This is a beautiful original song, beautifully performed, with well conceived lyrics describing the importance of Assange, his suffering, and encouraging people to work to have him released.
LYRICS:
like a movie
flickering in blue and grey
like a movie
you can’t take your eyes away
1.
here's a man in the nose of a beast
a magic camera on his eye
they're not men he sees before him
just pixels floating by
his eyes narrow on the target
his finger is the boss
seven men go to the dust they came from
underneath his cross
like a movie
2.
and here's a man on an aeroplane
his eyes are warm, his eyes are closed
weary from too much seeing,
from 10 years on this road
they took his son, they took his freedom
took away his space to think
they took his walls and moved them closer
they pushed him to the brink
like a movie
flickering in blue and grey
like a movie
betrayal's only one frame away
3.
and here's a hawk, in front of an eagle
three colours tattooed on it's chest
his eyes are flint, his heart is granite
cos uncle knows what's best
there’s talk of a man who’s said too much
talk of a man who’s sealed his fate
talk of a bounty for the one who brings
his head upon a plate
like a movie
4.
and now here's a man in a tiny cell
his tired face is gaunt and pale
he walks ten thousand steps each day
the santiago trail
his hair is white, the spider’s eyes were black
the mighty web was a thing of awe
he went in deep, he couldn’t come back
but he showed us what he saw
like a movie
flickering in blue and grey
like a movie
dignity will hold no sway
and when the dawn breaks, and the mist clears
you can watch the final scene, if you dare
one man in front of an army, all alone
and his man, what’s he going to do now?
and what about you, what are you going to do now?
are you going to sit there, and keep on watching?
cos if we all got up we could stop this movie
don't you think it's time we stopped this movie?
like a movie
flickering in blue and grey
like a movie
we can’t let it end this way
From 6:30PM on Good Friday, last Friday 2 April 2021, Anita Brice, myself and other Melbourne supporters of Julian Assange held their weekly vigil in front of Flinders Street Station. This vigil is the central part of Anita Brice's (see Lorine Anita Brice's Twitter page @LorineBrice) campaign for Julian Assange which she has organised since April 2020.
Each Friday since then they have turned up with placards and printed literature to inform members of the public about Julian Assange.
Also, at considerable trouble and expense, I created a large (4.8mx1.7m) banner which is pictured to the left. [3] This banner has attracted some interest from overseas supporters of Julian Assange, including from the Denver Free Assange group as well as from many members of the Melbourne public including passing motorists. [4]
Other members of our group have also begun to give speeches, and have spoken well, as occurred on Friday 26 March when we marched to the Melbourne British to protest against that government's criminal treatment of Julian Assange.
At our Good Friday vigil, I spoke for 6:30 minutes. My speech was recorded and embedded below.
James Sinnamon demands the Australian government act to end the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange
Your presence needed at next Friday's vigil for Julian Assange
If we are ever to succeed in our campaign to free Julian Assange, we need much larger crowds, here in Melbourne, other Australian cities and overseas. If you can make it to next Friday's vigil at 6:30pm, please be there. You can help us hold up our large banners, distribute leaflets, talk to passsers-by or make speeches.
Footnotes
[1] The PDF file for the double-sided A5 flyer is here.
[2] The PDF file which can be printed on two sides of an A4 sheet, is here, please be warned, printing in colour, rather than in back and white can cost a lot more.
[3] From an artist friend, Sheila Newman, who is also an editor of this site, candobetter.net, and an author of books as well as articles for this site, I received indispensable help in creating this banner.
[4] Unfortunately, because our numbers were fewer on the Good Friday public holiday, there was not a sufficient number people to put in the necessary effort hold up our large banner for the two hour vigil.
[5] Even on some subsequent occasions when my own presentation and delivery was not as good, I believe I still succeeded in arousing more interest and support from members of the public than we would have, had nobody spoken. I would like to aspire to speak as well as Mairéad Farrell, Irish member of the European Parliament as shown, below, in her speech of 5 March 2021:
Last Thursday 25 March, during the Senate Estimates Hearing, Greens Senator for Victoria, Janet Rice (pictured left), asked Foreign Minister Marise Payne (pictured right) to explain her failure to act to free Australian journalist Julian Assange from his imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison in London.
Given the very short time allowed for Janet Rice to pursue this issue, she did remarkably well in cutting through Marise Payne's evasions and attempts to obfuscate the issue.
Exchange between Senator Janet Rice and Senator Marise Payne on Julian Assange
Janet Rice : So, on Julian Assange, Minister, have you personally requested to the Biden administration that they drop their appeal against the UK court finding to not extradite Julian Assange.
Marise Payne : Senator, I said in response to Senator Patrick, that I had not discussed this directly with the Biden administration at this stage, but I expect it to be discussed in meetings with the Secretary of State (the United States equivalent of Foreign Minister).
Janet Rice : OK, and when do you expect those meetings to occur?
Marise Payne : In the coming months.
Janet Rice : Months?
Marise Payne : Well, Senator, nothing is confirmed because we are making arrangements in relation to travel. If I am not able to do that in person, then I will be raising a number of issues in a virtual engagement that will be sooner.
Janet Rice : And this is despite the reporting that if you had actually raised the issue of Julian Assange with the Trump administration to drop the charges, that they were very likely to have done so?
Marise Payne : Well, I did raise the matter with the Trump administration, Senator. I raised the matter with the Secretary of State, myself directly at AUSMIN (Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations) in July 2020.
Janet Rice : Well, in the last month, the Trump administration - that secondary reporting - but I will move on. Were DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) officials told that Julian Assange is on suicide watch from the time that of his arrival at Belmarsh Prison on 11 April 2019?
Marise Payne : Senator, while the [DFAT] officer is going to brief, I would remind you, Senator, as I have in the Senate, that the Australian Government has endeavoured to offer consular assistance …
Janet Rice : My time is short, Minister and I am aware that you …
Marise Payne : And I have two things to say, Senator. The consular assistance on 22 occasions, from 2019 to 2021, DFAT - consent was withdrawn for DFAT to consult about Mr Assange's personal circumstances, his health and his welfare in prison on the 13th of June 2019 by Mr Assange. So, given consent was withdrawn, Senator …
Janet Rice : I am asking you about the time between his arrival on the 11th of April until the 13th of June when DFAT had his consent.
Stella Moris, Julian Assange's wife and mother of his two children, explains how the United States' 1917 Espionage Act threatens all journalism that is in any way critical of the U.S. government.
