Issue 495

News

BY KAMALA EMANUEL  HOBART — Four hundred nurses rallied on the Parliament House lawns on May 25 to protest the failure of the state Labor government to live up to an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) under which all nurses with
BY TONY ILTIS MELBOURNE — A non-violent blockade of a meeting featuring immigration minister Philip Ruddock, extreme right-wing Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt and anti-immigration academic Bob Birrell was violently attacked by police in front
[On May 31, Greens Senator Bob Brown told ABC radio that he would consider helping the government to sell the remaining third of Telstra if the government was prepared to end old growth logging. Later that day, a press statement from Brown's
The Green Left Weekly staff will be taking a break next week. The next GLW will be published on June 19. From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page. 
BY JESS MELVIN MELBOURNE — On the morning of May 30, I and fellow high school Resistance activist James Crafti stood before a judge at Melbourne Children's Court. The case followed our arrest for trespass while protesting for refugee rights
[On June 1, the Socialist Alliance sent the following letter to the Greens national council.] Dear comrades and friends, Last night, at its regular monthly meeting, the national executive of the Socialist Alliance voted to contact the
BY FELICITY MEAKINS KATHERINE — This year the Katherine Regional Stolen Generation committee chose to rename Sorry Day — May 25 — "Healing Day", in a move intended to highlight that reconciliation begins, not finishes, with an apology.
BY PIP HINMAN Centacare, a religious welfare group which met with the United Nations teams inspecting South Australia's Woomera detention centre on May 30, said the teams were shocked at what they saw. Dale West from Centacare told the ABC that
SYDNEY — On June 1, activists picketed defence department offices. The protest, called by Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, demanded that Australia end its military ties with Indonesia, and called for freedom for Aceh.From Green Left
GLW #494 incorrectly stated that Doug Cameron is the national president of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. He is the national secretary. GLW apologises for the error. From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002. Visit the Green Left
A few months ago a group of friends at Fort Street High School were painting a banner and talking, they decided to convince their fellow students of the injustice of government policy towards refugees and to mobilise them to change it. Year 12
BY RUTH RATCLIFFE DARWIN — Supporters of Green Left Weekly are once again having to defend their right to distribute the papers in public space. The latest attack on that right has come from Mindil Beach Sunset Markets Association (MBSMA). GLW
BY STUART MUNCKTON CANBERRA — More than 100 students attended the Australian National University Students' Association May 27 annual general meeting, at which students voted to make opposition to mandatory detention and support for asylum
BY NEVILLE SPENCER SYDNEY — On May 31, Cuba solidarity activists set up a Free the Cuban Five Committee with aim of supporting the worldwide campaign to free five Cubans sentenced to long prison terms in the US on espionage charges. The five
BY FELICITY MEAKINS Indigenous languages and the stolen generations were another casualty of the 2002-03 federal budget. The $7.2 million previously allocated to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) for preserving and
Sorry Day BRISBANE — Around 2000 people walked across the Goodwill Bridge to a festival in Musgrave Park to mark National Sorry Day 2002 on May 26, condemning past governments’ forcible removal of Indigenous children from their
BY DARREN JIGGINS HOBART — "The small town community of Ranelagh has stood its ground at the commission hearing into the proposed Southwood woodchip mill", local activist Peter Cahill told Green Left Weekly. Forestry Tasmania is planning to build
BY SHANE BENTLEY SYDNEY — Striking workers at the Dayson compressor maintenance plant in Rydalmere have rejected a management offer of a 4% pay increase in August and a further 2% in December, as part of a non-union agreement. The workers have
 June 23 has been chosen as a national day of action for refugees, a protest against the Australian government's inhumane policy of mandatory detention [of asylum seekers]. We demand that the detention camps be closed, and that refugees be

World

BY ROHAN PEARCE Media-monitoring group Electronic Intifada has released a report by Nigel Parry into media coverage of the April 2-May 10 siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, during which seven Palestinians were killed, and
BY NORM DIXON The United States is tacitly backing many of Afghanistan's brutal and reactionary warlords as they divide up the country among themselves. Many of the same warlords committed unspeakable atrocities during the devastating
BY ALLEN JENNINGS The May 26 election of Alvaro Uribe Velez as Colombia's next president represents a watershed in both Colombia's and the United States' approach to the country's spiralling discontent and four decades of armed insurgency. The
BY JOE CRAIG DUBLIN — In late March, Sinn Fein launched its campaign for the May 17 Irish general election with a rally in Dublin's Gresham Hotel, at the same time as the Irish Labour Party was holding its conference. While Sinn Fein was keen
BY EVA CHENG Anticipating he would not be able to get parliamentary approval for a six-month extension of the state of emergency in place since November 2001, on May 22 Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba dissolved the parliament and called
BY MAX LANE A major theme of the ceremony that took place in Dili on May 20 to proclaim the independence of East Timor was that the three-year period of United Nations transitional administration was a great success. However, East Timor has been
BY JOHN PILGER LONDON — Soon after New Labour came to power in 1997, the then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, announced an “ethical dimension” to British foreign policy. He said that the government “will not issue an (arms) export licence if

Culture

REVIEW BY IGGY KIM Spinning Into ButterWritten by Rebecca GilmanDirected by Adam CookEnsemble Theatre, SydneyMay 17-June 29 US playwright Rebecca Gilman's feted work, Spinning Into Butter, is an unabashed self-examination of racial prejudice in
BY ELIZABETH SCHULTE Maybe there is a god. Five years ago, the Fox network introduced Ally McBeal — a show focused on the wacky antics of the self-absorbed Harvard law graduate and her coworkers at a high-powered Boston law firm. TV audiences
Inessa, Lenin's Mistress By Michael Pearson Duckworth, 2001 257 pages, $65.95 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON When Inessa Armand met Vladimir Lenin in a Paris caf‚ in 1909, so began one of the most speculated about love affairs on the

Editorial

ALP ranks respond to mass pressure on refugees The rumblings in the ranks of the ALP about the party’s disgusting sell-out of refugees are increasing. In Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, ALP state conferences passed motions