Environment versus the market"Industry" has a bad name among environmentalists. The mental picture that most of us form when we hear the word is a chimney belching poisonous gases or a pipe pouring toxic wastes into a
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ADELAIDE — The largest demonstrations against Pauline Hanson's racist agenda occurred here on June 12 as 3000-4000 people protested outside her One Nation party meeting in Findon and 10,000 attended a rally and march in the
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Kleenex boycott A meeting of local residents and conservationists held in Apollo Bay on June 6-8 voted unanimously to reject an offer to meet with the multinational corporation Kimberly Clark about the current consumer boycott of Kleenex
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Unfettered freedomUnfettered freedom By Brandon Astor Jones and Sarah Nurses "The African is conditioned, by the cultural and social institutions of centuries, to a freedom of which Europe has little conception, and it is not in his
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In the early 1990s, British researchers at Brunel University in Uxbridge noticed that male fish living downstream from a sewage treatment plant near London had testes laden with eggs. The male fish had become hermaphrodites
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Health care workers, academics and doctors have called for an inquiry into the "flagship" of the projected armada of privatised health care in Australia. They say the "good ship" Port Macquarie Base Hospital leaks like a sieve
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Federal cabinet approved further cuts to youth income support on June 10, when it agreed to in-principle support for a common youth allowance to replace Austudy, Abstudy and the youth dole in 1998. The CYA was flagged in the
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Sinn Féin's results in three elections within five weeks mark a significant strengthening of the republican movement in Ireland. The wave of successes began with the British elections on May 1, in which a swing of 10%
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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, 10pm and Saturday, 7pm. Access News — Melbourne
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IdentityIdentity Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I mean that. I am determined to become the person I always wanted to be. When I woke this morning from troubled dreams I decided to transform myself. I was lying on my
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"Republicans are the leading advocates for change — political, constitutional, social and economic — in the Ireland of 1997. Achieving lasting peace and real change requires increased political strength for Sinn
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Occupations of university buildings have been an important and useful part of the campaign against education cuts nationally this year. However, a debate emerging at the moment concerns how student occupations
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'Why we are protesting against Hanson' @box text intro = 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly spoke to people at the anti-Hanson rally about why they were publicly protesting. Sarah, 15, high school student: "I just think racism is wrong, and we need to
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Double standard You are standing in the midst of a great crowd — two vast groups of people are in vehement opposition. Banners and flags are waved frantically; signs held aloft. What starts as half-hearted shouts and cries grows quickly into
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BHP workers rally NEWCASTLE — A June 12 community rally called by unions covering workers at the BHP steelworks was attended by around 1800 people. Speakers on the ALP-dominated platform used the opportunity to glorify the former Labor
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"Our approach is to involve all of the Australian people at the beginning and in the middle and at the end of the process. Our approach includes all Australians ... [T]here cannot be too much democracy. "The question of
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91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly has obtained documents from the Electrical Trades Union which indicate that the union is not serious about campaigning against the $22 billion privatisation of the NSW power industry. The ETU is
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No strings attachedNo strings attached On June 8, I gritted my teeth and switched on the TV to that epitome of gutter journalism, 60 minutes. Why? — the promise of a deeper insight into the life and times of the new head of the Office
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A teacher at a Melbourne university rang the 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ subscription hotline last week with a creative idea for helping his students, as well as 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly. Having recently discovered 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ on the internet, he recognised a rich
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MELBOURNE — Around 50 people gathered here for the national conference of the New Labour Party (NLP) over the June 7-9 long weekend. The decision of the conference to proscribe members of the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) from
News
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First lockout under Workplace Relations ActADELAIDE — All 20 workers, members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, at Radco Crane Hire have been locked out and subsequently sacked after the collapse of
