Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the US bailout package is "equivalent to the amount that developed nations give in foreign aid to developing nations over a decade."

The Group of Eight (G8), composed of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, US, Canada and Russia, was formed in 1973 in response to another economic and energy crisis: the OPEC oil embargo.  Together, these 8 countries represent 14% of the world’s population, but about 65% of the global economy.

Committed to the Millennium Development Goals since 2000, the G8 vowed in 2005 to raise their annual aid levels to US$50 billion by 2010, half of which was to go to Africa. But under current spending plans, the G8 will fall $40 billion short, according to the Africa Progress Panel which monitors national and international commitments to Africa.

"It is extraordinary to me," said Bono on 24 September, "that you can find US$700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8, but can’t find US$25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day of preventable, treatable disease and hunger.  That’s mad, that is mad."

“Bankruptcy is a serious business and we all know people who have lost their jobs,” said the U2 lead singer in New York, “but this is moral bankruptcy.”

The next day Bono (pictured, centre) took part in the launch of the Irish Hunger Commission Report.  The extent of world hunger is getting worse rather than better.

Amnesty International has documented how human rights violations such as discrimination, the political manipulation of food distribution and the obstruction of humanitarian assistance have led to mass hunger in a number of countries including, in particular, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Burma, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan (Darfur) and Zimbabwe.

Economist Jeffery Sachs (third from right) describes the Irish report as "an intellectually coherent and comprehensive approach with specific and important commitments to address [the world food] crisis."

Lead author of the report, former Irish Agriculture and Food Minister Joe Walsh (second from right), says, "We must never lose our sense of outrage, our sense of anger that 862 million people do not have enough to eat, because if we lose our anger about this, then we have lost our humanity."

A police raid on a legal brothel in inner Melbourne in 2003 resulted in the owner, Wei Tang (pictured right), being charged with ten slavery-related offences, a test of Australia's 1999 anti-slavery legislation.  Convicted on all counts, she successfully appealed in the Victorian Supreme Court in 2007.

Five of her victims, Thai women enslaved for between 2 weeks and 10 months each, "courageously testified in each [court] case," remaining in "virtual limbo for all these years," says their lawyer, Hui Zhou.  They described being forced to have sex with between 800 and 900 men, six-days-a-week without pay in order to fulfill a 'contract'.  They could earn spending money only if they continued to work on their day off.

The High Court found that agreeing to come to Australia for prostitution "is not equal to consent to enslavement or the conditions of slavery."

Eighty per cent of internationally trafficked persons are women and girls, according to the US State Department's authoritative Trafficking in Persons Report.  This modern form of slavery affects "millions of people every year . . . in nearly every country in the world."

The UN lists Australia as the 10th main destination for human trafficking, with growing demand for Asian women and girls for the sex industry.  Project Respect, Australia’s leading anti-trafficking and slavery NGO, estimates that 1,000 women are trafficked into Australia every year for prostitution, mostly from Thailand and South Korea. People have also been trafficked to Australia to work in hospitality and construction.

Project Respect advocates a rights-based approach to combating trafficking and slavery.

This landmark case makes way for further prosecutions in Australia.  Meanwhile, Wei Tang will appeal the length of her sentence.

The real reasons for Parkin's detention and expulsion have yet to be disclosed, but it would nonetheless appear reasonable to conclude he was a political prisoner, someone "imprisoned for their political beliefs or actions."  But was he the first in Australia?

Albert Langer immediately comes to mind (pictured, on the left). The veteran leftie activist was gaoled in 1996 for nonviolently advocating a method of voting that refuses to allocate preferences.

Voting is compulsory in Australia and voters can rate candidates in order of preference.  That way you can vote for minor parties without 'wasting' your vote.

It can be difficult, I admit, to decide whether to put the "More Guns Party" or the "Revive White Australia Party" last on one's ballot paper, but Langer didn't want to give a preference to a major party either; he wanted to vote 1, 2, 2, 2, and so on (since dubbed a "Langer vote").  In a secret ballot, he can vote how he likes — and indeed at the time, his was a formal or valid vote — but it is an offence in Australia to advocate voting with anything other than consecutive and unrepeated numbers.

