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Women and infants dying at checkpoints in Palestine

According to a report by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights, between September 2000 (the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada) and July 2006, 68 pregnant women were forced to give birth at Israeli checkpoints in the Occupied Territories after Israeli soldiers barred them from crossing the road blocks to access hospitals and medical centres. Thirty-four infants and four pregnant women died at these checkpoints.

Green Left Weekly's $250,000 Fighting Fund: Racist shock jock with friends in high places

Last week, right-wing Sydney Radio 2GB “shock jock” Alan Jones was let off with a ticking-off from Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for inciting on air the infamous anti-Lebanese bashing spree in Cronulla in 2005.

Drugs: Facts please, not hysteria

In the lead-up to the March 24 NSW state election, you could be forgiven for believing that the NSW Greens were drug dealers: Hysterical attacks were launched on the party’s drugs policy, which focuses on harm minimisation and health issues.

Impoverished and oppressed look to Venezuela

“How did it happen that the President of Venezuela reached out to help the poor and the indigenous people of the United States?”, Tim Giago asked in a March 19 Indianz.com article. He was referring to the provision of cheap heating oil to the US poor, including a number of Native American tribes, by the government of Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez.

Tribute to a great fighter

Cannot Buy My Soul: The songs of Kev Carmody
Various artists
Virgin, $24.99

Venezuela: Coalmines on indigenous lands stopped

An April 4 Survival International article reported that a decree by Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez, had banned the planned construction of new coalmines on the land of the Wayuu, Yukpa and Bari indigenous people in the state of Zulia, which is governed by a leader of the pro-capitalist opposition.

Destroying the presence of God in nature

Darwin’s Origin of Species: A Biography
By Janet Browne
Allen & Unwin, 2006
174 pages, $22.95

Massive rally calls for end to US occupation of Iraq

“Wrapped in the Iraqi flag and chanting anti-American slogans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shia snaked into the holy city of Najaf yesterday for a protest rally to mark the fourth anniversary of the toppling of Saddam Hussein and to demand the ejection from Iraq of US and British troops”, the April 10 British Guardian reported.

Philippines: Unionists confront repression, build unity

Organisers from the Philippines’ biggest left trade union centre, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP — Solidarity of Filipino Workers) spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton about the repression that they encounter from the state and their efforts to unify left-wing trade unions.

Support for Agent Orange victims

Nearly 700,000 people have signed an international online petition in solidarity with Vietnam’s victims of Agent Orange, which was sprayed extensively by the US military during the Vietnam War. The petition, which was launched in 2004, will be presented to the judges of the US Court of Appeal on the eve of an expected June ruling on a victims’ lawsuit against the nearly 40 chemical companies that produced the deadly chemical for the US military.

Neuquen follows Oaxaca's example

In actions that have echos of the struggle in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, teachers and their union have installed themselves outside the governor’s office in the southern province of Neuquen, calling for better salaries and governor Jorge Omar Sobisch’s resignation.

Iraq: the (black) gold rush

Four years ago, I walked through Melbourne’s CBD holding a placard that read: “No blood for oil”. I was an idealistic university student, intent on letting my government know that it’s not okay to launch an invasion in pursuit of so-called “black gold” in a country that was no threat to mine.