US delegates dropped a bombshell at the Asian and Pacific Population Conference in late October. They announced that the US would withdraw its support for the"action plan" devised at the 1994 United Nations Population and Development Conference in
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On September 12, US President George Bush addressed the United Nations General Assembly to set out the US regime's case for a bloody war on Iraq. Bush declared that the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein since 1998 had
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PERTH — Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has given conditional approval for a massive marina and resort to be constructed next to the fragile Ningaloo Reef, 1200 kilometres north of Perth. However, the Save Ningaloo
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Embryonic research As the Senate debates embryonic research, it is important to reject the notion that humans have rights simply by virtue of being human. The point of rights is to promote the interests of rights-holders. A never-sentient embryo
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The ALP shut down its working party on refugee policy on November 12, after only two meetings. This is a substantial blow to Labor for Refugees, which agreed to its members involvement in the working party in return for a
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"America in the year 2001 faces the most serious energy shortages since the oil embargoes of the 1970s", proclaimed US vice president Dick Cheney's May 2001 national energy policy report to President George Bush. The Cheney report
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SYDNEY The NSW state government and corporate media's blitz in the weeks leading up to the World Trade Organisation mini-ministerial meeting, which claimed violent protesters and society's dregs were intent on arson
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MELBOURNE — "On November 30, a vote for the Socialist Alliance is the clearest possible vote against war and racism", said Arun Pradhan, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Melbourne. Pradhan, who has been an
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The Prime Minister John Howard initially refused to rule out support for a call to ban Muslim women from wearing certain religious dress in public. The call was made by Fred Nile, a Christian fundamentalist MP in the NSW
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Over the past two months, life in the Socialist Alliance has been stormy. The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) threatened to disaffiliate if the Democratic Socialist Party went ahead with a proposal to its December congress to convert
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BY TERRICA STRUDWICK & SARAH STEPHEN At the end of September, Abdur Wahab Najim, an Iraqi asylum seeker in Villawood detention centre, was approached by an immigration department official who offered him a passport and claimed that the
News
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MELBOURNE Speak-outs against a possible war on Iraq were held in three Melbourne suburbs on November 23. The Footscray protest heard from Socialist Alliance candidate for Footscray Justine Kamprad, Shirley Winton from the Western Suburbs
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BY ANNE OCASEY MELBOURNE Arun Pradhan, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Melbourne district in the November 30 Victorian elections, has called for mass civil disobedience to stop the controversial Commonwealth Games village planned
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SYDNEY — A concerted campaign for several months by residents and Erskineville Housing Estate tenants forced the NSW state government on November 19 to reject a housing department redevelopment proposal which would have adversely
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DARWIN I'm here because I don't like injustice, and I don't like being ashamed of my country, declared Jack, one of the 250 people who attended a public meeting in support of the East Timorese asylum seekers on
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SYDNEY — "We are a mass movement, we need to look like one" is the idea behind a broadly supported initiative to hold a National People's Refugee Summit in early 2003. The proposed summit, tentatively scheduled for February 1-2
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Anti-war forum discusses movement building HOBART — A Socialist Alliance-initiated meeting on November 20 provided a forum for people to discuss the best way to oppose war on Iraq. Participants were addressed by federal Labor MP Harry Quick,
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MELBOURNE — "Building rank-and-file unionism" was the topic of discussion at the first public meeting of the Trade Union Solidarity Committee, which was held on November 19 at Trades Hall. The committee was set up by the Socialist
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SYDNEY Police will be able to stop and search people without warrants after the NSW ALP cabinet approved new anti-terror laws in November. The laws are now being rushed through state parliament. Among other things, NSW
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MELBOURNE — Community lawyer Amanda George, well-known for years of work against private prisons in Australia, is standing as an independent candidate in the Victorian election. She is opposing the Labor minister for police and
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Pressure is mounting against the federal government's moves to deport 1600-1800 East Timorese asylum seekers, some of whom have been seeking refugee status for up to 10 years. At least 84 may be forced to leave by the end of
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CANBERRA — The Members First rank and file group in the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is challenging the ALP-aligned Progressive Caucus in elections for department-based section and local region positions in the ACT,
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Free enterprise "Collectible cards depicting portraits of victims of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center are due to go on sale next month, leading to accusations their manufacturer is trading on tragedy." — Daily Telegraph,
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ADELAIDE — Around 100 people gathered at the Queens Theatre on November 17 for a refugees' rights forum. The event, part of the Feast Festival 2002, focused on the plight of refugees fleeing persecution because of their sexuality.
