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BY MAX LANE JAKARTA — A report issued on May 9 by the conservative Brussels-based International Crisis Group, headed by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, declared: "The Indonesian military is not using the phrase 'shock and awe',
BY CHRISTANO KERRILLA In the poorer districts of Caracas, the Policia Metropolitana (Metropolitan Police — PM) were never looked upon with high regard. There is a local saying in the barrios that it is better to be left with the muggers than with
Greed-based policy The federal budget announced plans to subject disability pensioners, as a group, to an additional 61,000 eligibility reviews per year and the government still wants to change eligibility rules to force many onto the lower-paying
BY PIP HINMAN SYDNEY — With the likelihood of all-out war erupting in Aceh, solidarity campaigners have launched an emergency campaign directed at getting the Australian government to end military ties with Indonesia and pressure Jakarta to get
BY AARON BENEDEK SYDNEY — Despite Washington's military victory in Iraq, residents of Sydney's south-western suburbs are determined to maintain the anti-war organisations established in the area earlier this year and build opposition to the US
BY PETER BOYLE Two questions dominated the May 10-11 second national conference of the Socialist Alliance: What space is there for an explicitly socialist party in Australian politics today and what program and focus should the alliance adopt to
When the Socialist Alliance was founded in February 2001, Green Left Weekly supported the new political organisation. The social problems created by the capitalist profit system — war, unemployment, poverty, racism, the oppression of women, etc —
BY DOUG LORIMER In a new act of provocation aimed at creating a confrontation with Cuba, the US government on May 12 ordered seven diplomats at Cuba's United Nations mission to leave the US within 48 hours. The next day, the US State Department
BY DERMOTT RYDER Peter Costello, Liberal leadership hopeful and feral federal treasurer, in his budget has perpetrated the most savage attacks on the living conditions, medical care and welfare of workers, unemployed, disabled, the sick and elderly
BY ELISABETH KEAN On May 9, the Israeli military raided the office of the International Solidarity Movement in Beit Sahour, Palestine. During the raid, two ISM volunteers and a visitor from the Human Rights Watch organisation were detained. ISM
BY EVA CHENG For more than five decades, Washington has justified its strong military presence in north-east Asia in the name of countering "communism". Even though pro-capitalist governments now rule Russia and China, Washington has shown no
BY CHRIS SLEE MELBOURNE — Medical care is "a right not a privilege", declared Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Leigh Hubbard on May 14. Hubbard was launching a campaign to defend and extend Medicare. Hubbard said people need to "get out