As Australian academic Tim Anderson has pointed out (see below), the Aramaic language, which was spoken by Jesus Christ and now spoken only in Syria, has been under threat by the war against the Syrian people that started over a decade ago on 15 March 2011. This war has been waged mainly by tens of thousands of paid terrorist proxies of the United States and its allies - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Germany, France and Turkey. This terrible war has, so far, cost over 400,000 Syrian lives, including 80,000 Syrian soldiers by one estimate and caused the internal displacement of more than half of Syria's population and has caused many others to seek refuge overseas. (Wikipedia's somewhat less terrible figures can be found here.)
The ancient language of #Jesus of Nazareth, #Aramaic , is now only spoken in some parts of #Syria, but it would have become extinct if #NATO's #wahhabi mercenaries had their way. 'The Lord's Prayer' in Aramaic. pic.twitter.com/RzrlEVlfHX
In spite of the victories by the Syrian Arab Army, Lebanese Hezbollah volunteers, Iranian military advisers and Russian Army and Air Force contingents, the enemies of Syria seem to be resolved to keep their terrorist war going, to maintain crippling economic sanctions and, in the case of the United States, maintain its illegal occupation of Syria's oil fields in Eastern Syria and the theft of Syria's oil. They apparently intend to continue this war for however long it takes to break the resistance of the Syrian people - another 10 years, another 50 years or however long it takes. The longer this continues, the harder it will be for the Aramaic people to preserve their language and culture.
For this war to ever end, people in the West will have to organise protests in solidarity with the Syrian people and against their own governments' criminal conduct towards Syria.
Julian Assange and Wikileaks can help stop the war against Syria
There is not, currently, a great deal about Syria on Wikileaks. Its page on Syria is dated Thursday 5 July 2012, only one year and four months after that war had commenced. It is somewhat critical of the Syrian government as well as of the terrorist opposition, as even many defenders of Syria were back then:
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said: 'The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it.'"
So far, not a lot has yet been leaked to Wikileaks about the Western nation's criminal conspiracy against Syria. Still, the Wikileaks news service remains our best hope of finding out the vital facts behind the Syrian war in addition to all the other wars about which Wikileaks has revealed so much.
It is vital that we continue our campaign against the British government's illegal imprisonment and torture of him and against the United States' attempt to kidnap extradite Julian Assange.
Following our successful protest outside the Melbourne British Consulate, Melbourne supporters of Julian Assange will be resuming our weekly Friday evening vigil from 6:30pm outside Flinders Street Station. We will be holding our vigil on this coming Good Friday public holiday of 2 April.
At that vigil, we will also be demanding as shown on our large banner that the Australian government act to end the British government's illegal imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange.
Please be there to help us hold our banner, distribute leaflets and listen to speeches.
Update, 02:41+11, Monday 29 Mar 2021 : This article has been re-posted as a short article beneath #comment-22331">Julian Assange could finally walk free—if we seize the moment (28/3/2021) by Scott Ludlum.
On Friday 26 March at 3:30pm, supporters of Julian Assange marched from Flinders Street Station to the British Consulate at 90 Collins Street in Melbourne's CBD and arrived there at 4:00pm. Outside the British Consulate, we shouted out our demands that:
The British Government release Julian Assange from his illegal detention and torture at Belmarsh Prison;
Julian Assange not be extradited to the United States where he would face a rigged trial hidden from public view; and
Prime Minister Scott Morrison uphold his duty of care to Julian Assange and act to force the British government to release Julian Assange
Several speeches were also given, one by Feili [1] shown below.
Speech by Feili for Julian Assange outside the British Consulate
As Feili and others spoke or called out our demands, nearby members of the public, on foot, at the nearby tram stop, or in cars showed us their support by waving at us, tooting their horns or calling out their support for Julian Assange. On that day, almost nobody expressed any hostility towards us.
After our protest at the British Consulate, we marched back to Flinders Street Station where we found more support from members of the public. One spoke to us and said that, fro next week, he will be coming to future weekly vigils for Julian Assange from 6:30pm outside Flinders Street Station. The film of him talking very enthusiatically to John one of the members of our group is shown below.
At Flinders Street Station near the end of our protest another person tells us of his support for Julian Assange
Judging by this experience, we expect to be able to make an even bigger impact at next week's vigil. Please be there, at Flinders Street Station at 6:30pm on Friday to listen to speeches, hand out leaflets and help us spread the word.
CORRECTION (10:20am, Friday): The march will be to the British Consulate at 90 Collins Street Melbourne and not to the State Library. - apologies
Join us at 3:30pm Friday 26 March (today) at Flinders Street Station, from which Melbourne For Wikileaks (@Melbourne4wiki) will be marching at 4:00pm from Flinders Street Station to the British Consulate at 90 Collins Street, Melbourne. This March is to show our support of Julian Assange.
We will be demanding that the Australian government act to stop the United States' attempts to illegally extradite, from the United Kingdom, Julian Assange, who is an Australian citizen and not a United States citizen. We will also be demanding that he Australian government act to end the United Kingdom's illegal imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange.
Come to help us carry our banner (pictured), help us distribute leaflets to fellow Melburnians and, listen to speeches for Julian Assange at the end of the march in front of the British Consulate.
Victorian Kangaroos need your signature on this petition! They have been decimated by bushfires and the Victorian Government estimates of numbers are way out. The Mornington Peninsula contains a landlocked group of grey kangaroos that are menaced by several processes, including increased development, traffic, fencing, shooting, and the so-called Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP). These animals need our help and protection. The petition calls upon the Victorian Government to suspend its 'harvest' program. See below.
The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Council that kangaroos culled through the Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP) and the Authority to Control Wildlife (ATCW) has been a contentious issue for a long time in the Mornington Peninsula community. The Victorian Government appear to be over-inflating kangaroo numbers as their count excludes large parts of the state’s landscapes, meaning that kangaroo numbers could be grossly overestimated.
During the black summer bushfires of 2020, approximately 3 billion wildlife were killed, injured or displaced. The Victorian Government estimated that in 2020, the kangaroo population increased by 40 per cent, which macropod experts claim is not scientifically possible. Kangaroo numbers based on ATCW permits highlight that the counting of kangaroos for the KHP is not based on science. Kangaroos in the Mornington Peninsula are under threat from increased development, traffic, fencing, shooting and now from the KHP.
The Mornington Peninsula is an isolated and landlocked area and is home to the Eastern Grey Kangaroo population. Threatened species were once common and perceived as pests and we hope to ensure that kangaroos in Victoria, especially in the Mornington Peninsula, do not become threatened.
