This year the festival of Tanabata coincides with Japan hosting the G8, so this tree is a campaign action. As more people sign the Global Call to Action Against Poverty’s wish petition, their wishes will be beamed by the magic of XML (scripted by QA Computing’s prodigiously talented David Boelke) onto your Tanabata tree.

Please take one from Union Island (you can’t miss it – under the giant Tanabata we have), and stick it in your own home. If you know anyone or any groups that would like one too, it’s free, so please feel free to circulate as much as you like, and help spread the message of the campaign, so we get a great result to send to the Japanese Prime Minister at the start of the G8 summit.

Thanks to Ms Q for this nice snap of her wearing her Union Island t-shirt. We like them lots too, and would love to see more photos from other users wearing them around in Second Life. If you have one, please do take a photo and either upload and transfer it to Unionisland Republic, or email it to info(at)slunions.org. We’ll stick any we like onto a Hall of T-shirt Fame in our freebie store.

If you’ve not been by our freebie store yet, now is the time to visit, as we’ve just got two very nice new Union Island T-shirts for avatars to take away with them, made for us by the very talented Adam Soler of SL clothing designers Lookr. Now you can show you’re proud to be a unionist without having to compromise in the fashion stakes

Visit Union Island to pick up your shirts. And send us your best pics of you wearing them, and we’ll publish the ones we like most!

The ITF are planning an international day of action on March 6th, to campaign for the release of jailed Tehran bus workers union leader Mansour Osanloo.

In October 2007 Osanloo was sentenced to five years in prison on trumped up charges of endangering Iran’s national security and criticising the regime. However, the real reason that he has been targeted is as a member of a free trade union not controlled by the government. In fact, since the union was formed in June 2005, he has been arrested three times and spent more time in the notorious Evin Prison than out. His friends and family have serious worries about his health, and it’s urgent that he’s let out immediately to recuperate.

Get ready for the campaign with a badge or shirt. Hundreds of unionists worldwide are already wearing the badges, and posting their images to flickr. Now your avatar can get in on the act too.

You can find both of these at Union Island (slURL), in the freebie store.

Get more information on the campaign and take important online actions now at www.freeosanloo.org