Green Left Weekly
The radical alternative
In the country with the most monopolised newspaper ownership in the world, Green Left Weekly is the radical alternative.
Green Left was launched in 1990 by the Democratic Socialist Party, the socialist
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Telstra inquiry: we lose The federal government, which wants to sell the remaining 50.1% of Telstra, announced an inquiry into Telstra service levels on March 19. The inquiry is chaired by Tim Besley, who headed the Commonwealth Bank when it was
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UN: mandatory sentencing 'racially discriminatory'A United Nations committee has severely criticised mandatory sentencing regimes in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, describing them as "racially discriminatory", and
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Makes you think Word has it that sole parents and the disabled could be required to make themselves more employable or forfeit their full payment under the federal government's next round of mutual obligation initiatives. We are supposed to be
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Suicide seeds on the fast track "We've continued right on with work on the Technology Protection System [Terminator]. We never really slowed down. We're on target, moving ahead to commercialize it. We never really backed off." — Harry Collins,
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Forests Successive Governments have forced West Australia down a path of environmental destruction. It started with paying farmers to clear land to produce wheat for export dollars and is continuing with the felling of the South West forests to
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You won't find John Laws or Alan Jones making extravagant supportive statements about Green Left Weekly on their radio programs and you certainly won't find Rupert Murdoch adding GLW to his investment portfolio. GLW can't and won't pay "sponsorship"
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New crimes compensation legislation falls shortIn Victoria in July 1997, the Liberal state government abolished crimes compensation awards for pain and suffering. For the majority of victim/survivors of sexual
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Women main targets of family law amendments The federal government's Family Law Amendment bill 1999 is being debated in parliament. One of its main purposes is to amend the Family Law Act 1975 to allow new arrangements for the
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Medical care for profit: a hazard to public healthPublic money is being spent to advertise the government's latest weapon in its drive to privatise health care. From July 1, the Lifetime Health Cover policy will allow private
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Anti-GMO campaigners call for planting freeze "Australian growers are being urged not to miss the GMO [genetically modified organisms] boat, but would be wise to make sure they are not boarding the Titanic", Australian GeneEthics Network
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SYDNEY — Over the past two weeks, Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph has attacked teachers and their union, the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF), in a series of sensationalist front-page stories that contain little more than gross
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Don't forget! Next week, Green Left Weekly will produce its 400th issue. This is a special occasion for all those people in Australia and overseas who have, during the last nine years, contributed articles, photographs, cartoons, funds, and their
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Networker: To ashes To ashes A network of satellites circling near the earth could deliver every imaginable communication service: television, videos, telephone, fax, internet, computer connections, and lots more. Such a
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How? By Brandon Astor Jones My Charles, My Friend What was perceived to be suffering and pain Is now nothing more than memories Life's trials, often hard to bear But now, a pain so deep, a hurt so real
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Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9-11pm. Ph 9565 5522. Access News — Melbourne community TV,
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Old and rusty but very usefulDARWIN — When the local Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) here regrouped in the New Year, we decided to back up our educational and solidarity activities with direct,
News
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Students condemn education cuts By Catherine Smithand Arun Pradhan MELBOURNE — "Burn, Kemp, burn" was the chant taken up by hundreds of students outside Kay House at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) as a metre-wide effigy of
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By Sean Martin-Iverson PERTH — An announcement by the private, Catholic Notre Dame University that it intends to open a new medical school has been condemned by student activists and the WA branch of the National Union of Students. Notre Dame's
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Brisbane Resistance Centre relocatesBRISBANE — After 13 years at 29 Terrace Street in New Farm the Brisbane Resistance Centre has relocated. Since an arson attack on the premises in August 1998, Resistance and the Democratic
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Jack Davis, 1917-2000PERTH — Aboriginal activist, playwright, actor and poet Jack Davis died on March 17 after a long illness. He was 83 years old. Born in Perth in 1917, Jack spent his childhood in Yarloop about 140
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"The Australian government betrayed the people of East Timor. It supported the invasion. It supported Suharto. It signed the Timor Gap oil treaty with Indonesia. It supported Indonesia remaining in charge of security before, during and
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SYDNEY — Asylum seekers coming to Australia hoping for protection from persecution are suffering at the hands of "our national obsession with locking people up and our paranoia about Asia", human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti
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Police riot at Reclaim the Streets By Citizen P. SYDNEY — On March 18, 3000 people rallied here to protest against destructive corporate transport policies. Music came from solar-powered sound systems mounted in sculptures made from
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Workers demand restoration of WorkCoverMELBOURNE — More than 4000 workers marched to the office of the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) on March 23 to demand improvements to WorkCover, Victoria's
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CANBERRA — East Timor solidarity activist Gareth Smith faced charges of willful damage in the ACT Magistrate's Court on March 24. Last September, Smith painted "Shame Australia shame" on the front of Parliament House. If
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Or anything else "I do not even remember the taste of liquor." — Philippines President Joseph Estrada, denying his chief of staff's report that Estrada often makes policy decisions during late-night drinking sessions with cronies. Union-free
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SYDNEY — About 700 hundred people attended a rally at Menai, near the Lucas Heights reactor plant in southern Sydney, on March 26. The main aim of the rally was to build support for the demand, initiated by the Sutherland Shire
