Annan calls for urgent action over Sudan

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has opened a special session of the Security Council in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

It is the first time in 14 years that the UN Security Council has met outside New York.

The ambassadors have arrived in Nairobi for a special session on Sudan.

Mr Annan opened the meeting, calling on the Sudanese Government and southern rebels to end Sudan's 21 year civil war.

"The time for this decision is now, there is no time to waste," he said.

The rebels and the Government are confident of reaching an agreement.

The Security Council is also expected to discuss the separate conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.

The two day meeting will finish later today.

By In Solidarity 19 November 04

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Violence hinders Sudan aid efforts

The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) says Sudanese troops have raided camps in the Darfur region and that security in the area is deteriorating.

The WFP says people inside the camps have also been cut off from aid agencies. It says Sudanese forces raided two camps near Nyala, in southern Darfur, with police and soldiers surrounding the camps before dawn. The WFP says the security forces surrounded the Otash and Abu Sharif camps.

However, the Government says its soldiers were invited into the camps to protect displaced families. More than 1.5 million people have fled their homes in Sudan's Darfur region because of ongoing violence.

The European Union is warning it will impose sanctions if the Sudanese Government fails to disarm militias that have been attacking civilians. The UN refugee agency says it has been forced to cancel several missions because of continual violence in the region.

By Sally Sara 3 November 04

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UN says security worsening for Darfur aid workers

The United Nations says that humanitarian efforts in Sudan's troubled Darfur region were being undercut by worsening security in the area.

"We're exceeding many of the goals we set ourselves two months ago. However the goalpost has been put miles ahead of us because so many more people have been affected," said Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator.

"We thought we would need to feed a million people by now - we have to feed two million," he told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

An estimated 70,000 people have died and around 1.4 million have been displaced in Darfur after what UN officials have called a scorched-earth campaign of ethnic cleansing against the region's black African population.

The UN Security Council and secretary-general Kofi Annan have been pressing the Arab-led Khartoum government to disarm the Arab militias behind the bloodshed and to make it easier for humanitarian workers to reach the region's needy.

But Mr Egeland said security for aid workers in the area was now worse than earlier in the year, when the Darfur crisis first came into the international spotlight.

"We feel very alone in Darfur at the moment," Mr Egeland said.

"The security situation is deteriorating for us. Colleagues have been killed, colleagues have been harassed, colleagues have been kidnapped."

He stressed the importance of quickly deploying the promised troops and monitors from the African Union, who have been held up by a lack of funding from international donors.

Earlier on Thursday, the African Union (AU) announced it would multiply its truce force in Darfur sevenfold, an announcement welcomed by UN chief Annan.

"This AU mission is crucial to enhancing security for the civilian population and for the effective provision of much-needed humanitarian assistance," Annan's spokesman said in a statement.

"In the light of the growing insecurity in Darfur, the secretary general urges the AU to deploy this force speedily," the statement said.

By In Solidarity 22 October 04

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Strife-torn Somalia elects new President

The Parliament of Somalia has elected the country's new President, but it had to do so in Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya.

Somalia's capital, Modadishu, is too dangerous for Parliament to meet because of squabbling and heavily-armed rival factions. The new president of Somalia is Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, himself a warlord?

His first action was to call for outside help to stabilise his lawless country, admitting it is "a failed state and we have nothing".

By In Solidarity 11 October 04

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Australia: Cancel the election and call a republic!

HOWARD'S BRIBE!

Industrial relations in Australia under the Howard administration are no different from what might be expected from a terrorist organisation since both are engaged in the lawless pursuit of short-term profit and personal gain to the exclusion of natural justice.

As an employee with the Howard agency Centrelink I attempted to negotiate a clause of a workplace agreement entitled "shared behaviours" since women and men obviously have different behaviours. The clause appeared to refer to shared 'activities' rather than behaviours, however, under the Howard administration employees are required to adhere to the lie that women and men have the same behaviours.

Prior to a vote on the agreement my female manager intentionally injured me with anxiety neurosis by requiring me to work with a female employee who had issued me with the death threat, "if you ever say anything or write anything about me again your life will be in danger", after I lodged repeated complaints of harassment over her incessant personal advances towards me following the death of my wife.

I was also refused the right to discuss workplace issues with other employees.

The manager required me to undergo psychological evaluation resulting in my removal from the workplace while a vote on the agreement was conveniently held in my absence with the clause unchanged. I was offered no opportunity to cast a vote.

Not surprisingly the psychologist concluded that I should not be required to work in close proximity to a person whom I had alleged had harassed me and issued me with a death threat.

