On August 5, the day before Jesuit lawyer and human rights advocate Frank Brennan was due to leave for Nauru, his visa was cancelled by Nauru's acting-chief secretary. The reason given for the cancellation was that Father Brennan's request to
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A conference of the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children (NCSMC) was held at Trades Hall in Melbourne on July 25-26. At the time that the NCSMC was formed in the early 1970s, unmarried mothers were perceived to be a threat to the
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Immigration law and family law have collided. In a landmark ruling on June 19, the Family Court found that it had jurisdiction over children held in immigration detention, and could make a ruling to release them if it was deemed
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TAFE fees outrage I refer to the article in the August 4 Sydney Morning Herald which claims that the disadvantaged will be guaranteed free TAFE study. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case. While students and teachers will be pleased if the
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SYDNEY - On August 18, a special meeting of the Walk Against the War Coalition, which organised the 500,000-strong anti-war rally on February 16, will be held to debate a proposition from former Labor senator Bruce Childs and
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On August 4, leader of the federal "opposition" Simon Crean attended a protest line at Geelong Wool Combing, where workers had been locked out for 13 weeks. After listening to the workers' plight, Crean held a press conference. He
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BY CHRIS ATKINSON& PAUL BENEDEK SYDNEY — Supporters of free speech have vowed to repel a severe campaign of harassment, intimidation and censorship of left-wing political activists at the University of New South Wales. Having held regular
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[The following statement was unanimously adopted by the Socialist Alliance's national executive on July 25.] The Socialist Alliance national executive joins its voice with those calling for unity in the anti-war movement. As the Bush administration
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Earlier this year, clinical psychologist Zachary Steel released a report describing children's experience of detention as a "living nightmare". It found unprecedented rates of mental illness among young asylum seekers: among the 22
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Playing "Deputy Dawg" to US President George Bush has its rewards, and the big bone that Prime Minister John Howard anticipates being tossed as a reward for sending Australian troops to Bush's war in Iraq is a free trade agreement
News
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Students protest fee hike SYDNEY — On August 5, 100 students protested against the Sydney University Senate's decision last month to approve a 30% across-the-board tuition fee increases, even though legislation that would allow such a fee hike
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On August 6, long-term immigration detainee Stephen Khan was released from detention at the Perth Immigration Detention Centre on the order of Federal Court Justice Malcolm Lee. Sitting in the Federal Court in Perth, Lee made the
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BRISBANE — Around 40 refugee-rights activists picketed a Liberal Party cocktail lunch at the Irish Club on August 7. They were protesting the federal government's proposed immigration detention centre at Pinkenba, near the mouth of
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GEELONG — Unionists have rallied together to support 100 workers from Geelong Wool Combing who have been locked out for 13 weeks, fearing that such employer tactics are becoming more common. The first lockout notices were issued on
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"So why should I be here protesting, when the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 41 years before I was born?", Duncun Meerding asked the 130 protesters gathered in Hobart on August 9. "I may not have lived through that war, but
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BY OSCAR JUKES & RUTH RATCLIFFE DARWIN — More than 100 people attended a public meeting organised by the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory on August 5. Speakers at the meeting agreed that the Daly River faces the same fate as the
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Denied funding by the federal Coalition government to adequately sustain the national broadcaster for the next three years, Australian Broadcasting Corporation management on August 5 announced funding cuts of $26.1 million to
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MELBOURNE — On July 8, the Sydney University Senate met in secret to vote to support the federal government's "reforms" to higher education. When rumours circulated that the La Trobe University Council was to do the same, members
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Terrorism "Number of terrorism indictments brought since September 2001 by the US Attorney's Office in New Jersey : 62; Number of them brought against Middle Eastern students for paying others to take their English proficiency tests: 60." —
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WOLLONGONG — The New South Wales TAFE Teachers Association (TAFETA) and the Public Service Association (PSA) union representatives at Wollongong College of TAFE are leading a push to fight job cuts and increases in student
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PERTH — Members of the electrical division of the Western Australian Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU/ETU) have until August 22 to vote in the division's quadrennial election. All full-time officials, the
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HOBART — Pressure continues to mount against the state Labor government on various forests-related issues since the rally of 3000 people in the Styx Valley on July 13. The most direct expression of this pressure is the call for
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Action needed to stop nuclear threat ADELAIDE — Eighty people attended a meeting on August 3 to mark the anniversary of the US atom-bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The meeting was addressed by David Palmer,
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MELBOURNE — After five months on strike, the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) maintenance workers at Smorgon Steel in Laverton are still fighting to win the 36-hour work week and better pay and working conditions. Despite the
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MELBOURNE — A rally to save the Strzelecki forests is to be held at noon on August 27, outside Victoria's parliament. The rally is in response to the state Labor government's failure to keep its promises to "ensure full protection
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ACT AEU rejects pay offer CANBERRA — On August 5, the ACT branch executive of the Australian Education Union rejected the "first instalment offer" of the ACT Labor government in the union's enterprise bargaining agreement. The ACT AEU wanted a
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BRISBANE — On August 8, 300 protesters defied rain to hear Aboriginal leaders and union representatives launch the stolen wages postcard campaign. Chair of the rally, 4AAA Aboriginal community radio manager Tiger Bayles set
Analysis
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"We're deeply concerned that the condition of the Liberian people is getting worse and worse", US President George Bush declared on July 25, announcing that he had ordered three ships, with 2500 marines aboard, to the war-ravaged west African
World
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In late July, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report entitled Killing you is a very easy thing for us, a 101-page documentation of the chief forms of abuse prevalent today in Kabul and the densely populated
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SAN FRANCISCO — In a stunning victory for mechanics and related employees at United Airlines, on July 14 the Aircraft Mechanics' Fraternal Association (AMFA) replaced the International Association of Machinists (IAM) as their union.
