A national day of action to free the refugees has been called for June
3. It has been endorsed by the ACTU, the Victorian Trades Hall Council
and refugee rights campaign groups around the country and is calling for
the closure of the detention
-
-
Universal income John Tomlinson (GLW #442) calls for a universal citizens' income. The right vehemently opposes this idea, but isn't it being hypocritical? Conservative Paddy McGuinness (Sydney Morning Herald, February 10) rejects the idea that
-
All out on M1! Something special will happen on May 1. For the first time ever in Australia, thousands of people will take action, simultaneously across the country, against the stock exchange, the symbolic heart and soul
-
The best excuse that Western corporate polluters and their political allies have devised to justify their efforts to wreck the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions is that it does not mandate reductions in the countries of the
-
For decades peasants, workers, urban poor and indigenous people in all the continents of the global South have fought mining companies, the International Monetary Fund, sweatshop operators and other forms of imperialist
-
MELBOURNE — The North has an ecological debt to the South that must be paid, Friends of the Earth (FoE) International chairperson Ricardo Navarro told a public meeting here on April 18. The meeting, "Global environmentalism in the
-
The emergence of anti-capitalist sentiment in the First World, following the protests against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle in 1999, represents a significant crack in the politics of quiescence. It follows years of opposition
-
Refugees are demanding to be freed from their imprisonment in immigration detention centres around the country and from the fear of being deported back to persecution. They are demanding protection and sanctuary. Here are 10
-
BY MARIA VOUKELATOS& LAUREN CARROLL HARRIS "What if she doesn't worry about her body and eats enough for all the growing she has to do? She might rip her stockings and slam dance on a forged ID to the Pogues, and walk home barefoot, holding her
-
CANBERRA — "It was five years in the making but worth every minute of it", Australian Greens senator Bob Brown said of the Global Greens conference, held in Canberra's National Convention Centre on April 14-16. Centred on the
-
On May 1, tens of thousands of people will take to streets across Australia to protest against the sacrifice of human needs to rapacious corporate greed. The M1 stock exchange blockades will be the latest skirmishes in the battle
News
-
As the Easter holiday break hit, Ansett Airlines was warned by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) that its license to operate could be cancelled due to continuing safety problems through missed maintenance schedules.
-
ADELAIDE — An attempt to sack maintenance workers employed at Mobil's Port Stanvac plant in South Australia was exposed by the Australian on April 12. Mobil is the Australian subsidiary of US-owned oil giant ExxonMobil. According
-
Geelong M1 sets up web site GEELONG — The collective organising a regional contingent for the Melbourne M1 blockade has established a web site of its own. Its designer, Camilo Jorquera, said the web site
-
CANBERRA — Its final tactics all but refined, the Canberra M1 Alliance has predicted that its May 1 blockade of Mining Industry House, which houses the main national lobby group for the big mining companies, will be a resounding
-
High school students all around Australia are preparing to strike on May 1 to join the blockades and protests against corporate rule.
-
BY SAM FROST & KATHY NEWNAM ADELAIDE — The United Trades and Labor Council here has decided to back a "Unity Rally Against Corporate Tyranny", which will conclude the Adelaide M1 Alliance's blockade of this city's stock exchange. The UTLC's
-
SYDNEY — On an internet increasingly dominated by slick corporate web sites advertising their latest products and full of information of (at best) dubious reliability, it's a welcome change to see something completely
-
SYDNEY — In lively scenes reminiscent of the 1990s' campaign for East Timor's freedom, about 100 protesters — many of them Acehnese — gathered outside the Indonesian consulate here on April 21 to demand the Indonesian military leave Aceh and a
-
BY JORGE JORQUERA MELBOURNE — “It is exciting to hear of the newly established Socialist Alliance. Australia has for some time now had a great need for a left alliance. The Labor Party appears to have moved to the right, finding itself
-
PERTH — Metropolitan bus drivers here are fighting back against years of low pay and worsening conditions. At an April 18 stop-work meeting, drivers from three bus companies — Perth Bus, Path Transit and Southern Coast Transit
-
BRISBANE — The M1 Alliance here has sent a letter to Queensland premier Peter Beattie and to the commissioner of police asking them to ensure that police officers exercise restraint and don't repeat the violent assaults of their
-
Craig Johnston, the militant leader of Victoria's Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, has been one of the Socialist Alliance's strongest backers since the announcement of its formation. Here is an abridged version of his speech to the
-
SYDNEY — “When I first heard about the idea of the Socialist Alliance, these old bones straightened up a bit. I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to be able to participate with tens of thousands of others to change the
-
Dubious message "Ann and I will carry out this equivocal message to the world: Markets must be open." — George W. Bush, at the swearing-in ceremony for US agriculture secretary Ann Veneman, March 2, 2001. Free market system "We don't think
-
SYDNEY — The April release of the NSW Labor government's "Building the Future" report has generated a community backlash not seen since former NSW Coalition education minister Terry Metherell took the axe to public education in
Analysis
-
What the corporate media says: “But worst of all is M1's concerted push to get kids out of school and involved in a potentially dangerous protest. Instead, they should consider joining those kids on May 1 for a high school economics lesson.”
