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In brief

IRAQ: US bombing kills 100,000 civilians About 100,000 Iraqi civilians — half of them women and children — have died since the US-led invasion in March 2003, most of them as a result of air strikes by the US-led occupation forces. The

ZIMBABWE: Unionists deported

Brian Stephens, Harare A delegation of 13 unionists from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) was deported from Zimbabwe under armed escort on October 26. The delegation was investigating the situation in the lead up to national

'Sandonistas' fight on

Nicole Hilder, Wollongong Refusing to be intimidated by the September 19 fire-bombing of the Sandon Point Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the "Sandonistas" — Save Sandon Point activists — continue to take on the NSW government, Wollongong Council and

News briefs #2

#2 Green groups slam SE Qld regional plan BRISBANE — Conservation organisations have criticised the Queensland government's draft south-east Queensland regional plan, released for public comment on October 27, labelling it a sham and a threat

News briefs #3

#3 UWA NTEU supports jailed unionist PERTH — On October 27, the University of Western Australia branch committee of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) passed a motion expressing concern at the jailing of Victorian trade unionist

The Conch [For survivors of Suharto's dictatorship]

I spent fifteen years in a single cellThe cold could be predicted, food not soMy body languished, my spirit fed well. I shivered with the ghosts of those who fellTwo tiny holes let in a concrete glowI spent fifteen years in a single cell. My

PALESTINE: The keys to their own prison

Kim Bullimore, West Bank Munira Amer's house was once surrounded by green fields, gardens and an agricultural nursery full of olive and decorative trees, grapevines and flowers, which her husband Hani took care of. Now the land around Munira and

Arundhati Roy's blaze of light

The Chequebook and the Cruise-Missile: Conversations with Arundhati RoyBy David BarsamianHarper Perennial, 2004178 pages, $22.95 (tpb) Review by Lachlan Malloch Arundhati Roy is usually introduced as "the Indian writer who won the 1997 Booker

After the election, where do we go?

Since Howard's federal election victory on October 9, Green Left Weekly's website has had a huge surge of visitors. It seems that many people, faced with the horrible prospect of three more years of Coalition government attacks on workers,

BOLIVIA: Mass movement on ascendancy again

Frederico Fuentes Facing extradition proceedings to stand trial in Bolivia for the deaths of 67 people during the October 2003 popular uprising that forced his resignation, former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada told the October 22

Loose cannons

Capitalist justice "US Airways Group, in its second journey through Chapter 11 [bankruptcy], had requested that a bankruptcy court impose a 23% pay cut on nearly all of its union workers. A bankruptcy judge on Friday granted the carrier authority

ISRAEL: Ploughshares activist to be deported

Kim Bullimore, Israel Angie Zelter, a well-known non-violent peace and human rights activist from Britain, is currently being held by the Israeli authorities in a cell at Ben Gurion airport, Israel. Zelter, a founding member of the Trident