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Newcastle rail line: connecting the city

BY GEOFF PAYNE NEWCASTLE — For those who don't know, Newcastle is a beautiful city. The sight of a massive bulk carrier being pulled and pushed into place by its attendant tugs is common. Even more special is when the ship appears, then

News briefs

Joh's claim for compensation 'a joke' BRISBANE — National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services secretariat chairman Frank Guivarra has labelled former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's claim for damages for "pain and

Fair Go campaign launched

BY SUE BULL MELBOURNE — On August 17, nearly 100 people attended a meeting at Trades Hall to launch of the Fair Go campaign. The meeting was sponsored by a coalition of groups including the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC), the Ethnic

Asylum seekers' deportation delayed

BY SARAH STEPHEN According to refugee supporters who are in regular contact with asylum seekers in the Baxter detention centre, on August 22 there were a number of suicide attempts following news that more than a dozen Iranian asylum seekers faced

'Dry zone' laws are racist

BY EMMA MURPHY ADELAIDE — The August 13 City Messenger ran a front-page article that supported abandoning "dry zone" by-laws in the South Australian capital's city centre. In the article, the Catholic Church's vicar-general Monsignor David

Tampa 2 years on: Restoring justice to asylum seeker policy

BY MARY CROCK Australia has had a strange love-hate relationship with refugees for as long as anyone can remember. We have accepted more than 650,000 refugees as migrants since World War II, as part of the "planned" program pursued to build

Theatre beyond the factory walls

BY REBECCA CONROY SYDNEY — What do Indonesian factory workers making theatre in their spare time have in common with radical TV producers working out of a shack in Marrickville? In February, a rag-tag crew of community TV producers will be

ALP winds-up Walk Against War Coalition

BY PIP HINMAN SYDNEY — After trying for months to split the Walk Against the War Coalition (WAWC), the ALP finally managed to get its way on August 18. At a special meeting of the coalition, attended by close to 100 people, the ALP mustered the

Loose cannons

Expert opinion "You'd be taking them to the Better Business Bureau if you bought a washing machine the way we went into the war in Iraq." — Former NATO commander and retired US Army general Wesley Clark, commenting August 17, on the White House

Community scepticism at local pool advisory group

BY TONY ILTIS MELBOURNE — Residents of the western suburb of Sunshine who have been campaigning for nine years to have a local outdoor pool reopened have reacted with scepticism to the setting up of a 25-member advisory group to be headed by

AMWU organiser sacked by fax

BY MARCE CAMERON BRISBANE — On August 19, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Maggie May came to work and found a fax on her chair from AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron telling her that she would no longer be working for the

Save the Tarkine

BY ALEX MILNE The Tarkine is the largest unprotected wilderness area in Tasmania, covering some 377,000 hectares of the state's northwest. It is a beautiful and dramatic region, with wild rivers, deep gorges and vast rainforests. Here, some of the