Issue 764

  • Working 'in the interests of humanity'

    PERTH — “The Cuban people work in the interests of humanity. They do not work only for themselves, but for the wellbeing of the people of the world”, Hilda Chacon, Asia-Pacific representative of the Cuban Federation of Workers, told an audience of around 30 at an Australia-Cuba Friendship Society function on August 18.

  • AMCOR workers campaign for a new agreement

    PERTH — Workers at the AMCOR factory in the suburb of Canningvale protested on August 19 to support their campaign for wage rises and a new enterprise agreement. The plant, which manufactures steel cans, had been assessed as one of the most productive in the world but now faces decline because of management intransigence, workers told Green Left Weekly outside the factory gates.

  • GM moratorium may be extended

    PERTH — With a state election set for September 6, the WA Labor government last week pledged a four-year extension of the current moratorium on GM (genetically modified) crops and a limit on GM canola trials to 10 hectares.

  • Tamils seek aid for displaced people

    MELBOURNE — Two hundred Tamils gathered outside Victoria’s parliament building on August 22 to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of Tamils displaced by fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

News

  • Students take action on housing crisis

    On August 20, activists from the Student Housing Action Collective (SHAC) at Melbourne University occupied four terrace houses in Faraday St, Carlton. The houses are owned by Melbourne University and were used as student counselling offices until 2005.

  • Habib to appeal conviction

    On August 18, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib was fined $400 in the Ryde Local Court for offensive language and behaviour towards police. The ruling will be appealed in the Parramatta District Court on September 11.

  • Privatisation is theft: no energy sell-off!

    The Socialist Alliance has condemned NSW Premier Morris Iemma’s latest bid to rush through enabling legislation to sell off the state’s energy retailers and generators.

  • Defending community democracy

    Wollongong residents, concerned and angry about the systemic corruption of the local council, its subsequent sacking and the prospect of another fours years without democratic representation in the region, met on August 16 at the Fraternity Club for a major anti-corruption conference.

  • FMLN calls for election support

    The people of El Salvador will go to the polls on January 18 for the legislative elections, then again on March 15 for the presidential ballot.

  • TAFE teachers strike against pay rip-off

    Two thousand striking Technical and Further Education (TAFE) teachers gathered at Melbourne’s Atheneum Theatre on August 20 to demand better pay and conditions. The last time Victorian TAFE teachers went on strike was under Jeff Kennett’s Coalition state government 13 years ago.

  • Sexism rears its ugly head again

    Around 150 women and men gathered on the lawns of the Mt Isa Civic Centre on August 19 to condemn Mayor John Moloney’s recent statement degrading women and to demand his resignation.

  • Telstra's union busting plan leaked

    Documents leaked from Telstra’s human resources department and released by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) to the Sydney Morning Herald on August 14, show that the company wants to bypass unions and impose a non-union collective agreement on its 32,000 employees, thereby cutting its annual wages bill by $50 million. On August 13, Telstra announced a $3.7 billion profit for the 2007-08 financial year.

  • Public servants reject below-inflation pay offer

    In a move eerily reminiscent of the lousy pay offers this year to NSW and Victorian public sector workers, the Queensland Labor government has offered staff at the Department of Main Roads a 3.25% per year increase for the three years of their current enterprise agreement. The offer is significantly below the official inflation rate in Brisbane of 5.1%, the highest of any capital city in Australia.

Analysis

  • Issy Wyner, 1916-2008

    When a teacher at Fort Street High School recommended that students read the economist John Maynard Keynes, the school boy Isadore Wyner suggested Karl Marx. Young Issy was reprimanded. This did not stop him from engaging with the world for another eight decades.

  • The vampire bleeding Australian cities

    The social impact of increasing petrol prices and mortgage costs, and persistent inflation, continues to deepen. The financial pressure on lower-income households across Australia has massively increased, according to Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe in their study Unsettling Suburbia: The New Landscape of Oil and Mortgage Vulnerability in Australian Cities, released through Griffith University on August 11.

  • A younger, greener council for Newcastle

    When you see the line-up of candidates running for Newcastle council in the September 13 elections, you notice the average demographic is seriously out of whack with that of the region.

  • Write on

    Fraternite, egalite and liberte? While I deeply share Luke Vanni's concerns (Write On #763) about the exploitation of women, I find the French State Council's decision to deny Faiza Silmi's application for citizenship on the basis of wearing a

  • Public transport: make it frequent, make it free

    On July 28, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed internal state government documents stating that even if prices for petrol, parking and road tolls increased massively, Sydney’s car use would still climb beyond NSW government targets by 2016.

  • NSW community housing tenants pay for cuts

    Low-income tenants in community housing will face greater hardship following a recent NSW government policy decision that means tenants will lose their rent assistance.

  • Bonded labour? Pacific 'guest worker' scheme

    This month the federal Labor government announced a pilot seasonal worker scheme in the horticulture industry. Under the trial, up to 2500 visas will be available over three years for workers from Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea to work in Australia for up to seven out of any 12 months. Swan Hill in Victoria and Griffith in NSW, among other horticultural districts, are being considered for the pilot.

World

  • Cuban unionist: The workers key participants in revolution

    Gilda Chacon is the Asia, Oceania, Africa and Middle East representative of the Cuban Confederation of Trade Unions (CTC) and an elected delegate of the People’s Power Municipal Assembly. Green Left Weekly’s Annolies Truman interviewed her during her August 17 – 20 visit to Perth to liaise with WA trade unions.

  • Bolivia: Right-wing rebellion spurs left offensive

    Violent attacks on police officers, roadblocks, civic stoppages enforced by armed fascist youth groups and threats to cut off meat supplies and take over gas fields have all been part of what left-wing Bolivian President Evo Morales has denounced as an attempted “civil coup” by “desperate people” following his August 10 recall referendum victory.

  • Venezuela: Pro-revolution candidates register, backed by thousands

    Over August 9-11, almost all of the candidates of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) registered for the upcoming November 23 state and regional elections in the National Electoral Council (CNE) office, many accompanied by large marches of their supporters.

  • Colombian regime launches new crackdown

    Taking advantage of the political capital it gained with the Colombian military rescue of high-profile Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) prisoner Ingrid Betancourt on July 2, the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has launched a major crackdown on political opponents and social movement leaders.

  • New Nepalese government finally formed

    For four months following the historic elections for a constituent assembly — which formally ended the monarchy and established a republic — the small Himalayan nation was in a state of limbo as right-wing forces disrupted attempts to establish a national consensus government.

  • Paraguay: Lugo sworn in, Chavez pledges aid

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has promised new Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo “all the oil he needs” during a public event in Uruguay after Lugo was inaugurated on August 15.

  • Ireland: Police know loyalist guns' location

    The admission by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) that it knows the location of loyalist paramilitary weapons dumps, is no surprise considering the involvement of police in the six counties that make up Northern Ireland with loyalist killer gangs over the years, according to Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey.

  • Tibet: China accused of shooting protesters

    The Dalai Lama has accused Chinese authorities in Tibet of opening fire on unarmed protesters, and alleged that at least 400 people had been killed since March, according to an August 22 AFP report.

Culture