australian and european news & media releases 2001-1997 archive

Pope's apology renews calls for PM to say sorry
24 November 2001- Pope John Paul II's apology to Aborigines for injustices today renewed national calls for the government to say sorry to the stolen generations.
Pope says sorry to Aborigines
21 November 2001- Pope John Paul II apologised to Australia's Aborigines and other indigenous peoples of Oceania for past "shameful injustices" of the Roman Catholic Church, in a message posted on the Internet yesterday.
Oh cry my beloved country
11 November 2001 - "Yesterday Australia failed to rise above its political leadership. One hundred years after Federation, when the first order of business was the White Australia policy, Australians turned back the clock."
Action to speak as loudly as words in push for treaty
8 November 2001- The Australian Democrats have called for a treaty agreement with indigenous Australians to be included in the national process of reconciliation.
Coalition plans bigger role for Aborigines
18 October 2001 - Aboriginal communities would be given a greater say in how government services were delivered to them under a re-elected Coalition government.
Both sides playing race card: Dodson
15 October 2001 - The Howard Government was highlighting race and cultural difference for political advantage in the lead-up to the federal election, Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson claimed yesterday.
Putting reconciliation on poll agenda
15 October 2001 - Fifty-eight community and welfare organisations attempted to elevate reconciliation as a major election campaign issue yesterday, calling on all political parties to commit to alleviating extreme indigenous disadvantage.
Aboriginal candidates are few, but determined
15 October 2001 - Four out of five Labor Aboriginal candidates may have been elected at the recent NT poll, but at the federal level there is still little indigenous representation. And safe seats for indigenous aspirants are few and far between.
Aboriginal Campaign heads to Europe
21 August 2001 - Co-ordinators of the Aboriginal tent embassy are to establish a European consulate and hope to lobby the Queen on indigenous rights before she travels to Australia in October.
Thoughts Germaine: Our future is Aboriginal
20 August 2001 - She has taken on patriarchy, paternalism and the pettiness of playing safe.Now, at 62, the expatriate writer and intellectual bomb thrower Germaine Greer is fighting the biggest battle of all.
Aboriginal side returns to blaze a trail
20 August 2001 - It's taken more than 130 years, but the second tour of England by an Aboriginal cricket side has finally begun.
No one should fear a Treaty
16 August 2001- At the time of Federation, Aboriginal peoples were excluded from the exercise of nation-building. Today, we are denied any real say in our destiny.
Needed: European action on Indigenous Australians' rights
15 August 2001 - Even if the British government shows no sign of apologising, it is moving on another issue. Amid reports that at least 40 British museums are preparing to hand their collections of ancestral remains back to Australian Aborigines and other Indigenous peoples, the government has just set up a working group to consider changing the law to make it easier for some museums to release their collections.
Aborigines' international hero unites warring parties
10 August 2001 - "Jack Beetson fights for the stolen generations," says the TV clip to be shown around the world about the Aboriginal leader the United Nations has named as one of only 12 Unsung Heroes.
NAIDOC Week: Tribute to Indigenous Service
August 2001 - In recognition of the important contribution Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have made to the Australian Defence Force (ADF), a number of high-ranking Defence personnel attended a special memorial service at the Australian War Memorial during National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Commemoration (NAIDOC) week.
Question of intent
28 July 2001 - Did Australians intend to exterminate the Aborigines? Historian Henry Reynolds looks for evidence of genocide in his latest book, An Indelible Stain?
Black Australia slips the net
14 June 2001 - "The internet in Australia is largely the province of the middle class and the educated, and the cities. It is inherently elitist. And, while it remains so and the status of indigenous Australians remains unchanged, so will their participation in it."
Black list opens road to parliament
12 June 2001 - NSW Labor has never sent an Aboriginal politician to either Canberra or Macquarie Street but the weekend endorsement by the ALP State conference to give indigenous candidates a 20 per cent weighting in preselection contests is aimed at redressing that fact, initially at the local government level.
God knows you should say sorry, new archbishop tells PM
8 June 2001 - Is the Prime Minister out of step with God? Possibly, according to Sydney's new Anglican archbishop, at least over Aboriginal reconciliation and Uniting Church minister Harry Herbert agrees.
'Apartheid' law under fire in NT
7 June 2001 - A new Northern Territory law under which people can be fined $2,000 or jailed for six months for "anti-social behaviour" has been branded stupid and an imitation of a law from South Africa's apartheid era.
The talking cure
2 June 2001 - When white Australia says sorry for past injustices and present inequities, black Australia will respond in kind, believes Hugh Mackay.
Growing the Indigenous Australian internet
June 2001 - Participation in online services by Indigenous Australians is currently very limited. The rate of individual computer ownership is extremely low and private access to internet services is minimally represented within this.
Diplomatic bagging for Irish MP who provoked motion commotion
28 April 2001 - When it comes to Australia and matters of international diplomacy, don't mention the 't' word - 'treaty'. Irish MP Michael Higgins did recently, but he didn't quite get away with it.
Debate rages over "peaceful" white settlement
16 April 2001 - Tony Jones speaks with Henry Reynolds and Keith Windschuttle. Henry Reynolds is one of Australia's most influential historians, who's responsible for some of the most comprehensive and original research, documenting the violence on Australia's frontier. He's written nine books and is presently a research professor at the University of Tasmania. Historian Keith Windschuttle's recent series in the conservative magazine 'Quadrant' attacked the work of Henry Reynolds and others. He's also the author of 'The Killing of History', how literary critics and social theories are murdering our past and he's the publisher of Macleay Press.
Right and wrong
 31 March 2001 - Conservative efforts to deny the existence of the stolen generations are a sinister cultural development, argues Robert Manne, and are designed to undermine the very notion of Aboriginal dispossession.
Tribal voices
31 March 2001 - Roulla Yiacoumi looks at the people, culture, health, music and art of Aboriginal Australia on the web.
Amnesty calls for Teoh Bill block
28 March 2001 - Australians should ask themselves, 'Well, hang on a second. What's going on there? Why are our legal representatives suddenly so keen to pass this law?'
Money that's black and white and spent all over
16 March 2001 - The dollars may appear black, but there are plenty of "grey" areas. Not all native title dollars are being used to Aboriginal advantage. They are being used to help those opposing native title claims. They are being used to help other landholders and the nation deal with the fallout of a High Court decision - the landmark Mabo finding in 1992 that native title exists.
Ending economic racism: bringing together the Indigenous and business communitites
15 March 2001 - There has been increasing debate about Indigenous economics development between Indigenous people, Governments and business groups. Some are calling for welfare reforms while other argue to maintain the status quo. Various models for economic development have been produced by the groups such as the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, ATSIC and others.
Misused spirits of creation returned to proper custodians
7 March 2001 - Since fellow artist Donny Woolagoogja's giant wandjina image awed the masses at the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, Mr Tatayra and other Ngarinyin elders Paddy Neowarra and Scotty Martin have set up a Web site, wandjina.com, to spread the message of their culture worldwide.
Black Australia: a picture of despair, rage and violence
16 February 2001 - Aboriginal people are 45 times more likely than other Australians to be victims of domestic violence, while their risk of being murdered is eight times greater, the most comprehensive research into indigenous community violence reveals.
Dream time for our film-makers
28 January 2001 - Some of Australia's finest film directors are scrambling to make films of Aboriginal stories. And now many predict the ailing local film industry could be in for an Aboriginal-led recovery.
 
