Fifteen hundred Australian Taxation Office (ATO) workers protested outside their workplaces around the country on May 7.
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The Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group (CBPG) has condemned the Federal Court for dismissing Mamdouh Habibs attempt to reclaim his passport.
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PERTH — Demonstrators wore “nuclear warheads” while percussion band Junkadelik gave extra life to a spirited protest outside the Australian Uranium Summit on May 7. The 100-strong action was organised by the Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA.
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SYDNEY Two thousand people rallied in Hyde Park on May 3 to mark May Day. The crowd included contingents from trade unions, left-wing organisations and progressive campaign groups.
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SYDNEY — Anti-war protesters spoke out in the city on May 8 against the 450 extra soldiers being sent to Afghanistan as part of the Australian government’s commitment to the US-NATO war alliance.
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Only 38% of FTSE 350 respondents factored in climate change risks on business practices and reported the risks to their investors, according to an April report from Acclimatise, an English risk management company specialising in climate change.
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More than 50 people crowded into the Melbourne Resistance Centre to take part in a lively May Day toast hosted by the Socialist Alliance on May 3.
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The National Tertiary Education Union (Tasmania) sent its log of claims to the University of Tasmania’s management almost a year ago. Despite numerous meetings between the NTEU and management, little has been achieved.
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Sixty police raided a blockade camp in Tasmania’s Florentine Valley on May 3. They removed road blockades so controversial logging of the area can begin.
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SYDNEY A network of trade union activists concerned about climate change has formed in Sydney.
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An estimated 1000 people from unions and migrant communities marched through Melbourne on May 3 to mark May Day, the international day of workers.
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The Socialist Alliance condemns and totally rejects the Rudd governments modified proposal for a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) announced on May 4.
News
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Scuffles broke out in Parramatta mall on May 5 as police and Lord Mayor Tony Issa forcibly shut down a Tamil hunger strike protesting the Sri Lankan government’s genocide of the Tamil people.
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Cityrail management began a staff review process on April 29 for staff working on the Illawarra line. The breakneck speed of the process so far has raised concerns among Cityrail workers that this is just another exercise in cost-cutting that will run down the already stretched rail network.
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News that millionaire developer and Fremantle Labor candidate Peter Tagliaferri has been a member of the 500 club a Liberal party fundraising group has mired the Labor campaign in controversy in the final weeks of campaigning for the May 16 Fremantle by-election.
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The following motion was passed by Students for Palestine (University of Western Sydney) on May 6.
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On May 5, Nelson Davila, charge d’affairs for the Venezuelan embassy in Australia, travelled to Newcastle for a day of discussion about the history and progress of the Bolivarian revolution.
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PM Kevin Rudd has announced plans for a scheme that will deny youth allowance to unemployed people under 20 years old, unless they are at school or engaged in full-time vocational training.
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On April 29, the steps of Victorian Parliament were filled with the stomping feet of angry protesters. They had marched through the city demanding public transport concession fares for international and postgraduate students.
Analysis
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More than 40 Australian academics have signed a statement calling for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions.
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New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF)president Bob Lipscombe has announced an new position on performance pay on the federation’s website.
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Since the global economic crisis began, there has been a sharp fall in global demand for steel, resulting in more competition between steel makers.
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The federal Labor government’s pre-election promise to abolish anti-worker Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) has once again been exposed as a lie.
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Domestic violence support centres in Alice Springs are in desperate need of funds to meet demand.
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Integral fast reactors and other fourth generation nuclear power concepts have been gaining attention, in part because of comments by US climate scientist James Hansen.
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Ask an average Australian what they might hope the federal government would spend $300 billion on and the answer would hopefully be vast investment in new jobs and services, given we’re heading into recession, and reducing Australia’s climate change impact.
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Within 24 hours of the Rudd governments announcement of new changes to the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, 66 climate action groups signed a statement condemning the decision.
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The federal budget will be presented to parliament by Treasurer Wayne Swan on May 12. While Swan has been officially tight-lipped about its contents, he has already released significant details about the cuts to programs and government jobs the budget will hand down.
