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Ninety people crowded into the Redfern Community Centre on June 25 to hear traditional owners, environmentalists and Aboriginal rights activists explain their concern about federal government plans to set up a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. It was the last event of the “From the Heart, For the Heartland” national speaking tour.
The Killalea State Recreation Park between Shellharbour and Kiama comprises 250 hectares of Crown land on 8km of coastline renowned for its surf beaches.
On June 26, 50 inner-west film fanatics gathered inside the Petersham Bowling Club to revive another 16mm film print from the National Film and Sound Archives — a place so far immune from attack in the “history wars”.
On June 22, 80 people attended a World Refugee Day forum organised by Project Safecom at the Fremantle Navy club entitled “Why the boats must come”.
She stood out at the table crowded by journalists and onlookers who kept entering the room. Her white hat with an intricate band of weaving shadowed her face as she spoke out in the constituent assembly’s Vision of the Country commission: “I will never forget how they killed our ancestors like Tupac Katari [an indigenous rebel leader], the way indigenous people have been treated like fleas, discriminated, excluded. That is why we are here, to call for profound change. We need a state that is plural, made up of many nations. But you, the slaves of multinationals, want no change at all.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that of the 46 million pregnancies terminated each year, some 19 million occur outside the legal system. Most of these illegal abortions are unsafe — performed by unskilled providers, or in unhygienic conditions, or both. Each year, an estimated 68,000 women die as a consequence of unsafe abortions.
On June 26, federal education minister Julie Bishop announced a new board to draft a new national Australian history curriculum. Among the draftees are conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey and right-wing commentator Gerard Henderson. This is the Howard government enforcing its own racist ideology on history teaching.
Jasmine Ali was found not guilty on June 26 on charges relating to her involvement in a February 22 protest against US Vice-President Dick Cheney. The same day that she appeared before the court, the NSW government’s APEC Meeting (Policing Powers) Bill passed unamended through the NSW upper house. Ali was the second of two Cheney protesters to win court cases. There are six more trials to take place.
According to a June 25 Venezuelanalysis.com report, the formation of the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has entered a new phase. Officials and party militants had met in Caracas the previous weekend at the “National Meeting of Candidates for PSUV Militants in Caracas”. According to the report, “Record numbers of Venezuelans have registered to be members of the new party” and the grassroots process of forming the PSUV “continues with wide participation”.
In a June 25 joint statement issued with his Australians All co-patron and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) chairperson Lowitja O’Donoghue, former Coalition PM Malcolm Fraser attacked the Howard government’s June 21 announcement that it was taking control of 60 Aboriginal communities in remote areas of the Northern Territory as a “throwback to past paternalism”.
An Indigenous man died in custody in Queensland on June 26. The death came a week after police officer Chris Hurley was found not guilty of the assault and manslaughter of Indigenous man Mulrunji on Palm Island in 2004.
In a move reminiscent to the 1947-89 Cold War, on June 15 Washington imposed a series of restrictions on the export to China of high-tech goods, including aircraft engines, high-performance computers and other technologies that might have military applications.