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A divided Sydney City Council on October 29 renewed News Corps’ contentious newspaper distribution license with the Lord Mayor Clover Moore's Community Independent Team split down the middle.

@9point non = SYDNEY — The November 2 Reclaim the Night rally, attended by 50 people, in Hyde Park demanded that the federal government increase funding to women’s refuge services by 40% and provide funding to assist women and children to stay in their homes once the violent offender is removed.

Organisers of the Footscray Racism No Festival have joined forces with the March for Multiculturalism to stage a “Big Day Out Against Racism” on November 17. The day will start with a street march beginning at 1pm at the State Library and participants will then be asked to make their way to the festival in Footscray, starting at 4pm at the Footscray Primary School.

Assistant state secretary of the Western Australian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Joe McDonald, was expelled from the Australian Labor Party on October 26, on the recommendation of Labor leader Kevin Rudd. Earlier this year Rudd had failed to have the militant unionist expelled, and the ALP had stated that it would await the outcome of McDonald’s six charges for “trespass” on Perth building sites before making a decision.

The movement to oppose genetically modified crops and foods in Australia received international support for its campaign with the October tour of the Consumers’ Union of Japan (CUJ).

Twenty-one years ago Jackie Kriz, an Australian Nurses Federation job representative, took part in Victoria’s landmark nurses’ dispute of 1986. As a young Geelong nurse she remembers the long campaign where nurses went from being professionals who would never strike to industrial campaigners.

On October 15, on a vote of five to three, a Sydney City Council planning committee voted to send the development applications (DAs) for the distribution of mX, City Weekly and 9 to 5 to the next council meeting for approval.

5000 state sector nurses crammed into Melbourne’s Festival Hall and voted unanimously to end their industrial action and accept a four year enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) at an Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) mass meeting on October 25.

Money for nothing "The biggest banks in the United States, with active encouragement from the Treasury Department, unveiled a plan yesterday to keep the housing-related debt crisis from worsening. If the banks' initiative works as planned … the

On September 21 about 200 people attended a forum on Sri Lanka organised by People for Human Rights and Racial Equality, a group comprising Sri Lankans of different ethnic groups living in Australia.

More than 400 people participated in around 65 workshops and 10 plenary sessions to discuss a myriad of national and international campaigns against imperialism and neoliberalism at the Latin America and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum held at Victorian Trades Hall and the RMIT on October 11-14. The participants included 33 activists and leaders from people’s movements and political parties in 20 countries, the most diverse left gathering hosted in Australia for years.

On October 13, 450 supporters of the Burmese democracy movement, including members of Sydney’s Burmese community, trade unionists, and members of the Greens and the Socialist Alliance, rallied in Martin Place.