The Medical Association for Prevention of War has called for an independent inquiry into Australia鈥檚 involvement in the Iraq War.
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PERTH 鈥 Socialist wharfie Sam Wainwright, elected in October to the Fremantle council, has launched a website to keep residents up to date about the key issues facing the council.
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MELBOURNE 鈥 A pre-sentence hearing began on February 2 for three Tamil men who have pleaded guilty to providing money to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that fought for three decades for self-determination for the oppressed Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
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This will come as little surprise to most workers, but their workplace superannuation is being systematically rorted and they are on the losing end of the 鈥渂argain鈥.
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HOBART 鈥 A group of Aboriginal activists faced court on February 4 over a protest that halted work on the Brighton Bypass in November.
News
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The New Way Summit on Aboriginal rights was held at the Australian National University, Canberra from January 30 to February 1. It was attended by 150 people, plus around 600 who hooked in via phone and internet links.
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The federal opposition and the Australian Greens have both slammed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for delaying his promised report card on Indigenous affairs for a second year in a row, saying it is a telling indicator of the government's commitment to Indigenous people.
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The South Australian government recently passed laws requiring anyone wanting to make a comment about the upcoming state election on the internet to publish their real name and postcode. This strikes a bold blow against the right to anonymity.
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In early December, there was a call from Mexico for artistic activities to occur in March 2010 around the world.
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Forty-five people attended a public forum called "Indigenous Survival and Resistance: Solutions 鈥 Rudd vs Chavez and Morales鈥 in Sydney鈥檚 Resistance Activist Centre on January 30. The forum was co-sponsored by Socialist Alliance and the Sydney Latin American Social Forum.
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Fast food workers have lost a promised rise in Sunday penalty rates, and nightly overtime for retail staff will be cut, after a ruling by Fair Work Australia.
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The crew on board the Tien Hau in the South Australian regional port of Wallaroo have had to resort to fishing for their meals. The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) is calling for the $47,000 backpay owed to them in to be paid in full.
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SYDNEY 鈥 Workers at the Star City Casino continued their campaign for wage justice by striking over January 30鈥31. The workers have now voted against accepting the casino鈥檚 paltry 2% pay rise offer three times.
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Morning commuters at Laverton and Seaholme stations may have thought they had gone back in time on February 3. Usually the only staff are roving squads of ticket inspectors. Instead, commuters found a uniformed tram conductor riding the trains with them 鈥 giving out information on how the public transport system can be improved and made free.
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On January 29, the federal court granted the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) access to confidential medical files held by the largest medical clinic servicing remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory 鈥 breaking doctor-patient confidentiality.
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I had the good fortune to attend a lesbian wedding in Sydney鈥檚 Waterfall National Park on January 10. Activist Georgina Abrahams married Journey, her partner of five years, in a ceremony conducted by a monk, Dada Prana, and a nun, Didi, of the Ananda Marga.
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Bronwyn Jennings, Geelong teacher and community campaigner, is the Socialist Alliance candidate in the Cowie ward by-election for the Geelong City Council, which is currently underway by postal vote.
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A number of refugees in the Christmas Island detention centre remain in a state of lock-down, following an argument over a pool table on November 21.
Analysis
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James and Erica Packer have just had a baby. Luckily this time it's a boy.
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Optimistic about Cuba Cuba is supposed to be a dangerous communist country. I spent January in this Caribbean island about the size of Victoria and suffering a trade embargo. My mobile phone stopped working at the US border. What about climate
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It seems bizarre that when the science of human-caused climate change is more worryingly conclusive than ever, climate denial could enjoy a resurgence. After all, no climate denier has published a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal in the past 15 years.
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There can be no National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy tests in 2010. The Australian Education Union鈥檚 national conference in January reaffirmed that, if NAPLAN data was used by the media to publish league tables, teachers would not co-operate in implementing the tests this year.
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When, after destroying Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal Party took a surprise turn and embraced Tony Abbott as leader, there were those on the left who greeted the news with combined incredulity and glee.
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Richard Downs is a spokesperson for the Alyawarr people from the Ampilatwatja community in the Northern Territory. Last year, he travelled the country on a speaking tour to publicise the situation for Aboriginal people in the NT since the 2007 NT Emergency Response legislation (known as the NT intervention) was brought in by the previous Coalition government. Under the intervention laws, the military was sent into Aboriginal communities.
