Dale Mills, Sydney
The NSW government is planning to restrict compensation claims to prisoners who sue for injuries received while in prison. This opens the door to prisons being able to risk the health and safety of inmates without effective
-
-
Due to an editing error, an article entitled "When right isn't quite right" in GLW #566 incorrectly used the word "coated" to describe depleted uranium munitions. From Green Left Weekly, January 21, 2004. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
-
Alison Dellit, Sydney "I have real concerns that this report will be used to justify a round of cost-cutting and attacks on workers' rights, rather than a genuine investment in rail safety", Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) NSW secretary Nick
-
Garry Walters On December 1, 2003, I was treated by former Australian Railways Union shunters' committee fellow activist Des Crichton to a trip from Echuca to North Melbourne, for the longstanding annual reunion of shunters. The shunters, other
-
John Pilger, London In a valedictory piece on December 30, the Guardian commentator and leader writer Martin Kettle wrote: "Opponents of the [Iraq] war may need to be reminded that public opinion currently approves of the invasion by nearly two to
-
Igor O'Neill & Cam Walker Melbourne-based company Newcrest has come under fire from Australian environmentalists for the situation in its gold mine in Halmahera Island in North Maluku, Indonesia. On January 7, a peaceful protest by community
-
Anita Lumbus Two Afghan proverbs: "A broken hand can work but a broken heart can't" and "What you do to your enemies today, you will do to your friends tomorrow". Ali is 11 years old and lives in the Western Australian coastal town of Albany. He
-
Sarah Stephen A group of 16 Afghan asylum seekers stranded on the Indonesian island of Lombok ended a seven-day hunger strike on January 14. The hunger strikers agreed to finish their protest after a meeting with UN High Commission for Refugees
-
Anne Summers' new book, The End of Equality, paints a stark picture of women's status in Australia in the 21st century. Despite winning equal pay for equal work more than 30 years ago, the gap between men's and women's wages is larger now than a
-
Iraq war and the unions The real question Brian Sketchley (Write On, Green Left Weekly #566) needs to answer, and hasn't yet, is what will it take for the labour movement to take a stand on the war on Iraq? Yes, protests are not going to stop
-
Peter Boyle We have become accustomed to the International Monetary Fund warning Third World governments about their foreign debt levels. The IMF doing the same to the world's richest and most powerful government, however, is a bit unusual. On
-
Rohan Pearce The January 13 publication of Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, has once again stoked the controversy surrounding the pre-war justification given by President
-
Mark Copland, the executive officer of the Social Justice Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba is fighting for wage justice for Indigenous Queenslanders. It was the week before Christmas and a woman about to give birth could not find
-
Lisa Macdonald Since the 9/11 attacks, the US rulers have escalated their military drive for control of every corner of the world economy, and the Australian capitalist ruling class has been there every step of the way, vying for a share of the
-
Jim McIlroy, Brisbane A snap Queensland election is underway. On January 13, Labor Premier Peter Beattie called the election for February 7, in a summer-holiday bid to take the heat out of the government's damaging problems over the abuse of foster
News
-
Sarah Stephen An independent medical team calling itself the Professional Alliance for the Health of Asylum Seekers and their Children, which had been raising money to make a trip to Nauru on January 19, was forced to suspend its trip when the
-
Chris Latham, Perth Train drivers on Perth's metropolitan rail-lines stopped work for four hours on January 11 to discuss the Rail, Tram and Bus Union's campaign for a new enterprise agreement. RTBU rail division secretary Bob Christison told Green
-
Tom Flanagan, Lismore Following a sustained public campaign led by the North Lismore Progress Association (NLPA), the Lismore City Council has abandoned its preferred route for a northern "bypass" that would have seen heavy traffic routed between
-
Robert Darcy, Perth Wharfies at P&O's Fremantle container terminal walked off the job for 12 hours on January 9 following the serious injury to a worker the previous evening on the ship P&O Nedlloyd Yarra Valley. The injured worker who was
-
The University of WA held two public meetings with radical journalist John Pilger on January 12 and 13. Despite limited publicity, the first night attracted 900 people while the second 350, with hundreds of people turned away. Pilger discussed the
-
Sarah Stephen On January 12, a delegation of Australian government officials and health department doctors arrived on Nauru to investigate the crisis in the Pacific island state's health system, strained to breaking point during a 29-day hunger
-
Allegations by asylum seekers of the use of cattle prods by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) when boarding refugee boats, especially at the time of the children overboard scandal prior to the 2001 federal election, have again surfaced. In an
-
Shua Garfield, Hobart On January 13, four men were arrested for unfurling a protest banner as the Spirit of Tasmania III ferry left Sydney on its first voyage to Devonport. The protest highlighted the continuing battle between conservationists and
-
In a world of his own I "Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, pushed out of the administration for not being a team player, says President Bush was so disengaged during cabinet meetings that he was like a 'blind man in a roomful of deaf
World
-
Shane Bentley Britain's National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), with 67,000 members, made headlines in December when its Scottish regional council voted overwhelmingly to end its long-standing links with the Labour Party and
-
Marcus Greville, London "The greatest mass movement of our age has brought us together." This is the start of the draft declaration of RESPECT — the Unity Coalition, a new electoral alliance to be launched on January 25. The initial call for the
-
Doug Lorimer As the number of US troops killed in Iraq steadily climbed toward 500, Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer claimed that guerrilla attacks had fallen dramatically in the wake of Saddam Hussein's capture on December 13.