At the time, freedom of expression had only 'implied' constitutional protection in Australia.  (Even today, the explicit guarantees of Victoria's Charter of Rights and Responsibilities would be trounced by the Commonwealth Electoral Act.)  Langer was sentenced to 10 weeks' gaol which would have kept him safely out of the way until 28 days after the election then being fought in the state of Victoria.

Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission supported Langer's appeal against the severity of his sentence, arguing that the 'mischief' he was causing justified his imprisonment only until the election (some 17 days) and not beyond.

Amnesty International, however, issued an Urgent Action from London calling for his immediate and unconditional release:

"We find it difficult to comprehend why the Australian Electoral Commission on the one hand declares as acceptable the optional form of voting advocated by Albert Langer, while on the other hand initiates legal action . . . Amnesty International believes that Albert Langer's imprisonment is a direct result of the exercise of his right to freedom of expression."

In the end, Langer was held until election night. 

Amnesty described Langer as Australia's first prisoner of conscience in "over 20 years," leaving open the question of who, in the early 1970s, was "imprisoned for their political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs, or by reason of their ethnic origin, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, economic status, birth or other status who have not used or advocated violence" (Amnesty's definition of a prisoner of conscience).

Perhaps they mean conscientious objectors (Simon Townsend?), or anti-war protestors (forerunners to Scott Parkin).  Or countless indigenous Australians locked up for being black.

Readers might be able to come up with other examples from the '70s and before.  I welcome your comment.

Incidentally, if you're an Australian of a certain age, and you think that, like Scott Parkin and Gary Foley (pictured above, right), you might have an ASIO file, anything older than 30 years is publicly available on application to the National Archives of Australia.  Start by clicking on "Record search" (top right) . . .

In August 2006 Colm Bryce, Gary Donnelly, Kieran Gallagher, Michael Gallagher, Sean Heaton, Jimmy Kelly, Eamonn McCann, Paddy McDaid and Eamonn O'Donnell broke into the Derry offices of US arms manufacturer Raytheon (pictured right) and defenestrated computers and files, causing an estimated £20,000 damage.

One of the group, 65 year-old journalist Eamonn McCann (pictured left), was found guilty of theft for taking some of the company's computer discs.  He received a 12-month suspended sentence.

Their professed intention and legal defence was to prevent war crimes then occurring in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

What the prosecution described as an "orgy of wanton destruction," the jury accepted as justified, deeming reasonable the belief that "Raytheon was aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes, having seen how Raytheon's lethal technology was being used to destroy the homes and lives of innocents in Lebanon."

Said acquitted activist Colm Bryce following the court victory :

"These crimes continue daily and hourly in the Middle East. It is up to those of us who oppose those wars of domination and occupation to build a movement that matches the enormity of what is being done by Western governments. We hope that this victory gives courage and heart to all those involved in that movement . . ."

"Israel had dropped so many bombs over southern Lebanon, south Beirut and elsewhere that they were actually running out of supplies. Raytheon rushed two Airbus transport planes from the United States to Israel in order to replenish supplies, even though, at that point, it was known that their munitions were being used to bomb civilians, to target ambulances and civilian infrastructure. So this is a company which is knowingly involved in war crimes."

Last week was the 40th anniversary of a watershed nonviolent protest against war, in a suburb of Baltimore.  Writes Timothy B. Wheeler in the Baltimore Sun:

1968, 2008: ‘Wars don’t die’

Survivors of Catonsville Nine mark anniversary with a protest

Forty years ago today, nine Catholic men and women - three of them priests - walked into a military draft office in Catonsville and seized the records of hundreds of young men likely to be summoned to fight in Vietnam.

They burned the papers in the parking lot, using homemade napalm to start the blaze. As the flames rose, the nine solemnly recited the Lord’s Prayer and stood around waiting for the police to arrest them.

That day in the turbulent spring of 1968, the Catonsville Nine, as they became known, put the quiet Baltimore suburb on the map in a growing nationwide protest against the Vietnam War. The band of activists - whose dramatic trial drew hundreds of antiwar protesters to Baltimore that fall - inspired similar disruptions of draft offices around the country.

