MELBOURNE 鈥 On February 16 a group of peace activists held a vigil outside the Melbourne office of federal finance minister Lindsay Tanner. The protest was the first in a series of monthly vigils aimed at drawing attention to the worsening situation in Afghanistan and to call for the Australian government to bring the troops home.
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MELBOURNE 鈥 Eighty people rallied on the morning of February 14 to commemorate the 2004 death of Redfern teenager TJ Hickey and demand an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody. The crowd observed a minute's silence in memory of TJ, who was killed while being chased by police. It also expressed its support for TJ's mother, Gail Hickey, who has lodged a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
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NEWCASTLE 鈥 Forty-five people attended a fundraiser for the Haitian Emergency Fund on February 10. The Haitian Emergency Fund is a grassroots organisation in Haiti made up of unions, women's groups, and human rights activists. The lively crowd heard Caribbean music and a presentation by Stuart Munckton, an editor of 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
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SYDNEY 鈥 Six Gaza Freedom March activists presented a moving account of their experiences of trying to get into Gaza late last year at a Stop the War Coalition public meeting on February 15.
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Congratulations to Victorian Electrical Trades Union secretary Dean Mighell for his frank comment in the February 11 Age (鈥淯nions must leave Labor鈥).
News
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Aboriginal singer-song writer Ruby Hunter passed away on February 17. Her music dealt with her personal history, Indigenous struggles, and social and women鈥檚 issues.
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Newcastle Resistance branch has entered a 鈥渟ign war鈥 against federal Labor MP Sharon Grierson.
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The picket line outside Xstrata Coal鈥檚 Tahmoor colliery is continuing. It marks a continuation of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union鈥檚 (CFMEU) 17-month struggle to negotiate an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) with Xstrata.
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A memorial for left-wing musician Alistair Hulett was held on February 14 at Sydney鈥檚 Gaelic Club.
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Resistance activist Melanie Barnes is standing as a candidate in the upcoming Tasmanian state elections for the Socialist Alliance. She isn鈥檛 running to improve her career prospects or income, but because she wants to get an important message out.
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Hundreds of grassroots climate activists will meet in Canberra from March 13-15 to attend the second Climate Action Summit. It will build on the success of the first summit, which occurred in January 2009 and attracted more than 500 people, representing about 150 climate action groups.
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On February 15, five men who were convicted in October under 鈥渁nti-terror鈥 laws, were each sentenced in Parramatta court to between 23 and 28 years in jail. The shortest non-parole period was set at 17 years and three months.
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The internet protest group Anonymous launched a cyber-attack to protest the Australian government's proposed 鈥渃lean-feed鈥 internet filter on February 10. A number of government websites temporarily became host to pornographic images.
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The struggle for wage justice by workers at the Star City Casino in Sydney continued with strikes on February 11 and Chinese New Year (February 14).
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On February 13, NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) councillors elected two new left candidates to the executive of the union at the first NSWTF Council of the year.
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Three Afghan refugees in Australia face possible charges over the explosion onboard a fishing boat off Ashmore Reef last April. Five were killed in the explosion and many more injured.
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"I think the media plays a big role in desensitising the masses to injustice and the inequality in the world. It says "that's the way it is", and makes us think, "I'm only one person, what can I do?" I get angry mostly about what I call "the war on terror incorporated" and the total waste of war. I listen to bands like Anti-Flag. Films by people like Michael Moore informed me a bit.
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A report issued by the Clean Energy Council (CEC) said up to 2000 households who took advantage of the government鈥檚 solar rebate scheme may be at risk of electrical fires due to poorly installed rooftop panels.
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The government business manager (GBM) for Ampilatwatja and a representative of department of indigenous affairs were told to leave the Ampilatwatja protest camp on February 14 as they were not invited.
Analysis
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Alyawarr elder Richard Downs spoke at the Prescribed Area People鈥檚 Alliance (PAPA) meeting in Alice Springs on February 12. Downs is a leader of the walkoff protest against the NT intervention at Ampilatwatja.
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The modern queer rights movement was born on June 28, 1969 in New York City.
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鈥淭he law is an ass鈥, said Mr Bumble, in Charles Dickens鈥 classic, Oliver Twist. And more than 150 people agreed as they rallied yesterday on the same site, six years to the day, where 17-year old Aboriginal boy, TJ Hickey, was impaled on fence in Waterloo.
