Entertainment and politicsEntertainment and politics
By Brandon Astor Jones
"Black Entertainment Television owes a good deal more than it is giving to the African-American community." — Irving Elmer Bell.
BAJ: What is your
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Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Thursday, 10pm and Saturday, 7pm. 9point = Access News —
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The commemoration of Anzac Day has a special temporal link to Australia's role in the Viet Nam-USA War. April 30 is the date when Vietnamese commemorate either the liberation, or the fall, of Saigon and the South, depending on
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I object to the level to which GLW has sunk in its support for the International Socialist Organisation's provocation at Melbourne University last month. The April 16 article by Jo Williams and Ben Reid says that the
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Redfern housing questions SYDNEY — At an Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) annual general meeting on April 26, members of the Redfern Aboriginal Housing Coalition — a community-based organisation seeking to re-establish and improve housing
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LISMORE — The council of Southern Cross University (SCU) has appointed a management committee to "manage the affairs" of the student bodies. Students have strongly condemned the action and are organising to return control to
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A study published in January in Environmental Health Perspectives (a US government journal) concludes that people who lived near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 are more likely to get lung cancer,
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Newcastle — you never had it so good You never know do you? So often you hear people complaining. But me, I never had it so good. I see? You hear all sorts of complaints. "I lost me job" or "I don't know where the money's
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While more attention has been directed at the federal government's plans for higher education, secondary education is also under severe attack from both state and federal governments. One of the biggest factors is a massive
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Since its launch more than six years ago, Green Left Weekly has been a consistent source of information and analysis for people and organisations campaigning against racism in Australia and internationally. During May and June, Green Left will
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Win-win-win education University administrations say they are forced by funding cutbacks to sell courses to full fee-paying students. With at least equal truth, HECS-paying students say this will reduce the quality of their education through
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Pay as you learn? We can't afford it!Students and university staff around the country will rally on May 8 in a show of anger at federal government policy on education. What theyre rallying against is the
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Crime and punishmentCrime and punishmentCrime, especially violent crime, is a favourite staple of the capitalist media. Murders, assaults, sex crimes, paedophilia, robberies, home invasions, gang violence — they can
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Second dispossession MELBOURNE — Around 500 people attended the 1997 Whitlam Lecture on April 28 to hear Noel Pearson, chairperson of the Cape York Land Council, condemn attacks by the Howard government on native title and the Racial
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The federal Liberal Party is looking into ways of changing the voting system for the Senate, according to reports in the Bulletin and the Sydney Morning Herald. The aim would be to ensure that governments would normally have a
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Eastern Distributor blockade rehearsed SYDNEY — Anti-motorway activists occupied the Drivers Triangle area in Surry Hills for 24 hours on April 27 to practise for protests against the proposed Eastern Distributor freeway. Mock toll
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It's not a jokeIt's not a joke The other night at dinner my mother was telling us about when she first came to Australia from India in the early '70s. She used to wear an ankle-length sari to her job in a doctor's surgery every day. One
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SYDNEY — "It is necessary to make a thorough examination of all operations of the Authority to see where savings can be made. This is under way and your co-operation is imperative. The future of railways is the responsibility
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Andy Blunden's attempt to justify his selling of the enterprise bargain agreement to NTEU members at Melbourne University (above) evades the real issues. The opposition to the agreement from wide sectors of the union
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John Howard has presented his "10-point plan" on native title as a compromise between the demands of the powerful mining and pastoral interests and their representatives, who are demanding that native title be extinguished,
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Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge has demanded of Prime Minister John Howard: totally extinguish native title on pastoral leases, or face a rash of Hanson-type independents around the country. This blackmail may benefit Howard, who
News
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HOBART — On May 1 Tasmanian legislative councillors voted almost unanimously to repeal that state's anti-gay laws, bringing Tasmania into line with the rest of Australia. The decision is a victory for a nine-year
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PERTH — Twenty-five thousand people filled the streets on April 29 in a massive protest against the Court government's "third wave" of anti-union laws — the largest rally for workers' rights here in decades. All unions took
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God helps those who help themselves "Flights to Zaire by the tax-exempt humanitarian organisation of the American evangelist and former Republican presidential candidate, Mr Pat Robertson, were used almost exclusively for his diamond mining
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Chinese community combats HansonBRISBANE — Following the April 11 launch of Pauline Hanson's racist One Nation party in Ipswich, sections of the Australian-Chinese community have lodged a protest with the Australian
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Community and Public Sector Union members have begun a national campaign in defence of jobs and conditions. The strongest action planned so far is an ACT branch stoppage called by the executive for May 8. The stoppage, a week
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Court rules for East Timorese refugeeOn May 2, the full Federal Court set aside a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal that East Timorese refugee Jong Kim Koe was not a refugee under the International Refugees Convention.
