While the Western corporate media was swooning over the tour of army duty in war-torn Afghanistan by Prince Harry, the third in line to the British crown, scant coverage was given to US national intelligence director Vice-Admiral Mike McConnell’s admission that the situation facing the US and its NATO allies in Afghanistan is “deteriorating”, despite a doubling of their occupation forces since 2004.
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Fourteen divers at the Sydney desalination plant being built at Port Botany went on strike this week over safety concerns and demanding a union collective agreement walking off the job on Monday March 3. They are employed by Construction Diving Services (whose parent company is Dempsey Industries).
In the most recent edition of Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly (GLW #742, links to all contributions in debate so far are below), well-known progressive anti-imperialist activist, Professor Stephen Zunes, has proclaimed that I am a liar.
Poverty is a dominant feature of life for many university students. Statistics from Melbourne University show that living expenses (excluding course fees) for a student in share accommodation amount annually to around $25,000. Most students must work at least one job to supplement the meagre government-provided youth allowance, which, if paid at the maximum rate of $425 per fortnight, amounts to just $11,050 per annum.
The recent collapse in ABC Learning CentresÂ’ share price generated a media frenzy. Director Eddy Groves was reputed to have lost $45 million in just two hours of trading. For a time it looked like many centres would close their doors.
Journalist and documentary filmmaker spoke at a public forum on March 7. Attended by 200 people, the forum was hosted by PilgerÂ’s high-school friend, actor Jack Thompson, at his pub in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba
Well, so much for our new government taking an even-handed position on Israel/Palestine.
Up to 1000 people marched in Sydney on March 8 to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s Day. Many trade unions were represented as well as community and migrant groups, with some women coming from as far as Nowra on the NSW south coast to mark 100 years of women’s struggles.
On March 1, Students Against the Pulp Mill met to discuss the next steps in the campaign against Gunns Ltd's planned $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill.
Attended by 40 students from across Tasmania, the meeting decided that SAPM would organise a
“WeÂ’re approaching the future with some confidence notwithstanding the obstacles that are put in our path by institutions like the ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission]”, Dave Noonan, national secretary of the construction division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly. Noonan spoke to GLW after the CFMEU national conference, held in Sydney from February 18-22.
Any day now the findings of the special Consultative Reference Committee (CRC), set up by the NSW government to “test the impacts” of its plans to privatise its electricity generation and retailing assets, will become public.
As the quarantining of Indigenous welfare payments (50% of individual welfare benefits being received as gift cards for certain shops) rolls out across the Northern Territory, its alleged benefits need to be weighed against the possible cultural and economic consequences.
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