Why did Julian Assange receive an Interpol Red Notice, but Gaddafi only an Orange? Tess Lawrence investigates the murky world of Interpol exclusively for Independent Australia asking some troubling questions and uncovering some startling facts.
Why was Julian Assange – who has not yet been charged — given the most severe Red Notice by Interpol, when brutal dictator Muammar Gaddafi only received an Orange Notice?
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The desperate nuclear emergency at three Japanese nuclear reactors is growing worse by the day.
One of the three stricken reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is now close to complete meltdown.
Should this happen, molten uranium fuel may burn through the containment vessels, leading to a catastrophic release of radiation over the surrounding area.
This appeal is reprinted from the website of the Maritime Union of Australia. You can also support the appeal launched by Europe solidaire sans frontières (Europe in Solidarity Without Borders).
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Japanese dockworkers, seafarers hit hard by tsunami
March 15
Tens of thousands of people have been rocked by earthquake, engulfed by tsunami and now, in the port of Sendai, consumed by fire.
Libya
It is good to witness the expressions of concern and empathy for the Libyans by so many people and governments around the world. The Libyan people need our support against the regimes brutality. People should be urging diplomatic, political and economic action by the international community. Even some limited military action to carry out humanitarian or peacekeeping roles under the UN control or other appropriate alliance, with suitable Arab or other independent leadership would be okay. But this should be restricted and temporary.
Roger Waters, best known as a member of British band Pink Floyd, released the statement below on February 25 — explaining his decision to support the international “boycott, divestment and sanctions” campaign targeting Israel. It is reprinted from Alternativenews.org.
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In 1980, a song I wrote, “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2”, was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being used by Black South African children to advocate their right to equal education.
That apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so to speak, on certain songs — including mine.
Benji Marshall, one of the most high-profile players in rugby league, was charged with assault after an altercation in the early hours of March 5.
Earlier that evening, he hosted a charity function on March 4 for the Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia at which about $250,000 was raised.
Afterwards, the West Tigers player went out with his girlfriend for a few drinks, but was reported to not have been drunk. They later went to a Sydney McDonald’s store.
Sequences to freedom is a book of short poems written in February by Iranian poet Ali Abdolrezaei that has been translated into English by Abol Froushan.
Abdolrezaei, from Gilan province, is now a refugee living in London.
Abdolrezaei said: “I never thought that one day I would write purely political poetry, but the inhuman atrocity dealt by the Iranian regime nowadays is so beyond proportion that it is politics that is writing these poems.”
Below are two of the translated poems published in Sequences to Freedom.
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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law a bill that bans collective bargaining by most of the state’s public sector workers right on March 11. High school students in the capital, Madison, walked out of school in protest the same day — the second straight day of student strikes in the city.
About 6000 people rallied outside PM Julia Gillard’s Melbourne office on March 12 for an emergency action on climate change. The rally was organised by GetUp!
Publicity for the rally did not explicitly refer to the proposed Labor/Greens carbon price. But at the rally itself, the organisers campaigned for the carbon price plan as the most effective way to deal with climate change.
Many at the rally had concerns with the proposed carbon tax, but mobilised in spite of this to call for urgent climate action.
Daicy Olaya, a resident of Fairfield for 18 years, explained why she decided to stand as a candidate for Socialist Alliance in the March 26 NSW elections. “Politicians from both major parties have failed miserably in representing the interests of migrants and women here in New South Wales,” she said.
A dozen protesters gathered outside Darwin Magistrates Court on March 8 to call for an end to the detention of asylum seeker children.
The protest was held outside the trial of six teenage asylum seekers, who faced charges with various offences resulting from a scuffle in Darwin immigration detention centre in February.
Richard Davis from the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network told ABC Darwin that the youths should not have been charged.
Householders and small businesses who were victims of the floods that hit Brisbane in January are considering a legal challenge against insurance companies “using region-wide hydrology reports to deny thousands of flood-related claims”, the March 10 Courier Mail said.
Insurers NRMA, CGU and Comminsure have used the reports to claim many policyholders were subject to riverine flooding, which is not covered by most insurance policies, rather than stormwater or flash-flooding.
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