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PAKISTAN: Army smashes anti-privatisation strike

On the night of June 11, General Pervez Musharraf's military regime sent army and paramilitary units to occupy important buildings and installations of PTLC, Pakistan's 88%-state-owned telco, arresting hundreds of striking workers in the process. The

Write on: Letters to the editor

Venezuela I wish to address Ray Fulcher's concerns ("Write On", GLW #629) regarding my article in Socialist Worker detailing my all too brief stay in Venezuela. For the record, the article described an all too brief visit to Venezuela I made

Will a higher minimum wage cost jobs?

Dick Nichols Federal government submissions to the last three safety net cases before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) have cited surveys here and overseas that typically claim that every 10% increase in the legal minimum wage

COLOMBIA: Washington's other oil war

Duroyan Fertl After almost five years, and countless thousands of people dead and disappeared, the US$7.5 billion initiative known as "Plan Colombia" has failed — politically and militarily — to bring an end to the crisis that characterises

Downtown Baghdad Blues

Got a buddy in Najaf, he's playing it straightPrays to the Lord Jesus Christ every nightGot a homey in Samarra goin' up the wallsEvery time he hears an Islamic prayer callMe, I don't care much for Jesus or MohammedThey don't stop bullets to the best

Sophia's Day for refugees

BRISBANE — On June 8, Kimberley College organised a refugee-rights focussed "Sophia's Day". Sophia's family fled Chile because her father, a trade union activist, faced repression by the authorities. Whilst waiting for their application to be

Unions ACT calls protest IR rally

CANBERRA — The June 1 meeting of the ACT Trades and Labour Council, commonly known as Unions ACT, voted to hold a rally on June 26 (a Sunday) outside the Liberal Party national council meeting at the Hyatt Hotel to protest against the federal

Catholic priest calls police onto parishioners

SYDNEY — On May 29, Redfern parish priest and Neocatechumenal Way sect member Dennis Sudla threw a cross painted in the Aboriginal colours onto the floor while saying mass, and smashed a table on which it had been standing. Later, three

This week in history

June 24 1978: The first Sydney Mardi Gras march ends in a police riot. June 25 1876: US cavalry face the biggest defeat in their war against Native Americans in the Battle of Little Big Horn. 1955: During a three-week strike in NSW,

Court protects 'killers in uniform'

DARWIN — Letty Scott has reacted angrily to the Northern Territory Supreme Court's dismissal of the case against the NT government and three prison officers for the murder of her husband, Douglas Scott, in Berrimah prison on July 5, 1985. While

OUR COMMON CAUSE: A socialist party for the 21st century

If you were looking for a vivid description of our world at the beginning of the 21st century, you couldn't do much better than the following: "On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces, which no epoch of the

Anti-war forum

BRISBANE — On June 7, 40 people attended an anti-war forum jointly organised by the Stop the War Collective and the Brisbane Anti-Bases group. Speakers included Marianne Hanson, a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the