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BY JOHN PILGER LONDON — In his first few weeks as prime minister, Tony Blair made a number of symbolic gestures. One of them was to visit the Aylesbury estate in South London, where the poor lived. The stairs of the rough-cast concrete estate
BY MATTHEW RICH & KYLIE MOON MELBOURNE — In a victory for democracy in the student movement, activists at the University of Melbourne have quashed attempts from the ALP-controlled Melbourne University Student Union Incorporated (MUSUi) to evict
BY CLAYTON MCDONALD, TONY ILTIS & SEAN MARTIN-IVERSON MELBOURNE — "We have lost hope in the Australian government", said refugee Fahim Fayyazi, a member of Afghanistan's Hazara minority of the attitudes of his fellow asylum seekers. "Our only
BY DICK NICHOLS The Socialist Alliance has called upon the opposition parties in the federal Senate to block all the Coalition government's budget-related bills, including supply, and force the government to an early election. The alliance has
BY TERRICA STRUDWICK ROCKHAMPTON — On May 23 employees at Consolidated Meat Group's Lakes Creek plant called a 24-hour work stoppage. As from May 24, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU) members at the plant will cease doing
Frustration "It's a frustrating war. The reason it's so frustrating and aggravating is because the enemy is not fighting." — US Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Fetterman in Afghanistan, quoted in the May 16 Washington Post. Deja vu "We're trying
BY EVA CHENG The March massacre of more than 2000 Muslims in Gujarat was not a spontaneous outburst of religious anger, but a cold-blooded, anti-Muslim pogrom masterminded by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Dipankar Bhattacharya,
BY SEAN MARTIN-IVERSON PERTH — Parents, students, teachers and maintenance workers are furious that the state government has been hiding from them the possible health risks of asbestos in several state schools. One school, East Beechboro
BY ANDREW HALL CANBERRA — Government heavy Tony Abbott is asking the workers of his own department, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), to trust him, even as he seeks to reduce employee conditions and to introduce
BY TIM WISE NASHVILLE — Webster's New World Dictionary defines democracy as, among other things, "the principle of equality of rights, opportunity and treatment, or the practice of this principle". Keep this in mind, as we'll be coming back to it
REVIEW BY JON LAND This is a two-part series looking at how two different individuals begin new lives in East Timor following the August 31, 1999 referendum on independence. Rosa's Story, which screened on May 23, is a particularly moving account
Against war and capitalist Europe Up to 200,000 people protested in Madrid on May 19, the culmination of a weekend of protests outside the EU-Latin American and Caribbean summit, which included 50 government leaders. Protesters marched with