Museworthy: The Unshared
Our hearts are shrinking to fit our leader's chestThe press have been speaking with him againand he fills their papers and screens with wordswhich excuse himIn whose eyes?Does anyone look?From his hands grow the shadows
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HOBART — Students at the Hobart campus of the University of Tasmania (UTas) will vote in a referendum on whether to remain affiliated to the National Union of Students (NUS) on February 25-March 1. The Hobart campus is one of
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and ain't I a woman: Hollingworth blames the victim The statements made by Governor General Peter Hollingworth on the ABC's February 18 Australian Story program, perpetuate sexist attitudes about female sexuality. Describing sexual abuse of
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ALP The federal Australian Labor Party is not doing a very good job of resurrecting itself to be a political alternative. First, it was unable to produce a majority to support a principled stand on refugees. Now it is allowing itself to be
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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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BY SUE BULL& JEREMY SMITH The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is a young union by Australian standards. Formed in 1995 from five existing unions, it now represents more than 25,000 workers in post-secondary education institutions. The NTEU
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Every asylum seeker has the right to a lawyer, don't they? That's what the law says. Section 256 of the 1958 Migration Act states: "Where a person is in immigration detention ... the person responsible for his or her immigration
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In order to defend the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, both Labor and Coalition governments have had to convince the Australian people that it is both necessary and justifiable to treat those who arrive in Australia without
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The last time I was prevented from attending a political meeting was in Indonesia last June. The paramilitary police, together with their right-wing militia friends, shut down the Jakarta Asia Pacific People's Solidarity Conference
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BARBARA CANTERO, a representative of the Cuban Communist Youth (UJC), recently visited Australia to explain the activities of he organisation, learn more about the political situation in the Asian region and request increased solidarity for the Cuban
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The rapid unravelling of Governor General Peter Hollingworth's credibility highlights the problems inherent in having an appointed head of state. By February 22, media monitor Rehame estimated, based on talkback radio responses,
News
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SYDNEY — On March 1, Sydney Town Hall will be filled by 2050 people, coming to hear journalist John Pilger speak on: "Breaking the silence: war, propaganda and the new empire." Tickets for the event, sponsored by Green Left Weekly, were sold out on
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Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, Thang Ngo, Socialist Alliance (Parramatta), Newcastle Action for Refugee Rights, Refugee Action Collective (Melbourne central), Australia West Papua Association, Progressive Young Hazaras, PIP HINMAN">
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LISMORE The refugee solidarity movement in the Northern Rivers region has grown rapidly. Around 400 people attended pro-refugee meetings in the space of four days. The February 15 launch of the Lismore chapter of
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DARWIN — "Resistance called this high school walkout to demonstrate our anger at the federal government's treatment of the world's most desperate people", Resistance organiser Chris Atkinson told Green Left Weekly. Students from
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HOBART — Manufacturing union organiser Greg Cooper joined a delegation of business leaders on February 22 to appeal to the federal government for financial assistance to shipbuilding company Incat. The union's call for
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SYDNEY — "How many more lies do we have to endure until the refugees are free?", Free the Refugees Campaign's (FRC) Paul Benedek, the 300 people who rallied outside the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre on February 22. "No more!",
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FREMANTLE — "I only wish the politicians could show refugees the same kindness, compassion and humility that my ancestors showed your ancestors hundreds of years ago" — with these passionate words, Nyoongar activist Kim
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MELBOURNE — May 1 is set to become "no-war May Day" after the February 5 meeting of the M1 Alliance. Adopting a call to action, the alliance is planning protests based around three slogans: no war on refugees; no war on the
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SYDNEY — Thirty ALP members and trade unionists attended Labor for Refugees general meeting on February 17. Federal MP for Sydney Tanya Plibersek told the meeting that the February 12 protest rally outside Parliament House
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MELBOURNE — Fifty people attended a Socialist Alliance barbeque in Northcote's Jika Jika Community Centre on February 16 to launch the alliance's election campaign for the Darebin council. The Socialist Alliance is standing
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BRISBANE — The government's so-called "anti-terrorism bill" will massively strengthen the powers of the Australian security Intelligence Agency (ASIO), Ross Daniels, Amnesty International activist and lecturer at Queensland
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Virtual monarch "We all know she doesn't really exist any more, but we can't quite bring ourselves to tell her or admit it." — New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Budman, on Queen Elizabeth II. Perish the thought! "I would have thought that it
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PERTH — The state Labor government is under fire from civil-liberty groups for attempting introduce draconian legislation, known locally as the "anti-gang laws". The ALP rushed the bill into parliament last year soon after
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SYDNEY — On February 22, the NSW Socialist Alliance surmounted the final legal barrier to having its name printed next to its candidates on ballot papers in the 2003 state elections. The barriers were erected by the NSW
