By Steve Painter A peace song, "Stop the War in Croatia", hit number 13 on the national record charts in early December and could go higher. Royalties from the recording, by Tomislav Ivcic, are being used to buy medical supplies for casualties
Issue 39
News
Understanding Telecom By Tom Jordan SYDNEY — Having recently lost her job, Maureen Houlahan finds it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Paying off her heavy mortgage is hard enough but when the Telecom bill turned up she knew she
By Nadya Stani I am a journalist who works in public radio. I was arbitrarily arrested at the anti-Aidex protest. My colleague, Annamarie Antonio, and her daughter were subjected to physical intimidation and harassment. We began our coverage of
SYDNEY — Up to 2000 people, mostly East Timorese, attended a December 7 memorial mass for the victims of the Dili massacre, and later marched to Town Hall, where the state Labor Party conference was being held. Photo by Susan Mackie.
By Peter Boyle MELBOURNE — A 38-year-old plant operator received severe burns to 75% of his body when a 12-metre high tank containing gas oil tar exploded at Altona petrochemical refinery on December 2. Firefighters believe that the fire
By Dick Nichols and John Tognolini SYDNEY — In evidence before the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption, it has emerged that state coroner Kevin Waller advised Detective-Inspector Aarne Tees, investigator of the Hilton
World
PRAGUE — The Palestinian ambassador to Czechoslovakia, SAMEEH ABDUL FATTAH, spoke to PETER ANNEAR on November 30, the day of International Solidarity with the Palestinian People. How do you assess the Palestinian position in the current
By Peter Annear MOSCOW — Mayor Gavriil Popov did not relish the choice of a new KGB chief for Moscow by the city's elected government, the Moscow Soviet, so he ignored its decision and, without any legal authority, appointed his own nominee, a
By Angela Matheson BERLIN — Step off the train at Bahnhof Zoo in downtown Berlin for a taste of the new Germany, where gangs of broad-shouldered youth clad in jack boots, jeans and swastika insignia mill on the platform, picking their victims.
By Steve Painter The United States and British governments have rejected Libyan government proposals for the World Court or another independent international tribunal to investigate charges against two Libyan nationals over the 1988 Lockerbie
Following are major excerpts from a statement on the Dili massacre adopted by representatives of University Student Senates throughout Java. Indonesian students who are members of the Communications Forum of Student Senates throughout Java used
By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — In the space of a few weeks from mid-December, the Russian Federation is to make a crash transition to an open, deregulated market economy. This shift will crown the Russian government's program of economic "reforms",
A taste of hyperinflation By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — When the first details of Yeltsin's "profound economic reforms" hit the Russian press toward the end of October, the public reaction was quick and spectacular. Sales of the
By Henke Rumbewas While the Australian and other western governments have expressed condemnation of the recent massacre in East Timor, our foreign minister, Senator Gareth Evans insists that such shootings are "not the policy of the Indonesian
By Peter Annear MOSCOW — "As economic laws operate, it is very difficult to work out what laws are governing the defence of labour" under the new "democratic" system, says Mikhail Nagaitsev, vice-president of the Moscow Federation of Trade
By Irina Glushchenko MOSCOW — Readers of the November 28 edition of the Moscow daily Independent Newspaper could have been excused for feeling puzzled. There in the pages of the newspaper — which bills itself as the leading mouthpiece of
The following open letter was written by ANICA RADOVIC-OSTOJIC to the principal commander of the Serbian-dominated "Yugoslav federal army", General Veljko Kadijevic. It was published in the October 4 issue of the Croatian newspaper Slobodna
By Ramon Orozco HAVANA — Roberto Robaina Gonzalez is, at 35, the youngest member of the Cuban Communist Party Politbureau. He is travelling to Barcelona to take part in the exhibition "The image of Cuba. This is how we are." Roberto Robaina is
By Reihana Mohideen According to a December 6 New Zealand National Business Review poll, the alternative parties Alliance led by the NewLabour Party is now ahead of both the old Labour Party and the conservative National Party in the polls. The
By Sally Low MOSCOW —As ordinary Muscovites prepare for a winter of shortages and soaring prices, the city's "democratic" administrators, led by Mayor Gavriil Popov, are busy positioning themselves to prosper under new free market conditions.
