Sue Bolton, Melbourne
Within 24 hours of sending out a sign-on statement calling for Australian trade unionist Craig Johnston to be released from jail, unions, left parties and activists in 10 countries had signed their support for the statement.
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Gemma Pinnell is the Australian Greens candidate for the traditionally Labor-held seat of Melbourne. In the 2002 Victorian state election, Pinnell gained the highest Greens vote across the state when she polled 28% in the seat of Richmond. She spoke
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More than 2000 Australians die annually due to workplace accidents and disease. Each day, 50 young workers suffer work-related injuries, five of them leading to permanent incapacity. A worker is injured seriously enough to lodge a workers'
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A lot of my workmates are very worried. They watch the opinion polls shifting back in the Liberals' favour and fear that PM John Howard is going to be re-elected. From child care to bulk billing, from union rights to gay marriage, they know only too
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Doug Lorimer & Alison Dellit With his mother at his side, and a picture of his identical twin brother, who was killed in Iraq, held above him, Ivan Medina, a US Army soldier, said: "We must bring our troops home now. Not tomorrow. Not in six years.
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Ruth Ratcliffe, Sydney Twelve-hundred and seventy four Auburn residents will be unable to vote in the upcoming federal election because they are holders of temporary protection visas, according to the Socialist Alliance candidate for Reid, Lisa
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The establishment has finally got their way and sloughed me up. Please thank everyone for the fabulous support. I've been treated very well by both the inmates and the screws. Met a few local identities here and had a laugh. I suppose the worst
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Graham Mathews, Melbourne "Kodak is shutting its Coburg plant while crying poor, but its share price has jumped nearly 20%", David Glanz, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Wills, said in a media release on September 17. The Kodak
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It is no secret that the US would like to oust radical left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from power. So it came as no surprise when US President George Bush ordered the imposition of partial sanctions against Venezuela on September 10,
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Jim McIlroy, Brisbane "The huge publicity circus surrounding Pauline Hanson's surprise announcement of her candidature as an independent in the Queensland Senate race, in contrast to the absolute refusal of the big-business media, in particular the
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Josh Deegan was one of the many who died in the Bali bombing in October 2002. Since then, his father, Brian Deegan, has asked repeatedly why Australian officials didn't make public the information that suggested that Bali could have been the target
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Sam Watson, candidate on the Socialist Alliance's all-Indigenous Senate ticket in Queensland, spoke to Green Left Weekly's Tim Stewart about his long-term involvement in Brisbane politics and Indigenous struggles. Watson grew up in Mt Gravatt and is
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Humphrey McQueen Craig Johnston isn't in jail because of the offence to which he pleaded guilty. He's in jail because of the totality of his political activities over the last 10 and more years. The judges made that very clear in the appeal
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Tim Stewart & Paul Benedek "My vision is a very simple one: I just want a place where every child born on this land is able to grow up in an environment free from hostility and insecurity, realise his or her potential and make a worthwhile
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Jane Beckmann The Socialist Alliance lost one of its most colourful members with the recent death of Ken Morley. Ken died from illness at the age of 78. Ken was born in Newcastle and spent his life as part of the working class. The son of a miner
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Scott Poynting There's a very old joke about a man sprinkling a mysterious white powder all around the walls of his house. A bystander asks, "What's that for?" The man replies, "To keep away dangerous elephants". Says the bystander, "But there's no
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James Hardie Just read the write up on "James Hardie: Murder by another name" (GLW #598) and want to thank you for writing something on this as my father passed away in June 2002 from mesothelioma. This company, I feel, murdered my father. Thanks
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Green Left Weekly's Graham Matthews spoke with Richard Frankland, founder and lead Senate candidate for Your Voice, a new Indigenous-based political organisation contesting the Senate in Victoria in the federal election. Your Voice boasts former
News
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#3 Rock against Howard BRISBANE — Five-hundred people crammed into the Arena on September 16 for the Rock Against Howard national tour. Steve Towson, the Herd, Frenzal Rhomb and Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett provided entertainment and
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Liam Mitchell Tens of thousands of trade unionists participated in rallies in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane on September 15 to demand that the James Hardie company, which dominated the Australian market for asbestos products throughout the 20th
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Free enterprise "Oil refineries, power plants and other large industrial operations in California typically pay fines of a few thousand dollars for exceeding air pollution standards, not enough to deter them from repeated violations." — Los
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Jon Lamb, Darwin After 14 months of drawn-out negotiations with Charles Darwin University management over pay and conditions, unions covering academic and general staff are taking action to improve the lot of their members. On September 15, staff
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Marce Cameron, Brisbane On September 26, PM John Howard will be in Brisbane to officially launch the Coalition's election campaign. A broad alliance of community organisations, activist groups and progressive political parties has called for a
