On May 21, Cuban President Fidel Castro condemned the British Navy’s purchase of a new nuclear attack submarine, saying it illustrates “the sophisticated weaponry being used to maintain the unsustainable order developed by the imperial system of the United States”. According to British military officials, the HMS Astute — which will be launched on June 8 — and two further submarines to be purchased, will each cost US$7.2 billion. “The most surprising thing is that with that sum, 75,000 doctors could be trained to attend to 150 million people”, Castro noted.
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Australia has long been known as one of the most wasteful countries in the world: per head of population we are second only to the US in the amount of waste we pile into landfills.
A new weekly left newspaper, antidot, has been launched in the German speaking part of Switzerland. The first issue appeared on May 1. The paper is published by a collective, the “antidot Verein”, comprising a broad spectrum of individuals and organisations, including a branch of the Greens, a branch of the Workers’ Party (PdA), the Socialist Alternative (SolidariteS), ATTAC Switzerland, anarchist organisations and others. The newspaper aims to provide an antidote to mainstream media and a forum for discussion among the social, environmental and political movements and groups on the left in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Visit .
BRISBANE — “Australia is the only Western democracy without human rights legislation”, James Whelan from Amnesty International told a public forum attended by 50 people on May 23.
A group of Rohingya people, a Muslim ethnic minority from western Burma’s Arakan state, is being held indefinitely at the Australian government detention centre on Nauru.
NEWCASTLE — More than 30 people attended a speak-out to express solidarity with the Pine Gap Four at the Hamilton’s Clocktower on May 25. One of the Pine Gap Four, Donna Mulhearn, is a well-known peace activist in the Hunter region. She was among those arrested after successfully carrying out a “citizens’ inspection” of Pine Gap on December 9, 2005. Their trial goes to court shortly.
On May 23, a group of traditional landowners of the Yuin people served an eviction notice on Forests NSW, demanding the immediate cessation of logging in the Bodalla State Forest.
Friends of the Earth (FoE) has expressed concern after the Northern Land Council nominated a site at Muckaty, near Tennant Creek, for a proposed nuclear waste dump.
The City of Sydney Council wants to limit the distribution of printed material, something that Cameron Murphy, president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCLL), believes may violate the constitutionally implied right to freedom of political communication.
On the June 2-3 weekend, hundreds of people from around NSW will gather at the site of the proposed Anvil Hill mega-coalmine in the Upper Hunter Valley to protest their opposition to the state government and coal companiesÂ’ push to expand the coal industry. ItÂ’s expected that NSW planning minister Frank Sartor will decide whether to approve the mine very soon.
Organising is underway for demonstrations during the APEC summit, which PM John Howard is hosting in Sydney on September 8-9 and which US President George Bush and other “world leaders” will be attending. The Stop Bush collective is organising a convergence for September 8, aiming to draw people onto the streets to protest against the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. The protest will also call for urgent action to stop environmental destruction and for the defence of workers’ rights.
“There are two big issues in this dispute: the right of academics to free speech and the question of QUT [Queensland University of Technology] conducting unethical research”, left-wing academic Dr Gary MacLennan told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly on May 24.
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