Strong militant showing in AMWU elections
The returning officer overseeing national office-bearer elections in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union announced on May 19 that incumbent national secretary Doug Cameron has managed, with some
Issue 406
News
BY MELANIE SJOBERG
"The manufacturing industry campaign, which is already underway and escalating in Victoria ... presents a serious threat to the workplace relations system", minister for workplace relations Peter Reith told parliament on May 11,
Support for teachers urged
BY GAIL LORD
SYDNEY — One hundred and seventy people, angry at the diversion of federal and state funds from public to private schools, were urged to support the NSW teachers' industrial campaign and calls for
Easter forest camp destroyed
BY SEAN MARTIN-IVERSON
PERTH — Police and officials of the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) stormed the Easter forest camp in Western Australia's south-west forests on May 11, evicting
Queensland's national parks under-funded
BY BILL MASON
BRISBANE — Queensland's national parks could take up to a decade to recover from years of under-funding and the state government should triple funding to the national standard, a report for
BY MELANIE SJOBERG
SYDNEY — The death of a 26-year-old student at the University of NSW has sparked anger on the campus about unsafe work practices. A lunchtime protest on the issues was held on May 18. UNSW has been undergoing construction work
BY SEAN HEALY
Opponents of food irradiation will return to the Queensland Planning and Environment Court on June 5 seeking to block an application to allow medical and biotechnology company Steritech to build a nuclear irradiation plant in
BY SEAN HEALY
Refugee advocates have condemned as "a policy to manufacture xenophobia" federal government withholding of welfare services to refugees released from the Woomera detention centre in South Australia. Ninety percent of the 1300 held at
Queensland teachers to strike
BY BILL MASON
BRISBANE — Teachers at Sarina High School in north Queensland are to defy the state Industrial Relations Commission and strike for 24 hours on May 23, and other schools will hold stop-work meetings to
Tasmanian students rally
BY SHUA GARFIELD
HOBART — Thirty students, many from the threatened physics department, rallied at the University of Tasmania on May 17 in support of a recently launched log of claims which calls on university
SA dump battle turns into 'nuclear war'
BY JIM GREEN
The South Australian Liberal government on May 17 announced it would legislate in an attempt to stop the federal government storing high-level nuclear waste in the state. Federal science
BY CORRINNE BATT-RAWDEN AND TONY ILTIS
LISMORE — "Since John Howard said that there was no stolen generations, communities have gotten angry, and the people of Lismore have taken to the streets ... We can beat racism", Edda Lampis of the Northern
BY SARAH PEART
MELBOURNE — La Trobe University faces its gravest ever crisis. If a new, budget-cutting plan prepared by university management is implemented, it will mean the end of countless subjects across nearly all of the university's
Fighting corporate terrorism
By Bronwen Powell
SYDNEY — The socialist youth organisation Resistance has announced it will be holding forums across the country to explain the "globalisation of corporate terrorism" and the need for the
Cuban women's tour
July 22-30
Representatives of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) will be visiting Australia on July 22-30. This is a special opportunity to share experiences and learn from revolutionary women.
If you would you like to
Care residents to be hit by GST
BY SEAN HEALY
SYDNEY — Residents at a group home for people with disabilities will be whacked with a $8 per week rent rise after July 1, a rise the home's management claims is made necessary by the GST. However,
Heat still on at Bondi Beach
SYDNEY — Protesters are maintaining their presence at the construction site of the Olympics beach volleyball stadium at Bondi Beach. Hundreds of people stopped at stalls on May 13 and 14 to sign a petition against the
James Cook protest against PM
Several hundred students and staff at James Cook University in Cairns protested on May 18 against a visit by Prime Minister John Howard, on campus to open a new library.
"At first he smiled as if he was being
Solidarity with refugees
BY BIANCA AZAR
SYDNEY — Danger. Displacement. Despair. The experiences of refugees are undeniably grim, and the difficult, often demoralising process of seeking asylum in Australia makes their struggle even harder. But
Strikes disrupt government's tax plans
BY CHRIS SLEE
MELBOURNE — In the first of a series of snap strikes over stalled pay negotiations, several hundred Community and Public Sector Union members in the Newcastle branch of the Australian
NO RECONCILIATION WITHOUT JUSTICE!
Sunday, March 28
Sydney
Join the "No reconciliation without justice" contingent in the Corroboree 2000 walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Rally at 10am, Clark Park, Lavender St, Milson Point to demand:
A
New England students occupy 'underhanded' university
BY ANDREW DEVENISH-MEARES
ARMIDALE — Students occupied the administration building at the University of New England (UNE) here on May 18 to protest against cuts to subjects and services, and
World
REVITRIYOSO HUSODO and SRI WAHYUNINGSIH of the People's Cultural Network
(JAKER) in Indonesia spoke to Green Left Weekly's JULIA PERKINS
during her recent visit there.
