Issue 10

News

Wetland decision deferred By David Brazil Greater Taree City Council this week reserved a decision on a sand mining development application affecting one of the most sensitive wetlands on the NSW north coast. BHP-Utah wants to establish
By Adriaan Anarco-Troika DARWIN — The "razor gang" Estimates Review Committee, set up by the Country Liberal Party government late last year, will slash over $120 million from government spending over the next two years. It recommends the
Arthur Murray and Sonny Bates, convicted in the Brewarrina "riot" trial, will be sentenced in Bathurst on Friday, May 3. The NSW Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee is organising a demonstration outside the Bathurst District Court at 10
Story by Barry Healy Photo by David Brazil SYDNEY — "We cannot morally aspire to be a free people in our own land while oppressing others. The plight of the Palestinians evokes a disturbing echo", Marta Romer of Jewish Women in Support of an
By Martin Mulligan MELBOURNE — State Liberal leader Alan Brown turned up for a day's work on April 23 only to find that his parliamentary colleagues had been conspiring to dump him. By 10.30 a.m. the game was up. Both Brown and his deputy,
Rallies back Kurds Brisbane By Bill Mason The plight of the Kurdish people in northern Iraq was the focus of a rally and march organised by the Kurdish Association of Queensland here on April 20. Some 100 people gathered in Roma Street Forum
By Steve Painter SYDNEY — "I hope that if Tim is not released on this appeal, that you get up and get back at it again — and let them know that before the appeal", Paul Hill advised a large public meeting at Glebe Town Hall on April 23.
By Col Hesse SYDNEY — It was standing room only on April 10, at St Peters Town Hall in Sydney's inner west, as 250 local residents met to protest against "Mt Sydenham". On May 5 their rage will be maintained at a public demonstration called by
Queensland bribe claims confirmed By Bill Mason BRISBANE — Allegations that multimillionaire Sir Leslie Thiess bribed the Bjelke-Petersen government were substantially true, the jury has ruled in Australia's longest and most expensive
By Peter Boyle and David Mizon Waiting for a national wages campaign from the ACTU? Don't hold your breath; there is none coming. The electrical trades, metal and building unions are threatening to stop public transport and disrupt
SUPPORT GREEN LEFT WEEKLY MARCH BEHIND THE GREEN LEFT BANNERS Adelaide: Saturday May 4, 11 a.m. Peace Park Brisbane: Monday, May 6, 10 a.m. TLC building, 16 Peel St, Sth Brisbane Melbourne: Sunday, May 5, 2 p.m. Trades Hall, Cnr Lygon St &
Federal regulations giving legal recognition to homosexual relationships in immigration for the first time came into effect on April 15. Australia thus joins a handful of countries (New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway) which acknowledge the
"It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Chernobyl disaster was even more catastrophic than the antinuclear movement anticipated", said Friends of the Earth spokesperson John Hallam on the fifth anniversary of the disaster. On April 26, 1986,
By Peter Boyle A large number of police have been brought into Wodonga to contain a militant picket line by 270 striking workers from Wodonga Meats. The strike, according to the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, was forced by the
By Jolyon Campbell and Rjurik Davidson MELBOURNE — Students at Melbourne University will consider sacking student union president Andrew Landeryou and general secretary Keir Semmens at a general meeting on May 7. The meeting has been called on a