Action
The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Council call on the Government to suspend the 2021 Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP), apply improved and accurate methods of counting kangaroos and move the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council out of the KHP Gippsland zone and place it in the Metropolitan Melbourne zone.
In this video, BBC journalist Orla Guerin interviews Azerbaijan President Aliyev, assuming that Azerbaijan press and politics are heavily censored, and presses him on that. He denies the accusation, then asks her why Julian Assange has been held inhumanely for years, if the British and western press are so free. The BBC journalist simply won't acknowledge the situation for journalists and the media in her own country, kind of proving the president's point.
Over the past year, the Center for a Humane Economy worked closely with United States Representatives Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., to formulate legislation to ban the trade in kangaroo-sourced products into the United States. When the “Kangaroo Protection Act” was introduced into Congress on February 9, 2021, word spread quickly throughout Australia by way of the press (ABC, Leader, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald) and social media, for which we have many organizations to thank.
California already bans the trade in kangaroo products, and the Center is working to ensure that law is enforced. The effort to extend that ban to all parts of the United States can have a transformative effect and dry up one of the world’s most important markets for these products (principally, football boots). As we expected, the industries that profit from kangaroo killing understand the potential impact of this bill on their bottom line and have already started to aggressively fight back.
We’re writing to request your formal support of the bill, H.R. 917. You can read the language of the bill here.
The Kangaroo Protection Act would:
· Make it illegal to bring any kangaroo body part into the United States for commercial purposes, with an intent to sell or introduce it into interstate commerce.
· Direct the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with other agencies, to issue regulations to carry out the Act and enforce its provisions.
· Allow citizens to bring actions in federal court to enforce the Act.
· Provide for criminal penalties of up to one year in jail and a $10,000 fine for each violation of the Act, and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
· Allow forfeiture of any kangaroo or kangaroo products in the possession of violators.
By banning the importation of kangaroo products into the United States, we hope to stem the killing of more than two million of these iconic marsupials each year. But first we must show members of Congress that a global coalition of advocates, scientists and leading animal protection organizations in Australia supports the aims of this proposed legislation. We need your support.
If you haven’t seen it, our short film, produced by filmmakers Gavin Polone and Derek Ambrosi, tells a compelling story in just 60 seconds of how a kangaroo becomes a product for purchase in countries like the United States.
Our ask: Will you please sign the statement [see below] of support for H.R. 917, The Kangaroo Protection Act? We would be grateful for your partnership in this endeavor to create sweeping change. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Skiff Mitchell Fox
Perth, Australia Director of Advocacy
Statement of Support example, which you can just send email containing the information,
Support for the United States Kangaroo Protection Act
We support the purpose of H.R. 917, the Kangaroo Protection Act, introduced by Representatives Salud Carbajal and Brian Fitzpatrick into the United States House of Representatives in February 2021. The Center for a Humane Economy / Animal Wellness Action has permission to publicize our support of the bill to members of Congress, on its websites and social media channels, and in campaign materials.
Organization: ______________________________________________
Signed by: _________________________________________________
Title: _____________________________________________________
Date: _____________________________________________________
Please complete and return (scanned or photographed) to Mitchell Fox [email protected]. Or you can simply send us an email containing the information above.
Thank you.
[See videoed 10 min speech inside.] "The new administration in the USA needs to hear from us. I recently stood in the Australian Senate and made a plea to US President Joe Biden and newly appointed US Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop all charges against Julian Assange so we can bring him home to Australia. It was a lie and terrible deception that led us to war in Iraq - a manufactured deception about weapons of mass destruction by some of the most powerful people on this planet. It is terrifying that foreign nations like the US could extradite and charge journalists who have exposed their wrongdoings. If we don’t defend press freedoms and learn from the mistakes and lessons of history we are bound to repeat them. Without a value on truth, there is only one path left to tread, and it gets more dark and dangerous from here – we must continue the fight to free Julian Assange.
Joe Biden and Merrick Garland: please walk away from any decision to extradite Julian Assange now. It's in the interest of democracy and humanity for you to do so.
The illegal, unilateral invasion of Iraq was less than 20 years ago, but seems to be largely forgotten already.
Below is a link to Tasmanian Greens Senator Whish Wilson's speech asking President Biden and his new Attorney General to quit while they are strategically ahead and stop pursuing Assange, or they will be seen more and more as a despotic regime. The speech is ten minutes long and explores the problem from several other angles. Worth listening to. When you click on the link you will be taken away from this page, to facebook.
This article can be printed on two sides of an A4 sheet from this file (but, please be warned, it costs a lot more to print it as colour rather than as black and white).
Dear Prime Minister Scott Morrison,
I am writing to you concerning the imprisonment, psychological and physical torture, in Britain, of an Australian citizen, Julian Assange, who has committed no crime. So far Julian Assange has endured more than eight and a half years of this, and if the United States' government has its way, this will continue for the rest of his life.
On 11 April 2019, shortly after Julian Assange was taken from the London Ecuadorian Embassy and placed under arrest, Foreign Minister Marise Payne issued a statement:
"I am confident, as the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt publicly confirmed in July 2018, that Mr Assange will receive due process in the legal proceedings he faces in the United Kingdom." [1]
If you, Prime Minister, or Marise Payne, have been able to closely follow the legal proceedings to which Julian Assange has been subjected for over one year now, in Woolwich Crown Court, you will be aware of the following:
For breaching bail on 19 June 2012 to seek asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy, which he is entitled to do under Article 14 of United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 [2], he was sentenced to 50 weeks imprisonment, [3] the absolute maximum sentence for this offence;
On 13 September 2019, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser further extended Julian Assange's imprisonment when she ruled that Julian Assange would not be released on 22 September because of the United States prosecution's extradition request, the case for which, it had evidently not been able to fully prepare in the seven and a half years that Julian Assange had been imprisoned for at that point in time;
On every day of the hearing, even before Judge Vanessa Baraitser had listened to any of the testimony or cross-examination, she came into court with her judgement for that day pre-written! [4]
From the first day of the trial (25 February 2020) Julian Assange was brought in handcuffed, and "confined at the back of the court behind a bulletproof glass screen … from which it is very difficult for him to see and hear the proceedings." [5]
Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser "refused repeated and persistent requests from the defence for Assange to be allowed to sit with his lawyers." [6]
Reporting on these preceedings, on 22 October 2019, Craig Murray, who, until then, had been skeptical of claims that Julian Assange was being tortured, declared himself, "badly shocked by just how much weight my friend has lost, by the speed his hair has receded and by the appearance of premature and vastly accelerated ageing. He has a pronounced limp I have never seen before. Since his arrest he has lost over 15 kg in weight." [7]
Craig Murray continued, "But his physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration. When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both. … his difficulty in making it was very evident; it was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought." [8]
On 21 February 2020, during that single day, "Julian had twice been stripped naked and searched, eleven times been handcuffed, and five times been locked up in different holding cells. In addition to this, all of his court documents had been taken from him by the prison authorities, including privileged communications between his lawyers and himself, and he had been left with no ability to prepare to participate in [that day's] proceedings." [9] Julian Assange was subject to this sort of treatment for the duration of the trial.