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PM Kevin Rudds announced changes to the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) has again split the climate movement, and this time its very serious, with three large, rusted-on-to-Labor groups running cover for an appalling policy that wont guarantee a reduction in Australian emissions for decades.
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This is an abridged version of the speech given to the Wollongong May Day march on May 2 by Fred Moore.
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Famous Cuban singer/songwriter Silvio Rodriguez has been banned by the US State Department from attending folk singer Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebrations in New York.
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Melbourne-based climate activist Pablo Brait sent the letter below to the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) on May 5.
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Another Rudd betrayal The Rudd Labor Government's latest anti-science, pro-coal, pro-pollution Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) proposal betrays Labor voters, Australians and humanity — and comprehensively demonstrates its unfitness to
World
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More than 2,000 civilians were slaughtered by Sri Lankan Army shelling on the night of May 9, Tamilnet.com reported.
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Police detained dozens of opposition activists, lawyers and legislators on May 6 and 7, as protests erupted around the ruling National Front (BN) removal of the opposition People’s Alliance (PR) state government of Perak.
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When it comes to reporting on the situation for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, with no reporters on the ground to witness the Sri Lankan Army’s carnage, newspapers like the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald suddenly discover “reliable information” on what the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are up to!
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Supporters of El Savador’s left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) stormed parliament on May 1 in protest against attempts to impose a right-wing deputy as Congress president.
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A huge mobilisation of up to a million workers took place in Caracas on May 1 — the international workers’ day.
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“This is not just a Maoist movement”, Green Left Weekly’s correspondent in Kathmandu, Ben Peterson, said on the struggle that has erupted in Nepal. “This is threatening to become a new people’s movement, like the one that swept away the monarchy.”
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“We ask the Afghan government to force the American forces to leave Afghanistan. They kill more civilians than Taliban”, an angry Haji Nangyalai told AFP on May 7 at a demonstration outside government offices in the western town of Farah.
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The statement below was released by the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran. For more information, contact info@workers-iran.org or alliance@workers-iran.org. Visit the site of Solidarity Committee with Iranian Workers-Australia, at www.unionkar.com.
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Much has been made in the international media of right-wing multimillionaire Ricardo Martinelli’s victory in Panama’s May 3 presidential elections. Martinelli’s triumph has been trumpeted as a break in the recent trend of left-wing electoral victories in the Americas.
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The article below is abridged from a May 6 Tamilnet.com report.
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On May 6 and 7, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari was in Washington to exchange platitudes with US President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
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Frances’s eight major union federations held demonstrations across the country on May 1 — the international workers’ day. It was the third jointly organised day of mass workers demonstrations this year.
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Bolivian President Evo Morales called a special press conference in New York on April 22. The UN general assembly had passed a motion put by Bolivia’s radical, pro-poor government to make that day “International Mother Earth Day”.
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Motorola, Caterpillar, Veolia, the Tesco supermarket chain, and other companies across the world that do business with Israel are suffering losses due to a global boycott in support of Palestinian rights.
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On April 30, the US state department released its 2008 Country Reports on Terrorism.
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The article below is reprinted from a May 5 Tamilnet.com report.
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The article below is abridged from a May 7 Inter-Press Service report.
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“The country is not going to sink. Despite the world economic crisis, we will keep advancing in social and human development”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said, inaugurating a new pharmaceutical plant at Las Adjuntas, Caracas, on May 3. He was speaking on his weekly TV program Alo Presidente.
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An uprising by the Amazonian indigenous people of Peru continues to grow and get more radical in the face of government inaction.
Culture
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Corporate and White-Collar Crime
edited by John & Leonard Minkes
Sage
210 pages, $71.92(pb) -
Charlie Chaplin did much of his best work as an actor, director and even composer in films such as The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Circus and City Lights.
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Gay Hollywood — In the 1920s, Hollywood was the most homosexual friendly place to be, as most of the behind-the-camera staff were gay. But for those in front of the camera there was no tolerance from the movie-going public. SBS, Friday, May 15,