As people become more and more concerned about global warming and other environmental problems, capitalist politicians have tried to reassure us that environmental protection and capitalist business are not in
contradiction.
One version of this
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Fred Fuentes Before and on June 1, the day that students around the country protested against Work Choices, the mass media and the NSW education minister, Labor's Carmel Tebbutt, campaigned against high-school students' right to protest, saying
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Sue Bolton Dick Williams, the Queensland state secretary of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), believes the Howard government "is waging a class war", and that unionists are prepared to fight as long as union leaderships are prepared to lead.
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Sue Bolton It took very little time for the federal government's lies about Work Choices to be exposed. Many workers were sacked on the day Work Choices came into operation, immediately revealing that the new law's sole purpose was to screw
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Coral Wynter & Jim McIlroy, Caracas The response of the Pentagon and White House to the massacre of more than 20 Iraqi civilians by US marines in Haditha last year has followed a familiar pattern. Official investigations into the incident were
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Dale Mills The Australian government is coming under increasing domestic and international pressure to intervene in the imprisonment of David Hicks at the United States' military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Hicks has now been held there
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Melissa Hughes & Pip Hinman On the May 15 edition of ABC TV's Lateline, Northern Territory Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rogers went public with reports of violence and abuse of children in NT communities. She cited cases that were "beyond most people's
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I'm a 16-year-old high-school student who commenced casual work on March 15th. My employer was Pulp Juice Bars Operations Pty Ltd. I was told that I would be paid $9.52 per hour on weekdays and $14.28 on Sundays, but that all changed after the
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Peter Boyle Commenting on the Australian troop deployment to East Timor on May 31, the Australian's Paul Kelly said, "this intervention is both military and political. Its primary purpose was to respond to East Timor's security crisis ... But this
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David Spratt "The peace movement" is one of those odd phrases: it means everything to everybody, and often nothing in particular. While opposition to war, militarism and the global arms race are common threads, practically speaking "peace"
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Zoe Kenny In the face of mounting public pressure, PM John Howard announced on June 2 that the federal government would not sell its 13% share in the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme. Shortly after Howard's announcement, the NSW and Victorian
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Peter Boyle "The 19th century industrialists saw their fortunes smashed by the Great Depression, two world wars and progressive income tax. "But, as illustrated last week by Macquarie Bank's annual executive salary pageant, the super rich are
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Jon Lamb While the fighting between different factions of the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and the East Timor National Police (PNTL) has ceased with the arrival of the Australian-led international security force, sporadic street skirmishes and
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Sue Bolton After much debate within the trade union movement, the ACTU-endorsed June 28 national day of protest against the Howard government's industrial relations laws has finally spread nationwide. After the success of last year's two national
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The Australian non-government environment sector is united in its opposition to all aspects of the nuclear industry including uranium mining, uranium enrichment, nuclear power, nuclear weapons and the creation and disposal of radioactive waste.
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A call to all welfare recipients, welfare-rights organisations, union members and unions to unite for justice on June 28. We are facing a major assault on all working people in Australia — paid workers, unemployed people and those who are not
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Local issues While GLW does an excellent job concerning issues of war and peace and the Work Choices legislation, there are essential local issues that merit additional attention. I am trying to obtain a housing commission flat in Canterbury and
News
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Simon Butler, Newcastle Climate action group Rising Tide Newcastle held a protest rally outside the Hunter Street office of federal Labor MP Sharon Grierson on May 29 to condemn her for failing to oppose the new coal export terminal in Newcastle
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Graham Matthews The workers' rights lobby group Unite, which formed in Melbourne in 2003 to "name and shame" dodgy bosses in the retail and fast-food industry, relaunched itself as an unregistered union on May 30. "The fast-food and retail
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Fred Fuentes Chanting "Too young to vote, so hear us yell! Work Choices go to hell!", more than 500 young people, most of them high-school students, marched in Sydney on June 1 to protest against the Howard government's attacks on young workers
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Jeffrey Wilson, Sydney Political economy students at Sydney University are organising against discriminatory policies in the economic and business faculty that under-fund departments teaching primarily HECS students (who repay their university fees
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Graham Matthews, Sydney Up to 80 people rallied and marched against racism in Auburn on June 3, in a community action against the federal and state governments' attacks on the Arab and Muslim communities. With chants of "Migrants are welcome,
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The federal government's Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has refused to approve a proposed agency agreement for the Australian Taxation Office, despite the fact that both the ATO and the Community and Public Sector Union had been
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Glory for the few, poverty for the many "A quarter-century after Deng Xiaoping broke with communist orthodoxy, telling his countrymen 'To get rich is glorious', China has a burgeoning class of tycoons. The country has produced seven billionaires
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Sue Bull, Melbourne Anonymous late-night phone calls, threats of jail for non-appearance at interviews or for withholding information, allegations of illegal conduct at events up to two years previously and closed courts — such police-state
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Rachel Evans, Sydney Sydney's Daily Telegraph fed readers a bucket-load of prejudicial rubbish on May 29. In a front-page article titled "Nursery revolt", we were told: "Parents, family groups and the Federal Government are demanding a Sydney
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CANBERRA — On May 25, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) held a lunchtime protest outside the ACT Legislative Assembly to oppose a planned cut to superannuation contributions for all future ACT government employees. Labor Chief Minister
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Stuart Harrison, Geelong Young workers are organising to fight back as PM John Howard's new "Work Choices" laws begin to take effect. A recent report by the government's Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA) showed that all the new Australian
Stuart Harrison, Geelong
Young workers are organising to fight back as PM John Howard's new "Work Choices" laws begin to take effect.