We ignore UN rights report at our peril
29 December 2000 - Australia must recognise the increasing links between international trade and human rights, writes Angela Ward (Associate Professor in International Law at Essex University, and junior counsel to Cherie Booth, QC).
No trespass, Cockatoo is ours, declare Aborigines
23 December 2000 - Aborigines who set up a tent embassy on an island in Sydney Harbour have been ordered to leave after a Supreme Court judge found they were trespassing on Commonwealth property.
Pride of the land
26 September 2000 - This was Australia's longest minute. This was the breathless, unforgettable minute. The 112,524 people at Olympic Park last night - a record for the stadium - will never forget it. Few Australians can ever forget it. This was the minute when the nation's heart leapt in the breast and thudded against the ribs like a muffled drum, when the nation's gut churned.
Flame of reconciliation ends its trek to Sydney
4 September 2000 - The Olympic torch is not the only flame that has traversed New South Wales. The alternative flame is a humble glow - it was not accompanied by a convoy of shiny vehicles, you can't buy it, and famous people are not queueing to run with it.It's a small flame, flickering on a piece of old wood cradled to the chest of Kevin "Uncle Kev" Buzzacott, a South Australian Arabunna elder.
Flame of Freedom burns in Victoria Park
23 August 2000 - The last time an Aboriginal campfire burned in Victoria Park could well have been more than 200 years ago. The Gadigal tribe of the Eora people, traditional Aboriginal inhabitants of the area now known as Sydney's inner west, are known to have used the park as a meeting place long before European settlement. The fire then would have been for utility and warmth as well as a place to gather in tribal community.
Facing the wrong way on human rights
31 July 2000 - Australia is displaying increasing ambivalence towards the international human rights regime. Such ambivalence has been manifest in tardiness in complying with international reporting obligations and the rejection of a series of adverse findings by independent UN bodies.
The Aboriginal Arts 'fake' controversy: Traditional art holds the key to world understanding of Aboriginal culture
29 July 2000 - But a rising market brings pressures as well as blessings. When demand for a successful artist to produce more and more work meets a tradition in which art is a communal activity -- with elders like the late Emily Kngwarreye authorising others to assist with her paintings -- the outcome at times has been scandals over bogus works.
Germaine Greer
25 July 2000 - They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but sometimes the view from afar just makes the faults appear that much deeper. This seems to be the case for ex-pat Professor Germaine Greer, whose recent tearful outburst at a literary forum in London left no doubt as to what she currently thinks Australia's stance on indigenous rights. Speaking to an audience of 400 people, Professor Greer said that she had wanted to leave “white Australia” ever since she could think clearly and that her return to this country over the years has been exclusively to “black Australia”.
Cherie Booth tells UN of `cruel and inhuman punishment.
20 July 2000 - The complaint by Ms Cherie Booth, QC, alleges "cruel and inhuman punishment". It says mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory and police practices associated with them discriminate against Aborigines in comparison with their effect on other people.
Canberra denies unease over Blair
15 July 2000 - The Federal Government has denied embarrassment over the involvement of Cherie Booth, the barrister wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an international legal challenge by Aborigines to the government's mandatory sentencing laws.
A Black Day in London
8 July 2000 - In the British Parliament, a Labour MP, Mr Jeremy Corbyn, tabled a motion calling on "the governments and peoples of Australia to mark the Centenary of Federation by committing themselves to redress discrimination and disadvantage" of Aborigines.
Post and Riposte
19 April 2000 - Two emails are republished here. The first was read out on commercial radio station 4RO. The second is an answer from Tim Dunlop. The presenter who read out the first was apparently disciplined. These two are presented here side by side in the belief that views should be addressed, not suppressed.
The wild ride of Charlie Perkins
8 April 2000 - It's the day after Charles Perkins told the world that Sydney would burn during the Olympics. A news crew from Seven is waiting outside his Sydney home; so am I and so is a German journalist. Over the next two days Perkins will do interviews with journalists from around the world. When I ring him later in the week, he can't remember all the countries, but lists a few - England, Ireland, Germany, the United States, Switzerland, Japan twice.
Words apart, but two worlds come a little closer to terms
23 March 2000 - Young Tara McKellar, of Bourke, and Elizabeth II, Queen of England and Australia, did their best yesterday to complete a circle and put behind them a deep unhappiness in the heart of this country.
Reconcile black and white, says Mandela
17 November 1999 - Mr Nelson Mandela sent a subtle message urging Aboriginal reconciliation when he accepted an Order of Australia from the Prime Minister, Mr Howard.
A cruel case of absurd historical denial
15 November 1999 - When asked to explain how it came about that hundreds of Aborigines were now testifying about their removal and its consequences, McGuinness claimed, without a hint of evidence, all had fallen victim to "false memory syndrome".
Greer to stay in exile until treaty rights past wrongs
24 March 1999 - Australia's feminist icon Germaine Greer yesterday vowed not to return to Australia until the Federal Government negotiated a treaty with Aborigines that sought to put right past injustices.
Lifting Shadow from Aboriginal Art
10 March 1999 - The Aboriginal art market in recent years has soared to great heights while periodically being racked by the exposure of fakes. Now 1999 is shaping up to offer more of the same, as a new scandal casts a shadow over the first indigenous shows of the year.
Mr Mabo is entitled to be an agitator
11 February 1999 - "He was in the best sense a fighter for equal rights; a rebel; a free-thinker; a restless spirit; a reformer, who saw far into the future and into the past. In all this he embodies in Australia a long and noble tradition of fighting for black rights."
Jeers from The Diary
27 March 1998 - London: Feminist icon Germaine Greer is never far from controversy. Some would say it doesn't so much follow her as actively seeks her out.
Sorry Book open in UK
25 March 1998 - The Howard Government faces more embarrassment over its handling of race issues with the British launch of a campaign to win an apology for the "stolen generations" of indigenous Australians.
Mandela and Wik
29 October 1997 - When Nelson Mandela taps you on the shoulder and offers to help, it is a fairly sure sign that you are in trouble.
australia media releases 2001-1997

Human Rights in Contemporary Australia
17 November 2001 - Speech: Dr Sev Ozdowsk - I am delighted to be invited to speak today at the Tasmanian Branch of the United Nations Association of Australia's Human Rights Seminar. Despite its rather grand title, this presentation will be a relatively modest attempt to set out the key challenges for human rights in Australia as I see them at the outset of my term as Human Rights Commissioner. Let us begin with a quick survey of the state of human rights internationally and in Australia today.

Aboriginal Catholic Ministry 'stands in solidarity' with asylum seekers
12 November 2001 - Aboriginal Catholic Mission - We know what detention centres are - our people were pushed onto reserves and had to have exemptions to leave them.

ANTaR - Major Political Parties need to lift their game on Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs
7 November 2001 - ANTaR - "The Coalition's policy confirms its assimilationist and paternalistic ‘practical reconciliation’ approach to Indigenous Affairs. If returned, the Coalition offers the bleak prospect of a further stifled Reconciliation process, already stalled after 6 years of the divisive Howard Government.”

Tackling Indigenous disadvantage demands new election commitment
14 October 2001 - ACOSS - A new call for the major political parties to commit to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage by negotiating an agreement or treaty with Indigenous Australians has been issued by over 50 charities and community welfare organisations in the lead up to the Federal Election.

Getting Over Terra Nullis
9 October 2001 - Paper presented at the Australian Registrars Committee Conference - The law is slow and clumsy and it may not reflect indigenous worldviews adequately, but none of this makes legal action using the laws that are currently available futile, as the repercussions of the copyright campaign in Australia convincingly demonstrate. Putting obstacles like the threat of legal action in the way of the fast buck merchants is an effective deterrent, consumers can be educated to consider issues of cultural integrity and manufacturers can be induced to increase their dealings with indigenous artists and interests – if only for commercial reasons.

