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.
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.
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.
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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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.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Iraq on March 4, defying a curfew and repression to demand democracy and economic justice, the March 5 Los Angeles Times said.
The protests followed the February 25 “Day of Rage”, in which demonstrations occurred in at least 17 separate cities and towns. At least nine protests were killed by security forces, the February 26 Sydney Morning Herald said.
See also::
Big stakes in Bahrain, Saudi protests
Media reports paint Alice Springs as being in the midst of an out-of-control crime wave.
Action for Alice, a group of local business owners, has produced a commercial for Imparja television. The ad calls for a law and order push to end the alleged crime wave, which it blames on Aboriginal youth.
The level of hysteria reached a new pitch in an article by Nicolas Rothwell in the February 19 Australian. Rothwell claimed that Alice Springs was plagued by rampaging young Aboriginal people, fuelled by alcohol.
Australia’s most famous racist and one-time MP Pauline Hanson won the attention of big business media at the March 10 ballot draw for the NSW Legislative Council elections.
However, more significant than Hanson, is the attempt by conservative forces to replicate the right-wing populist US Tea Party movement in Australia. This push is headed by right-wing politicians and media shock jocks, and aims to mobilise people on a populist and racist agenda.
Last August, a website called the TEA Party in Australia was launched. TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already, the website says.
About 150 people rallied in Sydney on March 6 to call for an end to the persecution of WikiLeaks. The protest was organised by the Support WikiLeaks Coalition.
The rally also called for the release from jail of US private Bradley Manning. For nine months, Manning has been held in isolation in US military prisons for allegedly leaking more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.
On March 2, the US army laid new charges against Manning, including the capital offence of “aiding the enemy”. If convicted, Manning could face the death penalty.
The Tasmanian environmental campaign group Still Wild Still Threatened has called on Tasmania’s Labor/Greens coalition government to back down on its plan to build the Brighton Bypass and agree to demands from Aboriginal activists to change the bypass route.
Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Lily Leahy said on March 1 that the group “stands in solidarity with the Aboriginal community in opposing this plan as it will destroy the artefacts and unique values of a 40,000 year-old site.
Andrew Ferguson, former NSW Secretary of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), recently retired from that position and announced he would stand on the Australian Labor Party’s NSW Legislative Council ticket.
Ferguson, who identifies as a socialist, is likely to get the sixth position on the ticket. The top two spots will go to NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal and Planning Minister Tony Kelly, both of whom are from the ALP Right faction. Peter Boyle interviewed Ferguson for Green Left Weekly.
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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.
“That is why, as a woman migrant from Colombia, who has worked in the textile and cleaning industries, I have decided to stand as the Socialist Alliance candidate for Fairfield in the coming NSW state elections."
See also:
Victoria's alcohol and drug treatment services have failed to keep pace with the growing substance abuse epidemic after a decade of neglect, an Auditor General's report revealed on March 2.
The report reviewed the Department of Health's $136 million alcohol and drug prevention efforts. It found the system is flawed and underfunded after the former state government failed to act on 31 internal reviews during its 10 years in office.
Below is the resignation letter of two former members of the Labor party in NSW, Jairo Quintero and Edgar Pena (both formerly of the ALP Parramatta branch). This follows the February 17 resignations of Luis Ernesto Almario and Rosendo Duran.
They have decided to support the Socialist Alliance in the March 26 NSW election.
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Attn: Kristina Keneally, NSW state premier
CC: Michael Lee, NSW ALP president, Sam Dastyari, NSW ALP general Secretary, Pierre Esber, ALP candidate for the seat of Parramatta
March 8, 2011
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