In the midst of a deep financial mess, the Kirner Labor government of Victoria is promoting public subsidisation of major developments by the private sector. It has floated several multimillion-dollar proposals for Melbourne's Docklands area,
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While nuclear energy accounts for an increasing amount of power generation in Europe — up from 2% to 35% in the past 20 years just in the European Community — the industry continues to be plagued by serious problems. Bulgaria
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PRAGUE — Energy will always be expensive in Czechoslovakia. Apart from brown coal of such poor quality that it should never be used, and some uranium, there are few natural sources. Lack of seaports makes fossil fuel imports very
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Johnny Walker, one of the Birmingham Six, is on a tour of Australia sponsored by the Australian Irish Congress. The six, all Irish, were released earlier this year after 16 years in prison, having been framed for two pub bombings in Birmingham in
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The US nuclear power industry is dead in the water. However, there are ambitious plans to revive it, and there has been talk, however muted, of new reactor orders. There are moves to revamp the whole US regulatory framework to allow
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AUCKLAND — In response to the US announcement that it will remove all of its nuclear weapons from naval vessels except strategic submarines, the New Zealand government is reconsidering its ban on nuclear-powered
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Accidents involving nuclear submarines There have been a large number of accidents involving nuclear-powered submarines — sinkings, groundings, collisions, fires, explosions and radioactive leaks. Some of the most serious on record are: 1963: USS
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With Paul Keating snapping at Bob Hawke's heels over rising unemployment, the ACTU has presented its "Charter for Jobs" to federal cabinet. Not surprisingly given the former treasurer's long association with ACTU secretary
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SYDNEY — According to local environmentalists, the state government's claim that it supports World Heritage listing for the Blue Mountains National Park is undermined by large funding cuts to the park's budget. After she
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Public transport should be public People with disabilities are again protesting at the continuing failure of government to acknowledge the needs of people with disabilities in planning for public transport. Citizens for Accessible Public Transport
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BRISBANE — T2>he first Green Left Weekly forum here drew 65 people to discuss the topic "After the Soviet coup, which way forward for the left?". The speakers at the November 6 forum included representatives from the New Left
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Abortion I write in response to Paula Gilet who expressed her "despondency" at GLW and Tracy Sorensen's "anti-family, anti-Catholic pro-abortion stance" (GLW Oct 30 1991). Paula also claims a belief in socialism. I write to support Tracy
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When will they get it? On the doorstep of a Parramatta Road junk shop there stood, until recently, a life-size plaster black man holding a tray, his expression reminiscent of the disposition of the slaves in Gone with the Wind. Glimpsed from the
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SYDNEY — Many youth refuges across New South Wales are facing closure due to inadequate funding from the state Department of Community Services (DCS). While some refuges may reduce hours of operation in an attempt to reduce costs, the
News
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WOLLONGONG — In a major victory for South Coast unionists, BHP has backed down on its plans to sack 1100 striking steelworkers and agreed to resume negotiations regarding use of contractors at its Port Kembla sheet and coil
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Unemployed squat in Health Department houseCANBERRA — The Unemployed Workers Union squatted in a house belonging to the ACT Department of Health after discovering that the property, usually reserved for its secretary, had been
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Mt Isa miners walk out Miners at MIM's Mount Isa operations struck on November 6 in protest at traditional union work being performed by non-union members under a company restructuring process. The 2400 Australian Workers Union members walked out
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On October 30, the federal Industrial Relations Commission approved the enterprise bargaining system it rejected last April. The decision, which approves a cut-down Accord Mark VI as a covert Accord VII, was welcomed by the ACTU, the
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The depression we didn't need sinks deeperKeating, Kerin, Hewson, Howard and the econocrats in the Treasury and the Industry Commission got it wrong. The so-called "healthy dose" of shallow recession they said we had to have
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Horror! "An Australian National Audit Office study of the administration of the work test for unemployment benefit between 1989 and 1990 has found Commonwealth Employment Service officers believed finding unemployed people a job was their main task,
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MELBOURNE — One hundred and seventeen people took part in a day-long discussion on political and material solidarity with the Cuban people sponsored by the Australia Cuba Friendship Society on November 2. Trade union, Latin American
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BRISBANE — The last tree was felled on Fraser Island after more than a century of logging which had threatened to decimate the unique sand island's rainforest cover. After the government acted on Fitzgerald inquiry recommendations
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The fight to save SpringbrookSpringbrook, population about 600, altitude 950 metres, rainfall three metres per year, bordering NSW, is a 45-minute, 40 km drive from the heart of the Gold Coast, up a winding, steep and narrow
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Funding needed in brewery disputePERTH — Robert Bropho, Aboriginal activist and leader of the Swan Valley Fringedwellers, has asked the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission to fund an appeal to the High Court
Analysis
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Bombs away Having been forced to abandon its Crow Valley bombing range in the Philippines, the United States is now considering Australia or Thailand as likely sites for a new range. Crow Valley was attached to Clark air base, extensively damaged
World
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A failure to resolve, or even to seriously address, underlying factors in Poland's political, social and economic crisis was the foremost outcome of the country's "first free elections" since World War II. The fragility of the new parliament — which may be unable to create a government — advances the long-term slide towards a non-parliamentary authoritarian regime headed by President Lech Walesa or some other candidate.
