Issue 209

News

Chilean human rights activist, DANIEL SANCHEZ SAN JUAN, is on a speaking tour of Australia. Green Left Weekly's LIAM HAZELL and TONY ILTIS spoke to him in Canberra. Sanchez is an international representative of the Chilean People's Defence
By Susan Price MELBOURNE — On October 25, a new call was made for the Australian government to launch an open, independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of six Australian journalists in East Timor, in 1975. The demand came
By Andrew Watson BRISBANE — On October 19, approximately 200 Aboriginal people and their supporters rallied in Musgrave Park to call for an Aboriginal cultural centre. The Aboriginal community has been lobbying the Brisbane City Council and the
By Bill Mason BRISBANE — Fiesta '95, the migrant fiesta held annually here, is set for Sunday November 5 at Musgrave Park, South Brisbane. According to fiesta organiser Penny Glass, this year's event will be based on a "return to the community."
By Bill Mason BRISBANE — Unionists at the giant CRA bauxite mine at Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland have vowed to maintain their blockade in the face of threats of arrest. The 78 award wage workers at the mine who have
PERTH — WA's State School Teachers Union (SSTU) has been locked in a fierce battle with the Court Liberal government since December 1994. It has conducted strikes and work bans, held mass rallies and has been threatened with deregistration. JULIA
In February 1994 Australia recognised the newly independent state of Macedonia. However, when the Greek government opposed the new republic's right to call itself Macedonia, the federal Labor government succumbed to pressure from its Greek
By Cameron Parker SYDNEY — Breaking yet another election promise, the Carr Labor government has moved to slash $100 million from its hospital funding over the next three years. Some $50 million in cuts will be borne by Royal Prince Alfred and
High school students take action against nuclear tests In the week leading up to the third underground nuclear test exploded on October 28 at Moruroa atoll, high school students across Australia were busy organising actions to show their opposition,
By Lisa Macdonald On October 23, the Australian Greens announced their senate teams for Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, Queensland and the ACT. Senate teams in South Australia and the Northern Territory will be announced soon with the goal of enabling every
By Susan Price GEELONG — John Pilger, renowned journalist, author and film-maker, gave the Edward Wilson Memorial Lecture in Geelong on October 26, to an auditorium of over 400 people. Pilger gave an engaging talk on the history and development of
PNG denies UN access to BougainvillBy Pip Hinman The Papua New Guinea government stepped in to stop a special United Nations rapporteur on summary executions from visiting all of Bougainville, including the areas controlled by the Bougainville
By Stuart Martin CANBERRA — Members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) won their dispute with the Australian National University chancellery, casting doubt on the future of enterprise bargaining on university campuses. On October 27,
By Sue Bolton MELBOURNE — "Our health, our hospital, our decision" was the lead banner of 100-strong protest of Latrobe Valley residents who came to the city on October 26 to show their opposition to hospital privatisation. The action, organised by
By Lisa Macdonald In an unprecedented coalition, 20 leaders of the Anglican, Uniting and Catholic churches sent a letter on October 22 calling on the Labor Party and the Coalition to end logging of Australia's old growth forests. The open letter
By Susan Price MELBOURNE — Despite torrential rain, over 2000 protesters rallied against the woodchipping of old-growth forests on October 22. The rally, organised by Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society and Environment Victoria, was the
Protest against Filipina's death sentencBy Jennifer Thompson SYDNEY A group of 30 Filipinos and Australian supporters held a noisy picket on October 27 to protest the death sentence given to a 16 year-old Filipina maid, Sarah Balabagan, in the
By Bill Mason BRISBANE — Mike Leach, who visited Mexico in March-April, and toured the Chiapas region during the military crackdown on the Zapatista movement, addressed a Democratic Socialist Party forum here on October 18. In January 1994, the
Reclaim the Night marches were held around the country on October 26 and 27 to protest against violence against women. In Perth, Virginia Brown reports that around 300 women and children gathered in Russell Square. Christabel Chamarette talked about
By Bill Mason BRISBANE — The Goss government is reported to be planning to partly meet union demands that new workers' compensation legislation continue to allow lump sum pay-outs for stress claims. Police, firefighters and state public servants

