Write on: Letters to the editor
Think again, Sidoti
About your report [GLW #410] by Sean Healy of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner Chris Sidoti's offer to train Burma's SPDC officials (military officers) in human rights law,
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Resistance conference dares to struggle and winMELBOURNE — Opening Resistance's 29th national conference here on June 29, the group's Sydney branch organiser, Will Williams, stated, "Now, more than ever, there's the need for an
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Robert Long is lucky to be alive. As a "witness" wanted in connection to the Childers Hostel fire, Long was indeed fortunate to make it to jail with only a flesh wound. I'm sure there are many who thought Long was ready made for the
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Slash Australia's war spending! The release of the federal government's public discussion paper (or "green paper"), "Defence Review 2000 — Our Future Defence Force", and the six-week public "consultation" that kicks off in mid-July, is being
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A domestic wage? In 1878, the Association for the Advancement of Women wrote to the United States Congress to protest that the Census Bureau did not measure women's non-market (unpaid) work. Housework was not considered "productive", yet
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Networker: What does ADSL spell? It's new, it's exciting, it's wonderful, it's ADSL. Okay, so the marketing departments didn't get to choose the name, but they are certainly leading the latest charge in internet technologies. ADSL stands for
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Last month's announcement by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation that the preferred tenderer to supply its new nuclear reactor is an Argentinian company drew much media and public attention. The company
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The Australian Financial Review claimed breathlessly that the "new" leaders of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, president Sharan Burrow and secretary Greg Combet, "unveiled a radical policy agenda that shifts the union
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The Victorian state coroner has been asked to investigate the case of a Melbourne woman whose pregnancy was terminated at 32 weeks after she learned that her child was likely to be a dwarf. The Royal Women's Hospital has suspended
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Dear Citizen, By now, of course, you've read all those GST information leaflets our government has been sending out, and you have a complete understanding of how it's all going to work. The new system is NUTS — the New Universal Taxation System —
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Why Labor won't abolish Howard's GSTPoliticians, backed by mainstream journalists, like to create the impression that certain aspects of the economy work in an almost supernatural way such that governments are powerless to affect
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Hunger "The enemy could attack at any time." — Ibrahim Osman, Eritrean hotel manager The words above were spoken in response to the Ethiopian troop movement that threatened Eritrea. Despite sharing 620 miles of common border, these two
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How about that! Genome! Hi! I'm so glad you could drop in for a chat. It's simply marvellous that a celebrity like you can spare a moment from your busy schedule to talk to us. I'm sure that all my readers would love to hear what you have to
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Judith Wright, 1915-2000Judith Wright, one of Australia's greatest poets and a life-long fighter for Aboriginal rights and environmental and social justice, died on June 25 in Canberra Hospital after a long illness. Her death
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Jessie Mary (Bon) Hull, March 28, 1915-June 16, 2000I recently read with sadness that Bon Hull had died. Apparently, she died after a short illness. The obituary I read, by Sue Jackson, Judy Morton, Jean Taylor and Dianne Vale,
News
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Arabunna walkers reach Broken HillArabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott left his home at Lake Eyre South on June 10 to begin walking to Sydney. He is being joined by local, international and indigenous supporters. His walk is to
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BY JUSTIN RANDELL & CHRIS ATKINSON BRISBANE — Student environmentalists are set to combine their campaigns with those that are part of the growing international sentiment against corporate greed, after intensive discussions by 400 activists
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SYDNEY — The NSW Industrial Relations Commission handed down its long-awaited ruling on the pay equity test case on June 30. The decision established a new wage-fixing principle on equal pay for work of equal value — the equal
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Union backdown on tax office agreementMELBOURNE — Unionists in the Australian Taxation Office have ended their industrial campaign after voting on June 27 to accept a recommendation by the tax section council of the Community and
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With this new issue of Green Left Weekly, the first since the GST came into effect on July 1, we have had to increase the cover price from $2 to $2.20. Through the GST the government will take one-11th of GLW's sales income. As a not-for-profit
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Textile workers win right to pattern bargainGEELONG — One hundred and ten textile workers at Brintons Carpets here became the first in their industry in the region to win an enterprise agreement which allows for subsequent
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Dictatorship nostalgia "I often hear investors lamenting the good old days — when policy was predictable and you knew who to talk with to fix a problem." — World Bank country director for Indonesia, Mark Baird, on why it is "unreasonable" to
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Sydney protests against the GSTSYDNEY — On the day the curtain was raised on the "new tax system", 200 people participated in a lively demonstration outside the Sydney Town Hall to protest against the impact the GST will have on
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SYDNEY — Having already enunciated the doctrine of "trade uber alles", the world's business and political leaders are preparing for a new "assault on the commons" and the "privatisation of everything", Canadian activist and author
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Clouds gather over Bondi stadiumSYDNEY — "Gladiator winds may take out the Bondi Colosseum before construction is even finished", Waverley City indigenous councillor and Bondi Olympic Watch member Dominic Kanak has claimed.
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'World heritage in danger' campaign intensifiedTraditional owners and campaigners opposing the Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern Territory are intensifying their push to have Kakadu National Park listed as "World heritage in
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Queensland hospital workers strikeBRISBANE — Nurses, doctors and support staff in south-east Queensland staged a snap 24-hour strike on July 6 in an unprecedented display of anger against poor wages and working conditions in
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John Howard, the 'miniature man'DARWIN — Prime Minister John Howard's million dollar centenary of federation trip to London stood in contrast to his government's mean-spirited treatment of members of the stolen generations of
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Tasmanian upper house stymies land rightsHOBART — Showing the extent to which the official reconciliation process has served as a smoke-screen for refusing justice to Aboriginal people, the Tasmanian upper house has released
World
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SOUTH AFRICA: Thousands march to demand access to AIDS treatment The prices of HIV/AIDS drugs across the globe are unaffordable. Poor people are dying because they cannot buy drugs or get access to quality health care. Drug prices must come down.
