By Alison Dellit
CANBERRA — Classes at Telopea Park High were disrupted for three days last week as students organised and joined in protests sparked by France's decision to resume nuclear testing.
The controversy began on June 16, when
Issue 192
News
Protest at award to Alatas
By Belinda Craig
The Australian-East Timor Association has written to recipients of the Order of Australia, urging them to take a stand against the award having been presented to Ali Alatas, Indonesia's foreign
SYDNEY — Chanting "end nuclear testing, ban all nuclear weapons" at least 300 protesters took the anti-nuclear campaign to the French consulate on June 23. The picket brought together groups including the Anti-Bases Campaign, Pax Christi,
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — Queensland Labor Premier Wayne Goss is running scared in the state election announced for July 15. He said in launching the poll on June 20, with a minimum 26-day campaign period, that "people are going around and
Newcastle University staff maintain bans
By Kamala Emanuel
NEWCASTLE — A National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) meeting on June 20 supported continuing work bans imposed at Newcastle University since May 29 and decided in favour of
Canberra refuses visas to Bougainville reps
Representatives from the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG) and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army have been refused visas to enter Australia to attend a conference at the Australian National
Anti-nuclear campaign broadens
By Chris Spindler
SYDNEY — As the federal Labor government begins to feel the mass opposition to its weak opposition to the Chirac government's decision to resume nuclear testing, anti-nuclear campaigners
By Emma Webb
ADELAIDE — The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) Building Division and the Conservation Council formally established the Coalition of Unions and Environment Groups (CUE) on June 5, World Environment Day.
Socialists run in Brisbane
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — The Democratic Socialist campaign confirmed on June 22 it would run 22-year-old environmental and social justice activist Zanny Begg for the seat of Brisbane Central in the July 15
By Chow Wei-Cheng
In preparation for the federal elections, the ALP and ACTU have unveiled another Accord agreement. It promises a low inflation target (2-3% per year) in return for "safety net" pay increases totalling up to $50 per week by the
By Michelle Armstrong and Tony Iltis
CANBERRA — The French government's decision to resume nuclear testing in Moruroa Atoll has met an angry response here.
A rally on June 18 at the French Embassy attracted 1000 people. The crowd marched
By Melanie Sjoberg
The debate about whether a bridge to Hindmarsh Island should be built has focused on the spiritual beliefs of Aboriginal women in relation to the site. Green Left Weekly spoke to Katrina Power, chairperson of Tandanya
By Mick White
BRISBANE — Queensland is the most poverty-stricken state in Australia, according to a Queensland Council of Social Services (QCOSS) report released earlier this month.
Drawing the Line on Poverty shows one in four children
No More Hiroshimas Coalition formed
By Ray Fulcher
MELBOURNE — The French Consulate was the scene of a lively 800-strong protest on June 24. The rally, called by the newly formed No More Hiroshimas Coalition, demanded an end to French
Brisbane rally against testing
By Debbie Marshall and Nicole Kamp
BRISBANE — More than 500 angry people rallied outside the French Consulate on June 23 to protest against the decision by French President Jacques Chirac to resume nuclear
By Melanie sjoberg
ADELAIDE — The 25-year ban on the building of a controversial bridge to Hindmarsh Island, south of Adelaide, continues to generate debate.
South Australian Liberal Premier Dean Brown announced a royal commission into
Uranium sales condemned
By Anne Pavy
PERTH — At a media conference on June 21, the Greens (WA), the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, People for Nuclear Disarmament and Christian Centre for Social Action condemned the
"It's looking good", Natasha Simons, Resistance national coordinator, told Green Left Weekly about the 24th Resistance conference, being held July 7-10 in Melbourne. "We are expecting a very enthusiastic crowd. And things will start with a big event,
Consulate fire links rejected
By Anne Pavy
PERTH — The French Consulate was destroyed by a fire bomb attack on June 17. This story has made headlines around the world, and here some of the establishment media, including ABC Radio, have
World
HAVANA – "The epidemic of the century", as the HIV virus has sometimes been referred to, continues to spread like wildfire throughout the world without anyone being able to state with certainty how it can be controlled.
