Newswire

Today, almost 50 activists have taken action at four sites across Australia to protest Harvey Norman’s sale of wood products sourced from native forest destruction. Four activists have been arrested.

‘Australia’s world class native forests are in crisis. The Last Stand has taken action today to say No Harvey No! From the forest floor to a Harvey Norman store, activists across Australia have taken a stand to stop the chain of forest destruction’ said Ula Majewski, spokesperson for The Last Stand.

Newsletter date: 23 August 2011

Contents:
* Book launch: "Walk With Us" - Aboriginal views on the NT Intervention
* Research review: 'Does new evidence from NT women undermine supposed benefits of income management?'
* Interview with Equality Rights Alliance's Emma Davidson
* Upcoming Aboriginal rights events around Australia - 22 events from 23 August 2011
* Muckaty Voices and Our Generation screening at 'Down Under Berlin - Australian Film Festival'
* Background to the Northern Territory (NT) Intervention

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ALLIANCE MEDIA RELEASE:

http://www.thewire.org.au/audio/WWindoprison.mp3 (ABC radio interview)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvkSjO_byLg (DRUM interview)

The HRA has put out a call for a long overdue National Inquiry into the Commonwealth of Australia's incarceration of children in Adult Prisons - under age Indonesians, impoverished children, near one hundred, probably more than 100, with the AFP confirming at least 60 'age disputes'.

The Wilderness Society of Victoria reports on its website that Reflex Paper has been stripped of its Forest Stewardship Council rating because of its use of native forests in Victoria's Central Highlands. This is a boost to the campaign to protect these forests and force Reflex and their corpoate customers like Officework to stop loggin our forests. It is also a boost to local campaigns such as the fight to save Sylivia Creek and Cement Creek currently being fought in Victoria.

What is being called for in the latest report, A New Approach - Breaking The Stalemate on Refugees and Asylum Seekers and undersigned by various celebrities and identities has been long called for by various experts and other witnesses to the Australian Detention Centre experience.

On Saturday 20th August, about 100 protestors crowded the King St footpath as they marched from the Newtown community centre passing inquisitive customers and shopkeepers while pressing Boycott Max Brenner leaflets into their hands for the four or five hundred metres to confront the Max Brenner shop while chanting with full force, “Max Brenner you can’t hide, you support genocide.”

NORWAY ATTACKS/RESULT OF EXTREME RIGHT POPULISM IN EUROPE

INTRODUCTION:

Dear Editor and readers

Hereby I present to you my article about the Norway massacre
It is dedicated to them, who were killed, defending basic human rights, that all men are created free and equal and have the same rights
It urges us to continue their struggle

I quote Olav Magnus Linge [Norway's Socialist Youth]

“For all dead comrades, not a minute's silence, but a life of struggle."

May they rest in peace

Kind greetings

Astrid Essed
Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Melbourne’s Sudanese community will protest Saturday August 20 against a little-known massacre of people from the Nuba Mountains region of southern Kordofan in Sudan. Nuba community leader and Shepparton resident Haroun Kafi said today that “the conflict in the Nuba Mountains hasn’t been in the mainstream media because the government of Sudan has prevented journalists and UN staff had been prevented from accessing the Nuba Mountains.”

As a show of solidarity with the Chilean students in struggle, a handful of people (18-20) gathered today outside the Chilean Consulate in St Kilda Road, Melbourne. We delivered a letter to the Consulate, signed by various groups and individuals from across Australia, outlining our support for the students’ demands and concerns about the repressive actions of the Chilean State.