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Key NSW public sector workers — firefighters, teachers and nurses — are to negotiate new agreements this year and are fighting a tough campaign for fair wages as they face attacks from an anti-worker state Labor government.
A report released on June 5 by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) calls for massive job cuts and fair hikes to make Sydney train services more “efficient”. The report recommends cuts amounting to $480 million a year, the June 6 Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Mining giant Xstrata has been condemned by environmental campaigners for its failure to release 1999 data quantifying the impacts of mining operations on lead levels in the Mount Isa area.
The Bolivian government nationalised on June 2 the TR-Holdings company, which owns 50% of the stocks of the Transredes company, consolidating the process of nationalising Bolivia’s gas industry begun on May 1, 2006, the Bolivian News Agency (ABI) reported.
The Colombian government appeared on June 3 in Geneva before the Committee on the Application of Standards at the ILO’s annual session of the International Labour Conference.
I cannot say that I ever liked Ehud Olmert. But now I almost feel sorry for him.
“Under the jackboot of Howard’s Northern Territory intervention, the great majority of Aboriginal people supported Rudd in the last election. Now they feel betrayed by the Rudd Labor government”, commented Sam Watson, the Socialist Alliance’s national Indigenous affairs spokesperson, at its Queensland state conference on May 31.
On June 4, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US issued its ruling upholding the convictions of the five Cuban nationals being held in US jails, including the espionage and murder conspiracy convictions. The “Cuban Five” had infiltrated right-wing Cuban exile groups in Miami to help prevent terrorist attacks. At the same time, the US government has refused demands from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments to extradite convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed all passengers, to Venezuela where he escaped from jail. Below, is an abridged statement at a May 20 press conference by Gloria La Riva on behalf of the US National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. For more information, visit http://freethefive.org.
In a massive show of support for the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — established to unite the mass movement that supports the Bolivarian revolution led by President Hugo Chavez — on June 1 some 2.5 million PSUV members participated in an historic process of electing candidates for the upcoming regional elections in November.

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