With more than a tinge of cynicism, John Howard recently announced that under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, funding for public housing will be slashed by only $50 million in 1997-98, not $200 million as recommended by the Treasury.
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East Timor student sanctuary network launchedAs part of the May 17-24 "Free East Timor! Democracy for Indonesia!" week of action, Resistance will launch a student sanctuary network. The network will work together with the
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Jose Ramos Horta, the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and special representative overseas for the East Timorese resistance sent the following message to Resistance, the national socialist youth organisation, which is organising a "Free East Timor,
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Students occupy NMIT @box text intro = MELBOURNE — On May 9, inspired by the occupation of the Melbourne University administration building, members of the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE student union occupied their offices in defiance
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Privy preservationPrivy preservation I'm going to tell you something that may surprise, even shock, you. I'll be describing a frequent act that I'm not proud to own up to. It's sure to be the dirtiest thing you'll hear all day. I
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There is still no end to the government's threats to deport the 1358 East Timorese refugees in Australia, despite a court ruling in their favour. Following the May 2 Federal Court decision to set aside a decision of the Refugee
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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. Access News — Melbourne
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Young people occupy premier's office SYDNEY — On May 9, around 30 Justice For Young People activists occupied the premier's office in protest against the planned "street safety" legislation. They were later removed by around 90 police
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SYDNEY — After the successful national day of action on May 8, an overnight tent city was set up in the main quadrangle at Sydney University. About 10 tents were pitched on the lawns surrounded by the sandstone walls of the old
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Immigration and racism It never ceases to amaze me how some people can keep on pushing the tired old racism barrow when it comes to immigration, when by now it should be crystal clear to everyone, even your journalist Lisa Macdonald ("Population
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As a young feminist, I have been dismayed over the last few years to see words such as "chick", "babe" and "girl" creeping back into use in feminist and left circles. It makes me very uncomfortable to see feminists wearing
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REIHANA MOHIDEEN, the convener of Asian Australians Against Further Intimidation and a member of the national executive of the Democratic Socialist Party, will soon begin a national speaking tour to campaign against the racist offensive spearheaded
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More than 10,000 university and secondary students and university staff rallied nationwide on May 8 to demand that the federal government reverse the drastic funding cuts to education implemented in last year's budget. The national
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No justiceNo justice By Brandon Astor Jones "The best use of [justice and] law ... is to teach men to trample bad [justice and] law under their feet." — Wendell Phillips (1811-1884). BAJ: What is your name and number? BP:
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MELBOURNE — On May 8, the Melbourne University administration building was occupied as part of the national day of action against cuts to higher education. The occupation was specifically in response to Melbourne University's
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MELBOURNE — One of the groups supporting Pauline Hanson is the neo-Nazi white supremacist organisation National Action (NA). Since its foundation in 1982, it has become notorious for its blatant racism directed mostly, though
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The Australian government's policy positions appeared as those of a "self-interested hypocrite" at an important environmental meeting in New York, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE). The meeting was the fifth session of the Commission for
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Left on-line Hackers breach Suharto's defences — Portuguese hackers, protesting against the Indonesian government's occupation of East Timor, recently broke into the Indonesian Military Network home page and altered its contents. Earlier this
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SONNY MELENCIO is a representative of the Philippines socialist workers centre BMP. This is an abridged version of his talk to a May Day Solidarity Forum in Sydney. We are living in dangerous times. Events today evoke memories of the 1930s, when the
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Docile 'feminism'Docile 'feminism' Naomi Wolf's new book will be released in Australia this month. Promiscuities: A Secret History of Female Desire has generated much more of a stir in the US and Britain than it deserves. Maybe it's
News
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Lucky it happens so seldom "Sacking an entire class of apprentices just before they were due to take up permanent positions with Qantas is the kind of behaviour which gives the free market a bad name ..." — Liberal MP Tony Abbott.
