Pakistan and in the US prison in Guantanamo Bay. Despite this, she has not been charged with any terrorist offences but only with firearms offences allegedly committed during her capture.
Oliver Stone's new documentary about Latin America's leftward political shift and its growing independence from Washington is being lambasted by the media. This shouldn't come as a surprise as Stone calls out the mainstream media in his new film South of the Border for its mostly one-sided, distorted coverage of the region's political leaders 鈥 most significantly Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez .
Workers from Kennon Auto in Melbourne have not received a pay rise for the past three years. They stopped work on July 1 because their boss is refusing to negotiate a collective agreement.
The workers make parts for Toyota. They are ex-Nylex workers who had to fight to keep entitlements after Nylex went into receivership. Some of Nylex鈥檚 product lines were sold to Kennon Auto.
US-Palestinian professor Saree Makdisi and Canadian-Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu spoke on June 30 as part of a national tour to promote the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
At the public meeting, Makdisi compared laws in apartheid South Africa with those in Israel and said 鈥淭here are exact equivalent laws in Israel of all the African apartheid laws.鈥
He said the discrimination 鈥渂egins with kids entering day care and continues for the rest of their lives鈥.
When Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca and US assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela met at the start of June, it appeared that relations between the US and Bolivia were on the verge of being normalised following an 18-month diplomatic chill.
But hope for improved relations appeared to be dashed two weeks later when Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the US government-funded US Agency for International Development (USAID) of financing groups opposed to his government.
BRISBANE 鈥 Former Gold Coast-based Dr Mohamed Haneef is suing former Howard government immigration minister Kevin Andrews for defamation, the July 2 Courier Mail said.
Haneef is also making a separate claim against the federal government for unlawful arrest and misconduct in public office. Haneef was arrested in July 2007 after his mobile phone SIM card was linked to failed terror attacks in Britain.
He was charged under anti-terror laws and arrested, but was released after 25 days after the case collapsed. Andrews then cancelled Haneef鈥檚 visa.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard is enjoying a honeymoon in the polls since taking Kevin Rudd鈥檚 place. A July 2 Reuters Trend poll confirmed a series of polls since Gillard became PM on June 24, giving Labor the lead over the right-wing Coalition.
The June 26 Sydney Morning Herald said a Herald/Nielson poll found Greens support since Gillard took over had fallen from 15% to 8%.
But another crucial poll indicated the true nature of Gillard鈥檚 rise to power. As soon as she was installed as prime minister, the share price of the large mining corporations rose.
- Previous page
- Page 4
- Next page