World

By Sue Medlock Seven hundred children died in a single measles outbreak in Nicaragua this year. The worst outbreak of this disease in years was primarily due to the fact that many children had not been vaccinated. The immunisation program had
By Peter Boyle Reporting back on April 19 after a two-week visit to Kuwait, an Amnesty International fact-finding team said scores of people had been killed, hundreds arbitrarily arrested and many brutally tortured by Kuwaiti armed forces and
By Adam Novak PRAGUE — The second all-Czechoslovak meeting of Left Grouping, an informal network of left and Communist Party groups and platforms, took place in the Slovak capital Bratislava on April 13. There was a striking contrast between
By Max Lane Indonesia's pro-democracy forces seem to be growing more confident as the 1992 elections near. The Suharto regime, with a discontented officer corps on one side and more confident grassroots protests on the other, is less able to
By Adam Novak PRAGUE — The far-right Republican Party held a 4000-strong march through Prague on Saturday, April 13, the culmination of a national week of action. Their supporters — skinheads, workers facing redundancy, political prisoners
By Frank Noakes Four Catholics in northern Ireland were murdered by British loyalist death squads in the space of six days in late March. Three of the victims were from the Drumbeg estate at Lurgan/Craigavon in Northern Armagh. The three were
By Jacqui Kavanagh As the African National Congress' May 9 deadline for meaningful action by the government approaches, the negotiations process in South Africa is under greater strain than ever before. The deadline was contained in an open
By Sally Low BRATISLAVA — Romanian Securitate secret police are still active in his country, President Petre Roman admitted in Washington on April 16.The Securitate were the backbone of the former Ceausescu Communist Party regime. Released to
By Peter Annear PRAGUE — The Socialist Party government of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia bowed on April 17 to textile and metal workers' demands for wages they had not received for several months and a guaranteed minimum monthly wage of 3000
By Conn M. Hallinan While most of the US media were transfixed by the Gulf War, the Bush administration quietly carried out a violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. On January 28, the US fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific
By Norm Dixon Jean Eparo, a member of the PNG activist group Melanesian Solidarity (Melsol), on her way to attend the "Students, Science, Sustainability" conference at the Australian National University over the April 25-26 weekend, spoke to Green
Two Soviet rocket scientists have warned that the solid fuel rocket boosters used on the US space shuttle release 187 tons of ozone-destroying chlorine molecules into the atmosphere with every launch. Valery Burdakov, co-designer of the Russian
Three members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM — Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) have been indicted by the East Aceh District Court for alleged participation in armed struggle against the Indonesian military. They are accused of murdering members of
WASHINGTON — Greenpeace's campaign against waste exports has revealed that two more New Jersey companies have shipped highly toxic mercury wastes abroad, this time for burial in the rolling farmlands of Spain. From 1986 to 1987, Cosan Chemical

Culture

11 mad days in May By Sean Healy BRISBANE — This month the 1991 Biennial, the international art festival come to Brisbane. With it comes the initiative of a wide range of local Brisbane artists, poets and performers — the First Festival Fringe.
A Shadow Over East Timor A documentary by Mandy King and James Kesteven Produced by Shadow Films in association with SBS Television To be screened by SBS TV on Friday, May 3, 11.40 p.m. (11.10 p.m. in Adelaide) Reviewed by Norm Dixon Hidden
When things balance em = By Paul Buckberry The report on TV was heard while a lone vulture bore witness to death. He was pampered. He witnessed destruction, cities made of matchsticks: again he gorged. He witnessed green puss drain into the
By Dave Riley As new flavours go, the taste of the TV '90s is short courses in Australian comedy. Each skit and impersonation feeds an upwardly mobile giggle streak where each guffaw and chuckle rates with McNair Anderson. Undergraduate revue and
The Return of Scarcity: Strategies for an Economic Future By Dr H.C. Coombs University of Cambridge Press, 1990 Reviewed by Malcolm Abbot Collected in this book are nine essays written by "Nugget" Coombs since his retirement as governor of the
By Tracy Sorensen SYDNEY — Twelve years ago, the World Development Tea Co-operative imported just enough tea from Sri Lanka to fill someone's garage. Today, the non-profit organisation's Tradewinds teas can be found in Coles supermarkets
Strange Neighbours — The Australia-Indonesia Relationship Edited by Desmond Ball and Helen Wilson Allen & Unwin, 268 pp. $24.95 Reviewed by Robin Osborne The most important difference between Australia and Indonesia — aside from the obvious

Editorial

Editorial: Money, power and the law A jury finds that Sir Leslie Thiess systematically bribed the Bjelke-Petersen government yet still awards him $55,000 damages against Channel 9, which exposed his crooked dealings; the federal government