Linda S

Hundreds of Aborigines and supporters are preparing to defend the kutalayna Aboriginal site in Tasmania’s lower Jordan Valley, in a protest that some say has the potential to be as big as the huge Save Franklin River protests of the 1980s. In dispute is the route of the Brighton bypass highway, north of Hobart. The Tasmanian government is pushing ahead with a bridge that will damage the historic site. Aboriginal activists and their supporters want the bridge to be moved at least 300 metres away. Already the campaign has drawn support from high-profile figures.

In October, Kevin Harkins, a member of the Labor Left, won the ballot to become the new secretary of Unions Tasmania. Harkins was an electrician and then an organiser with the Electrical Trades Union in Victoria, before becoming ETU Tasmanian secretary in 2000. He spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Linda Seaborn. * * * The recent Unions Tasmania election was the first contested ballot in years. Can you tell me about that?

Pacific Rim are a Canadian multinational firm seeking to exploit the “El Dorado” gold deposits in El Salvador's rural north.

The National Tertiary Education Union (Tasmania) sent its log of claims to the University of Tasmania’s management almost a year ago. Despite numerous meetings between the NTEU and management, little has been achieved.

The people of El Salvador will go to the polls on January 18 for the legislative elections, then again on March 15 for the presidential ballot.

Hector Antonio Ventura and 13 others, now known as the Suchitoto 14, were arrested in July last year for their participation in an anti-water privatisation forum in the town of Suchitoto.

On June 30, 45 people met to prepare the next phase of the Save Ralph’s Bay (SRB) action group’s campaign against a proposed canal housing estate being built by the Walker Corporation, owned by billionaire Lang Walker, inside the publicly owned Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, in the Derwent river estuary.

On April 12, Jorge Navas, secretary of the South Australian branch of the Health Services Union, spoke to a meeting at Unions Tas about human rights in Colombia and campaigns to protect union leaders.