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Newcastle Port Blockade: One Of The Biggest Climate Protests In Australia

November 25, 2023 Jordyn Beazley, The Guardian. , , ,
It felt more party than protest as hundreds of people paddled into the Port of Newcastle on kayaks, surfboards and pontoons in what organisers hope will be the biggest civil disobedience action in Australia’s history. On shore people stood shoulder to shoulder on Saturday, waving at the protesters, who will occupy the channel for 30 hours to stop coal exports from leaving Newcastle. Some were dancing along to a band and waving Extinction Rebellion flags. Others gave the protest a comical air, such as Helen Child, who dressed up as Clive Palmer with a sign that said “Let Them Eat Coal”. But for all its frivolity, the message the organisers Rising Tide hope to send to the government is serious.

Australians Call To End Persecution Of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

October 27, 2023 Robin Andersen, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , ,
As WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange has nearly exhausted his appeals to British courts against a US extradition order, Australia has ramped up its advocacy on his behalf. Six Australian MPs held a press conference outside the US Department of Justice on September 20 to urge the Biden administration to halt its pursuit of Assange (Consortium News, 9/20/23). They came representing an impressive national consensus: Almost 80% of Australian citizens, and a cross-party coalition in Australia’s Parliament, support the campaign to free Assange (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/12/23). Opposition leader Peter Dutton joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in urging Assange’s release.

Assange’s Freedom May Be Pivotal In Australia’s Support For US

October 24, 2023 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , , ,
The stakes are high as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives in Washington, D.C., today to meet with President Joe Biden. The U.S. government hopes to obtain Australia’s support for its cold war initiatives against China. Australia is one of the United States’ closest allies. Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. comprise “AUKUS,” a trilateral “security” alliance in the Indo-Pacific. This is a crucial issue for Australia as well. Before Albanese left for the United States, he told parliament that the AUKUS transfer of U.S. and British nuclear submarine technology to Australia was critical to the future of the alliance.

Indigenous Australians Weigh Voice Referendum Defeat

October 16, 2023 Alex/Rose Cocker, Canary Workers' Coop. , , ,
On 15 October, Indigenous Australians grieved the collapse of a landmark push for Indigenous rights and recognition that was spurned by the country’s white majority in a binding constitutional referendum. Indigenous leaders called for a “week of silence” to mourn the bitter outcome of Saturday 14’s landside vote. The defeat has called into question decades-long reconciliation efforts. Aboriginal advocacy groups stated that millions of Australians had ignored the chance to atone for the country’s colonial past and the “brutal dispossession of our people”.

A Secretive Network Is Fighting Indigenous Rights

October 11, 2023 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. , , ,
A campaign to deny Indigenous peoples a voice in Australia’s national Parliament is using tactics similar to an earlier conservative legal battle against First Nations communities in Canada, a new research paper argues. That’s no coincidence, according to the paper’s author Jeremy Walker, because think tanks linked to these efforts in Canada and Australia belong to a secretive U.S. organization called the Atlas Network that’s received support from oil, gas and coal companies and operates in nearly 100 countries. “The coordinated opposition to Indigenous constitutional recognition by the Australian arm of the Atlas Network we can assume is motivated by the same intentions underlying the permanent Atlas campaign against climate policy [globally],” writes Walker.

Australian, Latin American Leaders Demand End To Assange Prosecution

September 27, 2023 Chip Gibbons, The Dissenter. , , , , , , , ,
During their addresses to the UN General Assembly, both Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Honduran President Xiomara Castro called for Assange to be freed. Lula stated, “It is essential to preserve the freedom of the press. A journalist like Julian Assange cannot be punished for informing society in a transparent and legitimate way.” Castro struck a similar chord, calling Assange a “faithful defender of free expression.” Both Lula and Castro are left-wing leaders who were elected as part of what’s been dubbed in Latin America as a second or resurgent “Pink Tide." Lula had previously served as Brazil’s president during the original Pink Tide.

Australian Parliamentarians Speak Outside DOJ After Assange Talks

September 21, 2023 Consortium News. , , , , ,
Six members of the Australian parliament landed in Washington D.C. on Tuesday armed with a bi-partisan agenda and the backing of an entire nation as they try to convince Congressmen and State and Justice Department officials that the American pursuit of Australian publisher Julian Assange is wrong and must be stopped. The cross-party delegation is spending two days in the U.S. capital arguing Assange’s case ahead of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s state visit to the White House at the end of October, where it is expected that Assange will be brought up (as well as Australia being used to test U.S. hypersonic missiles).

Australian Politicians Coming To US To Free Julian Assange

September 20, 2023 Assange Defense. , , , ,
More than 60 Australian politicians have called on the United States government to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange, warning of “a sharp and sustained outcry in Australia” if the WikiLeaks founder is extradited. The letter comes ahead of announcements that a contingent of parliamentarians are coming to Washington D.C. this week in hopes of securing Assange’s freedom. In the letter, the 63 MPs and senators said they were “resolutely of the view that the prosecution and incarceration of the Australian citizen Julian Assange must end”. The letter will be taken to Washington D.C. where it will be presented to US Congresspeople and others as part of the cross-party delegation made up of Senators Alex Antic, David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson, Barnaby Joyce MP, Monique Ryan MP and Tony Zappia MP.

