HIROSHIMA DAY RALLY FOR PEACE AND A NUCLEAR FREE FUTURE
August 5, 2008
| August 9, 2008 | ||
| 1:00 pm |
Saturday August 9 th
1pm
State Library
NO URANIUM MINING
NO WAR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS
NO NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPS
More info about whats going on here http://www.nukefreeaus.org/
Micah Challenge - Offering Letters
August 4, 2008
An Offering of Letters
Micah Challenge is calling Christians all over Australia to pick up their pens to fight poverty. The “Offering of Letters” campaign asks churches and other Christian groups to prayerfully write a letter to the Prime Minister calling for compassion, generosity and justice for 1.2 billion people who live in extreme poverty. The letters will be delivered to Mr Rudd during the Micah Challenge National Gathering, Voices for Justice, in October.
In 2006, more than 1300 letters were sent to local MPs and they had a big impact. This year, we are encouraging Christians to write to the Prime Minister urging him to turn his words of support for the Millennium Development Goals into tangible action. It should take about 15 minutes to construct a hand-written letter letting him know that Christians care about poverty and injustice.
“The Offering of Letters can have a powerful and positive impact”, said Micah Challenge National Coordinator, Amanda Jackson. “We want every church, home group, theological college and school in Australia to be involved”.
The Chair of the Micah Challenge Steering Committee, Rev Paul Perini, is also urging Christians to make an Offering of Letters. “We can help save lives and offer hope to thousands of families if we take the time to write letters. I think God would want us to act”, he said.
The Offering of Letters kit for 2008 can be downloaded now at www.micahchallenge.org.au . It includes all the information you need to write a letter to the Prime Minister, as well as a sample letter and responsive prayer you can use with your group. You can also download a PowerPoint presentation that can be utilised to explain the campaign.
“Just as we offer our money and our time to God, we can also offer our voices on behalf of the voiceless” said Amanda Jackson. “This is part of our worship, and gives us the opportunity to ‘do justice and love kindness’ and take up the challenge of Micah 6:8”.
Join the celebrations
July 31, 2008
After campaigning with others on refugee and asylum seeker issues since 2001, TEAR, UCA, RAC, GetUp and all the rest can join the celebrations.
(Ben’s take from the tear network below)
The Immigration Minister has proposed changes to make detention of aslyum-seekers a last resort and put in place clear boundaries so that it cannot be indefinite and unreviewable.
Asylum seekers coming by boat to one of the places that the previous Government excised from Australia’s migration zone will now also have access to assistance and review of their cases – rights the former
policy stripped them of.
We are very supportive of the Government’s proposed changes. We hope and pray that we will never again see people (including many children) locked up for years, with all the associated mental and physical harm,
while they seek protection in Australia.
A new, humane policy
The Government has decided to take a risk-based approach to deciding whether an asylum seeker should be detained or not. If a person poses no danger to the community, they will be allowed to remain in the
community until their status is determined.
You can read the Minister for Immigration’s entire speech here
http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/speeches/2008/ce080729.htm
The Minister outlines the values that will inform the new policy as well as some of the practical details.
Children will not be detained in an immigration detention centre. People who arrive by boat at excised places, which include Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef, will be detained soley for health, identity and security checks. People who arrive by boat at excised places will now have access to legal assistance and an independent review of unfavourable decisions. Only people who pose a risk to the community or who have repeatedly refused to comply with their visa conditions will be detained. Once in detention, a detainee’s case will be reviewed every three months to ensure that further detention is justified.
Thank the Immigration Minister
Send an email now
Senator.Evans@aph.gov.au
thanking the Immigration Minister for these changes. Ask him to
make these policy changes law so that no future Government can return
to detaining children, or keeping people in detention indefinitely and
without review.
GetUp-Climatetorch Relay
July 29, 2008
To solve the climate crisis, we will need a movement unprecedented in Australia’s history. To mobilise this movement, GetUp has invented a new device to respond to the climate crisis. You can hold it in one hand. It combines solar power, a wind-turbine, and…. a lemon.
It’s our climate torch, designed exclusively for GetUp by the creators of the Sydney Olympic torch, and with your help we’ll take it to a hundred towns, cities and suburbs across Australia - before arriving in Canberra, where thousands of GetUp members will present it directly to Parliament. Click below to get a first glimpse of what it looks like, and to nominate your town to host it.
No government will ever soar higher than its citizens demand - and most will sink as low as we allow. Now more than ever we must demand this government soars above political spin and vested interests - high enough to provide the climate leadership we need over these coming months when Australia’s response to climate change will be locked in.
We have a vision for this torch relay. As it travels around Australia, GetUp members will collect tens of thousands of submissions to the government’s climate policy consultation: an unprecedented flood of public opinion. Our leaders need to hear from us - from your town, city and suburb - because industry lobbyists will win this fight if we don’t.
After nominating your area you can volunteer to run the torch, or help organise the torch leg in your town. We can only bring the torch to your town if it will be supported on the ground, so register your help today!
To a renewable future,
The GetUp! team
Olympic Protest Flares - Action
July 24, 2008
| August 8, 2008 |
Urban climbers, city mountaineers - your time has come!
I though this may combine some interests of our friends.
