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John Pilger National myths are usually partly true. In Australia, the myth of an egalitarian society, or "fair go", has an extraordinary history. Long before most of the world, Australia had a minimum wage, a 35-hour working week, child benefits
Many recent attempts by the religious right to revive debates about abortion access have centred on late-term abortions — a loaded label used to describe terminations that take place after a certain period of gestation. Federal health minister Tony
Bridget Blackford, Perth The social forum phenomenon that has swept the globe since the first World Social Forum in Brazil in 2001 has finally arrived in Perth. The inaugural Perth Social Forum will be held on March 18-20 in the port city of

"I hear there's rumours on the internets [sic] that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer army works... We're not going to have a draft so long as I'm the president", George Bush

On February 4, 60,000 public sector workers walked off the job to protest a climbing cost of living and government hostility to working people. Five thousand marched through the capital city of Ougadougou on the day. Public sector unions are
On February 4, New York's state supreme justice Doris Ling-Cohan ruled that the state's Domestic Relations Law, which prohibits same-sex marriages, was unconstitutional because it denied the right to equal protection. Ling-Cohen likened the ban on
Selena Black, Sydney On February 8, federal police conducted an early morning raid on a refugee supporter's house, taking notebooks, computers and documents. This followed similar raids on December 1, after which four people were summonsed to
Alison Dellit With tears in her eyes, radical lawyer Lynne Stewart braved reporters on the steps of the New York Courthouse in which she had just been convicted of conspiring to aid terrorists on February 10. "I hope this will be a wake-up call
BY LINDA WALDRON In Lahore in early December, I met Toni Usman, a Norwegian actor of Pakistani descent working in Pakistan for a month to produce a special edition of the left-wing newspaper Mazdoor Jeddojuhd (Workers' Struggle). This January 13
Duroyan Fertl On January 26, up to 250,000 Ecuadorians marched in Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. Their demands included an end to rampant corruption and crime, improved health and sanitation services, and the reinstatement of the Supreme
Sarah Stephen Asylum seekers in Australian detention centres and the refugee-rights movement have for years tried to convey the awful human cost of the mandatory detention system. But it took the horrific experience of Cornelia Rau, a mentally ill
Sarah Stephen, Sydney The Refugee Action Coalition held a protest outside the immigration department's offices on February 10 to call for an end to mandatory detention in light of the Cornelia Rau scandal. RAC activist Ian Rintoul condemned the