By Debra Wirth A call for a national public inquiry into the policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families has been launched by the Secretariat of the National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC). Under the assimilationist
Issue 22
News
MELBOURNE — Ford Australia announced on August 1 that it would cut about 550 jobs in its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants partly through voluntary redundancies because it was halving its production of Capri sports cars. The Vehicle Builders Union is
Rainforest activist jailed By Nick Everett PERTH — A local Rainforest Action Group member, Nancy Rolfe, is serving a 60-day sentence for criminal trespass in Sarawak. She was one of eight protesters arrested two weeks ago during a logging
Qld Aborigines take fight to UN By Philippa Stanford BRISBANE — In protest against the Goss government's land rights legislation, a group of Aboriginal community leaders have organised a trip to the United Nations on behalf of the Queensland
Nuclear-free Brisbane campaign By Jim McIlroy BRISBANE — Hiroshima Day was the launching pad for a public campaign to call on the new Labor-controlled Brisbane City Council to declare the city nuclear free. Brisbane's previous nuclear-free
By Bernie Brian. WOLLONGONG — Southern District coal miners will hold stop-work meetings on August 7 to discuss moves by NSW coal companies to deregulate safety conditions in the mines. South Coast District check inspector Glen Dwyer told
By Frank Zeller CHAELUNDI — NSW Forestry Commission operations in the Chaelundi forest were halted at least temporarily on August 1 by the discovery of a rare beech skink habitat in the path of proposed roading and logging operations.
Setbacks for AIDEX By Tim E. Stewart NEWCASTLE — The Newcastle University Students Association at a meeting last week passed a motion opposing the proposed Australian Industry Defence Equipment Exhibition (AIDEX) in November at Canberra. The
By Angela Matheson Juana was repeatedly raped and tortured during her two-year imprisonment in Central America. She is still receiving medical attention for the wounds. Her husband was killed while she was in prison, while her one-year-old
Story and photo by Kim Shipton SYDNEY — A group of expectant and fully equipped whale watchers left the wharf at Birkenhead Point at 8 a.m. on July 13 hoping to catch sight of humpback whales as they migrated north from the Antarctic to the
By Karen Fletcher BRISBANE — "When I become Lord Mayor of Brisbane there will be no dump in Rochedale." So said Jim Soorley at a fundraising dinner for the campaign against the Rochedale dump in Brisbane several weeks prior to the poll at which
By Jane Beckman NEWCASTLE — An estimated 4000 people marched through the city on July 30 to an open air rally in Civic Park in support of Hunter health services. Hospital workers, public servants and the waterfront unions stopped work to
World
The Burma Support Group is a Sydney-based group of Burmese and non-Burmese volunteers supporting a free and democratic Burma. A recent "Burma Alert!" dinner and talk raised over $3200, which has been sent to the student camps on the Thai-Burmese
By Norm Dixon The South African government's (and Australian media baron Kerry Packer's) secret funding of Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha movement, following revelations of police and military complicity in murderous attacks on
The defeat of the federal army by Slovenia's territorial militia and the July 7 signing of the Brioni Declaration produced a temporary stand-off in Yugoslavia's long-simmering national crisis.
By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — When the draft of a new Union agreement, meant to lay the basis for relations between the Soviet government and the republics of the USSR, emerged on June 17, it provoked intense discussion in the press. But enthusiasm
By Burma Support Group Burma is rich in natural resources — forests, fish, oil, minerals, gem stones and jade. In 1962, Burma was the world's largest rice exporter and the richest country in South-East Asia. By 1987, Burma had been reduced to
By Ian Powell WELLINGTON — Workers at the Ashton Rest Home in Marton (a small rural town in the central North Island) are experiencing the exploitative nature of the Employment Contracts Act. Five workers were pressured by the manager of the
By David Robie Middle-class supporters of New Zealand's ruling National Party were hit hard by last week's tough budget. But unemployment is expected to continue growing, and economists are divided as to the future. Already lagging in opinion
Peter Annear The national question in Czechoslovakia has taken some peculiar twists, among them the sacking earlier this year of the popular premier of the Slovak republic, Vladimir Meciar. PETER ANNEAR concludes a series of reports from Prague
By Peter Boyle The Bush administration appears to have succeeded in convincing Israel, Syria and the Soviet Union to participate in preliminary negotiations on Middle East conflicts. However, the Israeli government insists — and the Bush
Culture
Pacific book wins grant AUCKLAND — A book about peace and social, environmental and political issues in the South Pacific is one of the projects awarded grants by the Rainbow Warrior trust fund. Auckland-based Asia Pacific Network was awarded
Terra Australis em = By John Queripel [In last week's issue, we accidentally omitted the last line of John Queripel's poem. This is the full text.] It's a bloody big land this Australia With its great wide brown barren plains. For hour after
By Phil Shannon New World New Mind: Changing The Way We Think To Save Our Future By Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich Paladin Grafton Books/Collins. 302 pp. $15.95 (pb) Reviewed by Phil Shannon When humanity was a young and hairy species just
In print Amnesty International's summer catalogue is now out. Offering a range of progressive apparel from board shorts to T-shirts to sarongs, it also includes a range of other items including cards, kettles, rugs, hammocks and recycled paper
By Ulrike Erhardt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead A film by Tom Stoppard Starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss Reviewed by Ulrike Erhardt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and nobody cares. But Shakespeare couldn't have
a city at war with itself em = By Phil McManus lights on the hill above the river; even the Romans couldn't site a city this well. neon signs between stone and darkness are like colours in an oil spill. there is beauty hidden in the
By Phil Shannon Biospheres: Metamorphosis of Planet Earth By Dorion Sagan Arkana/Penguin. $18.95 (pb) Reviewed by Phil Shannon "It would be difficult to wax poetic about medical waste, CFCs and carbon dioxide. Yet ... " this is what Dorion
Editorial
The bomb and Iraq If a worldwide referendum were held tomorrow, there's little doubt an overwhelming majority of 5.3 billion people would vote for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The question arises, why can't humanity rid itself of this