Telstra sell-off condemned
BRISBANE — Members of the Community and Public Sector Union gathered outside Telstra House on November 6 for a lunchtime picket to oppose government plans to privatise the country's telecommunications giant.
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Two contests on the first Tuesday in November attracted a lot of media attention. While the Melbourne Cup results surprised a few, the outcome of the big race in the northern hemisphere — the US presidential elections — was never in doubt.
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A lengthy new report from the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences [NIEHS] describes serious deterioration of the male reproductive system in many regions of the world and suggests it may be caused by
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Adam Burling Boral is the second largest hardwood eucalypt woodchip exporter in the world, exporting 859,000 tonnes per annum from Tasmania and licensed to export up to 453,600 tonnes from NSW. In NSW, Boral owns 60% of timber concessions, 75% in
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The Liberal-Democrat deal on the amendments to the Workplace Relations Bill will very seriously undermine the ability of working people to organise effectively in defence of their interests. This is what the government
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After organising a very successful rally of 5000 people on November 2, the Brisbane Anti-Racist Campaign (ARC) has called for a national day of action against racism on November 23. Roberto Jorquera told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that the call came from
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Is the ACTU's living wage case a salvation for the growing number of working poor, or is it merely a public relations stunt to make the ACTU appear relevant to workers? The ACTU has lodged a claim before the Australian
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Will you rebel? "It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us." — Albert Camus Consider the following list citing mistakes that have been made by an entire nation mired in the self-righteous and pretentious pit
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Politicians have talked about democracy for 300 years and now people have come to expect it. Ask any American and they'll tell you that democracy is a self-evident truth. It's even written down somewhere. The authority of the state is so tarnished
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A lively anti-racism public meeting in Melbourne on November 6 echoed the calls from other cities for a national day of action against racism. Sue Bolton reports that more than 60 people turned up to hear Lam Nguyen, a Vietnamese secondary student;
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Racism and the Melbourne CupAustralian history likes to recall its underdogs and battlers. Everyone seems to recall the game that Collingwood won against all odds, the horse that came from nowhere and the painter on the Harbour
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The 1996-97 ACT budget launched a new Liberal government program to move people out of secure and affordable public housing and into the private home-buyers market. The "Kickstart" program is the result of the suspension of the ACT
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There was little surprise in the announcement on October 29 that the Affirmative Action Agency's already limited ability to tackle discrimination in employment and education was to be weakened even further. The agency, which implements the 1986
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In August, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made an agreement with DuPont Agricultural Products to reduce risks to US farm workers from methomyl, an insecticide used on a variety of crops. The agreement calls for reductions of maximum use
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If recent polls are to be believed, a majority of Australians are in favour stopping immigration at least in the short term. According to a November 2-3 AGB-McNair poll, 62% are in favour of a "short term freeze", and a Bulletin
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CTBT Before replying to Allen Myer's "CTBT: don't be fooled" (GLW #252), might I just point out that I wrote that the fate of the Soviet Union (not the fact of the Soviet Union) should be enough evidence to show that nuclear weapons do not provide
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SYDNEY — Activists from around Australia met here on November 3 for the annual national consultation of the Committees in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean (CISLAC). The consultation was preceded by a public seminar
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Sydney's Campaign Against Racism coalition decided at its meeting on November 8 to organise a "Rally Against Racism" on November 23 as part of the national day of action called by the Brisbane Anti-Racism Campaign. The Sydney coalition's decision
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91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly's JORGE ANDRES spoke to Australian Greens Senator BOB BROWN about the renewed debate on immigration. Question: How do you see the issue of limits on immigration? The limits have to be set according to changing circumstances.
