Ten years of Western military occupation and war in Afghanistan has killed hundreds of thousands of people (mostly Afghan civilians), created millions of refugees and paid of 鈥渁id鈥 into the hands of brutal warlords who serve as a puppet regime for the occupiers.
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The Perth Magistrates Court has grouped a 16-year-old boy to stand trial on charges of people smuggling with two men he has never met and who were not even on the same boat.
The boy told WA-based human rights activist Gerry Georgatos he was born in 1995. From a poor family, he was hired to fish on a boat going from Indonesia to Australia. He said the immigration department insisted he was born in 1991 on the basis of a wrist x-ray. They had not contacted his mother.
Evidently we are making progress as a nation in addressing the Indigenous development problem.
On February 9, the prime minister delivered the Closing the Gap Prime Minister鈥檚 Report 2011. Progress is apparently happening: not according to any statistics, but to the powerful government public relations machine.
In fact, the prime minister could provide little evidence about gap closing, except to tell us that the statistics are not readily available despite a commitment of nearly $50 million to this task.
It was a good thing when 14 Labor members of the Western Australian parliament and the federal member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke, publicly voiced their disgust that unaccompanied children would be sent to Malaysia as part of the Labor federal government鈥檚 refugee swap.
The claptrap used to sell this cruel and illogical farce is deservedly collapsing in on itself.
Federal Labor鈥檚 contradictory flip-flopping on this issue has been excruciating to watch. It鈥檚 not guided by any rational policy making, but political imagery.
Opposed to carbon tax
I am a committed greenie, but I was not one of the thousands who rallied on the weekend.
I am opposed to the carbon tax because it hurts the poor and lines the pockets of the rich, without doing anything real for the climate.
Just 10% of this tax is earmarked for funding for renewable energy, with more than this amount (the government is very coy about the exact figure) to be given to the biggest polluters, as 鈥渃ompensation鈥. This is just business as usual 鈥 lots of money for the worst polluters and a few crumbs for renewables.
There are alternatives to the federal government鈥檚 NT intervention into Aboriginal communities, and some of the key ones have been brought together in a new statement that has won the support of Aboriginal community leaders and other groups and individuals.
The statement, 鈥淩ebuilding from the Ground Up: An Alternative to the NT Intervention鈥, is available on the .
New and contradictory details of the Australia-Malaysia refugee exchange have been brought to light, as the federal Labor government grows closer to sealing the fate of up to 800 asylum seekers.
"Since May 15, tens of thousands of young Spaniards calling themselves los indignados (the indignant) have been camping out in at least 80 city centres and towns, and are protesting daily," Socialist Alliance activist Liam Flenady told a June 7 91自拍论坛 Weekly forum.
鈥淭he movement goes under various names: 隆Democracia Real Ya! (Real Democracy Now!), 15-M and even The Spanish Revolution, and its initial call was: 鈥楻eal democracy now. We are not merchandise in the hands of the politicians and bankers!鈥."
As part of a nationwide day of action, more than 1000 people marched on the Victorian parliament on June 8 to fight for state and federal governments to back their claim for increased wages.
The Melbourne rally was one of 17 across the country, organised by the Australian Services Union (ASU), which advocates for workers in the female-dominated community services sector.
The national day of action comes as a response to Fair Work Australia鈥檚 finding that the sector鈥檚 workers were not being payed enough, in part, because most of them are women.
A bill attacking the rights of NSW public sector workers pushed by the O鈥橣arrell Coalition government are set to pass through the upper house on June 14, with the support of Fred Nile鈥檚 Christian Democrats and the Shooters Party.
It can then be put through the Liberal dominated lower house on June 15.
The anti-union bill is a draconian measure. If passed, it will give the state government the power to unilaterally set the wages and conditions of public sector workers.
Melbourne's largest feminist conference in more than a decade, the Feminist Futures Conference, took place over May 28-29.
The conference was organised by the newly-formed Melbourne Feminist Collective (MFC), a group of mainly young activists who were inspired by a similar conference they attended in Sydney last year.
In the lead-up to the conference, a debate between the radical feminist supporters of Melbourne lecturer Sheila Jeffreys and the sex worker supporters of Elena Jeffreys broke out on the conference blogsite.
The Victorian government has proposed a new law that will allow police to give on-the-spot fines for 鈥渋ndecent, offensive or disorderly language鈥.
In response, a protest has been organised at 2pm, June 25 at Melbourne鈥檚 Flinders St Station. By June 11, more than 10,000 people had said on that they would attend the 鈥淔uckwalk鈥.
Below, protest organisers explain the politics behind Fuckwalk.
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