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MOSCOW — A significant breach has been opened in the liberal-bureaucratic monopoly of the Russian press. While the main daily newspapers still trumpet the virtues of the "free market" with a brazenness that would make Rupert
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Political opposition in Indonesia today is largely led by university students. In contrast with the 1970s generation, student activists today have a strong orientation of solidarity with other sectors of society, primarily peasants
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MOSCOW — While the first autumn snow fell lightly, at least 10,000 people, and up to 50,000 according to some media, assembled on October 23 in the Manezh square in central Moscow. This was the first demonstration in which
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More Turkish raids on KurdsAccording to the London-based Kurdistan Information Centre, about 40 Turkish bombers attacked Kurdish villages in northern Iraq towards the end of October with weapons including napalm, phosphorous bombs
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South African industry ground to a halt during a general strike on November 4-5, called to protest against the introduction of a new indirect tax that will hit the poor hardest. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is
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1500 people, women and men, black and white, marched through Johannesburg's inner-city districts of Braamfontein and Hillbrow on October 12 in South Africa's second annual gay and lesbian pride week. According to Simon Nkoli, MC of the
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The African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and 92 other anti-apartheid organisations have agreed to form a Patriotic Front. This will strengthen the anti-apartheid movement, allowing it to enter constitutional negotiations with a
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From 3000 to 5000 East Timorese accompanied the coffin of Sebastian Gomez through the streets of Dili chanting independent slogans. Gomez was shot by Indonesian soldiers early in the morning of October 28 outside Montael
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BOGDAN BOGDANOVIC is Yugoslavia's best known contemporary architect. A Serb born in Belgrade in 1922, he fought with the partisans during World War II. A former professor of architecture at the University of Belgrade, he was also the mayor of
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Farmers protest in PraguePRAGUE — In the first big display of social resistance to the harsh effects of the government's economic reform program, about 25,000 Czech farmers demonstrated in Wenceslas Square in the heart of Prague
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US bombs targeted at KoreaSYDNEY — 1>North Korean Workers' Party representative Kim Yong Sun, visiting Australia at the invitation of the Socialist Party of Australia, told a meeting on November 7 that the Australian
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Malaysian-Korean logging threat to Guyana The Guyanese government has just leased more than 1.65 million hectares of forest to a foreign consortium. The logging operation seriously threatens the livelihoods of local communities and the ecology of
Culture
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Mango Groove Playing at the Palace, Melbourne, on November 13, ANU Bar, Canberra, on November 14 and at the Enmore Theatre, Sydney, on November 16 Reviewed by Norm Dixon Mango Groove, one of South Africa's premier pop groups, has been described
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Judith Lucy in Melbourne Supporting Julian Clary (a gay comedian known as "Britain's Second Favourite Queen") on a recent tour was a particularly pleasurable experience for feminist comedian Judith Lucy. In a scene still dominated by humour of the
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Songs of the Blue Mountains Denis Kevans went to the Blue Mountains to live in 1983. He started walking through the valleys and tracks of the Wentworth Falls areas. "I saw a vein of orange ironstone in a slab of weathered sandstone, and I thought
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La Stazione Directed by Sergio Rubini With Sergio Rubini, Ennio Fantastichini and Margherita Buy Reviewed by Kim Spurway This is yet another tale of the princess and the pauper, and of two men fighting for one woman Domenico (Sergio Rubini) is
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Prospero's Books Written and directed by Peter Greenaway Adapted from Shakespeare's The Tempest Starring Sir John Gielgud, Isabelle Pasco, Michael Clarke To be shown at Melbourne's Kino and cinemas in other cities around Christmas Reviewed by
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By Nigel D'Souza Melanie Sjoberg's review of Jungle Fever in Green Left Issue No. 32 has missed the point. It was limited by a narrow, anti-sexist perspective and consequently could not have picked up the rich messages about racism, sexism and
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forever young em = By Phil McManus each day we move toward our death, each night the darkness closes in, we grow a little older and death's domain is extended. death cannot touch the staff at McDonald's. they age like clothing models in
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Mysteries from the Cold War Open Verdict: An Account of 25 Mysterious Deaths in the Defence Industry By Tony Collins Sphere Books, $12.99 (pb) Reviewed by Mark Delmege Remember a few years ago the mystery deaths of the British Marconi
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ices of DissentThe market commodifies not only art but also artists. However, there are times of greater or lesser tension between the artist and the process of cooption. During the 1960s and 1970s forms such as performance
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A Man with Connections By Alexander Gelman Thalia Theatre Company at the Lookout Theatre Club, Sydney Tues-Sun Reviewed by Philip Bilton-Smith A Man with Connections was written by Alexander Gelman, a personal friend of Mikhail Gorbachev, in