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3 Day Conference – Prospects for Peace in the Middle East – July 7-9th 2010

andrew — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 06:37:39 +0000

This conference organised by the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University will be held in Melbourne at the Bundoora campus from July (7^th to 9^th) . It will include young Christians, Jews and Muslims in dialogue about the difficult issues that face everyone who cares about peace in the region.

We do recognise that there are difficulties addressing issues that are deeply felt and sometimes painful to discuss. However the ‘Centre for Dialogue’ has a great deal of experience in the process of true dialogue – this is much more about listening to each other than speaking.

It is about hearing opinions and stories and working to listen with an open heart and mind to these stories of the ‘other ‘. What we are trying to achieve – in essence is that sense of real DIALOGUE – of truly hearing each other.

The Director of the Centre, Professor Joseph Camilleri will oversee this conference and he has 30 years of experience in dialogues such as those in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and Cyprus as well as Arab- Jewish dialogue in Melbourne.

Contact: Larry Marshall Ph 9479-1419 Email: l.marshall@latrobe.edu.au

Alternatives to Empire Forum: Global Ethic or Global Hegemony?

andrew — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:51:47 +0000

Join us on 28th April

Please Come along to the UCA, 130 Litlle Collins Street Melbourne at 5pm on the 28th and join us for this lively Inter-faith Forum. Baptist Minister Simon Moyle will be one of the speakers and he has written the article listed below.

Switching Off The War By Simon Moyle

andrew — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:40:43 +0000

A few days ago, a group of Christians interrupted the workings of a secretive military facility in Victoria. One of them, Baptist minister Simon Moyle, explains why the time had come to act.

In the mainstream media, people who take action are often marginalised by being painted as irresponsible fringe radicals. “Activist” is made to sound like a dirty word. Yet the four of us are actually very ordinary people. Each of us has a family ? two of us are married with children. We are all Christians with stable jobs and responsibilities (despite the epithets hurled at us by our arresting officers, such as the stereotypical, “Why don?t you get a job, you f***wit?”). I, for example, am a church

Alternatives to Empire Forum: Global Ethic or Global Hegemony?

andrew — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:03:05 +0000

Howard Zinn (1922?2010): A Tribute to the Legendary Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Wolf

andrew — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:35:45 +0000

We pay tribute to the late historian, writer and activist Howard Zinn who died suddenly on Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 87. Howard Zinn?s classic work A People?s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. …

When the Media Is the Disaster; Covering Haiti -By Rebecca Solnit

andrew — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:25:32 +0000

The belief that people in disaster (particularly poor and nonwhite people) are cattle or animals or just crazy and untrustworthy regularly justifies spending far too much energy and far too many resources on control — the American military calls it ?security? — rather than relief. A British-accented voiceover on CNN calls people sprinting to where supplies are being dumped from a helicopter a “stampede” and adds that this delivery ?risks sparking chaos.? The chaos already exists, and you can?t blame it on these people desperate for food and water. Or you can, and in doing so help convince your audience that they?re unworthy and untrustworthy.

The Story of Religion: Joe Volk

andrew — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:41:24 +0000
The stories we are told by our leaders and the stories we tell each other help to build our worldview. We have to take back control of these narratives to empower each other and construct a more peaceful world.

POLITICS-ASIA: Inter-religious Forum Calls for Nuclear Abolition

andrew — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:34:59 +0000

MELBOURNE, Dec 8 (IPS) – For the global religious community, the use of nuclear arms is an overwhelmingly important ethical issue for the human family. Thus, nothing less than the immediate abolition of such weapons is needed from the highest levels, said speakers at the Parliament of the World?s Religions currently underway in this Australian city.

The Parliament, considered the world?s biggest inter-religious gathering, brings together people of various faiths to tackle issues relating to peace, diversity and sustainability. It opened on Dec. 3 and runs until Dec. 9 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Its theme, ?Make a World of Difference: Hearing each other, Healing the earth?, reflects the urgent need for religious and civil society groups to act on crucial issues threatening the world?s survival, nuclear arms being one of them.

Considered the most significant human-made destructive force on the planet, nuclear devices pose a spiritual as well as existential threat to humanity, participants said.

“The time for us to act decisively is now,” said Dr Sue Wareham, immediate past president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War in Australia, and Australian Board Member of the international campaign to abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN).

Noting that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will have its five- yearly review in May 2010, Wareham said, “Progress towards nuclear disarmament will be critical at this meeting if we are to prevent further spread of the weapons, which should no longer be seen as status symbols or legitimate military weapons, but rather they should be seen for what they are ?illegal and inhumane instruments of terror

Toxic Assets

andrew — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:20:17 +0000
It was revolting, monstrous, inhumane ? and scarcely different from what happens in Africa almost every day. The oil trading company Trafigura has just agreed to pay compensation to 31,000 people in Cote d?Ivoire, after the Guardian and the BBC?s Newsnight obtained emails sent by its traders(1). They reveal that Trafigura knew that the oil slops it sent there in 2006 were contaminated with toxic waste(2). But the Ivorian contractor it employed to pump out the hold of its tanker dumped them around inhabited areas in the capital city and the countryside. Tens of thousands of people fell ill and 15 died(3). It is one of the world?s worst cases of chemical exposure since the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. But in all other respects the Trafigura case is unremarkable. It?s just another instance of the rich world?s global fly-tipping.

Breaking the Australian silence – Sydney Peace Prize awarded to John Pilger

andrew — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:34:07 +0000

In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the “unique features” of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power “which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war — against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else’s country”.

His speech – Breaking the Australian Silence – has been published in full at Sydney Indymedia, Information Clearing House and Project Safecom