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The United States and Australia are moving closer to restoring full military cooperation with Indonesia, including with the discredited Kopassus special operations unit of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI). In July, the
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HIROSHIMA — On August 6, TADATOSHI AKIBA, the mayor of the first city in the world to be attacked with nuclear weapons, spoke on the occasion of the 58th anniversary of the United States' attack which killed 140,000 people. Below is an excerpt from
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On July 29, some 1000 Iraqis marched to the former presidential palace in Baghdad. The protest, organised by the Union of Unemployed People in Iraq (UUPI), an organisation led by members of the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI),
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The Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) on August 8 accused the New Zealand Labor government and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat of refusing to grant media accreditation to the Pacific News Bulletin (PNB), the only Pacific Islands civil
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Bilateral trade conflicts between the world's two biggest economic blocs — the US and the European Union — are escalating, threatening to undermine their collective ability to screw the Third World, especially within the framework
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Landowners from mining-affected regions in Papua New Guinea met on August 6 and declared their opposition to public funding for new mining projects. "Decades of mining have left a legacy of environmental degradation, and uprooted
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The Indonesian Forum for the Environment-Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI) has called for protests against major banks around the world with investments in PT London Sumatera Indonesia Tbk (Lonsum). This follows the shooting to death by police
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On July 31, Israel's Knesset (parliament) overwhelmingly passed an apartheid-like marriage law. The law forbids Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens from obtaining Israeli citizenship or permits to live with their spouses and
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With US public support for the occupation of Iraq evaporating as the death toll among US soldiers continues to rise, due to persistent Iraqi guerrilla attacks, Washington is seeking more countries to participate in the occupation.
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JAKARTA — Delivering her progress report at the annual session of the People's Consultative Assembly on August 1, Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri said that, despite "occasional mishaps", her government had "put the
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BY STEVE KRETZMANN& JIM VALLETTE In early April, during the initial assault on Baghdad, soldiers set up forward bases named Camp Shell and Camp Exxon, until Pentagon PR realised that that did not look very good and ordered them renamed. Those
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On August 1, the government of Philippines President Gloria Arroyo formally charged the 321 soldiers who occupied parts of the Makati business district in Manila last month with attempting a coup d'etat. Two officers and five
Culture
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MELBOURNE — What could top being Australia's official musical representative at East Timor's massive independence concert in May last year? The members of the seven-piece funk, ska and reggae band the Dili Allstars have the answer: being asked to
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PalestineBy Joe SaccoJonathon Cape, 2003286 pages, $45 (pb) REVIEW BY NICK FREDMAN A work dealing with the politics of Palestine, in the form of a comic book, might seem an incongruent, even flippant, exercise. How can the immense human
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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 (02) 9564 1277. Visit
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The Age of Consent: a Manifesto for a New World OrderBy George MonbiotFlamingo, 2003256 pages, $35As a columnist for the British Guardian, George Monbiot has become renowned as a leading voice of the world-wide global justice
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Purgatory Down UnderBy Stephen Klinder and Jon WilliamsDirected by Alex BrounOld Fitzroy Hotel Theatre, SydneyUntil August 17 REVIEW BY BRENDAN DOYLE Is it possible to laugh about something as appalling as the government's treatment of asylum