"For months, he was denied [physical] exercise and held in solitary confinement [for 23 hours a day] … At first he was denied his reading glasses, left behind [on 25 February 2020 when he was arrested inside the Ecuadorian Embassy]. He was denied the legal documents with which to prepare his case, and access to the prison library and the use of a basic laptop." [10] [11]
How is this 'due process'? How could this be procedurally fair to Julian Assange?
What I have written above describes only a fraction of the abuse and torture to which Julian Assange has been subjected, just since the court hearings began on 25 February last year. This follows seven years asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, whence he fled from injustice and in fear for his life. The constraints of asylum have been described as 'arbitrary confinement' by Nils Melzer, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, after he visited Julian Assange in prison. [12]
In the last two decades alone, the United States, in a rampage of war-crimes leveraged on flagrant lies, has destroyed economies and caused the death of many hundreds of thousands in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine and elsewhere, apparently with impunity. In contrast, Julian Assange, who revealed many of these crimes to the world, and who himself has no history of violence, has been kept in solitary, stripped of his health, his clothing, his belongings, friends and family, and justice.
This is not 'due process' and certainly not procedurally fair. Unless this situation is rectified, Julian Assange, who is not a U.S. citizen, faces the prospect of being extradited to the United States, where he will face, in secret, a trial in the eastern district of Virginia, before a jury most likely to be made up from employees and the families of the U.S. intelligence agencies based in that area - in other words a rigged trial, hidden from public view.
Under such unfair trial conditions a guilty verdict is the expectation. Julian Assange stands to be sentenced for up to 175 years imprisonment in solitary confinement in the United States - a fate which he considers to be worse than the death penalty.
Like the many Australians who are well informed about Julian Assange, I consider this treatment of him by the British government an outrage. I would expect your government to act immediately to end this outrage:
If your government truly:
cares for the welfare of each and every one of its citizens;
believes in human rights;
believes in the right to free speech;
believes in the right of journalists to investigate matters of public concern and
upholds the rule of law (Australian law, British law, International law and United States' law, including their constitutional right to free speech)
then I would expect of you the following:
To contact British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, advise him that an Australian citizen, Julian Assange, has been illegally imprisoned in Belmarsh prison and request that Julian Assange be released immediately, and assisted to return to Australia or to go to any place he chooses.
To communicate to Boris Johnson that if Mr Assange's detention were to continue, Australia would be raising the matter at the United Nations and, if neccessary, at the International Criminal Court.
Yours sincerely,
James Sinnamon
Footnotes
[1] Although this statement can be found on Senator Marise Payne's web page through the link I have given above and on Facebook, I could not find this statement on what is currently Page 19 of the "Latest News" section of your web page, which currently contains news items dated from until 15 April 2019.
The above media statement continued: "We have made 19 offers of consular assistance to Mr Assange since 2019 that have gone unanswered. We will continue to offer consular support." As I have not seen the messages containing the offers of support that Senator Marise Payne said she made to Julian Assange, I cannot comment. I will endeavour to contact Julian Assange's support team for their response.
[3] The 50 weeks imprisonment to which Julian Assange was sentenced on Wednesday 1 May 2019 would have lasted until Wednesday 15 April 2020 (if the day on which Julian Assange was sentenced is included). Both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the BBC also reported on 1 May 2019 that Julian Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks imprisonment (see WikiLeaks' Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks' jail over bail breach at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/julian-assange-sentenced-in-london-over-bail-breach-wikileaks/11064356 and Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder jailed over bail breach at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48118908). See Sunday 22 September 2019, the day Julian Assange was supposed to be released, according to other cited reports is 'only' 24 weeks and 4 days from Wednesday 1 May 2019 - still an outrageous and wholly unjustifiable sentence. I have not been able to find an explanation for this apparent discrepency.
[4] "Beyond Words" (8/4/2020) by Craig Murray at https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/beyond-words/
Perth, West Australia: A delegation of community leaders will deliver over 25,000 messages calling for the South West forests to be protected at Dumas House tomorrow. The event is the, "Voices for the Forests - Grand Postcard Handover," Wednesday, 10th March, 12 noon, Dumas House, 2 Havelock St, West Perth. Professor Fiona Stanley, will be joined by climate scientist and IPCC lead author, Dr Bill Hare, acclaimed actor, Kelton Pell, and a number of other well-known and influential West Australians at the event.
"Stopping logging is something we can do immediately to improve climate change and environmental degradation," said Prof Stanley. "Continued logging and clearing of such carbon-dense and biodiverse forests really is a ludicrous situation which can be stopped immediately, and it has to be.
"Ten football fields of South West forests are logged and cleared every single day, with more than 80% going to woodchip, firewood and charcoal," said Jess Beckerling, WAFA convener and campaign director.
"With Australia holding the world record for mammal extinctions; the woodlands in WA’s South West recently being announced as 1 of 19 collapsing ecosystems in Australia, and more than 50% of the rainfall decline in the South West being a result of land-clearing, Prof Stanley is spot on: it is ludicrous what we are doing in the forests down South.
"It's never been more urgent, or more immediately achievable that we protect what's left of our precious karri and jarrah forests for climate and biodiversity,"
"West Australians overwhelmingly support the full protection of the South West forests. Recent polling shows that 78% of people in the State agree that all native forests should be protected and over the past few months we have had a huge response from people across the community.
"We are bringing a very clear message to the McGowan Government - West Australians want the South West forests protected," said Ms Beckerling.
Video inside with Ian Lowe talking on the impact of war on carbon gas production, and Peter Catt asking for people's views on the connection between war and refugees. The general public is invited to give their opinion in this democratic inquiry. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) is a national network of community, peace and faith organisations, environment groups, trade unions and individuals concerned about the social, economic, environmental, military and political costs of Australia’s involvement in US-led wars. IPAN advocates an independent and peaceful Australian foreign policy. IPAN is conducting a broad People’s Inquiry examining the costs and consequences of Australia’s involvement in US led wars and the US alliance.
