(We) can do better

Is Turkey's role in the Middle East, especially regarding its support or provocation of wars and unrest, underestimated? Indeed, it often seems ignored. For instance, during the ongoing genocide against Gaza, much of Israel's oil has come from Azerbaijan, routed through Turkish ports.

Following the WA Government’s reckless decision to approve South32’s bauxite mine expansion last year, Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has chosen to greenlight South32’s massive bauxite expansion in the Northern Jarrah Forest, near Boddington.  Join us from 8.30am to 9:30 on Wednesday 19 Feb to protest this dangerous extension outside South32’s Perth/Boorloo headquarters, on William Street.

Venue: Camberwell Historical Society Meeting 25 February 2025 7.30pm. Speaker Michael Buxton, "Camberwell: Urban Planning and Heritage Protection." 25 Inglesby Road, Camberwell 3124. RSVP by Monday 24 February 2025.  [email protected] or George Fernando 0448296258. Camberwell is one of the State Government’s proposed Activity Centres. The suburb of Camberwell developed in the 1880s.

Join Kingston Residents Association, Mordialloc-Beaumaris Conservation League and Environment Victoria to protest at the Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) clearing remnant endangered highly significant Coast Banksia Woodland on Council’s Groves Reserve in Aspendale. Please see our latest update on this in the post below.

NATALIE MORRIS (The Redacted Inc): Well, the province of Alberta, in Canada published a damning report about the covid pandemic, basically admitting they got it all wrong - the vaccines, the masks, the lockdowns - it's an amazing admission from a government agency. 

On Wednesday 5 February, Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick asked of The Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong, why, given her government's treatment of the former Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, she had said nothing about the large number of crimes committed against the people of Syria by the new regime of Mohammad al–Julani.

6.30pm Feb 6, 2025, at Seaford Community Centre: Talbot Hall or (depending on the weather) in the shade on the lawn between the Hall and the Creek. Public meeting to discuss the future of Kananook Creek Corridor planning. Please join us in attending to show your support for the Kananook Creek Association (KCA). FCC has dissolved the Kananook Creek Governance Group without consultation.

The letter below was sent to Prime Minister Albanese on 24 January 2025. In it, I refer to the abduction of Professor Rasha Al-Ali from the University of Homs.

The corporate takeover of Ukrainian land from about 2011 up to and during the Ukraine war is extremely immoral, corrupt, cruel and disenfranchising. I understand it as a process of privatisation, corporatisation and debt, which means ultimately that Ukraine is no longer governed by its people, but by corporates and oligarchs.

Australia, sadly, takes its orders from the US and so Trump's government and policies is of major importance to us here. Tulsi Gabbard, who is also a US soldier, has made it further than any other female politician in the US in terms of carving out an independent policy course and is now seeking confirmation of a Trump cabinet appointment as Director of US Intelligence.

Video inside by Kevork Almassian, a Syrian living in Germany, gives a complex overview of the situation in Syria. We have transcribed it with headings in square brackets for clarity, and included links and explanations for some specific names and places. While we have previously supported Bashar al-Assad's rule and elections amid brutal external interference, we were concerned by his departure from Syria and the Syrian Arab Army's decline.

Never thought I'd agree with BlackRock CEO, but he is right about this. Unfortunately for Australia, our government invites BlackRock to fund debt on massive housing projects for mass immigration, in order to combat our democratic population trends, which are a reflection of dwindling quality of life in overpopulated Australia.  BlackRock also grabs land under cover of war in Ukraine.  So, the BlackRock CEO may say sensible things, but what BlackRock does is another thing.

Israel’s Knesset has approved a bill criminalising denial of Israel’s version of events of October 7th, those who break this law could face 5 years in prison.

While the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest, for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, of Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has guaranteed him safe passage

A Prohibition Act passed 20 years ago stands as NT parliament's legal opposition to plans to dump nuclear waste in the NT. It simply prohibits handling, transport and storage of long-lived intermediate-level and high-level nuclear wastes (materials which are only found in the form of spent reactor fuel).

We are republishing the broad headlines of the International Peaceful Australia Network Newsletter here because it represents Australia's only effective peace and anti-war network.  Links will take you to their site, which is external and independent from ours.

Last Thursday 19 December 2024, Robert (Robbie) Barwick, the lead Citizen's Party (https://citizensparty.org.au) candidate for the Senate in Victoria, spoke to a protest outside the Mordialloc electoral office of the federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Robbie spoke in support of David McBride and a number of of other whistleblowers who had been unjustly prosecuted by Mark Dreyfus's department. He also spoke in support of former US Marine Corps pilot, Daniel (Dan) Duggan who fought in the First Gulf War of 1991.

The Frankston Beach Association has expressed deep disappointment in Frankston City Council’s decision to discontinue the Kananook Creek Governance Group, saying that this decision, made by the new Council on Monday, 2 December 2024, reflects a concerning lack of transparency and consultation. 

Independent Journalist Vanessa Beeley, who was based in Damascus up until the Al Nusra coup on 8 December 2024, discusses her evacuation from Syria, and what the end of the Assad Government means for the Syrian people and the future of foreign interference in the country. She also discusses the extreme suddenness of the coup and Russia's about-face, which seemed to lead so unexpectedly to Bashar al-Assad's very uncharacteristic resignation from his presidency.

ACBF calls to embrace the NSW's 'Improved Native Forest Management (INFM)' carbon method, for a 'transition to full plantation-based industry, sound good, but many forest campaign groups do not welcome this kind of announcement. That is because the government's  INFM modelling can be manipulated to suit further logging under other guises, assuming outcomes minus robust science and evidence, and benefit those large industries to simply buy imagined carbon credits to keep polluting.

In 1980, the Swedish pop group ABBA released a hit song, “The winner takes it all”.  As of December 8, 2024, the armed coalition headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, might be singing that song. In every conflict, there are winners and losers. On a scale from 1 to 10, the various factions involved in the Syrian civil war from 2011 to 2024 are rated below.

Click on the image to read Report No. 46. 

Click on the image to read Report No. 45.

From 26.50 minutes in you can hear a detailed account of how a Syrian mayor and the Christian town of Sadad, Syria - which is between Homs and Damascus, fought off the Isis branch Jabat al-Nusra/Al Nusra Front several years ago, at the cost of nearly 50 locals.

On December 9, Egypt accused Israel of illegally seizing a buffer zone in Syria. The area extends from the Golan Heights almost to the outskirts of Damascus. Israel troops and weaponry are now within hiking distance of the capital of Syria. Syria is now under the administration of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an armed opposition group from Idlib, which had been supported prior to 2017 by a covert CIA program.