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Toxic waste: a burning problem

By Simon Divecha SYDNEY — Last week the New South Wales government quietly gave the go-ahead to a major new hazardous waste disposal facility. The government is pushing ahead with a $15 million expansion of the Lidcombe Waste Treatment Plant

Students fight to hold elections

Students fight to hold elections By Nick Middleton CANBERRA — A general student meeting (GSM) has been called to sack the current University of Canberra Student Association executive and replace it with an executive that would hold office

Nitrogen a global problem

By Peter Montague A new global environmental problem has emerged from an unexpected source: nitrogen. Nitrogen makes up 78% of Earth's atmosphere. In its atmospheric form, nitrogen is an unreactive gas, unavailable to most living things. Now a

Welcome to Australia — and destitution

Welcome to Australia — and destitution By Lisa Macdonald The hardship caused by the two-year waiting period for social security payments has been especially severe because of the government's tighter guidelines for special benefits.

Collapse of the Philippine peso: Who's the culprit?

By Sonny Melencio A longer version of this article was written in July, a week after the much publicised devaluation of the Philippine peso. It was circulated among members of the progressive trade union organisation Bukluran ng Manggagawang

'Freedom is in the trying'

Blood on the FieldsWynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Centre Jazz OrchestraColumbia/SonyThree CDs, $49.95 Review by Norm Dixon The long-awaited release on CD of Wynton Marsalis' epic jazz odyssey about slavery was preceded by the controversy that

2SER-FM membership drive

By Kyla Slaven We all know about the railing, nasty and simplistic messages put forward by commercial radio, television and print media in Australia. News and current affairs are presented as objective, "natural" reporting of the "most important

Individual contracts for CES

Individual contracts for CES By Paul Oboohov CANBERRA — The Public Employment Placement Enterprise (the corporatised successor to the Commonwealth Employment Service) is planning individual contracts for all former public servants as they

NSW government fiddles as rivers die

NSW government fiddles as rivers die By Frances Kelly NSW's inland rivers are in crisis. Ask anyone in country NSW to describe their local river, and at best they will say in it was in a better state years ago. At worst they will

and ain't i a woman?: Change the law on RU486

Change the law on RU486 Results from Australian trials of the abortion drug RU486 expose federal parliament's decision last May to restrict access to the pill as punitive moralism, and add weight to arguments for lifting the

Tasmanian rural hospitals under threat

By Ian Jamieson ROSEBERY — Under the whip of a declining health budget, rural and regional hospitals in Tasmania are facing closure or a severe curtailing of services. The latest casualty is a 70-year-old hospital in St Marys on the east

Steps toward ending radioactive dumping in oceans

Steps toward ending radioactive dumping in oceans By Barry Healy On the final day of the meeting of the OSPAR Convention on September 5 in Brussels, the British and French governments for the first time agreed to moves to end marine nuclear