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BY NORM DIXON The US National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC) has issued a call for a national one-day student strike to demand "Books not bombs! Stop the war against Iraq" on March 5. US President George Bush's "administration is
Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century LifeBy Eric HobsbawmAllen Lane, 2002448 pages, $55 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON It was almost better than sex, thought Eric Hobsbawm during the massive but last legal march of the German Communist Party (KPD)
BY JACKIE LYNCH MELBOURNE — More than 3000 Electrical Trades Union (ETU) members met at Dallas Brookes Hall on January 22 to endorse a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA). The EBA, negotiated between the ETU and the main employer
BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS A firestorm swept through the western suburbs of Canberra on January 18, resulting in the deaths of four people, the destruction of 503 homes. Around 300 people had to be treated for burns and smoke inhalation and 60
BY PETER BOYLE Police raided the Kuala Lumpur office of malaysiakini.com, a progressive and independent web site, and seized computers on January 20. Ten hours later, while a protest vigil was being held outside the office, the site was up again,
BY LINDA WALDRON MELBOURNE — At lunchtime on January 20, 200 women sat on the steps of Victorian Parliament House wearing bras on the outside of their t-shirts in protest against war on Iraq. The action was organised by the prominent actor
BY RAY FULCHER Centrelink and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) are back in negotiations over a new "development agreement" after a rejection by 72% Centrelink staff of management's attempt to get an unpopular pay and conditions
BY MAX LANE JAKARTA — On January 22, more than 300 journalists and other observers crammed into a room in the Struggle Museum to hear representatives of several political and social movement organisations announce the formation of a new
Lord of the Rings: The Two TowersDirected by Peter JacksonWritten by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair and Peter JacksonStarring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen. REVIEW BY LAURA DURKAY The corporate media were quick to
ANTARCTICA — People at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica — seven continents united — joined with hundreds of thousands of others around the world on January 18 to call for peace not war in Iraq. With the Antarctic mountain range in the
BY BILL MASON BRISBANE — The Queensland Labor government's department of state development has given formal notice to protesters camped outside the site of the Narangba nuclear irradiation plant, now under construction, that they will be
BY MALIK MIAH SAN FRANCISCO — In the largest anti-war protest since the peace marches of the Vietnam War era, some 200,000 people filled the streets here on January 18. Demanding "No war against Iraq", the demonstrators were a representative