The 2012 Global Atheist Convention, organized by the Atheist Foundation of Australia, Inc. See: www.atheistconvention.org.au for more information. 

The Humanist Society of Queensland (HSQ), in northeastern Australia, is putting its money where its mouth is by financially supporting a legal challenge to government funding of school chaplains. Queensland parent Ron Williams is challenging the constitutional validity of the National School Chaplaincy Program (NCSP), which now receives almost a billion dollars in federal government funding. The groundbreaking case will be heard before the full bench of the High Court of Australia in Canberra this week (9-11 August, 2011).

The Council of Australian Humanist Societies is pleased to announce that Dr Leslie Cannold, writer, commentator, ethicist and researcher, is the 2011 Australian Humanist of the Year (AHOY). This award has been bestowed on Leslie in recognition of her valuable contribution to public debates on a wide range of ethical issues, particularly to do with women and family life. She is an outstanding secular voice in Australian public life. Her public contributions, whether in daily newspapers or on radio and TV, are always considered and well informed.

Senator Bob Brown is Leader of the Greens and well-known grassroots campaigner for the environment and human rights. As a publicly avowed atheist he has been outspoken over many decades on numerous matters of concern to Humanists.

The weekend of 14/15 March some 2,500 non-believers packed into Melbourne’s glossy new hi-tech Convention Centre for the 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) today congratulated Julia Gillard on her appointment as the new Prime Minister of Australia.

The February 2009 issue of IHN ran an article by Iain Middleton which, under the title 'Humanism in New Zealand,' was in fact only an account of the Humanist Society’s activities from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. I outlined some of the problems with the article in a letter published in the May 2009 issue, and here would like to offer a broader account of Humanism in New Zealand.

The term buraku literally refers to a small, generally rural, hamlet. Burakumin are a Japanese social minority group: Japan’s “invisible race.” No physical characteristics distinguish them, unlike other main minority groups, from the majority population. There are about six million burakumin in modern Japan (about 2 per cent of the population).

Some of the organizations working with interfaith dialogue are open for Humanists as well. Here is information on a large conference that may be of interest if you want to engage in such dialogue.