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Tasmanian forests: The comprehensive planning con trick

BY GEOFF FRANCIS It doesn't matter whether what's being proposed is a woodchip mill, an inner-city monorail, a block of luxury apartments, an airport extension or anything else. There's a comprehensive planning process that has to be gone through,

Green Left Weekly defies intimidation

BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE HOBART — Green Left Weekly volunteers have vowed to defy attempts by Hobart City Council to prevent the paper being distributed in the Elizabeth Street Mall. Council officers directed two Green Left Weekly distributors to leave

Magic rock'n'roll

What Are Rock Stars Doing TodayMagic DirtWarner Music<http://www.magicdirt.net> REVIEW BY BEN COURTICE GEELONG — Local band Magic Dirt have produced a brilliant album of dreamy but catchy pop-leaning songs. It's the best new

Dita Sari thanks MUA

BY ROBERT DARCY SYDNEY — Dita Sari, chairperson of the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI), has written to the central New South Wales branch of the Maritime Union of Australia to thank the union for funding a number of FNPBI

Westies demand to be heard

Unearth ThisOb(zine) Blue Mountains/western Sydney music compilationAvailable from PO Box 300, Blaxland NSW 2774 or <http://fly.to/obzine> BY BARRY HEALY This collection of 17 tracks by different bands from the western Sydney/Blue

NEW ZEALAND: Wharfies defend their jobs

BY ROBERT DARCY New Zealand's Waterfront Workers Union (WWU) is locked in a major dispute with forestry giant Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) over the contracting of cheap labour to load log ships in South Island ports. Over the last three months pickets

Loose cannons

Echos "The problem facing both leaders is that the more they try to distance themselves from each other, the more they are sounding the same." — Paul Coorey, the Adelaide Advertiser's chief political reporter comparing Prime Menzies John Howard

Socialists slam Nats, ALP over One Nation preferences

BY JIM McILROY BRISBANE — The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) candidates in the February 17 Queensland elections have slammed the decision by 17 National Party candidates to give preferences to the racist One Nation party in the upcoming state

... and ain't i a woman?: RU486

RU486 Over the last decade the ability of women to access abortion services in Australia has become increasingly difficult due to government funding cutbacks and protests by the religious right outside abortion clinics. In this context the

Refugees: 'Human rights cannot be sedated'

BY ANDY GIANNIOTIS SYDNEY — With the demise of the Refugee Action Collective, members of the International Federation of Iraqi and Iranian Refugees (IFIR), the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) and independent anti-racist activists have

IRAQ: John Pilger — The great cover-up

BY JOHN PILGER On the eve of an election campaign, the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair is attempting, with mounting desperation, to suppress a scandal potentially greater than the arms-to-Iraq cover-up. This is the deaths of

M1 to 'reclaim a part of Melbourne'

BY SARAH PEART MELBOURNE — "The task facing us is to build a worthy sequel to S11 on May 1 that will strengthen and advance the movement, organisationally and ideologically", M1 Alliance spokesperson and Democratic Socialist Party activist Jackie