Australia

  • Preference deal a joke

    MELBOURNE — The ALP have done a preference deal with the “joke” candidate for the Maribyrnong council elections. Former mayor and ALP incumbent Michael Clarke has preferenced Garth Bray, an independent.

  • Church faces axe for progressive stand

    St Mary’s church in South Brisbane has been threatened with excommunication if it maintains progressive practices that have the overwhelming support of the parish and community.

  • On the box

    Summer of Love - Looks at the hippy district of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury during the summer of 1967, which had utopian beginnings born of idealistic youths who'd grown up with post-WWII affluence but were now dealing with Vietnam, racism, and

  • Mulrunji, Wotton struggle continues

    The family of Palm Island Aboriginal man Lex Wotton say they are relieved he did not get a life sentence and they will not be mounting an appeal against his six-year jail sentence. However, there has been widespread questioning of the discrepancy in the “justice” received by Wotton and white senior sergeant Chris Hurley.

  • Seeds of Dissent 2009 calendar launch

    MELBOURNE — Community radio station 3CR has released its fundraising Seeds of Dissent 2009 calendar. The theme for the 2009 calendar is “political poster art”.

  • Sandgate feels the power of community

    BRISBANE — More than 30 people attended a November 8 Green Left Weekly screening of The Power of Community — How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, at Sandgate Community Centre.

  • Social and community workers call for fair pay

    Hundreds of community workers and members of the social and community services (SACS) division of the Queensland Services Union (QSU) rallied on November 10 outside the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC).

  • The woman who tried to save Lake Peddar

    Whatever happened to Brenda Hean?
    Directed by Scott Millwood
    Written by Scott Millwood & Mira Robertson
    Distributed by Gill Scrine & Little Films Whatever happened to Brenda Hean?
    By Scott Millwood
    Allen & Unwin, 2008
    256 pages, $26.95 (pb)

  • No to the death penalty, no to hypocrisy

    After midnight on November 9, Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim and Mukhlas Nurhasyim were executed by firing squad on the Indonesian prison island of Nusakambangan.

  • Villawood hunger strike

    From November 8-10 at least 135 detainees in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre refused to take any food or water. The hunger strike was suspended when the Immigration Department gave in to the strikers’ demand for consultation.

  • Kmart locks out workers

    SYDNEY — Workers at Kmart’s Huntingwood distribution centre in Sydney’s west were locked out by the company for two days from November 10. The workers — members of the National Union of Workers (NUW) — had just completed a four-day strike in pursuit of a new enterprise bargain.