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SYDNEY — Sister Susan Connolly has counted 22 lies about refugees that have been spread by the federal government, she told the "People vs Philip Ruddock" public meeting held in Granville Town Hall on February 20. Organised by
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Cuban tours MELBOURNE — More than 60 people met on February 20 for a public forum titled "From Cuba to Argentina: popular resistance to war and neo-liberal globalisation". Barbara Cantero, a representative of the Cuban Communist Youth (UJC),
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DARWIN — There are not many places in Darwin for young people to hang out. Casuarina shopping mall is the main place. But the centre's management and its private security firm, Group 4, are often less than welcoming of young
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DARWIN — Socialist Alliance candidate for Lord Mayor Ruth Ratcliffe and Independent Education Union organiser Simon Hall, who recently resigned from the Labor Party over its support for mandatory detention of refugees, addressed a
Analysis
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Here in Australia, the "threat" of the "flood" of illegal asylum seekers (no more than 4000 arrive in a year, most of them genuine) is said to have given Prime Minister John Howard his election victory last November. The decisive
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Howard must go! By February 22, it appeared that former defence minister Peter Reith had finally decided to hang on to the hot potato of blame in the children overboard scandal. Admitting that he knew the federal Coalition
World
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Protests against the government in Argentina continue to grow. Calls for new elections and the resignation of the government are being increasingly linked to the demand for a "workers' government". On February 15, 20,000
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GLASGOW — Fifty delegates attended the founding conference of the Scottish Socialist Party's youth network, Scottish Socialist Youth, on February 9. A central campaign for the SSY will be a campaign to legalise cannabis. Two very
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YOGYAKARTA — There's no such thing as a wholly "natural" disaster. The recent catastrophic floods in Jakarta and along the northern coast of Java, which claimed at least 200 lives, were no exception. The Dutch colonial
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RAMALLAH — Last week there was a massive escalation in Israel's military attacks against the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On a nightly basis, Israeli F-16 warplanes have dropped bombs over Palestinian
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Capitalism's nagging overcapacity problem refuses to go away. Having long plagued many key industries, the problem found new and sharp expressions in the global steel industry in the wake of the 1997-98 economic crises in Asia, Russia
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The chairperson of SMUR (Students in Solidarity with the People), Mahmudal, was arrested in Banda Aceh on February 19 during a demonstration organised by ORPAD (Acehnese Women's Democratic Organisation). SMUR is an
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The campaign against leftist President Hugo Chavez, led by local big business interests and backed by Washington, has rapidly escalated in recent months, with more and more talk of the need to remove Chavez. On November 5-7,
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HARARE — Around 1500-2000 people mobilised on February 15 under the slogan, "No to dictatorship, no to neo-liberal poverty". Earlier that day, the High Court had refused hear the organisers' urgent application against the
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Israeli society is becoming increasingly polarised. On one side there are those who have lost, or are losing, faith in a military strategy to crush the current intifada, and who are beginning to understand that without justice for
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On February 22, Haji Ponke Princen died. Princen, who was 76, was one of Indonesia's finest militant democrats. As a young man, Princen was sent to Indonesia as a Dutch soldier to fight against the Indonesian people's struggle for
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JOHANNESBURG — Around 480 voluntary retrenchments have been offered to municipal workers at the recently privatised Kelvin power plant. Kelvin, a coal-powered electricity station, provides 25% of Johannesburg's electricity
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GLASGOW — At 5am on February 11 a convoy of mini buses, cars and vans carrying 500 anti-nuclear activists from across Europe made their way to the home of Britain's Trident nuclear missile submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde
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LONDON — Whatever authoritarian aspirations Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh may have cherished in the past, tribal and regional fiefdoms have always served as a brake on centralised power. Now, thanks to September 11, the
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The SBS Dateline current affairs program on February 13 broadcast a special report Killing Mugabe: The Tsvangirai Conspiracy and a follow-up report on February 20, by Walkley Award-winning Australian journalist Mark
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Normalinda, an activist from the Indonesian National League of Students for Democracy (LMND) and Fransiscus "Black" Farneubun, an activist from the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), were each sentenced to three months in prison by a
Culture
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Shallow HalWith Jason Alexander, Jack Black, Gwyneth PaltrowAt major cinemas REVIEW BY DALE MILLS So much bilge pours out of Hollywood that it is surprising to find something half-decent at all. This film is one of the half-decent ones. Don't be
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Since forming in 1994, after what they call "a brief interlude on public transport", Regurgitator has cut four full-length albums and flirted with every music style except polka and yodelling. The band rates as a highlight of its career "a 5am
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Rabbit Proof FenceDirected by Phillip NoyceIntroducing Evelyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury and Laura MonaghanWith Ningali Lawford, David Gulpilil, Deborah Mailman and Kenneth BranaghScreening at Dendy Newtown and cinemas across Australia REVIEW BY KIM