More Than 60 Australian MPs Urge US To Let Julian Assange Walk Free

September 17, 2023 Daniel Hurst, The Guardian. , , ,
More than 60 Australian federal politicians have explicitly called on the US to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange, warning of “a sharp and sustained outcry in Australia” if the WikiLeaks founder is extradited. With a small cross-party delegation due to fly to Washington next week, the Guardian can reveal the lobbying trip has won the open support of 63 members of Australia’s House of Representatives and Senate. In a letter, the 63 MPs and senators said they stood in support of the trip to the US and were “resolutely of the view that the prosecution and incarceration of the Australian citizen Julian Assange must end”.

Australian Parliamentarians Head To Washington To Lobby For Assange

September 5, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
Six members of the Australian parliament will land in Washington D.C. on Sept. 20 armed with a bi-partisan agenda and the backing of an entire nation as they try to convince Congressmen and State and Justice Department officials that the American pursuit of Australian publisher Julian Assange is wrong and must be stopped. The cross-party delegation will spend two days in the U.S. capital arguing Assange’s case ahead of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s state visit to the White House at the end of October, where it is expected that Assange will be brought up (as well as Australia being used to test U.S. hypersonic missiles).

What’s Behind Talk Of A Possible Plea Deal For Assange?

September 4, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , ,
Australia has too often behaved as a doormat to the United States, to the point where Australia is threatening its own security by going along with an aggressive U.S. policy towards China, which poses no threat to Australia. But this time, Blinken got an earful. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterated that he wanted the Assange case to be dropped. Certain members of Parliament brusquely gave it back to Blinken. Assange was “not the villain … and if the US wasn’t obsessed with revenge it would drop the extradition charge as soon as possible,” Independent MP Andrew Wilkie told The Guardian‘s Australian edition. “Antony Blinken’s allegation that Julian Assange risked very serious harm to US national security is patent nonsense,” said Wilkie said.

US Military Has New Capacity In Hawaii And Australia To Store Red Hill Fuel

September 3, 2023 Colonel (ret) Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
The May and November 2021 fuel leaks of 19,000 gallons of fuel at the 80-year-old Red Hill fuel storage facility into the drinking water aquifer of Honolulu gave toxic exposure to over 93,000 persons.  Many are suffering from toxic poisoning that will have lifelong effects.  27,000 gallons of fuel had “leaked” in January 2014. Some families who have lived in the 19 residential areas served by the Red Hill well report they have had health conditions for many years prior to the November 2021 spill that went directly into the Red Hill well. They feel that these health issues may be attributable to the leak in 2014, nine years before.

On September 2, Worldwide Rallies For Julian Assange At Australian Embassies

August 27, 2023 Redazione Roma, Pressenza. , , ,
Recently (29 July 2023), US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, on a visit to Australia, rejected the call by his Australian counterpart to put an end to the U.S.’s judicial persecution of Julian Assange. Blinken justified his refusal by saying that Assange, with his revelations of US/UK war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, had “risked causing very serious harm to [US] national security.” But notice his choice of words. Blinken did not state that Assange had actually caused harm (as was claimed at the time of the revelations); he is simply alleged to have risked – hypothetically – causing harm, which is a different story.

Assange Be Wary: The Dangers Of A US Plea Deal

August 18, 2023 Binoy Kampmark, Counter Punch. , , , ,
At every stage of its proceedings against Julian Assange, the US Imperium has shown little by way of tempering its vengeful impulses. The WikiLeaks publisher, in uncovering the sordid, operational details of a global military power, would always have to pay. Given the 18 charges he faces, 17 fashioned from that most repressive of instruments, the US Espionage Act of 1917, any sentence is bound to be hefty. Were he to be extradited from the United Kingdom to the US, Assange will disappear into a carceral, life-ending dystopia. In this saga of relentless mugging and persecution, the country that has featured regularly in commentary, yet done the least, is Australia. Assange may well be an Australian national, but this has generally counted for naught.

Australian Members Of Parliament Blast Blinken Over Assange

August 2, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
Three Australian members of Parliament have dismissed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s strong statement in support of prosecuting imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange as “nonsense.” Independent MP Andrew Wilkie told The Guardian‘s Australian edition that Assange was “not the villain … and if the US wasn’t obsessed with revenge it would drop the extradition charge as soon as possible.” “Antony Blinken’s allegation that Julian Assange risked very serious harm to US national security is patent nonsense,” Wilkie said. “Mr Blinken would be well aware of the inquiries in both the US and Australia which found that the relevant WikiLeaks disclosures did not result in harm to anyone,” said Wilkie.
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