Matt Rigney: Greens SA candidate for the Federal seat of Barker
October 2001 - Greens (S.A.) - As a Ngarrindjeri man, I am interested in the interconnection between how we treat the earth and how we treat each other. It is inherent in my very existence and identity as a Ngarrindjeri man that the protection of country and society go hand in hand.

Aboriginal Unity Candidates Enter Campaign
October 2001 - The UNITY PARTY has very good Aboriginal candidates in its NSW team of twenty candidates, who are challenging the major parties in the Federal election. "Unity will be fighting a strong campaign for Aboriginal rights at a time when Aboriginal people are finding it hard to get their voice heard," said Paul McLeod, Unity candidate for Gilmore on the NSW South Coast.

A Gungalidda grassroot's perspective on Refugees and the recent events in the US
25 September 2001 - GUNGALIDDA - If we as Aboriginal people are true to our culture and spiritual beliefs, we should be telling the government that what they are doing to refugees is wrong! Our Aboriginal cultures do not allow us to treat people this way.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy has established an office in the Hague.
29 August 2001 - The Aboriginal Tent Embassy - from Canberra Australia has established an office in the Hague. The Nederlands, to start their case in the world court over the historical facts that surround the stealing of sovereign Aboriginal lands in Australia, genocide and crimes against humanity in Australia, that were carried out by the British Crown and government , when the British founded Australia and established a penal colony, in Sydney, in 1788.

HREOC and the World Conference Against Racism - Website Launch
7 May 2001 -HREOC -The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission have created Australia's own WCAR web pages to provide information and updates about the UN World Conference in August 2001 and Australia's participation in the lead up to and during the Conference.

Face the Facts
26 March 2001 -HREOC - Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission releases a document answering basic questions on immigration,refugees and Indigenous affairs.

New Reconciliation Party Convenes Via the Internet
21 January 2001 - ARP - The Australian Reconciliation Party (ARP), the country's newest political entity, has launched itself to the Australian public, in time for consideration at the next Federal election.

Letters Urge Howard to Initiate Treaty Negotiations
7 December 2000 - ANTaR - Chair Geoff Clark today delivered several thousand letters to the Prime Minister, calling on him to initiate formal negotiations leading to a treaty or framework agreement with Indigenous people.

A Treaty Between Our Nations?
11 July 2000 - Inaugural professorial lecture by Professor Marcia Langton, Inaugural Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies, University of Melbourne - At the end of the Twentieth Century, the public culture of Australia remains, as it has for the previous two centuries, riven by disputes as to the status of indigenous people in Australian civil society. I argue here that it remains the case that the Australia polity is devoid of a clear and just status for indigenous people within its ambit. Further, this continuing dispute is a loose hanging thread in the web of our civil society.

Call for boycott
5 July 2000 - Soveriegn Union of Aboriginal Peoples - Michael Anderson, Convenor of Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Peoples challenges John Howard Prime Minister of Australia, over the alleged benefits of Federalism to Aboriginal Peoples and calls for a boycott of Australian wines.

Aboriginal Veteran Family Honoured
31 May 2000 - Minister for Veterans' Affairs - Canberra's tallest building today will be officially renamed in honour of an Aboriginal family that has made a considerable contribution to the defence of the nation. In all, 19 members of the immediate family have seen service across both World Wars as well as in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and East Timor.
Yanner win a legal landmark
November 1999 - FAIRA Aboriginal Corporation - In a landmark decision on October 8, the High Court found Queensland's conservation laws do not extinguish the native title rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to carry out traditional hunting on their lands. LRQ looks at the background to the case and some of the ramifications of the ruling.

Aboriginal Australian delegation visits Britain
November 1998 - Kimberley Land Council - A delegation of Aboriginal Australian from the Kimberley region of Western Australia visiting Britain as part of their struggle to establish land rights for Australia's indigenous peoples. Hosted by Pilotlight, the Aboriginal elders spent the week beginning 23rd November in London, meeting with government, human rights and legal figures to discuss Britain's historic responsibility to indigenous Australians.

Statement by Nyungah Circle of Elders to Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Edinburgh
26 October 1997 - The Prime Minister Mr Howard is not looking after the Interests of Australia. He is looking after the Interests of a small group of Rich and Powerful People. Mr Howard, like every Prime Minister before him has always attacked Aboriginal People to get what they want. The Government has a problem, then they turn round and attack Aboriginal people.

Dragging The Chain 1897-1997
29 August 1997 - Gough Whitlam, The Second Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture - The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia was flawed from the beginning by its references to the Aborigines of Australia. The Federation itself was founded on the assumption that the Aborigines would, quite literally, disappear. The two mentions they received in the Constitution were both negative.

Aboriginal Delegation in London
27 August 1997 - FAIRA - At 5.00am this morning the Nyoongar Aboriginal delegation from Perth arrived in Britain to collect the spiritual remains of the Nyoongar ancestor, Yagan, recently exhumed from a Liverpool cemetery.

Australian Launch of the International Year for the World's Indigenous People
10 December 1992 - Speech given by the then Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating, at Redfern Park in Sydne - "We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?"
The Burnum Burnum Declaration of 26 January 1988
26 January 1988 - DOVER - I, Burnum Burnum of the Wurundjeri Tribe, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal Crown of Australia. In so doing we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make ‘a fresh start’.
Working For the Man: Wages Lost to the Queensland Workers 'Under the Act'
June 1996 - The Indigenous Law Bulletin - The kindest complexion one might put on the disposition of wages was that the government believed that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were unable to manage their own affairs. However, this is not supported by the evidence

european news archive 2001-1997
Nightmare in dreamtime: the genocide of australian aborigines
25 December 2001 - disinformation - The people who could sing dreams into reality are falling away. Where insects once buzzed praise through human avatars enraptured in music, gravestones and concentration camps chain a world. Stories that shaped the world into the mythic Dreamtime and back out again are as forgotten as the Ancestors and the joyful camaraderie brought by food, laughter, and playing children.

Aborigine deaths linked to poverty
12 December 2001 - Scotsman - Australian Aborigines are dying 25 years younger than white Australians and about 15 years before indigenous people in New Zealand and the United States, according to the findings of a recent study.

Papal email reignites 'sorry' debate
26 November 2001 - The Times (UK) - Pope's apology to Australia's Aboriginal population has put pressure on the prime minister to follow suit.
Stolen
23 November 2001- The Guardian (UK) - Sometimes in the theatre it is the way you tell the story that matters most. and sometimes it is just the story that is crucial.

The lost and found generation
23 November 2001 -The Times (UK) - They've clearly been on the move and haven't appreciated the experience. They want an explanation for their rootlessness. Actually, they want an apology - and haven't yet got it, for the Australian Prime Minister doesn't seem too interested in reconciliation. Who are they?

Pope offers apology on the net
23 November 2001 - The Times (UK) - The Pope apologised yesterday to victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in his first message to bishops via the Internet.

Aboriginals visit Westminster
19 November 2001 - ENIAR media release - The Aboriginal Tent Embassy - from Canberra Australia today met with members of Westminster Parliament to discuss the fact that the Aboriginals of Australia never ceded their sovereignty to the British when Australia.

At Home In The World: Book review
31 October 2001 - Cultural Survival - At one time, the books anthropologists wrote were about the peoples -- exotic or familiar -- they studied. Recently, a new genre of anthropological monographs has appeared.

Winning Australia's Aboriginal vote
25 October 2001 - BBC - Prominent aborigines have accused the two leading candidates in Australia's federal election of offering nothing to ease the plight of the country's indigenous people.

Aboriginal Sea Rights Confirmed in Australia's High Court
21 October 2001- ENS - A landmark ruling handed down by the High Court of Australia late last week has confirmed the validity of limited Aboriginal rights over 2,000 square kilometres of the seas adjoining traditional lands off the north coast. The decision has been cautiously welcomed by Aboriginal and environmental groups.

