BY PETER BAKER & ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — The Bacon Labor government released its state budget on May 22. Treasurer David Crean described it as "about sharing rewards" and the May 23 Mercury lauded Crean as "com[ing] close to being a hero in
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Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) members may have had a chance to read the April 2003 edition of the Sea and Waterfront Voice. The edition marks the 20th anniversary of the Maritime Unionist Socialist Activities Association
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North Korea and nuclear weapons Justin Tutty (Write On, GLW #539) disagrees with my statement that "we should defend North Korea's right to develop whatever weapons it feels it needs to defend itself against the very real threat it faces" (GLW
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ADELAIDE — Semaphore Beach, one of Adelaide's most popular and least developed beaches, is threatened by a new experiment being implemented by the Coastal Protection Board. The board intends to mine 164,000 cubic metres of
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When they met over steaks and beer at the US president's Texas ranch, the discussion between John Howard and George Bush turned quickly to the Australian government's "reward" for participating in the Iraq war. And this, we are
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In a dramatic new attack on abortion access, on June 4 the US House of Representatives passed a bill by 282 votes to 139, banning late-term abortions. The bill criminalises the dilation and extraction method of abortion of a live fetus, used after
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At the start of a new century, the world has entered a new and frightening "age of terror", the world's ruling elite tells us. The attack on Manhattan's Twin Towers supposedly "changed everything". There is a "real and present
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On May 30, US President George Bush told Polish television that the US military had found Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD). Well, sort of. Remember the three (some media outlets have inaccurately reported two) trailers the
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MELBOURNE — Gaylene Seardon died this week after a long battle with cancer. A single mother, Gaylene was an advocate of the rights of working people, the unemployed, youth, women and all who fought injustice and, as was recalled
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The Australian government has shown that it cares as little about the civil rights of Australians abroad as it does for the civil rights of Australians at home. Australian citizen Jack Thomas has been held in detention in Pakistan
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Immigration minister Philip Ruddock's June 3 decision to grant 379 East Timorese asylum seekers permanent residency in Australia is a decision that all supporters of refugees' right should welcome. The decision ends more than a
News
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MELBOURNE — The local campaign against the Blackshirts chalked up a victory on May 23 when a judge upheld a five-year intervention order taken out by Brunswick woman Paula Pope against Blackshirt leader John Abbott. Abbott
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CANBERRA — On June 3, 80 people marched from Parliament House to the Burmese embassy to protest against the recent crackdown against opposition forces in Burma. Protesters called for the release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and
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BY RACHEL EVANS & LINDA WALDRON MELBOURNE — With up to 10 picket lines across Melbourne and in Geelong over the past month, the Socialist Alliance has shown how it is possible to offer solidarity to fighting workers. The Geelong branch of the
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SYDNEY — Toni Kasim, from Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), discussed Malaysia's repressive Internal Security Act (ISA) at a June 2 public forum organised by Amnesty International, AidWatch and the NSW Labor Council. SUARAM is
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SYDNEY — As 40 workers started their 12th week of strike action, 200 people turned up for a community picket to support the strike at the Morris McMahon site on June 5. Although the dispute began over working hours in March, it
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HOBART — The TasDEC Global Learning Centre is looking at ways to continue functioning after a March review by its government funding agency threatened to cut $40,000 from TasDec's funding for next year. TasDEC is the primary
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HOBART — The Tasmanian Law Reform Institute (TLRI) released a report on May 28 recommending that adoption by same-sex couples be legalised. The report strongly argues that adoption should be an option for same-sex couples
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BY SIMON MILLAR & GRAHAM WILLIAMS MELBOURNE — The landmark 100th day of strike by 25 Electrical Trades Union members at Smorgon Steel was marked with a solidarity breakfast, provided by other unionists, on June 4. Contingents from Australian
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Silver lining "Longer term, the SARS scare will be the biggest boost to sales of life insurance and related products that I can think of." — Maurice Greenberg, chief executive of insurer AIG, quoted in the May 26 International Herald Tribune.
