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Socialist Alliance takes 'first step'

BY NICK EVERETT SYDNEY — “When I first heard about the idea of the Socialist Alliance, these old bones straightened up a bit. I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to be able to participate with tens of thousands of others to change the

UNITED STATES: One race category isn't enough

BY MALIK MIAH In mid-March the United States Census Bureau released its official count for the US population. There are 281,421,906 people, as compared to 253,979,140 in 1990. Reflecting a historic trend, non-Hispanic whites declined from 75% to

School closures campaign gathers momentum

BY NOREEN NAVIN SYDNEY — The April release of the NSW Labor government's "Building the Future" report has generated a community backlash not seen since former NSW Coalition education minister Terry Metherell took the axe to public education in

Aceh's courageous struggle for independence

REVIEW BY KATHY FAIRFAX Aceh: The People's StruggleProduced by Actively Radical Television, SydneySend $24 to ARTV, 73-75 Princess Highway, St Peters, NSW, 2044Phone (02) 9565 5522 The people of Aceh, in the far north-west of the Indonesian

Carbon colonialism

BY JIM GREEN The best excuse that Western corporate polluters and their political allies have devised to justify their efforts to wreck the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions is that it does not mandate reductions in the countries of the

Mobil plans union-busting tactics

BY JOHN McGILL ADELAIDE — An attempt to sack maintenance workers employed at Mobil's Port Stanvac plant in South Australia was exposed by the Australian on April 12. Mobil is the Australian subsidiary of US-owned oil giant ExxonMobil. According

HAWAII: No aloha for Asian Development Bank

BY NORM DIXON The Pacific tourist Mecca of Honolulu is to be the next focus of demonstrations against the international capitalist financial institutions — in this case the Asian Development Bank. The ADB's board of governors is to meet at the

EAST TIMOR: Socialists tackle women's oppression

BY SIBYLLE KACZOREK In a country oppressed for 400 years by colonial Portugal, then brutalised by 24 years of Indonesian military rule, and now suffering from dire poverty, the issues of women have long been considered secondary. But now East

'Turn the plane around'

BY JO BROWN MELBOURNE — The North has an ecological debt to the South that must be paid, Friends of the Earth (FoE) International chairperson Ricardo Navarro told a public meeting here on April 18. The meeting, "Global environmentalism in the

Ten reasons why the refugees should be freed

BY PATRICIA CORCORAN Refugees are demanding to be freed from their imprisonment in immigration detention centres around the country and from the fear of being deported back to persecution. They are demanding protection and sanctuary. Here are 10

EAST TIMOR: Tensions rise as election nears

BY TANYA VANAJA DILI — East Timor's social and political tensions may boil over into violence during elections scheduled for August, the country's first since it gained freedom from Indonesian military rule in 1999. Riots have broken out in two

Body image and women's oppression

BY MARIA VOUKELATOS& LAUREN CARROLL HARRIS "What if she doesn't worry about her body and eats enough for all the growing she has to do? She might rip her stockings and slam dance on a forged ID to the Pogues, and walk home barefoot, holding her