In a recent "event" put on for the media to highlight cuts to education funding, the Newcastle University Students' Association president and education officer dressed in drag and "prostituted" themselves on Maitland Road, Islington, Newcastle's
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BY VIV MILEY & SUSAN PRICE Progressive forces from around the world spoke out and took action as soon as news of the police and militia raid on the international solidarity conference spread. In Canada, snap protests were organised across the
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BRISBANE — Activists are preparing the ground for dynamic protests directed at the October 6-8 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane. At a city-wide meeting on June 14 it became clear that a number of different
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Corporate collapses: Make the rich pay BY ALISON DELLIT It has not been a good two months for the old boys of the elite Cranbrook School in the affluent Sydney suburb of Point Piper. Following the collapse of insurance giant HIH, 1976
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Alas, radio and television programming that does not, one program at a time, promote the life and cohesive development of the entire human family, destroys it. Irving Elmer Bell. The mind boggles when faced with the stark reality of what
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The only one of the 32 foreign nationals detained after the June 8 raid on the Jakarta solidarity conference to be singled out for official deportation from Indonesia was Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of the Labour Party
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For one and a half days, from the morning of June 7, the Asia Pacific People's Solidarity Conference, held a holiday resort outside Jakarta, had been proceeding relatively smoothly. Eighty Indonesian democracy activists and more than
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German Greens Since your paper didn't get much feedback on your provocative April 11 front page headline German Greens betray anti-nuclear movement, and the accompanying article, I better let you know what I thought of it. As an
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At its inaugural meeting on June 4, the O3 To CHOGM Alliance agreed to the following call to action, for distribution through all progressive, activist and community networks. The alliance meets weekly on Monday nights at 6.30pm in
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At 6pm on Saturday June 9, 24 hours after the detained foreign participants at the Asia Pacific People's Solidarity Conference were first brought to Jakarta's central police HQ, the remaining 30 foreign detainees were allowed to
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Once the news broke in Australia about the police and militia attack on the Asia Pacific People's Solidarity conference in Indonesia on June 8 and the detention of conference participants, friends and relatives of the detainees in
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JAKARTA — "Since the police first arrived there was an increasing [number] of [militia] members and we predicted that after the police left, they would attack", said Yahgun, a member of the People's Democratic Party and one of
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The raid by the police at an international conference in Sawangan near Jakarta on Friday [June 8], and the arrest of 40 of the participants, including 32 foreigners, was bizarre, if not disturbing to the conscience. You could be forgiven thinking
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COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Top US labour leaders gathered for a workers' rights rally here responded immediately to the police crackdown on the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Conference in Jakarta. An international outpouring of
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The 21 adult Australian residents detained by the Indonesian police June 8-9 have sent an open letter to foreign minister Alexander Downer, demanding that the Australian government issue a statement condemning the Indonesian
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The raid by police on the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Conference in Jakarta on June 8, the brutal militia attack which followed it and the detention of 32 foreign participants has revealed two disturbing returns to the past. It has revealed that
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PERTH AIRPORT DETENTION CENTRE — I was born in Kashmir, which has been disputed territory between India and Pakistan for 54 years. Since 1989, 70,000 people have been killed, 12,000 women have been raped and 200,000 are held
News
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HOBART Environmental activists have chalked up a significant victory by forcing the state government to announce on June 5 that it is shelving its plans for a deep water port at Electrona in south-east Tasmania. The
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LISMORE — The streets outside Lismore courthouse were enlivened on June 4 by chanting protesters, anti-corporate banners, and clouds of illicit smoke. The 200-strong crowd had gathered in solidarity with three people arrested for
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The movement for refugee rights took a great leap forward on June 3, Australia's first ever nationally coordinated day of protest in defence of the rights of detained asylum seekers. Rallying to the cry "Free the refugees",
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[The following motion was passed unanimously by the Asia Pacific Peoples Solidarity Conference in Jakarta on June 7.] For the past 10 weeks workers and students in Melbourne have blockaded the Nike superstore in the central business district
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SYDNEY — "What's disgusting? Union busting! What's outrageous? Sweatshop wages!", has been one of the lively chants ringing outside Nike's main Sydney store on George Street every Friday night. The Sydney pickets are
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NEWCASTLE — More than 40 people attended the launch of the Newcastle Socialist Alliance on June 15. Participants included students who had taken part in the M1 stock exchange blockades, trade unionists, Latino workers,
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SYDNEY — Striking workers picketing the production plant of Metroshelf, which builds supermarket shelving, were sacked en masse on June 15 — but have vowed to fight on. The strike, at the plant in Revesby, in Sydney's west,
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Glowing in the dark is also handy "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really very good." — US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, quoted in the June 12 New York Times. No snuggles for Little Johnnie
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BY SARAH STEPHEN Ten years is the maximum penalty for escaping a detention centre and being unlawfully at large and it is what faces Parviz Eftekhari, who escaped from Woomera detention centre on June 9. The escape followed a
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MELBOURNE — In the same week that the Victorian Ombudsman cleared police of accusations of violence at last year's S11 protests, an activist who "pied" the Victorian premier has been sentenced to prison. Victorian Ombudsman
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The Curtin Immigration Detention Centre was on show to the media for the first time on June 10, a move the immigration department described as being part of an effort to change public perceptions, created by three riots in close
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MELBOURNE — In its first election campaign, in the by-election for the federal seat of Aston, the newly-formed Socialist Alliance plans to put the street back into street campaigning, calling an anti-GST protest for Wantirna on June
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HOBART — The usefulness of revolutionary solutions to "globalisation" featured prominently in the discussion at the June 13 public forum organised by the M1 Alliance. This was despite the fact that only one of the featured
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BY BRONWYN REES-ALLEN & LINDA WALDRON MELBOURNE — On June 8 a large contingent from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) joined 250 protesters outside the Nike superstore in Swanston Street. The presence of the militant union
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PERTH — The Liberals have only just managed to hold on to the lower house seat of Nedlands in a by-election on June 9. Greens candidate Steve Walker came within 3.5% of stealing the blue-ribbon Liberal seat. The seat was
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BRISBANE — "I would like to ask immigration minister Philip Ruddock, do you know what it is like to be a refugee? No, of course you don't, you do not care about refugees!", Latin American solidarity activist Rafael Pacheco told a
World
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Swedish riot police have opened fire with live ammunition on anti-capitalist protesters, injuring three, one critically, in a desperate attempt to put down demonstrations in Gothenburg against a summit of European Union leaders. It
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For some years now, Russian presidents, Yeltsin and now Putin, have been unable to push a new labour code through the Duma, due to opposition by workers and fears within the Kremlin of a backlash. Putin failed in his last attempt
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WELLINGTON — East Timorese leader Jose Ramos Horta, currently cabinet member for foreign affairs, told Radio New Zealand International on June 7 that his country cannot support West Papua's demand for independence from Indonesia. Horta said East
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TOKYO — Activists here are preparing to launch a Japanese chapter of ATTAC, Action for a Tobin Tax to Assist the Citizen, which calls for a tax on speculative capital flows. Thirty socialists, unionists and non-government
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The police raid on the Asia-Pacific Peoples Solidarity Conference on June 8 was just one more in a string of actions taken by the Indonesian police, often working hand in glove with militia gangs, to push back the democratic space won by the student-led mass movement which forced the resignation of former dictator Suharto in May, 1998.