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Traditional owners oppose new uranium mineSYDNEY — Jacqui Katona, executive officer of the Gundjhemi Aboriginal Corporation, addressed a meeting of about 200 people in Glebe on April 29 about opposition by Mirrar
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Conflict over Iron Gates developmentThe Iron Gates housing development, under construction near Evans Head, in northern NSW, is a cause of conflict between developer Iron Gates Pty Ltd and the local Bundjalung people. The
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BRISBANE — Despite heavy rain, 3500 unionists turned out for the annual Labour Day march from the Trades Hall to Albert Park on May 5. Members of a wide variety of unions marched behind their union banners, with floats, placards and flags in
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East Timorese writer visits SydneySYDNEY — Visiting East Timor activist and writer Naldo Rai and Sister Kath O'Connor from Christians in Solidarity with East Timor addressed a meeting of Action in Solidarity with
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SYDNEY — The national secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, Wendy Caird, accompanied by the president of the ACTU, Jennie George, met Department of Defence delegates on May 6 at the Defence Plaza here. Union
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'Draw the line! Stop the Cuts!'BRISBANE — "What we're hoping out of the rally against the budget on May 13 is that it will be a start" of a fight back, Claire Moore, Queensland state secretary of the Community and
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NSW budget hides private profit pushSYDNEY — "Every inch a Labor budget", NSW treasurer Michael Egan declared on May 7, when he delivered the state government's budget in parliament. Egan was trying to imply that this
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Governments plan to victimise teachersUnder the guise of offering teachers and schools greater "freedom" and raising the status of teachers, the federal government has launched a campaign to push teachers onto
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On the May 8 national day of action against education cuts and undergraduate fees staff and students staged large demonstrations across the country. Around Australia, demonstrators heard speakers from the National Union of Students (NUS), the
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Save our services!BALLARAT— One hundred and fifty people braved the worst of Ballarat's weather to attend a public meeting on May 6. The meeting was organised by the Save Our Services committee to initiate a campaign to
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NEWCASTLE — Newcastle City Council and the steelworks unions organised a public meeting of 150 people in the Town Hall on May 8 to build community support for the campaign to save the BHP steelworks. Geoff
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Queensland teachers to begin rolling strikesBRISBANE — Queensland teachers are set to begin a major campaign of rolling 24-hour strikes from May 14 to May 22, to press home their demand for an increased pay offer and to
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Curragh miners strikeBRISBANE — Production at Blackwater's Curragh coal mine in central Queensland stopped on May 9 when 300 workers voted unanimously to strike for two weeks. Workers at the Arco-owned operation set up
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Anti-gay tirade in QueenslandBRISBANE — The mayor of outer suburban Pine Rivers shire, Yvonne Chapman, has given local residents permission for bigotry and hatred against homosexuals, according to Gay and Lesbian Welfare
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On May 9, more than 3000 anti-racist protesters prevented Pauline Hanson from launching her One Nation party in Hobart. In contrast to the large crowd of protesters, the launch attracted just over 300 supporters. Tony Iltis reports that more than
Analysis
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Editorial: A racist attack on native title A racist attack on native title In his much-featured and analysed criticism of the blatantly racist lies being spread by Pauline Hanson on May 8, PM John Howard said that Hanson was "wrong" to
World
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An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 angry protesters took to the streets in Taipei on May 4 calling on Prime Minister Lien Chan to resign and President Lee Teng-hui to apologise for the failure to check an increase of violent crime.
