Issue 545

BY PAUL OBOOHOV CANBERRA — A June 30 meeting of Save the Ridge activists decided to rally outside the July 26 ACT ALP conference as part of their campaign to press the territory's Labor government to abandon its plan to build a major freeway,

BY LYNETTE DUMBLE MELBOURNE — Tahmeena Faryal from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and Surma Hamid from the Committee in Defence of Iraqi Women's Rights (CDIWR), will speak at a public forum at Trades Hall on

BY PAUL BENEDEK SYDNEY — Six police officers prevented film reviewer Margaret Pomeranz, journalist David Marr and others from playing a DVD of the US film Ken Park to a packed out Balmain Town Hall audience of 400 adults on July 3. Ken Park was

BY LIAM MITCHELL SYDNEY — Spearheaded by the Sydney Morning Herald, the corporate media has launched an attack on the display of union solidarity which helped 40 strikers at the Morris McMahon can manufacturing plant win their dispute.

BY LIAM MITCHELL SYDNEY — After nearly 16 weeks on strike, 40 workers at can manufacturer Morris McMahon returned to work on July 2. They won a union-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreement and a number of improvements in their conditions. The

BY DUNCAN MEERDING & ALBY DALLAS HOBART — A public forum on health and education was attended by 50 people on July 2. Held at the Republic Bar, a popular left-wing pub, the meeting was organised by the Socialist Alliance. The participants

BY CHRIS PICKERING WOLLONGONG — Beginning on July 3, members of the Public Service Association and the TAFE Teachers Association employed at the Upper Illawara Institute of TAFE began implementing an indefinite ban on the collection and

BY DANNY FAIRFAX Denouncing the arrest of Jose Bove, one of the most high profile global justice activists in France, 3000 people protested in the town of Millau, the major population centre of Bove's home region Aveyron, on June 28. Bove, a

BY DALE MILLS The European Commission for Human Rights, Europe's senior human rights court, ruled in a judgment delivered on July 1 that the British investigation into the murder of civil rights solicitor Patrick Finucane was flawed. Finucane was

BY CHRIS KERR The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela is not just a national phenomenon, it is impacted upon greatly by international developments, particularly the US-led campaign against it. In 2002, the US government stepped up its intervention

BY DOUG LORIMER Nigeria remains locked in a general strike, after talks between the government and the country's main trade union federation, the Nigerian Labour Congress, broke down on July 3. "The strike continues", declared NLC president Adams

BY ROHAN PEARCE A survey by polling organisation YouGov has revealed that the British Labour Party's popularity has fallen dramatically as the scandal over Prime Minister Tony Blair's lies about Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction

BY ROHAN PEARCE There are an increasing number of reports in the corporate press that the growing armed resistance to the US occupation of Iraq and the deepening hostility of they face from the Iraqi population is causing US soldiers to lose

BY DOUG LORIMER On June 16, a US federal judge in Philadelphia overturned the conviction of Jim Sabzali, the first Canadian citizen to be found guilty of violating the US trade embargo against Cuba. Sabzali had faced the prospect of spending the

Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. Includes the Green Left news. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9pm. Phone 9564 1277. Visit

BY ZOE KENNY MELBOURNE — On June 26, the Latin American Film Society Filmoteca held a special film screening which showcased three films about Che Guevara at Federation Square's Australian Centre for the Moving Image. My father, Che: a