By Norm Dixon "He might be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch" — US President Franklin Roosevelt's description of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza also describes the attitude the west has taken towards Indonesia's President
Culture
U2 works in mysterious ways Achtung Baby U2 Polygram Reviewed by Camilo Jorquera and Stephen Bavaro U2's latest album indicates a frame of mind that is not part of the old U2 caricature — serious and bleak. That image was never accurate
Mr Lucky — John Lee Hooker Pointblank/Virgin That's My Story — John Lee Hooker Fantasy/Festival Damn Right, I Got The Blues — Buddy Guy Silvertone/BMG There Is Always One More Time — B.B. King MCA/BMG Reviewed by Norm Dixon Racism,
Sex and the Sandinistas Written and directed by Lucinda Broadbent Reviewed by Kim Spurway This is a must-see documentary about the lives and struggles of gays and lesbians inside the Nicaraguan revolution. Its 25 minutes are packed with humour
Doing good: The Australian NGO community By Laurie Zivetz and others Allen and Unwin, 1991. 288 pp. $24.95 (pb) Reviewed by Indigo Williams The Third World needs our assistance. We in Australia are able to contribute through government and
Just received It didn't arrive in time for us to review it in this issue, but Left Face looks like the sort of book readers could profitably pore over during their holidays. Subtitled Soldier Unions and Resistance Movements in Modern Armies, it
A short story by Craig Cormick The O'Neill family had just sat down to dinner when the angel rang the front door bell. Neil O'Neill, with his knife and fork poised over his first plate of casserole and gravy, frowned and looked at his wife, Mary.
By Peter Boyle California-based political satirist Dave Lippman is best known as Dr George Shrub, the world's only known singing CIA (Committee to Intervene Anywhere) agent. "The rest", he says, "are secret so that you never know the song you are
The Change: Women, ageing and the menopause By Germaine Greer Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. 1991. 440 pp., $35.00 (hb) Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen This an account of the experience of the menopause and the meaning attached to it in western societies
John Hancock and the Rise of Victorian Labor By Jim Claven Australian Fabian Society and Pluto Press, 1991. 40 pp. $6.95 Labor's Troubled Times Edited by David Burchell and Race Mathews Australian Left Review, the Australian Fabian Society and
Making Waves: The Greenpeace New Zealand Story By Michael Szabo Reed. 264 pp. NZ$49.95 Reviewed by David Robie The surprise capture of French frogman Gerald Andries, one of the alleged saboteurs of the Rainbow Warrior, once more threw
Great for kids In the Rainforest By Kathie Atkinson Part of Allen & Unwin's My Animal Books series Reviewed by John Tognolini I enjoyed reading Kathie Atkinson's In the Rainforest to my 19-month-old daughter. Atkinson's fine colour
Masterpieces
By Sarah Daniels
A Small House Productions play
At the Athenaeum II in Melbourne until December 14
Reviewed by Pip Hinman
By Sarah Daniels
A Small House Productions play
At the Athenaeum II in Melbourne until December 14
Reviewed by Pip Hinman
At a time when the exploitation and degradation of women's bodies in advertising, films and magazines seems to be reaching record levels, this production, written in 1985 by English playwright Sarah Daniels, is a fiery contribution to the discussion on pornography and violence against women.
Masterpieces portrays a direct relationship between pornography and violence.
A 55-minute television documentary, Special Treatment: Locking Up Aboriginal Children, had a special premiere screening at the AFI Cinema in Sydney on December 4. The film, produced and directed by Margaret Anne Smith, was reviewed in discussion by two long-time Aboriginal survivors, Arthur and Leila Murray.
Arthur and Leila Murray's son Eddie was killed by a person or persons unknown (according to the coronial inquiry) in the Wee Waa police lock-up on June 12, 1981.
Editorial
An unbreakable link Events around the world are demonstrating more clearly than ever the unbreakable link between issues of social justice and the big environmental questions that will determine humanity's survival. From the Darling River to