Marcin Jaskulski, Sydney
A decade ago you could venture into a bank, passbook in hand, and withdraw money knowing that you alone would be reducing the balance of your account. Now the bank reduces your account balance with its array of fees.
In
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Led by PM John Howard, a growing chorus of Coalition politicians are urging a turn to nuclear power as the "solution" to greenhouse-gas driven climate change. They are attempting to force open the door to more uranium mining and nuclear power
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Rail system After the recent track work in Sydney on May 13 and 14. I feel we should debate out the proposed three weeks' straight of track work, that was cancelled, which would have resulted in Blue Mountains trains terminating at Penrith and an
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Aotearoa Radical Youth organised a thousand-strong high school walkout against youth wages in Auckland on March 20. It has also issued a warning of "walkouts and strike action by young people" against a new bill being discussed in the New Zealand
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Niko Leka Peace movement supporters turned out in their hundreds to public meetings around the country last week featuring US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and founding member of Doctors of Iraq Salaam Ismael. Ismael witnesses the carnage day
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Tony Iltis, Melbourne "The optimism that many Australians felt following significant reforms to asylum and refugee policy in 2005 has been cruelly dashed by the government's wretched response to Indonesia's displeasure at the granting of protection
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Zoe Kenny Despite being seen as a climate change "renegade", Prime Minister John Howard is currently attempting to gain "greenie" points by pushing for acceptance of "cleaner and greener" nuclear power as the solution to global warming. However,
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Emma Clancy The June 1 student strike against the federal government's anti-union "Work Choices" legislation has struck a real chord around the country, with students responding enthusiastically to the call to strike and organising for the action
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Stuart Munckton Scrapping unfair dismissal laws Workers employed by businesses with less than 100 employees are no longer covered by unfair dismissal laws, which prevent a boss from sacking you without a good reason and provide you with the
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Peter Boyle On March 8, 1996, Michael Johnston, 19, a Wollongong University student, was killed while cleaning a stove at a McDonald's restaurant. He was just two weeks into the job. Johnston had been instructed to carry out the daily cleaning of
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Pip Hinman, Melbourne Cindy Sheehan, a softly spoken and courageous US anti-war activist, took Australia by storm on a whirlwind tour of Australia last week. "It's so urgent that we get off our butts and try to stop this bullshit war for profit in
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Rohan Pearce While not many details about the "security treaty" being negotiated between Canberra and Jakarta have been made public, the Howard government has indicated that it will include an Australian commitment to Indonesia's "territorial
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Peter Burdon What would you say if you were told that a large portion of South Australia is subject to an entirely different set of laws to the rest of the state? How would you feel if you knew that those legally responsible for this land consume
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Max Lane On May 24, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the speaker of East Timor's parliament Lu'olo sent a letter to the governments of Australia, Portugal, Malaysia and New Zealand as well as to the United
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Andrew Ferguson, Sydney Mass protest action by workers and the community is a vital component to our battle against the Howard government's radical new anti-worker laws. Our campaign so far against the laws has been a resounding success, with half
News
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A recently published Attorney-General's department report shows that Australians are 24 times more likely to have their phones tapped than people living in the United States. The report on the use of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979
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Ian Jamieson Following the death of miner Larry Knight and the rescue of two trapped miners 14 days after the April 25 rock fall at the Beaconsfield goldmine in northern Tasmania, on May 22 the state government established a special inquiry to
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Gerard Morel, Melbourne At a lunchtime rally outside the Liberal Party's Victorian head office on May 26, US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and the Democrats' Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja called for an end to the US military's imprisonment of
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Gillian Davy, Melbourne Despite pressure from the local Union Solidarity group and other residents, and opposition from its two Greens' members, Moreland City Council voted on May 22 to put control of the Coburg Leisure Complex into the hands of
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SYDNEY — On May 23, David Burgess and Will Saunders gave $10,000 to Dr Salam Ismael from Doctors for Iraq. Burgess and Saunders were jailed for nine months in 2004 for painting "NO WAR" in giant letters on the Sydney Opera House two days before the
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Lauren Caulfield, Melbourne On June 4, people from around Victoria will rally here to protect the state's forests. The World Environment Day event will start at 11am at the State Library in Swanston Street and march to Federation Square. It will
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Tony Iltis, Melbourne One hundred and twenty people rallied in the Footscray Mall around the slogans "Stand up for multicultural communities!" and "Howard's racism will not divide us: say no to attacks on Muslims!". The May 20 rally, organised by
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Peter Boyle In a May 25 column entitled "Split atoms, not hairs", the Sydney Daily Telegraph's infamous warrior of the right, Piers Ackerman, assures his readers: "Contrary to the grim maunderings of Australia's Green Left, there is no mystique