Stolen: An Aboriginal tragedy
8 September 2001 - Black Britain News - What do you do when you meet your mother for the first time in 26 years? Shake her hand? Give her a hug? Will she feel like your mother? What does having a mother feel like?

Britain blocks protection for indigenous people
7 September 2001- The Independent (UK) - Britain is blocking an attempt by the world's 300 million indigenous peoples ­ including Maoris, Aboriginals and Native Americans ­ to have their rights protected under international law, The Independent has learnt.

Voices against racism: Australia's Aborigines
5 September 2001 - BBC - Amid the diplomatic posturing and the haggling over language at the World Conference against Racism it is easy to lose sight of the reality of racism.

The blood in our old bricks
5 September 2001 - The Independent (UK) - A couple of years back, there was a brief fashion for historical hypotheticals. Authors speculated on how the entire course of human history might have been changed if, say, a haemorrhoid-plagued Napoleon hadn't sent Marshal Grouchy off on a cross-country chase after the Prussians just before Waterloo. Or, had Hitler concentrated on Moscow in 1942, might we not all now be celebrating his birthday in April, rather than the Queen's? And what if Stonewall Jackson had not died at Chancellorsville; would he have won at Gettysburg and would there now be two USAs?

Discrimination against Aborigines in Australia is racially motivated
31 August 2001 - Society for Threatened Peoples International - .. are seeking to raise at the World Conference against Racism in Durban. They also aim to call attention to the issue of racial discrimination suffered by Aborigines in Australia.
Groundbreaking guide challenges stereotypes
August 2001 - Lonely Planet - "There's more to being an Aborigine than playing the didjeridu and posing in a barren landscape, spear in hand, before a mystical dusk backdrop" .. Aboriginal Australia & the Torres Strait Islands, Lonely Planet 2001.

Early tour of sideshows and insults
28 August 2001 - The Independent (UK) - The first Aboriginal team to play in England arrived in 1868, 10 years before the first white team to reach British shores.

British Musems to return long lost Aborignal Art
26 August 2001 - The Sunday Telegraph (UK) - Some of Britain's biggest museums are to return hundreds of artefacts to their original owners as part of a Government initiative on disputed collections

Coming in from the Outback
21 August 2001 - The Observer (UK) - Britons flock to Australia each year but rarely learn anything about its Aborigines or their culture. Caroline Hendrie says that could be about to change

Stiff Gins ****
10 August 2001 - The Scotsman - Gin was once a word for woman in the language of one Australian Aboriginal tribe, but, over some shameful years, it came to be used as a derogatory term for any black woman. The Stiff Gins use the word as a way of reclaiming it, giving it dignity again - and they succeed pretty thoroughly.

Aboriginal Islanders reunited with their 'stolen' ancestry
8 August 2001- The Independent (UK) - More than a century ago, a leading British anthropologist visited the Torres Strait Islands, off the northern tip of Australia, and stole away with more than a thousand of the inhabitants' most important artefacts.

Aborigines 'have asked Mugabe for help on land rights'
7 August 2001- The Independent (UK) - Zimbabwe stepped up its propaganda campaign over seizures of white-owned farms on Monday, saying that Australian Aborigines have enlisted the help of President Robert Mugabe in their quest for land rights.

Paddy Roe, Aboriginal leader whose life was a story of reconciliation
27 July 2001 - The Independent (UK) -The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, has refused to apologise to the Aboriginal people for injustices committed for at least a century and a half under government authority.

Dictionary gives hope to Aborigines
13 July 2001 -Telegraph (UK) - Aboriginal leaders have claimed that the inclusion of the phrase "stolen generation" in the latest edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary amounts to international acknowledgment of their campaign for reparations.

Aborigines offer alternative guide to their land
11 July 2001- The Independent (UK) - "There she goes," said Lino Thomas, peering through the drizzle at the mist-veiled mountain rising ahead. "Look at that grey cloak. She's wearing her possum skin again." Ms Thomas, an Aboriginal tour guide, was pointing to one of the earliest landmarks recorded by Captain Cook as he sailed up the coast of southern New South Wales. Cook called it Mount Dromedary, but the mountain already had a name: for thousands of years, Aborigines had known it as Gulaga.

Boemerang tentoonstelling in het Museon, Werphoutjes en strijdknotsen
22 June 2001 - NRC Handelsblad Voorpagina - Een lied uit het midden van de vorige eeuw laat een Australische Aboriginal zingen: ,,My boomerang won't come back''.

Rule of the Australian Rednecks
16 June 2001 - Guardian (UK) - This is the story of a rural community where blacks live in fear of men in white robes. Welcome to Casino, the KKK capital of Australia.

Aboriginal wizards of Oz
10 June 2001 - The Observer (UK) - Mark Whitaker reports on the pioneering Australians who toured England - nine years before the first Test match.

Pieces in the 'Puzzle' of Australia
9 June 2001 - International Herald Tribune - The brand new National Museum of Australia here has brought together, for the first time, the story of Aboriginals with the cultural history of the European settlement of Australia.

BHP consigue acuerdo con aborigines para explotar mina de hierro / BHP is able agreement with aborigines to operate iron mine
6 June 2001- EFE - Australian miner Broken Hills Proprietary has decided with two native groups a compensation 30 million dollars by the operation of an iron mine in the region of Pilbara, in the state of Western Australia, informed the company today.

Aborigines promised apology
3 June 2001 - BBC - In Australia the Labor opposition party has moved to put an apology to the country's indigenous people back on the political agenda ahead of a general election due later this year.

Australia rejects Amnesty's claims
1 June 2001 - BBC - The Australian government has rejected claims by Amnesty International that it was no longer a leader in promoting human rights, which were at a record low in the country.

Demise of world’s vanishing languages
June 2001 - Scotsman (UK) - There are 6,800 languages spoken in the world today, but, by the end of the century, up to 90 per cent of them could have disappeared.

Australia's shock of the new
28 May 2001 - The Guardian (UK) - The National Museum of Australia seems to be designed to shock, rather than educate, says Patrick Barkham.

Les Aborigènes d'Australie, les touristes et la montagne sacrée / Aboriginals of Australia, tourists and the crowned mountain
26 May 2001 - Le Monde (France) - Once more, their culture is ridiculed for vulgar financial interests. The Aboriginals living around the crowned mountain of Uluru - more known in France under the name of "Ayers Rock'n'roll " - ended up yielding.

BEl Festival Internacional de Poesia adopta este año acento australiano
24 May 2001 - La Vanguardia, Barcelona. (Redacción.) - El Festival Internacional de Poesia de Barcelona estrena en la edición de este año -la 17ª- la iniciativa de contar con un país invitado, en este caso Australia.

A town like Malice
23 May 2001 - Guardian Unlimited (UK) - This is the story of a rural community where blacks live in fear of white men in robes. But this story takes place a world away from Tennessee. Welcome to Casino, the KKK capital of Australia.
Victim of Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’ appeals for reparations
18 May 2001 - Minority Rights (UK) - The UN Working Group on Minorities which is meeting in Geneva this week heard the testimony of Audrey Ngingali Kinnear, an Indigenous woman from Australia...’.

Branagh waives fee for film on Aborigines
18 May 2001 - The Guardian (UK) - The British actor-director Kenneth Branagh waived his usual fee to play a white official who tried to destroy the Aboriginal race in Australia.