The Inquiry aims to give a voice to the community and increase public discussion on the social, economic, financial, environmental and political impacts. It seeks to inform and promote debate in the Australian community. The national Inquiry invites organisations and community members to make submissions on their views and concerns. We also invite submissions offering alternatives for the future. We are keen to develop a coherent and persuasive case for an independent and peaceful Australian foreign policy, and military and defence spending priorities. (See here for earlier information about the inquiry.)
The Inquiry deals with 8 key areas:
• Impact on First Nation Peoples
• Social and Community (Health, Education, Community & Welfare, Housing)
• Union and Workers’ Rights (Job security, workers’ rights, defence and sustainable industries)
• Environment and Climate Change
Military and Defence
Foreign Policy
Economic
Political, including Democratic Rights
For more information about the Inquiry, How to submit, Inquiry Background Paper, Terms of Refence please go to the People's Inquiry webpage: https://Independentpeacefulaustralia.com.au/
We are also offering you/your organisation a face-to-face or online presentation and discussion on the Inquiry and how to submit. If you are interested please feel free to contact us to arrange a time.
Submissions to the Inquiry will be reviewed by a panel of experts chaired by lawyer and investigative journalist, Kellie Tranter, and used to prepare a report on the impact to Australians, of the military alliance with the United States and involvement in wars of the past 70 years, from Korea to Afghanistan (where Australian personnel are still deployed). This report will be widely promoted and publicised in the community, the media, in parliament, amongst politicians and public figures.
With the escalating US-China tensions, the Inquiry report will share your views and suggestions for alternatives to our current predicament.
A submission can be one paragraph or up to 5,000 words. Please also pass this on to anyone whom you think may be interested.
We very much hope that you will be able to fit this important task into your busy schedule.
With best wishes,
IPAN-Victoria Representatives
On behalf of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network
Trailer inside. "An Australian tale of retribution, revenge, redemption and reconciliation." Screening and Q&A session at Rosebud Cinema, 7 PM Saturday 13th March of The Flood by screenwriter, director and producer, Victoria Wharfe McIntyre.The movie was mainly filmed around Kangaroo Valley NSW, it has become a stunning visual record of so much that was lost in the Southern NSW mega fires. Click on this link for tickets.
US President Joe Biden ordered military airstrikes against facilities belonging to anti-terror resistance groups on the Iraqi-Syrian border. The military action, the first of its kind under US President Joe Biden, has been met with negative reactions, with many observers likening Biden's approach to that of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
The military action was said to be in retaliation for recent attacks against American bases and missions in Iraq, which Washington has blamed on so-called "Iran-backed" Iraqi resistance groups. Australian mass-media has uncritically repeated these pretexts. Iran has, however, repeatedly rejected any role in the attacks targeting American bases in Iraq. Iraqi resistance forces have been fighting remnants of the Takfiri Daesh terror group across border regions of Iraq and Syria in coordination with the governments in both Arab countries. Damascus has censured the US air raid describing it as "cowardly" and a "bad sign" from the new US administration.
In the introduction, Mohammed Ali, in Damascus, Syria, gives that state's response to the attacks.
Discussing the issues with compere, Bardia Honardar, are Sara Flounders, National Co-Director, International Action Center, an activist group founded in 1992 by former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark. It supports anti-imperialist movements around the world, and opposes U.S. military intervention in all circumstances; and Daniel Kovalic, lawyer and adjunct Professor of labour law, University of Pittsburg, campaigner in International Human Rights, particularly in Columbia, where he has exposed murder and destabilisation programs by the United States and corporations.
Note that it is not possible to embed this debate. [1] If you click on the link, you will go to the press tv iran site, but you will have to click the back arrow to return to this site.
Transcript of debate
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Daniel Kovalic, what does this attack say about US President Joe Biden's approach to foreign policy?
KOVALIC: Well it says what many of us fear and that is that he is going to be a very aggressive president when it comes to military action. You mentioned at the outset of the broadcast when you compared him to his hawkish predecessor, Trump. I'm not sure that Trump was any more hawkish than Obama and I'm not sure Biden will be less hawkish than Trump. My guess is he will actually be more so, and this is a signal of that. This is an unlawful attack he engaged in. It's illegal. Under international law, there was no security authorisation for it and it wasn't done as an act of self-defense and it was a war-crime. So, I think he's signalling - you know, he keeps saying, "America's back!" and what he means by that is the 82nd Airborne is back to start bombing people. And that's a shame.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Sara Flounders, what do you think is behind the decision to carry out this attack?
FLOUNDERS: Well, I think - as was just said - President Biden is really sending a message not to expect anything different than previous US presidents in terms of criminal, illegal activity. It's an absolute war-crime. I mean, the US has no business being in Syria, has no business being in the region, at all. They use the flimsiest excuses even imaginable, that an Iraqi resistance group backed by Iran - all of this supposed - and for that reason they're bombing Syria? I mean, even here in the US, how on earth is that understandable, to anyone? But it's saying that the US needs no excuse to continue its intervention. The US has been bombing Syria since 2014, and from the very beginning, was part of this effort to bring down Syria, to destroy Syria, to pull it apart. From the very - from 2011, a 'regime-change operation' is what they called it. And this is Biden signalling that there is no real change in policy. It shows enormous hostility. Also, it's openly said, 'This is to be a message to Iran'; it's to be 'a message to Iraq'. A message also to the people here, in the US, who had expectations about Biden; that maybe he would speak for Amazon workers, who are desperately trying to organise a union that a million low-wage workers at stake want warehouse organising. Biden won't say a word. Won't say a word! They're still waiting for a stimulus bill here - millions and millions of people who are desperate - but they could carry out, at enormous expense, a bombing run in Syria. And that is criminal toward the people of Syria, but it's also criminal toward the people here in the US, who needed and expected that there would be some change. And, of course, there's not.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Daniel, Damascus has censured the US air raid, describing it as, "a bad sign from the Administration of the US president." What do you think would be the fall-out from this attack?
KOVALIC: Well, I think that any chance of the nuclear deal with Iran being put back in place between the US and Iran, I think that's - there was slim hope of that anyway, given Biden's position on that, but I think now, that's probably finished. And I think that he, by this bombing, wanted to send the message that there's no rapprochement with Iran coming from him. He sent that message loud and clear, and I'm sure Iran got the message that they're - you know - it's going to be business as usual between the US and Iran, which means sanctions are going to stay in place, which means ordinary Iranians are going to continue to suffer. So, that's going to be one fall-out. I think a lot of the world, even in Europe, is going to be more wary of the Biden administration. I think there were some amongst world leaders who hoped he would be more diplomatic than Trump, that he would use peaceful means to try to deal with conflicts with other countries. And, in fact, Biden - you know - said so. That he would use peaceful means first to deal with other countries and, what he's shown by his actions is he has no intention of doing that. He is going to shoot first and ask questions later.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Sara Flounders. Hours after the US attack, Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, with his Syrian counterpart, they both emphasised the need for western countries to abide by UN Security Council resolutions regarding Syria. The question is the law. It hasn't really been a concern for Washington, especially when it comes to Syria, has it?
