PRAGUE — The 15,000-strong demonstrators who took action against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meeting, held here from September 26-27, defied the claim of the September edition of Newsweek that the protesters would be
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ABC television's Media Watch program on September 11 took Channel Seven to task for "taking sides" in the debate over the proposed national radioactive waste dump in northern South Australia. The story was initiated by the federal
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A question Democracies cannot dispense with hypocrisy any more than dictatorships can with cynicism Georges Bernanos, 1888-1948. Before I begin, let me make it perfectly clear that I am not attacking anyone's sexual
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Zero interaction Television, drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation, sang the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy a few years ago. From its early days in the first decades of this century, television has been a
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The rat race And it's a simply glorious day here at Homebush. The rain that dampened times for last night's 3000 metres seems to be holding off. With hardly a breeze in the stadium we're looking for some fine competition here today.
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The Olympic Games were surely the "perfect" platform to showcase the issues that affect indigenous Australia. When almost half a million people showed their support for indigenous people by marching across the Sydney
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Hundreds of protesters were arrested during the S26 protests; many remain in appalling conditions in Czech jails. They need your help. Write to the authorities in Prague to demand the immediate release of the arrestees and the release to
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The New Zealand government has announced that an amnesty will be granted to up to 8000 immigrants living in the country without a visa. The Australian government has responded by attacking the decision, claiming that it amounts to
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PRAGUE — Green Left Weekly's SARAH PEART spoke to protesters at the rally on September 26 about why they were there and what they hoped to achieve. Raul, 24, from Slovakia: I am here to protest against the exploitation of the Third World and
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Greens and front parties Geoff Ash's letter (GLW 422), responding to my article about David Oldfield's attempts to register front parties, focuses on one small inaccuracy, but fails to address the main issues raised. Ash correctly points out that
News
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SYDNEY — Two hundred people chanting "Refugees yes, racism no; Detention centres have got to go!" marched through the streets of Parramatta, in Sydney's western suburbs, on September 23. The rally was organised by the Refugee
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PERTH — Left-wing activists have performed well in elections to the Curtin University student guild here, but have been unable to oust conservative and apolitical incumbents, who retained 12 out of 16 positions on guild
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MELBOURNE — More than 600 people braved a wet, cold day to attend a solidarity action here with the Prague demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The action was called by the S11 Alliance and was
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BY GEORGINA DAVIES & SUE BOLAND MELBOURNE — Just as Melbourne service stations were beginning to run out of petrol on September 26, Labor Premier Steve Bracks' state government stepped in and persuaded truck drivers to end their 48-hour blockade
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Brownbuilt workers locked out MELBOURNE — Australian Manufacturing Workers Union members employed by Brownbuilt, which makes filing cabinets and other furniture, are picketing the company's plant in Oakleigh South after being locked out on
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For whom? "Making money is always a less harmful activity than mass politics". Padraic P McGuinness in the Sydney Morning Herald, September 28. Morale boost "Violent clashes with S11 protesters at the recent World Economic Forum had been a
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SYDNEY — Dave Hauser was sacked from his job as a wharfie with P&O here in March, for allegedly reading a newspaper on the job. A delegate for the Maritime Union of Australia, Hauser was one of several to be sacked in the past
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WOLLONGONG — Workers and their supporters maintaining a 6-month picket outside Joy Mining Machinery Manufacturing at Moss Vale had hoped for a breakthrough this week. It appeared that there were only a small number of points yet
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Through militant action, with massive public support, truck drivers, farmers and fisherpeople have forced the French government to back down and reduce the price of fuel. This militant example has inspired protests throughout
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SYDNEY — "Evictions are increasing, Olympic rents are going through the roof, and there is a chronic housing shortage", according to Gavin Sullivan, a Sydney Housing Action Collective (SHAC) spokesperson. But this hasn't stopped
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Unionists Against Corporate Tyranny has launched a new web site which, according to site editor Melanie Sjoberg, will help broaden the campaign against corporate-led globalisation. "The site has only been up for a week", said
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HOBART — Just 13% of University of Tasmania (Hobart campus) students voted in the recent student union elections. Those that did overwhelmingly favoured tickets which promised an end to Student Representative Council involvement in
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MELBOURNE — As tens of thousands of people linked arms, sang songs, danced jigs and blockaded the World Economic Forum from September 11 to 13, Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks was also extremely busy. In between loudly
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Now that the initial surge of euphoria and adrenaline is slowly dissipating into afterglow, it's time to dissect the S11 protests against the World Economic Forum's Melbourne summit. What made them a success? Here's an attempt at some answers.
