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News briefs #2

#2 Green groups slam SE Qld regional plan BRISBANE — Conservation organisations have criticised the Queensland government's draft south-east Queensland regional plan, released for public comment on October 27, labelling it a sham and a threat

News briefs #3

#3 UWA NTEU supports jailed unionist PERTH — On October 27, the University of Western Australia branch committee of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) passed a motion expressing concern at the jailing of Victorian trade unionist

PALESTINE: The keys to their own prison

Kim Bullimore, West Bank Munira Amer's house was once surrounded by green fields, gardens and an agricultural nursery full of olive and decorative trees, grapevines and flowers, which her husband Hani took care of. Now the land around Munira and

The Conch [For survivors of Suharto's dictatorship]

I spent fifteen years in a single cellThe cold could be predicted, food not soMy body languished, my spirit fed well. I shivered with the ghosts of those who fellTwo tiny holes let in a concrete glowI spent fifteen years in a single cell. My

Arundhati Roy's blaze of light

The Chequebook and the Cruise-Missile: Conversations with Arundhati RoyBy David BarsamianHarper Perennial, 2004178 pages, $22.95 (tpb) Review by Lachlan Malloch Arundhati Roy is usually introduced as "the Indian writer who won the 1997 Booker

After the election, where do we go?

Since Howard's federal election victory on October 9, Green Left Weekly's website has had a huge surge of visitors. It seems that many people, faced with the horrible prospect of three more years of Coalition government attacks on workers,

Loose cannons

Capitalist justice "US Airways Group, in its second journey through Chapter 11 [bankruptcy], had requested that a bankruptcy court impose a 23% pay cut on nearly all of its union workers. A bankruptcy judge on Friday granted the carrier authority

BOLIVIA: Mass movement on ascendancy again

Frederico Fuentes Facing extradition proceedings to stand trial in Bolivia for the deaths of 67 people during the October 2003 popular uprising that forced his resignation, former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada told the October 22

ISRAEL: Ploughshares activist to be deported

Kim Bullimore, Israel Angie Zelter, a well-known non-violent peace and human rights activist from Britain, is currently being held by the Israeli authorities in a cell at Ben Gurion airport, Israel. Zelter, a founding member of the Trident

Pilger reveals: British-US conspiracy to steal a nation

On October 7, British ITV showed a documentary by renowned journalist John Pilger that used recently released documents to show how the British government had conspired with the United States to expel the Chagos Islanders and turn their home

Women reclaim the night

Alison Dellit Women across Australia marched to end violence against women on October 29. While the size of the annual Reclaim the Night marches has declined in capital cities in recent years, the number of marches is increasing, with more women

Convergence gathers steam

Sarah Stephen Hundreds of people have responded with enthusiasm to the call for a convergence on Canberra on November 16 — the day parliament opens. This will be the first opportunity to come together in a national protest against the newly