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BY SALIM VALLY& PATRICK BOND JOHANNESBURG — United States secretary of state Colin Powell was forced to spend an extra hour hemmed in the University of Witwatersrand campus by demonstrators on June 1, learning why the US is now widely regarded as
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At the invitation of the United Auto Workers, a delegation of South Korean trade unionists visited the United States on June 1-8 to try to stop the sale of Daewoo Motors to US auto giant General Motors. The delegation was made up of
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One of those detained by authorities after the June 8 raid on the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Conference in Jakarta was Auckland city councillor Maire Leadbeater.
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On June 14, a converted fishing boat, the Sea of Change, docked in Dublin, Ireland, its first stop in a pilot project to offer safe access to pregnancy terminations, family planning and contraception to women in countries which
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Criticising the German Greens is like shooting fish in a barrel, but why bother? The answer is simple: the party has successfully spread confusion amongst environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners.
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ACCRA — The campaign by individuals and non-governmental organisations to halt the government of Ghana's policy of privatising the water supply has been intensified, with the formation of the Ghana National Coalition Against
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The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions began an "all-out struggle" of rolling strikes on June 12 to protest the Kim Dae-jung regime's intensifying neo-liberal attacks. The KCTU reported that on the first day 50,228 workers from 126
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Joao Carrascalao, a cabinet member of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, told ABC radio on June 4 that telecommunications carrier Telstra is spying on Timorese leaders' phone calls for the Australian government. Telstra
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Hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre on June 4 for a peaceful protest calling for the abolishment of the Internal Security Act, the ISA, and to express their support for those being detained under the law. At
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HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — The headline on the front page read in big bold letters, "8.14 am. It was over". The US federal government has executed Timothy McVeigh, the man who committed the worst act of terrorism on US soil.
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SAN FRANCISCO — There is an old saying: "When your neighbour is out of work, that's a recession; when you're out of work, it's a depression". In California, the wealthiest state in the United States (and the sixth largest economy in
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The architects of an integrated, capitalist Europe were dealt a stunning blow on June 7 when a clear majority in Ireland voted to reject the Treaty of Nice, the blueprint for the European Union's expansion. The "yes" case in the
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Tens of thousands of teachers, public sector workers and students protested in the capital, Bogota, and most major cities on June 7 against budget measures agreed between the Colombian government and the International Monetary Fund. The
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GLASGOW — It was the most spectacular vote for socialism in any Westminster election in the last 50 years. As hundreds of thousands of voters deserted New Labour, the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives, tens of
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LONDON — Candidates of the Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party won more than 129,000 votes in the June 7 British general election. In England and Wales constituencies, Socialist Alliance candidates won an average of
Culture
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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, 9pm. Ph 9565 5522. Visit <http://www.channel31.org> for
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REVIEWED BY KEITH MACKIE When I first read a review of The Star Fraction by Ken McLeod I had to go out and get a copy of it immediately. Described as the first Trotskyist science-fiction novel, it is set in the future, but is an allegory on
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REVIEW BY MARGARET ALLUM Lost and DeliriousDirected by Lea PoolWith Mischa Barton, Piper Perabo and Jessica PareScreening at the Sydney Film Festival, State Theatre and Dendy Opera Quays, until June 22 Mary "Mouse" Bradford (played by Mischa
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The Irish band has U2 has outraged Burmese officials over the inclusion of a track on the band's album All That You Can't Leave Behind. The military regime has introduced legislation to ban the album because of the song, "Walk on", which is a tribute
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The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality By Reg Whitaker Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2000 195 pages. REVIEW BY ALEXANDER DEL SOL In The End of Privacy, Reg Whitaker charts the development of surveillance
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Prescription Games: Money, Ego and Power Inside the Global Pharmaceutical IndustryBy Jeffrey RobinsonSimon & Schuster, 2001343 pages $45 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON Up there with the banks in the sheer unadulterated greed stakes would have to be
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MELBOURNE — In Australia, with the most monopolised media in the world, there is a growing need to support alternative media. For the past 25 years, 3CR has been broadcasting on a volunteer basis, providing alternative coverage of