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Global learning centre under threat

BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE HOBART — The TasDEC Global Learning Centre is looking at ways to continue functioning after a March review by its government funding agency threatened to cut $40,000 from TasDec's funding for next year. TasDEC is the primary

DISCUSSION: Truth strengthens the case for Palestine

COMMENT BY SOL SALBE Green Left Weekly is partisan on the issue of Palestine and Israel. Like some others on the Jewish left, I regard this as redressing the balance of media coverage on this issue. My own background as a child of two Holocaust

Lesbian and gay adoption closer

BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE HOBART — The Tasmanian Law Reform Institute (TLRI) released a report on May 28 recommending that adoption by same-sex couples be legalised. The report strongly argues that adoption should be an option for same-sex couples

Victorian metal workers vote for industry-wide strike

BY SUE BOLTON MELBOURNE — On June 5, delegates from the metal division of the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) voted to hold an industry-wide 24-hour strike on June 12, and an industry-wide mass meeting on

CUBA: Che's daughter to visit Australia

BY PILAR AGUILERA Aleida Guevara, Cuban-born daughter of renowned Argentine revolutionary socialist Ernesto Che Guevara, will speak at public meetings in Sydney and Melbourne in early July on the theme "Che Guevara, War and the Fight for Global

Iranian Australians face government harassment

BY TIM STEWART& ALISON DELLIT In a disturbing escalation of government harassment of migrant communities, the homes of 10 Iranian-Australian families in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were raided by federal police on June 3. Claiming to be hunting

FRANCE: Opposition to pension plan shakes government

BY MURRAY SMITH PARIS — Millions of French workers participated in a huge one-day general strike on June 3 in an attempt to defeat the government's attacks on pension rights. There were also massive street demonstrations across the country.

IRAQ: How Bush, Howard and Blair lied about WMD

BY ROHAN PEARCE On May 30, US President George Bush told Polish television that the US military had found Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD). Well, sort of. Remember the three (some media outlets have inaccurately reported two) trailers the

CUBA: Organic farming bucks world trend

BY RAISA PAGES HAVANA — Falling prices in the developing countries' exports of farm produce and the ruin of millions of farmers are the pernicious outcome of neoliberal policies, US professor Peter Rosset from the US Institute of Food and

All East Timorese refugees should be granted visas

BY GILLIAN DAVEY Immigration minister Philip Ruddock's June 3 decision to grant 379 East Timorese asylum seekers permanent residency in Australia is a decision that all supporters of refugees' right should welcome. The decision ends more than a

Socialist solidarity

BY RACHEL EVANS & LINDA WALDRON MELBOURNE — With up to 10 picket lines across Melbourne and in Geelong over the past month, the Socialist Alliance has shown how it is possible to offer solidarity to fighting workers. The Geelong branch of the

Fantasy reloaded: take a dose of reality

REVIEW BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE Matrix ReloadedWritten and directed by Larry and Andy WachowskiWith Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence FishburneAt cinemas every-bloody-where Zanny Begg's review of the first Matrix movie (Green Left Weekly #364,