Issue 760

  • Remote teachers strike

    On July 25, the Queensland Teachers' Union announced that around 500 teachers from remote parts of the state, including the Torres Strait, will take part in 24-hour stop-work actions.

  • Daring to protest his (un)Holiness

    To background chants of 聯The pope is wrong, put a condom on!聰, protesters crept past the police lines and handed out condoms to the young Catholics streaming into Sydney聮s Randwick Racecourse for World Youth Day (WYD).

  • Police raid Muslim Aid

    SYDNEY<197> On July 24, Australian federal police raided the Lakemba office of Muslim Aid Australia. The charity is accused of being linked to Interpal, a Palestinian aid organisation based in Britain.

  • Long Bay education slashed

    The NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) and the Greens have condemned a move by the state government to cut access to education programs at the Long Bay Forensic Hospital when it relocates.

News

  • Truckies promise national strike

    Following a week of protest action, Mick Pattel, organiser of the lobby group National Road Transport Shutdown Forum, confirmed a planned national transport shutdown from July 28.

  • Action to save the Mary River

    An enthusiastic audience of 60 attended a public meeting on July 23 to hear the environmental, social and economic case for opposing the Queensland government聮s decision to construct a dam on the Mary River.

  • Ambulance drivers exhausted and stressed

    For three years, the Health Services Union (HSU), which covers ambulance drivers, has been pleading with the state Labor government to employ 300 additional ambulance service staff in NSW. In late July they lost patience.

  • AWU: apologists for polluters?

    On July 23, Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes teamed up with a select group of CEOs of some of the richest companies and major employers of AWU members in a roundtable discussion on climate change.

  • Arnhem Land leaders slam 'wasteful' NT intervention

    Aboriginal leaders from Arnhem Land met with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on July 23 and called for the restoration of the Racial Discrimination Act. The act was suspended in June 2007 to allow for the passing of the bi-partisan Northern Territory (NT) intervention legislation.

  • Venezuela: Heirs of the revolution

    鈥淲e are the sons and daughters of Bolivarian socialism and we want to defend it鈥, explained Eduardo Churrio, speaking to 91自拍论坛 Weekly.

  • Another APEC arrestee cleared

    A documentary film-maker arrested and held without bail overnight after the September 2007 anti-APEC protest in Sydney was cleared of all charges on July 21.

  • Protest remembers Black July

    Despite the heavy rain, more than 100 people participated in a rally through Sydney聮s CBD on July 25, protesting the ongoing discrimination, abuse and killing of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan state.

  • Vatican policies vs reality

    I was a participant in the NoToPope protest in Sydney on July 19, and was part of the broad coalition that organised the protest. One of the issues the NoToPope coalition raised as part of the World Youth Day protests was the gap between what the Vatican preaches, (no to condoms and abstinence in sex education) and the reality of sexually transmitted diseases around the world today.

  • Qantas: destroying workers' lives and the environment

    Qantas chief executive officer Geoff Dixon announced on July 18 that the company will sack 1500 workers by December and that its plan to hire 1200 more people has been cancelled. The sackings include 99 workers in Qantas call centres in London and Tucson, Arizona, when those centres are shut down.

Analysis

  • Class war and the Anglican schism

    Dramatic events within the worldwide Anglican Communion have revealed a 鈥渃old split鈥 with the potential for a complete collapse of the Episcopal formation.

  • Unionists to Rudd: 'Where are our rights at work?'

    Labor won the November, 2007 federal election on the promise to 鈥渢ear-up鈥 Work Choices, abolish the hated Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs 鈥 individual contracts) and overhaul the entire industrial relations system. Of course, all of this was promised to contain ample consultation and be in the spirit of balance.

  • Labour law expert calls for ABCC to be scrapped

    鈥淭he ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission] should be abolished 鈥 and its powers should be subsumed by the Workplace Authority and its successor, Fair Work Australia鈥, Professor Ron McCallum AO from the law faculty at the University of Sydney told 91自拍论坛 Weekly on July 22.

  • Colin Campbell, 1958-2008

    Socialist Alliance and Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) member Colin Campbell died suddenly in the early hours on July 17.

  • Climate change: market failures spread like wildfire

    Less than a fortnight after the release of the Rudd government聮s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper, the potential losers are howling at the spectre of lost profits while the potential winners - global investment banks, hedge funds and commodities traders - are rubbing their hands at the thought of making millions from the permits to pollute that the scheme will create.

  • Letters to the editor

    Muslim Aid raids Three weeks after the Australian's Richard Kerbaj whipped up a storm over humanitarian aid by a Sydney-based charity to the suffering people of Gaza, we find our own federal police jumping at this organisation in what seems to be

  • Emissions trading scheme a scam: Renewables now!

    Why do we put so much faith in the market to solve environmental problems? Why do we assume that increasing the cost of fossil fuel emissions will reduce their use rather than just increase everyone鈥檚 cost of living?

World

Culture