By Dave Riley "It's started, hasn't it? I thought so. There'll be no peace until it's over." "Come on, Mum, "I said, "It's only election time. Over the next few weeks, we get to compare one party's wares with another." "Ummmph!", she said, and went
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Attack by Neo-Nazis MELBOURNE — The house and car of anti-Nazi activists David Glanz and Judy McVey were attacked in the early hours of January 27. Swastikas were sprayed on the house and swastika and SS symbols on the car, which also had its
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South Africa since the elections Post-apartheid South Africa will mark its second birthday at the end of April. NORM DIXON was there as a 91̳ Weekly correspondent in the months before and after the country's first democratic elections. Here he
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Sarah Stephen Squabbling over seats In recent weeks, Australian Democrat leader Senator Cheryl Kernot has launched a public attack on the Australian Greens and their leader, Bob Brown, for daring to run a Senate election campaign in Tasmania.
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Sexual harassment at the top Sexual harassment is rife in this society, including in the high-flying finance sector. On January 22, corporate giant Bankers Trust was taken to the Equal Opportunity Tribunal (EOT) after harassment charges were laid by
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Comment by Alex Bainbridge "Left wins control of national student union" was the headline of an article printed in the Australian on January 10, reporting on the newly elected National Executive of the National Union of Students (NUS). Since NUS's
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Call for East Timor day of solidarity Last week Jose Ramos Horta, special representative of the National Council for Maubere Resistance (CNRM) called on all people in Australia to add their support to the campaign to demand a withdrawal of the
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By Pip Hinman Voter alienation from the two major parties is fast becoming a hot topic of debate. Surveys, feature articles and even small booklets such as the recently published Politicians and Citizens: Rights and Responsibilities, by the Catholic
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Based on highly reliable international contacts, leaked documents and horoscopes from several TV magazines, Nostradamus' Media Watch presents a highly accurate forecast of political events across the globe. Government job creation scheme uncovered
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Protest against French test MELBOURNE — The No More Hiroshimas Coalition organised an emergency protest at City Square on January 28 in response to the latest French nuclear test. Around 50 people listened to speakers point out the dangers of
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Zionism Zionism reached its zenith when Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since then it has been going through the agonising process of coming to grips with Middle East political and ethnic realities. My contention is that an
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By Renay Albert I have just returned from a trip to the Tarkine rainforest in Tasmania to see for myself what is happening to Australia's wilderness areas. What I found was shocking and heartbreaking. One minute you are walking through fairytale
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By Alison Dellit The launch of the ALP's youth initiatives on January 29 continued the federal government's trend of encouraging low youth "training" wages and government subsidies to business. Sounding much like an earlier Labor PM's pledge that "no
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The USA's vanishing forests By Peter Montague Trees are sick and dying everywhere in the US. At first blush this seems like an extreme statement. But a new book, The Dying of the Trees by Charles Little, will convince you it is true. This book gives
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BRISBANE — "The Fight for Land Rights" was the topic of the first Resistance meeting for 1996, held here on January 27. Speakers addressed the topic of how to create a society in which Aboriginal people have justice, in a country where 208 years of
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Resources "The first step to knowledge is to know that we are ignorant." — Lord David Cecil Many readers have written to me seeking various kinds of information. In large part I have not been able to answer those letters because there are too few
News
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By Mick White BRISBANE — Aboriginal leaders slammed the reconciliation process at a summit here last week. On Wednesday, January 31, at a rally at King George Square, protest leaders called for a return to the tactics of non-violent confrontation
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By James Vassilopoulos CANBERRA — Campaign Against Nuclear Testing has decided to support the Democratic Socialists in the March 2 election. CANT is the group which last year organised actions opposing French nuclear testing and Australian mining
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By Norm Dixon The Honiara home and office of the Solomon Islands representative of the Bougainville Interim Government, Martin Miriori, was fire bombed in the early hours of February 1. The attack, suspected to have been carried out by agents of the
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By Bill Mason BRISBANE — The Queensland Labor government is on the edge of defeat, following a likely Liberal win in the vital by-election in Mundingburra on February 3. Despite late polls showing a trend toward the ALP hanging on to the
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By Sean Moysey CANBERRA — ACT Greens lead senate candidate Deborah Foskey launched the Australian Greens' work and employment policy outside the CES office in Civic on February 2. Foskey said that the "solution to unemployment is linked to sound
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By Nick Fredman SYDNEY — Relations between the NSW Teachers Federation and the Carr Labor government have further soured over a dispute involving forced transfers from Lurnea High School. This is the third time the union has been at odds with the
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By Lisa Macdonald The Australia Cuba Friendship Society (ACFS) is participating in a project initiated by the San Francisco-based aid organisation Global Exchange to help Cubans grow and process soy beans as a much-needed source of protein for
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By Tim Gooden CANBERRA — Having previously voted to give the minority Liberal government two weeks to negotiate an enterprise agreement with them, Canberra unions discovered on January 30 that ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell had rejected their
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By Marcus Greville SYDNEY — Public pressure is continuing to try to force roads minister Michael Knight to honour the state Labor government's election promise to disband the construction of the controversial M2 motorway. However, the government's
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WASHINGTON, DC — Medical experts have confirmed that changes in global climate due to the burning of oil, coal and gas, and the release of ozone-depleting chemicals, are likely to accelerate the already unprecedented emergence of infectious
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By Jen Crothers The federal government has allocated $2.795 million over three years for an additional 175 undergraduate places at Southern Cross University (SCU) in Queensland. All places are funded under the Commonwealth Industry Places Scheme
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By Kylie Moon HOBART — More than 200 people rallied outside Parliament House on January 31, launching phase two of the campaign to save the Tarkine wilderness in north-west Tasmania. The rally was called by the Greens to coincide with the official
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By Nick Soudakoff Canberra — A mass meeting of university workers on January 30 voted to reject the federal government's offer of a 5.6% wage increase funded by a loan at 4% interest.The meeting voted to begin a "low intensity" industrial campaign
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Reliable "The SS were confirmed anticommunists, and the Americans felt they could be relied on to fight against the Russians." — Wilhelm Hoettl, one of a group of Austrian Nazis SS personnel recruited by the US in 1947 to act as underground
Analysis
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Coalition leader John Howard has pulled out all stops to buy the votes of environmentalists on March 2. His four year "green plan", costed at $1 billion, is more than double the amount promised by Labor. However, there's a poisoned chalice in its
World
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By Norm Dixon Workers in the small landlocked kingdom of Swaziland are spearheading a determined campaign for democracy despite threats of violence from traditional supporters of King Mswati III. Swaziland is paralysed by a general strike, which
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To stop mass murder, we are sending this news with anger. You know the name of Tokyo as the most developed city of the world, but you do not know that the Tokyo metropolitan government plans treason against human beings at a new city centre,
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By Eva Cheng Activists are putting local and international pressure on the Hong Kong police after eight participants in a peaceful demonstration of 30 on safety and health for toy workers were physically attacked or arrested on January 10. The
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By Lisa Macdonald The decision by well-known consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader to challenge US President Bill Clinton as a Green Party candidate in the 1996 presidential elections is causing some ripples in US politics. The 62-year-old Nader will
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The Chinese government has made a few clumsy attempts recently to curb information exchange between the Chinese people and the outside world.
