'University of the year' to strike
By Helen Jarvis
SYDNEY — National Tertiary Education and Industry Union members at the University of NSW on February 19 voted not to begin teaching at the start of the 1997 academic year, but instead to strike
Issue 264
News
Social Security penalises strikers
By Philippa Stanford
One of the federal government's budget changes restricts access to income support payments for people unemployed as a result of participation in industrial action. This provision, which came
20 years' jail for possession of a leaflet
By Karen Fredericks
BRISBANE — The Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) candidate in the Mundingburra by-election, Billy Tate, was charged on February 20 with possession of drug law reform literature.
Student delegation returns from East Timor
By Ray Fulcher
MELBOURNE On February 20, a delegation of six students from the University of Melbourne returned from a 10-day trip to build links between students in Australia and East Timor. Alex
Arnott's workers the 'innocent victims'
By James Vassilopoulos
Contrary to last week's claim by Arnott's Biscuits' managing director Chris Roberts that the company is the "innocent victim" in the current extortion attempt, the real innocent
Campaign to save the Block heats up
By Chris Spindler and Jennifer Thompson
SYDNEY — The campaign to save Redfern's Aboriginal community has heated up amidst repeated denials by the Aboriginal Housing Company of plans to redevelop Eveleigh
Protests against nuclear waste shipment
By Pip Hinman
The WA Greens have issued a protest against the secrecy and misinformation surrounding a highly dangerous shipment of nuclear waste travelling from France to Japan. "Any mishap would require
The axe falls on legal aid
By Michael Heaney
MELBOURNE — The Federation of Community Legal Centres (Victoria) on February 18 announced the release of a report titled "Justice for all", resulting from a survey conducted in November and December.
Socialists reject work for dole for Brisbane City Council
Socialists reject work for dole for Brisbane City Council
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — "We are standing against the two major parties on a platform of People Before Profits", Coral Wynter
James Vassilopoulos
"What you've got on the waterfront are people who are earning $100,000 a year ... it's a bit like the reverse Robin Hood, the rich stealing from the poor and keeping it for themselves", John Sharp, minister of transport, said on
ACF slams Borbidge over Hinchinbrook
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — The Australian Conservation Foundation has slammed Premier Rob Borbidge over a letter he sent to federal Environment Minister Senator Robert Hill demanding an end to World Heritage
MELBOURNE — JASON TORRANCE is a British anti-roads campaigner who now lives in Australia. Torrance will be speaking here on March 6 at "Global Insights", an evening of environmental news clips gathered from alternative media around the world, at
By Dave Mizon
MELBOURNE — At a mass meeting held at Williamstown Hall on February 14, more than 400 workers, members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers
World
By Eva Cheng
Deng Xiaoping has been acclaimed by politicians, business figures and other "respectable" commentators around the world as the "architect" of China's "modernisation" following the announcement of his death on February 20. They hailed
Last year Scottish Militant Labour combined with other forces on the left to create a new, broader vehicle for socialism in Scotland — the Scottish Socialist Alliance. National secretary of the alliance ALLAN GREEN explains why socialists in
Swaziland democracy strikers hold firm
By Norm Dixon
Mass meetings of striking Swaziland workers in the vital sugar and forestry industries voted on February 16 to continue a general strike into its third week. The strikers, organised by the
By Norm Dixon
As the ADFL sweeps through eastern Zaire, opposition to Mobutu and the war, and sympathy for rebel leader Laurent Kabila, are being openly expressed on the streets of the capital, Kinshasa. A general strike on February 10, called by
By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — During 1996, Russia's Ministry of Defence Industry reported in January, output in the country's defence factories fell by a further 27.1% to a mere 12.8% of its 1991 level. That's not so bad, you might say — every
By Eva Cheng
The February 12 defection to South Korea of Hwang Jang-yop, a member of the central committee of the ruling North Korean Workers' Party, is being treated by the western media as evidence that the regime in Pyongyang is near collapse.