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Still reeling under the weight of the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis and angered by government lies, spending attacks and scandals, thousands of people from a range of social groups took to Hong Kong's streets on consecutive weekends in late
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Tactfully buried in the World Trade Organisation's mountain of internal papers is the snippet that it's considering holding its next Ministerial Conference — its biannual peak decision-making meeting — in Qatar. In contrast to the relative peace
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PAKISTAN: Authorities arrest unionists LAHORE — Military authorities in Hyderabad in southern Sind province briefly imprisoned 11 trade unionists and have now charged them with "breaching the peace" in an attempt to crush an attempt to form a
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IRAQ: Let's destroy this lethal weapon! August will witness the 10th anniversary of the economic embargo against Iraq. Ten years ago, the United States, as part of its "New World Order", turned the invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi regime into an
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GERMANY: The end of nuclear power or the end of the Greens? Germany's "red-green" Social Democratic Party/Green Party coalition government has delivered on its promise to close the country's 19 nuclear power reactors. Or has it? An agreement was
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Spotlight on Indonesia-East Timor Student shot dead by police in Kalimantan A series of peaceful protests at the parliament in the provincial capital of West Kalimantan, Pontianak, has forced the postponement of a meeting to accept or reject the
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MEXICO CITY — The July 2 presidential elections here have resulted in a crushing, historical defeat for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has been in power for 71 years. It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of this
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AUSTRIA: Trade unions organise day of action GRAZ, Austria — Austria's trade union peak body organised a day of action on June 28 to condemn the anti-worker program of the new People's Party-Freedom Party government. It was the first day of
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INDONESIA: Yet another human rights investigation compromised The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid appears to be indulging in a veritable orgy of investigations into human rights violations — ranging from the post-ballot violence in East
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The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has announced that it will be implementing measures to increase Timorese participation in the executive bodies of UNTAET. Speaking to the media in Dili on July 2, Sergio de Mello,
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International conference against neo-liberalism GENEVA — Nearly 600 people from all over the world attended three days of intense discussion and exchange of experiences here, June 22-24. The common focus of the participants, who represented some
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President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) was severely mauled by the nine-month-old, trade union-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe's June 24-25 general election. ZANU-PF barely
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Despite its media billing as a substantive loosening of the United States' four-decade-long economic blockade of Cuba, a new bill passed by the US Congress will tighten the blockade by codifying restrictions on travel to the island and by prohibiting
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The International Monetary Fund's efforts to repackage itself as an institution motivated by concern for the poor have been dealt a blow by a new report which reveals that the IMF's "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers" are no different
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Sunday, June 4 — We are writing to you from Burj el-Barajneh Refugee Camp in Beirut where the withdrawal of Israel's soldiers from southern Lebanon has meant a phenomena unprecedented. For the first time in 52 years, the Palestinian refugees can
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Race and class in the US: 'Downloading while Asian' SAN FRANCISCO — Racial profiling — the practice of casting suspicion on individuals on the basis of their skin colour — is not new to blacks in the US. African-American parents teach their
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Support the campaign against the sanctions In Australia, the Worker Communist Party of Iraq and the Democratic Socialist Party are calling on Green Left Weekly readers to show solidarity with the just struggle of the Iraqi people for the immediate
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FIJI: Military appointed government 'completes the coup' The following is a statement on the appointment by Fiji's military of a new "civilian" government. It was issued by Felix Anthony, general secretary of the Fiji Trades Union Congress. The
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The ruling interests in India's north-eastern state of Bihar sent their killer gang, the Ranvir Sena, on a new rampage on June 16, which resulted in the massacre of nearly 50 villagers from Miyanpur in the Aurangabad district in central Bihar. Ranvir
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Indonesia's most prominent left-wing political party, the People's Democratic Party (PRD), has filed a 5.5 billion rupiah (US$617,000) lawsuit against Suharto over the ailing former dictator's role in the July 27, 1996 attack on the offices of the
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CUBA: Elian's homecoming: when the people heard the news HAVANA, June 30 — My phone rang a few minutes after noon. It was my neighbour. "The Supreme Court ruled that Elian can come home!", she blurted out. The ordeal would soon be over. Picked
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The sinking of the overloaded Cahaya Bahari ferry on July 6 — which killed at least 481 Christian refugees fleeing the latest outburst of violence in Indonesia — highlighted the scale of the human tragedy unfolding in the north-eastern province
Culture
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The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer was first published in 1970. They were turbulent times.
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Clear and convincing account of socialism Socialism on TrialBy James P. CannonResistance Books, 1999211 pp., $17.95 (pb) REVIEW BY JULIAN COPPENS Socialism on Trial, by legendary United States socialist leader James P. Cannon, is an extremely
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Bring Out The Dead Starring Nicholas Cage Directed by Martin Scorsese At Cinemas Everywhere REVIEW BY STUART MUNCKTON One Sunday afternoon when I was feeling a bit down, I went to the cinema to watch whatever was on in order
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Emotionally powerful stories of real people Caution to the WindBy Phil Cohen and Patricia FordHard Miles MusicOrder at <http://metalab.unc.edu/hardmile> REVIEW BY BARRY HEALY Politically conscious folk music first came to prominence in