A landmark Federal Court hearing for 96 Western Australian construction workers that begins on October 24 is the most dramatic demonstration yet of the impact of the Howard governments draconian IR laws.
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More than 400 people participated in around 65 workshops and 10 plenary sessions to discuss a myriad of national and international campaigns against imperialism and neoliberalism at the Latin America and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum held at Victorian Trades Hall and the RMIT on October 11-14. The participants included 33 activists and leaders from peoples movements and political parties in 20 countries, the most diverse left gathering hosted in Australia for years.
US President George Bush has opposed US Senate legislation to fund health care for the nuclear-test-affected Marshallese. Sixty-seven US nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.
When PM John Howard tried, unsuccessfully, to ban the use of the worm the audiences reaction graph in the only debate Howards agreed to have with Labor leader Kevin Rudd in this election campaign Rudd protested with a scripted joke.
After winning a stunning 82% of the vote in the April 14 referendum for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution, Ecuadors left-wing president Rafael Correa scored his third major victory in a year on September 30 with his party, Country Alliance, winning 70% of the votes for the new assembly.
Youre only killing a man, revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara said in a school in La Higuera, before he was shot. Forty years later, in that exact spot, among the fog of the Bolivian forest and darkness of night, flags representing social movements from all over Latin America waved in the wind and their bearers danced together until sunrise. That night of October 7 we remembered Che and the struggles of that time, through speeches and song, and we thought about the future as the continent turns red with the idealism, humanism, rejection of neoliberalism, and collective ownership of resources that Che had talked of and fought for.
ADELAIDE With just two days' notice, 80 people gathered on October 7 to voice their opposition to federal environment minister Malcolm Turnbull's approval of the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley. The rally, called by the Greens, was addressed by Sarah Hanson Young, the Greens' lead Senate candidate in South Australia. Greens MLC Mark Parnell also spoke, condemning the South Australian Rann Labor government for its failure to perform an environmental impact study for a new pulp mill at Penola in the state's south-east. Kris Hanna, independent MLC, and Ruth Russell of the Democrats also spoke. Socialist Alliance activist Ruth Ratcliffe called on those present to continue the campaign against the pulp mill and for a massive turnout at the Walk Against Warming protests.
Ali Beg Humayun was threatened with deportation by the immigration department (DIAC) on October 8. Humayun, a queer Pakistani man, has been locked up for over two-and-a-half years in the Villawood detention centre and is currently appealing a Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) decision not to grant him refugee status.
Despite Chinas spectacular GDP growth of nearly 10% per year since 1978 and despite Beijings claim that the country remains on a socialist course in the eight years to 2005, workers wages as a proportion of GDP plunged from 53% to 41.4%.
Claims by immigration minister Kevin Andrews that African refugees are less capable of resettling in Australia than other migrant groups have been met with widespread condemnation by welfare, community and human rights organisations.
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