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Write On: Letters to Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly

Embryonic research As the Senate debates embryonic research, it is important to reject the notion that humans have rights simply by virtue of being human. The point of rights is to promote the interests of rights-holders. A never-sentient embryo

UNITED STATES: Why Washington is hungry for oil

BY EVA CHENG "America in the year 2001 faces the most serious energy shortages since the oil embargoes of the 1970s", proclaimed US vice president Dick Cheney's May 2001 national energy policy report to President George Bush. The Cheney report

Pressure grows to allow East Timorese to stay

BY JON LAND Pressure is mounting against the federal government's moves to deport 1600-1800 East Timorese asylum seekers, some of whom have been seeking refugee status for up to 10 years. At least 84 may be forced to leave by the end of

GERMANY: Nuclear waste train sparks protests

BY JIM GREEN The largest shipment of high-level nuclear waste between France and Germany — 1300 tonnes of it — was trained and trucked from La Hague in France to Wendland in northern Germany. on November 11-14. The waste was taken to a

EL SALVADOR: Mass movement defeats privatisation

Following weeks of massive demonstrations, El Salvador's National Assembly voted on November 14 to ratify a decree that prohibits the privatisation in any form of the national health care system (known as the Salvadoran Social Security Institute,

Crean and Carr's cop frenzy

NSW Premier Bob Carr's enthusiasm for vilifying protesters, police patrols with sniffer dogs and cooperating with Australia's secret police service is not an aberration for the ALP. Federal Labor is also bending over backwards to increase police

Feast Festival refugees' rights forum

BY LUKE SMITH ADELAIDE — Around 100 people gathered at the Queens Theatre on November 17 for a refugees' rights forum. The event, part of the Feast Festival 2002, focused on the plight of refugees fleeing persecution because of their sexuality.

Iraqi asylum seekers offered 'voluntary deportation'

BY TERRICA STRUDWICK & SARAH STEPHEN At the end of September, Abdur Wahab Najim, an Iraqi asylum seeker in Villawood detention centre, was approached by an immigration department official who offered him a passport and claimed that the

Opposing Bracks' privatisation

BY ANNE O’CASEY MELBOURNE — Arun Pradhan, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Melbourne district in the November 30 Victorian elections, has called for mass civil disobedience to stop the controversial Commonwealth Games village planned

A story that must be told

Just Another Little Murder: A Brother's Pursuit of JusticeBy Phil ClearyAllen and Unwin, 2002$29.95 REVIEW BY ERIN CAMERON The murder of Vicki Cleary in 1987 shook her family to the core, but what was to devastate them even more was the outcome

The killing of Angelo Tsakos

SYDNEY — On November 11, a book was launched in the outer Sydney suburb of Blacktown. It coincided with the 17th anniversary of the killing by police of 16-year-old Angelo Tsakos. The book, A Mother's Story, details the agony of those 17 years

Support grows for campaign to save Ningaloo Reef

PERTH — Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has given conditional approval for a massive marina and resort to be constructed next to the fragile Ningaloo Reef, 1200 kilometres north of Perth. However, the Save Ningaloo