Issue 33

News

By Jim McIlroy BRISBANE — "The Cuban people have full confidence in Fidel Castro and the country's leadership. You can have full confidence that the morale of the Cuban people is high, and that they will overcome the challenges facing our
Women reclaim the night By Pip Hinman In marches of around 2000 in both Melbourne and Sydney, women reclaimed the night on October 25. Mothers and their young daughters, high school students, older and migrant women participated in one of the
By David Brazil Following questions in state parliament from Dr Terry Metherell and increased pressure from environmental groups, five new national park areas are to be created in New South Wales. The decision comes out of a complete review of
By Steve Painter SYDNEY — Up to a million workers answered the call for a 24-hour statewide general strike on October 24 against the Greiner government's anti-union Industrial Relations Bill. While official estimates put the number at about half
By Steve Painter Broken Hill residents have called for a clean-up of the city after blood tests on local children revealed dangerous levels of lead, one of the major minerals in the rich ore body that gives the city its life in the arid far west
QGN discusses waste dumps By Bill Mason BRISBANE — Plans are proceeding rapidly to implement the Rochedale super-dump, intended to dispose of this city's rubbish for a 30-year minimum period, Glenys Head of the Southside Action Group told a
By Anna McCormack BRISBANE — In a few months the Queensland Criminal Code Review Committee will release its second report recommending changes to Queensland's 90-year-old Criminal Code. As with the committee's First Interim Report, this document
talking UNION SYDNEY — The postal workers' union (APTU) has rejected Australia Post plans to close down many post offices and replace them with "modern retail outlets". The union is particularly concerned about planned closures in country
Extravaganza for Radio Skidrow SYDNEY — Radio Skid Row (88.9 FM) is presenting another of its fundraising extravaganzas on Saturday, November 2. Beginning at noon supporters of public radio and the alternative media will take control of Max's
By Peter Boyle Mounted police charged meatworkers picketing an abattoir in Camperdown, in western Victoria, on October 26. Two women workers were trampled by the horses, and one picket was arrested for "hindering police". The attack allowed
People of Miles reject toxic dump By Bill Mason BRISBANE — The Murilla Shire Council and the people of Miles would have nothing to do with the Gurulmundi toxic waste dump, People Against Toxic and Chemical Hazards spokesperson David Hinds
By Melanie Sjoberg MELBOURNE —"The ALP is finished as a progressive force in politics. Those who still believe in the possibility of the Labor Party moving to radical reformism are fooling themselves", Joe Camilleri told a Rainbow
Coroner's report on black death attacked By Leon Harrison PERTH — The West Australian Aboriginal Medical Service says it will fight the findings of coroner David McCann over the death of 35-year-old Aboriginal prisoner Edward Isaacs.

World

By Norm Dixon The people of Cuba are mobilising to overcome the severe economic crisis imposed upon them by the sudden disruption to Cuba's trade with the Soviet Union. Cuba has been forced to rely heavily on Soviet trade by the 30-year US
By Peter Annear PRAGUE — As the pattern of the Serbian-federal army assault on Croatia starts to jell, and the contested regions are more clearly identified, it is evident that economic designs and not national antipathies are the prime source
By Tracy Sorensen SYDNEY — Senior SBS television reporter Vladimir Lusic spent seven weeks in Croatia and Serbia until early October. He drank with journalists at Zagreb's Hotel Intercontinental, went out into the battle zones with units of the
By Peter Annear PRAGUE — When 400 peace campaigners set out at the end of September in buses on the road from Trieste through Croatia, Vojvodina, Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina to Sarajevo, they made a small breach in the war mentality that has
By Neville Spencer Twenty months after his "arrest" on drug trafficking charges, Manuel Noriega's trial is under way in Miami, but it is much more than Noriega's future that is at stake. The defence case largely revolves around the allegation
By Sean Malloy Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat has called for an Arab summit to work out a coordinated negotiating position at the Middle East peace conference which opens in Madrid on October 30. The US-organised
Approximately 6000 big companies are included in Czechoslovakia's so-called large privatisation program, two-thirds of them in a "first wave" and the remainder in a "second wave", with others at least temporarily held aside. Company managers had
Roy Medvedev was the leading dissident Soviet historian during the Brezhnev years. He was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1969. In 1971, following the publication in the West of his monumental study on Stalin, Let History
By Max Lane President Suharto is seeking to silence outspoken members of the parliament as his regime moves to ensure his 1993 re-election or a smooth succession. Jockeying has begun over the membership of the next parliament and MPR [the
By Sally Low PRAGUE — The Czechoslovak parliament on October 4 passed the harshest political screening law so far enacted in any east European country since 1989. All people who, at any time between February 1948 and November 1989, held

Russian President Boris Yeltsin appears to have blocked local authority elections called by the Russian parliament for December 8.

By Peter Annear and Sally Low PRAGUE — "I have been a fighter against communism for 40 years", Norman Willis, the general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress, told a press conference here on October 18. Willis was with an

Culture

Resources The first issue of the New Zealand journal greenstone includes a Third World critique of tourism, an interview with Jonathon Porrit, an article on bio-harmonic buildings and an analysis of the impact of GATT talks on the international
You can have it both ways. Get into the festive season and refuse to give joy to the multi-million dollar commercial Christmas card industry. You've seen and enjoyed Judy Horacek and Rona Chadwick's work here in the pages of Green Left. Now you
Terminator 2 Directed by James Cameron Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton Reviewed by David Nerlich Okay, so we know Arnie is a Republican, which most readers of this paper might consider sufficient for him to burn in hell for ...
Prisoner Lucky Dube Available on CD and cassette Through SBS Music/BMG Records Reviewed by Norm Dixon Seeing Lucky Dube and his 13-piece band live is an exhausting experience. Just watching this dynamic two-hour non-stop performance centred on
Historic and relevant Power in the Union Featuring Peter Hicks Supported by Taliesin, Doug Jenner and Judy Pinner $15.95 Reviewed by Kim Spurway Well I'm a union man I'm proud of what I am An' I don't get fooled By the bosses rules, Or
honeycomb dawns em = By Phil McManus below the eastern horizon, beyond the darkest hour that seems to last forever, the dawn of the glorious revolution is a yellow balloon chained by yesterday's ideas. there are many dawns like honeycomb,

Editorial

Equal before the law? Immediately after the jury failed to reach a verdict in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen perjury trial, the pressure went on for no further action against the former premier of Queensland. There is now a powerful campaign to ensure