FLOUNDERS: This is so absolutely lawless. There's no concern for even a fig leaf of cover on this. Not at all. And we should all keep in mind that the US, with no justification, has absolutely made every effort to stop Syria from rebuilding, after these ten years of hugely destructive war. Syria, at a heroic effort, defeated US attempts to overthrow the government, but the sanctions, [without] which would enable absolutely normal trade and rebuilding, are attempting to strangle Syria, as they are attempting to strangle Iran, and the whole region, because it shuts down any relations between each of the countries of the region and that's what it's also meant to do: to push back development, to push back solidarity - and I don't think it's going to have that impact. I think it will, if anything, toughen resolve in Syria, and in Iran and Iraq too. So, the US has shown that their aims - they can be pushed back by people's mobilisation - they have been pushed back. US was literally pushed out of Iraq, in a very - by millions of people, by real effort, pushed out of Syria - but, they keep trying. They really - it's relentless and it's criminal, and, as I say, it has to be the countries of Europe and here in the US which demand a stop in this criminal activity. It shouldn't be only the people of Syria and Iran speaking on this. Really, the people of the whole world need to denounce this.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Danny Kovalic, the Russian foreign minister said that the US military is present on Syrian soil illegally in violation of all norms of international law. China has warned against any action that would further complicate the situation in Syria, and analysts that we spoke to, here on Press TV, said that Washington might be intending to relaunch the war on Damascus, the one that Biden's old partner, Obama, started. Do you agree with that?
KOVALIC: Well, I think that's a great danger! And again, the Democrats and, frankly, the more 'liberal' media, for lack of a better word, have signaled that that's what they want for years! I mean, you know, the Democrats and outlets like New York Times, and NPR, were constantly attacking Trump for every position he took - which is fine - and I mean, I have no problem with that - but the one thing they would applaud him for is when he bombed Syria! They were clear that that's what they want: More bombing. They made it clear they didn't want Trump to get out of Afghanistan, like he was actually seeming to try to do. So, yeah, I think this is the plan, I think that the goal is to destroy Syria. The US government has on a few occasions acknowledged they cannot overthrow Assad, and so, clearly, the goal is simply to destroy the country. And now, the last figure I saw, is it had 12 million Syrians who are starving through the sanctions, the Caesar sanctions. So, I think they are going to continue to sow chaos and destruction in the Middle East, and I say that very sadly, but that's what I see happen.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Sara Flounders, the foreign minister of Russia, Sergei Lavrov, he recently said that Moscow had received unconfirmed information that the United States is planning to stay in Syria indefinitely. How inconsistent has the US been in its policy in Syria? Many would believe it's impossible to predict whether the US will stay or leave.
FLOUNDERS: Well, the US policy has been consistent in terms of war on the world and, in that, they are signalling that they plan to continue that relentless war. And it is also a war that is absolutely destroying the US. We have the highest - the highest by every count - of deaths from Covid, because there is no health infrastructure. There's a huge military infrastructure. They know what's on every one of 800 military bases around the world. They know they can - with their satellites - monitor everything, yet they can't get out vaccines in the US. They can't give emergency supplies in the midst of a horrendous cold-snap that's hit Texas and parts of the US south, and people are freezing without electricity, without heat. They can't provide those things. They can't provide the most basic things here for the population. And they can't provide vaccines for the global south, for the people of the world - or for the US. But they can provide bombs. They can provide destruction, because that is profitable. And that's how they calculate it. They don't calculate it at all with people need peace and they need health care and they need good food. Those are absolute human needs and, instead, this policy is set by those who profit from war. And it's enormously profitable. Billionaires. So, I - it's destructive and really, those links need to be made more and more, so that people here in the US understand who's responsible, when they don't have heat or jobs or a vaccine. Who's responsible? This government that cares more about war.
Q.BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE):targets, which have often had little impact, they've escalated over the past year, especially since the Iraqi parliament passed a law that mandated a full withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country but many are saying that the rise in such activities are apparently creating a sense of insecurity in Iraq and providing a pretext for the US to keep its troops and forces in the country. Do you see it in that light as well?
KOVALIC: Well, yes, although it's a strange argument - right? It's a circular argument. To be in a country illegally, like the US is, and then to say, when national forces that attack them, 'cause they want them out - as we would in the US, if someone invaded us, and stayed for years - and then to say, 'Well, we have to stay, because our presence is causing this reaction, but we have to stay to counter that reaction' - it makes no sense! But that is US military policy. We create the crisis, then we stay to stomp out the crisis - or to claim to. It's just completely irrational to any honest thinking person.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Sara Flounders, I see you nodding there. Would you like to add anything to that?
FLOUNDERS: Well, it's true. Any thinking person would say this is a criminally insane policy. And we're paying with lives in Syria, with lives around the world, and with lives here. And all that is not being done, in order to continue a war on the world. I just can't say how even disheartening - not that I had any expectation about Biden, or the Democratic Party - but there was a certain expectation that there would be maybe even some breathing room, or that there would be some attention to the needs here, but it's really clear that they intend to keep military presence every single place they can and to expand it, to threaten other countries. So, when Biden sends a message like this, we've got to take it seriously, and up the demands here, because that is the only way, the only way I can see, and to absolutely state how com - there's no excuse! We have to make this completely unacceptable. And to demand they end the sanctions and the bases and the bombings and the war on the world.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): I'm going to stay with you, Miss Flounders. Over the years there have been numerous reports about the infiltration of Daesh elements from Syria into Iraq, under the protection and logistical assistance of US troops. The popular mobilisation forces and its affiliates, which have been integrated into Iraq's regular forces, [are] deployed on the Syrian border and they're helping the army to stem the movement of the terrorists between the two countries. Do you think maybe that's why they're being targeted by the US?