The Catonsville Nine also provoked an intense debate, one that has resonated across the decades as Americans challenge another unpopular war - this time in Iraq.

"I think what people are seeing is that the wars don’t die," said one of group’s leaders, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, now 87 and living in New York. He and his late brother Philip, also a priest at the time, became prominent figures in the peace and social justice movements.

Some saw the fire the Nine ignited - and their subsequent imprisonment - as a courageous act of conscience, inspired by Christian faith. But others have questioned the morality - or at least the effectiveness - of vandalism, no matter how noble the cause.

Today, the Catonsville Nine are down to five. Philip Berrigan, the only member who stayed in Baltimore, died of cancer in 2002 after decades of "civil resistance," repeated arrests and imprisonment for his protests against war, militarism and social injustice.

Two others predeceased him - one in a car accident before his prison sentence was to start.

The most recent of the group to go was artist Tom Lewis, who died unexpectedly last month at his Massachusetts home, a month before a planned visit to Baltimore for a commemoration of the 1968 event.

The passion lives

But the passion for peace still burns in the survivors and their spiritual heirs as they seek to rally opposition to another war.

Elizabeth McAlister, Philip Berrigan’s widow, will join a group of activists who plan to mark today’s 40th anniversary with a muted protest at the annual air show at Andrews Air Force Base.

A decade ago, protesters attacked a B-52 bomber there with hammers. This time, they say, they’ll wield only peace slogans on T-shirts as they seek to mingle in the crowd of families visiting to ogle the warplanes.

"I think actions like this create hope," said McAlister, 68, taking time from chores at Jonah House, the pacifist community she and Philip Berrigan established in West Baltimore. "And being able to share with people about that creates hope."

Catonsville wasn’t the first draft office raid. Philip Berrigan and three others were already awaiting sentencing for pouring blood on draft records at the Custom House in downtown Baltimore in fall 1967. They decided to do it again.

"That was the way to show the government that no matter how many people you lock up, you’re not going to get us out of your hair," recalled George Mische, another of the Nine who, like Philip Berrigan, was an Army veteran.

Mische said the group looked at three local draft board sites before settling on the western Baltimore suburb.

"There was no special signficance to Catonsville," said Dean Pappas, a Baltimore physics teacher who helped plan the draft office raid and spread the word after it happened. "It was just a target of opportunity."

Symbolism of site

But Mische and others saw symbolism in the draft board’s location on the second floor of the Knights of Columbus hall, a Catholic fraternal organization. They believed church leaders were abdicating their Christian responsibilty to speak out against the war.

Mische said the group also picked Catonsville because it would be "virtually impossible" for anyone to get hurt. But one person did, albeit slightly. Mary Murphy, the head of the office, cut her finger and scratched her leg while wrestling for control of a wire wastebasket containing the seized draft records.

Mische said Murphy also ripped his pants apart, trying to pull him away from the draft files, and another clerk threw a telephone through a window after protesters thwarted efforts to call police. The breaking glass and screaming alerted a groundskeeper outside, who summoned authorities.

Meanwhile, a TV news crew and photographer, who had been tipped off to show up, captured the burning of 378 draft records on black-and-white film with shaky sound.

The Catonsville Nine might have been 10 had McAlister, then a young nun, agreed to join the group that day. "I wasn’t ready," she said. "I was too young, and it was too new."

After the episode, she secretly married Philip Berrigan and was arrested at a Delaware draft office, the first in a series of legal run-ins that at one point took her away from her children for two years. All three of their offspring, she said proudly, are activists in their own ways today.

The Berrigans and McAlister have inspired many others, including Frank Cordaro, a 57-year-old former priest from Des Moines, Iowa, who is in Baltimore this week to commemorate the Catonsville protest.

Ten years ago, on the 30th anniversary, Cordaro joined four others who tried to damage the B-52 bomber at Andrews. That cost him six months in jail, less than he expected.

"The survival of the human race really depends on the human race deciding to put away its violent and war-making ways," said Cordaro, whose affable demeanor belies the seriousness of his cause. "We Christians have a major contribution to play, not least of all because in the last 100 years, we have become the best killers."