-
Raul Bassi, Sydney Many times, we will read in newspapers, or hear on the radio or TV, of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army. Sometimes, these killings are "explained" by the claim that the victims were militants, or "didn't follow soldiers
-
Doug Lorimer The December 5 directive issued by US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz provided a clear indication of what the Bush Doctrine is all about. It barred French and German companies from competing for US$18.7 billion in contracts for
-
Leslie Feinberg An inordinate amount of imperialist media attention on Afghanistan has focused on the wording of a new constitution approved by the Loya Jirga, or grand assembly. Like a huckster at a carnival shell game, the more the big-money
-
Ahmad Nimer The Geneva Accords, an unofficial framework for negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, were released in mid-October 2003. Despite a relative lull in media attention, the accords are an extremely significant development. Top
-
Matthew Cookson A successful and important conference took place in Cairo in Egypt on the December 13-14 weekend. The Second Cairo Conference Against Capitalist Globalisation and US Hegemony brought together anti-war activists from across the
-
David Bacon The free trade ideologues of the Bush administration see the occupation of Iraq as a beachhead into the Middle East and south Asia. Their first objective is the transformation of the state-dominated economy of what was once one of the
-
Farooq Tariq, Lahore The Pakistan Social Forum (PSF) was held on January 12 at Lahore Alhumra halls. More than 5000 people participated in the event, making it one of the largest gatherings of progressive forces in Pakistan in recent times. A rally
-
Rohan Pearce On January 12, US-based Human Rights Watch criticised house demolitions carried out by US forces occupying Iraq. According to HRW, at least four houses have been demolished by US forces over the past two months to punish relatives of
-
Brett Prowse, Sanaa As the first day of the European Union-sponsored Arab Regional Conference on Human Rights and the Role of the International Criminal Court got underway here on January 10, Yemeni activists outside were being intimidated and
-
Norm Dixon On January 4, while addressing British troops in Basra, British Prime Minister Tony Blair attempted to defend his government's participation in the US-led war against Iraq. In an embarrassing Freudian slip, Blair referred to "weapons of
-
Pip Hinman On January 14, the Aceh high court upheld the verdict of a lower court which last year convicted five Free Aceh Movement (GAM) negotiators of treason and terrorism and sentenced them to long prison terms. The maximum penalty is death.
Culture
-
REVIEW BY PAT BREWER The End of Equality: Work, Babies and Women's Choices in 21st Century AustraliaAnne SummersRandom House, 2003336 pages, $39.95 It is unusual to see a scathing condemnation by a prominent government adviser on the state of
-
SYDNEY — A new documentary about the history of West Papua and its people's struggle for freedom, is to be screened on ABC TV on February 2, at 8.30pm. Made by Australian journalist Mark Worth, the film features rare archival film and eyewitness
-
REVIEW BY LOUIS PROYECT Goodbye Lenin!Directed by Wolfgang BeckerWritten by Wolfgang Becker and Bernd LichtenbergWith Daniel Bruhl, Kathrin Sass, Maria Simon, Chulpan Khamatova, Florian Lukas and Alexander BeyerScreening at Dendy cinemas, Sydney;