There is a “final ignition” planned for the 8th August to coincide with the lighting of the Olympic torch to begin the Olympics in China. Basically lighting red flares from peaks, landmark and monuments to protest China’s poor human rights record and its occupation of Tibet.
“We shall make these monuments talk the language of smoke, “the evanescent color of blood”, on the day on which the olympic torch, a double-headed symbol of peace and hypocrisy, will light the Peking Olympics. At exactly sixty years from the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the repression of Tibet during an event of world-wide interest has become the symbol of failure and betrayal on behalf of international governments: the principles then ratified have been and are still, more or less diplomatically, denied.
My friends and I in unison with other French activists, will move near, on sight, on top of, beneath, besides… the Eiffel Tower, in the heart of the city where UNESCO has it’s general headquarters, in a city that more than any other one has consigned culture and intelligence to the fundamental freedoms of man. Other cities throughout the world, mountains, hills, scenic areas, natural or urban sites are there, available, in their unchangeable locations, waiting. For You.”
http://www.sadsmokymountains.net/
avvaz action - darfur
July 21, 2008
Dear friends,
On Monday, the International Criminal Court indicted Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir for genocide. He is charged with killing hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan and its Darfur region, and corralling the surviving women and girls into terrifying camps where they are being quietly and systematically raped until their peoples are destroyed.
In response, Al Bashir’s regime is threatening more terror against Darfurians and the UN, and appealing to powerful international friends who buy oil from and sell weapons to Sudan to give him protection. Al Bashir knows that he will be caught only if other governments, especially Arab and African governments, agree to help the International Criminal Court (for example by arresting him when he travels abroad).
Targeting Al Bashir is our best hope to end the terror of Darfur’s rape camps, and take a major step forward for international justice. Many of Sudan’s neighbours are Muslim countries where rape is a scandalous crime – and Al Bashir’s henchmen have killed and raped thousands of Muslim women. To raise awareness of this, Avaaz is launching a large regional ad campaign, urging leaders to help the ICC. Our ads will run in just a few days, and a full page ad in an Egyptian newspaper is just 3000Euros($5000), so we need just 50,000 Euros ($75,000) to get our message across. Click below to help:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_darfur
TAFE should be for everyone
July 14, 2008
Lots of people from all backgrounds at some stage in their life access TAFE education. There are TAFE programs in schools. People wanting to change career often go to TAFE to skill up. It is generally a cheaper and more supportive option that benefits disadvantaged people like Indigenous Australians and rural students.
The Victorian Government is seriously considering increasing fees to TAFE as well introducing more competition between TAFE providers- which could mean less accessibility and less money going to your local TAFE.
avaaz action - zimbabwe chance for peace
July 4, 2008
Dear Friends
After a violence-ridden, sham ‘election’ last Friday, Robert Mugabe has declared himself President of Zimbabwe. Ominous reports of a massive crackdown on all his opponents are circulating. The fate of the country now hangs on negotiations between Mugabe and the legitimate winner of the first round election — Morgan Tsvangirai.
If governments around the world refuse to recognize Mugabe, and strongly push other governments to do the same, his position will be weakened, and he could be pressured into agreeing to a deal with Tsvangirai that reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people. There’s still hope to save Zimbabwe, but every day of silence strengthens Mugabe’s position.
So far only a few governments have refused to recognize Mugabe as President — we urgently need to turn this trickle into a flood, this week. Click below to send a personalized message directly to your head of state or foreign minister, and forward this email to others who could help:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/zimbabwe_chance_for_peace/7.php?cl=104432855
Urgent help needed - Meryem Özsögüt
July 1, 2008
Urgent help needed - Meryem Özsögüt
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
The Turkish government has jailed a woman trade unionist, Meryem Özsögüt, and has kept her in detention for nearly six months. LabourStart – the international work justice website has called on supporters and people of good will to give Meryem our much needed help. Meryem is a leader of the public sector union SES, and Public Services International (PSI) has launched a big online campaign demanding her release.
For more details and to add your signature, please click here now
This campaign will not take off, and we will not secure Meryem’s release, unless we can mobilize thousands of concerned people from around the world. Please do what you can to help this campaign go to lots of people that you know — forward it to other email lists, feel free to post information on church-related websites, use Facebook and blogs to spread the word …
Posted in Just Stuff
avaaz action - save zimbabwe
June 24, 2008
On Friday, 27th June, Zimbabwe will hold a cruel sham of a vote for President. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has just withdrawn from the run-off — not in a concession of victory, but rather in recognition that Mugabe’s campaign of violence and terror has erased any hope for a democratic election.
But against the odds, hope survives. Amidst growing international pressure, Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and the opposition have entered private talks. A unity government may be possible yet.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously held on Monday that free and fair elections are now impossible in Zimbabwe. The UN Secretary-General spoke out. But it is African leaders, most of all Thabo Mbeki, who hold the key. Even Mugabe cannot cling to power without their cooperation. Today, we’re launching an emergency campaign, petitioning these leaders to call an immediate summit, isolate Mugabe, and broker a legitimate government for Zimbabwe. Our call will be published in big newspaper advertisements in South Africa, Tanzania, Angola, and Mozambique this week — click here to see the ads and endorse their message:
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