On March 21, it will be 10 years since 154 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) following the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil.
The only implementing treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, is in limbo. The US and
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Sarah Stephen RA, an Algerian asylum seeker, fled to Australia in 2001 in fear of his life. He had no documentation to prove his claim for asylum, and the Refugee Review Tribunal rejected his initial appeal. By November last year, after three
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Sue Bolton, Melbourne Many Victorian unionists were shocked when an ACTU-initiated resolution titled "Criminal and violent conduct policy" was rammed through the March 12 Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) executive meeting. The resolution is
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SYDNEY — At least 650 residents met at Ashfield Town Hall on March 15, to debate the government's proposed options to extend the M4. The meeting condemned the poor and inadequate information provided by the Road Traffic Authority on key issues
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Cuba and homosexuals I While Michael Schembri's historical assessment of Cuba's gay history (Write On, GLW #575) is correct and he is right about the 1990s closure of gay venues (one or two bars now serve the gay community, but are not openly
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"Today is a day of celebration and vindication for the millions of people across the world who protested against the invasion of Iraq. We didn't stop it, but we came very close when you look at what has happened to Blair in Britain. Consider the
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Rohan Pearce Three days after the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid, in which 200 people died and up to 1750 were injured, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party (PP) government was thrown out of office. The massive defeat of the PP,
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Pip Hinman Up to 7000 people joined a March 20 protest organised by the Stop the War Coalition in Sydney. Thousands more rallied in other cities, including 2000 in Melbourne and 1000 in Brisbane. The Spanish election results had clearly given
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Alison Dellit Responses to the defeat of a pro-war government in the March 15 Spanish election, and the subsequent threat to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq, have varied between Australia's opposition parties. While the ALP has fudged the issue,
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Max Lane Since the East Timorese independence referendum in 1999, the Australian government has received approximately $1 billion dollars in taxes on oil taken from the Laminaria Corallina field, which is fully situated in East Timorese territory.
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Doug Lorimer At least 2 million anti-war protesters rallied and marched in cities around the world on March 20 — the first anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. From Sydney to Tokyo, from Seoul to New York, from London to Dehli,
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Bronwyn Jennings The federal government's recent announcement that it will attempt to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to encourage more men to become teachers will have little effect on the number of men who are attracted to the teaching
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The US ruling class is continuing to wage a battle over control of women's reproductive organs, and it's packing a good punch. Two major pieces of legislation have seriously challenged Roe vs Wade — the 1973 US Supreme Court ruling which gave women
News
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Norm Dixon, Sydney US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian PM John Howard — "politicians with blood on their hands" — should be "punished" at the ballot box for invading and occupying Iraq, renowned political
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Jenny Long, Sydney Chris Cain, the new, militant, secretary of the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia, spoke to 80 people at a public meeting in Sydney on March 18. He discussed the recent successes of the WA MUA branch in
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Paul Benedek, Sydney The Socialist Alliance is running 24 candidates across 10 councils in the March 27 NSW local government elections. The alliance is also fielding candidates for mayor in Newcastle City, Wollongong, Canterbury and City of
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Leigh Hughes, Adelaide Thirty years after the month-long occupation of Flinders University in 1974, students have used the tactic to force their administration to consult better over fee increases. Vice Chancellor Anne Edwards is planning to
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Alison Thorne Activists in the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) are mobilising to back a number of proposals to go before the union's 26-28 March National Council. Most motions were developed by activists from around the country aligned
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2 Bougainville liberators tour Australia SYDNEY — Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom (BWPF) representative Josephine Takunani Sirivi, and former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Sam Kauona addressed a gathering and film
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Norman Brewer, Sydney On the first day of an Aboriginal youth summit, held March 17-18 in Redfern, a new group, called One Voice for Inner City Aboriginal Youth, was founded. Although the Aboriginal Dance Theatre had planned to hold the summit in
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1 Unions defend Age jobs MELBOURNE — The sacking of 86 printers and maintenance workers at the Age's Spencer Street plant has been stalled by a combination of industrial pressure and legal defence. In an industrial relations commission
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Feeling Bolshie "A [Russian] leader writer has expressed concern that the Soviet Union still exists, that nostalgia for it seems to be the dominant mode. Polls by reputable institutes confirm this: 57% of Russians want the USSR back (2001); 45%
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Simon Tayler, Sydney Supporters of Sydney's only community television station - Channel 31 - were shocked to hear on March 18 that the station would be forced off the air as a result of a decision by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) to
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Alex Bainbridge, Hobart More than 10,000 forest campaigners took to the streets of Hobart on March 13 in a decisive display of support for preserving old-growth forests. The timber industry countered with a large mobilisation on March 16 — the
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Socialist Alliance candidates in the March 27 NSW local government elections: Auburn: Lisa Macdonald (councillor, First Ward). Bankstown: Raul Bassi, Rihab Charida, Maurice Shaya (councillors, East Ward). Canterbury: Susan Mullan (mayor).
