Ombudsman accepts police 'twaddle' By Steve Painter SYDNEY — The Australian Federal Police have lied to the federal ombudsman over incidents at the Aidex '91 protests in Canberra in November last year, says Denis Doherty of the Anti-Bases
Issue 80
News
By Pip Hinman MELBOURNE — When 200,000 people take to the streets, as they did on November 10 despite the rain and patches of hail, the atmosphere is hard to describe. Photographs taken with a wide-angled lens or from helicopters can only
By Dave Wright and Peter Anderson HOBART — An arrogant Tasmanian premier, Ray Groom, made a surprise appearance at the November 11 demonstration protesting against the government's Industrial Relations Bill, to be presented next day. Guarded
Democrats will support repeal of 45D Victorian Senator Sid Spindler announced on November 12 that the Democrats would vote for the repeal of sections 45D and E of the Trade Practices Act. This is in line with party policy but is an about-face
Vigil mourns death of democracy By Sean Lennon and Pip Hinman MELBOURNE — A vigil began on the steps of Parliament House at 11 p.m. on November 12 to mark the passing into law of the Employee Relations Act. The ERA was passed by parliament
By Liam Mitchell ADELAIDE — The South Australian Labor Party State Council meeting on November 12 voted to sacrifice workers' compensation in order to avoid facing an early poll and likely defeat at the hands of an electorate which has
Protests commemorate Dili massacre Demonstrations in many Australian cities on November 12 and the following Saturday marked the first anniversary of the massacre of East Timorese civilians at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili by Indonesian
NSW resource security legislation shelved By Peter Anderson SYDNEY — The state government will not proceed with resource security legislation following the decision of a parliamentary committee to withdraw it for reconsideration. It is
By Karen Fredericks Dozens of countries have banned the Japanese freighter, Akatsuki Maru, from their territorial waters. Australia has not. The ship, which left the French port of Cherbourg on November 7, is carrying 1.7 tonnes of the highly
Phil Herington Phil Herington, active in the antiwar movement in Melbourne and later in the Australia Vietnam Society, died in Melbourne on November 2. A member of the Communist Party of Australia during the '70s, Phil was for many years the
Unions are planning a series of stoppages and actions to voice their opposition to the new industrial legislation. Members of the State Public Services Federation called on their members to refuse to deal with parliamentary papers on Friday,
World
MARK NEWHOUSE, ANC (WA) Youth and Student Representative, spoke to a Green Left Weekly forum in Perth on October 28 on the struggle for democracy in South Africa. His talk is presented here slightly abridged. A recent national meeting of
By Boris Kagarlitsky For almost a year now, the president and the government have been implementing their reforms. They started by promising us that prosperity would come in only seven or eight months. Later they told us that "as we warned
US ministers to run Cuba blockade By Stephen Marks The Interreligious Foundation of Community Organisations and Pastors For Peace are planning to run the US blockade against Cuba. A caravan of 45 vehicles from nine US cities will carry
By Tom Jordan and Norm Dixon The Papua New Guinea Defence Force has suffered significant setbacks in central Bougainville, the defending Bougainville Revolutionary Army has claimed. In the most important incident, BRA militants recaptured the
Powell meets NZ Alliance By Peter Anderson Independent Victorian Senator Janet Powell left for New Zealand on November 13 to address the conference of the Alliance about right-wing industrial relations policies, and to share information about
Sinn Fein activist murdered by UVF By Denis Kevans Sheena Campbell, a Sinn Fein activist, was murdered in Belfast last month. Sheena, 29, was a member of the Six County Sinn Fein Executive, and a woman's activist. Sheena was standing with
By Norm Dixon Apartheid collaborator Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party has intensified the appalling violence in South Africa's Natal Province and his KwaZulu bantustan fief. Inkatha is attempting to drive the African
By Jan Malewski Jozef Pinior, one of the historic leaders of the Polish worker-based democratic mass movement Solidarnosc, has been denied a hearing by the minister of justice to appeal his conviction stemming from the 1988 strikes that were
Nicaraguans commemorate Carlos Fonseca By Stephen Marks MANAGUA — The tomb of Carlos Fonseca in the Plaza of the Revolution was buried under a mound of flowers here on November 8. Fonseca, the founder of the Sandinista Front and the
More Britons face hardship By Frank Noakes LONDON — The sign outside the church proclaims: "Only Jesus saves". This is a lamentable truth in Britain today: no-one else can afford to. Recent statistics highlight the depth of misery in the
Intifada stirs as negotiations falter By Sean Malloy "It does not take much for any intelligent person, who visits the territories, to discover that life is still as sickening if not more so today than it was a few months ago. This leads
The main island group of the Philippines is the Visayas. The major islands are Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Negros, Panay, Romblon, Samar and Siquijor. Andrew Garton interviewed Maria Socorro, a community lawyer from PROCESS (Participatory Research,
Culture
Telling East Timor: Personal Testimonies 1942-1992 By Michele Turner New South Wales University Press 218 pp. $19.95 Reviewed by Lenore Tardif This book is the oral history of some of the most brutal human rights abuses in recent times. It
Gambling with our future How Super is Super? By Anna Pha Socialist Party of Australia Reviewed by Barry Healy Since the mid-'80s, Australian workers have been herded into superannuation schemes through a government and ACTU-agreed plan to
Making politics musically By Chris Spindler If you have the chance to see Seven Sisters play at the Aboriginal Women's Music Festival in Sydney in December, don't miss it. You'll be treated, as the Adelaide Cultural Dissent crowd was on
By Kaye Dixon At seven years old, when visiting the city from Mallacouta, Sal Rees practised drop kicks with her grandfather in the backyard at Coburg. Her grandfather, Henry Flogg and her father, Don Rees, played football for Brunswick.
Bill will be laughing out of the other side Why does the jacket of Chris Kelly's new book of cartoons carry a comment from newly elected US President Bill Clinton? Probably because Chris didn't ask for one from the queen. Of course, what
Mad Bomber in Love Producer: George Mannix Director: James Bogle Opens November 27 at the AFI Cinema in Sydney Reviewed by Karen Fredericks A week before they were due to start shooting Mad Bomber In Love, George Mannix and James Bogle
Strictly ballroom, in Swedish House of Angels Directed by Colin Nutley Starring Helena Bergstrom and Rikard Wolff Reviewed by Wayne Ruscoe English director Colin Nutley's third Swedish-based film has had the kind of runaway success in that
What Should Unions Do? Michael Easson and Michael Crosby (eds) Pluto Press, 394 pp. $24.95. The Challenge for Unions: Workers versus the New Right By John Wishart Left Book Club, 86 pp. $14.95 Reviewed by Michael Rafferty Ten years ago,
Mary Christmas Cartoonist Rona Chadwick, whose cartoons readers will have seen in Green Left Weekly, has a series of "Mary Xmas" cards especially suited to the holiday season. For a free catalogue of these and other designs, send a stamped,
Fiji miners' strike on SBS SBS television is to screen Na Ma'e! Na Ma'e! (We Stand Until We Die!), a graphic documentary about the continuing strike at the Fijian gold mining town of Vatukoula, on Sunday, November 22, at 4 p.m. The bitter
Editorial
Telecom privatisation It was not surprising to read that the man who gave Sydney a white elephant at Darling Harbour and a leaky monorail is now following a much bigger quarry, the privatisation of Telecom. One of Labor's "mates", Laurie