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WA unionists prepare for a fightPERTH — Richard Court's Coalition government and its mates in the Building and Construction Industry Taskforce (whose main "task" consists of attacking construction unions) are trying to
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DARWIN — The Aboriginal traditional owners of the site of the proposed Jabiluka uranium mine have taken their struggle to stop the mine to the Federal Court. The validity of the Jabiluka mineral lease is being challenged by
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The final "Justice Tour: Fighting Hanson's Racism" meeting, in Sydney on June 13, was the culmination of a very successful national tour to encourage people to join the struggle against the racism of MP Pauline Hanson and to fight the racist polices
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Tasmanian upper house vote records far right's declineLAUNCESTON — On May 31, in elections to Tasmania's Legislative Council, voters rejected the homophobic, religious fundamentalist conservatives who have traditionally
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Festival Records picketed By Shane Bentley & Paul Howes SYDNEY — After Festival Records issued redundancy notices to 50 workers at its Pyrmont plant on May 12, members of the National Union of Workers set up a picket line to demand a
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ANU activists commit to NUS referendumCANBERRA — Australian National University student activists are busy collecting the 800 signatures necessary to force a referendum on affiliation to the National Union of Students
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WOLLONGONG — Two hundred and fifty angry residents packed into the Warrawong Community Centre on June 1. They heard barrister Tim Robertson describe how the Carr government, on May 29, rushed legislation
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Nurses campaign for better dealMELBOURNE — At a stop-work meeting of 3000 at Dallas Brooks Hall on June 12, Victorian public sector nurses voted unanimously to start industrial action as part of a campaign to improve
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Police, loggers break East Gippsland blockadeMELBOURNE — Thirty-nine activists have been arrested after attempting to stop the clear-felling of wilderness quality old-growth forest in East Gippsland. The blockade of the
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UN$W to charge up-front feesSYDNEY — The council of the University of NSW decided on June 2 by the slimmest of margins (10 votes to eight) to accept fee-paying local undergraduates from 1998, and so to join the
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Campaign to defend Tasmanian forestsHOBART — The Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement, due to be signed in the next month, was the major focus for activities around World Environment Week this year. It is
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BRISBANE — "Young people in Australia will overwhelmingly reject Pauline Hanson's attempt to set up a One Nation youth wing", according to Zanny Begg, Brisbane organiser of the socialist youth organisation Resistance. "Hanson's
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TWU truck ban wins pay risesBRISBANE — Nearly 20 transport companies in Queensland have agreed to pay wage increases of 11%, in the face of nationwide black bans by the Transport Workers Union on employers who refuse to pay
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Homeless Aborigines evicted DARWIN — At sunrise on May 29, police raided a camp of homeless Aboriginal people occupying bush land at Lee Point. The group — who had camped there for 18 days in defiance of eviction orders from the minister of
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Students force libraries victoryHOBART — On June 10, the vice chancellor's executive at the University of Tasmania decided to postpone for at least 12 months a plan to merge the two main science libraries into the main
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Student editors' appeal failsMELBOURNE — The former editors of LaTrobe University's student newspaper, Rabelais, face criminal charges following the rejection of an appeal to the Federal Court. On June 6 Justice Ron
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Really?! "Like many people on the right of the Labor Party, I never believed in socialism." — Former ALP minister and current Packer flunkey Graham Richardson. Hilarious "It's funny that all roads still seem to lead to Mr Packer
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SYDNEY — On May 12, members of the United Residents Action Group blockaded bulldozers that were about to begin work on a new development in the Berowra Valley. Landcom — the NSW government developer — had put in an
Analysis
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Getting real about jobs @box text intro = The federal government's decision to delay the gradual reduction of tariffs on cars was welcomed by the car companies with the claim that this would preserve jobs in the industry. But whether jobs will
World
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Leaks from Japan N-plant Radioactive water leaked from the Shikoku Electric Power Company's reactor in Ikata City, western Japan, on June 5. The leak was the latest in a series of nuclear accidents and cover-ups, the worst being the March 11
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Did Dita do it?@box text intro = On June 12, the private Indonesian TV station SCTV broadcast a report stating that riots had broken out in Medaeng prison, Surabaya. Dita Sari, president of the Indonesian Centre for Labour
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More than 100 activists, researchers and government officials from some 40 countries gathered in Santa Clara, Cuba from May 18-22 for the fourth meeting of the Pesticide Action Network. PAN is an international coalition of over 400 activist groups.
