James Cook protest against PM

Several hundred students and staff at James Cook University in Cairns protested on May 18 against a visit by Prime Minister John Howard, on campus to open a new library.

“At first he smiled as if he was being welcomed”, one picketer reported of the PM's reaction to the protest, “but very quickly his expression turned quite sober when he was hit with a barrage of strong words ... and saw the number of people there who weren't very welcoming at all”.

One protester, a staff member dressed in academic robes, managed to get into the official ceremony, disrupting it by unfurling a large banner before being hauled away by police.

Staff at the university, many of them members of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union, are in the midst of industrial action around a new enterprise agreement.

Showdown in Canberra

CANBERRA -- Thirty students watched a documentary, Showdown in Seattle, about the November protests against the World Trade Organisation at the Australian National University on May 17.

Resistance activist Marcus Pabian encouraged those present to join the planned September protests in Melbourne against a meeting of the World Economic Forum. A group has been formed in Canberra to organise local actions in the lead-up to the September protest and to arrange contingents to go to Melbourne in September. The group's first meeting is scheduled for May 25. Phone 6247 2424 for details.

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