BY FEDERICO FUENTES
& KIRAZ JANICKE
PERTH Seventy people, mostly Muslims, attended a meeting at the
Australian Islamic College on November 2 to discuss the recent ASIO raids
on Muslim families.
The meeting heard accounts of the
Issue 515
News
BY SIMON BUTLER
SYDNEY Federal trade minister Mark Vaile's confirmation on October 30 that the November 14-15 ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been moved to the site of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games in Homebush
BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART In
the largest of several anti-war protests held around the country, 2000
people marched through the Tasmanian state capital on November 2. Green
triangles, Socialist Alliance No war on Iraq placards, union
BY CHRIS WILLIAMS
WOLLONGONG - The Greens' Michael Organ was officially declared the new member for the federal lower house seat of Cunningham by the Australian Electoral Commission on October 30.
Responding to the announcement, Organ stated the
BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS
MELBOURNE
On October 30, Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks ordered a moratorium
on the logging of the Goolengook state forest in the East Gippsland.
Under the moratorium, logging in the old-growth forest will be
BY CHRIS SLEE
On October 30, Australian Taxation Office (ATO) staff began to vote on a new agency agreement. Voting will close on November 7. Opponents of the agreement, including supporters of the Members First group within the Community and
BY EMMA MURPHY
ADELAIDE On October 29, around 100 people attended a public meeting in Adelaide organised by the Network Opposing War and Racism.
The meeting was chaired by ABC radio personality Julia Lester. David Palmer, senior lecturer in
BY KAMALA EMANUEL
LAUNCESTON One hundred people attended a demonstration against the Gunns woodchip company's forestry practices at its annual general meeting on October 31. One banner read "People don't kill forests Gunns kill
BY MEG WHITE-FOX
& DANNY FAIRFAX
SYDNEY On October 30, 200 students congregated at Sydney University's
Manning Bar to listen to a debate on the question, Is the World Trade
Organisation a positive step for world development?. It
BY IGGY KIM
SYDNEY On November
1, the organising coalition for the November 14 rally against the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) decided against a march. Instead, the coalition
will leave it up to different contingents to hold their own
BY SUSAN PRICE& LIAM MITCHELL
SYDNEY On November 2, members of the Labor Party attempted to have the Leichhardt Council close down a Socialist Alliance anti-war stall outside Norton Plaza.
The Socialist Alliance (SA) has held a stall
Illawarra anti-war rally
WOLLONGONG On November 2, 350 people attended a rally and march to stop the war on Iraq. Speakers included South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris, Amy Parish from NoWar, Doreen Burrow from the
BY ALISON DELLIT
Despite a Newspoll
indicating that public opposition to a war on Iraq has not been dented
by the Bali bombings, Prime Minister John Howard has strengthened indications
that Australians will be part of any US-led war on
BY SHUA GARFIELD
HOBART The Tasmanian ALP state conference, held October 26-27 in
Launceston, voted overwhelmingly to not debate a motion put by Denison
MHR Duncan Kerr to end logging in areas of high conservation value.
Instead, it
BY KIM BULLIMORE
SYDNEY
The raids by armed secret police on a number of Muslim families in Sydney,
Melbourne and Perth must be condemned by all who value democratic rights,
said Sam Wainwright, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the
World
No to Bush's war on Iraq! That message rang out at huge protests at
both ends of the United States on October 26, and in smaller demonstrations
across the country. More than 100,000 people turned out on October 26 in
Washington, DC, for the
BY NORM DIXON
In recent months, Turkish government and military leaders have repeatedly threatened to invade northern Iraq to prevent Iraqi Kurds creating an "independent state" in the aftermath of Washington's planned war on Iraq.
Even though US
BY JOHN PILGER
LONDON - Graham
Greene once described a "subterranean world, where the hopes and dreams
of the mass of the people reside, unconnected with the rarefied world above,
until those above take one step too far". There is a
BY MAX LANE
JAKARTA The "war on terror" propaganda campaign being conducted by the Australian and US governments is providing ammunition for xenophobic right-wing political forces in Indonesia.
Australian government support for the
BY JIM GREEN
A new study by the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (SEEN), a branch of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, reveals that the World Bank provided over US$24 billion in corporate welfare for 229 fossil fuel projects
BY ROGER BURBACH
Elected in a landslide victory with over 61% of the vote, Luis Inacio da Silva will become president on January 1 of Latin America's largest country with 175 million inhabitants. Lula, as he is commonly known, received three
BY BORIS KAGARLITSKY
MOSCOW On the evening of October 23, all of Russia's television channels interrupted their broadcasts to report that a group of Chechen fighters had seized the Moscow theatre centre where the musical Nord-Ost was playing.
BY IGGY KIM
On October 24, a debate was held in Britain's House of Commons over the Foreign Office's handling of the detention of Lesley McCulloch in Indonesia. The debate was initiated by Alan Reid, the Scottish Liberal Democrats member for Argyll
In the largest
protest march in El Salvador's history, at least 200,000 Salvadorans, or
4% of the nation's population, completely shut down the country's capital,
San Salvador, on October 24 as they took to the streets in the second white
BY EVA CHENG
Created in 1989 to help break Third World resistance to the Uruguay Round of trade talks, the 21-country Asia Pacific Economic and Cooperation (APEC) forum plunged into near irrelevance in 1997 when the economic crisis hit Asia.
But
Culture
The Motorcycle Diaries: a Journey Around South America
By Ernesto Che Guevara
Fourth Estate
$20.95
REVIEW BY STEVEN KATSINERIS
The Motorcycle Diaries is the incredible story of a remarkable
road journey, written in the words of a
SYDNEY Around 1000 people
enjoyed themselves at the inaugural Rock 4 Refugees concert on the afternoon
of October 27. The concert was held at Henson Park, Marrickville. Among
the bands that performed were Mental As Anything (pictured), the
BY JAMES CRAFTI
MELBOURNE Are all Aussies heartless bastards? This was the question
that was thrashed out at the third annual Green Left Weekly comedy
debate. Almost 200 people crowded into the Brunswick Town Hall on October
25 to find
Only one bowler has ever knocked the bat out of the hands of Don Bradman, cricket's greatest batter: Eddie Gilbert. Only 15 bowlers have ever dismissed Bradman without a run to his name. Eddie Gilbert was one of them. Yet, whilst Bradman played test cricket for Australia for two decades, Gilbert was never selected to play at the sport's highest level.
Editorial
Labor joins attacks on civil liberties
In a stunning display of just how far to the right a Labor leader can
go, NSW Premier Bob Carr has called for even more attacks on civil liberties,
paving the way for a crackdown on dissent, and