In the face of a general strike called by Shiite militants in Baghdads northeastern Sadr City district, home to 2.5 million people, US troops ended their week-long siege of the district on October 31.
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The US, Britain, Italy, France, Australia and Bahrain began two days of joint naval exercises in the Persian Gulf on October 31, including marine boardings of ships 32 kilometres from the Iranian coastline. Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters in Tehran: We are watching their movements very carefully. We do not consider this exercise appropriate. US moves go in the direction of more adventurism, not of stability and security.
More than 300 workers at Feltex Carpets are being pressured to sign individual contacts (Australian Workplace Agreements AWAs) as a condition of employment by the companys new owner. If they refuse, they will lose their jobs and receive no redundancy entitlements.
“I’m just, I’m a little concerned with all this hysteria over this greenhouse gases and the environment, that the Liberal Party is not selling your message the way you sold it now to Leon, and that it’s not getting through to the average man in the street” — this is what “Emile”, an “unashamed supporter” of Prime Minister John Howard, had to say to the PM on November 2, during Leon Byner’s talkback show on Adelaide’s Radio 5AA.
On October 29, charges of refusing a police direction brought against six people involved in the protest against Kerry Packers state memorial service in February were dismissed by a magistrates court.
Opening an October 23 public forum organised by Reproductive Choice Australia, Leslie Cannold, Melbourne Age columnist and author of The Abortion Myth, said that Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks had stated he favoured keeping the status quo on abortion, even though the ALPs election platform calls for its decriminalisation.
Were showing the world that no multinational company can just come here to humiliate Venezuelan employees, Nixon Lopez, a Venezuelan workers leader, told BBC News on October 24. Lopez was referring to the actions of over 10,000 former employees at the Coca-Cola Femsa bottling company, the second-largest soft drink bottling company in the world.
On October 20-22, four local supporters of Turkish political prisoners held a solidarity hunger strike. They called on the Turkish state to abandon its F-Type prisons and for the European Union to end its support for isolation prisons. They also demanded that prisoners detained in F-Type prisons be allowed to communicate with each other, see their lawyers, and have visitors and access to books and other materials.
The Young Unionist Network (YUN) and the Rock for Your Rights at Work coalition are bringing together artists and cultural workers to stage five huge gigs here in the lead-up to the November 30 national day of action against the Howard governments anti-worker laws. Ranging from hip-hop to heavy metal, the gigs aim to maximise support for the campaign against Work Choices.
Three Filipino workers sacked for speaking out about their and 37 other Filipino workers treatment by Ipswich welding firm Dartbridge Engineering have been found alternative employment by their union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).
Thousands across Canada took to the streets on October 28 against the countrys military intervention in Afghanistan. In wind, rain and in some cases snow, people turned out in more than 30 communities to stand against the mission. Forty-three Canadians have died in Afghanistan since 2002. The country has around 2300 troops serving there.
On October 21, 80 people attended a public forum in Footscray organised by the Maribyrnong Action Group. Speakers discussed the health risks of diesel emissions and the ever increasing quantity of trucks passing through residential streets in Maribyrnong. A range of solutions were presented, from immediate curfew observance and extensions to shifting more freight onto trains.
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