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Glenn Hodgman: A socialist and leading shop steward

BY TIM GOODEN GEELONG — On November 26, leading building union activist Glenn Hodgman was tragically killed in a motor accident at Newport. He was 47 years old. Originally from Tasmania, Glenn came to Melbourne in the mid-1980s, a carpenter by

CANADA: University bans Palestine conference

BY AHMAD NIMER TORONTO — In a significant victory for the right to organise on Canadian campuses, protests by Palestinian solidarity activists forced the University of Toronto (UT) administration to allow a planned conference to go ahead. The

Australia's military: 'rebalanced' for aggression

BY NORM DIXON On November 7, the federal Coalition government announced multi-billion-dollar, high-tech military purchases that will give the Australian Defence Force (ADF) the ability to launch major unilateral military aggressions in the

Iraq and Vietnam: Lessons from two wars

BY BILL MASON BRISBANE — The current US occupation of Iraq has "great parallels with the US war on Vietnam" in the 1960s and 1970s, Gary MacLennan, Queensland University of Technology lecturer and radical scholar, told a forum held at the

IRAQ: US arrests unemployed activists

BY ROHAN PEARCE On November 23, US soldiers in Baghdad arrested Kasim Hadi and Adil Salih. Hadi and Salih are activists with the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq (UUI). It was not the first time that UUI members have been arrested by US forces. In

Supporting student activism

In October, MICHAEL WHITBREAD won the position of 2004 president of Newcastle University Student Association (NUSA). The Activate ticket he was part of campaigned for free, accessible education, a commitment to progressive campaigns and student

Reject entire Nelson attack on higher education!

BY STUART MUNCKTON The November 28 Australian reported that federal education minister Brendan Nelson has watered down legislation attacking the higher education system in a bid to get it through the Senate. Labor, the Greens and the Democrats

'Don't vilify our community'

BY DUROYAN FERTL SYDNEY — In response to continuous media and government vilification of Muslims in south-west Sydney, 50 people attended a meeting in Bankstown on November 26 organised by the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group entitled "Don't

CATALONIA: Left vote jumps as regime holds on

BY DICK NICHOLS The biggest loser in the November 13 Catalan regional election was the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC), the Catalan sister organisation of the social-democratic Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE). For two decades, the PSC

Corruption leads to 'Clear-felling out of control'

BY KAMALA EMANUEL HOBART — The Tasmanian Labor government and Forestry Tasmania are facing a crisis of credibility. In October, former state forest auditor Bill Manning told a Senate inquiry about illegal practices, corruption, "bonuses" paid to