Socialist Party member Anthony Main on January 11 became the second socialist elected to the City of Yarra council.
The Labor mayor for Yarra, Jane Garrett, resigned after she was elected to state parliament in November. This left a vacancy on the council, which Main has filled.
He was elected after a count back of votes tallied at the last council election.
Main told Â鶹ӳ» Weekly that of the nine councillors, three are Greens, two are Labor, two are right-wing independents and, now, two are socialists.
865
A fresh federal government inquiry was announced on January 14 into the alleged torture of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib.
This follows the release of independent evidence supporting Habib’s claims and the recent undisclosed compensation settlement the Australian government made with him in December.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard had asked the inspector-general of intelligence and security Vivienne Thom to conduct the inquiry after new evidence was presented supporting Habib’s allegations that Australian officials were involved in his torture in Egypt in 2001.
When I met Kathir (not his real name), in the maximum security stage of Villawood Detention Centre just before Christmas, he had been on hunger strike for five weeks.
The Tamil refugee from Sri Lanka was protesting against ASIO’s negative security clearance assessment of his asylum claim. This assessment — made entirely in secret — allows him to be held indefinitely.
Hundreds of people attended the funeral service of Mavis Mary Moore on January 21. May, as she was known, passed away on January 17, aged 86. She lived a life dedicated to social justice and caring for friends, community and family.
Unionist Paddy Gorman delivered the eulogy. He said: “May was a remarkable woman, one of a kind, who inspired many. She and husband Fred were a formidable team in the struggle for workers’ rights and social justice.
“May believed in equality for all and had complete contempt for the rich and powerful who exploited working people.”
Lawyers for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange have accused Swedish authorities of secretly planning to extradite him to the US as soon as it has built a criminal case against him.
Lawyer Mark Stephens told the media on January 12: “We are hearing that the Swedish are prepared to drop the rape charges against Julian as soon as the Americans demand his extradition.”
Ten-year-old Tamil refugee Brindha faces deportation to Sri Lanka after being rejected by the immigration department, the January 3 Australian said.
In March 2010, she told Â鶹ӳ» Weekly the International Organisation for Migration was treating refugees “like animals”.
At the time, she was onboard the Jaya Lestari, a boat packed with 254 Tamil asylum seekers who had tried to reach Australia for protection from persecution.
People who grew up in Queensland can tell you about the afternoon storms that heralded the start of summer. Like clockwork, shortly after the kids finished school, the clouds would start to gather.
And then that strange quiet, before a great gust of wind would send leaves swirling and branches swaying. And then the rain would come.
Huge droplets of rain that would smash down for maybe an hour, maybe more — and then it was over.
Sure enough the next day it would come again — the monsoonal downpours that would cool everything down after a sweltering summer’s day.
Welcome to another year of Â鶹ӳ» Weekly, a proudly independent voice committed to democratic, investigative journalism.
2010 ended on a high note as Wikileaks and Julian Assange showed what true journalism is: exposing the abuses of power that hide behind the veil of government secrecy.
Assange was demonised by much of the mainstream media as a “criminal” and a “terrorist”, but the US and other governments could not defend their real crimes, which were exposed by the Wikileaks cables.
A number of Wikileaks revelations have shown that US officials, despite their public stance, have been well aware of corruption and human rights abuses of regimes it has supported. In some cases, the US funded these regimes and trained their military.
* * *
Indonesia
A leaked September 2009 US cable indicates that US officials are aware that in West Papua, the Indonesian military (TNI) are responsible for serious human rights abuses and corruption.
The governments of Australia and Afghanistan have struck a deal to send back rejected Afghan asylum seekers against their will.
Australia promised $5.8 million to the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai to “improve the passport system” and fund resettlement, but has been condemned for neglecting the interests of refugees themselves.
Immigration minister Chris Bowen signed the deal with a minister of the corrupt Karzai regime on January 17. Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation Dr Jamaher Anwary was in Sydney to take part in talks on “people smuggling”.
Marrickville Council has stayed firm in the face of criticism for its recent decision to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid in Palestine.
The council passed a Greens-initiated motion to support the BDS campaign on December 14.
The significance of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks can be measured by the hysterical and panicked response of the powerful to it.
Wikileaks’ ongoing release of thousands of secret US government cables and other secret documents is being met with outrage, assassination threats, censorship, a corporate boycott and legal action.
Much of this has centred on Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange. The allegations of sex crimes (for which no charges have yet been laid) have been used to hound him through the courts.
- Previous page
- Page 4
- Next page