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Increased interest rates, declining working hours and stagnating wages are still chipping away at working people鈥檚 living standards, despite small falls in the official unemployment rate in November and December.
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On February 2, opposition leader Tony Abbott released the Liberal-National Coalition鈥檚 climate policy. For the Coalition, just as for the Rudd government, there鈥檚 one thing that鈥檚 irrelevant to climate policy 鈥 climate science. In Abbott鈥檚 30-page document, the global warming crisis doesn鈥檛 rate one mention.
World
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鈥淕ay-rights campaigners and secularists called on Tuesday for protests during a visit to Britain by Pope Benedict XVI this year after he condemned equality legislation seen as friendly to gays鈥, AFP said on February 1.
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On January 27, 1500 people marched in Timika demanding a referendum on the future status of West Papua, a former Dutch colony that has been occupied by Indonesia since 1962.
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An historic gathering took place in Faisalabad, the third largest city in Pakistan, on January 29.
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As a result of a joint decision taken by six union confederations in Turkey, millions of workers stopped work February 4 in support of workers from the closed-down Tekel leaf tobacco factory, a MRZine report that day said.
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A February 4 Daily Dispatch Online article said soil fertility expert Xolobeni said the proposed heavy minerals mining project at Xolobeni is located in South Africa鈥檚 Eastern Cape Province in one of the 鈥渕ost environmentally sensitive habitats鈥 ever investigated for mining in the country.
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Perhaps one of the most breathtakingly hypocritical moments of the past year was when US President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
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Venezuela鈥檚 Bolivarian revolution, led by President Hugo Chavez, has set 鈥渟ocialism of hte 21st century鈥 as its goal. The process of change faces big challenges from outside and within. William I. Robinson, from the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, spoke to Chronis Polychroniou, the editor of Greek daily Eleftherotypia. The interview is abridged from Znet.
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On June 28 last year, US-trained military officers overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya. This sparked sustained mass resistance from the poor majority, angry that the rich had overthrown a president who had carried out pro-poor reforms and sought to begin a democratic process to change the pro-elite constitution.
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Unite is the fastest growing private sector union in New Zealand. Since being formed in 2004, it has grown to 8000 members.
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Pacific Rim are a Canadian multinational firm seeking to exploit the 鈥淓l Dorado鈥 gold deposits in El Salvador's rural north.
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In the aftermath of Haiti鈥檚 January 12 earthquake, the dispatch of US and United Nations troops was given priority 鈥 even at the expense of rescue teams and medical aid.
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The Indonesian foreign affairs department was expecting a visit from an Australian 鈥減eople smuggling envoy鈥 when three refugee rights activists were apprehended and detained at Port Merak.
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On February 12, the corporate sporting behemoth known as the 21st Winter Olympic Games will open to great fanfare here. In a time of economic hardship and government cuts to social programs across Canada, huge sums of public money have been spent to stage this uber spectacle.
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Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans took to the streets on January 27 to protest the inauguration of Porfirio 鈥淧epe鈥 Lobo, who was the victor in fraudulent elections held last November. Jeffery R. Webber spoke during the march with Rafael Alegria, a key leader in the National Resistance Front Against the Coup (FNRG) and a Honduran leader of the international peasant movement, Via Campesina. This is reprinted from .
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The letter published below was sent by Cuban first deputy environment minister Fernando Gonzalez to Yvo de Boer, who is the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The December UN climate summit in Copenhagen ended in a farce with an 鈥渁greement鈥 drawn up behind close doors by a select group of rich nations, which tried to force it on the rest of the world.
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Simon Butler represented the Socialist Alliance at the Labour Party Pakistan鈥檚 January 27-28 conference. He also addressed the 10,000 strong rally of workers and peasants on January 29 on behalf of the Alliance. The article below is abridged from the Pakistani News on Sunday.
Culture
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In February 1965, John Coltrane released A Love Supreme, still regarded as a jazz landmark. It broke all contemporary sales records and opened a door to a new musical era still echoing today
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Lenin Rediscovered: What Is To Be Done? In ContextBy Lars T. Lih, Haymarket Books, Chicago 2008840 pp., $89:95 pb.
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We come here today to say we're sorry For the injustice done We reach out our hands to hold you We grieve as one But we won't leave it there cos it wouldn't be fair We've just begun Eddie Mabo was a man from an island And his skin was
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In & Out of the Working Class Michael D. Yates Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2009 217 pp, $19.95.