Fred Fuentes
In a surprise move, the National Liberation Army (ELN) has decided it will participate in Colombia's elections for the first time. The four-decade-old ELN is the second largest Colombian guerilla group, with around 7000 fighters.
In
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By September 30, the US had spent US$102 billion on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The costs of the US war on Iraq have averaged $4.8 billion a month. The Pentagon spent $3.1 billion in September. This was the smallest monthly amount since
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Almost one year after a young man died following a police chase in Redfern, Sydney, the Aboriginal community is still waiting for justice. Green Left Weekly's Graham Matthews spoke to Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) president and
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Rohan Pearce "We are blessed to live in hopeful times", US President George Bush told an admiring audience in Washington on January 18. "In coming days, the Iraqi people will have their chance to go to the polls, to begin the process of creating a
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Remember the outrage and incredulity you felt over the Howard government's handling of the Tampa incident? The Refugee Rights Action Network in Western Australia is making an urgent appeal for funds to support a convergence at the Baxter detention
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Aaron Benedek, Sydney In a statement issued on January 17, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor Raul Bassi welcomed the announcement that Mamdouh Habib is to be released without charges from the US naval base prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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John Gauci Rather than allocate urgently needed funding to the TAFE and public school system, the federal Coalition government plans to establish eight private vocational colleges in NSW, at a cost of $289 million. According to a federal
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Green Left Weekly's Jim McIlroy and Paul Benedek spoke to Brisbane Murri community leader and Socialist Alliance activist Sam Watson about key issues facing Indigenous people today. Could you tell us about the trial in Goondiwindi you've just
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January 26 1938: Day of Mourning and Protest marks 150 years since British invasion of Australia and subsequent attempted genocide against the Aboriginal population. 1982: Unemployment reaches 3 million in Britain (one in eight of the working
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Norman Brewer, Sydney The 2005 Freedom Ride, organised by the reconciliACTION network, will be launched on the anniversary of the legendary 1965 Freedom Ride. A busload of 30 students — black and white united — will depart around noon on
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Alex Bainbridge, Hobart "The car-bomb attack on Australian troops in Baghdad is yet another reminder that Australian troops should be brought home immediately", Hobart Peace Coalition activist Kamala Emanuel told Green Left Weekly. "Any suggestion
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Lisa Macdonald While the Coalition is currently riding high in the polls, the prospect of a fourth term, and control of the Senate, has the bosses baying for blood. As the inevitable attacks on workers and the poor kick in, we can expect PM John
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Alison Dellit On January 16, the day after he filed his nomination to recontest his parliamentary seat, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist-Liberation) (CPI-ML) leader Mahendra Singh was gunned down during an election meeting in Jharkhand.
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Amanda Griscom Little Was global warming behind the recent catastrophic tsunami in the Indian Ocean? Of course not. Nor did it cause the Iraqi insurgency, the national debt or US pop-star Ashley Simpson's lip-synching episode. Global warming is
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Pensions The federal treasurer Peter Costello has been saying that with an ageing population in the next 40 years there will be insufficient revenue to provide pensions and adequate health services for older Australians. This is an inadvertent
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Jon Lamb, Darwin Amidst concerns from environmentalists and anti-uranium campaigners, the first shipment of uranium by rail from South Australia to the Northern Territory arrived in Darwin on January 16. The shipment of four containers of
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The image of Che's face — of indignation, of determination, of strength yet intelligence and purity, with piercing eyes — is the most reproduced image of the 20th century. Millions wear it on T-shirts; capitalism ironically uses it to sell lip
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The recommendation by the Victorian Law Reform Commission in November to abolish provocation as a defence for killing is a victory for those campaigning for its abolition. The regressive nature of provocation in defence had again ben highlighted with
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Dick Nichols Exit the cardboard messiah, sunk in self-pity. Enter (stage right) the new round of candidate saviours. Good grief, they look a bit shopworn, don't they? Thrice-recycled "bomber" Beazley with his pompous drone about "stability",
News
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SYDNEY — On January 12, the Stop the War Coalition web team awoke to find that its website had fallen prey to a malicious hack attack. More than 100 news articles, reports and interviews and details of upcoming events were erased and replaced with
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Pyrrhic victory "Last November's operation in Falluja, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking 'the back' of the insurgency — as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time — than in spreading it out." — Newsweek,
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Katie Cherrington & Megan Connor, Sydney On January 20, students demonstrated outside ANZ branches in Sydney and Brisbane to protest the bank's involvement in an international consortium, the Trade Bank of Iraq, which facilitates corporate
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Kate Howard & Simon Butler, Newcastle After a week of intense campaigning and local media interest, anti-racists in Newcastle organised two major events in opposition to the activities of the small fascist group the Patriotic Youth League. A
