US government officials have reacted with hostility to the possibility that Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) may be re-elected president of Nicaragua on November 4.
US ambassador to Nicaragua,
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After 1997, when the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) called off peace talks with the Mexican government, progress on the Zapatistas' demands for indigenous rights stalled. Although moves by Mexico's new president to
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MELBOURNE — It was standing room only when Naomi Klein came to town on July 16, packing out both the Atheneum Theatre and the Trades Hall Council auditorium. Hundreds crammed in to hear the Canadian activist and author speak about
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SYDNEY — On July 7, delegates attending the NSW Teachers Federation's annual conference toured the most elite private schools in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The tour exposed the extent of federal and state government subsidisation
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Blatant sexism and gender stereotypes in action films are not new. Nor are unbelievable feats of daring unexpected in your average action flick. Predictable and tacky plots along the lines of the film Tomb Raider's "dutiful daughter fights to fulfill
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GENOA, July 20 — Five hundred years ago, the Genovese Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas and opened it for plunder and genocide. Now, the Group of Eight is in town to continue that grand tradition. And thousands
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[On June 17, the "Miami Five" while in custody sent a message to the people of the US] We have been accused of endangering the security of the United States and indicted on numerous charges, including crimes such as conspiracy to commit murder that
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BY ANN PITSTOCK & KAMALA EMANUEL In the context of the racist media hysteria surrounding the rape allegations made against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairperson Geoff Clark, it was commendable that NSW magistrate Pat O'Shane
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Los Angeles, 1950: A pre-war light-rail system, one of the most extensive in the world, was dismembered by car, tyre and bus manufacturers and an oil company. Tracks were ripped from their routes, stations were torn down and row
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Left Labor conference I Reading Lev Lafayette's letter (Write on, GLW # 456) on my remarks about the "Left Labor" conference makes me believe he might have more to offer the progressive movement as a science fiction writer than a socialist
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The internet's origins Talk to someone about the origins of the internet and you will get one of two views: the internet was originally developed to reduce the cost of US military research by allowing various research institutions to communicate
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The murder of a security guard at a Melbourne abortion clinic has prompted right-to-choose campaigners to step up pressure on state governments to scrap anti-abortion laws. In Queensland, feminist groups, including the Brisbane
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Workers at a maquiladora (foreign-owned assembly plant) in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes Free Trade Zone have defeated an attempt to break their union after a year-long struggle. On May 10, as the result of a court order, the
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The latest phase of US military intervention in Colombia — the US$7.5 billion Plan Colombia — under the thin veil of the "war on drugs" has completed over a year of operations. The US is now topping up their $1.3 billion
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["From the multitudes of Europe, rising up against the Empire and marching on Genoa", a statement released by the Italian White Overalls, the Tute Bianche, an autonomist movement involved in organising the protests in Genoa.] We are new, and yet we
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On June 8, a federal court in Miami convicted five Cuban citizens on espionage and murder charges. Three of them, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino and Antonio Guerrero, were convicted of "conspiracy to commit espionage" and
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Ask me I amin prison but i refuse to be drivenaway from the good to be done;i have risen and now my soul listensto hope's drums — change has comeI am Today I had a talk with one of the staff members. He informed me that someone had called the
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In partnership with the Augusto C. Sandino Foundation (FACS), and in response to a request for assistance from the Rolando Carazo Home for the Protection of Infants and Children in Managua, Nicaragua, CISLAC has completed another small project. In
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Employment minister Tony Abbott is notorious for describing the unemployed as "job snobs". On July 9, he went further, blaming the poor for their own plight. He told the ABC Four Corners program: "We can't abolish poverty
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Some 300 right-wing paramilitaries from the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) seized control of Peque municipality in the northern central region of Antioquia department on July 4 and ordered residents to leave by July 7. The
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On July 9, in a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Appeals Court ruled that Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet suffers from dementia that makes him mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of covering up the murders of 75 leftists.
News
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The campaign for safe abortion access has begun again after Steve Rogers, a security guard, was shot dead at the Fertility Control Clinic in Melbourne on July 16. Anti-choice groups such as Right to Life have attempted to
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ADELAIDE — Under the banner of "Save our state!" more than 5000 people marched through the city on July 14, demanding that Adelaide's live music venues be protected from inner-city residential development. The rally demanded
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SYDNEY — Some 400 people attended the Now We The People conference over the July 14-15 weekend to discuss the negative impact of economic rationalism and corporate globalisation on ordinary people's lives. Sponsored by a wide
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SYDNEY — In a big boost to the Socialist Alliance's NSW Senate campaign fundraising, a dinner attended by more than 100 people in Marrickville on July 14 raised more than $1250. It was the first major fundraiser organised by the seven Socialist
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SYDNEY — In the early hours of July 19, 23 men lifted the floorboards of a demountable building used as a mosque in the grounds of the Villawood immigration detention centre, and crawled through the drainage system to freedom.
