Last week's ACTU Congress, held at Sydney's Darling Harbour Convention Centre, was a peculiar affair. The delegates were angrier than they had been for years, but the votes still went the way of the ACTU leaders. Dick Nichols looks at two issues
Issue 114
News
By Chris Spindler
ADELAIDE — Patrick Dodson, chairperson of the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council, spoke to more than 200 students and staff at Flinders University on August 18 on the results of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in
PSA accepts enterprise bargaining deal
By Trish Corcoran
ADELAIDE — A mass meeting of the South Australian Public Service Association, held on August 26, voted to accept a package proposed by the state government.
The package
Attack on political bookshop
SYDNEY — Swastikas and right-wing threats were spray painted across the front if the Pathfinder Bookshop in Surry Hills on the night of August 30. Supporters of the bookshop are calling on defenders of democratic
600 jobs saved in SA?
By Melanie Sjoberg
ADELAIDE — In the lead-up to the South Australian budget, Premier Lyn Arnold announced that previously projected cuts of 600 jobs in the public sector would not go ahead. The content of the budget,
By Max Lane
SYDNEY — Indonesian and Australian activists and trade unionists failed in their efforts to put a resolution before the ACTU Congress stating support for the newly forming independent worker organisations in Indonesia and opposing
Call to protect Jervis Bay
By Bruce Threlfo
SYDNEY — A special peak councils meeting of Australia's major environmental organisations on August 25 called upon the federal and NSW governments to invoke the fullest degree of environmental
Tim Anderson speaks on Austudy arrests
MELBOURNE — Tim Anderson is touring Melbourne campuses to talk about the justice system and the fight for our rights and liberties.
Speaking at a socialist conference in Sydney in August, he repeated
By Barry Healy
SYDNEY — The ACTU urgently needs to change direction, a September 1 public meeting was told. The meeting, called by the Rank and File Alliance and attended by about 80 people, coincided with the ACTU congress and was organised
Coode Fire Commemorated
By Ray Fulcher
MELBOURNE — On August 21, local residents of Melbourne's inner west joined with environment activists to release balloons carrying tags for return to the Hazardous Materials Action Group at Coode
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — Some 200 people rallied on September 4 outside Ascot station in the city's eastern suburbs to protest against the impending closure of passenger rail services between Eagle Junction and Pinkenba.
The rally
By Paul Oboohov
SYDNEY — Lion Nathan Corporation, owner of Toohey's Breweries, has been able to sack 192 workers and conduct a massive restructuring of its plant at Lidcombe following the collapse of strike action at the plant.
The Liquor
The wages debate at the ACTU Congress was the one where everyone was expecting "action". All the ingredients for a major clash seemed to be there: the Transport Workers Union had denounced the loss of wages under the Accord; the New South Wales Labor
"Mate, he's smiling." With these words, one cynical old union official described how he saw industrial relations minister Laurie Brereton's position after he had been jeered, catcalled and hissed by a hostile ACTU congress.
Smiling? After such a
Rally calls for action on Brisbane River
By Jim McIlroy
BRISBANE — Queensland Greens convener Drew Hutton and Australian Littoral Society executive officer Di Tarte expressed some optimism about the future of the Brisbane River, following
By Max Lane
According to an article in the September 2 Financial Review, many of the Keating government's budget back-downs were the result of pre-planned lobbying work by organisations such as the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS).
EYA in Fringe Festival
By Lachlan Anderson
Photo by Elle Morell
Melbourne — As part of their People Against Pollution campaign, 20 EYA members participated in the opening of the Melbourne Fringe Festival street parade and party on
Sixteen sacked over safety issue
By Elle Morrell
MELBOURNE — Sixteen steel fixers and carpenters have been sacked from a construction site at St Vincents Hospital for taking a stand over a safety issue.
When a three-metre iron
World
FMLN activist assassinated
On August 19, at 1:00 a.m., Oscar Grimaldi, a member of the FPL/FMLN, was assassinated in El Salvador.
Grimaldi was having a drink in the Cafe Latino in Santa Tecla, La Libertad. Two armed men in civilian clothing
By Irina Glushchenko
and Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — Russia's capital, it was reported recently, has now entered a select group of world centres. For anyone not content with a bread-and-potatoes standard of living, Moscow has become one of the
Attacking underdevelopment and pollution
JULIA PERKINS and NICK FREDMAN recently returned from a visit to Cuba. Here they describe the island's attempts at economically sustainable development.
