BY CHRIS SLEE
MELBOURNE — In a combined mass meeting on October 24, 10,000 construction unionists have decided not to cooperate with the royal commission into the industry set up by the federal government and have backed a united industrial
Issue 469
News
BY SARAH STEPHEN
A 19-metre, rotting, leaky Indonesian fishing boat, with a capacity for 150 passengers, picked up more than 400 asylum seekers from Lampung on October 18 to make the journey to Christmas Island. A few hours out to sea, the boat
BY VIRGINIA BROWN
PERTH — The variety of backgrounds of the 30 activists who gathered for Socialist Alliance's first "politics in the pub" forum on October 19 — refugee rights and anti-war campaigners, candidates from different left-wing
BY SHUA GARFIELD
HOBART — The Hobart City Council is considering banning the distribution of Green Left Weekly in Elizabeth Mall, one of the city's main public spaces.
Council referred a motion banning the newspaper's distribution back to
BY GILLIAN DAVY
MELBOURNE — The eighth anti-war rally in the six weeks since the September 11 terrorist attacks attracted 400 protesters on October 21, including strong contingents from the Turkish and Kurdish communities.
Speaking to the crowd
BY GRANT COLEMAN
PERTH — Determined to take action against the US attacks on Afghanistan, 55 students and staff formed an anti-war alliance at an October 24 forum on Curtin University.
Addressing the meeting, Gavin Mooney, a health sciences
Human rights visit cancelled
The visit to Australia by Akin Birdal, leader of the Human Rights Association in Turkey, reported in last week's Green Left Weekly, has had to be cancelled at short notice. Birdal cannot make the trip because of a
BY NIKKI ULASOWSKI
SYDNEY — Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) Senate candidates Michael Denborough and Yvonne Francis were arrested at Sydney University on October 25 for handing out anti-war information on campus.
Francis told Green Left Weekly
BY LESLIE RICHMOND
ADELAIDE — It is a received wisdom that a week is a long time in politics. If your idea of politics is bounded by parliament, boardrooms and the editor's office, it would certainly seem so. In South Australia in October the
BY BILL MASON
BRISBANE — Three hundred construction workers on October 23 released black balloons in a moving tribute to workers killed on the job. Between 1990 and 2000, 161 workers were killed by electrocution on the job.
Members of the
BY KIM BULLIMORE
SYDNEY — Banging on drums, blowing whistles and shouting anti-war and anti-violence chants, one thousand women participated in this year's Reclaim the Night march.
The march began with a rally early in the evening of October 26
BY DANIEL HARRISON
CANBERRA — "Change happens on the street, not in parliament", said James Vassilopoulos, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Fraser, during an interview for the local ABC drivetime radio program. "Choosing between Labor
BY STUART MARTIN
WOLLONGONG — On October 26, Naomi Arrowsmith cut up her ALP membership card and put a Socialist Alliance poster in support of Margaret Perrott's campaign for the seat of Throsby in her front yard. "This is what I think of Kim
Students form anti-war group
CANBERRA — Following a student walkout on October 19, a dozen students from Narrabundah College have formed a new anti-war student group called Students Protesting Against Needless Killing, SPANK.
The group
BY SIMON BUTLER
BRISBANE — The left-wing Activist Left ticket failed to win any major office-bearer positions in the October 8-12 Griffith University Student Association election.
The left lost despite the fact that the right wing ALP-Liberal
BY JESS MELVIN
MELBOURNE — Federal education minister David Kemp was shocked to be interrupted mid-speech by screams of "You racist warmonger" during an October 23 forum of 1500 high school students in the Melbourne Town Hall.
Kemp was
BY JIM MCILROY
BRISBANE — "No to war! No to racism! Tax the rich!" were the main themes of the October 24 campaign launch of the Queensland Socialist Alliance team, attended by around 90 supporters.
Karen Fletcher, one of the two Socialist
BY KAMALA EMANUEL
The struggle for socialism lost a true friend with the untimely death on October 22 of Bruce Heckinger, aged 50. He died pursuing the sport he loved, paragliding, at Manilla in NSW.
Bruce touched many people's lives, not only in
World
BY AHMAD NIMER
RAMALLAH, Palestine — The October 17 assassination of tourism minister Rehevem Ze'evi, a hated leader of Israel's racist right, was greeted with huge public approval from the Palestinian street, but has since then provided a
BY EVA CHENG
If US President George Bush hadn't dominated this year's October 17-21 summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) in Shanghai, China, with his "anti-terrorist" war drive, the peak regional body of 21 economies would have
BY LINDSEY COLLEN
To the people of Britain and the USA: I write from Mauritius. You
may not remember quite where that is. Although, then again The Overcrowded
Baracoon by V.S. Naipaul, especially since he has just won the Nobel
Prize for
BY LEE SUSTAR
CHICAGO — Well-paid academic experts and media pundits are lining up to give Washington an intellectual justification for war. Basically, the justification is that "they hate us".
In a Newsweek magazine cover story, Fareed Zakaria
BY DANNY FAIRFAX
GHENT — As participants in the first major "anti-globalisation" protest since the beginning of the war against Afghanistan, those who gathered in this north Belgian city on October 19 knew they had a great responsibility on their
BY SEAN HEALY
In a rare win for environmental issues within the World Trade Organisation, the WTO's Appellate Body on October 22 upheld the legality of a United States ban on fishing practices which endanger the sea turtle.
Malaysia had sought to
BY ALEJANDRO RODRIGUEZ & ROQUE GRILLO
On October 14, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in the country's
history, Argentinians went to the polls to elect representatives to the
Congress and Senate and gave the government of
Culture
REVIEW BY MARGARET ALLUM
Links issue 19: "The Future of Revolution"128 pages, $8New Course Publications 2001
In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States, President George Bush's edict that "if you are not with us, then you are with
Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9pm. Ph 9565 5522. Visit for program details.
Lessons of
The following selection of books on the history of the Middle East, Central Asia and the US imperialism's bloody record around the globe provide essential background information for anti-war activists. They are available from most internet
BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS
MELBOURNE — More than 170 people enjoyed a lively night of fun and socialist politics at the Socialist Alliance's anti-corporate festival at Daniher Hall, Carlton, on October 20. The festival raised $3000.
Comedian and
Is it true they were ploughing the soldiersinto the ground? An arm, bearing a watchtelling all the time in the world; a faceand a boot indistinguishable in theirhardness; a mathematician movingtowards infinity; a weaver soon lostin the intricate
Editorial
Labor won't guarantee job security
On November 1, unionists will gather across Australia to rally for job
security. Such demonstrations are badly needed the collapse of Ansett,
Qantas' threatened job losses, Coles Myer's mass