Pollution causes people to commit violent crimes, according to new research by Roger D. Masters and co-workers at Dartmouth College. Sociologists have known for a long time that violent crimes occur more in some places than in
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Senate almost supports student occupiers On August 27, Greens Senator Bob Brown moved a motion in support of the RMIT student occupation in the Senate. The motion called for "support as part of the continuing campaign to prevent the
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Rio Tinto's brutal pedigreeIt is no coincidence that the onslaught on Australian coal miners' rights and conditions is being led by the multinational Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto is demanding that its unionised work force surrender
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Just how does someone join Pauline Hanson's One Nation party? Is it a trial by ordeal perhaps? Or do you have to publicly swear that you have never been a Communist, a homosexual, Asian, Aboriginal, a Muslim or a Jew while singing
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Not so dandy By Brandon Astor Jones "Bill Hutson ... has been a dandy sheriff for almost a quarter of a century. He is an old mountain boy and he loves bluegrass music. He would make a dandy governor." — Herman Allen Some readers
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"This special Green Left broadsheet has been produced as a response to the Gulf War. Coverage of the war by the mass media has highlighted the need for a real alternative source of news and analysis." Those words introduced Green Left Weekly to the
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Rally for racial equality MELBOURNE — Around 1000 people braved miserable weather to attend a rally in Victoria Gardens on August 24 organised by People for Racial Equality. The crowd was addressed by trade unionists and representatives
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By George J. Aditjondro Some people have argued that basically, it is the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) that do not want to pull out of East Timor, because ABRI would lose face after losing the 22-year war. Very rarely has it been argued
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RMIT occupiers speak Ray Fulcher, Green Left Weekly's correspondent in the occupation, asked some of the students why they were taking this action. Anya: Fees are fucked. The government's only function should be to structure the needs and the
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ACTU: rhetoric versus reality This week the ACTU is holding its biennial congress in Brisbane. If previous congresses, and the agenda of this one, are anything to go by, delegates (very few of them from the grassroots of the union
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PERTH — Philip Vidot died in November 1995. The 14-year-old and his 17-year-old friend Tyron Williams were picked up while hitchhiking by three young men. The three drove them to a park in Perth's southern suburbs, bashed
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Child-care Thank you for Pip Hinman's review of Sally Loane's book Who Cares? Guilt, hope and the child-care debate (GLW August 27). Pip took up a few issues that as a parent of a young daughter I was concerned about. Arguments that parents
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Bob Brown: Stop Howard's Wik plan!The Coalition government plans to have its "now you see it, now you don't" native title amendment bill through parliament by December, according to Liberal Senate leader and
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MELBOURNE — Since August 20, more than 100 students have been occupying the RMIT Strategic and Financial Planning Department on the fourth floor of Kay House on Swanston Street. Students are protesting against the introduction
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The victorious 15-day strike of the US International Brotherhood of Teamsters against the United Parcel Service is an inspiration. It is great to see a union celebrating a real victory and the company with its tail between
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Competition and cooperationAustralia has to be competitive internationally, we are continually told whenever governments want to lower wages or cut social security spending. Within Australia, businesses have to be
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Student unionism is vital to the protection of students' rights and education standards. For a union to be truly effective, it must be active and capable of voicing student opinions, and it has to be democratic. It's
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Unions join employers in nationalist bingeSYDNEY — Five thousand workers from the textile, footwear and clothing industries marched to John Howard's office on August 20 to demand no more cuts to tariffs. This
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Is there a God? Some thinkers — all locals, all of them conservative, some unruly — have confessed to discerning a striking resemblance between John Howard and the pope. True, resemblances, there are. Both have other names. The
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Mentally ill dumped onto charitiesSYDNEY — Walk around any capital city, and you will see more homeless people today than five years ago. The homeless you see are more likely to be younger and to have a mental
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Union archives threatened CANBERRA — Australia's principal archival collection of union and company records is facing closure as a result of funding cuts at the Australian National University. The Noel Butlin Archives, celebrating its 40th
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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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How the Liberals sheltered NazisThe return of Konrad Kalejs, an Australian citizen deported from Canada as a World War II Nazi collaborator and leading member of a death squad responsible for the slaughter of 20,000
News
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Rally against racism motion dumped by NT TLC DARWIN — At its monthly meeting on August 25, the NT Trades and Labour Council refused to endorse a rally against racism, organised for the next day outside a recruiting meeting of Pauline Hanson's
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Workers rally against changes to compoCANBERRA — Public sector workers responded to a call on August 26 from the ACT Trades and Labour Council to rally against proposed changes to workers' compensation. The lunch-time rally
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We never expected "Not even judges can be expected to be indifferent to financial considerations." — Justice Murray Gleeson, chief justice of NSW, complaining that pension regulations encourage judges to retire too early. Danger:
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MELBOURNE — Victorian public sector nurses voted at a mass meeting on August 26 to accept an agreement which includes an 11% wage rise over three years and the creation of 250 extra nursing positions in Victorian hospitals.
