By Rin Glenn
PERTH — Forty workers from the Department of Minerals and Energy picketed their office on Adelaide Terrace on May 17. They began their strike after three weeks of work bans, all of which were organised by the Community and Public
Issue 232
News
By Paul Oboohov
CANBERRA — At a mass meeting at the National Convention Centre on May 13, more than 2000 federal public servants voted for bans. People were forced to sit in the aisles as reports on the attack on the federal public service were
On May 16, well known battler for the working class Nick Origlass died in Sydney at age 88. Nick Origlass was one of the early members of the Trotskyist movement in Australia. He was a committed and militant unionist who led the Balmain branch of the
By Chris Spindler
SYDNEY — In the face of proposed massive cuts to tertiary education funding, a stop-work meeting of Macquarie University academic staff on May 8 endorsed the national 24-hour strike for May 30. The meeting reaffirmed the
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — The Queensland government's support for gun control could split the National Party, police minister Russell Cooper said on May 13. The warning came as Coalition MPs, including Cooper and Liberal leader Joan Sheldon, faced
By Sarah Stephen
HOBART — Tasmania's new environment minister, Peter Hodgman, was guest speaker at a Wilderness Society campaign dinner and slide show here on May 13, attended by 50 people. Slides were shown of some of the sites proposed by the
By Adam Hanieh
ADELAIDE — One hundred people packed the Pilgrim Church Hall on May 15 for a public meeting organised by the Keep Telstra Public Alliance. The meeting was chaired by Reverend Lee Levitt-Olson, who opened the proceedings by
By Pip Hinman
The Northern Territory Environment Centre (ECNT) and the Australian Conservation Foundation have condemned ERA's plans to mill uranium from the Jabiluka mine at Ranger. Speaking after a week-long visit to the Kakadu National Park, ACF
By Lisa Macdonald
Hundreds of people rallied in Australia's cities on May 15 to mark World Climate Day, a non-government day of action to heighten awareness about global climate change. On the same day, several environment and development groups
By Adam Hanieh
ADELAIDE — Nearly 2000 teachers from schools in the central and western suburbs rallied in the city on May 15 in the third rolling stoppage by SA teachers in as many weeks. The stoppages are part of a campaign to secure improved
By Nick Fredman
SYDNEY — On May 15, the NSW Teachers Federation announced that it had lodged a claim with the Industrial Relations Commission for a 12% pay rise from July 1, 1997. This is in addition to a claim before the state government of 12%
By Vaarunika Dharmapala
PERTH — Chanting "Stop the cuts — enough is enough!", "Education for all, not just the rich" and "Students united will never be defeated!", almost 700 students rallied here on May 15. This lively and militant "student
By Jennifer Thompson
SYDNEY — The Maritime Union of Australia's (MUA) Action Conference on May 17 attracted around 1500 participants, mainly maritime union delegates and workers, from around Australia. The striking Vickery workers sent a
By Bruce Marlowe
After the recent round of Community and Public Sector Union mass meetings, bans are now being placed in many areas of the Australian Public Service. The bans include cutting off information to government ministers, withholding
By Andrew Hall
WOLLONGONG — Some 350 people attended a May 8 meeting to discuss the reopening of the Southern Copper smelter, closed for economic reasons since early 1995. The Coalition for Economic Advancement, which is coordinating the bid to
By Andrew Hall
WOLLONGONG — There is a long and proud history of militant working class struggle in the Illawarra. The waterside workers, metalworkers and miners can claim much credit for winning many of the rights working people take for granted
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — The battle over Australia's forests is set to erupt again with a Queensland company applying to the federal government for an annual licence to chip 140,000 tonnes of timber. Wilderness Society spokesperson Virginia Young
World
By Kathryn Hamilton
Kashmir has been a battle ground for too many years. The peaceful, friendly Kashmiri culture has been destroyed and can never be rebuilt. The only authority recognised is the gun. In a land where one death would have the valley
By Eva Cheng
On May 6, police in Kumi, in the southern province of Kyongsang, arrested 45 union activists of the Korea Textile Company following a violent clash two days earlier between 800 workers and riot police. The workers were reportedly
An estimated 1.3 million people gathered in Havana's Revolution Plaza on May 1, the biggest May Day celebration in Cuba's history. In the country's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba, another 300,000 marched. Tens of thousands more celebrated in
