The released the statement below on April 20.
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In the space of a few days, 350 Toyota workers, including some who have spent decades working for the company, have been axed in appalling scenes at the Altona plant, west of Melbourne.
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At the insistence of the United States and Canada, Cuba was excluded from the Sixth Summit of the Americas, an intergovernmental conference held in Cartagena, Colombia, over April 14-15.
As a result of opposition from many Latin American nations over Cuba's exclusion, as well as Argentina's claim to sovereignty over the Malvinas (Falklands) islands, the summit ended with no final declaration signed.
The summit, involving all nations in the Americas except Cuba, is ostensibly designed to facilitate dialogue, understanding and cooperation between nations of the region.
In his notorious April 11 speech, , shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said that if the Liberal-Nationals were elected to federal government they would slash Australia's already battered welfare system.
鈥淭he Age of Entitlement is over,鈥 Hockey said with a sly smirk.
鈥淲e should not take this as cause for despair. What we have seen is that the market is mandating policy changes that common sense and years of lectures from small government advocates have failed to achieve.鈥
Over the past few years it appears that debate and conflict about climate policy has dominated Australian politics. But the appearance is different to the reality.
There is no serious debate between the two big parties about climate change. A serious debate would be grounded in the climate science, which says we must move to a zero carbon economy at emergency speed.
In recent weeks, a boat with more than 120 refugees was forced back to Indonesia under Australian orders, 10 Falun Gong members from China docked at Darwin鈥檚 wharves and another boat made several distress calls to Australia before vanishing.
The first boat was on its way to Christmas Island when it began taking on water. A Singapore-flagged ship rescued the 120 Afghan and Iranian refugees onboard and took them back to Merak, Indonesia.
One of the big challenges facing Cuba as it designs climate change adaptation policies is the preservation of its coastal ecosystems against the predicted rise in sea level and increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events.
With the country鈥檚 5500 kilometre of coastline and 4000 cays and islets, almost everyone on the Cuban archipelago feels their life is tied to the sea in one way or another.
鈥淚t鈥檚 lovely, but it is also dangerous,鈥 said 78-year-old Teresa Marcial, who lives on the coast in Santa Fe, in the northern outskirts of Havana.
Right now, there is an opportunity to slash Australia鈥檚 carbon emissions by 5 million tonnes a year in one stroke. The city of Port Augusta in South Australia has all the right conditions to make it Australia鈥檚 first baseload renewable energy hub.
The two coal-fired power stations at Port Augusta are getting old. Industry experts say they may be forced to close as soon as 2015.
Mental health workers have been striking for two hours at a time in rolling stoppages around Victoria since April 10. The campaign is in support of a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
Key elements of the claim include a 16% pay rise over three years and improved staffing.
After seven months of negotiation, the government has still not budged on its position of capping pay rises at a below-inflation 2.5% a year.
The union covering mental health workers, the Health and Community Service Union (HACSU), has negotiated with the employers via Fair Work Australia.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) was forced into compulsory arbitration in December over the primary Victorian Public Service Agreement (VPS), but continues to campaign on several other agreements.
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There is still no outcome of the compulsory arbitration from the VPS, which covers 30,000 state public servants.
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For agencies such as the Victorian SES, parliament and parks, enterprise bargaining agreements expired mid-last year. But negotiations were stalled because the government still insists on a cap of 2.5% a year on public sector pay rises.
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Another week, another atrocity committed by occupying forces in Afghanistan kindly captured on camera by the perpetrators.
Isn't technology fantastic? Back in the bad old days of the Vietnam War, intrepid war reporters had to risk their lives in the middle of war zones to get images of terrible crimes committed by the occupying force. Now, with these wonderful smart phones and cheap, easy to use digital cameras, the bastards can do it themselves.
About 240 people attended a forum on 鈥淲ikileaks, Assange & defending democracy鈥 on April 19.
Presented in partnership with the WikiLeaks Australian Citizens' Alliance (WACA), the forum argued that conversations about WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange are about much more than the organisation and the individual behind it. They encompass freedom of speech and the press, whistleblower protection, government transparency, the underlying tenets of our democracy and civil rights.聽
Supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange protested outside the Sydney Convention Centre on April 20 as Attorney General Nicola Roxon spoke inside at the Commonwealth Regional Law conference.
Earlier, three activists entered the conference venue and chanted slogans in support of Assange outside the room where Roxon was speaking. They continued for about 10 minutes before they were asked to leave.
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