Issue 428

BY KERRYN WILLIAMS In the past week, the University of Canberra Students Association and the Wollongong University Student Representative Council have added their support to the "Global Action for Global Justice" student solidarity conference

BY KATHY NEWNAM ADELAIDE — The trials of refugees charged with involvement in August's protest at the Woomera detention camp will begin on December 18, and continue daily through January. The charged refugees are being held in the Adelaide Remand

Bougainville struggle marked CANBERRA — An enjoyable and informative "politics in the pub" was held at the Old Canberra Inn on November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day) to commemorate the 1989 blowing up of pylons carrying power lines to the Bougainville

BY LIISA RUSANEN SYDNEY — In response to the human rights abuses of the military dictatorship in Burma, a protest action was held outside the Grace Brothers department store in the Pitt Street mall on November 10. The Grace Brothers store was

BY GEORGINA DAVIES MELBOURNE — A 24-hour stop work meeting by 250 members of the Latrobe Valley branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) caused power blackouts and restrictions across Victoria. The workers voted to

BY MARGARITA WINDISCH SYDNEY — On November 6, the International Women's Day (IWD) Collective commenced meetings here to organise the annual IWD march scheduled for March 10. IWD is recognised as a day of unity, solidarity and action for women's

BY MELODY COUTMAN & ALISON DELLIT NEWCASTLE — The ballots cast in the Newcastle University Student Association (NUSA) presidential by-election on November 6-7 are to be destroyed uncounted, following a decision by the NUSA executive to uphold the

BY JON LAND On November 5, the Channel 9 Sunday program screened a special report titled "On Patrol in Timor", which claimed to show "how moderate militia factions are politically battling hardline groups still ready to attack the UN peacekeepers".

Workers demonstrate against thugs On November 6, around 250 demonstrators from the Solidarity Front demonstrated outside the East Java provincial parliament in Surabaya. They were protesting against the stabbing of a fellow worker by hired thugs

BY JIM MCILROY DILI — Street stallholders selling food and drinks on the seafront near the centre of the city here faced an attempt to forcibly evict them from their established positions on November 3, as the United Nations Transitional

 Self-determination for West Papua now! [The following statement was issued by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) on November 8 in response to the Indonesian troops build-up in West Papua.] Action in

As the people of East Timor struggle for their independence under the weight of the consequences of the Machiavellian machinations of successive Australian governments, another resource rich country in the region is calling its independence. The

Some 400,000 people converged on the capital of Indonesia's nothernmost province of Aceh, Banda Aceh, on November 10 for a two-day independence rally, despite scores of killings by security forces trying to prevent demonstrators attending. The

BY RICHARD PITHOUSE DURBAN — From Boksburg to Berlin, discerning ears are being seduced by a record label that measures its success in the currency of meaning. If this culture reaches critical mass, "the global village" might just stop being a

Billy Elliot Directed by Stephen Daldry With Jamie Bell and Julie Walters  REVIEW BY ADAM GOLDSTEIN The depiction of British working-class life in films, beginning in the late-1950s, emerged full-bloom in the 1990s. It has taken