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On August 20 the federal Industrial Relations Commission handed down an important decision on tenure and conditions for casual and contract staff working in tertiary education. Since 1995, the National Tertiary Education and
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Indonesia, East Timor tour off to great startLISMORE — The national tour by Indonesian activist Edwin Gozal, of the People's Democratic Party, and East Timorese activist Naldo Rai got off to a great start here on August
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On August 30, eight activists were arrested in Townsville while trying to prevent the transport of the dredge to be used in the Hinchinbrook Channel for the building of Keith Williams' 1500-room resort, canal estate and marina
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CANBERRA — Twenty members of the Greenpeace Climate Rescue Team were arrested and charged with trespass on August 20 after disrupting a conference here. They were protesting against the federal government's refusal to join world efforts to cut
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CANBERRA — More than 200 people attended the Strategies Against Racism forum at the Workers Club in Canberra on August 23. The forum, coordinated by the Council for Civil Liberties of the ACT, the Ethnic Communities Council
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SYDNEY — All Burma Student Democratic Front (ABSDF) representatives Myint Thu and Ye Win addressed a public meeting here attended by 140 people on August 24. They heard from a panel of speakers on the political situation in
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SYDNEY — There were few surprises for opponents of the Bob Carr/Michael Egan plan to privatise NSW electricity generation and distribution in the committee of inquiry report released on August 28. The committee, chaired by
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DARWIN — A strong statement against the racist politics of Pauline Hanson was made here on August 26. Eight hundred people rallied outside a One Nation party recruiting meeting in suburban Nightcliff. This was despite prior
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CANBERRA — More than 1000 students attended a vocal rally on August 27 to protest against staff cuts at the Australian National University. The rally was addressed by speakers from the National Tertiary Education and
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1000-strong meeting against Howard's 10-point planMELBOURNE — One thousand people attended an educational meeting organised by Defenders of Native Title (DONT) on August 28. Speakers demystified the
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Straight talk CANBERRA — The ACT government's "Sorry Day" was held here on August 25. María Chichilco, the touring representative of the FMLN of El Salvador, was an invited guest in the Legislative Assembly for the ceremony. Chichilco
Analysis
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Equalise the age of consent The NSW Wood Royal Commission recommendation that age of consent laws in the state be set at 16 years for both heterosexual and homosexual sex has flushed out many a conservative moralist and homophobe. Justice
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Fight to preserve Jabiluka As expected, the federal government has given Energy Resources of Australia the go-ahead to mine uranium at Jabiluka in Kakadu. It is a short-sighted, stupid and potentially dangerous decision. In making the
World
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On August 22 in the village of Beixiang, Guangdong province, more than 1000 angry farmers assaulted the local party secretary, destroyed several police vehicles and rampaged through the local government offices after officials
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MARIA NAVARETTE, better known as MARIA CHICHILCO, representing the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), has just finished a national speaking tour organised by the Salvadoran community and the Committees in Solidarity with Latin
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WELLINGTON — Auckland has two great monuments to government: the Obelisk, commemorating Michael Joseph Savage, and the Skytower Casino, commemorating Roger Douglas. Savage was prime minister of the first Labour government,
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Government seeks to discredit Teamsters' presidentRon Carey, president of the Teamsters' Union, which just won a historic strike against United Parcel Service, has won increased respect among teamsters and the
