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In a new study, entitled Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the Brink, the Brussels-based Senlis Council international policy think-tank said that the Taliban is now the de facto governing authority in large portions of southern Afghanistan.
The November 24 electoral victory of the ALP was based largely upon public opposition to the Howard Coalition government’s Work Choices laws. But in the Northern Territory, opposition among Aborigines to PM John Howard’s “emergency intervention” into their communities was a major factor in boosting support for Labor.
“Now that Labor has decisively won the federal election, it is urgent that Australian troops be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible”, Jim McIlroy, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith, said after the announcement that Labor had defeated the Howard government. McIlroy also called for an end to Australian support for the war in Afghanistan. “All Australian forces should be brought home by Christmas.
Since the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in October, there has been little in the mainstream media coverage of events in Burma. During the crackdown, many people were killed or disappeared by the military as society was placed under curfew.
“More deadly violence occurred north and south of Baghdad as insurgents appeared intent on sending a message to US and Iraqi officials that their recent expressions of confidence in the nation’s security were premature”, the November 24 Los Angeles Times reported, adding that the attacks were “marked by hits on targets that lately had escaped attack”.
Bernie Banton, the widely-recognised face of the legal and political campaign to achieve compensation for the many sufferers of asbestos-related conditions, which they contracted after working for the James Hardie company, died on November 27, at the age of 61.
To cries of “Barry’s back, Howard’s out”, sacked union delegate Barry Hemsworth marched through the gates of Botany Cranes on November 29 to reclaim his job after 441 days picketing outside the crane yard.
Dear 鶹ӳ Weekly reader,
What a relief to finally see the back of John Howard and his despised Coalition government!
On November 27, as Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met, with the backing of US President George Bush in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss a possible peace treaty, Israeli troops invaded a number of West Bank cities and attacked the Gaza Strip, killing at least four people. Abbas’s US-trained Palestinian Security Forces attacked thousands of unarmed demonstrations against the conference in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Tulkarem and Hebron.
The first round of official talks to negotiate a global climate change agreement to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 will be held in Bali, Indonesia, on December 3-14. Representatives of 130 countries will attend, ostensibly to begin a two-year negotiating process.
A thousand steps
Away from the ballot box
To vote for freedom

A thousand steps
From armed men
With orders to shoot down
Anyone who votes for freedom

A thousand steps
When you have chains
On your hands and feet
To stop you from taking
A step of a single yard
Towards freedom

A thousand steps
From the grave
Where you will be buried
If you take a step
To vote for freedom

A thousand steps
From your dreams
Where you dream
That you can vote
For freedom


@auth poem = Arif Viqar
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In the years following the revolution, its leaders initiated the formation of the Communist (Third) International (Comintern), an international grouping of communist parties. In Venezuela, the leadership of the country’s unfolding socialist revolution have issued a call for a new international of Latin American left parties. In this article, part of a series on the early years of the Comintern, John Riddell looks at the relationship between communist revolutionaries and colonised peoples.