746

Richistan, A Journey through the 21st Century Wealth Boom & the Lives of the New Rich
By Robert Frank
Piatkus, 2007
263 pp.
The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) is spreading its net further throughout the building industry in an attempt to intimidate unions from standing up for the interests of their members.
Since Kosova declared independence on February 17, it has been recognised by only 33 countries, while most are “waiting and watching”.
Fridge Magnets are Bastards: An A-Z Rant About Annoying People & Useless Things in the Modern World
By Mark Dapin
HarperCollins, 2007, 262 pp, $24.99 (pb)
A legal challenge by environmental group Blue Wedges to the federal government’s approval of the dredging of Port Phillip Bay was defeated in the Federal Court on March 28. Blue Wedges’ case was based on the slipshod manner in which environment minister Peter Garrett approved the project on February 6, a week after the giant dredging ship the Queen of the Netherlands arrived in Melbourne on January 29. The ship was commissioned by the Victorian government to dredge a new shipping channel in the bay.
At 11pm on April 7, 1998, Patrick Stevedores locked 2000 waterside workers out of their jobs. Following months of speculation, the “leasing” of Webb dock in Melbourne to the National Farmers Federation in late January and the abortive “Dubai affair” — where former soldiers were trained in secret in Dubai as strike-breaking scabs — Patrick opted for a frontal assault on the workers and their union.
A new British government “kitemark” suggests that most carbon offset schemes are flawed, but fails to address the more fundamental problem of paying others to clean up after us.
On April 1, 50 Wollongong residents rallied outside the NSW parliament in Macquarie Street, Sydney, to demand an end to corruption in the Labor-dominated Wollongong City Council (WCC). The rally, organised by the resident action group Wollongong Against Corruption (WAC), was addressed by, among others, Greens MP Sylvia Hale and NSW Liberal Party leader Barry O’Farrell.
According to a March 20 Prensa Latina report, Bolivia has honoured the second anniversary of the national literacy campaign that has so far taught 77% of its illiterate population to read and write, using the Cuban program \"Yes, I Can\". Since it
Ben Bernanke is the chairperson of the US Federal Reserve Bank. If he sneezes at the wrong time, the world’s sharemarkets take another dive and currency speculators rush for their global roulette table. So when he addressed the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on April 3 he was choosing his words very carefully. And there was one word he was wary about using: “recession”.

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