BY NIKOLAI HADDAD
SYDNEY — Palestinian Legislative Council member Dr Hanan Ashrawi, who is also the secretary-general of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Peace (MIFTAH), arrived in Sydney on November 4 to be
Issue 561
News
MELBOURNE — As the first leg of his tour of Australia, Scottish Socialist Party member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) Colin Fox will be speaking at the conference Resisting the Empire: Building Alternatives to War, Racism and Imperialism at
BY STEPHEN GARVEY
MELBOURNE — On October 23, workers at Wilson Transformers Pty Ltd in Glen Waverley went on strike in response to management's refusal to negotiate on the latest enterprise bargaining agreement.
Wilson Transformers management
BY JUERGEN MULZER
DARWIN — It has long been known that Darwin's Longgrass community is home to some fantastic musical talent, so it is not surprising that the launch of the first Longgrass Live CD at the third annual Freedom to Sleep Festivities
BY VANNESSA HEARMAN
MELBOURNE — Some 150 people spent the evening of November 3 rocking the Maritime Union of Australia's hall in North Melbourne. This fundraiser was just one part of the MUA's solidarity work with East Timor's Transport and
BY DALE MILLS
SYDNEY — The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act, which was passed on June 26, has been used for the first time to arrest and question a person.
The man's name has not been
300 rally for Medicare
MELBOURNE — On November 7, a lunchtime rally protested the cuts to Medicare and called for the public health care system to be extended.
The speakers included Dr Tim Woodruff; Sharan Burrow, the president of the
BY JAMES CRAFTI
MELBOURNE — The Victorian education department has threatened to sack several hundred staff.
Education workers have been threatened by the department with the loss of up to 400 jobs since August. The threat spilled over into the
Three-hundred people gathered in Sydney, 150 in Canberra, and fifty in both Melbourne and Brisbane on November 9, and 30 in Perth on November 8, as part of an international day of against the apartheid wall being built by Israel. Pictured is the
BY MARGARITA WINDISCH
MELBOURNE — John Setka, vice-president of the Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), was found guilty on November 3 of issuing a threat against a project manager for construction
BY JANE BECKMANN
NEWCASTLE — Newcastle's Save Our Rail campaign has called a protest for November 19 outside NSW Parliament House in Sydney. The group is protesting the proposal to close rail services between Broadmeadow station and Newcastle
BY BRIANNA PIKE
DARWIN — On the second anniversary of the federal election, won by the Coalition parties on the basis of lies to demonise refugees, refugees' rights activists in Darwin launched a campaign against the government's excision of the
BY LEIGH HUGHES
ADELAIDE — Wearing a shirt with "The battlefield is between your ears: put up a fight" written on it, David Barsamian, founder of Alternative Radio in the United States, gave a lecture on war, propaganda and hypocrisy at the
World
BY TARIQ ALI
Some weeks ago, Pentagon inmates were invited to a special in-house showing of an old movie. It was the Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo's anti-colonial classic, initially banned in France. One assumes the purpose of the screening
BY SUSAN FITZGERALD
NEW YORK — On November 4, the UN General Assembly voted by a record majority (179 in favour, three against and two abstentions) to demand an end to the four-decade-long economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on
BY DOUG LORIMER
The November 2 missile attack on a US Army Chinook troop transport helicopter — which left 16 GIs dead and 20 badly wounded — has finally forced leading officials in Washington to acknowledge that the US is involved in a
A group of organisations are campaigning in support of the award-wining documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, after the Canadian Pacific Region Chapter of Amnesty International (AI Canada) decided to withdraw it from the November 6-9
BY RAISA PAGES
Some call it an embargo, for others it's a blockade. But neither word correctly reflects the magnitude of the actions carried out by the US government against Cuba since 1959.
US Secretary of State Cristian Herter used the correct
BY MARCUS GREVILLE
LONDON — On November 3, 30,000 striking members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) won a spectacular trade union victory against Royal Mail management and its New Labour masters, when the postal bosses acceded to almost
BY KURT NIMMO
In April 2002, Greenpeace activists boarded a commercial ship off the coast of Florida. The ship was transporting mahogany illegally exported from Brazil's Amazon rainforest. The activists unfurled a banner stating: "President Bush,
BY DANNY FAIRFAX
The 15th congress of the Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, LCR), held October 30-November 2, sealed an historic pact with France's other main revolutionary socialist party, Lutte Ouvriere (Workers
BY SETH SANDRONSKY
SACRAMENTO — In President George Bush's USA, 122,000 people became temporary workers in the last nine months. Temporary workers are less likely to have a steady pay-check and health-care benefits than permanent workers.
Nine
The following appeal was adopted, by an overwhelming majority, at the 15th congress of the French Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), held on the outskirts of Paris from October 30 to November 2. It was translated by Murray Smith.
Together, we
On November 4, just days after a Ecuador court began hearing a lawsuit against ChevronTexaco for damages caused in the Amazon rainforest since the 1970s, Angel Shingre, a well-known peasant leader and human rights campaigner, was assassinated in the
BY ANN SCHOLL& FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA
Argentina was once the world's granary. Now starving children haunt the villas miseria — shanty towns — and cartoneros (unemployed) families roam the streets looking for leftovers to eke a living from. Over
BY KARIN WARINGO
BRUSSELS — Soon, the 450 million citizens of the European Union will have their facial images screened and fingerprints taken if they request a new passport. Additionally, anybody from a non-EU state seeking entry or requesting
BY STEVEN KATSINERIS
The government of Israel claims that Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat is a terrorist leader, and that this justifies exiling him, killing him or putting him on trial. Yet Israel has a long history of electing past
BY NORM DIXON
Noam Chomsky, the distinguished US political scientist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, has attended the 25th Assembly of the Latin American Social Science Council. Addressing the conference on October 29, also
Culture
BY NICOLE HOYE& TERRICA STRUDWICK
BRISBANE — In the midst of his "Stand down Howard" tour, Steve Towson has released his powerful second album One Shot at Freedom. Towson casually describes his music as a raw-boned, electric mix of folk, punk and
Lyndon LaRouche: Fascism Restyled for the New MillenniumBy Helen GilbertRed Letter Press, 46 pagesCopies available for $7 from the Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick, Victoria; send a cheque for $8, payable to the Feminist Education
Dude, Where's My Country?By Michael MoorePenguin, 2003249pp, $40 (hb)
REVIEW BY NICK FREDMAN
Michael Moore is back, again bearing the weapons of leftist analysis, righteous anger and humour to smite all stupid white men, particularly George W.
A Revolution in Four-part Harmony, Lee Hirsch, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Abdullah Ibrahim, Vusi Mahlasela, Schonell, Chauvel, Nova, Perth Film Festival, outh Africa, apartheid, Sharpeville, United Democratic Movement, Congress of South African
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 (02) 9564 1277. Visit