By Kath Davey
A new report from Amnesty International, titled Persistent Human Rights Violations in Tibet, indicates that repression of dissent there has increased. Hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns, some of them child novices, are
By Boris Kagarlitsky
MOSCOW — The rumour that Marxism is dead is highly exaggerated. Interest in Marxism, in fact, is getting keener all the time, as a succession of recent international conferences and seminars has shown. In September 1994
Earlier this year, JOHN HALLAM was involved with Polski Klub Ecologiczny (the largest environmental organisation in Poland, and a member group of Friends of the Earth International) in a campaign to stop the European Bank for Reconstruction and
By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — The parallels with Russia in 1993 were uncanny. As the economy crashed, the president demanded a speeding-up of free-market reforms as the only solution. And if these reforms were to be implemented, an essential
By Robynne Murphy
DUBLIN — Bernie Farrell is a spokesperson for Saoirse, a support group fighting for the release of Republican political prisoners.
"I am the mother of a political prisoner in Portlaoise jail", she explained, "which, I
Culture
The Slouch of Vietnam
By Denis Kevans
Why should I wear the new slouch hat, the slouch of Vietnam,
Why should I share the napalm-guilt of blundering Uncle Sam,
Why should I hunt down peasant kids, who fight for rights and rice,
Why
James Baldwin: A Biography
By David Leeming
Henry
Holt & Co, 1995. 442 pp., $26.95 (pb)
Reviewed by Phil Shannon
Australian censors, in their own perverse way, have guided many
Australians to good, challenging writers. James Baldwin,
Moving the Mountain
Directed by Michael Apted
Sydney Film Festival
Reviewed by Eva Cheng
The pro-democracy student protests in China in 1989 are the best-documented people's movement, audio-visually, in Chinese history.
This rich
Bloodlines
Michael Hill's Blues Mob
Alligator Records through Festival
Reviewed by Jenny Long
For any person doubting the relevance of blues today and for the future, Michael Hill's Blues Mob will make you think again. Combining a varied
Tank Girl
A Rachel Talalay film
Reviewed by Jen Crothers
In the future of Tank Girl, the world is struck by a comet, turning the whole planet into a desert. It hasn't rained in 11 years, and water is power. The Water and Power Company just
Holding barbarism at bay
MGM Sarajevo
Sarajevo Group of Authors (SaGA)
Sydney Film Festival
Reviewed by Jennifer Thompson
MGM Sarajevo, made in that city during the war and ongoing siege, shows in stark reality one of the bleakest
Workers: An archaeology of the industrial age
An exhibition of photographs by Sebastiao Salgado
The Art Gallery of NSW until July 23
Reviewed by Lisa Macdonald
This powerful exhibition of 250 black and white photographs by Latin American
No Cure For Cancer
By Denis Leary
Picador. 133 pp., $12.95.
Reviewed by Dave Riley
My sister runs her household like an amusement parlour. When you visit, you have to speak over the television, which stays on, and she doesn't care who you
The Color of Fear
A film by Lee Mun Wah
Reviewed by Chris McLean
Arthur Tunstall's anti-Aboriginal jokes, National Action's anti-Asian campaigns and the widespread verbal abuse of Aboriginal footballers have been loudly condemned in the
Karma Zoo
Karma Zoo
Through Disculture
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
When the six major multinational record companies which dominate the Australian recording industry were under pressure to justify the high prices consumers are forced to pay for
A great voice and a way with words
Returning on Foot
Girl Zone Records 1995
Reviewed by Anthea Holt
Penelope Swales has a great voice and a way with words. In her latest CD, this singer-songwriter takes the listener on a guided tour of
Editorial
The nuclear threat
The latest move, led by the French government, to consolidate and strengthen the world's nuclear weapons capability makes a mockery of the so-called New World Order. If this is indeed an era of diplomacy and negotiated peace,