SYDNEY — "If you're under 30 and born in an Australian hospital, there is a permanent record of your blood which can be used for DNA profiling" a forum was told on July 17.
The meeting, titled "A Critical Forum on Surveillance and
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BRISBANE Since June 13, protesters have maintained a 24-hour protest camp outside the Narangba site that Steritech proposes to build a food irradiation plant upon. Although the protesters managed to delay
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David Bradbury replies Your review of Fond Memories of Cuba (GLW #500) is what reluctantly I have come to expect of the dogmatic left response your paper has on too many issues that vitally concern all progressive and left minded people in
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On July 11, more evidence about the October 19 sinking of the boat SIEV-X (which stands for Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel — unknown) was presented to the Senate committee investigating the incident. The evidence strengthens
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After badly scalding his face, a friend of mine went to the emergency department of Sydney's Westmead Hospital at 2am, where he waited for six hours before his burns were even looked at. Stories like this are common. Australia's
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CANBERRA — Activists from the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) rank-and-file group, Members First, are campaigning against the latest tactic in the federal government's war on workers: using the federal government's New
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PERTH — [This is an abridged version of a speech by Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) WA secretary KEVIN REYNOLDS to a Socialist Alliance-organised trade union seminar in Perth on July 6.] The Royal Commission into the
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The US-style deregulated health-care system, with no universal guarantee of care, is what awaits Australia if the federal government has its way. That would be a disaster. Despite its so-called efficient system of
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The forced return of Alamdar and Montazar Baktiyari to the Woomera immigration prison — which dramatically unfolded on news telecasts on July 18 — has horrified millions of people across Australia and the world. It was a
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and ain't i a woman: The Bandit Queen July 25 marks the first anniversary of the murder of Phoolan Devi, who became known as India's "Bandit Queen". After completing it in 1995, Devi described her autobiography, I, Phoolan Devi: "It is an
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Museworthy: Your Pen & Mine The epiphanies are rushing togetherThe epiphanies of povertyOf light and emptiness and the mass of lifeThat remembers itselfIn the square of your childhood village The sunflower's head is too heavyFor its
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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. Includes the Green Left news. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9pm. Phone 9565 5522. Visit
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BY JASON CAHILL & NICOLE HOYE BRISBANE — In August 1999, the Australian and New Zealand Food Authority quietly lifted a 10-year ban on food irradiation. The impact of that decision is now being felt as a food irradiation facility is being
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HOBART — The record vote for the Greens in the July 20 Tasmanian election indicates there has been a swing to the left in the electoral arena. At the close of counting on July 20, the Greens had won four lower-house seats. The
News
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Save womens studies at Deakin University! GEELONG Despite a 20-year history of strong enrolments and a national and international reputation, Deakin Universitys womens studies program is about to be gutted. More than 800 students
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BY SEAN MARTIN-IVERSON PERTH — After a week of coordinated industrial action, 2000 WA enrolled nurses have won a significant pay increase. Enrolled nurses in Perth's major public hospitals, organised in the Liquor, Hospitality & Miscellaneous
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WOLLONGONG — In an eight-page glossy brochure delivered to northern Illawarra residents in May, Stocklands describes itself as "one of the most respected development and investment groups in Australia". Yet its Sandon Point
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MELBOURNE Why is the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national office attacking the Victorian branch?, AMWU state secretary Craig Johnston asked a stop-work rally on July 17. Addressing around 5000 of his union's
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The party's over "In order for us to have the security we all want, America must get rid of the hangover that we now have as a result of the binge, the economic binge we just went through. We were in a land of — there was endless profit, there
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BRISBANE On July 18, a 1500-strong rally of health workers marched to Parliament House demanding fair wages and conditions. Solidarity stop-work meetings happened simultaneously at major health centres across the
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HOBART — The Socialist Alliance has achieved the highest socialist vote ever in a Tasmanian state election. With 80% of the vote counted from the July 20 Tasmanian elections, the alliance received 663 votes. The final total will
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LISMORE — At a breakfast function for businesspeople here on July 18, deputy prime minister John Anderson was met by banners, placards and twenty-five chanting people opposing the government's policy of the mandatory detention of
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BRISBANE — Queensland nurses have rejected a pay and conditions deal proposed by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. On July 19, the Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) walked out of conciliation talks with the state Labor
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On July 21, hundreds of Green Left Weekly supporters around the country gathered to celebrate the production of the 500th issue of GLW. Pictured is Akasha performing at the GLW fiesta in Melbourne. Photo by Peter Johnston. From Green
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The Federal Court will decide on July 22 or 23 whether to overturn the suspension of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Unions Victorian secretary Craig Johnston. Johnston was stood down by the AMWU national office on