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In his state of the republic address last year, French President Jacques Chirac said: "The dissolution of the National Assembly is a constitutional weapon which the president cannot deploy for reasons of personal convenience". But On April 21, Chirac
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MEXICO CITY — Mexican workers marked May Day with huge demonstrations in the country's capital. Workers have plenty to demonstrate about. At least 70 % of the population lives in poverty, the price of the basic foods and
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Global decline of mammalsSiberian and Bengal tigers, and nearly one-fourth of the rest of the world's mammal species, are threatened with extinction. A recent study of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) suggests that
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Taliban's rule @box text intro = A woman has been stoned to death by a Taliban court, after being found guilty of being outside in the company of a man who was not her husband or a relative. The man she was with was shot dead when he tried to
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Women fight for a future@box text intro = LIVERPOOL — When dock workers on the east coast of the United States boycotted ships from Liverpool, Women of the Waterfront (WoW) went to the house of the director of the
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Police on May 5 and 6 raided the offices and homes of activists and organisations involved in the Port Moresby demonstrations in March against the Chan government's deployment of mercenaries on Bougainville. Three leading activists
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MEXICO CITY — US President Bill Clinton's May 5-6 visit here was designed to improve much deteriorated bilateral relations. In the past year, Mexican outrage over the Helms-Burton law, US congressional certification of the
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Overseas Chinese 'defend' islandsA handful of right-wingers led by Japanese legislator Shingo Nishimura made a provocative landing on May 6 on an islet of Diaoyu Islands (or what the Japanese called Senkaku Islands), the
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The corporate decision in 1923 to add toxic lead to gasoline changed the chemistry of Earth, particularly the northern hemisphere. According to the US National Research Council (NRC), in 1983 industrial emissions of lead into
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Stolen timber recovered Timber stolen from the Nuxalk nation (an indigenous people from the north-west coast of Canada) was recovered from a UK timber yard on April 9. The timber has been handed to police, who have been asked to prosecute the
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Members of South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU) on May 1 launched a nine-day nationwide campaign of protests against the privatisation of municipal services. The campaign includes daily demonstrations outside town halls
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Detroit labour march setDetroit labour march setNewspaper workers now in the 22nd month of a strike have won important support in a call by top American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations
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Turkish troops chase Kurdish rebels Turkish newspapers reported on May 1 that as many as 40,000 Turkish troops crossed 10 kilometres into northern Iraq in an effort to attack guerillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party. Turkey regularly stages
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Unocal, a US oil company, in partnership with Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia, has signed a contract with the Taliban rulers of most of Afghanistan to construct a gas and oil pipeline. It will go from Turkmenistan, through western
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LIVERPOOL — The Liverpool dockers, in the 20th month of their dispute with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC), are determined to fight on. Despite the obstacles and hardships — 90 dockers have had their houses
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With the rebels of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire-Congo (ADFL) just a few days' march from the capital, Kinshasa, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko suddenly left Zaire on May 7 to attend a meeting of
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MOSCOW — In formal terms, the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), held here on April 19 and 20, was a triumph for party leader Gennady Zyuganov. The KPRF chief
Culture
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Ludic Feminism and After: Postmodernism, Desire, and Labor in Late CapitalismBy Teresa EbertUniversity of Michigan Press, 1996. 338 pp., $25.95 Review by Greg Ogle For those, like me, who had to consult a dictionary to find out what ludic means,
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Death of a SalesmanBy Arthur MillerDirected by Sandra BatesEnsemble TheatrePlayhouse, Sydney Opera House Review by Brendan Doyle First staged in 1949 but still powerfully relevant, Miller's best-known play Death of a Salesman is as searing and
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Get Up, Stand Up: A History of ReggaeSBSMonday, May 19, 8.30pm (8pm in SA) Review by Norm Dixon Reggae is the world's favourite Caribbean music. It is Jamaica's most famous export. Between 1970 and the early 1980s, it ranked as one of the
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The CastleCity and suburban cinemas Review by Brendan Doyle A bloke's home is his castle, right? Wrong. That's the big illusion of tow truck driver Darryl Kerrigan, who built his own emoh ruo next to the airport because land was cheap. When
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Slovo: The Unfinished AutobiographyBy Joe Slovo. Foreword by Nelson MandelaMelbourne: Ocean Press, 1997. 296 pp., $29.95 Review by Norm Dixon The subtitle of this book is an understatement. As autobiography, it is little more than a collection