FLOUNDERS: Well, certainly the US wants to continue to use Daesh forces. They want to use everywhere they can the most reactionary forces, who only seek to destroy. And, in the same way that their alliances are with completely criminal monarchies, who don't represent the population, such as Saudi Arabia. So it's not surprising that they would use Daesh-ISIS forces in Iraq, in Syria, and use as a threatening force in other countries of the world. And then it gives them an excuse to say they're going in to fight these forces. Well, maybe folks bought that back in 2014 and 2015, but I don't think anybody accepts that any longer. They know who pays and who transports these forces, who protects them in supposed prisons, and then moves them out in order to carry out destruction again.
BARDIA HONARDAR (COMPERE): Sure. One last question for Daniel Kovalic in Pittsburg. Syria's new permanent representative to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, he stressed that the politicisation of the Syrian refugee crisis has increased the suffering of people in the war-ravaged country and western sanctions in his country have prevented Syrians from acquiring basic commodities. Why are Syrians being collectively punished by western countries, namely the US?
KOVALIC: Well, this is standard operating procedure. Many countries are being punished. Many populations are being punished by the west and in particular by the US, because they are standing firm against US aggression, against US intervention, against US imperialism. And, when you do that, you're punished. That is how it goes. That's how the US has operated since its inception. That is the nature of the beast, unfortunately.
Footnote[s]
[1] Technical explanation: My unsuccessful attempt to embed the video in this article, was as follows: I copied from the link, labelled "< />" beneath the left hand side of the embedded video at https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/02/26/646143/US-SYRIA-STRIKE, by right clicking the mouse and selecting 'copy' from the drop-down menu. I then attempted to link the video from the image the following HTML code:
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In this video, on Friday 26 February 2021, John Shipton, Julian Assange's father, launches the Julian Assange road-show, with an interesting and moving speech on human rights, history, and current trends. The bus you can see behind Mr Shipton, will travel from Melbourne to Canberra, via Broadford, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Albury, Wogga - and other country towns, reaching Canberra within a few weeks, in time for opening of the second session of Parliament. There the road-show members will work with the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Julian Assange, to try to convince the Scott Morrison Australian government to bring Julian home.
Transcript of John Shipton's speech 26 Feb 2021
"This week, Anthony Albanese, the leader of the opposition, made a declaration that ten years is enough. Enough's enough, bring him home. He got it a bit wrong. It's eleven years going on twelve. But it's a great movement in the Australian body-politic when the leader of the opposition makes his position known.
We now have 24 strong members in the cross-party group in the Australian parliament. [Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group"] in the Australian parliament. (Parliamentary Julian Assange Group formally established)].
In the Bundestag, the parliament of Germany, we have a cross-party group. In the French parliament, we have a cross-party group. In the Spanish parliament, we have over 40 Podemas members supporting. In the UK parliament, we have a cross-party group. The Italian parliament is the first in the European parliaments - the Five Star group - to put before the Council of Europe, a declaration, which the Council of Europe adopted, that Julian was a protected journalist and should be let go.
The chair of the European Rights Council of the Council of Europe, declared that Julian was protected. Nils Melzer, as you know, the [UN Special] Rapporteur on torture, declared that Julian was a victim of torture. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared that Julian was being arbitrarily detained. Every single Western and Russian journalist association have declared Julian a member, and that he ought to be free, and that this persecution must stop.
And, just briefly, a little bit of history: After the horror of the 1945 war, where many many people lost their lives, and many countries were destroyed, the people of the world - that's us - gathered together and established the United Nations. The first president of the United Nations was an Australian - one of us! [1] In 1948, that president organised the Declaration of Human Rights. The Chair of that was Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1958, the Conventions of Asylum were adopted by the United Nations. In 1973, Australia brought before the General Assembly of the United Nations, the conventions of Human Rights and the conventions of Asylum, which were passed by a huge majority. Then, the Council of Europe, which is solely a human rights organisation ... forty-seven nations - I think forty-two, sorry - forty-two nations adopted into their national legislation, the human rights legislation, integrated into the national legislation.
Now, these are the great achievements of the 20th century. I wish to remind you of that. These are the epoch-making achievements of the people of the world of the 20th century. That's us. When you read the phrase, "crimes against humanity," it's not them, over there, it's us, here, our children, mothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, sisters. The crime against us.
When you read the phrase, "war-crime," equally, that's a crime against us. A war-crime is the murder of a village - like Mỹ Lai, in Vietnam. Five hundred people slaughtered, before the gunner of the helicopter courageously said, "If you keep shooting these people, we'll shoot you." That brought an end to the slaughter. Five hundred people. So, crimes against humanity, and war-crimes, are crimes against us.
Julian's persecution for revealing those crimes is the collapse into barbarity of those nations, those western nations, that were instrumental in putting together the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and adopting it into, and embracing it in their national legislation.
So, it benefits us, as an emblem, of this decline into barbarity, to support Julian. And the benefits then come to us. It's clear. This is our duty. Our noble task is to free Julian. And, consequently, the political bodies that rule us, that supposedly are sovereign, and supposedly obey us, will understand that they cannot pursue, any longer, the crimes against humanity, the war-crimes, and to obey the legislation which is embraced in their national legislation.
Sorry to go on a little bit. It's a heavy subject. But - if I could just ... one more thing: I've travelled the world now - last was in America. And the support for Julian - from "us" - is a winner. The tide is flowing towards "us". And lifts us up, and lifts our needs up, and our needs are that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be obeyed, and our governments stop sneaking around the place, murdering farmers in Afghanistan.
So, thank you, and God bless."
Footnote[s]
[1] In fact, Herbert Vere ('Doc') Evatt, was the third President of the United Nations and not the first President, However, "Australian politician ‘Doc’ Evatt was an important contributor in the early days of the UN’s existence. He helped to make sure that smaller nations like Australia had a say in the organisation, and was the President of the UN General Assembly from 1948 to 1949." See "Australia on the world stage -1945: Australia plays a leading role in founding the United Nations" | National Museum of Australia Digital Classroom. 'Doc' Evatt (1894-1965) was also Foreign Minister in the Labor Governments of John Curtin and Ben Chifley from 1941 until 1949.
In the two federal elections of 1949 and 1951, he faced Australian wartime heroine Nancy Wake, standing for the Liberal Party, and just narrowly defeated her on each occasion, the second time by only 243 votes out of 41,600 (0.6%). In 1951 'Doc' Evatt successfully campaigned against the Liberal Menzies government's referendum proposal to ban the Communist Party of Australia. 'Doc' Evatt remained Leader of the Labor Opposition from 1951 until 1960.
A fundamentally flawed proposal to bust open super for first home buyers housing deposits could hike the nation’s five major capital city median property prices by between 8-16%, preliminary analysis from Industry Super Australia shows.
