Helen Patterson

  • Women could be forced to 'go home and stay home'

    Women’s crisis shelters in New South Wales are in a state of upheaval. There are concerns that critical services are about to be shut down. In inner-Sydney there will be no women’s only, specialist refuges operating in the near future. The New South Wales government’s “Going Home Staying Home” reform plan will force at least in metropolitan Sydney 20 specialist women’s shelters to close so that more services in regional areas across the state can be opened.

  • Residents fight to keep old school site in public hands

    Community group Save The Old Kings School (STOKS) held a protest in Parramatta in Sydney’s west on February 2 to demand the historic old Kings School site stay in public hands. Local residents, STOKS activists and members of the Greens and Socialist Alliance attended the action. The school site dates back to the early days of the colony. When the school relocated to North Parramatta in 1968, the site was sold to the NSW government. It has been unused for many years.

  • US, Israel increase threats to Iran

    Threats of a military attack against Iran by the US and Israel have increased after new sanctions were imposed by the United Nations Security Council on June 9, under pressure from Washington. On July 1, US President Barack Obama signed legislation passed by Congress in June that imposed new US unilateral sanctions targeting foreign companies that sell petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel, to Iran. This would include producers, insurers and those involved in transportation.

  • Stop the Afghan war — protest Obama

    An article posted at RAWA.org on March 10 by Marc W. Herold said that on February 27, the US/NATO forces occupying Afghanistan “killed three people, including two children, in Alasai district of Kapisa province”.

  • Human rights abuses: Bush's policies continued

    In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, Republican President George W. Bush launched illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush enacted “anti-terrorism” policies under which people could be labelled “terror suspects” without evidence and abducted, jailed and tortured in secret.

  • United States: Obama and change

    Under conditions of deepening recession, millions of working people went to the polls in the US on November 4 with the intention of voting for a change to the pro-corporate and pro-war policies of the Bush administration.