In the lead-up to PM John Howard's announcement that Australia would send troops to the Solomon Islands, the mainstream media was filled with the lurid descriptions of violent criminal gangs terrorising the Solomons' population, and
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Danny Fairfax's article "profiting from death" (GLW #543) rightly highlights the relationship between arms spending and the economy, but the picture is more complex than he paints. In the past, military expenditure and war have
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Fightback! interviewed the imprisoned general-secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Saadat, on May 20. The PFLP is the second-largest political group within the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It is a
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It is ironic that a new law giving the ASIO secret police agency draconian powers was passed on June 26, a day after the 100th anniversary of the birth of George Orwell. If he were alive today, Orwell would have had some great
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[Werner Cohrs was a candidate for SA branch secretary in the June elections for the Maritime Union of Australia. Although Cohrs was not elected, militants did well in the elections, gaining control of two of the three union
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On July 8, the parliament of the Solomon Islands is expected to approve an Australian-led military and police intervention into its country. The proposal was endorsed by the foreign ministers and government leaders of all 16 Pacific
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The Western Australian Labor government has conceded that its contentious Prostitution Control Bill will not be passed by the upper house, and has therefore decided to shelve the bill. Through the bill, police minister Michelle
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"Far too many young boys are growing up without proper role models", a concerned John Howard told parliament on June 24. "They are not infrequently in the overwhelming care and custody of their mothers", the prime minister added, motivating a
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Brazil Luke Fomiatti's letter (Write On, GLW #544) is not informed, but is based on wishful thinking. Fomiatti seems to know little of what is going on in Brazil and even less about the way in which the Lula regime is being received by the left
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America's two "great victories" since September 11, 2001, are unravelling. In Afghanistan, the regime of Hamid Karzai has virtually no authority and no money, and would collapse without US guns. Al Qaeda has not been defeated, and
News
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MELBOURNE — "We need a new political and economic order", Aleida Guevara, Cuban paediatrician and eldest daughter of legendary Latin American revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara told 900 people who packed out Storey Hall on
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Protest against raids on Iranian oppositionists MELBOURNE — On July 1, 60 people attended a protest against detention of members of the pro-imperialist People's Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) and Australian Federal Police raids on
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SYDNEY — Six police officers prevented film reviewer Margaret Pomeranz, journalist David Marr and others from playing a DVD of the US film Ken Park to a packed out Balmain Town Hall audience of 400 adults on July 3. Ken Park was
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MELBOURNE — Tahmeena Faryal from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and Surma Hamid from the Committee in Defence of Iraqi Women's Rights (CDIWR), will speak at a public forum at Trades Hall on
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Jamieson Park is a 42.8 hectare bushland reserve in Sydney's northern beach suburbs. It is under the control of the Warringah municipal council. On June 2, 60 concerned local residents gathered near the Jamieson Park Sailing Club to
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BY DUNCAN MEERDING & ALBY DALLAS HOBART — A public forum on health and education was attended by 50 people on July 2. Held at the Republic Bar, a popular left-wing pub, the meeting was organised by the Socialist Alliance. The participants
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SYDNEY — Spearheaded by the Sydney Morning Herald, the corporate media has launched an attack on the display of union solidarity which helped 40 strikers at the Morris McMahon can manufacturing plant win their dispute.
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On July 4, the anniversary of the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence in what was to become the USA, activists in the US, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and other countries took action to protest the US and British governments'
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Two events in Sydney on July 11 will provide an opportunity to offer solidarity to peace and democracy activists in Asia. At 4.30pm, at the Sydney Town Hall steps, there will be a solidarity protest with Aceh, demanding Indonesian troops withdraw
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MELBOURNE — Filipino parliamentarian Satur Ocampo from the Bayan Muna (People's First) party described the US war on the Philippines at a public meeting held at Trades Hall on June 30. Ocampo is one of three Bayan Muna
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SYDNEY — After nearly 16 weeks on strike, 40 workers at can manufacturer Morris McMahon returned to work on July 2. They won a union-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreement and a number of improvements in their conditions. The
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WOLLONGONG — Beginning on July 3, members of the Public Service Association and the TAFE Teachers Association employed at the Upper Illawara Institute of TAFE began implementing an indefinite ban on the collection and
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MELBOURNE — More than 700 workers mobilised on July 3 at Footscray's Whitten Oval, as part of a campaign to win a new enterprise bargaining agreement across the Victorian manufacturing industry. This round of pattern
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CANBERRA — A June 30 meeting of Save the Ridge activists decided to rally outside the July 26 ACT ALP conference as part of their campaign to press the territory's Labor government to abandon its plan to build a major freeway,
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The Indonesian government has an almost "pathological hostility to separatism", Dr Ed Aspinall, lecturer in South-East Asian Studies at Sydney University, told a forum on July 2.
