RMIT students oppose smart card
By Lisa Farrance
MELBOURNE — Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) is intending to collate information on student spending habits and movements. The university is proposing to introduce magnetic
Issue 185
News
Adelaide campaign for East Timor takes off
By Jon Lamb
ADELAIDE — The campaign in support of a free East Timor is well and truly under way here, with several successful meetings and events over the past month.
On April 7, Resistance
More deaths in custody
SYDNEY — "The death of Adam Bessell, 53 years old, who died of a heart attack at Cooma Prison on April 21, only strengthens the Watch Committee's position that the Royal Commission recommendations must be implemented and
$3000 up-front fee for NSW law students
By Karen Fletcher
SYDNEY — The three-month professional legal practice course at the College of Law will cost students $3000 plus materials fees of around $250, up front, in 1996. The college says
By Sandra Eager
SYDNEY — Bulldozers have moved into bushland at the North Ryde and Beecroft sections of the M2 tollway, but the campaign to stop the construction continues. A blockade has been in place at Terrys Creek, North Ryde, since the
Protest against human rights violations
By Michael Tardif
SYDNEY — More than 100 people gathered outside the Global Cultural Diversity Conference on April 28 to protest against continued human rights violations in East Timor, Bougainville
By Jenny Thompson
and Eva Cheng
Governments and media alike are promising extensive benefits from the recommendations on competition policy known as the "Hilmer Report". A recently released Industry Commission (IC) study on the report projects
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — Workers at Mount Isa Mines struck for 24 hours on April 24 in a continuing bid to win pay and other demands, and prepared to cut power to the giant MIM mine.
The Mt Isa combined union disputes committee has
May Day on South Coast
By Liam Mitchell
WOLLONGONG — Workers, students and community activists are expected to rally on May 6 for the annual May Day March in support of justice for all peoples.
Leading the march will be picketers
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — The shooting death of a 16-year-old youth during a confrontation at a suburban Rochedale house on April 25 has provoked a nationwide debate on vigilante justice for home owners in the face of break-ins.
The death
Green elected in NSW
By Dave Wright
SYDNEY — Ian Cohen from the Greens has won a seat in the state's upper house.
Other minor party candidates elected include the right-wing Shooters Party and Call to Australia, as well as a Democrat
Timorese meet UN secretary-general
By Chris Slee
MELBOURNE — Some 100 East Timorese and members of the Australia-East Timor Association rallied outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel on April 27. Inside, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros
Melbourne rally for East Timor
By Jo Brown
MELBOURNE — About 500 East Timor supporters picketed the opening of the "Great Expectations: The United Nations at 50 Years" Conference at Melbourne University on Thursday, April 27.
The
Sexism in the judiciary
By Kerry Vernon
BRISBANE — Remarks by a federal Industrial Court judge on April 13 that "It is not unknown for a woman to sleep her way to the top", have drawn outrage and criticism from a wide range of women and
Rail union militant campaigns for membership control
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — Gary Dale, a suburban train guard with Queensland Rail, has launched a campaign for membership accountability and militant policies in the state branch of the
By Tony Hastings
MELBOURNE — "Stop woodchipping old-growth forests" was the chant as 40 people from Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society and the Cross Campus Environment Network marched through the city on April 21. The action was
By Cameron Parker
Just one month into his four-year term, NSW Premier Bob Carr has angered trade unionists with his proposed cuts to the NSW public sector. Carr is taking steps to corporatise State Rail freight services, and has warned that
By Sarah Nicholson
SYDNEY — On the evening of April 8, Vibe Tribe's free community party, "Freequency", in Sydney Park, St Peters, was attacked. The party had been in progress for over two hours, when numerous police squad cars and paddy
By Tully Bates and Felicity Whitworth
MELBOURNE — The Victorian government has invested over $1 million in an advertising campaign which promotes the economic and social benefits of a Grand Prix in Albert Park. This amounts to a campaign of
World
Left wins Italian regional vote
By Robynne Murphy
ROME — On April 24, the first day after the regional elections in 15 regions out of 20 in Italy, the headlines of the communist journal Liberazione read: "The French teach: the left wins
By Daniel B. Schirmer
Philippine-US relations appear to be on the verge of a radical and retrogressive shift — reinstating US military dominance of the island nation after it had been seriously challenged by the Philippine Senate's defeat of
By Deryagul Beran
We have received word from Kurdistan that for some time a women's army has been in existence among the guerillas there. We spoke to a representative of the Free Women's Movement of Kurdistan (TAJK), who has herself taken part
SARAH STEPHEN, who was recently in Scotland, spoke to TOMMY SHERIDAN, Scottish Militant Labour councillor, about Militant Labour and the progressive movement in Scotland.