The manager, the perpetrator of the death threat, the Senior Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal who heard the evidence, the Minister who fielded the complaint and the Prime Minister appraised of the concerns are all inarguably enemies of democracy and criminals at Common and Statute law. All are still at large.

Howard's attempt to subvert the democratic process at the forthcoming election by returning billions of dollars taken from taxpayers since the previous election in order to purchase votes with an appeal to short-term profit and personal gain is another instance of the contempt in which his administration holds the democratic process.

The conflict over dwindling resources between the short-term profit and personal gain regimes of both the Howard administration and Islamic extremists can only be resolved by an administration of long-term profit and community gain, the only prospect for which is an Australian republic.

Moreover, since the Australian Constitution has never been ratified by a women's legislature the legal basis to both the Australian nation and the election is entirely irrational, illegitimate and unlawful.

Since the Howard government has declined to support a republic, a vote for Howard is a vote for further terrorist attacks on Australia.

The simple solution is cancel the election and call a republic.

Howard's personal criminality towards the Australian people may then be examined in a legitimate, legal framework.

Philip mckeon ph +61(0)296980596 2mf.net

By Philip Mckeon posted 17 September 04

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The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is urging the Federal Government to abandon any plans for a pre-election tax cut and instead increase benefits for families.

The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 Qld
The Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld), requires that any person who has committed an offence which is less than 10 years old or which resulted in a prison sentence of more than 30 months, must disclose that offence if requested eg. for employment purposes. If a criminal record is disclosed in a job application, it is unlikely that person will be given the job.

Tax cuts wrong way to help battlers: ACOSS
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) says the Budgets fails to deliver anything for low and middle income Australians.

Public housing on a precipice
THE booming housing market was squeezing thousands of low-income earners out of private rental accommodation into a public housing system on the verge of collapse, Australia's peak social body has warned.

Democrats approve tougher welfare penalties: But how does that pan out? There used to be an old saying in Australia" if you're hungry steal a sheep and leave the pelt on the fence. How do you plead, Peter Saunders?

Shoplifting and homelessness
Shoplifting increased by 7.5 per cent last year, making it the only major crime category to register a significant increase in 2002, crime statistics show. "It's a chain reaction kind of thing. No payments, more crime. More crime, more cops. More cops, more harassment. It goes back to the bloody payments, basically," he said.

Fears for poor if Social Services take a social slide?
The director of the NSW Council for Social Service, Alan Kirkland, said it was very difficult to balance the impact of problem gambling against the broader community benefits.

Democrats approve tougher welfare penalties: But how does that pan out? There used to be an old saying in Australia" if you're hungry steal a sheep and leave the pelt on the fence. How do you plead, Peter Saunders?

Social services groups swamped
A new report has revealed higher costs and increasing demands are forcing [social services] groups to turn more people away.

Fears for poor if Social Services take a social slide?
The director of the NSW Council for Social Service, Alan Kirkland, said it was very difficult to balance the impact of problem gambling against the broader community benefits.

Social Services small change? Or wast the money on WAR!
Lone parents on [social services] average 12 years of benefits - and are often worse off if they work. But reforming the system is risky and often costly, Bettina Arndt explains.

EX-PRISONER UNEMPLOYMENT: SENTENCED FOR LIFE
Name removed by request served time in prison decades ago. Shes still being punished today. According to commonwealth and state legislation, ex-prisoners applying for jobs must declare any conviction that fits into the following categories: less than 10 years old, more than 10 years old but served more than 30 months in prison.

Unemployed farm postings would cost jobs: AWU
The Australian Workers Union has rejected a proposal to place work-for-the-dole participants on drought-affected rural properties.

Tough luck! Kicks the poor to death
Australia is urged to adopt a United States-style welfare system, [?] cut welfare spending [social services spending] and encourage people to help themselves in a book on poverty published today.

Economy benefiting from non-profit institutions
Non-profit institutions are contributing $30 billion a year to Australia's economy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has found about a third of that comes from volunteers who worked free for more than 550 million hours in 1999/2000.

NSW prisons - primary industry bailed up!
In many quiet regional centres around NSW there is a new primary industry shaping up. It has something to do with Bail but not with bales. The minister for Agriculture Richard Amery who also has the prisons portfolio is now committed to farming prisoners.

Robin Egan
Two thirds of fines are never collected because they go beyond the means of the defendants and because in lots of cases people do not see that they are responsible. Especially where people know their in the right and no fine ought to have been a penalty.