But critics like Stephen H. Sachs, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the Catonsville Nine, argue that such illegal acts undermine the rule of law.

‘Intolerable position’

"No one can, and no one did, at the time, contest the sincerity, one might even say the bravery, of these folks," said Sachs, who later became Maryland’s attorney general and ran unsuccessfully for governor.

But he described them as "true believers who believe they were Right with a capital ‘R’ and were entitled . . . to take the law into their own hands. In a democracy, that’s an intolerable position."

Brendan Walsh, who helped with the Catonsville draft office raid, said he agrees that people can’t go around destroying everything they hate.

"However, if there’s property that has no other reason for being than to get people killed, then maybe . . . it’s OK to go ahead and destroy it," said Walsh, who in 1968 helped open Viva House, a Catholic worker community in Baltimore that offers a soup kitchen, legal aid and after-school education for the poor.

Other activists, though no less committed to ending war, say they’re looking for different ways to achieve that end.

Mische, for one, is more committed to change through politics than [through] symbolic, illegal actions. These days, he says, he’s focusing on supporting the presidential bid of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. He likes the Democratic hopeful’s stance on the war, as well as his background as a community organizer.

Dean Pappas, now 69, has also parted ways with the tactics of 1968. "I think that Phil and company, [spending] the last 20 years smashing nose cones on missiles and getting thrown in jail was a waste of time," he said. "I hate to put it that way, but I don’t think it did much to advance the cause."

Now a teacher at Friends School and Maryland Institute College of Art, Pappas is likewise backing Obama’s campaign.

McAlister, though, says she has no regrets. "I think it’s right and needed," she said of the confrontations, "and the effectiveness . . . will take care of itself. . . . I think they make people think and question."

A play and film were made on the subject in the early 1970s.  Its significance is not lost on the present generation.  An award-winning documentary was made in 2003, while Daniel Berrigan’s play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine received a high profile reading by the Actors’ Gang in 2007.

"On May 1, the Catholic Worker [movement] celebrates its 75th birthday, and to mark the occasion, Marquette University Press will publish Dorothy Day’s diaries, The Duty of Delight.

Meanwhile, a beautiful new DVD documentary, Don’t Call Me a Saint, has been released, offering rare interviews and footage of the heroic woman whose reach has indeed embraced the world.

Produced by Claudia Larson, Don’t Call Me a Saint chronicles Dorothy’s life [1897-1980] — her childhood in Chicago, her college years and the years as a Communist, and the years she wrote for The Call and The Masses. The movie takes in her marriage and divorce and the back-alley abortion, and her imprisonment for demonstrating with suffragettes outside the White House.

It tells of her later love for Forster Batterham and of her contemplative life on a Staten Island beach and of the joyful birth of her daughter Tamar . . .

On May 1, 1933, Dorothy launched The Catholic Worker newspaper. Circulation jumped by year’s end to some 100,000 subscribers. Next to come were a soup kitchen, a farming commune, and a house for the homeless. She instituted Friday evening lectures, where topics never discussed in church circles were finally aired . . .

Her lonely stand against war, I think, is utterly astonishing, especially given that few people then, and scarcely any Catholics — and not one priest or bishop — dared oppose war. But Dorothy said no — from the Spanish Civil War to World War II, from Korea to Vietnam . . .

"By our accepting the cross [she said] . . . we unleash forces that help to overcome the evil in the world."

Read more here.  Watch the trailer here.

The Warburton man was being driven 915km from Laverton in the Western Desert to Kalgoorlie for a mention in relation to drink driving charges.  Prisoner transport is outsourced by the West Australian government to the US firm GlobalSolutions Ltd. (GSL Australia).  Mr Ward, 46, was locked in the back of a van for 4.5 hours in conditions of extreme heat before he was found unconscious.  The father of 5 died an hour later in hospital.

A tearful guard told a doctor it was "bloody hot" in the back of the van.  The temperature outside the van that afternoon was 43 degrees Celcius (108 degrees F).  It is unclear whether the vehicle’s air-conditioning was on or working properly.