Could you give our readers a bit of background on your organisation and
Freeing of hijacker 'condones terrorism'
HAVANA — Cuba on April 19 warned that the release of Leonel Macias, who murdered a Cuban navy officer and hijacked a vessel to the United States last August, is equivalent to condoning terrorism.
By John Lindsay-Poland
The US military revealed for the first time on March 9 which US bases in Panama it plans to consider keeping beyond the year 2000, when the Carter-Torrijos Treaties mandate their withdrawal.
In hearings convened by
More student leaders arrested in Indonesia
By Max Lane
Demonstrations have taken place in Yogyakarta and the central Java city of Solo in protest against the arrest of 10 activists from Students in Solidarity with Democracy in Indonesia
By Tom Maguire
LONDON — A sharp polarisation of voters towards the extreme right and left was a key feature of the first round of the French presidential elections, held on April 23.
French presidential elections are held in two rounds if
In 1946 the paramount chief of the Marshall Islands made the now famous statement: "If the US government and the scientists of the world want to use our island and atolls for furthering development, which with God's blessing will result in kindness
New party launched in El Salvador
A new centrist party, "El Partido Democracia" (Democracy Party) was launched in San Salvador in late March. It is a consolidation of those elements which, rejecting Marxism and embracing social democracy, split
Culture
Kind Hearted Woman
Michelle Shocked
Self-produced
Reviewed by Jen Crothers
Michelle Shocked has not had an easy road in the music business. It started with the unauthorised release of what she now calls the "Texas Campfire Thefts" (The
Higher Learning
Starring Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Jennifer Connelly and Ice Cube
Written and directed by John Singleton
Screening at Hoyts cinemas
Reviewed by Sean Moysey
The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City on April 18
Passion in Darwin
By Tom Flanagan
On the eve of Good Friday, Club Q, Darwin's new queer dance club, presented Passion, its most spectacular and well-attended night so far.
By 1am, when Erica and her Disciples were ready to perform, 300
With the advent of e-mail and the Internet, the art of letter-writing may be disappearing. Still, for many of us letters have the capacity to provoke memories more intensely than any other form of human communication. Sean McLeod, Michael Collins and
Bad Boys
Starring Martin Lawrence, Will Smith and Tea Leoni
Directed by Michael Bey
Reviewed by Barry Healy
Bad Boys is produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, the people responsible for Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and
Aboriginal voices
SYDNEY — A new book, Voices of Aboriginal Australia: Past Present Future, will be launched on Tuesday, May 9, 6:30pm, at the Glebe Town Hall, 160 St John's Rd, Glebe. The date is the fourth anniversary of the final report of
The things that happen on Yungaburra Road
By Rosanna Barbero
SYDNEY — Death Defying Theatre's Yungaburra Road, written by Noelle Janaczewska, provides an examination and voyage into all forms of violence: individual, community, national
By Kevin Sanders
Two unnervingly hawkish Pentagon documents prepared for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and acquired recently by Greenpeace under the Freedom of Information Act, positively seethe with gung ho enthusiasm for a nuclear brawl,
Shelley: The Pursuit
By Richard Holmes
Harper Collins, 1995. 830 pp., $49.95 (hb)
Reviewed by Phil Shannon
In 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley was collecting his mail from England at a post office in Rome. When his name was called out, a
ZR Rifle: The Plot to Kill Kennedy and Castro
By Claudia Furiati
Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1994. 183 pp., $22.95.
Reviewed by Allen Myers
Conspiracy is not the cause of history, but history often creates conspiracies. In the three decades
Editorial
Public relations gone wrong
The first Global Cultural Diversity Conference held at Darling Harbour in Sydney last week may have brought together 1000 delegates from around the world in an impressive show of skin colours, ethnic costumes and