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Greenpeace has stepped up its international campaign on global warming by targeting attempts to drill for oil on the Atlantic frontier (the Arctic fringe of the Atlantic Ocean). As a result, it has been subjected to extraordinary
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The secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the international representative of a coalition of exiled Iranian political organisations, reported rioting in the cities of Nayriz and Abadeh in Fars province,
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Chinese dissidents denied rightsJailed dissident Wang Dan is suffering from severe pain, which doctors suspect is caused by a brain tumour, but officials have turned down Wang's repeated requests for a test. Wang is in weak
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RAMALLAH — Fighting has escalated in the last week in areas of southern Lebanon occupied by the Israeli army. Since August 20, Israel has launched four air strikes against forces fighting the occupation. This brings the number
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MOSCOW — Since the days of perestroika, the US government, working through quasi-independent aid bodies and the main US labour federation, the AFL-CIO, has spent millions of dollars trying to fashion a new Russian labour
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Taxi drivers jailed for carrying foreigners GERMANY — It sounds like a bitter joke on the racist German juridical system, but it actually happened. Two taxi-drivers have been sentenced to 16 month's and 22 months' jail for transporting
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In Sri Lanka's north, the Tamils are suffering because of the government's greed for more land, whereas in the south, the Sinhalese workers are suffering because of the multinationals' greed for more and more profit.
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Number of executions doublesThe number of people executed in China last year to at least 4367, according to Amnesty International. Most were killed with a single gun shot to the back of the head, after staged mass rallies and
Culture
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Keyboard SkillsBy Lesley BruceEnsemble Theatre, SydneyUntil September 20 Honourby Joanna Murray-SmithThe Wharf, Sydney Review by Mark Stoyich Two plays in Sydney at the moment show what some women think of some men. Interestingly, although the
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Rock Against RacismSYDNEY — Four hundred rockers crowded into the Harbourside Brassiere on August 28 to protest against racism and to listen to 13 of Australia's best known bands. The bands performing at Rock Against Racism
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As a labour researcher with the metalworkers' union, Peter Ewer went to the Latrobe Valley in 1988 to run shop stewards' training courses and "convince workers of the merits of award restructuring and the benefits of higher
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BRISBANE — Teatro de los Elementos (Theatre of the Elements), founded in 1991, is a community theatre company that works in central Cuba at Cumanayagua in Cienfuegos province. Through its work, communities isolated from urban
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Earlier this month a groundbreaking exhibition opened at Newcastle Regional Museum. "Hunter Pride: A Celebration of the Lives and Loves of the Hunter Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Community" is the first community sponsored,
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Not much change in the world The Way of the WorldBy William CongrevePerformed by the Victorian College of the Arts School of DramaDirected by Robert DraffinGrant Street Theatre, VCA, MelbourneUntil September 6 Review by Bronwen Beechey For
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Debate: Voices from the South African LeftIssue 3, 1997 Review by Ben Courtice Debate is an impressive new publication — first printed in 1996 — devoted to questions of socialist analysis and strategy, centred on the South African left
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The Black AdderChannel 7, Thursdays 11.05pm Review by Al McCall It's back from the video vaults, resurrected on rewind — Black Adder has returned. "Black Adder, Black Adder, with many a cunning plan. Black Adder, Black Adder, you horrid little
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Wall Street — How It Works and for WhomBy Doug HenwoodVerso, 1997, 372 pp. Review by Eva Cheng The US-based progressive periodical Left Business Observer has for years been a valuable source of information and sharp analysis of the US economy