Inspector of Custodial Services, Prof. Richard Harding, who had advised the government against awarding the $70 million contract to GSL, was not surprised at this tragic outcome, describing the Carpenter Government-owned vans as "clapped out."  He speculated that the situation would ‘probably not be tolerated’ if 95% of prisoners were white, instead of Aboriginal.

The Aboriginal Legal Service had previously alerted the government to the dangers of prisoner transport.

In February, WA Corrective Services Minister, Margaret Quirk, promised immediate changes to make future transports more safe and humane, or use video-conferencing instead.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, reporting on the treatment of immigration detainees, revealed that "a young Nigerian asylum-seeker called for help and twice drank his own urine while locked in an overheated prison van on a horror trip" in 2004.

Five immigration detainees were found to have suffered human rights violations while in transit from Melbourne to Baxter detention facility in South Australia.  GSL Australia has been ordered to pay between $15,000 and $20,000 to each of them, while the Australian Government has been ordered to apologise.

The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee has described Mr Ward’s treatment as ‘torture’ and condemned the privatisation of prisoner transport.

Despite ‘massive public interest’, Mr Ward’s autopsy was still ‘incomplete’ as of mid-March.  A coronor’s verdict could take as long as two years.  Attorney-General Jim McGinty says the delay could be ‘devastating’ for Ward’s family.

Ian Ward was interviewed by The Weekend Australian in 2006:

"I would like my children and my people to maintain their cultural values: the law, the connection to the land.  They know they are a part of Australia, but the most important thing for them is their cultural values.   There should be a recognition on the part of Australia at large of that value.  We have two worlds that people here live in: the traditional way and the Australian citizen way.   I want my children also to live in those two worlds."

"The human right to water and sanitation is protected under international law. Yet in the State of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, this right is being violated by the policies, actions and omissions of the Israeli government. On the event of World Water Day (22 March 2008), we call upon the Government of Israel to respect, protect and fulfil the right to water and sanitation.

The blockade on Gaza has denied fuel to operate pumping stations and sewage treatment works and the entry of spare parts needed to maintain water and sewage infrastructure bringing these facilities to a standstill. Thousands of Gazans have been cut off from their water supply, and sewage treatment works are overflowing and contaminating drinking water supplies. Currently, over 90% of the water in Gaza is not considered fit for human consumption according to World Health Organization standards. The prevention of entry of water purification chemicals puts the health of the population at risk.

In the West Bank, military occupation is hampering efforts to develop adequate water and sewage infrastructure for the Palestinian population. Over 200,000 people remain unconnected to the water network and are reliant on untreated spring water and water transported to them in tankers at high cost. Water tankers are impeded from delivering water to Palestinian communities by checkpoints, roadblocks, land closures and the Security Fence. Water cut-offs are frequent during summer months. Furthermore, there is only one fully functional sewage treatment plant in the West Bank, to serve a population of over 2.3 million people. 90% of sewage is discharged untreated into the environment, posing serious risks to drinking water quality.

In the State of Israel, the Bedouin communities of the unrecognized villages of the Negev (some 80,000 citizens of Israel) are denied basic service provision, including water and sanitation facilities and services, in an attempt to force them off their historic lands into government designated townships. They too are forced to pay high prices for tanker water, which is often contaminated, harming their health.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratified by the State of Israel, guarantees the right of all people to an adequate standard of living and the highest attainable standard of health which include the right to safe and sufficient supplies of water and affordable and accessible water and sanitation services and facilities. This applies to ALL citizens of Israel, and also to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. As an occupying power, under international humanitarian law, Israel is responsible for the welfare of the civilian population of the Palestinian Territories and must ensure that they are provided with or allowed to secure the basics for survival including food, water, medical supplies and shelter. With regards to water, prisoners of war and/or protected persons are guaranteed access to drinking water, water for personal hygiene and sanitation under the Geneva Conventions.

We urge the Government of Israel to abide by its international legal obligations and ensure the right to water and sanitation is respected, protected and fulfilled for all those residing in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories."

Sign this petition here.

[O]n April 10 . . . the city government obtained a court injunction directing us to cease our activities . . . [W]e did an audacious thing, something we had never done in any other crusade. We disobeyed a court order.