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Kurdish opposition leaders sentenced ANKARA — The State Security Court (DGM) ruled on June 4 that the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and sentenced party officials and
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In Mongolia's May 19 presidential election, Nachagyn Bagabandi, chairperson of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP, formerly the Communist Party), won with 61% of the vote, defeating incumbent President Punsalmaagiyn
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More than 2 million South African workers participated in a general strike on June 2 in support of demands for better conditions of employment. The strike was called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and
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Last October 21, the pilot of a Cuban airliner noticed a US-registered light aircraft releasing a white or greyish mist. Seven weeks later, an insect plague of plant-damaging thrips, previously unknown in Cuba, was discovered in a state farm. The
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Thirty-two years of US-backed dictatorship have left Congo (Zaire) in a desperate economic and social situation. The personal wealth of exiled tyrant Mobutu Sese Seko is estimated to be as high as $10 billion, almost equivalent to
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MOSCOW — Workers in one of Russia's main industrial regions are organising themselves for a day of coordinated protest action, in what could be a landmark development for the rise of a broad, militant labour opposition to the
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The massive and militant mobilisations during the official election campaign in Indonesia were a major setback to the Suharto government's image of stability. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, major shopping
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The Albanian insurrection is on the defensive. Since March 10, the insurrection has been waiting. Unfortunately, this is probably not a "war of position", but a significant decline in the movement. This is partly due to
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Torture by UN 'peace keepers'Italian television on June 6 broadcast photographs of Italian troops torturing detainees during the US-led United Nations "Operation Restore Hope" occupation of Somalia in 1993. The photographs,
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The mainstream press has made much of entries in Che Guevara's diaries, made more than 32 years ago, that were critical of the conduct of the young Laurent Kabila, now leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is more to the story than the
Culture
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Promiscuities: A Secret History of Female DesireBy Naomi WolfRandom House, 1997. 272 pp., $22.95 Review by Kath Gelber With its sexualised cover (a picture of a naked, female, headless, almost hairless, skinny torso) and its sexualised title,
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Portraits from a time of genocide Facing Death: Portraits from Cambodia's Killing FieldsAustralian Centre for Photography, Paddington (Sydney)Tues-Sat, 11am-6pm, until July 5. When Cambodian rebels and Vietnamese troops overthrew the Pol Pot
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For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie HoffmanBy Jonah RaskinUniversity of California Press, 1996. 315 pp., $45 (hb) Review by Phil Shannon High up the league ladder of US '60s icons is Abbie Hoffman. Co-star, with Jerry Rubin, of the
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Southern Journey, Vol. 5: Bad Man BalladsVarious artists, recorded by Alan LomaxRounder Records through Festival Review by Norm Dixon Bad Man Ballads: Songs of Outlaws and Desperadoes is just one of a monumental series of recordings of folk
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JerusalemBy Michael GurrDirected by Bruce Myles The Wharf Theatre, Sydney Review by Brendan Doyle Jerusalem is a fine play. Unlike a lot of recent Australian theatre, which doesn't stray much beyond middle-class angst at the beach house,
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Prisoner of the Mountains (Kavkazski Plennik)A film by Sergei BodrovA Dendy Films release from June 26 Review by John Tognolini Memories of the Chechen-Russian war are still fresh. The towns being bombed into the stone age by Boris Yeltsin's air
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Outback thriller Kiss or KillDirected by Bill BennettWith Frances O'Connor, Matt Day, Chris Haywood, Barry OttoSydney Film Festival Review by Brendan Doyle Slick as an inner-city haircut, this thriller road movie has a plot with as many
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Good karma Last Stop Heavenly HeightsKarma CountyTWA Records Reviewed by Iain Clacher Last Stop Heavenly Heights is a striking debut CD for Sydney band Karma County, a strange bar-band which seems to inhabit its very own original space in
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A comic look at a state in serious troubleMELBOURNE — Rod Quantock has made a huge contribution to Australian comedy. He wrote and performed in the ground-breaking TV series Australia, You're Standing In It, opened and