Israeli forces seized a boat on July 29 that was carrying nearly two dozen activists and journalists aiming to break Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza.
The boat is part of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), which describes itself as “a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from all over the world working together to end the siege of Gaza”.
The Tamil Refugee Council has again called on the Australian government to end the deportation of Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, after the United Nations found evidence of widespread torture in the country.
The report of Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson, released on July 23 after his latest mission to Sri Lanka, concludes: “[I]mpunity is still the rule for those responsible for the routine and systemic use of torture, and countless individuals are the victims of gross miscarriages of justice resulting from the operation of the PTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act].
Democratic Party politicians and media outlets that reflect their positions have attacked President Donald Trump on certain issues with arguments to the right of him.
One example is United States policy on North Korea. Trump has been taken to task for meeting with Kim Jong-un and initiating discussions with North Korea over its possession of nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them.
The charge is that even meeting with Kim was wrong because it allegedly legitimises and “prettifies” him.
Activists from the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOTT) in Timor-Leste demonstrated outside the Australian Embassy in the capital Dili on July 25.
More than 100 people attended a rally in solidarity with former spy Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery outside the Treasury Buildings in Melbourne on July 25. The rally demanded that the current Attorney General, Christian Porter, cease the prosecution of the two.
Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, approved the controversial nationality bill on July 19 declaring Israel a nation-state for the Jewish people and downgrading the status of Arabic from official language to “special status”, TeleSUR English reported. Arabs make up 21% of Israel’s population.
"A day after an estimated 250,000 Londoners swelled the city streets and Trafalgar Square to tell President Donald Trump that neither he nor his worldview were welcome in U.K.," Jon Queally wrote on Common Dreams, "the people of Scotland on Sunday also took to the streets to let the U.S.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn joined the mass protest against Donald Trump in London on July 13 where he said the message to the U.S. president was a call for a "world of justice not division."
Speaking from Trafalgar Square to an enormous crowd after hundreds of thousands marched through the streets of London, Corbyn praised those gathered for "asserting our right to free speech and our right to want a world that is not divided by misogyny, racism, and hate."
Demonstrators say "Trumpism directly threatens steps towards tackling" inequality, peace and disarmament, climate change, discrimination, and corporate greed, writes Jessica Corbett.
Hundreds of thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators took to the streets of London and in separate protests across the Britain on July 13 in a massive and historic show of opposition to a sitting US president.
Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Sarah McNaughton SC recently filed criminal charges against Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and his client, a former officer of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).
