More than 100 people gathered at Granville Town Hall in Sydney's western suburbs on November 10 to celebrate the 83rd anniversary of the Russian October 1917 Revolution. The event was organised by the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) and the
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At the beginning of the 20th century banks had a reputation as "bloodsuckers". Is it over-the-top to still describe them this way? When we consider the record of the major banks today (see accompanying article this page), this
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SYDNEY — Recent allegations of left-wing bias at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are little more than justifications for greater political interference by the federal Coalition government. The big-business newspapers have
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CANBERRA — On the border of the ACT lies Mount Jerrabomberra, a landmark of Queanbeyan and one of the last mountains in the region with rare native plant species. Despite its listing as National Estate by the Australian Heritage
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M1 target A mistake in my article on the M1 Alliance in Melbourne in last week's 91̳ could have given readers the entirely wrong impression of what sort of action target is being discussed by the new M1 Alliance in Melbourne. The article
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It is incontestable that the first half of the 1970s represented a cleavage in the evolution of the world economy: we then entered into what some economists defined as a long wave of stagnation. Nonetheless, since about the
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In September, Mifepristone, better known as RU486, was finally approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in early pregnancy abortions. Despite having been safely administered in France, where it is now used in one third of
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The censor in the machine Internet growth statistics are mind numbing: hundreds of millions of users, millions of web sites, and a flood of new content entering the sea of the internet every day. This is a significant problem for the
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The federal Coalition government is planning a wrecking operation at an international climate change conference at the Hague from November 13-24. The conference — formally known as the Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the
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Using the n-word In an article in the September 28 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, entitled "Racial slur case should caution all teachers", an overly sympathetic Mary MacDonald reports that: "The story of a [W]hite Cobb County teacher disciplined
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As more and more of the S11 activist groups around the country decide to make May 1 their next major mobilisation, the discussion now shifts to what kind of action should be organised for the day. The idea of a global strike against
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Richest man is the poor's best hope Odd as it may seem, it took the richest man in the world to remind us that when most of the world's population lives on the edge of extinction, it mocks the rosy predictions for our common future on a wired
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Filled with excitement, anticipation and a fair amount of anxiety, I arrived at 6am outside Melbourne's Crown Casino on Monday, September 11 to meet up with the other marshals from the S11 Alliance to organise the blockade of
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Profits The four biggest banks raked in record net profits this year: National Australia Bank ($3.24 billion); the Commonwealth Bank ($2.7 billion); ANZ ($1.747 billion); and Westpac ($1.715 billion). The combined total was $9.4 billion, $2.2
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The McClure report is the recently released federal government inquiry into welfare "reform". The report canvasses shifting functions undertaken by Centrelink to private or non-profit providers. It also suggests further tightening
News
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In the past week, the University of Canberra Students Association and the Wollongong University Student Representative Council have added their support to the "Global Action for Global Justice" student solidarity conference
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BY CLAIRE FLYNNAND KATHY NEWNAM ADELAIDE — The "Grim Reaper" and a paper mache "loan shark" were among the 70 people at a protest, organised by the Adelaide S11 Alliance, outside an address by the managing director of the World Bank, Dr Mamphele
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SYDNEY — On November 6, the International Women's Day (IWD) Collective commenced meetings here to organise the annual IWD march scheduled for March 10. IWD is recognised as a day of unity, solidarity and action for women's
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ADELAIDE — The trials of refugees charged with involvement in August's protest at the Woomera detention camp will begin on December 18, and continue daily through January. The charged refugees are being held in the Adelaide Remand
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BY MELANIE SJOBERGAND BRONWEN POWELL WOLLONGONG — Four thousand BHP Port Kembla workers voted for a 24-hour strike after an angry debate at a stopwork meeting here on November 9. "This is about job security", Graham Roberts, Australian Workers
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MELBOURNE — Victoria Police have agreed to pay $50,000 to seven environment activists who were assaulted during a peaceful demonstration by 20 people in February 1994. The East Gippsland Forest Alliance protesters are to
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MELBOURNE — How can you fight the boss for a pay rise when the boss locks you out of work for the next six months? This is the question workers had to grapple with at Brownbuilt, an office furniture factory in Oakleigh South.
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BRISBANE — A November 7 forum here heard a member of the local Palestinian community, Saleh, and Democratic Socialist Party activist Stan Thompson, speak on the situation in Palestine. Saleh gave a detailed introduction to the
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MELBOURNE — A 24-hour stop work meeting by 250 members of the Latrobe Valley branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) caused power blackouts and restrictions across Victoria. The workers voted to
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SYDNEY — The Australian campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle to end Israel's war against them, for self-determination and the return of their land have taken important steps forward here. Following a
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Peddling baloney Eating McDonald's hamburgers and fries reflects "an individualistic relationship between man and God which goes back to [Martin] Luther". — Catholic theologian Massimo Salami writing in the Italian bishops' daily Avvenire.