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Abetz dodges lie-detector test HOBART — Members of the Socialist Alliance gathered outside Liberal Senator Eric Abetz's office on September 15 to challenge him to take a 'lie detector' test. Abetz was unavailable, so Liberal Party policies
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SYDNEY — Queer activists protested outside the $100-a-head fundraising dinner held by Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party on September 13. Nile is leaving his NSW parliamentary seat to contest the Senate in the federal election. Nile has
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Sarah Stephen On September 13, interpreters and officers from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) made threats of forced deportation to asylum seekers being detained on Nauru who don't agree to return
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#4 Refugees on hunger strike ADELAIDE — On September 14, asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, including some Tamils, being held in the Baxter Detention Centre began a protest on the third anniversary of their controversial arrival in Australia's
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James Caulfield, Canberra The Socialist Alliance launched its election campaign for the seat of Fraser outside the offices of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root on September 16. The alliance's candidate, James Vassilopoulos, was
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#2 Meat workers win after long battle LAUNCESTON — On September 15, an 18-month industrial dispute came to an end at Blue Ribbon's plant in St Leonards. Seventeen workers received $500,000 in wages owed, which had accumulated since the
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#1 FoE criticises carbon forum BRISBANE — On September 14, Friends of the Earth Australia spokesperson Stephanie Long expressed disappointment that the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum being held in Melbourne had delivered nothing new for
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More unions and campaign groups have endorsed the national "End the lies" protests scheduled for the October 2-3 weekend, including the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia. Following are some messages of support for the
World
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Rohan Pearce On September 9, the US military launched vicious air strikes against two Iraqi cities, Fallujah and Tall Afar, killing more than 40 people and wounding more than 100. These assaults were part of the US occupation forces' effort to
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Kim Bullimore, West Bank The first day of the Palestinian school year was marked by 1000 children, school students, teachers and peace activists marching against the construction of the Israeli apartheid wall at the Ar'am village junction, 20
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ARGENTINA: Occupied factory defended On September 14, a delegation of 100 workers from Zanon, a factory under workers' control, and 70 participants in the Unemployed Workers Movement, travelled to Buenos Aires as part of a campaign to defend the
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Norm Dixon On September 16, at least 800,000 government workers, including 300,000 teachers, took part in what the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) described as the "largest strike in South Africa's history". Members of eight public
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Conn Hallinan Behind a recent, highly controversial indictment by the US Department of Justice, the administration led by US President George Bush is manoeuvring to revive military ties with the Indonesian army (the TNI), one of the world's most
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Doug Lorimer In his opening remarks to the meeting of the board of governors of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on September 13, IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei said that Iran had made "some progress" in accounting
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Doug Lorimer "Labour is facing a Muslim backlash over Iraq with thousands of traditional supporters defecting to the anti-war Respect party", the September 11 London Daily Mirror reported, following the shock result of a local council by-election
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Max Lane In a move criticised by Indonesian human rights organisations, interim home affairs minister Hari Sabarno announced on September 15 that officers of the National Intelligence Body (BIN), a civilian agency reporting directly to the
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John Pilger, Mumbai The crows beat their wings against the bay windows, waiting to ascend and dive. Their cries are incessant; it is their apocalyptic swarm that is different in India. They dance in the rain and wait in the yellow heat of
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Eva Cheng Veteran pro-worker and pro-democracy activist Leung Kwok-Hung was elected on September 12 to Hong Kong's 60-member Legislative Council — the ex-British colony's quasi-parliament. Leung, 48, is best known as "Long Hair". Since Britain
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Rihab Charida On September 4, my friend and I tried getting into Nablus. "You cannot get into Nablus today — no foreigners allowed", says the blonde boy at the Israeli checkpoint. "Why?" I persisted, as a Palestinian disguised as an
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Alex Miller The mother of 19-year-old Gordon Gentle, a Scottish soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in June, has called for the resignation of British PM Tony Blair. According to the September 11 Scotsman, in an emotional speech to a
Culture
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Blaktrax: Gumbainggir Lady — Indigenous music series. Features Emma Donovan, a young Gumbainggir woman whose vocal style is influenced by country, gospel and soul. SBS, Saturday, September 25, 7pm. Message Stick: Aunty Marg — Coffs Harbour's
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Sarah Stephen Creative energies are being ploughed into a plethora of new websites as the anti-Howard campaign gathers steam ahead of the October 9 federal election. Here is a summary of the best and wittiest of them.
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Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, a recently released documentary about the Fox News channel in the US, has mostly been ignored in Australia by the corporate media. At the same time, lawyers have threatened to sue a
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REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Rightby Al FrankenAllen Lane Press, 2003379 pp, $35 (pb) It's a very old joke — "How do you tell when a politician is lying?" — but the punchline