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BRAZIL: Manifesto for action raises controversy

Federico Fuentes A manifesto proposed by 19 intellectuals created a stir at this year's World Social Forum. The 12-point platform of proposals is designed to make concrete the slogan "Another World is Possible". Circulated in order to gain the

Nicaragua-US military relations sour

As the radical left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) looks increasingly likely to win government at the next presidential election, the US has manufactured a crisis in order to force the government to give up its anti-aircraft

On the box

Message Stick: Crossing the Line — Two non-Indigenous medical students work in a remote Aboriginal community where their precepts and ideas are deeply challenged. ABC, Friday, February 11, 6pm. Compass: Prom Fight, the Marc Hall Story — Young,

VENEZUELA: US tries isolation tactics

Stuart Munckton "We are very concerned about a democratically elected leader who governs in an illiberal way", intoned US Secretary of State-designate Condeleeza Rice addressing a January 18 Senate foreign relations committee. Rice was referring to

Religious right pushes abortion debate

Lara Pullin Women's access to abortion is back on the political agenda as the religious right attempts to whip up controversy. But the anti-abortion forces may have misjudged the amount of support that a woman's right to choose has throughout the

SUDAN: Western oil greed trumps 'genocide' concerns

Norm Dixon After four months of virtual silence and tens of thousands more deaths, the January 31 release of the report of the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur has prodded US spokespeople into repeating the charge that

SCOTLAND: SSP to elect convenor

Members of the Scottish Socialist Party will elect their new national convenor at the party's national conference in Perth on February 12-13. There are two candidates for the post, Colin Fox, and Alan McCombes. Colin Fox has been active in socialist

Justice for the Hickey family! End black deaths in custody!

One year after the death of 17-year-old Aboriginal man Thomas "TJ" Hickey, the Redfern community is still fighting for justice. TJ was riding his bike in Waterloo, Sydney, on February 14, 2004, when he was impaled on a metal fence after being

UNITED STATES: Just say yes

The first state-funded evaluation of the impact of the US abstinence-only approach to sex education in Texas has found that more teenagers were sexually active after taking the program than before it. The evaluation, which involved surveying all

Write on: Letters to the editor

Israeli-Palestinian conflict Rachel Freeman (Write On, GLW #612) perceives the Israeli-Palestinian confrontations from a Zionist perspective whereas Kim Bullimore and Doug Lorimer see it from a Marxist standpoint. Freeman stresses the different

BRAZIL: Chavez wows WSF

Federico Fuentes The spirit of two familiar figures, one old and one new, dominated this year's World Social Forum. The old was the ever-present Che Guevara whose spirit not only lives on in the form of his images plastered across buildings and

Vera Drake is not a criminal

Vera DrakeWritten and directed by Mike LeighStarring Imelda Staunton and Phil DavisOpens nationally February 10 REVIEW BY ELIZABETH SCHULTE Movies that even mention abortion are few and far between. So when a movie like Vera Drake, which depicts