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On April 29, BHP announced that the Newcastle steelworks, the Sydney wire mill and the Geelong rod mill will all close by the end of 1999, resulting in the loss of several thousand jobs. Green Left Weekly's ALEX BAINBRIDGE spoke to GEOFF PAYNE, a
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Campaign against Eastern Ring Road relaunchedMELBOURNE — Two hundred people attended an Anti-Ring Road Organisation (ARRO) public meeting in Eltham on April 30 to relaunch the campaign against the proposed Eastern Ring
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Rally in defence of sacked teachersMELBOURNE — Around 160 people attended a rally on April 30 at the Darebin Arts and Entertainment Centre to protest against the sacking of three teachers from the Victorian Certificate of
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Email workers on indefinite strikeMELBOURNE — Since April 11, 880 workers at two of the Email group of companies — Email-Lockwood and Martin Bright Steel — have been on an indefinite strike in their campaign for a new
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Campaign against Holsworthy airport Margaret Perrott WOLLONGONG — Several thousand people attended a protest at Stanwell Park in the northern Illawarra on April 21 against the federal government's plan for a second Sydney international
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Shellharbour protest picnicWOLLONGONG — Fifty people gathered at Bass Point, overlooking beautiful Shellharbour Beach, for a picnic and protest against a proposed marina development on April 20. The action was
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Queensland teachers vote for rolling strikes@box text intro = BRISBANE — Queensland teachers have voted overwhelmingly for a campaign of rolling 24-hour strikes in state schools to demand better pay and to protest the
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Call to ban mining on Stradbroke Island@box text intro = BRISBANE — Conservation and Aboriginal groups on April 27 renewed a call for sand mining on Stradbroke Island to be suspended after reports revealed possible mine
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Support for native title SYDNEY — A "prominent citizens' statement on native title" was launched at the Harold Park Hotel here on May 1.The endorsers — more than 100 artists, sportspeople, religious leaders, politicians, writers, academics
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Les Malezer, executive director of the Federation of Aboriginal and Islander Research Associations and member of the indigenous working group negotiating proposed amendments to the Native Title Act with the federal government,
Analysis
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Greenhouse outlaws John Howard says Australia cannot afford to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. He says this country is a "special case" — given our reliance on fossil fuels — and has even countenanced withdrawing from the climate
World
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Germany under pressure over McAliskey case Pressure is building on the German government to drop a spurious extradition case against Roisin McAliskey, daughter of prominent Irish nationalist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Eight months pregnant,
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Young suffer from capitalism in eastern Europe Young people in eastern Europe can be forgiven for not celebrating the triumph of the "market economy". According to a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund on April 21, there are
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On April 22, Peruvian president Fujimori ended the 127-day occupation of the Japanese ambassador's residence by Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) guerillas. "The end of the crisis showed that Fujimori exclusively
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MOSCOW — You're a worker in an industrial city of provincial Russia, and you haven't been paid in months. You and your family would starve if it weren't for the vegetables you raise in a garden plot on the outskirts of town.
