Disability rights campaigner Kathleen (Katie) Ball died in Melbourne on June 25 from pneumonia at the age of 39. Katie was a qualified secondary teacher, a community development worker and a grassroots activist, who never shied away from taking
-
-
Lalitha Chelliah We can spend many hours discussing the atrocities that have taken place and are taking place in Iraq. The USA, after a Clayton's hand-over, will continue to exert its power in Iraq — no-one doubts that, especially the USA. The
-
Zoe has been fighting for social and global justice since 1998 when she helped blockade the Jabiluka Uranium Mine in Kakadu national park. "The world is only going to get better if we organise for it to do so", she said. One of her inspirations are
-
Civil rights suspended: Labor nods 'yes' Hardly a week goes by without another civil liberty being abolished. Largely ignored by the corporate press, the current sitting of parliament is examining the National Security Information (Criminal
-
Tom's first big political action was in 1981, when he was arrested for obstructing bulldozers on Mount Nardi in what is now Nightcap National Park. A campaigner on environment and social justice issues since the Franklin River campaign, Tom has
-
Indigenous households earn about $200 less than other households per week, or 62% of the average household income. Indigenous people are half as likely to have completed their schooling and only about 40% are employed, compared to 60% in the wider
-
Lynda Hansen, Brisbane The Selling Sex in Queensland report, commissioned by the Prostitution Licensing Authority 18 months ago and independently prepared by researchers from the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology,
-
Julia Costello & Frances Usherwood, Sydney The University of Sydney recently proposed the cutting of its nursing faculty. This proposal, announced by Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown, states that the faculty will not take any more undergraduate
-
Jim Green The Coalition government's campaign to build a national nuclear waste dump in South Australia is going from bad to worse. The government has been subjected to a barrage of friendly fire in recent months, in the form of strong criticism
-
Reagan Ronald Reagan's death has led to some grossly untrue claims being made by his supporters about the effects of his policies. On economics, readers should consult Peddling Prosperity by Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman. "Rapid growth
-
Lynda Hansen On June 7, the Courier Mail warned voters that the person they elect will cost taxpayers more than $600,000 to keep in office. Perks have driven the total cost to taxpayers of keeping the 226 federal MPs and senators in parliament to
-
Kathy Newnam & Owain Lewis-Jones, Darwin One Mile Dam, an Aboriginal camp on prime land close to Darwin's CBD, is under pressure to relocate to the fringes of the city. Developers plan to build up-market apartments in the surrounding area and want
-
Margaret Murphy, Daylesford On May 26, National Sorry Day, a Jaara descendant of the Kulin Nation Susan Rankin peacefully reoccupied crown land at Franklinford in central Victoria. She is calling her campsite the "Going Home Camp". This land was
-
Rohan Pearce The June 26-27 opening weekend of Michael Moore's new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, confirmed the nightmares of US President George Bush's supporters. Despite the right-wing's best efforts to derail the Fahrenheit juggernaut, in a
-
Sarah Stephen On June 24, a mosque in Melbourne suffered an arson attack. The following day, a Muslim prayer hall in the north-western Sydney suburb of Annangrove was vandalised. Pig's heads were put on spikes outside the hall and offal was smeared
-
Raul Bassi was born in Argentina and migrated to Australia in 1983. His first political demonstration was against the US invasion of Santo Domingo in 1965. He embraced socialism and anti-imperialism and joined the struggle for working-class and human
-
Dick Nichols The last month of federal parliament's winter session has seen a chain of dizzying backflips by the federal Labor "opposition". For six or seven months Labor leader Mark Latham seemed to promise something a bit better than the hated
-
Annie Philips Living in Hobart I witness the rather sobering daily event of scores of laden log trucks thundering down the main street of town. It's a continual reminder to all those who care about the environment of current Tasmanian forestry
-
Dick Nichols Lisa Macdonald, the Socialist Alliance's candidate for the federal seat of Reid, has described the debate between Labor and the Coalition over who has the best "coastal protection" policy as "an obscene joke". "People smuggling,
-
Marcus Pabian& Tony Iltis Over the last 12 months a new bilingual newspaper, Codka Dhallinyaradda Soomaaliyeed (Voice of Somali Youth), has been published in Melbourne by activists who were part of the Western Suburbs Community Coalition Against
-
Dale Mills The ACT became the first Australian state or territory to benefit from a rights bill on July 1, when the Human Rights Act came into effect. Every country in the developed world, except Australia, has some sort of bill of rights. The
News
-
Cam Walker, Melbourne They say a week's a long time in politics — but it's nothing compared to thirty years. Friends of the Earth Australia is turning 30. From modest beginnings, FoE International is now the world's largest grassroots
-
Kamala Emanuel, Hobart Hundreds of Tasmanian casino workers struck for 24 hours on July 3. A mass rally and march at Hobart's Wrest Point Casino attracted 150 workers and their supporters. This was the first state-wide strike ever held against
-
Melanie Sjoberg, Adelaide "The representative notion of governance is not one held among many Aboriginal communities", John Tregenza, an Aboriginal public health worker, told a Socialist Alliance meeting on June 30. Aboriginal councils, services
-
Strikes hit Sydney Buses SYDNEY — Bus mechanics at NSW government-owned Sydney Buses workshops struck for three hours on June 30, disrupting morning peak-hour services. The strike was over conditions in their latest enterprise bargaining
