BY EMMA
CLANCY
Students from hundreds of high schools around Australia are set to
participate in the March 5 student strike against the impending US war
against Iraq. They will be joined by large numbers of college and university
students,
Issue 528
News
BY DALE MILLS
SYDNEY — A report criticising police behaviour at the November protests at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Sydney mini-summit was released by the Legal Observers Team, based at the University of Technology Sydney, on February
BY BILL MASON
BRISBANE — Contract scab labour could be used on the Suncorp Stadium project in a bid to break a strike by building unions. The federal government's building industry task force has offered "safe passage" to contract labourers in a
BY TIM STEWART
BRISBANE — When the leaders of the trade union movement in Queensland proclaimed to the 100,000 anti-war protesters who rallied on February 16 that they would give the strongest possible support to the anti-war movement, what
BY STEVE O'BRIEN
NEWCASTLE — The Socialist Alliance has decided not to stand against Progressive Labor Party member Harry Williams in the seat of Newcastle in the March 22 NSW election. The PLP failed to gain state electoral registration and
BY KATE STOCKDALE
DARWIN — Local community organisations, politicians and activists — meeting regularly as the Refugee Action Network (RAN) — are campaigning to allow all 1800 East Timorese asylum seekers to stay in Australia.
A public
March on International Women's Day
BRISBANE — The International Women's Day collective is expecting a large turnout for this year's IWD rally and march on March 8. The theme is "Women demanding peace and justice". Meetings to organise the
Socialist candidates endorse student strike
BY LINDA WALDRON
MELBOURNE — The Socialist Alliance candidates standing in the Maribyrnong and Brimbank council elections will participate in the March 5 student strike against the war and the
BY MELANIE SJOBERG
SYDNEY Sixty unionists attended a meeting organised by the NSW
Labor Council on February 26 to discuss the impending war on Iraq and the
response of the unions.
ALP foreign affairs spokesperson Kevin Rudd described the
BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS
CANBERRA — The idea of a mass national convergence in Canberra on March 23-24 has caught the imagination of many anti-war activists. The proposed mass demonstration will coincide with federal parliament's last week of
SYDNEY Around 200 people rallied against a war against Iraq in Auburn,
in Sydney's western suburbs, on February 28. The rally was initiated by
the Socialist Alliance and endorsed by the Iraqi Women's Committee, the
Western Suburbs Peace
University shuts down anti-war stalls
BY SAM KING
BRISBANE — Queensland University of Technology (QUT) used police to shut down an "unauthorised" anti-war campaigning stall on its Kelvin Grove campus on February 19. Police threatened activists
BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — Tasmanian education minister Paula Wriedt and federal education minister Brendan Nelson have publicly chastised secondary students planning to join the March 5 national student strike against the war on Iraq. Student
BRISBANE On March 1, 200 anti-war protesters marched from the inner-city
suburb of West End to King George Square in the city, where a rally was
being held to greet the newly established Peace Embassy. The march and
rally were initiated by
World
BY NICK SOUDAKOFF
The government of the Philippines' agenda of crushing the national liberation movement in Mindanao, with the active help of the US military, has been dramatically exposed. But it didn't come from a government leak; the political
BY
TAMARA PEARSON
HARARE At 8am, people here wait in long queues for the shops and
banks to open. Milk is scarce, and salt and oil can only be obtained at
ridiculous prices on the black market. Cars form 1-kilometre-long queues
for
BY DOUG LORIMER
On February 23 protesters again took to the streets of Spain in massive numbers to protest against Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's government.
On February 15, as part of the international day of anti-war protests, more than four
BY DEBRA PAYNE
LONDON — Many people on the Februray 15 London anti-war march hadn't been on a march before. But I had and let me tell you it was terrific.
I was on one of 25 buses that left Nottingham for London, along with 300 buses from
More than 500,000 people marched through the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, on February 25 in protest at the looming US attack on Iraq, reported Associated Press. Most political parties and professional associations were represented.
Thousands of riot
BY PIP HINMAN
Australia-based Scottish academic LESLEY McCULLOCH and US nurse Joy-Lee Sadler were arrested in Indonesian-occupied south Aceh on September 11. They were beaten, harassed and jailed for five months and four months respectively on
BY EVA CHENG
Even though it was only a few years after the 1945 US nuclear attack on Japan, between 1950 and 1953, China's young Communist government, technologically miles behind the US, courageously fought alongside North Korea to repel US
BY PHILIP FERGUSON
CHRISTCHURCH — Anti-war protests took place in nearly 20 centres in New Zealand over the February 15-16 weekend, from Whangarei in the north to Dunedin in the south. The largest was in Auckland, called by Global Peace and
BY NICK SOUDAKOFF
On February 12, the Philippines government renewed its military offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Three-thousand government troops, backed up by air force bombers, helicopter gunships, artillery and
BY DOUG LORIMER
On the weekend of March 1-2, two military transport ships carrying equipment, including 300 helicopters, for the 17,000 troops of the US army's 101st Airborne Division departed Florida on a three-week voyage to the Persian Gulf.
BY STEPHEN BENNETS
ROME — Italian peace activists have been blockading US military convoys along northern Italy's rail routes since February 21. It is further evidence of the rising tide of opposition to the right-wing Italian government's
Crescent Petroleum (Ratawi and WDB 5); Romania's Petrom (WDB4 and Khurmal); a consortium from South Korea (Halfaya and WDB7); Spain's Repsol (WDB4); Taiwan's CPC (Gharraf); Tunisia's Setcar (field development); Vietnam's Petrovietnam for a
BY DAVID BACON
SAN FRANCISCO In the wake of the massive global anti-war protests
on February 14-16, opposition to a US war on Iraq among trade unions in
many countries may take a much more tangible form.
More than 200 unions and 550 union
BY ROHAN PEARCE
A February 20 report by CBS News has revealed that United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq consider US "intelligence" — like that presented by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council on February 5 — to be
BY
JAMES BALOWSKI
JAKARTA On February 24, hundreds of demonstrators from
the People's Democratic Party (PRD) took action against US plans to attack
Iraq.
The demonstration began at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in central
Jakarta then
BY JEFF SHANTZ
TORONTO — February 15 marked the Canadian anti-war movement's impressive growth. In Toronto, Canada's largest city, between 30,000 and 50,000 people braved bitter cold and icy winds to assert their unconditional opposition to war
LONDON — A communique issued by political organisations active in northen Iraq on February 23 condemned the planned Turkish-US invasion of northern Iraq (South Kurdistan).
"There is no justification for invading South Kurdistan... for the sake of
BY
PETER BOYLE
GLASGOW The Scottish Socialist Party may win up to eight candidates
in the May 1 elections for the Scottish parliament. At the very least,
sole SSP parliamentarian Tommy Sheridan told the annual SSP conference
on February
In a revelation that "raises questions about whether the [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist", Newsweek's March 3 issue reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told UN inspectors
BY ERIC RUDER& MELANIE WILKINSON
CHICAGO — Some 300 students from 100 US campuses gathered in Chicago on the February 22-23 weekend to hold the first national conference of the Campus Anti-war Network (CAN).
CAN decided on its points of unity,
Culture
Joburg businessmen ease into their limos, sip iced coffee under restaurant umbrellasand beneath the city, rust corrugated shackswhere dust and hunger hide sad faceswhere millions of township peoplewalk each day slowlythe nothing they own making not a
BY LINDSAY ROWAN
"The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution will put you in the driver's seat. The revolution will not be televised" — Gil Scott Heron.
In the