Disturbing Tide of Racism in Australia
10 May 2001 - There are warnings in Australia that racist hate groups are increasingly targeting the country's Aboriginal people. Hate crimes against aborigines are on the rise.
Written Answers - Human Rights Abuses
9 May 2001 - Dáil Éireann - 83. Dr. Upton asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the Government's opinion on a submission made to his Department on behalf of the aboriginal people; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12910/01]

Aboriginal party eyed in Australia
7 May 2001 - China Daily - DARWIN, Australia: It has been more than three decades since Australia's Aborigines were granted the vote. But the island continent's original inhabitants can boast only one current federal senator and have shown little interest in a political system that long spurned them.

Aboriginal sin of Australia exposed
3 May 2001 -The Ham & High (UK) - 'Stolen' particularly excels when exploring the mental illness, inability to settle down and suicide that result from their upbringing. By the end, you are left with a few eloquent images – snapshots of bewilderment, leave-taking, home-coming and searching.

Secret abuse shame of Aboriginals women
22 April 2001 - Independent (UK) - "They tell us that it's none of our business, it's their cultural way," said one white domestic violence counsellor. "But the elders have told me that these things were never part of their culture. We have to get rid of the romantic view of the Aboriginal way of life, because they don't believe it themselves. It's just white do-gooders being politically correct."

Tracy Moffat @ Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
19 April 2001 - The Guardian (UK) - This is an exhibition of two halves: one thrilling, the other less so.

Just don't call me an Aboriginal artist
16 April 2001 -The Independent (UK) - Meet Tracey Moffatt and you sense it straight away: beneath the chatty, congenial veneer, a manic gleam, a taste for mayhem. Her photographs, which have made her easily the best-known Australian artist in the world today.

Stolen lives
16 April 2001 - Guardian Weekly (UK) - Beatrix Campbell on the 'sisters' who are challenging Australia to admit to its forced separation of Aboriginal families.

Few set out on road to ethics
14 April 2001 - The Guardian (UK) - Despite activists' clamour, key pension funds have yet to move towards socially responsible investment. Tony Levene reports.

Vom Holocaust zu den Aborigines
8 April 2001 -F.A.Z.Net - Was bedeutet die Analogie von Jüdischem Museum und Aboriginal Gallery? Wird hier insinuiert, wie der Architekt Howard Raggatt meint, dass die Geschichte der Juden in Berlin mit der Geschichte der Aborigines gleichgesetzt werden könne - schließlich seien ja auch die Aborigines Opfer gewesen, Opfer schlimmster kolonialer Unterdrückung.

Johnny Warrangkula Tjupurrula
31 March 2001 - The Times (UK) - Obituary: A troubled life that produced Aboriginal art quite untouched by European conventions.

Aborigines call for withdrawal of 'insensitive' book
21 March 2001 - Independent (UK) - An Aborigine community has called for a book to be withdrawn and pulped for being insensitive about their culture. Copies of the book, titled "Broometime", were reportedly hurled by angry residents at its authors when it was launched in the Western Australian town of Broome yesterday.

Museums of cultural dispossession?
17 March 2001 - Frontline (India) - The two new projects in Paris for museum development may well be a saga of dispossession of the cultural heritage of micro-civilisations.

New bridge in Australia opens old wounds
5 March 2001 - The Guardian (UK) - The opening of a bridge in south Australia has reignited a 10-year conflict between Aborigines, white Australians and academics, writes Patrick Barkham.

Angry Aborigines storm out of racism conference
20 February 2001 - Independent - Dozens of angry Aborigines stormed out of a conference on racism today after heckling the Aboriginal affairs minister, who insisted that the Australian government does care about the plight of indigenous people.

Gift of life
14 February 2001 - The Guardian(UK) - The world's largest mining company has been given a chance to prove its green credentials and save Aboriginal homelands. By Paul Brown.

'Racist law' blamed for boy's death
4 February 2001 - The Observer (UK) - Benjamin, a 15-year-old Aborigine of the Lalara tribe, in Australia's 'Deep North', died a slow and ghastly death after taking the sheets in his room at a detention centre and hanging himself. He was cut down from the noose but died the following day in hospital.

Film places focus on saga that shamed Australia
3 February 2001 - The Independent (UK) - The plight of the Stolen Generations - Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families by the white authorities - is to receive international exposure thanks to a new film based on the remarkable true story of three girls who escaped and walked 1,200 miles home across the Australian Outback.
Aborigines face greatest jail threat
31 January 2001- The Independent (UK) - Aborigines are 15 times more likely than other Australians to end up in jail, and they make up a fifth of the country's prison population, according to official statistics.
2000
Guilt surfaces at Australia's centenary
31 December 2000 - The Independent (UK) - When proud Australians paraded through Sydney 100 years ago tomorrow to hail the birth of their independent nation, there were no black faces among the marchers, or the hat-waving crowds. There were, for that matter, only two women in the procession.

Outback spirits to return home
26 November 2000 - The Independent (UK) - The spirits of hundreds of Aborigines may be finally laid to rest after a decision by Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture, to return their bones to Australia.

Australian reconciliation off the cards
11 December 2000 - The Guardian (UK) - The process of reconciliation between Aboriginal and white Australians was dealt a blow last week, writes Patrick Barkham.

Aboriginal leader at Bray seminar
1 December 2000 - Bray People Newspaper (Ireland) - An Aboriginal leader was the keynote speaker at a conference which took place in Bray last weekend. Patrick Dodson, who has been a campaigner for the rights of Aboriginal people in his country for the last 30 years, addressed the conference, 'Exploring Identities'.

Ethnic Cleansing? We Have It Here Too!
17 November 2000 - International Journal on World Peace - The United States Government has been trying unsuccessfully to register Native American Indians for over a hundred years. The infamous Dawes Act of 1887 was the first such effort on a large-scale. The purported aim of the Act was to protect Indian property rights during the Oklahoma Land Rush. By registering, Indians were told, they would be allotted 160 acres of land per family in advance of the Land Rush and thus be restituted for 100 years of genocide against them.

That historical wizard of Oz
4 November 2000 - The Independent (UK) - An epic teller of truth that trumps fiction, Thomas Keneally still dreams of a republican end to Australia's story.

Australia slammed over Aborigine rights
29 October 2000 - BBC - An international aid organisation has criticised Australia for failing to protect the basic rights of indigenous Australians. The report, from the aid agency Oxfam, says Australia is the only country in the world with a constitution that allows racial discrimination.

Charles Perkins
19 October 2000 - The Times (UK) - Obituary: Aboriginal leader who campaigned for civil rights reform and was the first of his people to become head of a government department.

Australia is the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations
13 October 2000 - By John Pilger. There is no doubting the efficiency of the Sydney Olympics, the friendliness of the people, the beauty of the setting; but there was a political façade. Soon after the Aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman won her gold medal, the cabinet of John Howard’s government met in Canberra to mount yet another attack on her people by planning to change the Land Rights Act.

Olympics gave indigenous Australians their biggest ever stage
2 October 2000 - The Independent (UK) - Aboriginal myths at the opening ceremony. Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron and blazing to victory in the 400 meters race. Indigenous rock group Yothu Yindi's closing ceremony performance.

After the party, it's back to brutal reality for the Aussies
1 October 2000 - The Independent (UK) - With the scent of the fireworks from today's closing ceremony lingering in their nostrils and the roar of the crowd in the Olympic stadium still ringing in their ears, Australians are about to wake up to one of the worst cases of Monday morning blues in their 212-year history.

Indian Affairs Head Makes Apology
October 2000 - AP -The head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs apologized Friday for the agency's ``legacy of racism and inhumanity'' that included massacres, forced relocations of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian languages and cultures. "By accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right," Kevin Gover, a Pawnee Indian, said in an emotional speech marking the agency's 175th anniversary. Gover said he was apologizing on behalf of the BIA, not the federal government as a whole. Still, he is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to make such a statement regarding the treatment of American Indians.

