Greens stand for Yabsley's seat SYDNEY — The Eastern Suburbs Greens have preselected Geoff Ash as their candidate for the seat of Vaucluse in the upcoming state election. Ash stood as the Greens' candidate for Wentworth in the February 1990
Issue 9
News
By Melanie Sjoberg MELBOURNE — Genuine job creation was the main theme of an April 14 unemployment summit attended by around 40 people here. Organised by groups including the Unemployed Workers Union and the Campaign Against Poverty and
By Steve Painter SYDNEY — Paul Hill, wrongfully imprisoned in Britain for 15 years, is visiting Australia on behalf of the campaign to free Tim Anderson (CEFTA). In 1974, Hill was the first person arrested under Britain's Prevention of
Middle East coalition established By Sue Bull SYDNEY — Despite media rumours that the peace movement has packed up shop due to the US victory in the Gulf War, a new group here — Middle East Action Coalition — has called for a picket on
By Peter Boyle Nobody could accuse the ACTU leadership of strategic genius. They locked themselves into the Labor government's rigged wages system right through the boom of the '80s, systematically opposing any attempt to pursue claims outside the
Gladstone strike threatened By Bill Mason BRISBANE — A major row is brewing over the dismissal without warning of 90 workers at Comalco's Boyne Island aluminium smelter near Gladstone. Preparations for the use of scabs to keep the plant going
Police racism exposed By Leon Harrison PERTH — Police in WA, Queensland and NSW have been severely criticised in a report on violence against young Aborigines. Interviews with youths held in detention revealed 88% claimed to have been
Three hundred university students from all over Sydney besieged the offices of the ALP in a noisy protest against campus overcrowding on April 16, reports Barry Healy. A rock band from Sydney University played protest songs written especially for the
By Kerry Parnell SYDNEY — The fundamental cause of world environmental destruction, according to environmental activist Georgina Abrahams, is heteropatriarchy. She says that the key to a green future lies in phasing out masculine values on both a
South Sydney Greens select candidates SYDNEY — South Sydney Greens have announced candidates for two seats in the coming NSW elections. Well-attended meetings in Redfern and Newtown selected Mark Berriman to contest the seat of Heffron and
HOBART — Asia-Pacific Action Group wishes to express its deep regret and loss at the recent deaths of two special Tasmanian green activists, Rory Doohan and Gavin McKenzie. Both Gavin and Rory devoted their recent lives to preserving the planet
By Dick Nichols SYDNEY — With uranium policy set to dominate the June Federal Conference of the ALP, an umbrella group of antinuclear campaigners, Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Australia, is moving to fight any attempt by the Hawke government to
By Melanie Sjoberg MELBOURNE — At 193 Smith Street, Fitzroy, opposite the Collingwood Post Office, is the shopfront office of the International Women's Development Agency. People come in off the street to talk, volunteers come in to work. The
Council to vote on 'Sydneygong' By Dick Nichols SYDNEY — April 29 will be a critical day for the environment in Australia. That evening Wollongong City Council, run by right-wing "independents", will vote on whether to allow industrial and
By David Brazil SYDNEY — The NSW state government is facing strong criticism from environmental groups over its proposed Environment Protection Authority (EPA). Legislation to establish the new body, which is to replace the State Pollution
Senior nurses fight for jobs By Susan Price BRISBANE — About 150 senior nursing staff and supporters demonstrated outside Parliament House on April 10, calling for an end to the Goss Labor government's plans to abolish senior nursing positions
Men Against Sexual Assault group formed By Brad Adamson BRISBANE — A branch of Men Against Sexual Assault has formed here and will be holding a rally and march through the city streets on May 11. MASA held its first rally in Melbourne in
World
DMITRY SOLONNIKOV is an editor of the Leningrad youth journal Noyaya Gazeta (New Newspaper) and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Federation of Socialist Youth of the USSR. He was interviewed for Green Left by RENFREY CLARKE. What are
NEW YORK — "Media reports on the destruction of Iraq caused by US and allied bombing do not begin to describe the cruel reality that these bombings have imposed on the people." This is the assessment of eyewitness investigators from the Commission
