Critical Times

Source: Green Left

by Simon Butler
13 February 2010

The December 7-18 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen was supposed to “seal a global deal” to tackle climate change. It failed miserably.

A number of commentators have put forward a simple explanation: China did it.

Click on the link below to view the video, “Unmineable Minds” on YouTube. It is a plea to save Arkaroola from the devastation of mining this world heritage geological feature of South Australia.

http://www.

Source: St Clair Reserve Ratepayers Association

Feb 9th, 2010
by Jenny.

What a busy year 2010 is shaping up to be for us!

We are surrounded by lots of political activity and media news at this time with our forthcoming State election. Our continuing efforts to save St Clair are being referenced in the press/media along with Cheltenham and other related matters.

Last year Alyawarr leader Richard Downs led his Alyawarr people in a walk-off from their community town of Ampilatwatja, about 300 kilometres from Alice Springs in central Australia.

They were protesting about the terrible housing and the lack of action to assist them in the wake of the racist Federal Government “intervention” in the Northern Territory.

Richard Downs says the Alyawarr are becoming sick from living in tin houses which are ankle-deep in sewage.

by Renfrey Clarke

How to sum up the Liberal Party’s “direct action” scheme for global warming mitigation? Well, how about “a fraud wrapped in demagogy inside a delusion”?

The delusion is that the measures outlined in the scheme would represent a meaningful contribution by Australia to saving nature and humanity from climate change.

The demagogy lies in the decision by the Liberals to issue the policy even though many of them – if not most – remain unconvinced that global warming is even a problem. Opposition leader Tony Abbott assured a meeting in country Victoria last October that climate change was “absolute crap”.

Source: Socialist Aotearoa

Commentary: Omar Hamed, Socialist Aotearoa, Wellington Branch

Despite selling out every night it screens at the cinema on Courtney Place and becoming the highest grossing film of all time, few have picked up on Avatar’s blatant allusions to the historical drama of Bougainville that happened on New Zealand’s doorstep thirteen years ago. The films names, plot and characters are almost direct references to the 1997 Bougainville crisis yet no one seems to have drawn the dots between science fiction and south Pacific fact. Until now.

Source: Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney

On February 13, 2010 there will be a national day of action against the NT Intervention and for Aboriginal rights.

This will mark the 2nd anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations, when Prime Minister Rudd committed the government to, “a future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again”.

But ongoing NT Intervention policies reek of the same paternalism and commitment to assimilation that created the Stolen Generations.

Source: The Guardian
by Bob Briton

The federal government’s long term plans for public education took a giant leap forward last week with the release of school test data on the “My School” website. It crashed shortly afterwards following what the government insists was a rush of visits from interested parents. Education Minister Julia Gillard was at pains to point out in the weeks and months leading up to the launch that it would not rank schools in a league table of achievement in the Commonwealth’s NAPLAN testing.

Written by ILPS Info Bureau
Sunday, 15 November 2009

From: Saibaba G N

PART 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rygJzzutBOg

PART 2

http://www.