Cathy comes home to gold and a nations adulation
26 September 2000 - Telegraph (UK) - When the Aboriginal athelete Cathy Freeman stormed to victory in the 400m yesterday, she carried a colossal burden on her shoulders - the dreams and expectations of 19 million Australians. By Barbie Dutter.

Aboriginal cry for freedom echoes cries for Freeman
26 September 2000 - The Guardian (UK) - David Hopps watches the race in a makeshift inner-city 'tented embassy'. At the Aboriginal tented embassy in Sydney's Victoria Park, safeguards were being taken to ensure Cathy Freemans victory.

Aborigine fury as 'false image' sells Olympics
17 September 2000 - Telegraph (UK) - Aborigines are furious over the use of their culture and art to sell the Sydney Olympics which they say masks the harsh reality of their lives and paints a falsely romantic image of "the noble savage".

Aborigine torch-bearer
17 September 2000 - Sport can be a truly perplexing business. One moment knee deep in banality and bathos, the next instant transformed into a crescendo of pathos and ovewhelming, spontaneous joy. The phenomenon resurfaced again at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics on Friday evening when, just as some of us were beginning to droop under a deluge of dismal pre-torch songs, suddenly we had lumps in our throats and tears welling in our eyes as Cathy Freeman emerged from the darkness to walk on water and ignite the Olympic flame for these Millennial Games.

The wonder of modern Australia
14 September 2000 - The Independent (UK) - As Australia enters its big year, with the Sydney Olympics opening this week and the nation's 100th birthday coming up in January 2001, it presents two sharply contrasting faces to the world. One is the hearty, red-necked Crocodile Dundee .. the other is the cosmopolitan, multicultural Australia of a city such as Sydney.

Aboriginal protests may turn violent, says leader
 8 September 2000 - The Independent (UK) - Nelson Mandela has been feted like a living legend during a flying visit to Australia this week - by everybody except the Australia government, which was accused yesterday of snubbing the former South African president.

Australie : Rendez-vous Manqué Avec La République (95kb PDF)
4 September 2000 - LiMes - Le 6 novembre 1999, les Australiens se rendaient aux urnes pour un double référendum visant à modifier leur constitution. Ils étaient appelés à se prononcer pour ou contre une “république d’Australie”. Ils étaient également consultés sur l’opportunité d’introduire dans la constitution un nouveau préambule reconnaissant, pour la première fois, le rôle primordial des Aborigènes, en tant que premiers occupants de l’île-continent, et l’importance de la contribution économique, sociale et culturelle des immigrants venus massivement s’installer.

Aborigines granted Olympic protests
4 September 2000 - BBC - The Australian Government has given Aborigines permission to demonstrate near Sydney airport in the days leading up to the 2000 Olympics.

Their Olympic moment: Australia's Aborigines in world spotlight for Games
3 September 2000 - CNN - It was an odd place to welcome the Olympic flame -- in a country surrounded by water. Yet Uluru-Kata Tjutu National Park in the red sandy plains of central Australia was also the perfect place for the torch to begin touring the 2000 Olympics' host nation. In a sense, Australia begins here.

UN reports finds Australian aborigines disadvantaged
1 September 2000 - BBC - A United Nations report says that Australia's Aboriginal people continue to be disadvantaged in employment, housing, health and education.
Australia's treatment of Aborigines 'appalling'
September 2000 -Survival International (UK) - As athletes and spectators arrive in Sydney from all over the world, Survival today condemned Australia's treatment of Aborigines as 'appalling'
UN censures treatment of aborigines
31 July 2000 - Guardian Unlimited - Australia has come under renewed fire from the United Nations for the way it treats its Aboriginal population.

UN Human Rights Committee Findings
28 July 2000 - Amnesty International (UK) - Today's findings of the UN Human Rights Committee on Australia's record of civil and political rights confirm Amnesty International's major concerns on the country....

Australia attacked over Aborigine treatment, The UN says Australia must redress years of injustice
21 July 2000 - BBC - Australia has come under attack for its treatment of Aborigines at a UN Human Rights Committee. The committee, which is due to publish its official recommendations next week, expressed concern at the marginalisation and discrimination of Aborigines in Australian society.

Dirty tricks down under
8 July 2000 - The Guardian (UK) - Australia's shameful past is being raked up on the London stage. Michael Billington reports.
A constitution lacking human rights guarantees is nothing to celebrate
5 July 2000 - Amnesty International (UK) - Human rights protection in Australia largely remains subject to an outdated British-Australian "gentlemen's agreement" that international standards do not need to be enshrined in law.....
Prime Ministerial Joint Statement on Aboriginal Remains
5 July 2000 -The Australian and British governments agree to increase efforts to repatriate human remains to Australian indigenous communities. In doing this, the governments recognise the special connection that indigenous people have with ancestral remains, particularly where there are living descendants.

Where did all the children go?
5 July 2000 - The Independent (UK) - Stolen, one of several Australian plays about the abduction of Aboriginal children, has caused audience members to have heart attacks. Why is it so powerful?

Britain pressed to return Aboriginal bones
5 July 2000 - The Guardian (UK) - Australia's prime minister, John Howard, yesterday took the opportunity of a visit to Downing Street to press Tony Blair for help in persuading British museums and universities to repatriate the remains of more than 2,000 aborigines.

Old Bill digs up little weed beside Big Ben
5 July 2000 - The Times (UK) - The plants would have continued to prosper were it not for an observant group of Aborigines who were themselves staging a protest over land rights ... said Michael Anderson, from the Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Peoples. "You must be a very liberal country. We should all emigrate to England".

Church Leaders Take a Desert Trek to Bridge Australia's Divisions
15 June 2000 - Christianity Today - Leaders of nine Australian churches have completed a pilgrimage of reconciliation—a week-long 1,900-mile bus trip to Australia's remote heart.

Australia gets taste of Seattle
Summer 2000 - Red Pepper (UK) - Australia's long-suffering Aboriginal population sees the games as a golden opportunity to push the country's human rights record up the world's agenda. Key issues in the demonstrations will include mandatory sentencing for minor crimes in Australian states and the government's refusal to apologise for past crimes against indigenous peoples.

Squabble over Aboriginal chief's head
19 April 2000 - The Telegraph (UK) - The head of an Aboriginal chief was believed to be still in an Australian bank vault yesterday, almost three years after being exhumed from an English cemetery.

Australia is divided between rich and aboriginal
18 April 2000 - Independent (UK) - They are citizens of the same country but they might as well be living on different planets, so diverse are their living conditions and life expectancy.

Inauguration of the Pavillon des Sessions at the Musée du Louvre
13 April 2000 - Speech given by Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic

Aborigines target Olympics
2 April 2000 - BBC - Leaders of Aboriginal groups in Australia are threatening to disrupt the Olympic Games in Sydney to draw international attention to their plight.

Australia shies away from UN scrutiny
30 March 2000 - Amnesty International (UK) - By deciding to review Australia's participation in UN treaty committees, the government shows a deplorable lack of respect for and understanding of the crucial role they play within the UN human rights system....

Aborigines 'deserve a royal apology'
27 March 2000 - The Telegraph (UK) - After a week of large crowds and little controversy, the royal tour of Australia was finally dragged into the political arena yesterday when a party leader called on the Queen to apologise to the Aboriginal people for their suffering at the hands of the Crown.

Royal Aborigine apology urged
26 March 2000 - BBC World Service - A leading Australian politician is calling on the Queen to apologise to aborigines for their past treatment by British colonists. The controversial call for an apology was made by Australian Democrats leader Meg Lees.

