In November 2004 Murunji died in a police watch house on Palm Island –an aboriginal community off the Queensland coast. Since that time there has been two coronial inquests and a prosecutor’s office review. But the state government is refusing to initiate charges against the arresting officer, Chris Hurley, despite the very clear findings of the coronial inquiry that Hurley caused Murunji’s death. See background here. Report on Wednesday’s rally in Brisbanehere.

Queensland Murris (Indigenous Australians living in Queensland) need your support. The indigenous community nationwide will be mobilising for Invasion Day (the official Australia Day national holiday)on January 26th. But to tie the campaign over the holiday break, an online petition is being promoted to galvanize and register opposition to this crude racism. You can sign it here so please do so and promote the petition widely by also sending it to your contact list. And make sure you add your comments as hundreds have already from around the world, indigenous and no indigenous peoples alike.
For background on Aboriginal deaths in police custody, start HERE.

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If Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic really want to end the war, they’ll cut off the funding. All else is just hot air and political posturing. Apparently it’s more important to them to get an advantage in the 2008 elections rather than bring the troops home now and end the slaughter. Hence we have a lot of The Clock is Ticking, Mr. President from the Dems, waiting for Bush to make (another) mistake. Wow, how principled the Democrats are, letting more die so they might get a short-term domestic political gain.

Meanwhile, insurgents in Iraq have crippled the power to Baghdad, but doubtless D.C. politicians are too self-absorbed to understand this means the US has already lost.

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The major trash dump in Marshall Islands, the Majuro landfill, is a “is a fly and rodent infested mess that is rarely covered.” Worse, they are flat running out of space to put the trash, so sometimes it overflows into the sea. Yuck.

They’ve started sorting out the green waste at Majuro, creating compost with it, as well as using it to cover the trash and cut down on the smell. But these seem short-term fixes, band-aids rather than real solutions.

The Majuro landfill is not a modern sanitary lanfill. Other islands handle the problem better. But still, with a very limited amounts of land, more people every day, the question is - where do small islands put their trash?

Like the canary in the coal mine that warned of danger, the landfill problems of small islands demonstrate what could be coming for all of us.

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From the Union of Concerned Scientists

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