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TOWNSVILLE — Indonesian trade union leader Dita Sari was one of 29 Third World women activists denied a visa to attend the annual International Women's Conference and the Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference
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BY ANDREW HALL & PAUL OBOOHOV CANBERRA — Rank-and-file ACT activists in the Community and Public Sector Union grouped around Members First, have issued a call to all CPSU members who want to rebuild a democratic, broad campaigning approach to
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SYDNEY With the strike at Daysons Rydalmere airconditioning re-manufacturing plant entering its ninth week, the company is under considerable pressure to end the dispute. The 12 workers on strike have told supporters
Analysis
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US President George Bush needs another bloody Gulf War to win the mid-term US Congress elections in November. The serious shooting may start before or after that election, but the troops and the multi-billion dollar killing machines are already
World
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VARADERO, Cuba — "The most beautiful land the human eye has beheld" was how Christopher Columbus described Cuba when he "discovered" it on behalf of the Spanish royals in October 1492. Despite several hundred years of Spanish colonisation and US
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In the remote area of Aceh Tengah (central Aceh) there is a new and growing problem for the civilian population: the presence of Indonesian-backed militia. The rarely visited area has experienced a devastating attack on its
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Dockworkers' union leaders on the US west coast continue to negotiate with management for a new contract. The existing contract, which expired on July 1, is being extended on a day-to-day basis. In 1999, when the International
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BY MAX LANE JAKARTA The Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) launched its new newspaper, Pembebasan (Liberation) at a public meeting held at the Jakarta Media Centre on July 11. Almost 400 people packed the auditorium for a lively
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US military ties with Jakarta have been restricted since the 1990s because of the Indonesian military's (TNI) human rights abuses in East Timor. Now, Washington is using the "war on terrorism" as justification to renew ties. On July
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MEXICO CITY — The first major conflict between the mass movement and Mexico's President Vicente Fox's administration has ended in a qualified victory for those opposed to the construction of a new international airport for the
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The United States is the most powerful and important backer of the state of Israel. A common explanation for this support is that the "Israel lobby" within the US exercises huge influence over Washington. There is a powerful network of Zionist
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JAKARTA — President Megawati Sukarnoputri's support within her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) is falling as she increasingly associates with the political figures from the era of the Suharto dictatorship. Almost
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BY JIMMY LANGMAN On June 30, Bolivians went to the polls to choose their next president and elect a new congress. No candidate gained the 50% plus one margin required for outright victory. Bolivia's congress will decide in early
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[The following statement was issued by the Johannesburg Anti-Privatisation Forum, which unites working-class and poor communities struggling against water and electricity cut-offs and evictions which flow from the neo-liberal economic policies of the
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In April 2000, Aguas de Tanari, a large multinational corporation, was due to take over the privatised water works in Cochabamba. Water prices were to increase and laws were passed to make it illegal to catch and use rain
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BY MUMIA ABU-JAMAL "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch!" — US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. There is something surreal about George W. Bush crowing to the world on May 20 about
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MOSCOW — For 10 years now, a chorus of politicians, journalists and sociologists has been telling the Russian people a story as simple and appealing as Little Red Riding Hood. It goes like this: society was deformed by
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When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, in a July 17 speech to mark the 34 years of rule by his Baath party, attacked "evil tyrants and oppressors" — referring to US-backed Iraqi opposition forces, primarily former Iraqi military
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As US corporate crime scandals spread by the day, even US President George Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney have been implicated in the shady practices that have triggered panic on stockmarkets around the world. The US Securities
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During a tour of Cuba, Ralph Nader, Green Party US presidential candidate in 2000, on July 9 stated that he was opposed his government's economic blockade of Cuba, which he said doesn't give Cubans "a chance to breathe".
Culture
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REVIEW BY TYRION PERKINS Louder Than War: the Manic Street Preachers Live in Cuba DVD featuring the Manic Street PreachersSony MusicKnow Your EnemyManic Street PreachersSony Music "I suppose we're making history because of the trade sanctions
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Acclaimed British director Ken Loach's latest film, The Navigators, deals with the experiences of a group of South Yorkshire railway track workers coping with the privatisation of British Rail. The Navigators reveals the "view from below" as the
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MELBOURNE — Forget about the Gold Coast, the next series of Big Brother should be televised from the Woomera refugee detention centre according to comedian Rod Quantock. After all, "it's all ready to go, all you need is the
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To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all"> The Oscar Wilde they never quote REVIEW BY STUART MUNCKTON The Importance of Being EarnestDirected Oliver ParkerStarring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Dame Judi