Global/International

There are near one hundred of the world's most impoverished children incarcerated, whether on remand or sentenced, in Australian adult prisons. The brunt of these numbers are in Western Australian adult prisons.

The 100 children are part of the perceived people smugglers, cooks and deckhands - and do not include the many Indonesian fisherpeople also incarcerated for fishing in excised waters - we need to review the cases of the 500 Indonesian folk, perceived people smugglers and fisherpeople damned to Australian prisons in the last few years.

In solidarity with the Occupy Wall street protest that has been occurring in New York for the last 4 weeks, Occupy Protests occurred in capital cities around Australia and Asia today.

In Australia protests were organised in Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, with some of these setting up occupation sites for overnight and longer. Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the divide between the rich and poor is growing with the rich getting even richer, according to this ABC report.

Indonesian security forces shot and killed one protestor and injured more than a dozen others as they clashed with striking workers at Freeport’s Grasberg mine in Indonesian controlled West Papua this week.

The Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) today asserted that Philippine Airlines (PAL) President Jaime Bautista’s announcement that they no longer acknowledge Gerry Rivera and Bong Palad as union officers exposes union busting as the real aim of outsourcing. “Truly a fish is caught by its mouth. Actually PAL is not just recognizing me and Palad as union officers but 62% of PALEA’s leadership and 70% of its membership who have been illegally lockout and terminated.