Queen visits race riot town
22 March 2000 - The Independent (UK) - The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh travelled to the "back of beyond" in the Australian outback today to a town called Bourke. The small settlement of 3,600 people, 500 miles north west of Sydney, is down-at-heel and renowned for the wrong reasons.

Protests at Queen's Australian visit
18 March 2000 - BBC - There have been two low-key protests outside Government House in Canberra, where the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are staying at the start of their Australian visit.

Queen braves tour furore over Aborigines' loyalty pledge
5 March 2000 - Telegraph (UK) - The Queen will face a severe diplomatic predicament when she visits Australia later this month, created not by disgruntled republicans but by the Aborigines, who regard her as their champion.
Prime Minister's disregard of human rights obligations shocks A.I.
18 February 2000 - Amnesty International (UK) - In an ironic coincidence, the United Nations Secretary General's praise for Australia's assistance to East Timor today contrasts with the Australian Prime Minister's refusal to accept that universal human rights standards equally apply to his own country...
Amnesty International submission on juvenile mandatory sentencing
14 February 2000 - Amnesty International (UK) -The application of Australia's mandatory sentencing laws to juveniles is clearly inconsistent with its international human rights obligations, Amnesty International warned the government four months ago....

Aboriginal boy's death in custody fuels debate on sentencing
11 February 2000 - The Guardian (UK) - The death of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy in custody yesterday has given a tragic boost to an international campaign being fought by churches and civil libertarians against what they describe as unjust and draconian mandatory sentencing laws.

Exhibition brings Aboriginal art to St Petersburg
4 February 2000 - The St. Petersburg Times - The most significant exhibition of its kind that has ever been seen abroad - that was how Brian Kennedy, director of the National Gallery of Australia, introduced "World of Dreamings: Traditional and Contemporary Art of Aboriginal Australia," which opened at the State Hermitage Museum on Wednesday.

Stolen Identities
29 January 2000 - As Aboriginal people transferred their visions onto canvas, buyers swiftly began to recognise their value. Aboriginal painting is now recognised as one of the most important movements in modern art. It generates around 200 million Australian dollars a year: some canvases are worth as much as A$40,000 each. For a while it looked as if the sale of art would be a means by which the Aborigines could start to recover some of the self-respect of which they have been deprived, as well, of course, as some of the resources. As soon as their painting became valuable, however, white marauders began to steal even that.

Aborigines to Protest At Ceremony in Sydney, Group Will Try to Drown Out Prime Minister
International Herald Tribune - Prime Minister John Howard of Australia and other political and civic leaders will attend a ceremony in Sydney on Saturday that is intended to advance proposals for reconciliation between the country's indigenous black minority and its predominantly European majority.
Aborigines Facing Rebuff at the Polls, Australia Likely to Reject a Tribute
International Herald Tribune - Furious debate in the campaign on a referendum on Saturday over whether Australia should become a republic or remain a constitutional monarchy has overshadowed a second question: Will Australians approve a preamble to their constitution that honors Aborigines for the first time?
1999
A chance to end the unfinished business
3 November 1999 - The Guardian (UK) - When Linda Burney was a little girl in Whitton, New South Wales, she was puzzled as she stood on the hot asphalt and sang God Save the Queen at the weekly school assembly. "It didn't make sense then and it doesn't make sense now," she said. Ms Burney, chairwoman of the New South Wales state reconciliation committee, which seeks to redress past and present grievances, is one of many among Australia's 450,000 Aboriginals who would welcome a break with the Crown.
Caging the Rainbow: Places, Politics, and Aborigines in a North Australian Town
31 October 1999 - Cultural Survival - Francesca Merlan's latest book explores the lives of Aborigines in the small regional town of Katherine in Australia's Northern Territory. It combines ethnography and anthropological theory, grappling with issues surrounding the debate about the authenticity of contemporary cultural activity: specifically, changing notions of personal and group attachment to "country."

Aborigines to see Queen at Palace
11 October, 1999 - The Telegraph (UK) - A group of Australian Aboriginal leaders will have a historic meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace this week to air their hopes for constitutional reform and to discuss "unfinished business" with Britain.

Queen to meet Aboriginal leaders
13 October 1999 - Black Britain News - The Queen is to convene a private meeting at Buckingham Palace with Aboriginal leaders less than a month before Australia's referendum which is believed may drop the Queen as the Commonwealth country's head of state.

My Century
7 September 1999 - BBC - My name is Cecil Dickson: one of the aboriginal children who were taken away from their families in the early '40s, as a policy of the government at the time to change the way of life of Aboriginal children, to be brought up in more of a European style of life. I was taken from my family when I was four years old, along with three of my brothers. I can clearly remember that day.

Cruelty begins at home
1 September 1999 - The Guardian (UK) - Does anyone like John Pilger? Dictators certainly don't. There they are, happily torturing opponents, oppressing their own people when Pilger turns up to expose their crimes. Democracies fare no better.
Citizens Against Discrimination: sacred stone returned to Aboriginal leaders in Australia
23 August 1999 - Citizens Against Discrimination - Hendersonville, North Carolina -- Charles Merrill, an environmentalist did not at first realise how revered and powerful to its Aboriginal group of origin the churinga stone actually is. He decided to return it so that it could be sold to raise funds for the protection of an island in the Torre Straits. The Island is sacred to traditional Aboriginal women, and was being threatened with the development of a vacation resort. Once he began a dialogue with the repatriation office of the Central Land Council in Alice Springs, Australia, however, he learned that the churinga stone is too sacred and too powerful to be sold under any circumstances.

Fixed Race
21 August 1999 - John Pilger - Australia is gearing up to host the 2000 Olympics, yet its own sporting history is far removed from the spirit of the Games. Some of its greatest sportspeople were denied the chance to make their mark. Why? Because of the colour of their skin. And even today, to be aborigine, is to be a second-class citizen.

A nuclear fall out
21 July 1999 - The Guardian (UK) - Tali Iserles and Paul Brown report on controversy over plans for a uranium mine on Aboriginal land.
Australian Government's dismissal of UN criticism undermines hard-earned credibility in human rights diplomacy
19 March 1999 - Amnesty International (UK) - The Australian government's inappropriate attitude to United Nations criticism on its "racially discriminatory" practices puts at stake the credibility of Australia's human rights diplomacy...

Australia defends 'racist' land law
13 March 1999 - BBC - Australia has begun its defence at the United Nations against charges of racially discriminating against Aborigines. The Committee to End Racial Discrimination, in Geneva, wants Australia to explain changes to laws on Aboriginal land rights.

Aborigines suffer social deprivation
2 March 1999 - The Telegraph (UK) - In the Gibson Desert an Aborigine tribe is restoring its pride at a time when other groups of Australia's indigenous people are suffering vast social disadvantage.

Don't poison us, plead Aborigines
21 February 1999 - Guardian Unlimited (UK) - Revealed - a plan to ship waste to Australia that spells danger to humans and wildlife.
1998
Australian Aboriginal Land: Interview with Kimberley Land Council Chairman, Peter Yu
26 November 1998 - Transcript: BBC Radio London - A delegation of Aborigines has arrived in the capital to persuade Western nations to support their battle for land rights. They say their land was stolen from them by white Australians which has led to an erosion of their culture and human rights. London is their first stop before taking their case to a United Nations conference.
Introduction: Media and Aboriginal Culture; An Evolving Relationship
31 July 1998 - Cultural Survival - When print and electronic media first entered Indian Country, they came as part of a wave of Western cultural influences that exerted strong assimilating pressures on Aboriginal communities. Such metaphors as `neutron bomb television' and `cultural nerve gas' captured this negative influence and the corrosive impact of mainstream media on Aboriginal culture.
Move to stop Aboriginal art fraudsters
15 April 1998 - The Telegraph (UK) - Aboriginal artists are to be protected from unscrupulous imitators by a national Aboriginal art logo, guaranteeing the racial origin of those responsible for "indigenous" artworks.
MPs Support Sorry Book
13 April 1998 - TNT (UK) - British MPs are starting to rally behind the Sorry Book campaign and "one of the great disgraces of the world". The Australians for Native Title has called on the House of Commons to sign the book in recognition of the human rights abuses inflicted on the Aboriginal people and the Howard Government's refusal to apologise for them.

