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Threat to split WA anti-war movement

BY RUSSELL PICKERING PERTH — Not everyone has been pleased by the success of the NOWaR Alliance (Network Opposing War and Racism) in organising some of the biggest anti-war protests ever in Perth. Jan "JJ" Jermalinski, who claims to represent

CHINA: SARS exposes looming health crisis

BY EVA CHENG On May 1, a month after they admitted for the first time that they had discovered China's first cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) back in November but had withheld that information from public knowledge, Chinese

A return to bipartisan bad policy?

BY PIP HINMAN Since Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri declared martial law in Aceh on May 19, defence minister Robert Hill and foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer have been repeating ad nauseum that it is in Australia's "national

Marathon dispute for ETU at Smorgon Steel

BY SIMON MILLAR & LINDA WALDRON MELBOURNE — June 4 will be the 100th day on the picket line for Electrical Trades Union (ETU) members at Smorgon Steel in Laverton. The dispute began on February 25, when 25 full-time electricians downed tools

Anti-deportation alliance launched

BY KATRINA HECKENDORF & PAUL OBOOHOV On May 28, protest actions were held outside immigration department office in Adelaide, Canberra, Brisbane, Darwin, Perth and Sydney by asylum seekers and their supporters to launch the National Anti-Deportation

Left unity: the Scottish socialist experience

BY PAUL BENEDEK SYDNEY — "Sometimes the left spends more time fighting other socialists than fighting the establishment", Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) leader Alister Black told a May 29 public forum at the Gaelic Club, organised by the

Anti-free trade agreement rally

SYDNEY — Fifty global justice activists protested outside a "breakfast speech" by trade minister Mark Vaile, to the Australian Institute of Export in Sydney's CBD, early on the morning of May 31. They were opposing a free trade agreement with the

A day on the Morris McMahon picket line

BY LIAM MITCHELL& ADRIAN WRIGHT SYDNEY — On May 29, some 40 supporters of striking workers at can manufacturer Morris McMahon joined the picket line, then in its 12th week, to stop the scab bus in the morning, while 60 wharfies arrived during the

'Blowback' in Afghanistan

Our Woman in KabulBy Irris MaklerBantam Books, 2003356 pages, $32.95 REVIEW BY HARRY THROSSELL A revealing aspect of Irris Makler's multi-layered book, Our Woman in Kabul, is her account of the US government's support for Osama bin Laden, and

'Two-state solution' impossible, says Palestinian author

BY CHRIS SLEE MELBOURNE — Ghada Karmi, a Palestinian woman living in Britain and author of In Search of Fatima: a Palestinian Story, argued for Palestinians to return to the goal of creating a single, democratic secular state in historic

Footscray Migrant Resource Centre axed

BY TONY ILTIS MELBOURNE — The Inner West Migrant Resource Centre in Footscray, one of the oldest in Australia, has been forced to close its doors as a result of the federal government's refusal to advance the funding — $170,000 — it would

CPSU election results inspire Members First campaigns

BY JUDY McVEY & ANDREW HALL The positive results for the opposition Members First candidates in the Community and Public Sector Union elections for national officers, held May 2-21, "show that large numbers of members want to mobilise the