After almost two months at the negotiating table, the workers who play characters such as Mickey Mouse and Cinderella at Walt Disney World have won an important concession: clean undergarments
A privately financed group that works for abortion rights overseas sued the Bush administration yesterday to challenge its rule denying federal funds to foreign family planning or health organisations that perform or advocate abortions
Telstra has won another domain name dispute, wresting control of the telsra.com domain from a Melbourne typosquatter
The EMI music group today signed with Roxio to add copy protection to its CD-authoring software, thus stopping people from copying illegal MP3 files onto blank CDs. There must be a lot of it going around — 5 billion blank discs will be sold in the US this year
Tristan Kading, a 15-year-old vegetarian and seasoned protester, saw the necessity to speak his conscience when McDonald’s showed up at his school recently looking for summer employees for its restaurants. Administrators at Stonington High School instead saw a disrespectful and disruptive student unwilling to co-operate in a special assembly on job interview skills that the McDonald’s Corporation had agreed to host — they forced him to read an apology to the entire school
Gay and lesbian Catholics were denied Holy Communion at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in their annual action for church recognition on Pentecost Sunday
If you’re poor, black, live in South Carolina and are unfortunate enough to suffer a stillbirth, the state’s draconian laws could see you serving time for murder
The United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organisation has ruled the City of Brisbane in Queensland does not have rights to BrisbaneCity.com, currently held by a private individual
Influential Republicans and Democrats in the House have threatened to hold back $244 million in dues to the United Nations if the United States does not recover a seat on the Human Rights Commission next year — it’s not like the bastards ever paid up in the past, nothing like throwing a childish tantrum on a global scale
Naomi Klein’s No Logo won the National Business Book Award, netting her $10,000 from the likes of PriceWaterhouse and the Bank of Montreal. A decision which greatly upset University of Toronto Dean of Graduate Studies juror, Michael Marrus, who took the highly unusual step of resigning from the jury
The United States lost its seat on the top UN human rights body it helped found in 1947, losing support from some of its allies as well as its foes
The aim is spectacular — to close stock exchanges around the country, suspending ‘corporate tyranny‘, for a moment. The how of it is, quite simply, through anarchy. That’s not to say it isn’t organised, though. Melbourne legal activist Damien Lawson, who placed volunteer legal observers on Melbourne streets for the S11 protest, is doing this job again for the Melbourne stock exchange blockade. He says 50 law students, and solicitors from community legal centres and private practice will observe police behaviour at today’s protest. These legal observers, backed by the video tapes of alternative media group indymedia, are responsible for the Victorian Ombudsman holding an inquiry into police brutality in Melbourne
Thousands of demonstrators are expected to converge on the Australian Stock Exchange Building in Melbourne from 7am to protest against capitalism and globalisation. The protests have been organised by the M1 alliance, an offshoot of the S11 group behind the demonstrations that disrupted the World Economic Forum in Melbourne last September. The alliance comprises human rights and environmental activists, unionists, students and christians who plan to highlight the negative effects of global capitalism
The ramifications of a new US law forcing public libraries to filter Internet content against their will or risk losing federal funds may impact Australia. But free-speech advocates are fighting back.
I thought SMS messaging was just annoying, but two New Zealand schools have banned mobile phones after discovering text messaging is turning into a new form of bullying, particularly by girls.
According to the terms of use of Microsoft’s Passport service, the company has the right to ‘use, modify, copy, distribute… or sell’ your personal information.
Twice this week I’ve been the recipient of e-mail petitions to ‘Help the Women in Afghanistan’. Signing this petition won’t do anything apart from giving you a warm, fuzzy feeling. The return address was long ago disabled and the petition even rates a mention on Snopes. If you really want to help, talk to Amnesty International, they’d love your support.
In the US, where customer privacy is a joke, meeting tough European standards could require big changes
In an astonishing back flip, the courts have reversed a decision that barred a pro-life group from publishing their so-called ‘Nuremberg Files’ web site. This is a site that publishes ‘Wanted’ posters of abortion doctors, along with their names and home addresses. Looks like free speech wins out over inciting violence and invasion of privacy — funny how pro-lifers can justify the death of others to make their point.
Claire Field, the 15-year-old owner of harrypotterguide.co.uk, will maintain her site now that Warner Bros has agreed not to seek transfer of the domain name, marking a reversal from Warner Bros earlier position — a win for the little guys against the corporate dictators.
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