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HOBART — The Wilderness Society has relaunched a major campaign to save the Styx "Valley of the Giants" from logging on the 20th anniversary of the High Court's confirmation of the legality of the government's decision to
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Sensitive I "Australia is not a neo-colonial power and we are sensitive to the regional concerns about our role." — Foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, June 26, justifying the deployment of 1500 Australian troops to the Solomon Islands
World
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Between 500,000 and 700,000 people flooded the streets of Hong Kong on July 1, in an angry protest against the scheduled finalisation of an anti-subversion law on July 9. The Hong Kong government pressed ahead with the legislation,
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On July 28-30, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will hold yet another "mini-ministerial" — its fourth since the Doha ministerial summit in November 2001 launched a new round of global trade talks. The meeting, in Montreal, is
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Keef Tomkinson is a member, and former national organiser, of the Scottish Socialist Youth, the youth organisation of the Scottish Socialist Party. He will be speaking in Sydney at the Resistance national conference, July 11-13 at the Glebe
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Denouncing the arrest of Jose Bove, one of the most high profile global justice activists in France, 3000 people protested in the town of Millau, the major population centre of Bove's home region Aveyron, on June 28. Bove, a
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The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela is not just a national phenomenon, it is impacted upon greatly by international developments, particularly the US-led campaign against it. In 2002, the US government stepped up its intervention
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The death toll from the ongoing war in the Congo, which began in 1998, is higher than in any other since World War II, with an estimated 4.7 million killed in the last four years alone. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), an
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Claiming that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program, US government officials have pressured Japan to abandon the development of a huge oil project there. According to a report in the July 2 edition of the Tokyo daily Mainichi
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A survey by polling organisation YouGov has revealed that the British Labour Party's popularity has fallen dramatically as the scandal over Prime Minister Tony Blair's lies about Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction
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Nigeria remains locked in a general strike, after talks between the government and the country's main trade union federation, the Nigerian Labour Congress, broke down on July 3. "The strike continues", declared NLC president Adams
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"End the drug war now" say needle nymphs in New York, methed-up militants in Moscow, direct-action druggists in Darwin, cranked-out campaigners in Canberra and global goodie-gobblers. On June 12, drug user activists, non-user
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The European Commission for Human Rights, Europe's senior human rights court, ruled in a judgment delivered on July 1 that the British investigation into the murder of civil rights solicitor Patrick Finucane was flawed. Finucane was
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From its birth, the Scottish Socialist Party has called on trade unions to break their link with the British Labour Party. On July 1, the 65,000-strong British Rail Maritime and Transport union decided that branches could affiliate
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On June 16, a US federal judge in Philadelphia overturned the conviction of Jim Sabzali, the first Canadian citizen to be found guilty of violating the US trade embargo against Cuba. Sabzali had faced the prospect of spending the
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JAKARTA — The Indonesian military's (TNI) vicious little war against the people in its northern-most province of Aceh is reaching new heights, and new regulations to restrict the media and limit aid groups' and human rights
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There are an increasing number of reports in the corporate press that the growing armed resistance to the US occupation of Iraq and the deepening hostility of they face from the Iraqi population is causing US soldiers to lose
Culture
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Everyone Deserves MusicMichael Franti and SpearheadBoo Boo wax records, through Liberation Music Australia. REVIEW BY CRAIG BULLEY The recent Australian release of the Michael Franti and Spearhead album Everyone Deserves Music will be followed up
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HAVANA — Without ceremony from those who, during the Cold War, exalted him as if he were a god of letters, Englishman George Orwell reaches his 100th birthday. Orwell was the great critic of the Soviet state and of
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NEW MEXICO — Slam Poet/Freedom Fighter Pat "Velvet Hammer" Payne led her sisters to triumph in mid-June at Taos, as women poets swept all Taos Poetry Circus competitions held this year. Payne defeated hard-battling Nuyorican
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MELBOURNE — On June 26, the Latin American Film Society Filmoteca held a special film screening which showcased three films about Che Guevara at Federation Square's Australian Centre for the Moving Image. My father, Che: a
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52nd Melbourne International Film FestivalJuly 23 to August 10Forum Theatre, cnr Flinders and Russell streetsSingle ticket sales open July 11<http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au> PREVIEW BY ANNE O'CASEY More than 400 films born of a
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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 9564 1277. Visit