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AFGHANISTAN: A new colonialism?

BY SEAN HEALY While the relentless bombing of Afghanistan hasn't resulted in the quick collapse of the Taliban regime that Pentagon officials hoped for, the negotiations are well under way on the regime which will, at the point of US bayonets,

Coalition's anti-feminist carrot and stick

BY ALISON THORNE The "First Child Tax Rebate", the centrepiece of the Liberal Party's election launch on October 28, is, as we have come to expect from Prime Minister John Howard, anti-feminist to the core. When John Howard argues that the family

High school students hold detention centre vigil

BY ROSA ELLEN, KATE LAHIFF & TERESA FOARD MELBOURNE — Fifty people, including many high school students, held a vigil outside the Maribyrnong detention centre on October 28. The vigil was organised by Princes Hill Secondary College students and

'A nation hostile to its foundations'

BY SARAH STEPHEN Borderline: Australia's treatment of refugees and asylum seekersBy Peter MaresUNSW Press240 pages, $32.95 pb "There is a contradiction at the heart of Australian society", writes Peter Mares in Borderline. "Like the United States

SAUDI ARABIA: Ruling family faces growing dissent

BY GWENN OKRUHLIK The weeks following September 11 brought to the surface the tense undercurrents in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the aftermath of the horrific attacks in New York and Washington, word spread that

Whatever happened to reconciliation?

BY EWAN SAUNDERS& MARCEL CAMERON Last year hundreds of thousands of Australians participated in the "reconciliation walks", the most impressive of these occurring on May 28, 2000, when at least a quarter of a million people walked across Sydney

WTO: Corporate power at work

BY ERIK WESSELIUS Britain is home to a particularly influential services industry lobby, which operates through an organisation called "International Financial Services, London (IFSL)". It is more than just another corporate pressure group; it

AFGHANISTAN: The phoney war on terrorism

BY JOHN PILGER LONDON — If people were not being killed and beginning to starve, the American attack on Afghanistan might seem farcical. But there is a logic to what they are doing. Read between the lines and it is clear that they are not bombing

News briefs

Hemp party attacked LISMORE — Thirty police officers descended on the Nimbin campaign headquarters of Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) on October 31. In a two-hour long siege, 10 armed police police searched the premises. One person was

Women against war

BY ANGELA LUVERA SYDNEY — "There is no excuse to postpone action against the war", Nurcan Kiyak told the Women Against War and Racism forum held in Parramatta on November 1. Kiyak spoke about the different forms of violence used against women

On the box

Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), every Sunday, 9pm. Ph 9565 5522. Visit <http://www.channel31.org> for

WTO: Business dreams of new MAI

BY SEAN HEALY @box text intr = Unable to keep their mouths shut, business leaders from across Europe and the United States may have unwittingly sabotaged their governments' chances of launching a new round of trade talks — by issuing a wish list