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Chain up Cheney! Free David Hicks!

On February 16, ABC News featured the US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis vilifying Adelaide father of two David Hicks as a war criminal. Davis would not specify when Hicks would be brought before a military tribunal of the type that was ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court last June but reinstituted by Congress a few months later.

Solomon Islands government calls for RAMSI exit plan

The Solomon Islands government wants the Pacific Islands Forum to initiate talks on an exit plan for the PIF’s Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), Solomons foreign minister Patterson Oti told a PIF consultative meeting in Honiara on February 12.

The tyranny of facts: Where Costello went wrong on Chavez

“For two days now in parliament Treasurer Peter Costello has attacked ALP signatories of our sign-on invitation for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to visit Australia”, Kiraz Janicke from the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network told Green Left Weekly on February 15. “But Costello’s attacks have been both ridiculous and factually inaccurate.”

Greens' coal phase-out call provokes corporate outrage

The call by Australian Greens’ leader Senator Bob Brown on February 9 for a long-term plan to phase out coalmining, exports and power generation has predictably stirred a barrage of outrage from the coal industry. Brown’s call also flushed out the Labor-Coalition bipartisan consensus of support for coal-company profits over the environment.

Zimbabwe's new rise of class struggle

Mike Sambo, the national coordinator of Zimbabwe’s International Socialist Organisation, explained to Green Left Weekly’s Steve Marks on February 16 what lies behind the regeneration of class struggle in the country.

'A death in custody is a police murder'

On the third anniversary of the death of young Aboriginal man TJ Hickey, his mother Gail told a rally of some 200 people at the site of his death in Redfern that her family was still being harassed by the cops. Hickey said police harassment of young people in Redfern must stop, or there would be more deaths like that of her son, who was impaled on a fence while being chased by police.

Coal, nuclear energy no solutions

The Socialist Alliance is campaigning for urgent action to address the environmental catastrophe in NSW caused by drought and decades of bad management.

Anti-imperialist convergence planned

October 2007 will be the 40th anniversary of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s death in the mountains of Bolivia. It will also be the occasion of what will hopefully be the biggest anti-imperialist convergence Australia has seen in decades — the Latin American and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum.

Oromo refugees appeal for solidarity

MELBOURNE — On February 13, a rally was organised by the Oromo Community Association to protest the treatment of Oromo refugees in Somalia since the US-backed invasion by Ethiopia.

Cuba's green revolution: threat of a good example

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Global Footprint Network’s 2006 report, Living Planet, released last October, painted a grim picture of the calamitous state of the world’s environment. It warned that human activities are outstripping the natural world’s capacity to regenerate.

Protest Cheney's visit!

Protest Cheney’s visit! Join the protests against US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s visit. Sydney * 5.30pm, February 22, Sydney Town Hall * 8am, February 23, Shangri-la Hotel, cnr. Essex and George Streets, the Rocks Phone Simon on 0438 297 552 or Paddy on 0415 800 586 Canberra * 5pm, February 23, Garema Place, Civic Phone James on 0403 943 529

Residents oppose NSW's planning powers

Four hundred people joined a protest rally and march at Hyde Park on February 11 to oppose Part 3a of NSW’s planning laws. The laws gave NSW planning minister Frank Sartor the power to override local councils and approve contentious developments even when they breach existing legislation.