Solidarity with Craig Johnston
MELBOURNE The Socialist Alliance is organising a public meeting in solidarity
with the elected Victorian leader of the Australian Manufacturing
Workers Union Craig Johnston and the Skilled Six on September
Issue 505
News
BY JEREMY SMITH
BALLARAT Progressives have done well in the July 10-22 National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU) elections. In the poll for national office bearers, the incumbents were returned.
Carolyn Allport was returned as
BY ANDREW HALL
CANBERRA The 30-year-old symbol of the fight for Indigenous justice, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawns in front of Old Parliament House, is facing serious threats of removal.
This follows hard on the heels of the July
BY RAY FULCHER
MELBOURNE More 100 people attended the 'War on Terrorism': Democracy
Under Challenge conference in Melbourne on August 9. The conference was
hosted by the Victoria University law school and supported by the Federation
of
BY KERRIE BARRON
CANBERRA After artwork depicting the plight of children living in detention was removed from a library, the Refugee Action Committee (RAC) has been overwhelmed by offers of support and interest in the display.
RAC
BY NICOLE HOYE
BRISBANE Construction of Steritech's food irradiation facility
at Narangba has resumed after police broke a protest picket on August 13.
No work had been done at the site since 200 people picketed on August 7.
The
BY SIMON MILLAR
MELBOURNE On August
12, Denis Matson, one of the two national industrial officers for the printing
division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union was summarily sacked
by AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron, and
BY SUE BULL
MELBOURNE As the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry began sitting again in Melbourne, a union leader has been threatened with imprisonment, a former union leader has condemned union activities and 5000
BY SAM KING
BRISBANE Students from the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University surrounded the UQ chancellery building on August 12. The 200-strong protest, organised by Campaign Against Fees
BY TERRICA STRUDWICK
South African-based fast food chain Nando's has come under fire for a radio advertisement that mocks the desperate situation refugees face in Australian detention centres.
The ad, which was pulled after a deluge of
BY BILL MASON
BRISBANE Public hospitals in Queensland face another 24-hour strike within weeks unless the state government boosts its wages offer to non-nursing staff. Union delegates for Queensland Health employees on August 15 resolved to
BY GRANT COLEMAN
WOLLONGONG — Four hundred of the Illawarra Grammar School's 600 students attended a voluntary assembly on August 16 to discuss the plight of refugees in Australia's detention centres. The meeting was organised by about 20
Fish farm protested
BRISBANE Around 500 people took to the water on August 14 in the biggest protest yet against plans to build a fish farm the size of four football fields in Moreton Bay. The protesters, representing 50 environment,
BY ZOE KENNY
MELBOURNE Hundreds of people have turned out to hear Afghan refugee Riz Wakil's presentation, "Is it safe to return to Afghanistan?", during his visit here on August 12-14. The federal government claims war-torn Afghanistan is
BY VANNESSA HEARMAN
MELBOURNE To respond to the increasing activities of the misogynist Blackshirts, the Diversity and Safety Community Network was formed on August 7 at a meeting of 25 local residents and activists in Brunswick.
The
BY SEAN MARTIN-IVERSON
PERTH An August 8 High Court ruling on the Miriuwung and Gajerrong people's native title claim to their land in east Kimberley acknowledged that they retain limited traditional ownership rights.
The ruling is
BY NICK EVERETT
SYDNEY On August 15, 80 people attended an information night at
the Tom Mann Theatre to learn more about the upcoming Sydney Social Forum,
which will be held on September 21-22 at the University of Technology,
Sydney. Two
LISMORE Twenty
people attended the launch of a hunger strike and outdoor refugee embassy
on August 16, organised by the Refugee Action Collective. The hunger strike
will culminate in a public meeting with Howard Glen of Australians for
Analysis
For the past three years, corporate polluters have been working to undermine the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), at which delegations from 174 countries will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 26 to September 4.
World
BY BORIS KAGARLITSKY
MOSCOW No-one is surprised any more to hear economic bad news from the United States. Nevertheless, the failure of WorldCom has been something out of the ordinary.
It is not just the scale of the bankruptcy. Six months
BY MALIK MIAH
SAN FRANCISCO Once again an amateur's videotape is spoiling the
lawful deeds of cops in Los Angeles county. In 1991 it was Rodney King.
Today it is a teenager. Unbeknownst to the cops, these videotapes exposed
the men in
BY SAM OLUKOYA
ABITEYE, Niger delta Abiteye village lies in the heart of the Niger Delta region. American oil giant ChevronTexaco has a gas plant and an oil flow station here.
But for its oil installations, the company's premises could pass
LAGOS One woman was shot dead on August 8 in Nigeria's southern oil
town of Warri when groups of women protesters besieged the premises of
oil transnationals Royal-Dutch Shell and ChevronTexaco, witnesses said.
They said two groups of
BY NORM DIXON
A carefully choreographed meeting of the "Iraqi opposition" was held in Washington on August 9 and 10. Attending were leaders from six right-wing groups opposed to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The US government is seeking to
BY ROBERT FISK
Tamim's family live in Joee Sheer, which means "stream of milk". But, outside his slum home, a stream of warm, reeking sewage flows. Never was there more reason to take off your shoes at a wooden door.
Inside, you climb a narrow
[The following statement was issued on August 5 by the central committee
of the newly formed Workers Party of the Philippines.]
MANILA In a historic step forward for the Philippine left, more than
a hundred delegates from three
BY FAROOQ TARIQ &
RAJA MEHBOOB HUSSAIN
LAHORE On August 8, the military government of President Pervez
Musharraf declared that its previously announced plan to privatise Pakistan's
educational institutions would not take place.
BY DALE T. MCKINLEY
JOHANNESBURG Not far from the predominately working-class Northwest
Province town of Rustenburg, where the South African Communist Party (SACP)
recently held its 11th congress on July 24-28, lies the garish ramparts
Culture
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to
Be So HatedBy Gore VidalThunder's MouthPress/Nation Books, 2002160 pp., $29.20 (bp)
REVIEWED BY ROLAND SHEPPARD
"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war to whip
the citizenry into a
REVIEW BY SHANE HOPKINSON
The Future Seekers: Refugees and the Law in Australia
By Mary Crock and Ben SaulFederation Press 2002152 pages, $24.95Order at <http://www.fedpress.aust.com/Books/CrockFutSeek.html>
The Future Seekers is a
The days are getting colderThey stretch before me all in a lineEach night gets a little bit longerAnd these stars that once were strange now I call mineOh, it's been so long since I saw her faceAnd I just can't find my way out of this placeI took the
Editorial
The human cost of the 'Pacific solution'
On August 26, 2001, 433 asylum seekers aboard an Indonesian fishing
boat, the KM Palapa 1, overloaded and sinking, were rescued by the
Norwegian freighter, MV Tampa. On August 27, the Howard