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DARWIN — On June 5, five members of the Network Against Prohibition (NAP) were given jail sentences of between 16 and 21 months for "deliberately disrupting the Legislative Assembly" last year. The maximum penalty for this "crime" is
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Protest actions were held in a number of capital cities last week to oppose the Howard government's drive to deregulate and privatise higher education. On June 4, 50 people attended a rally at the University of Wollongong. A
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MELBOURNE — On June 5, delegates from the metal division of the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) voted to hold an industry-wide 24-hour strike on June 12, and an industry-wide mass meeting on
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BY TIM STEWART& ALISON DELLIT In a disturbing escalation of government harassment of migrant communities, the homes of 10 Iranian-Australian families in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were raided by federal police on June 3. Claiming to be hunting
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HOBART — Deputy-premier Paul Lennon announced plans on June 4 to lift a 20-year ban on logging in the Tarkine rainforest. The Tarkine is Australia's largest wilderness rainforest. The state government's decision will allow
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BY PIP HINMAN & STUART MUNCKTON As news of Indonesian military atrocities in Aceh — including girls as young as six being raped — spreads, so does the solidarity with the Acehnese people's struggle for democracy. On June 5, 33 people gathered
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SYDNEY — After the death of sitting MP Jim Anderson, a by-election for that state seat of Londonderry was held on May 31. In a large field of candidates, the Greens doubled their previous vote in the seat. Labor's replacement
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Textile workers protest tariff cuts MELBOURNE — Hundreds of textile and clothing workers from across Victoria rallied in central Melbourne on June 3 to protest against proposed cuts to tariffs on textile imports. "If the Productivity Commission
Analysis
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The Australian parliament is debating legislation to amend the criminal code and ban the Lebanese-based Hezbollah (Party of God) as a terrorist organisation. This means that any Australian resident raising funds or supporting the organisation in any
World
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Four out of six high-profile political prisoners, held under Malaysia's draconian Internal Security Act, were released on June 1 after the government decided not to renew their ISA detention orders. The other two are awaiting the
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BY JIM McILROY& ROBYN MARSHALL LIMA — Thousands of workers marched through the streets here, and in other Peruvian cities, on June 3 to protest against the declaration of a state of emergency by the government of President Alejandro Toledo, and
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This year's annual meeting of the heads of the Group of Eight (G8) countries — the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia — glossed over the deepening economic problems confronting the world
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Thousands of Peruvians are continuing to strike, despite a state of emergency having been imposed by the government on May 27. Strikes and protests have spread like wildfire across the country. On June 3, more than 30,000
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JAKARTA — Although coverage of Indonesia's brutal war in its northern-most province of Aceh has all but disappeared from the international media, it is still front-page news here. If you believe the headlines, the Indonesian
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Ghada Karmi's recent book, In Search of Fatima, is a very significant Palestinian narrative. Karmi takes the reader through the Palestinian experience of life interrupted, colonisation and dispossession. Karmi's book talks about
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At around 9pm on June 4, two German tourists camping out near Lueng Gayo beach in the sub-district of Teunom in West Aceh were fired on by Indonesian troops (TNI). Lothar Heinrich Albert (54) died from a bullet wound to the chest
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91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly is partisan on the issue of Palestine and Israel. Like some others on the Jewish left, I regard this as redressing the balance of media coverage on this issue. My own background as a child of two Holocaust
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RAMALLAH — On June 2, as I was trying to get back into Ramallah from Jerusalem, I was met with an all too familiar sight at the Qalandia checkpoint, a few kilometres south of the city. Thousands of Palestinians trying to leave
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Aleida Guevara, Cuban-born daughter of renowned Argentine revolutionary socialist Ernesto Che Guevara, will speak at public meetings in Sydney and Melbourne in early July on the theme "Che Guevara, War and the Fight for Global
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Among the 75 opponents of the Cuban Revolution arrested and jailed in Cuba in early April, 10 have been described in the Western media as "independent librarians". Their arrest drew swift condemnation from the US government, and
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MELBOURNE — Fernando de Araujo heads the Democratic Party (PD) in East Timor, the second-largest party in the country's parliament. He also leads an eight-party parliamentary opposition to the Fretilin government. The
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BY BARRY SHEPPARD& CAROLINE LUND We met Heinrich Fleischer by accident, at a retirement home in Minneapolis while visiting Caroline's father. Fleischer was born in Germany in 1912, where he studied to be an organist. His lifelong profession was as
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The French government mobilised 16,500 troops and police in and around the small resort town of Evian, on the southern bank of Lake Geneva, to suppress protests against the June 1-3 G8 summit. While central Geneva, 42 kilometres
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PARIS — Millions of French workers participated in a huge one-day general strike on June 3 in an attempt to defeat the government's attacks on pension rights. There were also massive street demonstrations across the country.
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LONDON, June 3 — Such a high crime does not, and will not, melt away; the facts cannot be changed. Prime Minister Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq illegally. He mounted an unprovoked attack on a country that offered no
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On May 30, Burmese troops and regime-sponsored thugs attacked a National League for Democracy (NLD) motorcade. Led by NLD founder, Aung San Suu Kyi, the motorcade was part a pro-democracy tour that began in early May. Suu Kyi received
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HAVANA — Falling prices in the developing countries' exports of farm produce and the ruin of millions of farmers are the pernicious outcome of neoliberal policies, US professor Peter Rosset from the US Institute of Food and
Culture
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An Act of State: the Execution of Martin Luther KingBy William F. PepperVerso, 2003334 pages, $49.95 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON Around 5pm, April 4, 1968, John McFerren was shopping at the LL&L Produce Company in Memphis, Tennessee, when he heard
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REVIEW BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE Matrix ReloadedWritten and directed by Larry and Andy WachowskiWith Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence FishburneAt cinemas every-bloody-where Zanny Begg's review of the first Matrix movie (91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly #364,
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The US administration announced Monday that former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair will replace Ari Fleischer as White House press secretary. Known as a cautious and calculating press secretary who constantly ducks tough
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Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. Includes the 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ news. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9pm. Phone (02) 9564 1277. Visit