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In the second in a three-part series on the history of the student movement in Australia, MARINA CAMERON spoke to JORGE JORQUERA about the lessons from the free education campaign in the 1980s. Jorquera was an activist in that campaign, secretary of
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After a successful speak-out against racism in Civic on October 31, an Anti-Racist Coalition has formed in Canberra. The coalition has called a "Unity Against Racism" rally on November 23 as part of the national day of action. Sue Bull reports that
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Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Thursday, 7pm. Access News — Melbourne community TV, Channel 31, has
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A strategy to defeat Howard must involve as wide as possible an alliance of paid and unpaid workers, unions, community groups, academics, and others. The Senate can do little more than temper the extremes of Coalition ideology. The
News
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Doctors impose bans and rolling stoppagesNEWCASTLE — Up to 2000 doctors from NSW's public hospitals walked off the job to attend stop-work meetings on November 6. The meetings were called by the Public Service Association
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Support needed for 'people's reconciliation resolution' SYDNEY — The National Aboriginal History and Heritage Council is proposing an alternative "people's reconciliation resolution" to the one which will be put to state parliament by Labor
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Kennett bans taxi magazine MELBOURNE — This month's issue of the main Victorian taxi industry magazine, Taxi Call, has been withdrawn from the streets following disapproval by the Kennett state government. The 2500-copy print run was released a
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Women unionists support Indonesia campaignADELAIDE — The "Free Dita Sari" campaign has obtained the support of a group of women trade unionists who met on November 4. The group includes representatives of the Community and
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MELBOURNE — Workers in the La Trobe Valley took united strike action on November 7 against the state government's decimation of health services. Power station workers, bus drivers, teachers and health staff at both the Moe and
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Indonesians under the bed The Australian Candidate Study (conducted by academics at the ANU, UNSW and UQ), which surveyed 435 Coalition, Labor, Democrat and Green candidates in the last federal election (including 105 who now have seats in
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SYDNEY — Some 700 students and staff from the St George campus of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), plus members of the local community, attended a spirited rally at Oatley on November 7. Dotted with placards proclaiming
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Western Sydney women reclaim the nightPARRAMATTA — More than 100 women and children from Sydney's western suburbs participated in a spirited Reclaim the Night march and rally on October 24 under the banner of "Women's and
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Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown has raised the alarm over the so-called exemptions for environmental and consumer actions from being defined as "illegal" under the Coalition-Democrat amendments to the Workplace Relations
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Imagine a forest scene of such beauty it could be the cover of a fantasy novel. Picture trees so wide that a group of five people standing with their arms stretched and their hands linked could not form a complete circle around the
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PERTH — On November 8, around 150 people gathered in Murray Street mall to hold a speak-out against racism and intolerance. Organised by the socialist youth organisation Resistance, and co-sponsored by a broad range of other
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Union organiser run down on picket lineCANBERRA — On November 7, at a picket line established outside the government workshops in Fyshwick, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union organiser Geoff McGowan-Lay was run down
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Concern is growing over the increasing harassment of Chilean activists Daniel Sanchez San Juan and Lorena Astorga, both members of the Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights in Chile (ODEP). Daniel toured Australia in 1995 to
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Less than two years ago, thousands of people took to the streets around Australia to protest against the Labor government's expansion of the woodchipping export quotas and the granting of licences to woodchip areas of high
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BRISBANE — The vicious smear campaign mounted by the Brisbane Courier-Mail newspaper against respected historian Professor Manning Clark over the past few months has been demolished by revelations from the Russian government that
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MELBOURNE — Members of the National Tertiary Education and Industry Union at the University of Melbourne have resolved to resist management's attacks. Emerging out of negotiations with the university on October 25, the NTEU Single
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'British government to privatise social security' says visiting unionistBRISBANE — "The privatisation process undertaken by the Conservative government in Britain in the Department of Social Security has been disastrous", Vicki
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Workers' health and safety more at risk On November 6, WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts expressed fear for workers' health and safety after the Democrats and Coalition blocked attempts to have occupational health and safety issues incorporated in the
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At the beginning of October, the former publicly owned Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, now CSL Limited, announced a breakthrough discovery — a therapeutic vaccine against a bacterium which causes peptic ulcers and sometimes
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Federal cabinet decided on November 8 to deny Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams the right of entry only recently granted to him by the United States, the UK and Canada. By Australian government standards, Adams is not considered of "good
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The defeat of the Bill Ethel leadership in the elections of the Western Australian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union is a blow to the already too small left wing in the union officialdom. The prize goes to the Labor Party,
World
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Turkish military kills Iraqi refugees Thirty Iraqi refugees from the fighting in Iraqi Kurdistan were killed by Turkish security forces north of the Turkish border with Iraq in the last week of October, according to the International Federation of
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The South African parliament has overwhelmingly passed a new law that entrenches the right of women to free, safe abortion. The Termination of Pregnancy Bill has been hailed as one of the best reproductive rights laws in the world.