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NOWSA 2000 From July 10-14, Flinders University in Adelaide will host the Network of Women Students Australia conference. NOWSA plays an important role in facilitating campaigns, providing a national forum for discussion, helping campus feminists
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Students march to defend education Fifteen hundred students marched on March 22 in a national day of action called by the National Union of Students (NUS). The students called for an end to cuts in staff, a livable income for students, the
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National Textiles workers paid After nearly nine weeks on the picket lines, 340 workers sacked from the National Textiles plant at Rutherford near Newcastle have been paid $11 million in wages, annual leave, pay in lieu and redundancy. Some workers
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Militant unions and the Labor governmentMELBOURNE — On March 22, Green Left Weekly's regular Politics in the Pub at Comrades Bar hosted a discussion on issues facing the union movement in Victoria. Speakers included Dave
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Somali refugees to be deportedThree Somali asylum seekers announced on March 25 that they will ask the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to deport them because they are so exhausted by the three years they have
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LISMORE — Chanting "Stop these racist laws!", 200 people marched through the streets of Lismore on March 25. They had just heard speakers condemn the federal government's inaction on mandatory sentencing. The protesters were also
Analysis
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Environmental criminals Yet another toxic spill by an Australian mining company in the Third World provides a compelling argument for tougher laws against polluters. It also exposes the futility of "industry self-regulation". On March 22, one
World
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ATLANTA — As the United States' kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez enters its fifth month, US attorney-general Janet Reno continues to steer her department on a course that openly defies the January court ruling, which she endorsed,
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US conference exposes Washington's 'war against the poor'EUGENE, Oregon USA — "People ask me what I'm reading these days. I'm reading history — about the Nazis, about slavery. That seems closest to what is happening to poor
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A few months ago I was simply a political analyst. However, since March, I have stepped back into a role I had almost forgotten — that of coordinator of an informal political movement, in this case to organise a boycott of the Russian presidential election.
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Israeli soldiers maim Palestinian childrenEAST JERUSALEM — On December 16, I sat in a Lebanese restaurant discussing the ins and outs of the forthcoming millennium celebrations with Ralph. Ralph works for the Temporary
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PHNOM PENH — Negotiations between the Cambodian government and United Nations representatives, spread over five days, on arrangements for a trial of former leaders of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-79 ended without formal
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DSP: stop the attacks and restore democracy! The following letter of protest was sent to the Pakistan's General Pervaiz Musharraf by the Democratic Socialist Party in Australia on March 25. We strongly protest the raids by Pakistani army and
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US Senate votes to ease Cuba blockade On March 23, pressure from US farmers, agribusiness and politicians representing "farm states" convinced the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote to allow greater sales of US food and medicine to Cuba,
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Indonesia: has democracy been won?Socialists and progressive people face an important challenge in the coming few years to match the "solidarity" the Australian ruling class is extending to the new government of Indonesia and
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Indonesian House of Representatives speaker and Golkar faction leader Akbar Tandjung wants the Abdurrahman Wahid government to ratify the draconian security law which was pushed through a depleted parliament during the last hours of
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LAHORE — The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) organised a demonstration outside the US consulate here on March 22 to protest against the visit to Pakistan of US President Bill Clinton. Three days earlier, Pakistan's military
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Outrage at rail safety U-turnBritain's deputy prime minister John Prescott is facing a public outcry after backing down on his pledge, made in the wake of the Paddington rail disaster, to remove the responsibility for rail
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Bougainville: doubts over autonomy, referendum agreement"The Bougainville Revolutionary Army's (BRA) patience is fast running out with the Papua New Guinea government's crippling indecisiveness and inability to understand a
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Seven years ago, on a snowy Saturday in March, a record crowd braved the cold to watch Syracuse's 11th annual St Patrick's Day parade. More than 160,000 central New Yorkers enjoyed an afternoon full of bands, floats and — as they
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Hands off Kirov trade unionists!Russian labour activists Sergei Salnikov and Maksim Karpikov, leaders of the independent trade union Zaschita (Defence) in Kirov, have been arrested for distributing leaflets asking people not to
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Turkey's military dominated government is cynically exploiting the Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK) unilateral political concessions. Rather than respond with a relaxation of its hardline opposition to Kurdish political, language and
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Chen Shui-bian became Taiwan's second freely elected president on March 18. His victory has kick-started an unprecedented process that may force democratisation in Taiwan to be speeded and greatly increase popular pressure on Beijing
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Labour Party Pakistan leaders hunted by policeLAHORE — Police and soldiers raided the houses and offices of Labour Party Pakistan leaders on the night of March 22. The raids occurred just hours after an LPP-organised
Culture
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EE The History of Australian Feminism: Getting EqualBy Marilyn LakeAllen & Unwin$29.95 Review by Rachel Evans In her introduction, Marilyn Lake states that the aim of The History of Australian Feminism: Getting Equal is to correct common
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Big business, GMOs and technology Review by Daniel Jardine Genetic Engineering, Food, and the Environment: a Brief GuideBy Luke AndersonScribe Publications, Melbourne 2000192 pp., $17.95 (pb) This book should be read by everyone who eats and
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Face to FaceBy David WilliamsonDarwin Theatre CompanyDarwin Entertainment Centre, March 22 to April 8 Review by Peter Johnston An angry young man, Glen (Tim Sinclair), with a troubled family background, assaults a co-worker and is sacked from the
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E.H. Carr: the historian as partisan The vices of integrity: EH Carr 1892-1982By Jonathan HaslamVerso, 1999306pp., $75 (hb) Review by Phil Shannon There haven't been many historians who, having spent most of their career as Foreign Office