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Anti-Howard protest SYDNEY — One hundred protesters converged on Prime Minister John Howard's electoral office at Gladesville on July 19 to protest his government's attacks on workers, students, pensioners and the unemployed. Organised by
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WOLLONGONG — Staff in the Illawarra's 13 TAFE libraries, incensed at threatened job cuts and casualisation, have launched an industrial and community campaign to save the public education service they proudly deliver. The
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BRISBANE — The Queensland Council of Unions has backed a proposal for a march the day before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting begins here on October 6, but has refused to back a planned "people's unity march" on the
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WOLLONGONG — "If the Socialist Alliance is going to gain the confidence of working people, we have to make a firm commitment to our policies. It's not enough to have a great platform, we have to be supporting these campaigns."
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MELBOURNE — An undercover police officer has arrested a prominent community journalist at the blockade of Nike's city superstore here on July 20, in the latest of many police provocations at such protests. Numbers swelled for
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Corporate advisor "Maybe it's time for [moderate anti-globalisation] groups ... to go further and suspend large-scale demonstrations, like the one scheduled for Genoa." — Time magazine correspondent Romesh Ratnesar writing in the July 23, 2001,
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LISMORE — Activists from the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) and the Rainforest Information Centre held a vigil outside the offices of State Forests at Casino on July 20. They were protesting against the unsustainable practices
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MELBOURNE — Following the July 16 fatal shooting of Steven Rogers, a security guard at the Fertility Control Clinic, pro-choice activists around the country mobilised to defend the right of women to safe, accessible abortion.
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HOBART — After months of union and community pressure, tin mining company Renison Bell, located on Tasmania's west coast, finally agreed on July 12 to conduct an assessment of the risks associated with its 56-hour weekly work
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Due to a sub-editing mistake, an error appeared in Joyce Wu's article, "Labor left in bed with the sex industry" (GLW #456). The sentence, "In response, Lafayette ... argued that he did not see how the political and economic rights of women are
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CANBERRA — On July 14, the conflict between police and protesters at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy site turned violent. A police car ran into indigenous custodian Daryl Bloomfield, knocking him onto its bonnet in full view of TV
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PERTH — "In smashing a peaceful blockade, the police are not only denying us the right to protest, they are helping to deny hundreds of Nike workers the right to a decent wage", Roberto Jorquera told the 40-strong crowd outside
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MELBOURNE — Maribyrnong City Councillor Sara Coward has added her support to a planned community rally which will call for the closure of the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre. The rally, scheduled for Footscray on July
Analysis
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@box text intr = The results of the July 14 Aston federal by-election said a lot about what the existing parliamentary parties will be offering voters in the federal election later this year. And what a sorry performance it was. Despite Peter
World
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Fearful that their hopes for a new round of global "free trade" talks will turn to dust, rich country governments have scheduled an emergency summit for the end of August to discuss the future of the World Trade Organisation. The
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Fearful of the country's deepening economic crisis, Wall Street bond traders have demanded, and received, dire austerity measures from Argentinian President Fernando de la Rua in a bid to ensure that the debts owed them will be paid
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A February 7 pay deal, signed by plantation owners and the yellow union, the National Union of Plantation Workers, has proven to be a farce and a sell-out, the Plantation Workers Support Committee declared on July 19. The deal was
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The start of the formal election campaign period for East Timor's new Constituent Assembly began on July 15. Some 16 political parties and a number of independent candidates are contesting 88 seats in the election set for August 30,
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The British Midlands are being engulfed by race riots, pitting the children of whites who lost jobs in the country's devastating deindustrialisation against sons and daughters of those who came to fill service jobs in the
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HARARE — Zimbabwe's worsening political and economic crisis is doing more than any Marxist text could ever do to turn ordinary Zimbabweans into potential revolutionaries. A majority of politicians and "experts" (both in
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"Why must anyone endure hunger, unemployment, early death from preventable diseases, ignorance, the lack of culture and all sorts of human and social afflictions for exclusively commercial reasons and profits?" — Fidel Castro.
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The delicate balance between the nuclear powers is up for a potentially dangerous shake-up after Russia and China on July 16 struck a formal alliance aimed at countering US President George W. Bush's "Son of Star Wars" anti-missile
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The Ulster Defense Association (UDA) — also known as the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) — has announced that it will be withdrawing its support for the Good Friday Agreement. "We can no longer remain silent in our criticism of
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There are now more political prisoners in Indonesia than there were during the last 12 months of General Suharto's 32-year rule. There are at least seven leaders of the West Papua independence movement in jail, some now on trial for
Culture
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MELBOURNE — Having arrived at his St Kilda press conference more than an hour late, Michael Franti was quick to break with the convention and respectability of the expensive surrounds of the Astor Hotel. Sitting on the back of
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Democracy and RevolutionV.I. LeninResistance Books, 2001222 pages, $18.95 REVIEW BY JONATHAN STRAUSS Resistance Books' Democracy and Revolution represents a new effort by this publisher. Previous additions to its Resistance Marxist Library
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An Evergreen IslandFrontyard FilmsMade by Mandy King and Fabio CavadiniScreening on SBS, 7.30pm Saturday, July 28 REVIEW BY MARK ABBERTON In 1989, the people of Bougainville closed down one of the world's largest copper mines, which was reaping