World
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Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas The second national congress of the National Union of Workers (UNT), the main progressive union federation in Venezuela, was suspended on May 27 after factional divisions led to a walkout by groups representing a
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Michael Karadjis Montenegrins voted for independence for their tiny republic in a referendum on May 21, in a move that essentially formalised an already existing situation. Following the collapse of the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia
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Barry Weisleder & John Riddell, Toronto "General jubilation" greeted the Bolivian government's move to take control of the country's hydrocarbon resources on May 1, according to the Cuban daily newspaper Granma. "An impressive multitude [that]
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Roberto Jorquera On May 31, Associated Press reported that for a second day Santiago police sprayed water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters supporting a nationwide strike by high-school students demanding a national government takeover of
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On May 1, millions of immigrants and their supporters took part in protests and stay-aways throughout the US. Hundreds of thousands of others skipped school or boycotted shopping. It was a spectacular manifestation of the movement that arose in
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The Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) held its eighth congress in late May. Over the past period, the party has been involved in campaigns against the privatisation of health care, against the goods and services tax and against the fuel price hike,
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The following statement by Dita Indah Sari, chairperson of the People's Democratic Party, was issued on June 1. As a result of the earthquake that struck Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java on May 27, some 5800 people have died and 20,000 have
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Norm Dixon In the early hours of May 5, the most militarily significant Darfur rebel group — a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Minni Minnawi — reluctantly accepted a flawed "peace" agreement with Sudan's authoritarian
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Alastair Crooke Almost no-one believes that putting Palestinians on a "diet" will make them more moderate or help to restart a political process with Israel. The diet — a term coined by forumer Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov
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Eva Cheng Having been revived after four years on the back of a mass people's movement, on May 18 Nepal's parliament proclaimed a series of measures to downgrade the power of the country's king. However, the measures stopped short of abolishing the
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Coral Wynter & Jim McIlroy, Caracas Oscar Rodriguez* is a Venezuelan exile who currently lives in the United States, but he visiting his homeland and is full of hope for the "Bolivarian revolution", which he had observed developing over the past
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The British military announced on May 29 that two of its soldiers had died in a roadside bomb attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, bringing the total number of British military fatalities in May to nine. "The deaths are a clear sign that rebel
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Josue Wilson, Merida Venezuelanalysis.com reported on May 30 that "Classes at the University of the Andes [ULA] were suspended again yesterday, as disturbances and protests continued in Merida for the fourth straight business day". The violent
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James Balowski, Jakarta The official death toll from the massive earthquake that struck densely populated Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java on May 27 now stands at more than 6200, with more than 46,000 people injured — 33,000 seriously.
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Doug Lorimer "Word that US Marines may have killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in 'cold-blooded' revenge after an insurgent attack has shocked Americans but many Iraqis shrug it off as an every day fact of life under occupation", Reuters reported on
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Dipankar Bhattacharya, the general-secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), has recently been charged with attempted murder for his role in leading a 2001 march against mass killings by the BJP-led government of Jharkhand state.
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On May 28, the left-nationalist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced that it had informed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh that it was willing to enter into negotiations on joining the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government. AFP
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On May 19, former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo, now chairperson of the left coalition Laban ng Masa (Struggle of the masses), denounced the murder of Movement for National Democracy (KDP) leader Analiza Gandia in Balanga,
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Jenny Richards Mexican state police unleashed a wave of terror on the towns of San Salvador Atenco and Texcoco, about 25 kilometres north-east of Mexico City, after residents staged highway blockades on May 3 in solidarity with 60 flower vendors
Culture
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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: The Shocking Inside Story of How America Really Took Over the WorldBy John PerkinsEbury Press, 2006250 pages, $24.95 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON John Perkins cut a brazen figure at meetings of the international
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Rob Riley, an Aboriginal Leader's Quest for JusticeBy Quentin BeresfordAboriginal Studies Press, 2006374 pages, $39.95 REVIEW BY BARRY HEALY Rob Riley was a major leader of Aboriginal Australia whose influence was felt from the streets of Perth,
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Compass: Mystery vs Rationalism — Examines the debates between science and religion. ABC2, Friday, June 9, 6.55pm. The Best of the Chaser's War on Everything — Confronting and lampooning key players from the world of politics, business,
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What Every Radical Should Know About State RepressionBy Victor SergeOcean Press 2005148 pages (pb) $25 REVIEW BY ALEX MILLER Victor Serge was born to Russian refugee parents in Brussels in 1890. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Russian