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Unwarranted Praise Greens Senator Bob Brown, in a June 14 press release, congratulated federal Labor leader Simon Crean for having “taken a large step in moving Labor from the 'me-tooism' on asylum seekers it proffered during the [2001
Nurses reject pay offer BY MARIA VOUKELATOS BRISBANE — The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) has been in a month-long battle over wages and conditions in the Queensland Health Service. Nurses are demanding a 12% pay rise over the next two
News Briefs 'Youth for Refugees' hunger strike CANBERRA — Pro-refugee high school and campus students and young workers took part in a 24-hour solidarity hunger strike on June 28. The hunger strike, organised by Resistance, was in
SCOTLAND Socialists ready to shock the establishment BY FRANCIS CURRAN  With less than one year until the Scottish Parliament elections, due in May 2003, the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) faces its biggest challenge yet.
BY PAUL BENEDEK SYDNEY — The last person you would expect to launch a book on East Timor would be Gough Whitlam, who was, in 1975, the Australian prime minister who allowed Indonesia's occupation of that country. So I was surprised to find
Afghan refugee pleads: Don't send us back! NOORIA WAZIFADOST is a 16-year-old Afghan refugee now living in Sydney. She arrived in Darwin with her family in 2000, and spent 40 days in the Curtin detention centre before being released on
SOUTH AFRICA: Sacrificing AIDS victims for corporate profits BY PATRICK BOND  JOHANNESBURG — During the last few days of June, at the same time as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Congress of South African Trade Unions
Spanners in Beattie's dirty works BY ANDREW PHILLIPS BRISBANE — Workers at QBuild, the state government agency responsible for building all Queensland government buildings, schools and offices, are fighting for justice after being
BELGIUM: War criminal escapes prosecution BY ROHAN PEARCE The Brussels Court of Appeals ruled on June 26 that a case against Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for war crimes cannot be tried under Belgian law. The case was brought by
BY JO WILLIAMS HAVANA — Critics continue to say that Cuba is undemocratic, closed off, repressive, and that critical ideas in general are suppressed. An investigation of the education system and the young people in Cuban schools paints a very
AFGHANISTAN Sham assembly installs warlord coalition BY NORM DIXON The much-hyped loya jirga — or grand assembly — was supposed to be post-Taliban Afghanistan's first step towards the creation of a representative democratic
BY SARAH STEPHEN The European Union faces an ironic contradiction in coming decades. As birth rates continue to decline, many countries face negative population growth. The EU needs more immigration. Yet the European Council's June 21-22 meeting in