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New laws have been passed in the NSW parliament that allow police to conduct secret searches of people’s homes, including the examination of computers. The new laws build on anti-terrorism legislation, but the new powers are for crimes as minor as growing a few cannabis plants.
Easy Virtue
Directed by Stephan Eliot
Written by Stephan Eliot and Sheridan Jobbins
With Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas & Colin Firth
In cinemas
Tinariwen, who are touring Australia in April, first became known abroad at the initial Festival of the Desert in Mali in 2001, now an annual event. This was also the year it started travelling to Europe. Until then its music was for Tuaregs across the Sahara, an outlet during their resistance struggle, when forced by drought into exile in Libya or south-eastern Algeria in the 1970s.
On March 23, 100 students attended a demonstration at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)_organised by the Islamic Society, as part of a long-running campaign for a dedicated Muslim prayer facility on the city campus.
Last week one big economic news story and two small stories exposed the mad squalor of the profit system under which we live.
Canada’s Conservative government has extended its attacks on the right to free speech.
The United States authorities indicted five Cubans in Miami in 1998 for their role as agents of Cuban security, infiltrating right-wing Cuban terrorist groups. The Cuban Five requested that the trial judge move their trial out of Miami, arguing it was impossible to receive a fair trail in a city renowned for its fanatically anti-Castro Cuban exile community.
Below is speech delivered by Gaza Defense Committee activist Ophelia Haragli, at a March 2 protest in Sydney against former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, who was on a speaking tour of Australia. Gillerman told the Sydney Morning Herald on February 16 that “Israeli troops should get a medal” for their massacre of 1300 civilians in Gaza earlier this year. The protest was organised by the Gaza Defence Committee http://www.gazadefencecommittee.org
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in Washington last week to meet US President Barack Obama, made clear the ALP government’s support for the US’s wars overseas. The Australia-US war alliance is as strong as ever, he declared.
President Hugo Chavez announced on March 21 the takeover of all national and international seaports and airports, returning them to the direct control of the national government.
The article below is abridged from Socialist Voice, http://www.socialistvoice.ca>. It is by the editors of SV, Roger Annis and John Riddell. Annis is among the international guests attending the World at a Crossroads conference, Sydney, April 10-12. For more information, or to register, visit http://www.worldatacrossroads.org.
The Australian Greens’ March 21-22 national council meeting in Perth discussed the party’s climate change policy. The council called on the Rudd government to adopt stronger emissions reduction targets.