Issue 551

News

BY DYLAN FERGUSON& LESLIE RICHMOND ADELAIDE — After months of diluted information, stalls and community consultations few and far between, the Coastal Protection Board (CPB) is set to go ahead with a planned experimental breakwater at Semaphore.
BY SUE BULL MELBOURNE — On August 17, nearly 100 people attended a meeting at Trades Hall to launch of the Fair Go campaign. The meeting was sponsored by a coalition of groups including the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC), the Ethnic
BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS CANBERRA — On August 2, the ACT Australian Education Union executive decided recommend to the AEU branch council that the ACT Labor governments third offer in the initial installment of the enterprise bargaining agreement
BY MARCUS PABIAN MELBOURNE — On August 21, 300 members of he National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) were joined by delegates to the ACTU congress in a protest rally against the Howard government's proposed changes to university funding which
Joh's claim for compensation 'a joke' BRISBANE — National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services secretariat chairman Frank Guivarra has labelled former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's claim for damages for "pain and
BY GRAHAM WILLIAMS MELBOURNE — In yet another hurdle for manufacturing workers to jump in their industrial Campaign 2003, the Victorian Industrial Relations Commission is increasingly refusing to certify agreements. "The IRC is tightening up on
BY SUE BOLTON In a move described by many delegates to the ACTU congress as having echoes of the 1998 waterfront dispute, Qantas on August 19 provocatively introduced three labour-hire workers from the company Blue Collar to work as baggage
BY SARAH STEPHEN According to refugee supporters who are in regular contact with asylum seekers in the Baxter detention centre, on August 22 there were a number of suicide attempts following news that more than a dozen Iranian asylum seekers faced
BY MARCE CAMERON BRISBANE — On August 19, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Maggie May came to work and found a fax on her chair from AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron telling her that she would no longer be working for the
BY TONY ILTIS MELBOURNE — Residents of the western suburb of Sunshine who have been campaigning for nine years to have a local outdoor pool reopened have reacted with scepticism to the setting up of a 25-member advisory group to be headed by

World

TARIQ ALI is a long-time political activist, author and socialist. In the 1960s and '70s, he was a leading figure in the British movement against the US war against the people of Vietnam. He is currently an editor of the New Left Review. Ali spoke
The following speech was presented by LEONEL VIVAS, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela's ambassador to Australia, to the August 2 "Latin America: New Movements of Resistance and Transformation" conference in Sydney, organised by the Committees in
BY JONATHAN STRAUSS Ashok Manohar, general secretary of the Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra state, India, died in Pune on July 31 after a massive heart attack. He was only 54. Manohar started his political journey in the early 1970s as
BY CHRITINE GAUVREAU The US-based Labor Art and Mural Project's delegation to Palestine is facing a grave challenge. On August 22, the Israeli authorities — the Israel Defence Force, the Civil Administration and the police department — arrived
BY ROHAN PEARCE An opinion poll, conducted August 7-8 by YouGov on behalf of the Mail on Sunday, confirmed that support for the ruling British Labour Party is continuing to plummet as the lies spun by Prime Minister Tony Blair's government to
BY LIZ FEKETE LONDON — The European Union Border Control Program, introduced with scant regard to refugee protection and human rights, is leading to an increasing number of deaths on the borders of Europe — and beyond. Over the last 18
BY MAIRE LEADBEATER AUCKLAND — A forest of West Papuan "Morning Star" flags and chants of "Free West Papua" and "Observer status now" greeted the arriving delegates of the Pacific Islands Forum at the Sheraton Hotel here on August 14. Sixty
BY LESLIE FEINBERG With pomp and circumstance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on August 11 took formal command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) "peacekeepers" in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul. This is the first time in
BY NICK SOUDAKOFF On July 14, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard announced a A$5 million security aid package, after meeting with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Manila. The package, aimed at "counter-terrorism activities",
BY ROHAN PEARCE At a White House press conference on August 8, US President George Bush told journalists that it "turns out this is our 100th day since major military operations have ended, ended in Iraq. And since then, we've made good progress.
BY JABULANE MATSEBULA The Commonwealth went ahead with the Global 2003 Smart Partnership International Dialogue (SPID) conference in Swaziland on August 12-16. In deciding to hold the conference, the Commonwealth showed total disregard for the
BY JEFF SHANTZ TORONTO — It's high time Ontario's low-income workers received a raise. The minimum wage in Ontario has been frozen at C$6.85/hour ($6.40 for students and $5.95 for liquor servers) throughout the eight brutal years of Tory rule.
BY ROHAN PEARCE Despite the abject failure to find any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, Pentagon officials remain upbeat on the issue. After testifying to the US Senate's armed services committee on July 31, US Army Major-General Keith
BY DOUG LORIMER "Susan Schuman's son writes home from Iraq complaining of poor living conditions, skimpy water rations and dozens of daily attacks on US troops that go unreported. The mother of a Massachusetts National Guardsman stationed in Iraq
BY BARRY SHEPPARD SAN FRANCISCO — Editorial writers and TV talking heads have deplored the recall election of Governor Gray Davis in California as anti-democratic and a joke. Californian law allows for a recall election of officials if enough
BY MICHAEL SHAIK On August 12, a 40-day ceasefire was shattered by two Palestinian suicide bombings in Rosh Ha'ayin in northern Israel and the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Two Israelis were killed and 13 wounded in the attacks. The

Culture

Why Do People Hate America?By Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn DaviesIcon Books, $21 (pb) REVIEW BY DAVE RILEY If you have ever wondered why the United States ("America") is hated around the world, then maybe you did come down in the last shower.
BY BUSTER SOUTHERLEY AUCKLAND — The New Zealand Herald newspaper has sacked its award-winning cartoonist following a censorship row. Malcolm Evans was dismissed after drawing cartoons criticising the Israeli government's treatment of the
The War on ErrorismNOFXFat Wreck Chords REVIEW BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS Veteran US punks NOFX are not your typical band. You will not see the ad for their latest CD, The War on Errorism, on television after the doggy biscuit commercial. NOFX's
BY REBECCA CONROY SYDNEY — What do Indonesian factory workers making theatre in their spare time have in common with radical TV producers working out of a shack in Marrickville? In February, a rag-tag crew of community TV producers will be
BY SUZETTE MITCHELL How do you see global feminism? The Girls Go Global Project is an international initiative that seeks to bring together contemporary and pop culture images of global feminism, created by women and girls across the globe. The
REVIEW BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS Terminator 3: Rise of the MachinesWith Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken, Claire Danes, David Andrews and Mark FamigliettiDirected by Jonathan MostowAt major cinemas To great fanfare, the third
Actively Radical TV — Includes the Green Left news. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9pm. Phone (02) 9564 1277. Visit <http://www.channel31.org> for program details. Access News — Melbourne community TV, Channel 31, has excellent

Editorial

When Pauline Hanson burst onto the political scene in 1996, she unleashed a tidal wave of racism, and gave it renewed strength. As she attacked Asian migrants, refugees and Indigenous Australians, Prime Minister John Howard defended her, claiming she