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MOSCOW — In one of the largest political gatherings in the Russian capital since the late 1980s, tens of thousands of workers demonstrated near Red Square on November 5 in a trade union-organised rally "For Work, Wages and
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Elections herald cuts in social wage The stock markets of New York, Tokyo, Paris and London surged ahead in celebration of the re-election of President Clinton, and well they should from the point of view of the super-rich. Stability and
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The following is abridged from a letter written by three political prisoners in Leavenworth Federal Prison, Kansas, USA. FBI director Louis Freeh [has] urged members of Congress to hold hearings concerning ways to further limit the already restricted
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The Taliban's capture of Kabul in September has sent shock waves throughout Central Asia. Fearing the prospect of the Afghan civil war spilling over into the former Soviet south, Russia and the governments of four Central Asian
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In 1953 US President Dwight Eisenhower announced plans for the "peaceful atom". The shining star of this program was to be thousands of nuclear-powered electricity-generating plants, worldwide, making electricity "too cheap to
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On November 4, president of the "illegal" Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Kwon Young-kil, began an indefinite hunger strike in protest at recent manoeuvres by the government and employer groups to finalise a year-long industrial
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An Israeli company has unloaded arms and military surveillance equipment on Bougainville for the Papua New Guinea Defence Force, the Bougainville Interim Government reports. On October 29, the BIG said bombs and other armaments were shipped on the
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ZANU-PF drops Marxism Zimbabwe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has formally dropped allegiance to Marxism-Leninism from its constitution, the party's newspaper announced on October 26. Party spokesperson Eddison
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On November 9, the second Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor (APCET II) opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in defiance of calls by the Malaysian government not to proceed. On November 7, the government took its first action to prevent
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MANAGUA — Nicaragua has lived a form of virtual reality since the national elections held on October 20. Widespread accusations of fraud have delayed the final declaration of the results and the "virtual" victory of Arnoldo
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Anti-government rebels in eastern Zaire have taken control of large areas of the provinces of South Kivu and North Kivu. Contrary to the mainstream media's simplistic description of the revolt as a "tribal conflict", it is becoming
Culture
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Poem: Prolific Plantings Prolific Plantings These carefully sown crops selectively planted in welcoming settings to blossom like fireworks bursting from receptive mother earth instant blossoms of blood red hue spattered with flesh and
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State of BewildermentBased on the work of Michael LeunigPerformed by Trestle Theatre CompanyDrama Theatre, Sydney Opera HouseFrom November 7Reviewed by Brendan Doyle An angel flits above the noisy, dusty city. Vasco Pyjama rows across the stage in an
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Second SkinGhostwritersPolygramReviewed by Marcus Greville The Ghostwriters have produced a very strong album, incorporating brooding vocals with a large variety of instrumental depth and melody within each track. Unfortunately, the depth of musical
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Radio MaliAli Farka ToureWorld Circuit through FestivalReviewed by Norm Dixon When Ali Farka Toure's sublime music first became widely available outside his west African homeland of Mali, in the late 1980s, it created quite a stir among blues freaks.
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intro = For the Common Good: CSIRO and Public Sector Research and DevelopmentEdited by Peter EwerPluto Press, 1996. 102 pp., $19.95 (pb)Reviewed by Dot Tumney The CSIRO division of the Community and Public Sector Union sponsored this monograph on
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Pathways to AsiaEdited by Richard RobisonAllen and Unwin, 1996, $24.95Reviewed by James Goodman Beginning in the mid-1980s, "looking north to Asia" emerged as the official Australian answer to intensified globalisation. Australian living standards
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No Safe PlaceMary-Rose MacCollAllen and Unwin, 1996. 173pp., $14.95Reviewed by Tony Smith It is an understatement to say that Adele Lanois has a problem. She has lots. Her mother appears in daytime visions. Her father worries about her, advises her,
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Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and their War on the Industrial RevolutionBy Kirkpatrick SaleQuartet, 1996. 320 pp., $21.95 (pb)Reviewed by Phil Shannon "Luddite" is used these days to deride anyone who resists the march of technology. Those