Officials Snub 'Sorry' Book
30 March 1998 - TNT (UK) - London: The Australian High Commissioner refused to sign the Sorry Book and "snubbed" its London launch last Thursday. Launch organisers say it was disappointing the High Commissioner Dr Neal Blewett, didn't try to "repair some of the damage to Australia's international reputation" inflicted by "the way the Government is treating Aboriginal people".

Sorry, say the Aussies
27 March 1998 - Dudley Express and Star (UK) - Popular Australian celebrities have apologised on behalf of their country for the nation's rough treatment of Aboriginal people.

Poverty of the millionaire Aborigine clan
15 March 1998 - The Telegraph (UK) - Aborigines, forced from their homes by British nuclear testing in 1953, are returning to their ancestral lands to find that life in Maralinga, deep in the southern Australian desert, will never be the same again.

Native title recognition of Customary Marine Tenure (CMT) and the implications for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and future management of marine areas
February 1998 - Traditional: Marine Resource Management and Knowledge: Information Bulletin (Secretariat of the Pacific Community) - The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) stretches along the Queensland coast of Australia. It has often been showcased both locally and internationally as the world’s most successfully managed marine park. However, in its management of this park, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has come under scrutiny by researchers and indigenous people alike. This paper presents an update on issues concerning indigenous rights, management strategies and GBRMPA.

Prescriptions for the Problem: What is being done to improve the human rights problems of indigenous peoples?
January 1998 - Earlham University - Contents: Prescriptions from Important Actors: What is being done? Intergovernmental Organizations: United Nations; Council of Europe; Organization of American States. Nongovernmental Organizations. Critique and Suggestions: What else can be done?
1997
Aborigine sets sights on political heights
28 December 1997 - The Telegraph (UK) - Noel Pearson, an Aborigine who wears pin-striped suits, works for a City law firm and plays blues guitar, is being tipped to become Australia's first black prime minister.
Return Of Tasmanian Aboriginal Remains
1 December 1997 - The University handed over the limited Tasmanian Aboriginal hair samples from its anatomy collection to a delegation from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre at a ceremony held in Old College.

Australia's debate over Aboriginal land rights
1 December 1997 - BBC - This week marks a new stage in the most politically divisive issue Australians have faced for many years. A bill introduced into the Senate - the upper house of the Australian parliament - is intended to settle the question of who owns Australia - who owns the land that people use for farming and mining. Is it the Aborigines, or descendants of the white settlers who arrived two hundred years ago? Red Harrison in Sydney says the debate is dividing Australians bitterly.

Sweden gives aboriginal skull back to Australia
15 November 1997 - Reuters - The skull of an unknown Australian aborigine which was sent to Sweden in 1908 was handed to a delegation of aboriginal elders on Saturday, ending a 10-year tussle to allow its return to its country of origin.

Museum to return tribal treasures to Aboriginals
6 November 1997 - The Telegraph (UK) - Aboriginal treasures, removed from Australia more than a century ago, will be returned this week after being discovered in a city museum.

First their children were stolen …… now their land too?
November 1997 - The Independent (UK) - An open letter to the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Australia: 'We write to appeal to you as Australia's constitutional Head of State. We do so as a matter of some urgency and not without hope.

Indigenous Peoples in International Law
31 July 1997 - Cultural Survival - The international system's contemporary treatment of indigenous peoples is the result of activity over the last few decades. This activity has involved, and been substantially driven by indigenous peoples themselves. Indigenous peoples have ceased to be mere objects of the discussion of their rights and have become real participants in an extensive multilateral dialogue that also has engaged states, NGOs, and independent experts.

Australian Aboriginal Property Rights Under Threat
31 July 1997 - Cultural Survival - It took over 200 years to achieve, and it is described as the single most important legal decision in Australian history. In 1992, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander native title property rights were recognized by the highest court in the land. In 1997, these rights are under threat. Mining companies and other developers assert that the Native Title Act 1993, enacted by the federal government, has given indigenous people too much power over development. They are insisting that the law be changed to reduce or annul most of the rights established by the court decision.

Aboriginal Elders Addressing UNESCO Rock Art Forum
10 June 1997 - UNESCO - Paris - Four Ngarinyin elders, aboriginal people from the Kimberley region of North-West Australia, will for the first time share with outsiders the secrets depicted in their prehistoric rock art, at a UNESCO Forum to be held at Headquarters on June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Room X. The Forum, in the context of UNESCO’s mission to protect cultural heritage and particularly rock art, will present the Ngarinyin’s "Pathway Project", their own ongoing effort to interpret and communicate their sacred ancestral tradition.

Museums and Indigenous Cultures
30 April 1997- Cultural Survival - The idea of gathering things, normally beautiful things, together and putting them on display is very old. Babylonian kings had their private collections in the sixth century BC. The emperors of China and royal personages in other parts of the world certainly had collections of their own. The idea of a museum, however, comes to us from the Greek word museion, which did not originally refer to a collection.
1996-1990

Hunting for indigenous people's genes
28 April 1995 - Third World Network Features - The proponents of the Human Genome Project argue that the collection, and eventually patenting, of rare human cell- types and genes from these peoples is justified for the `greater human good' - the applied science provides a short cut to new cures. The peoples themselves, however, have rather different opinions,

Indigenous peoples emerging on the world stage
23 July 1993 -Third World Network Features - For some time indigenous peoples were denied recognition and a role in international fora. This has changed with the ILO Convention on Tribal and Indigenous Peoples and the UN Commission on Human Rights' establishment of a Working Group on Indigenous Populations.
Treaties, agreements and "constructive arrangements": indigenous people and the legal landscape
24 November 1992 - United Nations Information Centre in Sydney for Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific - Many treaties between indigenous people and the Governments of the countries in which they live carry great symbolic and spiritual meaning. To indigenous people, treaties are seen as providing recognition of their right to self-determination and a guarantee of respect for their collective rights. Indeed, for people whose recent history has been largely one of discrimination and marginalization, marked by land dispossession, forced relocation, cultural assimilation and, in some cases, genocide, a foundation of legal protections is considered vital.

Negotiating Sea Rights
30 April 1991 - Cultural Survival - If I were to visit another country. I would ask my local companion, before I saw any museum or library, and factory or fabled town, to walk me in the country of his or her youth, to tell me the names of things and how, traditionally, they have been fitted together in a community. I would ask for the stories, the voice of memory over the land. I would ask to taste the wild nuts and fruits, to see their fishing lures, their bouquets and fences. I would ask about the history of storms there, the age of the trees, the winter color of the hills... I would want to have something real and remembered against which I might hope to measure their truth.
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples: A Guide to ILO Convention No. 169
Adopted at the International Labour Conference - Geneva, June, 1989 - Australia to date has not ratified this convention. It is notable that, in spite of the relatively slow rate of ratifications, this Convention has had significant influence on domestic policies and programmes, as well as the policy guidelines of several funding agencies. This shows that, to induce changes in the perception of the problems and the ways to solve them, ratification, though desirable and, in the long term, necessary, is not indispensable in the short and medium term.
ILO Convention No.169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
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