Jay Fletcher, Green Left Weekly
5 February 2010 -- The Indonesian foreign affairs department was expecting a visit from an Australian “people smuggling envoy” when three refugee rights activists were apprehended and detained at Port Merak.

After four months, the conditions on a cargo vessel at Port Merak holding more than 240 Tamil refugees have become increasingly squalid. The refugees’ boat had been travelling towards Australia when the Australian government requested Indonesia intercept it.

Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
6 February 2010 -- On January 27, 1500 people marched in Timika demanding a referendum on the future status of West Papua, a former Dutch colony that has been occupied by Indonesia since 1962.

The rally took place without being attacked, despite recent violent incidents in the area.

[Simon Butler (pictured) represented the Australian Socialist Alliance at the Labour Party Pakistan’s January 27-28 conference. He also addressed the 10,000 strong rally of workers and peasants on January 29 on behalf of the Alliance. The article below is abridged from the Pakistani News on Sunday.]
There are two things most Australians associate with Pakistan: cricket and terrorism. The fault lies mostly with the one-sided reporting by Australia’s mainstream media.
Most Australians heard of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in March 2009. In May, they saw reports of the Taliban’s insurgency in the Swat Valley.

Statement by the International Youth Coalition for the Liberation of West Papua (IYCL-WP)
International Youth Coalition for the Liberation of West Papua (IYCL_WP) is representative body of all world youth movement that have a strong commitment to struggling for self-determination of West Papuan. The principal of movement is non-violent struggle against to liberalism, colonialism, militarism, indigenous marginalization, discrimination, human rights violations, and all forms of genocide, and colonial rule of special autonomy as well.

Stuart Munckton, Green Left Weekly
30 January 2010 -- “We are human beings, why are we ignored?”, a Tamil refugee inside the Christmas Island detention centre told Green Left Weekly on the night of January 28.
He told GLW more than 200 Tamil detainees had begun a hunger strike over delays in processed Tamil refugees and granting them visas. The next day, 133 hunger strikers were on an oval in side the camp protesting.
The hunger strike lasted until the evening.

Stu Harrison, Green Left Weekly
30 January 2010 -- Sri Lanka was guilty of crimes against humanity for their war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that concluded last May, a People’s Tribunal in Dublin on January 14-16 found.
The people’s court was organised by the Milan-based Permanent People’s Tribunal and hosted by the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka.

Stu Harrison, Green Left Weekly
30 January 2010 -- Incumbent and Sri Lanka Freedom Party candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa has won the January 26 presidential election, receiving 58% of votes cast.

[Pictured: Tamil refugees in Merak.]
Niko Leka, Green Left Weekly
30 January 2010 -- On January 26, three refugee advocates — Sydney-based Tamil community activist Sara Nathan, Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, and Jessica Chandrashekar from the Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils — were arrested in Merak, Indonesia.
They had planned to take humanitarian aid to the 240 Tamil refugees stranded since their boat was intercepted by the Indonesian Navy at the request of the Australian government in October 2009, refugee advocate Ian Rintoul told ABC news on January 28.

[Pictured: The Labour Party Pakistan's Farooq Tariq addresses the Faisalabad worker-peasant rally.]
By Farooq Tariq
February 1, 2010 -- An historic gathering took place at Faisalabad, the third largest city in Pakistan, on January 29, 2010. The event was jointly organised by the Labour Qaumi (National) Movement (LQM) and the Anjuman Mozareen Punjab (AMP -- Punjab Tenants' Association), two movements of workers and peasants that, by their defiant activities in several Punjabi districts, have caught the imagination of thousands. For the first time, these two important movements of workers and peasants in Punjab shared a common platform.