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Action updates

NT nurses strike DARWIN — On July 26 NT nurses decided to reject a 4% pay offer, and take industrial action for the first time in twenty years. With an annual rate of inflation of 6%, the government's offer represents a drop in real wages. The

Loose cannons

Ranting I "Globalisation describes what is happening. And ranting against globalisation is like ranting against the telephone. You can use the telephone for good or for ill. So too the wider process (of which the telephone is part) can be a force

INDONESIA: Elite squabbles, army arrests, people protest

BY MAX LANE An intense struggle is underway within the Indonesian elite over how to divide up the spoils after the ousting of President Abdurrahman Wahid. On August 3, 12 days after Megawati Sukarnoputri was elected president by the People's

Hundreds toast Cuban Revolution

BY KIM BULLIMORE SYDNEY — Hundreds of supporters of Cuba have gathered here twice in the past two weeks to celebrate the 48th anniversary of the July 26, 1953, storming of the Moncada barracks, the spark which set off the Cuban Revolution six

Networker: Prison isn't virtual

Prison isn't virtual Supporters of freedom of speech in cyberspace have been demonstrating in the flesh across the United States for the last fortnight. In San Jose, capital of the US high technology Silicon Valley, the New York Times reports that

Blue Mountains turn red

BY SUSAN BARLEY SYDNEY — "From the Sierra Maestra mountains to the Blue Mountains" was the theme of the inaugural Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly solidarity dinner in the Blue Mountains, held at the Mid-Mountains Community Centre on July 28. Ricardo Andino

The Big Lie

@box text intr = Joseph Goebbels, the notorious Nazi propagandist (a job which today would be called "spin doctor"), came up with a theory in the 1930s called the Big Lie: the bigger the lie you tell people, the theory went, and the more you repeat

Feast inside, soup kitchen outside

BY SEAN HEALY SYDNEY — The contrast was obvious and deliberate. Inside, in the warmth of the luxury ANA Hotel, was World Bank president James Wolfensohn lecturing a $150-a-plate dinner on the joys of "globalisation"; outside, in the cold and

INDONESIA: 'I just don't believe in her'

BY PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER I don't blame President Sukarno for my arrest in the early 1960s. I blame the army. But being a political prisoner in the early 1960s was very different from being a captive of later regimes. Sukarno's political opponents

COLOMBIA: US fuels dirty war against unions

Castro Zapata, Julio Alberto Otero, ADIDA, United Steel Workers of America, Dan Kovalik, Leo Gerard, USWA, DAVID BACON"> COLOMBIA: US fuels dirty war against unions BY DAVID BACON The Bush administration's call to step up US reliance on fossil

INDONESIA: Free the Bandung 19

Urgent solidarity action is needed from supporters of democracy worldwide to secure the release of activists held by police for organising against the Indonesian regime. Particularly urgent is the case of the Bandung 19, who have imprisoned as

Laborites admit error on agency bargaining

BY PAUL OBOOHOV CANBERRA — The Community and Public Sector Union branch conference here on July 26 voted to support centralised bargaining for wages and "core conditions" in the federal public service. It accepted the need for "some flexibility"