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	<title>Critical Times</title>
	<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au</link>
	<description>independent news &amp; views</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:04:39 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Noel Washington:litmus test of Rudd’s IR credibility</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


	Bob Briton

	Noel Washington, a Victorian official of the CFMEU&#8217;s Construction Division, will front a Geelong court on August 8 facing the prospect of a six month jail sentence for refusing to attend an interrogation ordered by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). The case has brought to a head major disagreements between the trade union movement and the Rudd Labor government over the Howard-era building site Gestapo. The ACTU Executive voted unanimously last week to support a campaign against the commission to be spearheaded by the CFMEU and other building unions.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/noel-washingtonlitmus-test-of-rudd%e2%80%99s-ir-credibility/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>river murray rally</title>
		<description><![CDATA[	An open letter to

	Prime Minister Rudd,  Federal Water Minister Wong,

	South Australian Premier Rann and Water Minister Maywald.


	You are invited to address the people who gather, in support of the River Murray, on the steps of Parliament House, Adelaide, on Friday August 1st at 11.30am.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/uncategorized/river-murray-rally/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Climate protesters shut down coal port</title>
		<description><![CDATA[



	Matthew Knott
POLICE arrested 37 activists who chained themselves to a train and rail tracks at Newcastle Port yesterday, shutting down the world&#8217;s largest coal port for seven hours.

	Protest organisers said up to 1000 people marched to the Carrington coal terminal to demonstrate against government inaction on climate change.

	About 100 people scaled or cut through fences to enter the rail corridor and tie themselves to a fully loaded coal train.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/934/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>SA teacherstake EB campaign to the streets</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


	John Heywood

	Around 9000 members and supporters of the Australian Education Union (AEU) took industrial action in South Australia last Tuesday. It was the first time schools have closed for a full day in twelve years and the first time in around two decades under a Labor government. AEU members in the Adelaide metro area descended on Rymill Park where they began a noisy march to the steps of Parliament House.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/sa-teacherstake-eb-campaign-to-the-streets/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Feeding Profits -</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
	How Capitalism Made the World Food Crisis

	a Politics in the Pub forum, presented by Socialist Alliance



	
		According to the UN nearly a billion people are starving or suffering from malnutrition &#38; the recent price rises have added another 100 million people to this category.
	

	
		Meanwhile, the annual cost of dealing with over-eating and obesity in the rich countries is estimated at US$120 billion a year.
	

	
		If the money spend on commercial advertising were cut by just 1/4 US$250 billion a year would be freed up to feed people
	

	Is there a way out of this madness?



	You are invited to a public forum with our guest speakers

	
		Dick Nichols, Socialist Alliance national convenor and author of Environment, Capitalism, Socialism
	

	
		a representative from Reclaim the Food Chain, Friends of the Earth
	



	Thursday July 10, 7pm.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/uncategorized/feeding-profits/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Environmental Activists&#8217; Conference</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
 &#8220;Climate Emergency &#8211; No More Business as Usual!&#8221;
 Adelaide, October 10-11, 2008
  **** Currently confirmed speakers include: David Spratt, author of Climate Code Red;  Dr Mark Diesendorf, Institute of Environmental Studies, University of NSW; Professor Barry Brook, Director, Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, University of Adelaide;  Renfrey Clarke,  Green Left Weekly environment correspondent ****


	The Environmental Activists&#8217; Conference &#8220;Climate Emergency &#8211; No More Business as Usual&#8221; will be held from Friday 10 October to Saturday 11 October 2008. The conference is designed to provide an open forum for education, ideas, solidarity and campaigning perspectives on how to avert the global warming threat. It aims to initiate wide-ranging discussion that will include exchanges between climate scientists and educators, activists and community organisations, environmental groups and concerned individuals.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/uncategorized/environmental-activists-conference/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>DARK DAY FOR SA AS WORKERS WEAR DOUBLE WHAMMY</title>
		<description><![CDATA[





	The combined impact of the state budget and the dreadful WorkCover laws marks June 5, 2008 as a dark day for SA, according to SA Unions Secretary, Janet Giles.

	&#8220;Mike Rann proudly describes himself as being a &#8220;pro business Premier&#8221;, but he fort to add &#8220;anti worker&#8221; to the equation&#8221;, Ms Giles says.

	&#8220;This budget reinforces the business windfall announced last year, and comes at a time when vulnerable injured workers are being stripped of entitlements.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/uncategorized/dark-day-for-sa-as-workers-wear-double-whammy/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Teachers strike a huge success</title>
		<description><![CDATA[	Source: Serve The People
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

	

	South Australian members of the Australian Education Union have vented their anger at the state&#8217;s Labor government by holding a 24-hour strike.

	The AEU covers Technical and Further Education (TAFE) lecturers, pre-school and school teachers, principals, school services officers (SSOs), early childhood workers (ECWs) and Aboriginal education workers (AEWs) in the public education sector.

	Frustrated by months of stubborn rejection of their wage claim (21% over three years) and faced with the loss of protection for class sizes and working conditions, members voted by 85 percent in Electoral Commission-conducted secret ballots, to strike.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/local/teachers-strike-a-huge-success/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Rann! Labor Rann!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[	By Max Oz

	

	To paraphrase &#8211; from the title of a children&#8217;s story Run! Rabbit Run! &#8211; Rann! Labor Rann! is a fitting description of the current Labor Government&#8217;s efforts in regards to workers in South Australia. Although the Labor Party &#8216;Rann&#8217; away along time ago (well before the appearance of Rann) from its working class heartland, Media Mike has contributed splendidly to its pretensions as  &#8220;business-friendly&#8221; and &#8220;investment-friendly&#8221; rather being &#8216;champions of working people&#8217;. History inevitably catches up with pretenders and they&#8217;re a plenty in the Labor Party.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/local/rann-labor-rann/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Electric cars</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

	Dear Kevin Rudd,

	Why doesn&#8217;t Australia achieve international recognition by being the first country to successfully develop an Electric Car?