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Three anti-nuclear activists from Melbourne walked 1000 kilometres from Kiev in Ukraine, through Belarus to Smolensk in Russia. They were taking part in an anti-nuclear walk that began in Brussels in January and ended in Moscow on October 13, 1995.
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The wave of strikes and political actions in December brought France to a standstill. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in demonstrations that in some cities were larger than in 1968. ARUN PRADHAN and ANNE O'CALLAGHAN spoke to ALAIN
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By Norm Dixon The African National Congress has ruled out a continuation of power sharing after the 1999 elections. Under constitutional agreements prior to the 1994 elections, minority parties are guaranteed positions in the cabinet of the
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By Jennifer Thompson 750,000 Palestinians — 75% of registered voters — in the West Bank and Gaza Strip participated in the election of an 88-seat Palestinian Legislative Council and its president on January 20. The high participation rate — in
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Tahitian politics after the tests As the French nuclear tests drew to an end, and with elections for the Territorial Assembly of French Polynesia scheduled for March, JAN MALEWSKI spoke to GABRIEL TETIARAHI, president of Hiti Tau, about Tahitian
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By Norm Dixon The spectre of the "third force" is again haunting South African politics after national police commissioner George Fivaz revealed that 33 police have been identified as suspects in the horrific Christmas Day massacre at Shobashobane in
Culture
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You Can Touch Me ... I'm Part of the Union — At a time when union membership is plummeting, one union has decided to take on a group of workers long neglected. Australian sex workers can now join the Victorian branch of the Miscellaneous Workers
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Programs of interest on Sydney Community TV (UHF 31) — Perleeka, indigenous Australians' program, nightly, 7pm. Art Experimenta, Mondays, 8pm and 11.30pm, and Tuesdays, 3am and 6.30am. Bent TV, gay and lesbian program, Thursdays, 10.30pm and
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Devil in a Blue DressTristar PicturesWritten and directed by Carl FranklinBased on the novel by Walter MosleyStarring Denzel Washington, Jennifer Beal and Don CheadleReleased nationally on February 8Reviewed by Norm Dixon Devil in a Blue Dress is a
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"Militarism, Colonialism, and the Trafficking of Women: 'Comfort Women' Forced into Sexual Labor for Japanese Soldiers"By Watanabe KazukoBulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 26, No. 4, Oct-Dec 1994Reviewed by Eva Cheng Kazuko's lengthy article
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Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical MaterialismBy Ellen Meiksins WoodCambridge University Press, 1995. 300 pp., $29.95 (pb)Reviewed by Neville Spencer The relative quiescence of working-class movements in the advanced capitalist world
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The Mardi Gras Film FestivalAcademy Twin Cinema, SydneyFebruary 15-28, 1996Organised by Queer ScreenPreviewed by Philippa Marsden The Mardi Gras Film Festival, organised by community-based arts organisation Queer Screen, is being held again at the
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ResistanceDirected by Paul Elliot and Hugh Keays-ByrneAt Chauvel Cinema, Paddington Town Hall, from February 15Reviewed by Trish Corcoran The Australian government has declared a state of emergency. Troops are being deployed to take action against
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BabeA Kennedy/Miller productionReviewed by Mary Westwood If you go to see this film seeking only story and scenery, you will come away delighted and charmed. But on going further into the production, behind the scenes, you feel you have witnessed a
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By Bronwen Beechey MELBOURNE — One of this city's most popular and enduring cultural events, the St Kilda Festival, is almost under way again. Perhaps best known for its street festival and free beach concert (this year featuring Chocolate Starfish
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Eyewitness: protest stories from IndonesiaBy Seno Gumira AjidarmaTranslated by Jan Lingard with Bibi Langkar and Suzan PiperSydney: Inprint Books, 1995. 138 pp., $14.95Reviewed by Michael Tardif The occupation of the Russian and Dutch embassies in
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Those who came before us Forgot their mission — Dropped the torch, And while they were asleep Darkness clothed itself as light And again stole through the doors. As the children of those times Is it not we — Who, opening our eyes, Must surely