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You may have seen the photo in last week鈥檚 91自拍论坛 Weekly of the right-wing 鈥淭ea Party鈥 movement supporter in Washington DC. The placard he was holding said, in reference to President Barack Obama, 鈥淚mpeach the Muslim Marxist鈥. The article discussed the rise of right-wing politics in the US.
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Elaine Peckham is a Central Arrernte woman who lives on homelands in the West MacDonnell Ranges. She spoke at the Prescribed Area People鈥檚 Alliance meeting in Alice Springs on February 12. The speech below is abridged from text prepared by the Intervention Rollback Action Group .
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When the anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson was asked if she was a xenophobe in a 1996 interview on Sixty Minutes, she famously responded: 鈥減lease explain鈥. Now, with the news that she intends to become an immigrant herself, it seems she doesn鈥檛 understand the word 鈥渉ypocrite鈥 either.
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The Sydney Morning Herald-sponsored 鈥淚ndependent Public Inquiry鈥 into Sydney鈥檚 public transport released its preliminary report on February 13. The report outlined a 30-year strategy to massively improve Sydney鈥檚 public transport infrastructure.
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91自拍论坛 Weekly spoke to national convener Peter Boyle about the political dynamics of the coming federal election and asked him what sort of campaign the Alliance was intending to run.
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The following letter was sent to federal home affairs minister Brendan O鈥機onnor.
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91自拍论坛 Weekly has a long and proud tradition of covering the many struggles for justice waged by Aboriginal people and their supporters.
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More than 1200 people attended a mass public meeting at Melbourne Town Hall on February 14 to launch the Transition Decade (T10)
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The ALP government鈥檚 environmental credentials have suffered a second meltdown in as many weeks.
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Queer rights activists across Australia are gearing up for an important year of action on equal marriage rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.
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The following is abridged from an.
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Feeling powerless is common in today鈥檚 world.
World
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Bolivia鈥檚 foreign minister David Choquehuanca said on February 8 that Bolivia is very concerned about the inadequacy of the greenhouse gas reduction commitments made by developed countries in the Copenhagen Accord at the United Nations climate summit in December, PWCCC.wordpress.com said.
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Thousands of supporters of ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide took to the streets on February 17 as French President Nicolas Sarkozy toured the earthquake-ravaged capital of Port au Prince.
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On February 13, a neo-Nazi march through the German city of Dresden was prevented when more than 15,000 locals braved freezing temperatures to oppose them.
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Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela.
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鈥淕ot any thoughts on the bomb?鈥 I asked breathlessly down the phone to a veteran Athens politics-watcher.
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Tens of thousands of students rallied on February 12 in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in a show of support for President Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution.
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Israel: Most back anti-Arab ethnic cleansing "A survey conducted by the Israeli Knesset channel shows that 75 percent of Israeli Jews are in favour of deporting Israeli-Arab citizens to a future Palestinian state as part of any deal between the
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The following call for a national strike and day of action in defence of public education was released by the California Coordinating Committee. It is reprinted from www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com which contains information on the planned strike and the ongoing mass campaign of resistance by Californian students. Last year, the campaign involved many protests, strikes and university occupations.
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has inaugurated new government-run hypermarkets (large supermarkets), which replace of the recently nationalised Exito hypermarket chain.
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The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an organisation whose time has passed. It needs to be dismantled.
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Five thousand people took to the streets of Vancouver on February 12 to protest the opening of the corporate spectacle known as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
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January 21, 2010, will go down as a dark day in the history of US democracy, and its decline.
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On February 13, 15,000 occupying troops from the US, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Estonia and the Afghan puppet state launched the Operation Moshtarak military offensive on Helmand province.
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Marc Hall 鈥 a US soldier at Fort Stewart and hip hop artist 鈥 is to be whisked off to Iraq for a military court martial, out of reach of the public eye and his own civilian defence lawyers.
Culture
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Trotsky: A Biography By Robert Service, Pan Macmillan, 2009 624 pages, $59.95 hb
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Mother of Rock: The Lillian Roxon StoryBy Robert MillikenBlack Inc., 2010360 pp., $27.95 pb.
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Fiona Foley: Forbidden University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane. Showing February 19-May 2
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ScreamersDirected by Carla Garapedian, featuring music by System of a DownVia Vision Entertainment, DVD95 minutes, $24.95