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SYDNEY — In response to the human rights abuses of the military dictatorship in Burma, a protest action was held outside the Grace Brothers department store in the Pitt Street mall on November 10. The Grace Brothers store was
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BY MELODY COUTMAN & ALISON DELLIT NEWCASTLE — The ballots cast in the Newcastle University Student Association (NUSA) presidential by-election on November 6-7 are to be destroyed uncounted, following a decision by the NUSA executive to uphold the
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SYDNEY — Around 200 Transport Workers Union (TWU) members and their families attended a combined protest and service of remembrance outside NSW parliament on November 3. The action was to highlight the number of deaths in the
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Bougainville struggle marked CANBERRA — An enjoyable and informative "politics in the pub" was held at the Old Canberra Inn on November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day) to commemorate the 1989 blowing up of pylons carrying power lines to the Bougainville
World
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The Indian coalition government led by the Hindu chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has stepped up its neo-liberal privatisation and economic liberalisation push. The 24-party government and its bourgeois counterparts are using
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On November 5, the Channel 9 Sunday program screened a special report titled "On Patrol in Timor", which claimed to show "how moderate militia factions are politically battling hardline groups still ready to attack the UN peacekeepers".
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SYDNEY — Having won liberation after 25 years of struggle, the East Timorese people's first challenge is to defend their right to freedom, East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao told 500 people at a "Peace and Justice in East
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As the people of East Timor struggle for their independence under the weight of the consequences of the Machiavellian machinations of successive Australian governments, another resource rich country in the region is calling its independence. The
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Self-determination for West Papua now! [The following statement was issued by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) on November 8 in response to the Indonesian troops build-up in West Papua.] Action in
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Seizing on Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Chen Shui-bian's pledge to stop the construction of Taiwan's controversial fourth nuclear power plant, the former ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party is leading a major drive to unseat Chen from the
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DILI — Street stallholders selling food and drinks on the seafront near the centre of the city here faced an attempt to forcibly evict them from their established positions on November 3, as the United Nations Transitional
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Bougainville leaders have warned that the "peace process" may collapse if the PNG government and island leaders do not return to the negotiating table soon to resume the stalled negotiations on the future of the province. Bougainville provincial
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The events of the past four weeks in Palestine have been a near-total triumph for Zionism in the United States for the first time since the modern re-emergence of the Palestinian national movement in the late 1960s. Political as well
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Some 400,000 people converged on the capital of Indonesia's nothernmost province of Aceh, Banda Aceh, on November 10 for a two-day independence rally, despite scores of killings by security forces trying to prevent demonstrators attending. The
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Workers demonstrate against thugs On November 6, around 250 demonstrators from the Solidarity Front demonstrated outside the East Java provincial parliament in Surabaya. They were protesting against the stabbing of a fellow worker by hired thugs
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While trade bureaucrats from the rich countries begin negotiations in Geneva to extend the World Trade Organisation's Agreement on Agriculture, a new report released by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) shows
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The UN General Assembly on November 9 overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging that all countries refuse to comply with the 38-year-long US blockade of Cuba. It passed with the support 167 votes, with only the US, Israel and the Marshall Islands
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SARI KASSIS from Friends of Palestine spoke at a 91̳ Weekly forum in Sydney on November 1. The following is an abridged version of his speech. I am a card-carrying Palestinian. The card is a small orange identity card. This card doesn't so
Culture
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Promise of a Dream: Remembering the SixtiesBy Sheila RowbothamAllen Lane/Penguin, 2000262 pp, $40.00 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON "Dreams have gone out of fashion" and the dreams of the 1960s generation, veterans from a tumultuous decade when
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DURBAN — From Boksburg to Berlin, discerning ears are being seduced by a record label that measures its success in the currency of meaning. If this culture reaches critical mass, "the global village" might just stop being a
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A SHORT STORY BY RACHEL LAREDNI Watch them travel in metallic wombs, speeding along veins of the city weaving their way through metal and concrete into the heart of the grand Mecca of capitalism. Tidy men of smooth shaven faces absorbed in the lies
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Billy Elliot Directed by Stephen Daldry With Jamie Bell and Julie Walters REVIEW BY ADAM GOLDSTEIN The depiction of British working-class life in films, beginning in the late-1950s, emerged full-bloom in the 1990s. It has taken
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SYDNEY — You passionately committed to a political cause. You have been given $30,000 to help you bring about political change. What do you do with it? Fund a demonstration? Design a web site? Hire a lobbyist? Bribe a politician? Buy guns? Or do