BY JODY BETZIEN
MELBOURNE — Around 600 workers from Grocon's five construction sites and two construction yards staged a four-hour stop-work meeting on January 17 to determine what industrial action would be taken to pressure the company into
Issue 522
News
BY SALLY BROWN
APOLLO BAY — "With around 400 women, men and children marching along the Great Ocean Road in solidarity chanting 'No blood for oil' and 'Australia does not want this war', this rally is not only the first rural town to have a no
Leichhardt activists organise against war
BY LACHLAN MALLOCH
SYDNEY - The recently formed Leichhardt Stop the War Group is demonstrating the breadth of local opposition to the waging of war on the people of Iraq. Its members include the mayor of
BY
ALEX BAINBRIDGE
CYGNET The Cygnet Folk Festival held in Tasmania on January 10-12
has become one of the most progressive festivals in Australia today
according to one of the festival organisers, Geoff Francis. Notable progressive
BY PETER ROBSON
NEWCASTLE — "Bring all the warships home!" was the rally cry on February 18 at the National Maritime Festival where the HMAS Newcastle was on show to the public.
The Newcastle No War Collective organised a snap protest, because
BY GRANT COLEMAN
WOLLONGONG — In the lead up to the February 16 "Walk Against the War" in Sydney, the Illawarra NoWar collective is organising a February 8 protest against war on Iraq.
Advertised with the slogan "No blood for oil", the rally
BY
MICK BULL
MELBOURNE Victorian state secretary of the Construction, Forestry,
Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Martin Kingham, has urged all trade unions
to participate in an afternoon rally on the day that the US launches its
war
BY PAUL OBOOHOV
CANBERRA The corporate media on January 14 and 15 denounced new
flexible leave conditions contained in the latest industrial agreement
for employees of the federal Department of Education, Science and Training
(DEST).
BY BRONWYN JENNINGS
GEELONG — One hundred people attended a January 18 "picnic for peace" on the Geelong waterfront, initiated by the Geelong Greens.
Federal ALP member for Geelong, Gavin O'Connor spoke out against a war on Iraq outlining the
BY KAMALA EMANUEL
LAUNCESTON — The refugees' rights movement has witnessed a painful partial victory. On January 14, Fatima Sarwari and her children — seven-year-old Asima, five-year-old Zahoor and the Australian-born twins, almost two years'
BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — The state Labor government has ignored the January 1 deadline — imposed on it by the Tasmania Together consultation process — for ending clear-felling in some forests classified as "high conservation value". Many
BY ANTHONY BENBOW
PERTH — With the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln still undergoing maintenance off Fremantle, US warplanes starting bushfires during bombing "practice" 100 kilometres north of Perth and a US FA-18 fighter crashing near the
BY
MARG PERROTT
A delegation of doctors representing the Australian Medical Association
for Prevention of War (MAPW) delivered a Prescription for Peace to Prime
Minister John Howard at his Kirribilli home on January 12.
The prescription,
World
BY
EVA CHENG
Four years ago, Malaysia's Registrar of Societies (ROS) turned down
the Malaysian Socialist Party's (PSM) application to be an officially registered
party. A subsequent appeal to the Home Ministry was turned down. In September
BY PIP HINMAN
When Indonesian judge Asril Marwan on December 30 sentenced Joy-Lee Sadler to four months' jail and Lesley McCulloch to five months, he declared that McCulloch should have received a harsher sentence because her actions "could have
BY LUKE FOMIATTI& TAMARA PEARSON
LAHORE — The Anti-War Committee-Pakistan (AWC), a coalition of 27 progressive organisations and political parties, organised a protest here on January 18 to coincide with an international day of action against
BY JEFFREY ST CLAIR
Hostile intentions toward the people of another country. Deployment of chemical weapons and biological agents. Pursuit of a scorched earth policy. Sound like Saddam's Iraq? Think again. This neatly summarises US President George
BY JOEL BEININ
In the early stages of the campaign for Israel's January 28 Knesset (parliamentary) elections, there were no armed attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. During the same six weeks, Israeli forces shot dead some 75 Palestinians in the
BY MALIK MIAH& JENNIFER BIDDLE
SAN FRANCISCO — How could the biggest airline in the world, with the most enviable route structure, largest and most diverse fleet, employing over 100,000 workers — an airline that made US$8 billion in net profit
BY STUART MUNCKTON
"The strike that once left most commercial areas of the city dark and abandoned — at an economic cost of more than $50 million a day — is now a collage of contrasts: abandoned shopping malls and bustling street markets ...
Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States mobilised on January
18 to oppose a US-led war on Iraq. A crowd estimated at between 100,000
and 200,000 rallied and marched in Washington. They listened to the radical
British band
BY MAX LANE
JAKARTA — On the evening of January 15, senior Indonesian cabinet ministers announced the postponement of a proposed 22% increase in telephone charges and the postponement and review of proposed increases to electricity and petrol
BY EVA CHENG
The first Asia-wide "social forum" was held in Hyderabad, India, on January 2-7. It was attended by at least 15,000 people. The Asian Social Forum (ASF) was intended to be the Asian extension of the World Social Forum (WSF), which has
BY FEDERICO FUENTES
CORDOBA, Argentina — The inauguration of Luis Ignacio "Lula" da Silva as Brazil's president on January 1 gained huge media coverage in Argentina. The massive celebrations in Brazil, in which somewhere between 200,000 and
Culture
REVIEW BY SARAH STEPHEN
Poetry by Mohsen Soltani ZandVocals by Annette Hughes, Yvette Duncan and Jane CamachoMusic by Geoffrey Datson$20, order at <www.stickylabel.com.au/mohsen.html> or <http://www.chilout.org>Send cheque or
British rebel band Chumbawamba's new song "Jacob's Ladder (Not in My Name)" expresses fury and revulsion at the blatant lies being broadcast to create a climate for war. "Jacob's Ladder" is featured on the band's latest album Readymades.
Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls and the Fighting Spirit
of Labor's Last Century
by Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, Robin DG Kelley
Beacon Press, 2001
174 pages, $34.50 (pb)
Three Strikes: Labor's Heartland Losses and What They Mean
Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell and the Fossil FireBy Jack DoyleEnvironmental Health Fund, BostonAvailable for free download at <http://www.shellfacts.com>Hard copies can be ordered from Gary Cohen, Environmental Health Fund, 41