JAKER is sustained by a belief in socialist realist art and
UNITED STATES: Driving while black
Like motorists everywhere, drivers in the United States get that sinking feeling when they hear the siren and command to pull over. Were they speeding? Is one of their headlights out? Or, worse yet, are they
DUBLIN — It took a year and a half of wrangling between the two protagonists, David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Gerry Adams' Sinn Fein, to form the new cross-party Northern Ireland government in Belfast in November. Two months later,
SOUTH AFRICA: Land reform blocked
JOHANNESBURG — The Zimbabwean land crisis presents South African activists with an opportunity to honestly review their country's land reform program to date. South Africa's post-apartheid land reform program was
On May 12, the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a three-month "peace accord" at a secret location in Geneva. A government statement said the cease-fire would come into effect on June 2 and would be reviewed regularly.
BRITAIN: London Socialist Alliance campaign an 'astounding success'
Summarised below are two reports by the LONDON SOCIALIST ALLIANCE (LSA) central office which assess the alliance's performance in the May 4 election for the newly created Greater
CZECH REPUBLIC: Communist Party's velvet return
A spectre haunted last November's celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the "velvet revolution". After years on the margins, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) had suddenly doubled
BY NOAM CHOMSKY
The simplest answer to the argument that countries who borrowed from the World Bank/International Monetary Fund have no right to ask for debt forgiveness is that the presupposition is false, so the argument is vacuous. For example,
HANOI — Pham Van Dong, one of Vietnam's most prominent revolutionary leaders, died on April 29 at the age of 94. Born in the central province of Quang Ngai, he began his revolutionary career in 1924 at the age of 18. Two years later he joined the
RAMALLAH â Clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops
broke out in the West Bank on May 15 and 16, the most violent confrontations
since 1998. Four Palestinians were killed; two Palestinian children also
died when they were
Less than a month ago, I walked the sad and dusty one-kilometre stretch
of the only open land border crossing between Pakistan and India, at Wagha.
It's not open to ordinary Pakistanis or Indians, only diplomats and
foreigners.
UNITED STATES: Pressure grows to lift blockade against Cuba
The US Senate's Appropriations Committee voted on May 9 to lift the embargo on sales of food and medicine to Cuba. Supported by both houses of Congress, the move now has an excellent
"Strike cripples business, transport" was the headline of the Indian Express newspaper on May 12, referring to the nationwide 20 million-strong strike the previous day. The strike was called by the National Platform of Mass Organisations (NPMO), a
Texmaco black-lists strike leaders
JAKARTA — Textile company Texmaco has black-listed 15 workers who led a strike at a factory here for better wages. It is refusing to allow the 15 to join the workers' negotiating team or to re-register for
ACEH: a history of repression and resistance
Aceh has a long and proud history of struggle and has a special place in Indonesian history. Resource rich and devoutly Muslim, it is located 700 kilometres north west of Jakarta at the northern end of
Despite the Chinese Communist Party's push for the reintroduction of capitalist relations of production in China, the triumph of capitalism there is not yet certain. However, if US President Bill Clinton's November deal with Beijing for the US to
SOUTH AFRICA: Students killed at uni protest
Police killed one student and injured scores during a protest at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) in Durban on May 14. Witnesses believe that another student was also killed. Students were
BY DAVID ROBIE & SHERYL HO
SUVA, May 20 — George Speight, the leader of the seven gunmen who seized Fiji parliament on May 19, has defied mounting international condemnation of the kidnapping of Fiji's elected cabinet. He claims that his
INDONESIA: Discrimination against ethnic Chinese
In Indonesia, racism is one of the most pressing problems facing society. Unlike the United States or South Africa, where racism is based on skin colour, racism in Indonesia manifests itself through
INDONESIA: Discrimination against ethnic Chinese
Culture
Stolen
Belvoir St Theatre's production of Stolen, written by Jane Harrison about the stolen generations of indigenous Australians, has been described as "Inventive, moving and powerful". Try to get along before the season ends on June 4. 25 Belvoir
For a teacher in a remote area
This poem was written by an urban poor member of the People's Democratic Party and JAKER (see accompanying article). Don't careA speck of rainBody and bones freezing.
An old black bicyclePeddled by old feetHardly
The Olympic Boycott Song (in three movements)
1. To the tune of "God Save the Queen".
Boycott the bloody games,Boycott the bloody games,Boycott the games,Send a clear message out, join us and scream and shout,Boycott the games.Let's be
White House buys TV's loyalty in 'war on drugs'
By Sean Healy
The United States government pays television networks and magazine publishers to promote its "tough on drugs" stance through popular TV programs such as ER, Beverly Hills 90210 and
By Melanie Sjoberg
SYDNEY — The revolution will be live at the Seymour Centre from May 31 in the form of some of the most powerful songs from the turbulent 1960s to the present. The show aims to celebrate music and its capacity to change, as well
Editorial
Reconciliation requires justice
On May 27, in the Sydney Opera House forecourt not far from where the attempted genocide of Australia's indigenous people began, the spokespeople for the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation will hand their