By Kerryn Williams
CANBERRA — A symposium entitled "Youth Employment: Looking for Solutions" was convened on March 8 by the Youth Coalition of the ACT and the ACT Southern Tablelands Area Consultative Committee. It provided few answers to
Issue 267
News
Coalition for Access to Justice formed
By Karen Fredericks
BRISBANE — A rally of 200 legal aid and community legal services workers and supporters on March 14 voted to form the Queensland Coalition for Access to Justice (QCAJ) to fight
Save Redfern Block campaign continues
By Chris Spindler
SYDNEY — Rumours of the appearance of bulldozers from March 17 circulated as Aboriginal Redfern Housing Coalition members mobilised for an Aboriginal Housing Company meeting on March
By Kamala Emanuel
More than 1000 doctors across NSW have been on strike since March 10 in a bid to reverse legislation restricting new doctors' access to Medicare provider numbers. Mass meetings on March 14 resolved to broaden the campaign,
By Francesca Davidson
SYDNEY — For 49 years the NSW Police Special Branch has been monitoring the activities of left activists in NSW. After the NSW Royal Commission into Police Corruption heard evidence in February of Special Branch's
Roxby to test law on union access
By Philippa Stanford
ADELAIDE — The Roxby Downs uranium mine in South Australia is shaping up as a major test site of the Howard government's new industrial relations laws. Western Mining Corporation
'McMountains' development defeated
KATOOMBA — In a victory for grassroots community action, the fast food giant McDonald's informed local activists organised in the Mountains Against McDonald's (MAM) group on March 7 that it would not
Stephanie Wilkinson
Stephanie Wilkinson, the founder of Australians Against Executions, died of cancer in Sydney on March 8. She was 62.
Stephanie — half her friends knew her as Stephanie, the other half as "Jill", a nickname given to go
By Frank Gollan
CANBERRA — Delegates attending the March 13 branch conference of the ACT Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) expressed strong support for a united and effective fight against attacks on the public service. The meeting
Melbourne public transport dispute continues
By Tully Bates
MELBOURNE — A mass meeting of 2000 public transport workers on March 6 voted almost unanimously to stop work from midnight, March 7, until midnight, March 9, over the Australian
Environmental vandalism escalates
On March 14, the federal government announced a decision to move the Coode Island chemical and fuel storage plant near Melbourne to Point Lillias. Port Lillias is protected by the international Ramsar convention
NSW hospital waiting lists grow
By Shane Bentley
SYDNEY — In the 1995 state election campaign, Premier Bob Carr promised to cut hospital waiting lists by half or to resign after one year. On March 7, the state government conceded that
NTU students vote for education campaign
By Tim E Stewart
DARWIN — The Education Action Group at Northern Territory University put a motion to a student general meeting on March 12 for a campaign against the Liberals' attacks on higher
Project highlights violence against gays and lesbians
By Marina Cameron
SYDNEY — The South Sydney Council and the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) have announced the establishment of the Mary's Place Project in February to
Socialists do well in Brisbane election
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — "The vote of more than 6% for Democratic Socialist candidates in the Brisbane City Council election on March 15 shows that a sizeable number of people are beginning to look
Beazley's back flip on Hindmarsh Island condemned
By Carla Gorton
ADELAIDE — The Kumarangk Coalition, which has been campaigning against the Hindmarsh Island bridge proposal since 1993, says that the federal ALP's decision to support the
World
By Norman Taylor
Attending the World Humanist Congress in Mexico City in November provided an opportunity to hear immensely well-informed speakers from 26 countries, including world figures such as Pakistani writer Taslima Nasrin, forced to flee
Revolution in Albania
By Michael Karadjis
A people's power revolution is taking place in Albania, where a furious plundered people have taken up arms against the thieving, US-backed regime of Sali Berisha. The rebellion began with a
By Eva Cheng
On March 11, an explosion took place at the Mura nuclear reprocessing plant in Tokai, Japan, 10 hours after a potentially deadly fire broke out at the scene. It is not the first major nuclear "accident" in Japan. The last known
Bomb blasts in China
Seven people were killed and 67 injured when three bombs exploded on public buses on February 25 in Urumqi, the capital of China's north-west Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. A fourth bomb was found before it exploded.
By Gim Joong-gen
First World bosses point to the social values of Asia's newly industrialising countries (NICs) as a universal recipe for prosperity: unswerving loyalty to family, company and nation. The most genuine progress in these
By Norm Dixon
Kisangani, east Zaire's most important city and the Mobutu dictatorship's last stronghold in the country's east, fell to the rebels of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL), led by Laurent
By Peter Gellert
MEXICO CITY — US government certification of Mexico's efforts to counteract drug trafficking have unleashed a storm of protest here. Washington's yearly certification process comes on the heels of several weeks of new and
Immigrant workers fight backImmigrant workers fight back
By Barry Sheppard
On March 8, hundreds of workers at two plants in the San Francisco Bay Area, and their supporters, held rallies and pickets in a fight to win union
By Norm Dixon
Following a meeting between Australian PM John Howard and PNG PM Julius Chan in Sydney on March 9, Howard hinted that military aid to PNG may be boosted and more Australian army "advisers" sent to replace the hired guns from
By Eva Cheng
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) may call another general strike in May to force the Kim Young-sam government to remove repressive new labour laws. In a deal struck between the ruling parties and the parliamentary
By Eva Cheng
Beijing secured legislative backing to tighten its repressive rule at the latest parliamentary session of the National People's Congress held in the capital between March 1-14. This first major national gathering after the death of
Culture
Roaming in the Gloaming(For Pauline Hanson MP)
They live in the gloaming,in the shadow of the Land of the Leal.Half peoplefor whom the sunshines not.For them our worldis threat and fear ...They fret and fumepicking the scabs offthis and
KolyaOpening on March 27 at Dendy Cinemas Review by Margaret Allan
The latest film to come out of the former Czechoslovakia is set in the 1989 "Velvet Revolution", in which the characters play out a charming story of the relationship between a
By Margaret Perrott
WOLLONGONG — "There is nobody like Fred" is accepted by all progressive movements in the Illawarra. Known as "Dad" to local Kooris and activists — blood brother to the Jerringa people and an honorary life member of the
SYDNEY — FRANK GOMEZ talked to JILL HICKSON, PATTY BIANCO, MARYANN WYLDER and BOB SHORT, members of the community television access group Actively Radical Television (ARTV), about what it is like being involved in community free-to-air television.
Globalization and Its Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern SocialismBy Roger Burbach, Orlando Nunez and Boris KagarlitskyPluto Press, London and Chicago, 1997, £12.99. Review by Paul Clarke
It should be universally recognised that in the
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement From the 1950s to the 1980SHenry Hampton and Steve Fayer (eds)Vintage Press, 1995. Published in Australia by Random House. 692 pp., $22.95 Review by Arun Pradhan
The history of the
Editorial
One-way 'mutual obligation'
Federal cabinet last week approved plans to double the size of a work for the dole scheme announced by PM John Howard last month, and to introduce tougher penalties for young people who refuse to participate or drop