World
-
Citigroup protests in 12 countries Students in 12 countries and 80 cities protested against the US-owned Citigroup banking corporation on April 11. Activists attacked the banking giant's funding of environmentally destructive projects. In New
-
@box text intr = Activists from around 20 countries will be gathering in Jakarta between June 7 and 10 to discuss regional responses to the neo-liberal offensive hitting the people of Asia. Apart from Indonesia, Aceh and East Timor,
-
It's not hard to understand why the unauthorised landing of a US spy plane on China's southern Hainan island on April 1 sparked an international diplomatic crisis. Just turn the tables. Imagine what Washington would have done if a
-
The Pacific tourist Mecca of Honolulu is to be the next focus of demonstrations against the international capitalist financial institutions — in this case the Asian Development Bank. The ADB's board of governors is to meet at the
-
In late March, newspaper headlines hailed the announcement that giant Australian-owned mining, oil and steel corporation BHP and the huge Anglo-South African mining and base metals conglomerate Billiton had agreed to merge, forming
-
In a country oppressed for 400 years by colonial Portugal, then brutalised by 24 years of Indonesian military rule, and now suffering from dire poverty, the issues of women have long been considered secondary. But now East
-
Despite their best efforts over the past 18 months, the world's most powerful governments have had little success strong-arming others into agreeing to a new, comprehensive round of World Trade Organisation talks, which they had hoped
-
Tens of thousands of protesters took various forms of civil disobedience to express their opposition to the US-sponsored Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, April 20-22. Covered by the thin veil of equality and democratic
-
DILI — East Timor's social and political tensions may boil over into violence during elections scheduled for August, the country's first since it gained freedom from Indonesian military rule in 1999. Riots have broken out in two
-
SEOUL — Hundreds of riot police have attacked 400 workers laid off by the troubled Korean car manufacturer Daewoo, injuring 70, in an attempt to prevent the workers gaining entry to their own union office. But their assault may have
-
The decision to site the World Trade Organisation's next ministerial conference in the repressive emirate of Qatar wasn't only intended to prevent mass demonstrations. It was also designed to split opponents of a new trade round into
-
In mid-March the United States Census Bureau released its official count for the US population. There are 281,421,906 people, as compared to 253,979,140 in 1990. Reflecting a historic trend, non-Hispanic whites declined from 75% to
-
BY NORM DIXON
-
Authorities in the mid-west city of Cincinatti have lifted a week-long night-time curfew, imposed after the city's black residents rose up in anger at the police's April 7 killing of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. Thomas was killed as
Culture
-
People's Power: Cuba's experience with representative governmentBy Peter RomanWestview Press, 1999$60 (hb), 284 pages REVIEW BY RACHEL EVANS &KARL MILLER Genuine Marxists advocate workers' democracy and fight hard for the self-organisation of
-
REVIEW BY KATHY FAIRFAX Aceh: The People's StruggleProduced by Actively Radical Television, SydneySend $24 to ARTV, 73-75 Princess Highway, St Peters, NSW, 2044Phone (02) 9565 5522 The people of Aceh, in the far north-west of the Indonesian
-
Spread the word now! John Pilger's vivid and evocative writing and film-making, and the voices from the Third World that he brings onto the screen, will make his new documentary New Rulers of the World a landmark event in explaining the
-
SYDNEY — "Naw?", asks the woman at the big desk. "Nawi to ciea?", she waits, pen poised above a sheaf of papers. "Walamai prsirako bdarawa!", the man next to her barks, "Nawi kasakaw sabay ziarat ciea?". Someone in the queue behind comes to the
-
M1: Our world is not for saleCompilationAvailable from activist centres and independent music stores. REVIEWED BY DANNY FAIRFAX The fact that this CD's proceeds go to funding the May 1 blockade of the Australian Stock Exchange building in Sydney
-
The REAL: Life on Film documentary festival provides a dynamic forum for documentaries exploring issues of cultural identity, human rights and provides a voice for those otherwise muffled by bigotry, poverty and war. The not-for-profit festival,
-
TrafficStars Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta JonesDirected by Steven SoderberghAt all major cinemas. REVIEWED BY STUART MUNCKTON Traffic, the latest film by director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich), uses a series of