Letter from Baghdad
Every morning for the past five weeks I've watched the children walk to school from the balcony of my hotel across the street.
Today [March 17], I was asked to leave this hotel for my own safety. To the right is a phone
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On March 20, Australian fighter planes assisted in a US air strike on Baghdad, marking the beginning of the war against the Iraqi people. Prime Minister John Howards decision to send Australians overseas to kill Iraqis is unjustifiable. No
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Now war is declared, the ball game of news reporting will change. All material gathered in and around the conflict will be subject to US scrutiny and if you don't sign the Pentagon agreements, then pack your bags quickly.
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On March 12, an immigration department media release announced that the Australian and Iranian governments had signed a memorandum of understanding to "promote the legal and mutually beneficial movement of people between the two
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MELBOURNE — A March 18 forum co-sponsored by the Age newspaper and the Press Club entitled, "Iraq: Midnight or Dawn", at Melbourne's Town Hall attracted around 800 people. While the audience was largely anti-war, most of the
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How have we got to the point where a handful of Western governments take us into an illegal and immoral war against Iraq, a stricken country with which we have no quarrel and offers no threat: an act of aggression opposed by
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It didn't take long for the corporate media to fall even further behind backing Washington's war on Iraq. On March 19, the day after Prime Minister John Howard announced his government had officially committed Australian troops to
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As the US-led war on Iraq began in earnest on March 20, the mass outpouring of anger across the world surprised even some seasoned campaigners. In Australia, around 90,000 people took their protest to the streets in all the
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Green Left Weekly's ROHAN PEARCE examines the main justifications used by US President George Bush and Prime Minister John Howard to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq. 1. Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons The UN inspections have so
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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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"Stop school to stop the war!" This was a call put out by Books Not Bombs (BNB) following US President George Bush's March 17 48-hour ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It was met on March 20 by thousands of students putting
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BRISBANE The March 5 student strike demonstrated that young people in Australia refuse to be silent about the criminal US war against Iraq. More than 30,000 people, mostly high school students who had walked out of school,
News
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30,000 people shut down the centre of Melbourne three hours after the first cruise missiles were launched on Baghdad on Thursday. Victorian Peace Network (VPN) volunteers told Green Left Weekly that many of the peace
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BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS & ANTHONY BENBOW Militant unionists in Melbourne and Perth have offered a lead to others by walking off the job to protest the war at union-organised rallies following the beginning of the war. In Perth,
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In Lismore, with two hours notice, five hundred people rallied against the attack on Baghdad on March 20. Sister Margaret Mazzer began the event by singing a prayer for peace. Rally chairperson Tom Flanagan observed that if the
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On March 20, 200 people attended a protest and march the local navy base, where a mock "die-in" was held. This was very powerful, and organised by local group Peace by Peace. On the following day, at lunchtime, there was a rally in
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Hearing news that war had begun, more than 10,000 people jammed into Brisbane's King George Square in a 5pm emergency rally called by the Queensland Peace Network on March 20. At first the mood was sombre and reflective, but this
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Itching for Gulf War III "We suddenly discover that Iran is much further along, with a far more robust nuclear weapons development program than anyone said it had." — US Secretary of State and UN slide shows Colin Powell, March 13. Practicing
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About 300 attended a protest in Mackay on March 22, and listened to a range of speakers from the community including Laurie Horgan (secretary of the Mackay Branch of QCTU) and Tim Mulherin the state labour member, Green
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On March 19, 2000 people attended an emergency anti-war protest called on four hours notice. Anti-war sympathisers employed by the Perth City Council organised access to electrical power for the protest, and a
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On March 16, 200 attended an anti-war rally in Mt Druitt organised by the Western Sydney Peace Group (WSPG). The protest was remarkable for the social, cultural and political diversity of those present. WSPG Tim
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The official beginning of the US-led war on Iraq was the catalyst for the abandonment of classrooms and the closure of several schools on March 20, as hundreds of students walked out in protest. In the following days, not only did
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BY LEIGH HUGHES ADELAIDE — The first strike in the US-led war on Iraq was the catalyst for the abandonment of classrooms and the closure of several schools across Adelaide on March 20, as hundreds of students walked out in protest. Students
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A defiant 300-400 people rallied and marched in Launceston on March 22 against war on Iraq, despite media attempts to portray protesting now the war has begun as futile. United Nations Association President Margaret
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As the bombs rained down on Baghdad, the Socialist Alliance stepped up its campaign against the war. The alliance is proposing a four-point plan to undermine Australian participation in the war effort and to throw out the
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For the second time in two days, up to 10,000 people marched through the streets of Brisbane on March 22. The noon rally at King George Square drew a crowd of 5000 but people kept pouring in from all sides of the square even as the
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After a week of emergency anti-war actions, tens of thousands of Australians continued to protest on the March 22-23 weekend. Protests in eight cities mobilised around 120,000 people. This included a whopping 30,000 on
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SYDNEY — On the eve of the March 22 NSW election, both Labor Premier Bob Carr and Liberal Party leader John Brogden pleaded with voters not to make the war on Iraq a state election issue. However, the rapid growth of the
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On March 21, 450 people turned out for an anti-war rally in the city mall. Speakers included, Michael Organ (Greens MP for Cunningham), Jennie George (Labor MP, Throsby), Terry Fox (ex-Catholic priest and activist for
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Blockies for peaceLAUNCESTON — When the war started, like many others, I just had to protest. I joined around 100 other furious people on the side of one of Launceston's busiest roads, calling on motorists to honk for peace.
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Shortly after the bombing of Iraq began people started to gather at the State Library to protest against the start of the war. The protesters, organised by the Victorian Peace Network, heard from a range of speakers before setting off at 6.30pm for the army's Victoria Barracks on St Kilda Road. As it marched down Swanston Street, the rally doubled in size to 50,000.
