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Across Australia protesters gathered on the evening of October 25 to participate in annual Reclaim the Night marches demanding an end to violence against women. The largest march was in Brisbane. Maria Voukelatos reports that close to 1000 women
BY BILL MASON BRISBANE — Queensland's 16,000 public hospital nurses on October 25 won a 3.8% interim pay rise and the first round in their Australian Industrial Relations Commission battle with the state government. The increase will come into
BY ALISON DELLIT Most Australians do not expect to have to answer to the military. So it took some confidence for Prime Minister John Howard to announce on October 24 that the government was considering involving the Australian Defence Force (ADF)
BY FEDERICO FUENTES PERTH — Refugees' rights activists scored a major victory on October 22, as students voted to declare the University of Western Australia Guild a refugee safe haven. Nearly 900 students voted during the half-day of polling,
BY PIP HINMAN SYDNEY — The 45,000-strong anti-war rally in Melbourne on October 14 has spurred anti-war groups here to unite to build the largest possible rally on November 30. A meeting of some 60 people on October 21 agreed to organise a
BY ELIZABETH SCHULTE CHICAGO — Iraq is one of the largest oil resources in the world — with proven reserves of 112 billion barrels of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia. This simple fact has shaped Iraq's relationship with the rest of the
BY PHIL SHANNON CANBERRA — By the close of voting on October 23, 93% of staff in the federal Department of Health and Ageing (DHA) had voted in favour of the department's next certified agreement. This overwhelming endorsement followed a
BY BONNY CAMPBELL SYDNEY — On October 22, Klaus Rohland, the World Bank country director for Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the Pacific Islands, addressed a lecture at Sydney University on instability in PNG and the Pacific. The abstract
BY SARAH PEART GLASGOW — The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is averaging 9% support in the latest opinion polls for elections to the Scottish parliament, which puts it on par with the Conservative Party. The SSP is looking to increase its
IRAQ Clean lies, dirty wars BY PATRICIA AXELROD Twenty-two months after Desert Storm, I was finally on my way to Amman, Jordan, the gateway to Iraq. Somewhere over Europe, I caught a glimpse of the Kafkaland to come when I heard that
BY SUSAN REES & SUSAN AUSTIN CAIRNS — More than 300 psychiatrists, health academics, mental health practitioners, advocates and cons- umers converged on Cairns from September 12-14 for the triennial conference of the Royal Australian and New
BY NICK EVERETT SYDNEY — For the last two months, a coalition initiated by the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network has been meeting to organise a “Stop the WTO agenda” rally for noon on November 14 in Hyde Park. Another coalition,