	In the late 1990s, General Motors began commercial sales of the EV1, successfully demonstrating that a battery powered, zero-emission car was possible. The EV1 was quieter, cleaner and cheaper to run than cars powered by fossil fuels. However, the project was shut own because of pressure by fuel companies.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/letters-to-the-editor/electric-cars/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>For a Living Planet</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

	Green Left Weekly Enviro Film Festival

	Saturday June 21, 6-9pm

	South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.



	Over 2 sessions, 2 films plus vignettes from historic environment protests plus the recent Climate Change/Social Change conference featuring John Bellamy Foster and Roberto Perez.



	Tickets:    Whole Festival $15, $10conc, or 1 Session: $9, $6conc

	Vegetarian Dinner, hotdogs, popcorn and drinks available

	Phone: 8231 6982, 0438 624744    &#166;   Email: adelaide@.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/features/for-a-living-planet/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>CFMEU official faces jailfor serving members</title>
		<description><![CDATA[	NOEL WASHINGTON FACES JAIL&#8230;HIS CRIME?

STICKING TO THE UNION!

	Noel Washington has been in the Australian construction industry all his life&#8230;first as a crane driver, then as a building union official. He&#8217;s also a family man watching the future for his grandchildren. Noel wears his Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) jacket with pride and is the Senior Vice President of his union in Victoria.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/national/cfmeu-official-faces-jailfor-serving-members/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Not much of a true believer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


	By Dean Mighell 

	IT&#8217;S ironic that Kevin Rudd comes from Queensland, the state where the Australian Labor Party was founded in the 1890s by striking unionists under the sacred Tree of Knowledge.

	In 2008, it&#8217;s symbolic that the Tree of Knowledge is now dead. This irony must not be lost on Australian workers when they look at our industrial relations laws.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/features/not-much-of-a-true-believer/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>aussie troops out finally</title>
		<description><![CDATA[	Five years after they were sent to Iraq to support the US imperialist invasion, Australian combat troops are being withdrawn.

	This has been made possible by the widespread and continuing opposition to the Iraq invasion by the people of Australia. In the prelude to the illegal actions of the US imperialists and their Australian puppet, now former Prime Minister, John Howard the largest ever anti-war demonstrations took place, eclipsing even those of the Vietnam war period.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/uncategorized/aussie-troops-out-finally/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Welfare misery: It’s time to fight!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

	Sara Moss &#38; Susan Austin

	The Socialist Alliance is joining the growing number of people and organisations campaigning for a big increase in all pensions and other welfare benefits. It is outrageous that people on welfare were almost totally ignored in the recent federal budget.

	PM Kevin Rudd says he wants to look after Aussie battlers, but he&#8217;s forcing a whole sector of the population to live in poverty while giving tax cuts to even high-income earners and keeping a major budget surplus aside.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/uncategorized/welfare-misery-it%e2%80%99s-time-to-fight/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Petrol Prices? Tax profits, not people</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

	The oil monopolies are giant foreign-owned juggernauts
making billions out of this country&#8217;s resources, squeezing
those who work for them and holding workers and small
business hostage to their petrol monopoly and their drive
for ever-increasing profits.

	They are making billions while ordinary Australians scrimp
and save to afford the petrol they need to get to work.

	The government is in league with the oil monopolies
in the &#8216;import parity pricing&#8217; rort, insisting that Australia
remain tied to imported oil while the cleaner local product is
exported overseas.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/editorial/petrol-prices-tax-profits-not-people/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Huge turnout at community desal meeting</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

 by Mark Parnell


	The biggest crowd seen in the Moonta Town Hall in 50 years turned up last night to discuss a proposed desalination plant to water a new Greg Norman designed golf course in the Yorke Peninsula town of Port Hughes.

	The meeting, attracting over 300 people, was organised by the local Community Action Group with support from Greens MLC and planning lawyer Mark Parnell.

	&#8220;The Local Council has well and truly been put on notice: the people who elected them don&#8217;t want to be kept in the dark about major changes to their community,&#8221; Mr Parnell said.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/huge-turnout-at-community-desal-meeting/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>What would a liveable city look like?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
	Dave Holmes



	When one sees a modern city from the air, especially at night, it is a truly awe-inspiring spectacle. The immensity of the project is a testimony to the power and creativity of human beings. However, on the ground and actually living and working in this wonder, things are quite different: the social and ecological problems crowd in and fill your view.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/features/what-would-a-liveable-city-look-like/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Oil companies pump profits:Oil companies pump profits:</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

	Anna Pha

	The price of crude oil more than doubled in 12 months and more than quadrupled in five yeas since May 2003. The big oil corporations empty people&#8217;s pockets and pump out record profits, while the government sits by and says there is little else it can do. Debates about reducing the GST or excise on petrol avoid the real issues and genuine solutions.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/features/oil-companies-pump-profitsoil-companies-pump-profits/</link>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Sowing the seeds of a global revolution</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


	Guerilla gardeners across the world say they are fighting a win-win war, writes Kate Kelland.

	THEY work under the cover of night, armed with seed bombs, chemical weapons and pitchforks. Their tactics are anarchistic, their attitude revolutionary.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.criticaltimes.com.au/news/sowing-the-seeds-of-a-global-revolution/</link>
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