In a new format for 2013, the Green Left Report hosts a roundtable discussion and debate on the millions strong protests prior to the war on Iraq in February 2003. This weeks roundtable includes some key activists at the time who reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the protests and lessons for progressive struggles today
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WikiLeaks has published over 40,000 secret documents regarding Venezuela, which show the clear hand of US imperialism in efforts to topple popular and democratically elected leader Hugo Chavez.
France perpetrated two large deceptions in its military intervention into Mali in January. These have been universally presented as true in mainstream media reporting.
The first was that the unilateral decision to invade Mali on January 11 was hastily made. France said it was prompted by imminent military threats by Islamic fundamentalist forces against the Mali's south where the large majority live.
Protesters gathered outside the Federal Court building on February 19 to oppose moves by Coca-Cola Amatil to overturn recently passed Northern Territory “cash-for-containers” laws. The laws are similar to bottle and plastic container return laws that have operated in South Australia for more than 30 years.
Today, 80% of bottles in SA are recycled, more than double the rate of other states.
Demonstrators displayed a large banner exposing the role of the company, owners of Mount Franklin, Fanta and Coke products, in destroying wildlife and the environment.
The hottest show in Sydney has an unusual setting, a hearing room on the seventh floor of 133 Castlereagh Street. This is where the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating affairs involving former Labor state minister Eddie Obeid and his family, and former Labor minister for resources Ian Macdonald.
Obeid is accused of benefiting from buying farmland over which MacDonald allegedly approved a coal mine, in return for receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks.
A civil trial expected to last eight weeks in the federal court in Melbourne was averted on February 18 by an agreement between the Victoria Police and six African-Australians suing them for racial discrimination and racial profiling.
The agreement mandates an enquiry, with submissions from the public, into allegations of police racism in the Flemington-North Melbourne area, which includes culturally diverse Housing Commission estates. The agreement also permits the six complainants to publicly tell their stories using police documents obtained through the court case.
The article below is an extract from Resistance’s Education zine, which was released on campuses this week.
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In every state and territory, at many tertiary educational institutions, students are resisting a tide of cuts, commodification and privatisation.
Universities face staff, subject and department cuts, rising fees and costs, casualisation of staff, bigger classes, less class time and less face-to-face contact.
These are stills from film footage shot by Jill Hickson and John Reynolds for Actively Radical TV of the half a million-strong march on February 16, 2003 against the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.
Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) activists are marching in Mardi Gras on March 2 under the banner “Generations of Protest”, and are inviting interested people to join their float.
Mardi Gras is going to be a lot of fun this year, and already has more floats and more people marching than ever.
The event stands in the tradition of the gay liberation protest in 1978 that immediately preceded the state-by-state decriminalisation of sodomy throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s.
Over the past couple of weeks, Green Left Weekly has been collecting recollections, images, impressions and analyses of the biggest-ever globally coordinated anti-war protest in history: the 30 million-strong February 14-16, 2003, marches against the launching of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
It was such a tremendous explosion of popular protest that it prompted New York Times columnist Patrick Tyler to write at the time there were perhaps “two superpowers on the planet — the United States, and worldwide public opinion”.
These are stills (Part II) from film footage shot by Jill Hickson and John Reynolds for Actively Radical TV of the half a million-strong march on February 16, 2003 against the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.
[See Part I here.]
Geert Wilders called off his February 20 public meeting in Perth after the hotel where he was going to speak cancelled his booking.
Organisers of Wilders' tour tried to claim that protesters had intimidated the hotel and implied that Wilders' "free speech'' was threatened as people were "denied'' the chance to hear Wilders talk.
Wilders' most prominent supporter in the Australian parliament — disgraced Liberal senator Cory Bernardi — also tried to claim that there was "free speech double standard" involved.
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