General

Below is an open letter initiated by the Socialist Alliance to Australia's foreign affairs minister, Stephen Smith, calling on the Australian government to act for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya — and to pressure the US government to finally cut all aid and ties with the dictatorship.
Please add your name, and organisation if relevant, to this statement by emailing weekly.greenleft@gmail.com. Please send this letter, a version of it or your own to Stephen.Smith.MP@aph.gov.au (fax, phone number and address below).

Our next issue will be dated October 14.

Reading through the messages of support coming in for Green Left Weekly’s “Spring Offensive” fundraising appeal, I was reminded of the old saying: “You don't know what you have until you lose it.”

We are letting the readers and supporters of Green Left Weekly explain why you should make a special donation for the Spring Offensive to help make our $250,000 fighting fund target.

“We are lucky in Australia to have a national newspaper, Green Left Weekly, not beholden or shackled to big business or multinational corporations, whether they be church or state. Over many years it has remained a newspaper free to critique the capitalist system, which continues to reward those with capital and exploit those without.

The current issue of Green Left Weekly, #808, is a two-week issue. The next edition will be dated September 9.

Green Left Weekly is launching a “spring offensive” to help us reach our 2009 fighting fund target of $250,000. By the end of August, we had raised $147,550 — about 60%. We need a push to get to 100% or more.

With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese community in Australia, Green Left Weekly is proud to publish a regular Arabic language supplement. The Flame covers news from the Arabic-speaking world as well as news and issues from within Australia. The August, 2009 edition can be read at Links, international journal of socialist renewal.

Since its launch in February 1991, the content of Green Left Weekly has been available on the internet free of charge. A full archive of every published article is available on its website www.greenleft.org.au

A chill wind was blowing early last Thursday outside my local train station. Commuters had their collars turned up and their arms folded as they hurried into the station. Dave, the suburb's iconic Big Issue seller in his red wheelchair, and I with the latest Green Left Weekly, were trying to attract those with windproof consciences.