On March 10, resources minister Ian MacFarlane introduced bills into both houses of Australian parliament that would pressure the East Timorese government to ratify the highly unfair international unitisation agreement.
This agreement, between
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In December, the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) passed resolution 137, which, if it had been approved by the Paul Bremer, head of the US-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority, would have overturned Iraq's pre-war secular Personal
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Norman Brewer, Sydney Aboriginal activists from the Redfern Block have called on "Aboriginal communities and their supporters to unite and support the demand for a national royal commission to examine police mistreatment of Aboriginal youth" by
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Jody Betzien, Melbourne On December 31, Victorian housing minister Candy Broad released a consultation document on the government's Strategy for growth in housing for low-income Victorians. While Broad claims the strategy, which involves the
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Simon Jones, Newcastle In a memorable scene from Robert Connelly's 2002 film The Bank, CEO Simon O'Reilly (played by Anthony LaPaglia) is shown trying to convince his board of directors why Centabank should use an impending financial collapse to
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Australia, NSW in particular, has been internationally praised for sex industry reform and maintaining one of the lowest HIV rates of any sex industry in the world. However, Erica Red and Saul Isbister, winners of the NSW World Aids Day 2002
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@intro2 = There is plenty of evidence to contradict the government's claim that it did not know that Iraq possessed no weapons' of mass destruction. The government said: Intelligence said: PM John Howard, September 9, 2002, 7.30 Report
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Jon Lamb, Darwin While the federal Coalition government remains tight-lipped about the likelyhood of a new United States military base in Australia, opposition to such a facility continues to grow. Darwin has been earmarked as a suitable site for a
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Tony Iltis, Melbourne "There's been a campaign of lies and deceit by the government for the last 20 years", Peter Guiverra told Green Left Weekly on March 10. Guiverra is one of many Indigenous workers who, for the last two decades, has been
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End the occupation! In 2003, a clear majority opposed Australia joining the US in its war for oil in Iraq. The contemptuous Howard government retorted that removing Saddam Hussein was a matter of urgency because its "weapons of mass destruction"
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Rohan Pearce One year since US President George Bush announced the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, the plans for an imperial "new American century" have come seriously unhinged. The US is bogged down in Iraq, facing disquiet at home about its
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Seventy per cent of Iraqi workers — about 10 million people — are unemployed. Many are now organising in the Unemployed Union of Iraq. In February, the UUI appointed Jalal Mohamad its official representative in Australia. Socialist Alliance
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Job search training After being on New Start Allowance for three months, four to six weeks of job search training is compulsory, or your payment is affected. I have just started job search training and have found it to be patronising, often
News
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HOBART — More than 10,000 people marched to save Tasmania's forests on March 13. It was the largest pro-environment mobilisation in Tasmania for more than 15 years. A full report will appear in the next issue of Green Left Weekly. From Green
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Bill Mason, Brisbane "The decision by Lord Mayor Tim Quinn to reverse previous ALP council policy of supporting safe injecting rooms and heroin trials in Brisbane is a major setback to a reasonable drugs policy in this city", Coral Wynter,
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Chris Slee, Melbourne Speaking to at least 500 people at a public meeting at Melbourne University on March 11, British freelance journalist Yvonne Ridley detailed the lies and manipulation of the media by the US and British governments during the
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"[Prime Minister] John Howard's intention to follow George Bush in using federal powers to defend discriminatory practices against homosexuals is despicable," Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said in a March 8 press release. Nettle condemned Howard's
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SYDNEY — On March 8, a police officer approached a bookstall at the University of NSW, staffed by members of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, and told them that unless they stopped handing out leaflets, the students could "disappear
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Bill Bartlett, Hobart Members of the Acosamrel Salvadoran housing cooperative have been galvanised into action in the face of a threat to wind up the cooperative and hand its assets over to another organisation. The cooperative was formed in 1991
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Ruth Ratcliffe, Sydney On March 11, 35 workers attended the first meeting of the Construction Workers' Compensation Support Group. An initiative of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the meeting was organised by Wayne
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SYDNEY — Forty Socialist Alliance members marched in the 25th annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade behind a banner reading "Medicare not warfare". The parade, held on March 6, was observed by at least 250,000 people, despite constant
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Ben Reid, Newcastle A wave of disgust and some resignations from the National Tertiary Education Union have swept academic staff at the Newcastle University as a result of NTEU branch president Wayne Reynolds' support for increased HECS fees for
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NEWCASTLE — One-hundred TAFE workers from around the Hunter region rallied at Newcastle TAFE campus on March 12. The workers, members of the NSW Public Service Association, resolved to reinforce industrial bans to win back 50 jobs cut through NSW
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Unemployment benefits, that is "Capitalism generates fantastic wealth, and the benefits accrue almost entirely to the least of these among us." — Art Carden, in a March 8 article "Why they hate the market", written for the web site of the