-
Ruth Ratcliffe, Sydney As human beings we have the capacity to imagine an alternative future, one which is not based on deception, cruelty and injustice, Sister Susan Connelly from the Mary McKillop Institute for East Timorese Studies told a public
-
Justin Tutty& Jon Lamb, Darwin Environmentalists rallied June 28 to demand a moratorium on water extraction licenses in the Northern Territory's Daly River Basin. The protest was held before a meeting of the Daly Community Reference Group. The
-
Stephen Garvey, Melbourne On June 28, 2300 people packed the Melbourne Town Hall to hear British-based Pakistani author Tariq Ali talk about the US occupation of Iraq. Ali said it was ironic that the supposed handover of national sovereignty to
-
Kerryn Williams, Sydney SYDNEY — Rallies took place around the country on June 30 to "Bring the troops home" and to protest the fake handover of sovereignty to a US-appointed Iraqi interim government. The "handover" occurring two days early and
-
Not happy George! "Two days early, with a veil of secrecy and a tight security lockdown, Washington's proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer III, handed a hollow and uncertain sovereignty to Iyad Allawi, a former Baathist collaborator of Saddam Hussein who
-
News briefs #2 Defence of gay and lesbian rights SYDNEY - More than 800 people gathered in Town Hall square on June 26, in a massive show of opposition to the Coalition government's moves to amend the marriage rights bill in order to ban marriage
World
-
Robyn Marshall, Caracas Since it took office in 1999, the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has implemented a number of programs and reforms to help the poor. Assisting in the process of change has been the Bolivarian Circles, through
-
Roberto Jorquera "I must be calm but very sincere. I have absolutely no intention of insulting you or launching personal attacks. But it is cynical to include Cuba in a list of countries involved in the illegal trafficking of persons. And what is
-
Barry Weisleder, Toronto On June 28, voters across Canada rejected the newly formed Conservative Party, and punished the Liberals for 11 years of cutbacks and corruption and strengthened the New Democratic Party (NDP). The electoral shift to the
-
Frances Evans West Papua: where the second largest rainforest in the world is cleared for Freeport/Rio Tinto's gold and copper mines; where one of the world's most diverse marine environments is being polluted by BHP-Billiton's toxic tailings;
-
Roberto Jorquera On June 29, web-based news service Venezuelanalysis.com reported that several people were attacked at a protest opposing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The angry protest was caught on tape by the state-run television channel
-
Doug Lorimer On June 24, Iraqi resistance fighters forced US Army troops to withdraw to the outskirts of Baquba, a city with 250,000 residents located 56 kilometres north of Baghdad. The assault was part of coordinated attacks against US occupation
-
Doug Lorimer Two days earlier than scheduled, Paul Bremer, Washington's proconsul in Iraq, flew out of Baghdad. He left behind a hollow sovereignty, headed by Iyad Allawi — a former member of Saddam Hussein's secret police who went on the CIA's
-
Barry Sheppard, San Francisco On June 27, the Green Party convention voted against endorsing the independent Ralph Nader-Peter Camejo campaign for the US presidency. Less than a week before the convention, Nader named Greens activist Camejo as
-
AFGHANISTAN: Women election workers killed Two Afghan women were killed and 13 were wounded on June 28 by a bomb that exploded on a bus filled with election workers travelling to Rodat to register women voters. A Taliban spokesperson claimed
-
Norm Dixon The African National Congress-led Johannesburg City Council is attempting to evict two of South Africa's leading activist organisations from their premises in the city's Newtown arts precinct. On July 1, more than 50 activists gathered
-
Ally Black, Glasgow Three features of the June 10 European Parliament elections stand out starkly. First, there was a pitifully low turnout in most of the 25 member states making up the newly enlarged European Union. Voter abstention reached an
-
Some 530,000 people, braving a heat wave in humid Hong Kong, demonstrated on the seventh anniversary of the former British colony's July 1, 1997, handover to China. They were angered by Beijing's recent rejection of the demand for complete direct
-
Eva Cheng Members and sympathisers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation, who have been leading grassroots worker and peasant struggles have been under increasing attack in the states of Bihar and Assam. In the northern
Culture
-
With Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber and Mekhi PhiferDirected by Zack Snyder REVIEW BY RJURIK DAVIDSON There is no space for liberalism in the horror story, which proceeds from the assumption that there is something drastically wrong with
-
The budget couldn't fudge it,the war has left our senses dazed; and his welfare policiesare dredged from ancient days. Destroying health by stealth,robbing families blind;those who want to vote for himmust be out of their tiny mind. The Timorese
-
Water, The Drop Of Life: A Price To Pay — Reveals the nature and politics of water transportation, and its impact on a growing number of people and enterprises around the world. SBS, Friday, July 9, 1pm. Message Stick: Aden Ridgeway — In 1999,
-
My Life is an extraordinary book that should be read and reread by every socialist. Of course, we mean My Life by the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. My Life by Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is a pompous piece of junk — lies and distortions
-
REVIEW BY JIM MCILROY Radical Brisbane: An unruly historyEdited by Raymond Evans & Carole FerrierVulgar Press, Melbourne 2004329 pages, pb, $50Available from <http://www.vulgar.com.au> Radical Brisbane: An unruly history is a timely