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MELBOURNE — "There is definitely renewed curiosity and interest in socialist politics following the S11 protests", says Democratic Socialist Party activist Anne O'Casey, who has revealed that both the DSP and the socialist youth
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CANBERRA — Opponents of the federal government's harsh new welfare "reforms" rallied here on September 29, rally organiser Julie Vojneski from the Social Justice Action Group fiercely condemning Prime Minister John Howard and
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ADELAIDE — The federal Coalition's industrial policies were the main target of workers' anger at the annual Labour Day march and rally, organised by the United Trades and Labor Council here on September 29. UTLC assistant
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MELBOURNE — The furore caused by police brutality against S11 protesters, and the explicit backing given to it by Premier Steve Bracks, has not died down. Community lawyers assembling the case against police are confident that an
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The Australia Institute released a report on September 25 that shows nearly half of the federal government's $2.3 billion private health insurance rebate went to the top third of income earners, while the bottom third received just
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A report, released to coincide with the S26 protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Prague, has revealed the global scale of resistance to the two institutions. The World Development Movement's States of Unrest:
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FREMANTLE — "This ceremony of remembrance was for all peoples who have died in police and prison custody and police pursuits", WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chairperson Murray Jones told the 60 people who gathered for
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BY TIM STEWART & SUE BOLAND BRISBANE — While the Transport Workers Union was restricted from officially endorsing the blockades of oil refineries here and in Melbourne for fear of legal action, the union's national president and Queensland state
Analysis
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On September 9, the last of the women protesters at Greenham Common, in Berkshire, England, left the site, ending a protest which had lasted 19 years.
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Resistance has been globalised The massive S26 conferences, rallies and blockades in Prague, in opposition to the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, demonstrate that the movement against corporate
World
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The Central Intelligence Agency admitted for the first time on September 20 that a high-ranking Nazi general placed his spy ring at the disposal of the US government during the early days of the Cold War. A press release by the US National Archives
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Five people shot dead by police Five people were shot dead by police who were attempting to fend off an attack on a police station in the East Java town of Bondowoso. The Jakarta Post said that, according to police, some 600 people carrying Molotov
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Nothing can highlight more the failure of the Indonesian government to rein in the pro-Jakarta militias operating in West Timor than the sham weapons handover that began on September 22. The first three-day "persuasive" phase of the handover has been
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It was the movement which finally toppled the dictator Suharto in 1998 which made Romawaty Sinaga realise that workers and students had to unite to achieve any lasting fundamental change. IN that year, she left her position as an assistant lecturer
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UNITED STATES: Too much corporate power? SAN FRANCISCO Working people workers, small farmers and those called "middle-income families" know in their guts corporations have too much power. The September 11 Business Week confirmed it.
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PHNOM PENH — The ancestor holiday (Ph'chum Benn) is coming near, and with it, the former Khmer Rouge leaders, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, and their associate, Long Norin, will likely be visiting the Svay Por Pe monastery in Phnom Penh, which they
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Campesino coca growers (cocaleros), public school teachers and other labour sectors in Bolivia joined together during the week of September 18 to press their demands with a coordinated series of strikes, protests and roadblocks that had the country
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BRAZIL: Land reform activist murdered Sandoval Alves de Lima, a land reform activist and one of the leaders of a group of landless families occupying an estate in northeastern Brazil, has been shot dead by a gunman closely linked to the
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Russian activists have appealed for international solidarity and protest after thugs of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity party, armed with metal chains, burst into a school where Jewish children were taking religious lessons in the town of Ryazan,
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LAHORE — Progressive groups have called a conference for October 12, the first anniversary of the military's takeover of Pakistan, to demand the restoration of democracy. Twenty-five political parties, excluding the religious parties, have been
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LONDON — The idea that Britain has a "dot com" economy got a severe jolt with the week-long protests outside the oil depots, which brought the country to a complete stop. It became rapidly apparent that, to function, every aspect of industry and
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The release of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) documents on East Timor for the period 1974-76 has provoked former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and former Australian ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott to try to defend their
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PRAGUE — This city was deliberately chosen as the venue for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to showcase what IMF managing director Horst Kohler triumphantly called "the new Prague", the jewel of a capitalist
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JAKARTA — One thousand peasants from various regions of Indonesia rallied and marched here on September 24 to demand government action on human rights and economic justice. Organised by the National Peasants Union (STN), the rally brought
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Some 30 people were injured and at least 46 arrested in Jakarta on September 27 in a series of clashes between anti-Suharto and pro-Suharto protesters and the police, following the dismissal of corruption charges against the former Indonesian
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Heavily armed gunmen, suspected of belonging to a paramilitary group, murdered four leaders from the Embera-Kateo indigenous communities in Colombia's Upper Sinu River Basin on September 19. Twenty other Embera-Kateo people were abducted by the
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HO CHI MINH CITY — When a canteen manager in the Taiwanese shoe company Hue Phong physically attacked female Vietnamese workers, for "standing out of line" at the dinner queue, the company was immediately confronted by the wrath of the entire
Culture
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Louder than a BombVarious artistsCompiled by Chuck DRhino recordsThis year is the 21st anniversary of the "birth" of rap as a commercial music. In 1979, "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang was the first rap song to
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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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Bluelight.nu (<http://www.bluelight.nu>) is the world's largest discussion board for issues surrounding the use of MDMA (the recreational drug ecstasy), with over 11,000 members, including around 1000 in Australia. In the