World

Japanese oppose US bases By Eva Cheng More than 80,000 people are estimated to have taken part in an demonstration in Okinawa, Japan, on October 22 to demand the end of US military bases. This followed a wave of similar actions throughout the country
By Jennifer Thompson An Israeli law to legalise torture in the Occupied Territories and Israel came into effect in October. In addition, on October 20, the Israeli government commission charged with overseeing the interrogation of Palestinian
By Lisa Macdonald The results of the Berlin City Parliament and Berlin Borough Councils elections held on October 22 mark a significant shift to the left in German politics. Despite a concerted smear campaign by the right wing which attempted to
LUIS O. GALVEZ TAUPIER, director of Cuban Institute for the Research of Sugar Cane By-products (ICIDCA) and member of the national parliament and the central committee of the Cuban Communist Party, was in Sydney recently where he was interviewed for
By James Balowski Over the last 18 months, Indonesia's repressive press laws have been used to ban leading newspapers and jail independent press activists. While this type of "information control" is commonly practiced by repressive regimes, the
By Boris Kagarlitsky MOSCOW — After the Russian parliamentary elections of 1993, in which the trade unions failed to participate as an organised and independent force, the majority of union leaders declared that they would not repeat this mistake
By Norm Dixon As South Africa prepares for local government elections on November 1, there has been a sharp increase in political killings in KwaZulu/Natal. The violence has reached such proportions that local elections in the province have been
By Lisa Macdonald On August 29 the World Bank and the Papua New Guinea government finalised a structural adjustment loan. In return for agreeing to adopt a series of rigid economic reforms — a structural adjustment program (SAP) — PNG will
The strike by workers against Boeing, the world's largest maker of passenger jets, entered its third week with the company determined to force unacceptable conditions on its 32,000 employees, members of the International Association of Machinists.
Four members of Mexico's ruling elite have been assassinated over the past two years, and not one of the cases has been solved to anyone's satisfaction. Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and six other people died in a gun

Culture

Radio highlights 9point = The Story of Pop: Rap it Up — The BBC's mega series on pop music has reached the hip hop era. This episode looks at the African American music's verbal emphasis which extends back to the griots or traditional storytellers
Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind: The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard RortyBy Norman GerasVerso, 1995, 151 pp., $34.95 (pb)Reviewed by Neville Spencer In the last two decades a new philosophical current has grown. Most generally it
intro = ClockersDirected by Spike LeeProduced by Martin ScorseseReviewed by Michael Tardif With Clockers, Spike Lee continues in the tradition that has earned him a reputation as one of America's most significant artists. Lee's films have played an
Cargo Cult When a member of my household says to me, "Hey, Dave, we're out of toilet paper", I know exactly what to do. Instead of tearing apart the telephone directory — as my grandfather did — and impaling it on a nail for easy access, I go
Programs of interest on Sydney Community TV (UHF 31) — Perleeka, indigenous Australians' program, nightly, 7pm. Art Experimenta, Mondays, 8pm and 11.30pm, and Tuesdays, 3am and 6.30am. Bent TV, gay and lesbian program, Thursdays, 10.30pm and
White LiesAs it Happened, SBSThursday, November 9, 8.30pm (8pm in SA)Previewed by Norm Dixon Anybody who has had an involvement in the struggle against apartheid over the years will probably have heard of the International Defence and Aid Fund
The JungleBy Louis NowraPlaying at Wharf 2, SydneyOctober 25-November 18Previewed by Jen Crothers The Jungle comprises 16 self-contained playlets, all set in Sydney over a 24-hour period, from dawn to dawn. It's a cynical look at modern life through
Images and illusionsBy Kev CarmodyFestival RecordsReviewed by Jenny Long Initially, this new album from Kev Carmody seems light years away from those early, radical folk-narratives Pillars of society and Eulogy (for a black person). But that's not
Fate of a Free People: A Radical Re-examination of the Tasmanian WarsBy Henry ReynoldsPenguin, 1995 $16.95 (pb)Reviewed by Chris Martin With his new book Fate of a Free People, author and historian Henry Reynolds makes a solid addition to his
East Timor, the media and the trutBy Jefferson Lee October 16 marked the 20th anniversary of the murder by Indonesian soldiers of five Australian journalists in Balibo, East Timor. The same day a new report to the British Parliamentary Human Rights,

Editorial

The announcement by the governments of Britain, the United States and France that they will finally sign the protocols of the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone (SPNFZ) — 10 years after its adoption by the countries of the Pacific — is a cynical