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US chemical weapons bill masks nuclear deployment The US Senate voted on April 17 to impose tough penalties, including death, on anyone dealing with chemical weapons. The Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat Reduction Act 1997 provides
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Unionists arrested in Malawi Police arrested more trade union leaders in the southern African country of Malawi as a wages strike by public servants entered its third week on April 21. The latest unionists arrested were from the country's north,
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TRIPOLI — More than 1000 representatives of political parties, governments, solidarity and peace organisations and the media converged on Tripoli in Libya on April 14 and 15 to attend the International Spring Festival for
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Win for Thor victims British chemical company Thor Holdings agreed on April 8 to pay 20 South African workers suffering from mercury poisoning 9.4 million rand (US$2 million). The settlement ends a battle that began in 1992, after three
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The landslide victory for Tony Blair's New Labour Party in the May 1 British election was more a massive rejection of 18 years of Tory policies than it was a strong endorsement of Blair's new style Labour Toryism. The lack of
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Indonesians strike at Nike Four thousand workers from one of the franchised Nike shoe assembly plants went on strike and demonstrated on three separate days in Jakarta at the end of April. According to the daily newspaper Republika, workers were
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In early 1994, when pressure was mounting in the US Congress to cut the country's war budget, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs General Colin Powell was quoted by Washington's Defense Monitor magazine as saying: "I'm running out
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Protest against murder attacked by policeAt least 40 students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi were injured when police attacked a protest of students marching to the prime minister's residence last week. The
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The Sri Lankan conflict does not feature in the international media as much as it should. The war-torn north-east of the island is isolated from the rest of the world by the iron control the Sri Lankan government has
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The US government has stepped up its 20-year campaign against the Navajo (or Dineh) people. The government has announced a "90-day eviction" process that will forcibly remove the Navajo from their lands. The Dineh live in a remote
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The campaign being waged by western governments, the international media and aid agencies against the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire and its leader Laurent Kabila has little to do with the
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Pesticide hazard for agricultural workers According to a new report from the International Labour Organisation, pesticide poisoning remains a daily occurrence among agricultural workers in developing countries. The report, "Wage Workers in
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Ground water contamination from pesticides in US Ground water contamination from pesticides in US A new study released by the North Carolina Pesticide Board shows widespread pesticide contamination in the state's ground water. Over 27% of
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On April 28, the trial of Budiman Sujatmiko, People's Democratic Party (PRD) president, and eight other PRD members ended. Budiman was sentenced to 13 years' prison. Petrus Haryanto, 26, secretary general of the PRD, was sentenced to
Culture
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Powerful people's opera Little CityBy Irine VelaPresented by Brisbane Ethnic Music and Arts Centre Inc.Until May 11Culturebank, West End, Brisbane Review by Lynda Hansen This is a story about a community's last ditch attempt to persuade an
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Poem: "Oh, Alonya's OK" "Oh, Alonya's OK" They don't see the water retreatacross the eyes of their children,and hear the love pumping out over the sand,"that is sunset", they say to themselves,missing the bubbles in the blood. for while
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FireWritten and directed by Deepa MehtaScreening in Sydney from end of JuneFor details phone Courtney at Globe on (02) 9332 2722 Preview by Reihana Mohideen The opening scene — a young couple silhouetted against a magnificent backdrop of that pious
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For his latest film, Carla's Song, director KEN LOACH teamed up with scriptwriter PAUL LAVERTY. The film is a love story set against the background of the Nicaraguan Contra War. It portrays the gains of the Sandinista revolution which overthrew the
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MELBOURNE — Censorship of the arts has come into the limelight once again with an unprecedented move by a local council to ban a theatrical production. The Essentials, a play exploring the social backlash against cutbacks
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Lunch with Mr.KilltheReef Makingsquillions Luxury yacht in the channelharpoon in hand"That one! I'm that hungry!" Like a rocket from over the hillanother benign paradiseis lepidopterror-struck into the ledgers of greed. "Quick Gabriel!