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Alex Bainbridge, Hobart Eighteen members of the "Gunns 20", accompanied by 200 supporters, crowded onto a narrow footpath outside the William Street courthouse in Melbourne on January 14, to officially declare their intention to contest Gunns'
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Kathy Newnam, Darwin In the quest for the truth about her husband's death, Letty Scott has amassed evidence of the murder of Douglas Scott at the hands of prison guards in Berrimah prison on July 5, 1985 and the subsequent cover-up. New evidence
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Sarah Stephen On January 14, the same day that he received a letter rejecting his s417 appeal for ministerial intervention, Iranian asylum seeker Ardeshir Gholipour took an overdose of sleeping tablets. He was admitted to Port Augusta hospital and
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Josephine Hunt, Canberra More than two years after their claim for a wage increase first went before the Industrial Relations Commission, qualified childcare workers in Victoria and the ACT were delivered a pay rise of up to $82.20 per week in a
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Jim McIlroy, Brisbane The Stolen Wages Campaign Working Group has criticised the Queensland government's limitation on resources to pursue claims for "stolen wages" for Aboriginal workers, who had wages withheld or absorbed into state revenue for
Analysis
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On January 12, the Iraq Survey Group — Washington's "weapons inspectors" charged with discovering the vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that the White House claimed Saddam Hussein's regime possessed — announced that the search for Iraqi
World
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Stuart Munckton "We were living like slaves, and slaves don't make enough to eat", Venezuelan peasant Jesus Guerrero told the Miami Herald, as quoted in an April 25 article. Guerrero is one of hundreds of thousands of peasants to benefit from the
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James Balowski, Jakarta The US has given its clearest signal yet that it may consider lifting a 23-year-old arms embargo imposed on the Indonesian armed forces (TNI). A partial lifting of the embargo came soon after the tsunami hit Aceh on December
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Raul Bassi When Nestor Kirchner was elected president of Argentina in 2003, many both inside and outside Argentina viewed him as a progressive alternative to the rampant neoliberalism of the Carlos Menem years. Menem had governed the country
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Federico Fuentes Twenty-thousand people chanted, "El Alto is on its feet, never on its knees", as they marched from that city onto the capital to celebrate their victory on January 14. Less than five years ago, the population of Cochabamba
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I have studied the TNI (the Indonesian military) for 30 years and what is happening in Aceh has striking similarities to what happened in East Timor. The TNI terrorised the East Timorese for a quarter of a century and
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Chris Slee Tamils around the world are collecting money to help tsunami survivors in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) has played a key role in aid efforts in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Initially
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At least 10,000 protesters from around the country converged on John Marshall Park in Washington, DC, on January 20 bringing a powerful antiwar message to the presidential inauguration of George Bush. The first thing that Bush saw as the presidential
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VENEZUELA: Government expropriates paper company On January 19, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed decree number 3438, expropriating the paper company Venepal. The National Assembly had previously passed a decree unanimously declaring the
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Kim Bullimore Kate Raphel-Bender, a Jewish activist was forcibly deported from Israel on January 16. Raphel-Bender, an activist with the International Women's Peace Service, had been arrested along with another anti-wall activist, Kelly
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Jamal Juma', Ramallah Away from international attention, the destiny being prepared for the Palestinian people is showing its true face more clearly in the new Israeli plans presented to the public in the past few months. The Apartheid Wall, with
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Dustin Langley, New York "I am ashamed to be associated with this mess, and I certainly did not join the army to kill women, children and old men. I just don't see how these innocent people could be a threat to the constitution of the United
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Reihana Mohideen, Sri Lanka Kirinda, a small coastal fishing village in the south, was flattened by the tsunami waves. A large cargo ship had been swept in and lay in the middle of town. There was debris everywhere: collapsed homes and buildings,
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Alison Dellit On January 9, 19-year-old Andres Raya, just returned from Iraq, decided to utilize his US marine training to take on his town's local police department, and hundreds of police units from the neighbouring area. By the time he was
Culture
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The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing America's War Profiteers, the Media That Love Them and the Crackdown on our RightsBy Amy Goodman, with David GoodmanAllen & Unwin346 pages (pb), $24.95 REVIEW BY MAUREEN FRANCES This book examines how our
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Message Stick: Leila Murray — The story of one woman's campaign for answers and justice that helped spark the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. ABC, Friday, 28 January, 6pm. Thapelo: A Prayer for Africa — Exposes the tragic
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@head2 ='We all need to work together for a better place' Green Left Weekly's Alex Bainbridge spoke to Graeme Kelly, the founder of the band Civil Rights. Why did you call the band Civil Rights? Because myself, and some members in the band,
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CHIP HENRISS-ANDERSSEN "What did your protests achieve?" asked the taxi driver, his frustration showing through his Tanzanian accent. "Nothing! No-one listened — they voted for Howard and Bush, it was all for nothing", he said. His response