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Power station picketed

BY TRISHA REIMERS GEELONG — A picket line has been running since December 13 on the site a gas-fired power station is to be built just outside Geelong, in the Golden Plains shire. The picket was set up following the decision of the Victorian

PERU: Political prisoners attacked

BY LUISA ARA In the early morning of December 21, 30 police wearing gas masks and wielding clubs stormed the section of the Santa Monica de Chorrillos high security women's prison where political prisoners Lori Berenson, Nancy Gilvonio Conde and

ISRAEL: Policy of collective punishment is torture

BY ROHAN PEARCE Following the deaths of four Israeli soldiers on January 9 at the hands of members of the terrorist organisation Hamas, tanks and bulldozers of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) began to destroy Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip

PNG Solidarity Action meetings

BY GILLIAN DAVY& NORMAN BREWER The Papua New Guinea Solidarity Action group (PNGSA), formed after at least four PNG student activists were killed by riot police on June 26, started the new year with a successful tour of PNG activist Graeme Kunjil.

UNITED STATES: Ford makes workers pay

BY PRANAV JANI& LEE SUSTAR CHICAGO — No sooner had the Ford Motor Company revealed its plans to slash 35,000 jobs worldwide than CEO William Clay Ford declared that more cuts were to come. "We already have a war room going and a plan B in place",

PHILIPPINES: US backs Manila's war on Mindanao

BY NICK SOUDAKOFF On January 15, the first contingent of 650 US troops began arriving in Zamboanga City in western Mindanao to take part in "training exercises" with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Mindanao is now the latest front in the

Activists plan to launch Brisbane Social Forum

BY ALISON STEWART BRISBANE — In an exciting new development for the Queensland anti-globalisation movement, activists are preparing for the launch of the Brisbane Social Forum, planned for March 16-17. The social forum will discuss peace,

New South Africa's 'dirty little secret'

Against Global Apartheid: South Africa Meets the World Bank, IMF and International FinanceBy Patrick BondUniversity of Cape Town Press/Juta, 2001$35 (approx.)For ordering details, email <cserv@juta.co.za> or

PALESTINE: PA arrests PFLP leader

BY ROHAN PEARCE @box text intr = The secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmed Sa'adat, was arrested on January 15 in Ramallah by Palestinian Authority (PA) police. Sa'adat's arrest was in connection

BRITAIN: Blair backs Israeli repression

BY JOHN PILGER Tony Blair's heroic peacemaking is not as it seems. Take the Middle East. When Blair welcomed Yasser Arafat to Downing Street following September 11, it was widely reported that Britain was backing justice for the Palestinians.

'Frequent' radioactive leaks at uranium mine

BY JIM GREEN About 62,000 litres of radioactive liquid burst from a pipe at the Beverley uranium mine in northern South Australia on January 11. In the following days, it was revealed that 24 spills have taken place at the mine in the past two

Student union calls cops on feminists

BY SUSAN AUSTIN BRISBANE — In a blatant attack on campus feminism, the first 2002 National Union of Students Queensland Women's Committee meeting was called and chaired by NUSQ president Duncan Pegg, a right-wing Labor student. The meeting, held