Public opposition has prevented the expansion of coal mining in south-west Victoria.
鈥淢ore than 250 residents gathered in the Deans Marsh town hall last night to question the managing director of Mantle Mining, Ian Kraemer, over the plan to explore for brown coal, south-east of Colac,鈥 the ABC said on July 28.
鈥淭he company had wanted to explore a 500 square kilometre area in the region. However, residents feared mining would damage the environment and lower property values.鈥
890
As the United States prepares itself for the approaching 2012 presidential election, voters in primaries to select the Republican candidate find themselves inundated by a selection of arch-conservative contenders vying for the opportunity to seize the nomination.
Guided by 鈥淕od鈥, free-market economics and corporate tax cuts, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, darling of the right-wing Tea Party, appears at the forefront of such arch-conservative efforts to enter the White House and set in motion an uncompromising far-right agenda.
Friends of Palestine (WA) member Alex Bainbridge wrote the letter of complaint that appears below to the producers of The Bolt Report and Network Ten after a segment on the show tried to link the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid with the racist measures taken against Jewish businesses by the Hitler regime in the 1930s.
Bainbridge said the claim was a dishonest attempt by opponents of Palestinian human rights to discredit the BDS movement as public interest and support for BDS continues to increase.
* * *
The article below is an abridged August 2 editorial from .
* * *
If your eyes are glazing over at the large numbers and the complicated mechanics of the deal to cut US$2.1 trillion from the United States federal budget over the next decade, here鈥檚 a short summary of the agreement: Screw the sick, poor and the elderly while imposing a permanently lower standard of living for working people, all while helping bankers and the rich grab a greater share of society鈥檚 wealth.
Federal riot police have the go-ahead to use Tasers, tear gas, batons, capsicum spray and handcuffs to force refugees onto a flight to Malaysia from Christmas Island. Immigration officials say they will film the ordeal to put online as a 鈥減otent message鈥 to other refugees.
The first asylum seekers to undergo this ordeal arrived in Australian waters less than a week after the 鈥淢alaysia solution鈥 came into effect. A boat carrying 55 Afghan, Iranian and Iraqi refugees was intercepted near Scott Reef on July 31.
More than one third of the asylum seekers on the boat are children.
The NSW government was evasive for several days on whether it would allow uranium exploration and mining, banned since 1986.
This followed the call by federal resources minister Martin Ferguson in May for NSW and Victoria to rethink their uranium mining bans.
Premier Barry O鈥橣arrell and resources minister Chris Hartcher finally said on August 5 they would not overturn the uranium mining ban.
In mid-June, Hartcher met the chief executive of the Australian Uranium Association Michael Angwin, who is lobbying to overturn the ban, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
Mark Goudkamp from the Sydney Refugee Action Coalition, Gleny Rae, a participant in the SBS series Go Back Where You Came From, and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young addressed the biggest meeting supporting asylum seekers seen in Newcastle since the Howard era on August 4.
Goudkamp said 54 asylum seekers, 19 of them children, had recently arrived by boat on Christmas Island. They had not yet been told they would be sent to Malaysia. 鈥淭he media reports extra riot police have been sent there,鈥 Goudkamp said. 鈥淏ut the government is saying they have counsellors on hand.鈥
A coalition of groups in New South Wales came together in June to campaign against the federal government鈥檚 plan to introduce income management for welfare recipients in the Sydney suburb of Bankstown.
The , called 鈥淪ay no to government鈥檚 income management: not in Bankstown, not anywhere鈥, released the open letter below on July 27.
* * *
To ministers Tanya Plibersek and Jenny Macklin and to the local federal members for Banks, Blaxland and Watson.
The grassroots campaign for a community driven council in Wollongong is well underway, as the election approaches on September 3.
Community Voice is standing a full ticket across all three local wards including Michael Organ, former Greens MP for Cunningham, for mayor.
Organ is a local historian and environmental activist. He has been actively involved in campaigns to save Sandon Point and Wollongong's Regent Theatre. He is also part of the recent campaign to secure land at Hill 60 for preservation and public ownership.
John Bellamy Foster, the keynote speaker at the upcoming 鈥 to be held in Melbourne from September 30 to October 3 鈥 is the co-author (with Fred Magdoff) of a newly published book: .
About 40% of new Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients may be ruled ineligible as the federal Labor government updates the tables for the assessment of work-related impairment for DSP.
Community services minister Jenny Macklin said on July 30 that the revised impairment tables will be implemented from January 1 next year and will apply to new recipients only. This is the first review of the DSP impairment tables since 1993.
The ALP is the party for ordinary Australians, right?
Resistance members will often talk about the importance of political movements being independent of political parties, but what does this mean for the ALP?
Isn鈥檛 the ALP Australia鈥檚 party of progress? And surely they are better then the Tories? Isn鈥檛 it our party?
Well, it is a party that鈥檚 designed for progressives, unionists and activists, but that doesn鈥檛 mean that it's ours. If you look at its history, the ALP has attracted progressive people but rarely helped create change.
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page