World
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Karen Fredericks, Port Moresby A violent raid by Port Moresby police on an alleged brothel on March 11 has galvanised women's groups, community and church organisations and aid workers in a new coalition to call for a public and independent
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In January, New Zealand National Party leader Don Brash gave a speech viciously attacking affirmative action for Maoris. In the uproar that followed, New Zealand's Labour government made significant concessions to Brash, agreeing that a "new balance"
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Norm Dixon "Every civilised nation has a stake in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction... We're determined to confront those threats at the source", US President George Bush declared in a February 11 speech. "We will stop these
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Lee Yu-kyung& Iggy Kim A move by conservative opposition parties in the Kukhoe, South Korea's single-chamber parliament, to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun are galvanising a pro-democracy backlash, leading to mass protests against the attempted
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Family members of soldiers now in Iraq have become a central pillar of the US movement against war and occupation. Military families and veterans groups mobilised for a protest on March 20 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Fort Bragg.
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Eva Cheng After achieving an average annual GDP growth of about 8% over the last decade under Beijing's push to restore capitalism, the Chinese economy grew at an even more back-breaking pace of 9.1% last year. But during the March 5-14 annual
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Alex Miller The refusal of the Labour Party-dominated local authorities in Scotland to pay their childcare workers a living wage has caused chaos for parents across Scotland. Childcare workers ("nursery nurses" in Scotland) have been strike since
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Doug Lorimer US Army Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia became the first US soldier to turn himself in after refusing to return to Iraq when he turned himself in to military authorities in Boston on March 15, saying he would seek conscientious objector
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Doug Lorimer While Washington is scrambling to keep Spain from withdrawing its contingent of 1300 troops from Iraq, it is threatened by a serious rift with another NATO ally, Turkey. Turkey is objecting to the interim constitution that the US has
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Gloria La Riva, Miami On March 10, lawyers for five Cuban citizens who have been in prison in the US since 2001 on frame-up charges of conspiracy to commit espionage presented oral arguments to a three-judge federal appeals court in Miami. The
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Nick Fredman, Bangkok In the latest of a series of actions against the privatisation of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, 6000 public sector workers and supporters rallied on March 13. After widening opposition to the privatisation,
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Hanan Ashrawi, Ramallah The oppressive nature of a military occupation eventually victimises the occupier much like it does the occupied. Gradually, the stench of moral decay overwhelms, internalizing a warped system of "values" that erodes the
Culture
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Sarah Stephen After almost three years of imprisonment, those asylum seekers remaining on the Pacific island of Nauru are trapped in a living hell. They have seen some of their fellow prisoners granted refugee status and taken to New Zealand,
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REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON The Fate of the RomanovsGreg King and Penny WilsonJohn Wiley & Sons, 2003657 pages, $49.95 (hb) The telegrams from Ekaterinburg to Moscow were brief and to the point — the former Tsar of Russia (Nicholas II) had been
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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