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ADELAIDE — On March 5, Adelaide's Kurdish community protested plans by Turkey to join the US in invading and occupying Northern Iraq (South Kurdistan). More than 100 people gathered at Victoria Square for a march to state
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On March 20, 250 local high school, TAFE and university students joined an emergency student walkout in response to the beginning of the war on Iraq. The walkout was called by Wollongong Books not Bombs just two days
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About 40 people gathered outside Federal MP Jackie Kelly's office in Penrith from 5pm the day war started. With signs that read "Disarm the USA, and Israel" and "No Blood for Oil", the peace vigil heard speakers from the Greens, the Socialist
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Just three hours after Washington announced the beginning of its war against Iraq, Australians had flooded onto the streets in protests marked by deep anger and determination. Green Left Weekly has received reports from 25
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Protesters in many cities reacted to the events of March 18 — the announcement by PM John Howard that Australian troops had been committed to a war against Iraq, and US President George Bush's designed-to-fail ultimatum to Saddam
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SYDNEY Protestors at the emergency rally on March 20 didn't miss an opportunity to tell NSW Premier Bob Carr what they thought of his tame-cat position on the Iraq war when they spotted his limousine stuck in traffic near
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SYDNEY Just two days before Prime Minister John Howard officially backed the US ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, residents of western Sydney were among thousands of hopeful protesters gathering at anti-war rallies on March
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Hearing news that war had begun, more than 10,000 people jammed into Brisbane's King George Square in a 5pm emergency rally called by the Queensland Peace Network on March 20. At first the mood was sombre and reflective, but this
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BRISBANE There are now two superpowers in the world the imperial mafia [in Washington] and the anti-war and global justice movements worldwide, William Blum, US author, journalist and radical commentator and former US
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ADELAIDE — On hearing US President George Bush's declaration of imminent war on March 18, 500 people flocked to Parliament House at 5pm. The spontaneous crowd was passionate, loud, and articulate in its outright rejection of the
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Two thousand people gathered in Garema Place at lunch time for the second major emergency protest against the war on Iraq. Many workers took early lunch breaks to reach the protest, and students left schools and universities to attend. Many
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Within hours of Bush's declaration of war on March 18, people in Perth were protesting in their thousands. Protests continued throughout the week, culminating in a massive rally and march through central Perth on March
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As soon as the war began on March 20, more than one hundred people gathered spontaneously in Civic for a speakout, led by Resistance activist Erin Killion. This included many public servants, and over 20 high school students who immediately left
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MELBOURNE — Applications for refugee status by some 1700 East Timorese people, who have been living in Australia for up to a decade, are being systematically rejected by the Refugee Review Tribunal. Unless the federal government
World
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In a final public relations ploy before ordering a blitzkrieg-style invasion of Iraq on March 19, US President George Bush issued a prime-time ultimatum on March 17: "Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.
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The Vietnamese government condemned the US-British attack on Iraq in a statement released on March 20. It stated: "The action constitutes a gross violation of the fundamental principles of international law, including the United
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RAFAH, Gaza Strip On March 16, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old US volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was murdered by the Israeli occupation army. Wearing a fluorescent orange jacket, Corrie was standing in the path
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TORONTO — Sizeable demonstrations against the US attack on Iraq were held in cities across Canada on March 20. At least 5000 people in Toronto faced off with riot cops, mounted police and attack dogs. More than 400 took to the
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BY NATASHA IZATT & NORM DIXON LONDON Protest action swept Britain on March 20, in response to the launch of the US-British war of conquest against Iraq. Tens of thousands of school students spearheaded the militant demonstrations,
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Those in the US, British and Australian governments and their mainstream media toadies who hoped the anti-war movement in the US and around the world would collapse following the launch of Washington's barbaric blitzkrieg against Iraq would be
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[The following are excerpts from an email to Rachel Corrie's family on February 7.] I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see... I don't know if many of the
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Prior to the war against Iraq, Americans heard very little from the corporate media about the most basic fact of war: people will be killed and civilian infrastructure will be destroyed, with devastating consequences long after the fighting stops.
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As word of the commencement of mis-named Operation Iraqi Freedom spread across the world, activists in the belly of the beast also took to the streets to voice their intense opposition to what they labelled an "unjust and
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The US government claims that the war against Iraq is necessary in order to uphold international law. Yet, Iraq is threatening no country with aggression and its violations of UN Security Council resolutions are technical,
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NEW YORK CITY More than 250,000 people marched through the streets of New York City on March 22. The demonstration was so big that as the first contingents arrived at the rallying point, people were still leaving the start point 38 blocks
Culture
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MELBOURNE — A benefit production of Eve Ensler's groundbreaking, award-winning play, The Vagina Monologues — hailed as funny, poignant, intelligent and courageous — will dive into the mystery, humour, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement
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Brother By Liam Gerner Order at <http://www.freshtrackproductions.com.au> REVIEW BY JO ELLIS ADELAIDE Liam Gerner wrote his first song at the age of 12. Since then, 19-year-old Gerner has developed into an accomplished
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"I've always been a huge fan of horror movies. And I saw so many horror movies where there was that blonde girl who would always get herself killed. I started feeling bad for her. I thought, it's time she had a chance to 'take
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WOLLONGONG — As the US, Britain and Australia attack Iraq, the band Inside Out have rallied for peace. They are a few of the voices that Prime Minister John Howard refers to as the "unconvinced mob". "A Song of Peace", written by music teacher
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NEW MEXICO, USA On March 17, the day of US President George Bush's televised announcement of the imminent US military attack on Iraq, Green Left Weekly writer Bill Nevins was suspended from his teaching job at Rio Rancho New Mexico public