By Norm Dixon The Papua New Guinea government has torn up the peace accord it signed with Bougainville leaders in Honiara in January and launched an invasion of the northern part of the island. Three hundred PNG Defence Force troops have now been
Emir's nephew on drug charge The nephew of the emir of Kuwait has been arrested in Cairo on charges of trafficking in heroin. Talal Nasser al Sabah was arrested as he allegedly tried to sell two pounds of heroin to an undercover policeman. The
By Peter Annear PRAGUE — The steady world in which the ordinary people of Mala Strana (Prague's "Lesser Town") "lived for 40 years has all of a sudden been transformed into something uncertain, something that has lost its contours and its
By Steve Painter "Maggie Thatcher has used the word 'war' quite often in relation to the north of Ireland, but there is not a declared war. IRA and other paramilitary prisoners are not treated as soldiers but as criminals. But then the British
The world's largest expanse of uncut forest — the northern forest of the Soviet Union — could be subject to new logging pressures as the Soviet Union invites foreign investment and joint ventures with European, Japanese, Korean, and North
A popular joke in Hungary has it that the former communist Socialist Workers Party (HSWP) government needed 40 years to lose moral support of the people; for the Hungarian Democratic Forum, one year was enough. The HDF-led government is shifting
Guatemalan unionist tortured Otto Ivan Rodriguez, former general secretary of STINDE, the electrical utility workers' union in Guatemala, was captured by security forces on April 5. He has been visited by Guatemala's human rights ombudsman who,
The US government's pretext for the invasion of Panama in December 1989 was the alleged involvement in drug trafficking of Panamanian President Manuel Noriega. That pretext is now becoming seriously unstuck with revelations that Noriega's
A massive dam planned for China's Yangtze River has been placed on the Ten Year Plan and passed by the Seventh Session of the Thirteenth Conference of the Communist Party. The Three Gorges Dam, which will be the largest ever built, had been the
Chamorro connection A former Nicaraguan contra leader accused two government ministers of drug trafficking on April 13. The ex-contra claims that development minister Brooklyn Rivera and fisheries minister Javier Morales have been helping the
By David Robie AUCKLAND — Thousands of New Zealanders have taken to the streets recently as unpopular labour and social welfare reforms by the government draw a bitter backlash. The country's century-old industrial relations system is due to be
By Peter Annear PRAGUE — A grim picture of the performance of the Czechoslovak economy during 1990 is painted by the Report of the Federal Statistical Office on Economic and Social Development, released in March. The report says defensively that
Culture
The Incredible Exploding Man By John Jiggens Reviewed by Angela Matheson The larger than life events surrounding the Hilton bombing and subsequent trial and conviction of Tim Anderson are the subject of The Incredible Exploding Man. Anderson was
Story by Angela Matheson Photo by Lisa Iley SYDNEY — Street performers at Circular Quay are downing unicycles and banding together to protest against the threatened banning of busking. Shopkeepers annoyed by large crowds gathering at
The Boots Are Marching EM = By Ken Setter A million boots are marching Treading new ground And the earth trembles If you want to live in peace they say Prepare for war. We have depleted the land Poisoned the rivers Still men around the
Peter Hicks — Debut Album Lyrics by Peter Hicks and Geoff Francis Featuring National Labour Day Song Award winner "One More Day Than Them" Stonewall ST066, $15 Reviewed by Bruce Marlowe In Australia songs of solidarity and protest have found
An Unwinnable War Against Drugs: The Politics of Decriminalisation By Terry Carney, Les Drew, John Mathews, Stephen Mugford and Alex Wodak Pluto Press. 73 pp. $6.95 Reviewed by Barry Healy As the cost of the "drug war" is counted up in the number
Agenda for Change: An International Analysis of Industrial Relations in Transition Edited by John Niland and Oliver Clarke Sydney: Allen & Unwin. 1991. Paperback, 208pp. Reviewed by Melanie Sjoberg Using a series of case studies of industrial
Pretty Smart em = By Lachlan Irvine This white feller, he's pretty smart. Got all the education, all the money; But what he does with it sometimes To me it can seem pretty funny. Give our young boys grog, then lock 'em away, Make 'em feel
Editorial
Editorial: No accident "I suggest you get big steel doors on your house and sleep under the bed, not in it", said Sydney barrister Chris Murphy after a June 17 NSW Police Tribunal ruling on the June 17, 1990, shooting of Darren Brennan in the