By Norm Dixon
National Party leader F.W. de Klerk on May 9 announced that his party will withdraw from South Africa's government of national unity (GNU) on June 30. The sudden announcement finally ends the apartheid party's 48-year continuous
By Maria Sari
NEW YORK — A "Fast for Life" called by the solidarity and aid group "Pastors for Peace" on February 21 after US Customs agents seized 400 medical computers and other aid bound for Cubs is now in its 11th week, Although one of the
US government documents declassified in April reveal that in 1961 US President John Kennedy pushed ahead with economic pressure and covert actions against Cuba despite the Cuban government's willingness to give in to the US on key points, according
Two thousand students clashed with anti-riot troops in the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta on May 14. The students, mobilised by SMID (Students in Solidarity with Democracy in Indonesia), were marching in protest against the killing of 26
By K. Govindan
COLOMBO — May Day marchers here were attacked and tear-gassed by police who dispersed demonstrators, seriously injuring several of them. Just two days before all demonstrations — though not rallies — had been banned by the
The following is from a message sent to the Sri Lankan president on May 9 on behalf of the Democratic Socialist Party. "The Democratic Socialist Party of Australia strongly condemns the vicious police attack on the May Day march of the Nava Sama
Part and parcel of the capitalist offensive against working people in the United States is the drive by both the Democrats and Republicans to trim back the gains won by blacks and other people of colour, and by women. One aspect of this campaign
By Jennifer Thompson
According to Noam Chomsky's April 23 article, "Israel, Lebanon, and the 'Peace Process'", the day after Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres took office, the New York Times reported "approvingly" that Israeli war planes attacked
By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — Partly as a result of President Boris Yeltsin's efforts to buy himself victory in the June 16 elections, Russia in coming months is due to experience its most severe financial shocks since the policies of "reform" began
By Malini Karkal
Except for China, India is the most populous country in the world. In 1952 it became the first country to introduce national family planning. At that point, the program was instigated to improve maternal and infant health, but the
HAMBURG — Greenpeace has stepped up protests against the transport of German nuclear waste to the French reprocessing facility at La Hague. Since April 29, activists have been demonstrating in front of the Wuergassen nuclear power plant in North
Culture
intro = Miracle AlleyDirected by Jorge FonsOpens in Sydney at the Verona Cinema on May 30; in Melbourne at Cinema Como on June 6Reviewed by Pip Hinman
In Mexico City there is a place — called Miracle Alley — where miracles never happen, but
James Connolly and the Irish LeftBy W.K. AndersonIrish Academic Press in association with National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University$39.95Reviewed by Bernie Brian This book is not an account of the life of the Irish socialist, James
And Now I Lay Me Down to SleepWritten by Frank OtisFootscray Community Arts Centre, 45 Moreland St.May 24-25, 8pm. $8/5 And Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is a new play that takes a no holds barred look at how rape affects survivors. Directed By Andrea
Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and CyberspaceBy Dale SpenderSpinifex, 1995. $24.95Reviewed by Patricia Brien Dale Spender's most recent book deals with computer-based technology and its implications for women.
Spender engages with a historical
The John Wayne PrincipleBy Tony McNamaraDirected by David BertholdSydney Theatre Company's New StagesWharf 2, Sydney, until June 8Reviewed by Peter Boyle "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do", but the man in question, Robbie, is a Harvard MBA who
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural HistoryBy Stephen Jay GouldJonathon Cape, 1996. 480 pp., $25 (pb)Reviewed by Phil Shannon What do baseball, beeswax and yo-yo crazes have in common? They all serve as introductions in the latest
Power Without Glory
Published in the early 1950s, Frank Hardy's Power Without Glory has as its central theme the corruption inherent in capitalism. John West in the early 1890s sets up an illegal tote in the poor working-class suburb of
Editorial
The Coalition government's industrial relations and shipping policies are particularly targeted at the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA). Howard and Reith want to reduce transport costs to business. More importantly, without the maritime union their