BY ROSA ELLEN, KATE LAHIFF & TERESA FOARD
MELBOURNE — Fifty people, including many high school students, held a vigil outside the Maribyrnong detention centre on October 28. The vigil was organised by Princes Hill Secondary College students and
Issue 470
News
BY SARAH PEART
BALLARAT — "Despite making a profit of almost a million dollars in the first six months of this year, Nestle has made the decision to close its Maryborough plant. This will directly result in the loss of 140 jobs and more than 500
SYDNEY - Ansett workers, anti-nuclear reactor campaigners and Socialist Alliance members were joined by 80 refugee rights activists at a demonstration outside the Liberal Party's election launch on October 28. Liberal loyalists were forced to run a
BY NICK FREDMAN
LISMORE — In the contest for the northern NSW seat of Page, a dozen candidates are arguing issues from diverse standpoints ranging from nutty right-wing conspiracy theories to revolutionary socialism. On the issue of the war,
BY LINDA WALDRON
MELBOURNE — Seventy Telstra workers rallied outside the Telstra building in the CBD on October 30. The rally was the eighth meeting in Victoria called by the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) to protest against
BY JO ELLIS
DARWIN — Chanting "You can't bomb Afghanistan, we remember Vietnam", 150 protesters marched to the Parap markets on November 3. Members of the Socialist Alliance, Australian Greens and Australian Democrats attended the protest.
Gary
BY WILL WILLIAMS
WOLLONGONG — More than 400 people gathered on November 3 for a march and rally to oppose the US war on Afghanistan. Marchers poured scorn on pro-war Prime Minister John Howard and the equally gung-ho Labor "opposition" leader Kim
BY ADAM MACLEAN
A mutiny by his hand-picked senior managers at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has sealed the fate of Australia's self-styled "mini-media mogul", managing director Jonathan Shier, who resigned at the ABC's board meeting on
BY JEREMY SMITH
BALLARAT — A forum organised jointly by the local National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the University of Ballarat scrutinised the education policies of local and Senate candidates on October 31.
Following an anti-war
BY MELISSA DANIELS
BRISBANE — While the US rained more bombs down on Afghanistan, the Socialist Alliance organised protests in six suburban centres across Australia on November 3, protesting against racism and war.
One hundred people gathered
BY SCOTT WHITE
DARWIN — An Aboriginal family was forcibly removed from the Lee Point recreation area by 15-20 police officers on the afternoon of October 9, one day after the "long grass sleep-out" at Parliament House was organised to address
BY BRETT MULLER
CANBERRA — Two weeks after the October 20 Australian Capital Territory election, the Labor Party claimed victory with eight seats in the 17-seat assembly. The Liberal Party won seven seats. Labor will form a minority government
In GLW #469, a picture of Naomi Arrowsmith from the WA South Coast Waters and Rivers Commission was mistakenly used to illustrate an article about Port Kembla Community and Public Sector Union organiser Naomi Arrowsmith. GLW apologises for the
BY BELINDA SELKE
WOLLONGONG — Despite contesting the Student Representative Council (SRC) elections for the first time at Wollongong University, the Socialist Alliance won the highest number of primary votes for education officer and came a close
Hemp party attacked
LISMORE — Thirty police officers descended on the Nimbin campaign headquarters of Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) on October 31. In a two-hour long siege, 10 armed police police searched the premises. One person was
BY SARAH STEPHEN
Refugee-bashing has proved a winner for Prime Minister John Howard, helping him boost his government's popularity to the highest it has been since the 1998 election. Yet while opinion polls are backing the government's draconian
BY ANGELA LUVERA
SYDNEY — "There is no excuse to postpone action against the war", Nurcan Kiyak told the Women Against War and Racism forum held in Parramatta on November 1.
Kiyak spoke about the different forms of violence used against women
World
BY EVA CHENG
The protests against Bush's war on Afghanistan are growing in many parts of the world despite initial signs that some countries, especially the US, are seeking to respond to any civil disobedience with heavy-handed repression.
In the
The war on Afghanistan has had an enormous impact not only on the country itself but on the whole region around it, especially on neighbouring Pakistan. Reprinted here is an interview with Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan,
BY JOHN PILGER
LONDON — If people were not being killed and beginning to starve, the American attack on Afghanistan might seem farcical. But there is a logic to what they are doing. Read between the lines and it is clear that they are not bombing
BY BORIS KAGARLITSKY
MOSCOW — When I am asked to name some indisputable achievement that marks the 10 years since the collapse of the USSR, I always recall that Russians have learnt to brew good beer.
In the Soviet Union the beer was
@box text intr = Confused? Having difficulty telling the good guys from the bad guys? Use this handy guide to discern differences between terrorists and the US government:
Terrorists: Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful politician,
BY SEAN HEALY
While the relentless bombing of Afghanistan hasn't resulted in the quick collapse of the Taliban regime that Pentagon officials hoped for, the negotiations are well under way on the regime which will, at the point of US bayonets,
BY ERIK WESSELIUS
Britain is home to a particularly influential services industry lobby, which operates through an organisation called "International Financial Services, London (IFSL)". It is more than just another corporate pressure group; it
BY SEAN HEALY
@box text intr = Unable to keep their mouths shut, business leaders from across Europe and the United States may have unwittingly sabotaged their governments' chances of launching a new round of trade talks — by issuing a wish list
BY SEAN HEALY
While the choice of an autocratic Persian Gulf shiekdom as venue will prevent a repeat of the massive protests which dogged its 1999 Seattle summit, trade negotiators from the world's richest nations are in for no less stormy a time
4, Free the Political Prisoners Alliance, Solidarity for the Acehnese People, SEGERA, human rights, Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, KONTRAS">
INDONESIA: Acehnese leader speaks out at trial
BY MAX LANE
The trial (if it
BY GWENN OKRUHLIK
The weeks following September 11 brought to the surface the tense undercurrents in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the aftermath of the horrific attacks in New York and Washington, word spread that
BY SEAN HEALY
If there is one issue more likely than any other to spell doom for rich countries' hopes at the World Trade Organisation summit in Qatar, it is Third World countries' access to vital medicines.
Anger in the underdeveloped countries
BY EVA CHENG
Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Bush regime has shown breathtaking disregard for the growing civilian casualties that its round-the-clock bombing in Afghanistan has inflicted on a long-traumatised and now-terrorised population.
Culture
I am Moderately Fond of AustraliaCartoons by Phil SomervilleHardie Grant Books$24.95
REVIEW BY BARRY HEALY
Phil Somerville has contributed cartoons to the Bulletin, the Australian and is a semi-regular humourist at the Sydney Morning Herald. I
BY SARAH STEPHEN
Borderline: Australia's treatment of refugees and asylum seekersBy Peter MaresUNSW Press240 pages, $32.95 pb
"There is a contradiction at the heart of Australian society", writes Peter Mares in Borderline. "Like the United States
SYDNEY — Leaving the Crocodile documents 25 years of the struggle for independence by Sydney's East Timorese community and national and international solidarity groups. Co-curator of the exhibition Manuel Branco, one of many East Timorese people
A documentary about Indonesian factory workers who make theatre, produced and presented by Actively Radical Television
November 10, 7pm, Tap gallery, cnr Burton and Palmer streets, Darlinghurst, Sydney
Also music, wine, poetry and chat by Tim
Editorial
@box text intr = The November 10 federal election is unlikely to change much in Australian politics. The choice of an ALP or Coalition government offers no choice to stop the war against the Afghan people or to free the refugees or to reverse more