"Ecojoven 93", the first youth environment
Cover-up fear in Yanomami massacre
By Cam Walker
The world was horrified by the recent massacre of up to 100 Yanomami Indians by goldminers in the Amazon basin. It has been reported that the inhabitants of two villages were slaughtered and
By Craig Etcheson
Everyone seems to agree the Khmer Rouge are finished, or are they? It is well to recall that Cambodia is covered with graves of those who underestimated Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (KR).
Nonetheless, the majority view is
US delegation to meet (almost) 'everyone'
By Jana D.K.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) have announced that a visiting delegation of 12 US congressional aides will be allowed to meet with East Timorese fighters during a
By William Lune
The Somali tragedy represents an extreme example of what is taking place in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The crisis is a result of the crippling combination of three decades of moisture deficit in the Sahel belt and failed
By Jana D.K.
JAKARTA — On September 1, 6000 workers stopped work at the PT Khong Tai Indonesia Rebok shoe factory in East Bekasi, West Java, over wages and conditions. Strikers erected signs with slogans such as "Don't cut our wages", "Hi,
Call to lift ban on Pramoedya's work
According to an August 23 Jakarta Post report, 70 leading Indonesian authors and artists have asked the government to lift its ban on the publication of the works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, whose novels have
By Karen Lee
HAVANA — If they had flown in on a magic carpet laden with gold and jewels, the 14 women and men who engaged in a 23-day hunger strike against the US blockade of Cuba and the dozens more who aided them could not have received a
Nicaraguan commandos make getaway
By Stephen Marks
MANAGUA — Hundreds of people waved clenched fists, arms and flags and shouted support as the Dignity and Sovereignty Commandos made their escape from the city. People lined the road while
By Kirsty Sangster
and Lia Kent
"Before I came in to Thailand, I sat on the River Moi bank, on the borderline, very close to Thailand. In 1984, Burmese troops came and attacked Maesot ... I set out on foot looking for a safe place, and went
Culture
A Piebald Dog Running on the Edge of the Sea
Directed by Karen Gevorkian
From September 10 at Carlton Movie House, Melbourne
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
The "piebald dog running on the edge of the sea" is the Nyvkh name for a large rock off
In the stars
By Lucifer Skycrawler
What's in the stars? Hydrogen, mostly. Helium too, especially in the older ones. Traces of heavier elements. Oh yes: heat, lots of it.
So it's certainly not surprising that the stars can determine
Become what you are
The Juliana Hatfield Three
Festival Records
Reviewed by Karen Fredericks
In "Feelin' Massachusetts", on Become what you are, Juliana Hatfield complains that her home town, Boston, bores her. Boring or not, the city is
The fire in Nina Simone
Nina Simone, the Legend
Masterpiece, SBS Television
Monday, September 13, 8.30 p.m. (8.00 Adelaide)
Reviewed by Ignatius Kim
"I refuse to call it jazz even though the whole world calls it jazz. It was a term
Inessa Armand: Revolutionary and feminist
By R.C. Elwood
Cambridge University Press, 1992. 304 pp. $99 hardback.
Reviewed by Claudine Holt
When Inessa Armand's name is mentioned, it is usually in connection with that of Vladimir Lenin —
Cuts to ethnic broadcasting
By Geoff Spencer
MELBOURNE — More than 400 people attended a public meeting on August 16 organised by radio stations 3ZZZ, 3CR and 3YYR. The meeting, at Trades Hall, was called to condemn a 25% cut in federal
Brisbane's Green It Up
By Lynda Hansen
BRISBANE — What do you get when you mix healthy politics, live music, poetry and Guinness? It's called Green It Up and it happens every Thursday Night at the Brisbane Celtic Club.
Green It Up is
By John Queripel
From the highland flings of Scotland to the dance of East Timor, from the strident sounds of protest folk to the harmonies of a cappella: they will all be there at the Newcastle and Hunter Valley Folk Festival to be held at
By Debra Sorensen
KAKADU NATIONAL PARK — "It's a bloody rip-off! Where does the money go, to the bloody Abos I s'pose?!"
This greeting is a common but by no means predominant sentiment. Thousands of visitors come to Kakadu each week at
Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture
By Noam Chomsky
London: Verso, 1993. 172 pp., $27.95 (pb)
Reviewed by Phil Shannon
John F. Kennedy — "the only shining star that ever crossed the political sky" as the
By Stan Thompson
BRISBANE — "For hundreds of years the indigenous peoples or 'orang asli' in Sarawak have lived and depended on the rainforest for food, shelter, clothing, medicine and other necessities, living in complete harmony with nature.
Editorial
Middle East peace?
The decision by the Israeli government to sign an agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organisation to allow the Palestinian Arab population in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho limited