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A dozen protesters gathered at the Magistrate's Court in Melbourne on March 11 in support of Women for Peace activist Reta Kaur. She has been charged with $9000 in criminal damages for writing slogans against the Iraq war outside the US consulate
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Twenty members and supporters of the Newcastle Socialist Alliance branch launched the alliance's campaign for the Newcastle City Council with a rally at Civic Railway Station on March 12. Alliance candidates Peter Robson, Geoff Payne and Judy
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ADELAIDE — Unprecedented strike action by more than 15,000 state public servants will shut down many offices and services on March 26, in protest at the state government's failure to improve its pay and conditions offer. The state government is
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Kerryn Williams More than 1000 people joined rallies and marches on March 13 to mark International Women's Day. These followed rallies in a range of cities a week earlier. Kathleen Scott reports that in Sydney, 500 people marched to Hyde Park,
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1 Schools funding policy condemned Prime Minister John Howard's March 11 announcement of a new federal funding policy for schools was condemned by Greens Senator Kerry Nettle. "Today's announcement decreases the public schools sector share of
Analysis
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It took the federal Coalition government three attempts and 10 months of negotiations to finally get its Medicare legislation passed by the Senate — by 33 votes to 31 on March 11. This was only after health minister Tony Abbott secured the votes of
World
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Nick Fredman, Bangkok Marching behind a banner reading "Thailand is not a company Thaksin", tens of thousands of Thai workers protested in the Thai capital on March 9 against the plans of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinauatra's government to privatise
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Ashwin Desai & Richard Pithouse, Durban In the 10th year of South African democracy, we are forced to confront a number of sobering facts. For the purposes of this short article we'd like to highlight just five. The first is that the ANC has
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Alison Dellit About 8 million people across Spain rallied on March 12, to protest against political violence. The protests were very broad — Popular Party ministers joining anti-war activists and others. The largest protest was in Barcelona,
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G. Buster Paying homage to its resistance to fascism, the poet Rafael Alberti once called Madrid "the capital of glory". On March 11, Madrid again became a martyr city. A cruel terrorist attack has left 198 dead and some 1500 wounded. Most of the
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Julie Webb-Pullman El Salvador's presidential election will take place on March 21. For the first time since the peace accord was signed in 1991, the leftist Farabundo Mart¡ National Liberation Front (FMLN) has a good chance of winning. However,
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James Vassilopoulos The social democratic Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) was booted out of office in the March 7 general election. The conservative New Democracy (ND) gained government and the new Coalition of the Radical Left (SYN) won 6
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James Balowski, Jakarta One thousand people from the Indonesian capital and the satellite cities of Bogor, Bekasi and Tangerang commemorated International Women's Day (IWD) with a march from the Hotel Indonesia roundabout to the offices of the
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Maria Voukelatos US Senator John Kerry, now the sole Democratic Party candidate in this November's US presidential election, has called for an expansion of the US Army by an extra 40,000 "active service" troops. Kerry's call reflects a growing
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Doug Lorimer In a press statement issued on March 10, the International Action Centre (IAC) in New York City has called on the whole US anti-war movement to protest against the city administration's attempt to suppress free speech. According to
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Rohan Pearce For many people watching US President George Bush's March 19, 2003, declaration that US had begun its invasion of Iraq there would have been a sense of disbelief. Just one month before, half-a-million people had filled the Sydney CBD
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Eva Cheng The re-emergence of concurrent deficits in the external current account and the federal budget of the United States — dubbed the "twin deficits" — and the likelihood of them continuing to grow for a long time, has reignited a debate
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Rohan Pearce "Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force in [Iraqi] eyes. We don't feel like heroes any more... We are outnumbered. We are exhausted. We are in over our heads." — a website posting by Isaac Kindblade, a US Army private
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Doug Lorimer On March 2, a dozen suicide bombers killed 181 worshippers, injuring another 573, outside Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad. US officials immediately claimed the attacks were part of a plot by Jordanian-born Islamic
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Phil Gasper, Chicago Paul Sweezy, the grand old man of American Marxism, died at his home in Larchmont, New York, on February 28, just short of his 94th birthday. Sweezy founded the independent socialist magazine Monthly Review in 1949 and remained
Culture
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Hassan Shamsaei,some, I'm told, call you"The Blind Man of Baxter."You've refused food since mid-Novemberbut say you are not on a hunger strike.You have not sought publicity.Are you blind to the fear of death?Is this what Australia has done to you?You
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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
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New York TownBlack 47Gadfly RecordsOrder at <http://www.gadflyrecords.com>. REVIEW BY BILL NEVINS Black 47 opens New York Town with a fierce, loping tribute to the St. Patrick's Battalion (the San Patricios), a band of Irish-American
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The Passion of the ChristWritten and directed by Mel GibsonWith James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern and Monica BellucciShowing at major cinemas REVIEW BY SOL SALBE Let me start by laying my cards on the table. I am an atheist Jew, and an Israeli to