Australia

Australia Day is celebration day for some.
Aborigines prefer to call it 'Invasion Day',
The day when Aborigines were put under the white man's thumb.

Although 200 years have come and gone,
Suffering amongst Aborigines goes on and on.

They thought that we would die out and fade away.
Have I got news for them!
Aborigines are definitely here to stay.

From certain areas of our land we are banned.
But our Aboriginal cirlce is getting bigger,
When we join in unison, hand in hand.

While others celebrate in high spirits we remember our dark history,

The image of kids in the water clinging to a dock, under a fire-red sky, captured the situation. The great Australian heat wave of 2013 also struck the southern-most part of the country, the island of Tasmania. Maybe this is the future anywhere trees grow, as global warming heats the planet.

Professor David Bowman is at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, teaching and researching Forest Ecology. He's a published expert on fire in the earth system.

Newsletter date: 21 January 2013

Contents:

* Gerry Georgatos, Indymedia Australia: 200 Aboriginal Maralinga victims denied compensation
* Background to Justice for Aboriginal victims of Maralinga nuclear tests

* Gerry Georgatos, Indymedia Australia: Goolarabooloo Law Bosses lift the ante in battle with Woodside over gas hub
* Background to Walmadan Tent Embassy, James Price Point, north of Broome, Kimberley Region, WA

* Gerry Georgatos, Indymedia Australia: Lobby restaurant incident - January 26, 2012 - Will Prime Minister Gillard finally admit the truth and apologise?

Gerry Georgatos
Maralinga’s and Emu Field’s long suffering Aboriginal victims of the British atomic tests have been told by lawyers that a class action for compensation would fail and that the fight in the courts is over because apparently it is impossible to adequately prove radiation from the atomic blasts specifically caused their illnesses and the premature deaths. Maralinga victim Yami Lester said this is “rubbish” and that his blindness was caused by nothing else other than the fallout from the blasts. He was a young child at the time.