. . . We decided that, because of its symbolic significance, April 12 [1963], Good Friday, would be the day that Ralph Abernathy and I would present our bodies as personal witness in this crusade.

Soon after we announced our intention to lead a demonstration on April 12 and submit to arrest, we received a message so distressing that it threatened to ruin the movement. Late Thursday night, the bondsman who had been furnishing bail for the demonstrators notified us that he would be unable to continue. . .

It was a serious blow. . . We had a moral responsibility for our people in jail. Fifty more were to go in with Ralph and me. This would be the largest single group to be arrested to date. Without bail facilities, how could we guarantee their eventual release?

Good Friday morning, early, I sat in Room 30 of the Gaston Motel discussing this crisis with twenty-four key people. As we talked, a sense of doom began to pervade the room. I looked about me and saw that for the first time our most dedicated and devoted leaders were overwhelmed by a feeling of hopelessness. No one knew what to say, for no one knew what to do. Finally someone spoke up and, as he spoke, I could see that he was giving voice to what was on everyone’s mind.

“Martin,” he said, “this means you can’t go to jail. We need money. We need a lot of money. We need it now. You are the only one who has the contacts to get it. If you go to jail, we are lost. The battle of Birmingham is lost.”

I sat there, conscious of twenty-four pairs of eyes. I thought about the people in the jail. I thought about the Birmingham Negroes already lining the streets of the city, waiting to see me put into practice what I had so passionately preached. How could my failure now to submit to arrest be explained to the local community? What would be the verdict of the country about a man who had encouraged hundreds of people to make a stunning sacrifice and then excused himself?

Then my mind began to race in the opposite direction. Suppose I went to jail? What would happen to the three hundred? Where would the money come from to assure their release? What would happen to our campaign? Who would be willing to follow us into jail, not knowing when or whether he would ever walk out once more into the Birmingham sunshine?

I sat in the midst of the deepest quiet I have ever felt, with two dozen others in the room. There comes a time in the atmosphere of leadership when a man surrounded by loyal friends and allies realizes he has come face-to-face with himself and with ruthless reality. I was alone in that crowded room.

I walked to another room in the back of the suite, and I stood in the center of the floor. I thought I was standing at the center of all that my life had brought me to be. I thought of the twenty-four people, waiting in the next room. I thought of the three hundred, waiting in prison. I thought of the Birmingham Negro community, waiting. Then my tortured mind leaped beyond the Gaston Motel, past the city jail, past the city and state lines, and I thought of the twenty million black people who dreamed that someday they might be able to cross the Red Sea of injustice and find their way into the promised land of integration and freedom. There was no more room for doubt.

I whispered to myself, “I must go.”

The doubt, the fear, the hesitation was gone. I pulled off my shirt and pants, got into work clothes, and went back to the other room. “Friends,” I said, “I’ve made my decision. I have to make a faith act. I don’t know what will happen or what the outcome will be. I don’t know where the money will come from.”

I turned to Ralph Abernathy. “I know you have a need to be in your pulpit on Easter Sunday, Ralph. But I am asking you to take this faith act with me.”

As Ralph stood up, unquestioningly, without hesitation, we all linked hands involuntarily, almost as if there had been some divine signal, and twenty-five voices in Room 30 at the Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Alabama, chanted the battle hymn of our movement, “We Shall Overcome.”

King was arrested that Good Friday, for the thirteenth time.  He was held in solitary confinement and initially incommunicado: "the longest, most frustrating and bewildering hours I have lived."

On Easter Monday he received a visit from his lawyer advising him: "Harry Belafonte has been able to raise fifty thousand dollars of bail bonds. It is available immediately. And he says that whatever else you need, he will raise it."

King later recalled that, "Once again I could see the light."

The next day, the Birmingham News published criticism of King and his nonviolent human rights movement by eight white Alabama clergymen. In his cell, with nothing to hand but toilet paper and the newspaper itself, King wrote a response known as ‘Letter from [a] Birmingham Jail‘.  It has been called "the most eloquent and learned expression of the goals and philosophy of the nonviolent movement ever written”.