Australian resident Natalie Lowrey was refused entry into Malaysia on August 31. She was travelling as an observer to the trial of 15 environmental activists who were arrested for protesting against Australian rare earth mining company Lynas.
On arrival in Malaysia, Lowrey was held by customs officials who said she had been blacklisted by Bukit Aman — the police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur — and that she would be deported home. Lowrey was informed of a strict denial of entry to Malaysia. No reasons were given.
Australia
24-YEAR-OLD ASYLUM SEEKER DECLARED BRAIN DEAD
DETAINEES ACCUSE IMHS
The Refugee Action Coalition released the statement below today.
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A 24 year-old Iranian asylum seeker, Hamid Kehazaei, who was urgently medivacced from Manus Island to Brisbane on Wednesday, August 27 has been declared "brain dead".
By the time Hamid was medivacced to Brisbane, he was suffering septicaemia, from an infection spreading from a cut foot, and went directly into intensive care in the Mater hospital. He had sought medical attention for days on Manus Island for the pain and the infection.
One of the most frightful ironies of climate change is that it will wreak the most havoc on the people who have done the least to cause it. Pacific Island nations are in the climate frontlines — affected by rising oceans, coastal erosion and extreme weather.
Around 50 protesters held a picket outside the opening of the World Congress of Families on August 30, which finally found a venue in the bunker-like premises of the Catch the Fire Ministries in outer suburban Hallam.
This sect gained notoriety for declaring the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires were a punishment from God due to the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria.
READ MORE: Why we disrupted the World Congress of Families
After four venues cancelled bookings under pressure from protesters, the World Congress of Families announced a fifth venue for its conference in Victoria — the headquarters of notorious anti-Muslim hate group Catch the Fire Ministries.
A coalition of groups opposing the WCF called a media conference on August 28 to explain why they were determined to stop the right-wing fundamentalist Christian conference from going ahead in Melbourne on August 30.
Immigration minister Scott Morrison has angrily slammed allegations by Labor Senator Sue Lines that the federal government was using the “war on terror” to distract voters from its cruel and deeply unpopular budget.
And fair enough, it was a ridiculous comment when you consider the huge number of terrorist attacks Australia has been subjected to in recent times.
Nick Riemer, senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, addressed a Town Hall meeting on August 25 on the proposed deregulation of fees at Australian universities. Riemer is a member of the NTEU Sydney University branch committee.
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Fee deregulation means the entrenchment of educational disadvantage and the enclosure of knowledge in our society.
That’s not irresponsible exaggeration: it’s an accurate characterisation that follows from the careful modelling done by a number of authorities.
The Coalition dominated Senate will vote on a raft of amendments to the Fair Work Act in July next year that includes the Building and Construction (Fair and Lawful Building Sites) Code.
The code will be voted in as a piece of retrospective legislation. This means it will be backdated to April 24 this year. This is so the code will apply to all new enterprise bargaining agreements (EBA) due to be negotiated by all construction unions with the respective employers.
There has been a dramatic rise in the female prison population in Australia in the last 10 years. This increase is largely due to the rising number of Aboriginal women going to prison.
In 1996, about 21% of women in prison were Aboriginal, last year it was 33%. The rate of increase is much greater than that of men.
Australia has the dishonour of jailing the highest proportion of its Indigenous female population in the world. Aboriginal women are 17 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Aboriginal women.
The first asylum seeker to be forcibly returned to Afghanistan begged an Australian court for help the day he was due to be deported.
The judge used a two-year out-of-date security assessment of Afghanistan to rule that the 29-year-old ethnic Hazara’s home district, Jaghori, was “reasonably stable”.
“Jaghori is confined, it’s like a prison,” the man said through an interpreter, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. “The surrounding areas are all controlled by the Taliban. Many people die on the way to Jaghori.”
The Renewable Energy Target could become a victim of its own success. A review into the scheme, released on August 29, has recommended the federal government close new investment into renewable energy because it has produced more energy than originally planned.
But Labor, Greens and Palmer United Party senators have vowed to block any changes to the scheme.
At the same time, a debate has emerged among climate activists about whether we should “change tack” when it comes to campaigning on the issue of climate change.
Forty per cent of Australians do not believe that democracy is the best form of government, the Lowy Institute found in a poll it conducted earlier this year.
The main reasons given were that what now passes for democracy is serving vested interests rather than the interests of people, and that there is no real difference between the two big political parties.
This is a perfectly logical reaction to the convergence of the major parties around the economic doctrine of neoliberalism.
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