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IRAQ: US military trained government death squads

David Spratt On February 26, Andrew Buncombe and Patrick Cockburn reported in the British Independent: "Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of

New Oxfam report: Australia's Indigenous health shame

Peter Boyle You will probably never meet Ken (not his real name). He's off to work at two o'clock each morning, a driver of a street-sweeping vehicle in a fast-gentrifying capital city suburb. He's been cleaning streets for 10 years. But it is not

BOLIVIA: Who's in Morales's government?

On the back of years of struggle by Bolivia's social movements, the Movement Towards Socialism's (MAS) Evo Morales was elected president in December and announced his governmental cabinet on January 23. In the following article, abridged from

A writer of courage and conviction

Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred BurchettEdited by George Burchett and Nick ShimminUniversity of NSW Press785 pages, $59.95 REVIEW BY BRENDAN DOYLE This weighty volume contains the full, unexpurgated autobiography of

Australia accused of war crimes

PERTH — A veteran peace campaigner has sent a complaint to the International Criminal Court in The Hague seeking the prosecution of the Australian government for war crimes committed in invading Iraq. In his letter, posted on March 13, Kevin

The secret war against the defenceless people of West Papua

John Pilger In 1993, I and four others travelled clandestinely across East Timor to gather evidence of the genocide committed by the Indonesian dictatorship. Such was the depth of silence about this tiny country that the only map I could find

Scottish writer's tilt at Uhmerka

You Have to be Careful in the Land of the FreeBy James KelmanPenguin Books, 2004437 pages REVIEW BY ALEX MILLER I've been a fan of James Kelman's books for nearly 20 years, but I have to admit that his last two works of fiction left me feeling

'The work force makes the decision'

Sam Wainwright, Perth "With every dispute, it's only as good as the people involved and the families who are backing them. Everyone who was on the picket line had the support of their wives and children. This day is to say thank you to them", said

BRITAIN: South African unionist condemns Israel's apartheid

On March 11, Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willy Madisha condemned Israel's apartheid policies at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign trade union conference in London. He said South Africa's apartheid was "characterised by killings,

FRANCE: Mass protests; 50 universities occupied

Murray Smith, Paris Over the last four years, France's right-wing government has forced through a whole series of neoliberal policies. Sometimes resistance has been fierce, such as to the reform of the pension system in 2003. But overall the

Australian government backs Terminator

Kerry Smith The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a de facto moratorium on "Terminator" technologies in 2000. Terminator technology sterilises crop seeds, preventing the ancient practice of seed saving and giving patent owners

Our Common Cause: Dirty tricks against the Tasmanian Greens reach new low

By the time you read this, we'll know the results of the March 18 Tasmanian state election. It's been an election dominated by efforts to keep the Greens out of government. Several years ago, in an effort to exclude the Greens, the state Labor and