By Julia Bale
Amnesty International issued an urgent action demand last week on the case of Irish prisoner Roisin McAliskey. McAliskey, seven months pregnant and in bad health, is being held in a British prison awaiting extradition proceedings by
Hackers modify Indonesian government home page
On February 10, and again on February 15, a group of Portuguese hackers (Portuguese Hackers Against Indonesia) modified the home page of the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The altered home page
5000 at risk from AIDS in PNG
AIDS may kill more than 5000 people in Papua New Guinea by the year 2000, according to a report released in Port Moresby on February 14. The report, by the United Nations Fund for Children and the PNG government,
Iranian oil workers arrested
On February 16, hundreds of oil workers and their elected representatives from petroleum refineries in Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz and Tehran, together with workers of the oil pipelines and the national gas company, were
By Jon Lamb
A number of major oil projects in the Timor Sea have recently been approved by the Howard government. On February 14, BHP Petroleum and partners (Petroz, Santos and Inpex Sahul Ltd.) received permission to develop the Elang-Kakatua oil
In February 1994, Green Left Weekly's Johannesburg-based correspondent, Norm Dixon, attended a meeting to launch a branch of South Africa's fledging Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF). The meeting was held at Vista University in Soweto
Madrid arrests Basque leaders
By Norm Dixon
The Spanish government has begun arresting leaders of the Basque Country's militant, legal nationalist party, Herri Batasuna. Six members of the organisation's executive were detained on February 18,
By Norm Dixon
The anti-Mobutu rebellion in eastern Zaire has spread south into the strategic Shaba province — source of much of Zaire's copper, cobalt, diamond and gold wealth — and west towards the central African country's third largest city,
Culture
By Dave Riley
Satire, to be worthy of its name, generalises, exaggerates and distorts. Because it relies on its immediate impact and addresses topical vices and abuses, satire can rely on persistence in its struggle against hypocrisy, pretence and
Poem: Gold card people
Gold card people
Gold card people
just live to buy
Plastic people
tag along for the ride
Only real people
earn free flybuys
But working people
just sweat and cry
they serve the tables
they pour the wine
Lenin and the Revolutionary PartyBy Paul Le BlancWith an introduction by Ernest MandelHumanities Press, 1990, 1993. 417 pp. $40 (pb) Review by Karl Miller
This book is an excellent, detailed study of the Bolshevik party. Le Blanc examines the
Me Generation and the death of a nation
There was a time when most knew want and therefore understood,
That in this land across the sea, there was a chance for good.
Knowing adversity, they saw their fellows in that light
And so against
Brunswick Music Festival
By Bronwen Beechey
MELBOURNE — The eighth Brunswick Music Festival kicks off on February 28 with Festivals Australia Indigenous Sounds, a weekend dedicated to the indigenous music and culture of Australia. The event
details = The Captive Republic: A history of republicanism in Australia 1788-1996By Mark McKennaCambridge University Press, 1996334 pp., $29.95(pb), $90.00(hb)
Review by Alex Bainbridge
For many people, the republic debate is simply a bore — a
The WestAn eight-part documentarySBS TV, Sundays 7.30pm (7 in SA) beginning March 2. Review by Allen Myers
If you watch the first episode of The West, I strongly recommend turning off the sound for the first 10 minutes. That way you can enjoy some
Review by Ben Courtice
More than 20 films and shorts were screened during the four sessions of the Wild Spaces Film Festival in Hobart on February 15 and 16. The films varied in theme and style, covering environmental issues from Canada to Nigeria
The People vs Larry FlyntDirected by Milos FormanScreenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry KaraszewskiNational release from February 20 Review by Jonathon Strauss
A movie of a man crucified, figuratively, in the US, or an excuse for an orgy of soft
Editorial
A question of priorities
In New Zealand last week for talks on trade and "defence" links, PM John Howard took on the job of trying to persuade New Zealanders that it really is in their interests to spend millions more dollars on defence — and in