Sunshine Coast students walk out
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — Students at Nambour High School in the Sunshine Coast hinterland walked out of school in late February in support of Honey Marich, a 15-year-old classmate excluded for wearing a
Issue 178
News
Blockade of M2 freeway continues
By Andrew Hall
SYDNEY — A blockade of the M2 motorway by up to 30 community activists has continued since February 12. Protesters say the tollway, in Sydney's north-west, sacrifices community consultation,
Owl endangered
One of Australia's rare nocturnal animals, the sooty owl, is in danger of extinction due to the lack of a law to protect it, according to the Concerned Residents of East Gippsland (CROEG).
Scientist Paul Peake, who has spent
Grand Prix protesters inspect 'dust bowl'
By Sean Lennon
MELBOURNE — A thousand people gathered at Albert park on February 18 to inspect the damage caused to the park by construction for the Grand Prix. The protest, organised by the Save
By Dave Andrews
ROSEBERY — After many years of campaigning by residents, the new Rosebery Community Hospital was officially opened on March 1. The hospital replaces the dilapidated structure that had served the mining communities on Tasmania's
By Pip Hinman
In fear of the political consequences, federal cabinet has been postponing a decision on whether 76 sensitive areas of old-growth forests will be logged. Cabinet is due to make a decision on March 6.
The timber industry lobby
By Ben Courtice
HOBART — Protesters are mounting a determined campaign to halt the Heemskirk link road, which is being bulldozed through the Tarkine wilderness in the state's north-west.
Actions have been organised by residents' networks
Brisbane rally against woodchipping
By Kathy Newnam
BRISBANE — Around 2500 people attended a February 25 rally against woodchipping organised by the Wilderness Society in King George Square.
Leonard Lee, a Brisbane journalist, called
By Anne-Marie Donnelly
and Brendan Greenhill
BRISBANE — The Queensland Criminal Justice Commission decided late on Friday, March 3, not to charge the "Pinkenba Six" with official misconduct after they were cleared of criminal charges in
CFMEU bans demolition
By Chantal Wynter
MELBOURNE — The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has backed a campaign by Broadmeadows teachers and community leaders to stop the government from bulldozing the caretakers'
Port Jackson independent launches campaign
By Roberto Jorquera
SYDNEY — Social Justice Independent for Port Jackson, Denis Doherty, launched his campaign for the state elections here on March 3. Around 100 people attended the launch,
Aboriginal death in Long Bay
SYDNEY — "The hanging death of Brian Joe Ballard at Long Bay Jail Hospital is the second death to occur this year", said Ray Jackson, public officer of the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee.
"How
WA teachers fight for wage claim
By Robert Graham
PERTH — State school teachers in WA have launched work bans on voluntary after-hours activities in support of a 20% pay increase. A 600-strong mass meeting of the State School Teachers
By Melanie Sjoberg
ADELAIDE — Parliament House steps were surrounded by chanting crowds on February 26 as up to 6000 people gathered to protest against the woodchipping of old-growth forests. The numbers, greatly exceeding the predictions of
Victorian nurses enforce work bans
By Kim Linden
MELBOURNE — Victorian nurses voted unanimously on February 17 to impose work bans in support of a nationwide campaign for an 8% pay increase.
Members of the Australian Nursing
Braving 40 heat, more than 6000 people rallied against woodchipping in old-growth forests on February 26 in what organisers believe was the most broad and dynamic demonstration held in Adelaide for some time. Green Left Weekly's PIP HINMAN spoke to
World
PNG to gut forest law
By Glen Barry
The PNG timber industry and its political allies have tried repeatedly to undermine forest legislation passed in 1991. Now the new minister of forests, Andrew L. Posai, has proposed that the government
Chechen government appeal
The following statement was received by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) General Secretariat on February 27 from the government of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria.
The Government of the
By Eva Cheng
The creative accounting of a 28-year-old whiz-kid in faraway Singapore blew open a US$1 billion hole into which the British merchant bank Barings fell, never to emerge. Observers fear that other financial "time bombs" are still
Aid money for logging in PNG
SYDNEY — Australia is planning to channel millions of dollars into training Papua New Guinean forestry officers instead of taking measures to halt the alarming rate of logging in that country, according to four PNG
Sinn Fein conference
On February 26, Sinn Fein held its annual Ard Fheis [conference] in the Mansion House, Ireland's first parliament, at which over 500 delegates voted in support of the IRA cease-fire of September 1. At this conference it was
At the upcoming UN Environment Program (UNEP) Governing Council in Nairobi in May, it is likely that delegates will vote to start the process to change the current voluntary Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedures for chemicals and pesticides into a
Jose Antonio Neves, East Timorese theology student and secretary of the student national resistance organisation RENETIL, was sentenced on February 15 by an Indonesian Court to four years' jail. He was arrested in the central Java city of Malang in
During the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the general view was that Kazakhstan — a large Asian republic that stretches from the Volga river to China — represented one of the more fortunate parts of the former USSR, writes Boris Kagarlitsky.
By Jim Beatson
Noam Chomsky, on his recent trip to Australia, when asked about Bougainville, explained, "I don't think it's a hard one. It's a pretty reasonable if people get to work on it. Bougainville is an easy one for Australian activists to
US pesticide study sounds alarm
Washington, D.C. — A study published on February 27 in the American Journal of Public Health, which finds elevated rates of cancer in children exposed to pesticides, raises yet again the serious and overdue need
Culture
Rachida, an Algerian mother
SBS. Tuesday, March 14, 8.30pm
Reviewed by Jennifer Thompson
This French documentary, made in 1994, captures many of the terrible difficulties and choices facing ordinary Algerians today. Rachida and her seven
Poem: Hercegovina
em = By Andelko Vuletic
Translated by Amila Buturovic
Now,
over this very stone,
where the pollen smells,
where the karst is white and the juniper tree is black
where the wolf howls and the snake rattles and
A short story by Maria Lee
I arrive about forty-five minutes early, and park next to the theatre gardens. I walk up to the street and find the building I'm supposed to go to. Along the way, my eyes check for possible parking places for the next
Editorial
Not the thinking woman's party
By all indications, 1995 is shaping up to be the year in which the ALP relaunches itself as the "thinking woman's party". Not since the ALP's 1972 "It's Time" campaign has the party placed so much emphasis on its
General
By Jackie Coleman
MANAGUA â More than 30,000 supporters of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) rallied in the Plaza of the Revolution here on February 19 to mark the 61st anniversary of the assassination of Augusto C. Sandino.