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MELBOURNE — Seven RMIT University staff have been diagnosed with brain tumours since 1999, five in the past month. All seven have worked on the same two floors of a building at RMIT's city campus, with six of them working there for 10 years. One of
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How diplomatically put "Moscow and Washington failed to overcome their differences over Iran's nuclear programme yesterday, with a meeting of top diplomats in London breaking up without agreement on a common stance on the dispute... The US State
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Andrea Mears, Melbourne RMIT appears to be looking to end a project that provides tuition-free scholarships for a small number of refugees. Currently, 61 refugees are enrolled at RMIT through the project, which provides scholarships to temporary
Analysis
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On June 1, students and young workers around Australia will be leading by example — showing why young people have always been at the forefront of progressive struggles. The June 1 student strike initiated by the Resistance socialist youth
World
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Stuart Munckton BBC News reported on May 15 that the US government was placing a sanction on the sale of arms to Venezuela. The US State Department justified the ban by claiming that Venezuela is failing to assist counter-terrorism efforts, and has
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Jon Lamb In response to ongoing clashes between the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and rebel soldiers and police, the East Timorese president, prime minister, foreign minister and speaker to the parliament sent a joint communique on the evening of
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Stuart Munckton When he issued the decree nationalising the gas industry on May 1, fulfilling the main demand of the popular movement that overthrew the two preceding presidents as well as the key promise in his election campaign, Bolivian
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Eva Cheng A secret March gathering in Beijing of high profile pro-capitalist economists, legal experts and government advisers — most of whom are members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) — have alarmed China's waning pro-socialist forces.
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Washington In countries around the world, demonstrations were held on May 20 to demand an end to US aggression against Cuba and Venezuela. Protesters called for an end to Washington's economic embargo against Cuba and for freedom for the Cuban
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Liam Mac Uaid Respect's performance in England's May 4 local government elections has been impressive. These were the first elections of this type the organisation has contested on such a scale. Sixteen candidates were elected as councillors. In
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On May 23, Australian Prime Minister John Howard made a speech to Ireland's Dail (parliament). Almost a quarter of the 166-member chamber failed to show for the occasion, many in protest at Howard's support for the war on Iraq. One of those absent
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Leo Zeilig, Johannesburg On May 18, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) led a general strike to protest against low pay, job losses and casualisation. There is growing working-class anger at the levels of poverty and unemployment in
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Doug Lorimer On May 21, newly elected Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare accused Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer of bullying tactics over the future of the Australian-dominated Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon
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Maria Julua Mayoral, Pedro de la Hoz & Jose de la Osa, Havana Cuban President Fidel Castro has challenged US President George Bush, the CIA, the 33 US intelligence agencies, the thousands of banks in the world and the "servants" of Forbes magazine
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Jim McIlroy, Caracas The spirit of the Bolivarian revolution shone brightly in Plaza Bolivar on May 25 when several hundred people, mainly members of the local Colombian and Peruvian communities, rallied to support progressive candidates in the
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Doug Lorimer US military investigators have concluded that US marines may have deliberately massacred up to 24 unarmed civilians, including seven women and three children, last November in the western Iraqi town of Haditha, US House of
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Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas The capitalist system headed by the US is like a "venomous snake", Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told an audience in the east of the country on May 20. "Capitalism is the science of the devil." "The
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Kerryn Williams "Sri Lanka's military is now killing Tamil civilians with abandon", the Tamil Guardian stated in its May 17 editorial, following a wave of violence that has left dozens of civilians dead. The violence has sparked fears of a
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Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Quito In a victory for the broad-based popular movement against the proposed free trade agreement between Ecuador and the US (TLC), energy minister Ivan Rodriguez announced on May 15 that the contract for oil exploration
Culture
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POEM BY JOHN TOMLINSON Battlers all, come rally roundkeep your noses to the ground.Doff your caps to interest ratefeed off loathing, fear and hate.Praise the Leader one and allat 5 foot 2 he's standing tall.He's deaf and mean, he is obscene.Small
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The Da Vinci CodeDirected by Ron HowardStarring Tom Hanks and Audrey TautouScreening nationally REVIEW BY ELAINE GRAHAM-LEIGH The film of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code opened the Cannes film festival on May 17 to universal critical panning. The
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Jane Fonda: My Life So FarBy Jane FondaEbury Press, 2005599 pp, $49.95 (hb) Jane Fonda's War: A Political Biography of an Antiwar IconBy Mary HershbergerThe New Press, 2005228 pp, $39.95 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON "Feed Fonda to the whales"
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Community radio station 3CR is celebrating 30 years of bringing diverse voices to the streets of Melbourne. From May 29 to June 11, 3CR's 450 volunteers will be calling on the community to donate to the station's 13th birthday