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SYDNEY Despite attempts by police to prevent it, an anti-war action in Bankstown's Old Town Plaza on November 16 attracted 80 people. Initiated by the Socialist Alliance and the Canterbury-Bankstown Anti-War Group, the
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Regular readers of Green Left Weekly in Sydney's western suburbs can pick up the latest issue at the new Resistance Centre, 7/29 Macquarie Street, Parramatta. From Green Left Weekly, November 27, 2002. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
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Around 1500 Ku-ring-gai residents were drawn together on November 17 to stand against inappropriate over-development of their municipality, particularly the increasing density of housing. The rally, promoted by Friends of Lindfield, kicked off with folk songs before a variety of speakers took the podium.
Speakers highlighted the inadequate representation that they felt local council members are providing, and voiced their concerns about corruption in the council.
Analysis
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NSW Premier Bob Carr's enthusiasm for vilifying protesters, police patrols with sniffer dogs and cooperating with Australia's secret police service is not an aberration for the ALP. Federal Labor is also bending over backwards to increase police
World
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JOHANNESBURG — On November 8, James Kilgore, the last fugitive member of the 1970s US terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), was arrested in Cape Town. He was known in South Africa as John Pape, the respected left
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The Middle East is in the grip of severe drought. Israel's farmers are so highly dependant on irrigation that they require more than half of the 1.55 billion cubic metres of water that is used annually within Israel's
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"What passing bells for these who die as cattle?", asked the great WWI poet Wilfred Owen. His famous line might have been written for those who perish in today's secret wars and terrorist outrages. Owen's generation never used the
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The largest shipment of high-level nuclear waste between France and Germany — 1300 tonnes of it — was trained and trucked from La Hague in France to Wendland in northern Germany. on November 11-14. The waste was taken to a
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TORONTO Greenpeace door canvassers are used to pounding the pavements. Every evening, they walk kilometres to spread the Greenpeace message of environmental care. However, the organisations' canvass workers never expected
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Following weeks of massive demonstrations, El Salvador's National Assembly voted on November 14 to ratify a decree that prohibits the privatisation in any form of the national health care system (known as the Salvadoran Social Security Institute,
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"Politics has never seen such a widespread liquidation operation", declared the Turkish daily Sabah following the crushing victory of the "Islamist" Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey's November 3 general election.
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HONG KONG Seventy pro-democracy protesters staged a rally outside in the Chater Garden Square next to the local Legislative Council building on November 17, defying a police warning that the gathering was illegal
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FLORENCE Non ho mai visto Firenze cosi bella. Che bello vederla cosi piena di gente; di solito ci sono solo le bancarelle d'oro e le cartoline. E che palle! (I've never seen Florence looking so beautiful. How
Culture
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Telling Lies About Hitler: the Holocaust, History and the David Irving TrialBy Richard EvansVerso, 2002326 pages, $37 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON If a self-styled "geographic revisionist" should ever step up to a witness box to sue the Royal
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Just Another Little Murder: A Brother's Pursuit of JusticeBy Phil ClearyAllen and Unwin, 2002$29.95 REVIEW BY ERIN CAMERON The murder of Vicki Cleary in 1987 shook her family to the core, but what was to devastate them even more was the outcome
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SYDNEY — On November 11, a book was launched in the outer Sydney suburb of Blacktown. It coincided with the 17th anniversary of the killing by police of 16-year-old Angelo Tsakos. The book, A Mother's Story, details the agony of those 17 years
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Episodes directed by Samira Makhmalbaf, Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Sean Penn, Denis Tanovic, Mira Nair, Shohei Imamura, Amos Gitai, Youssef Chahine, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Idrissa Ouedrago Now showing at the Nova and Cinema Europa,
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SYDNEY — In the United States, actor Susan Sarandon and other high-profile artists and performers are speaking out against the planned US-led war on Iraq. In Australia too, members of the arts and cultural communities are supporting
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REVIEW BY ELIZABETH SCHULTE War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to KnowWilliam Rivers Pitt interviews Scott RitterAllen and Unwin, 200278 pages, $9.95. A former marine and a member of the Republican Party who voted for George W Bush,
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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