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A report on a November 17 Perth rally against the NT intervention was accompanied by a photo incorrectly credited to Barry Healy. The credit should have read: 鈥淧hoto by Jodi Hoffmann/courtesy Aboriginal Legal Service of WA.鈥

On November 16, NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled that five journalists from Australia聮s Seven and Ten commercial TV networks who died in the East Timorese town of Balibo on October 16, 1975, were not killed by crossfire (which is what Australian authorities have previously maintained) but were deliberately murdered by invading Indonesian forces, on orders from above in what Pinch ruled to be a 聯war crime聰.
There were emotional scenes in the Perth Coroners Court on November 28 as deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker read her findings into the death of a 35-year-old Aboriginal man, Carl Woods, in police custody in the suburb of Parmelia on April 11 last year. Woods聮 relatives wept and expressed anger at Vicker聮s finding of accidental death.
Ecuador began to implement its 聯citizens聮 revolution聰 called for by left-wing President Rafael Correa on November 29 with opening of the constituent assembly, made up of elected delegates tasked with reforming the state聮s institutional framework and drawing up a new constitution.
Over 50 military and civilian dissidents remain in custody following the storming of the Manila Peninsular luxury hotel on November 29 by troops loyal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to dislodge a group of soldiers who had seized the hotel and used it to hold a press conference calling for a 鈥減eople鈥檚 power鈥 uprising against the unpopular president. Civil society and religious leaders joined the rebels at the press conference.
A 19-year-old Saudi Arabian woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail following an incident in 2006 in which she was kidnaped and gang-raped by seven men. When the kidnapping occurred, the woman was in a car in the company of a man who was not an immediate relative, a crime in the Saudi kingdom.
@body intro = BREAKING NEWS 鈥 As 麻豆传媒 Weekly goes to press, the Venezuelan government has released video evidence of a violent destabilisation campaign being planned by US-funded opponents of the Chavez government and the process of change. The campaign is based on rejected the outcome of the referendum being held on December 2. Speaking to up to a million supporters of the constitutional reforms and the revolution on November 30, President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil supplies immediately to the US, in retaliation against any violent attacks.
The first round of official talks to negotiate a global climate change agreement to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 will be held in Bali, Indonesia, on December 3-14. Representatives of 130 countries will attend, ostensibly to begin a two-year negotiating process.
A thousand steps
Away from the ballot box
To vote for freedom

A thousand steps
From armed men
With orders to shoot down
Anyone who votes for freedom

A thousand steps
When you have chains
On your hands and feet
To stop you from taking
A step of a single yard
Towards freedom

A thousand steps
From the grave
Where you will be buried
If you take a step
To vote for freedom

A thousand steps
From your dreams
Where you dream
That you can vote
For freedom


@auth poem = Arif Viqar
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In the years following the revolution, its leaders initiated the formation of the Communist (Third) International (Comintern), an international grouping of communist parties. In Venezuela, the leadership of the country鈥檚 unfolding socialist revolution have issued a call for a new international of Latin American left parties. In this article, part of a series on the early years of the Comintern, John Riddell looks at the relationship between communist revolutionaries and colonised peoples.
Despite opposition from farmers and consumers, big-business biotech companies scored a major victory on November 27 when both the New South Wales and Victorian governments gave the green light to the commercial cultivation of genetically modified food crops. This opens the gate for pro-GM groups to lobby other states which have not yet agreed to commercial production of GM crops.
John聮s gone, he聮s gone
and I聮m forlorn.
The unemployed must cope
without his scorn.
Workers smile
and bosses frown,
why did the voters
let them down.
Eleven long years
of blood, sweat and tears
have given way
to workers聮 cheers.
Bennelong voters
so it seems
exceeded all
my wildest dreams. @auth poem = John Tomlinson