Allowing couples to take $40,000 from super would send property prices skyrocketing in all state capitals, but the impact would be most severe in Sydney, where the median property price could lift a staggering $134,000. (see table 1 below)
In most areas the price increases and extra property taxes would quickly surpass the amount of super a first home buyer could withdraw, so homebuyers would be paying more but at the expense of their super. In all cities but Hobart if a couple took out $40,000 from their super, nearly all would be lost through the price hikes the increased demand would fuel, in Sydney prices would spike by three times that amount.
The market would react quickly to the scheme becoming a reality, within a year the full price increases would likely be realised.
Many potential buyers would soon be locked out of the supercharged market, others would be lumped with far bigger mortgages – and would hit retirement with little savings and only the pension to rely on.
A big loser in this scheme, being pushed by a backbench MP, is the taxpayer, who would be forced to pay billions more into the aged pension, which could lead to higher taxes.
There is no free lunch in super and for every $1 taken out of super by someone in their 30s the taxpayer must pay up to $2.50 more in increased pension costs when they retire.
But the scheme is a real winner for the banks who would reap the windfall of the inflated mortgages.
Last week Superannuation Minister Jane Hume joined a chorus of economists, housing experts and a Retirement Income Review report author who have cautioned against raiding super for housing.
The findings of ISA’s preliminary analysis backs expert warnings that such a scheme would inflate prices and make affordability worse.
ISA will soon publish a detailed technical report on its findings, a briefing report on the proposal can be found here: https://www.industrysuper.com/media/super-bad-why-super-for-a-house-will-hurt-first-home-buyers/
Industry Super Australia Chief Executive Bernie Dean, commented as follows:
“This just confirms what experts have been saying for ages; that throwing super into the housing market would be like throwing petrol on a bonfire – it will jack up prices, inflate young people’s mortgages and add billions to the aged pension, which taxpayers will have to pay for. Politicians who own multiple investment properties and pocket 15% super might think price hikes are a ‘secondary’ consideration. They don’t care about locking young people into hugely inflated mortgages and a bleak future with hardly any savings to fall back on. We need sensible solutions – like boosting the supply of affordable housing which will bring prices down and get young people into a home without lumbering workers with higher taxes in the future. We welcomed the minister pouring cold water on this idea very publicly last week and would encourage the Treasurer and the PM to back her up and show that the government is not beholden to extreme elements within its ranks.”
On Friday 26 February, Julian Assange's father John Shipton (pictured), is to embark on his #HomeRun4Julian tour. He will be touring regional Victorian and New South Wales towns on his way to Sydney and Canberra to demand justice for his son, Julian Assange.
The rally will be addressed by John Shipton, amongst others. From there, John Shipton will be embarking on his #HomeRun4Julian tour of regional Victorian and New South Wales towns on his way to Sydney and Canberra to demand justice for his son, Julian Assange.
Indigenous activists and 3CR Radical Radio show hosts Robbie Thorpe and Viv Malo will open the send off with Jacob Grech as MC. Introducing John Shipton, father of Julian Assange and Jerome Small, long time Human Rights Campaigner and supporter of WikiLeaks and Assange.
At 6:30pm Following the send-off of John Shipton, there will be the regular weekly "Melbourne for Wikileaks" (@melbourne4wiki) Vigil for Julian Assange outside Flinders Street Railway station, also on Swanston street, 1 kilometer south of the State Library.
Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) are partnering with filmmaker Maxine Trump on the Australian premiere of her award winning film To Kid or Not to Kid in Melbourne and Perth on the 26 and 27 February. The documentary is being screened as part of SPA’s ‘Stop at Two’ campaign. This will be the first time the film will be screened in theatres before being released on Amazon Prime on February 27th.
SPA National President, Sandra Kanck, says the aim of the campaign is to normalise the choice of having small or childfree families.
“The choice whether or not to have children is one of the biggest decisions any individual or couple will make in their lifetime,” says Ms Kanck.
“This decision is often swayed by family and social factors that have traditionally encouraged larger families. It is clear, however, that overpopulation is playing a very significant role in humans’ unsustainable impact on the planet, including climate change and these matters are now bearing on the decisions made by many to have smaller families or no family at all.
“As an environmental NGO, we advocate for smaller families as one solution towards reducing pressures on the Earth and support those who go down that path,” says Ms Kanck.
“We applaud director Maxine Trump for turning the camera onto her personal life to bravely dive into the taboo and stigmatised topic of child-free living and to explore the reasons behind this choice,” she says.
“As Director Trump has herself declared ‘’’Why can’t we talk about not having kids?’ We think it’s about time we did.”
Ms Kanck also advised that this month will see the launch of Childfree Magazine, founded by Brisbane based Tanya Williams, author of A Childfree Happily Ever After.
“The launch of this new magazine is another timely contribution towards a less judgemental world where it’s OK not to have children,” says Ms Kanck.
More information
“To Kid or Not to Kid” will be screened in Melbourne on February 26, 08:30 pm at Cinema Nova, bookings here. It will be screened in Perth on February 27, 06:45pm at Bassendean Community Centre in cooperation with Transition Town Guilford, more information here. The Melbourne screening will also include the short film ‘Talking Heads: Choosing to Have Children….or Not’ made in house by SPA.
For more information, please contact Michael Bayliss, SPA communications Manager, at [email protected]
Maxine Trump, Director of To Kid or Not To Kid can be contacted for interview or movie review at [email protected]. or at the website.
Tanya Williams, Chief Change maker at Childfree Magazine>/em>, can be contacted at the website.
Melbourne for Wikileaks (@melbourne4wiki) holds vigils for Julian Assange, every Friday, from 6:30pm until 8:30pm, under the clocks at Melbourne's iconic Flinders Street Station. Yesterday, Friday 19 February, I unfurled a canvas banner, 5 meters wide and 1.7 meters deep, with a big picture of Assange on it. No sooner had we raised this banner than we heard loud cries of support for Julian Assange. Support also came from cars, whose drivers tooted their horns, as they drove past the station. (See video below.)
After some time, in which members of the group handed out leaflets and and spoke to passers-by, a succession of people spoke through a megaphone. I was the third speaker. The video of that 7 minute speech was filmed and uploaded to YouTube and is embedded below. Unfortunately the recordings of two other speeches were lost and can't be included here. (I will transcribe my speech soon and include it in this article. Note that in the part where I argue that Julian Assange could not get a fair trial in East Virginia, I said this would be because the "jury was likely to be made up of employees of US intelligence services and their siblings." I meant to say, of course, "employees of US intelligence services and their relatives.")
James Sinnamon speaks at Vigil for Julian Assange
Thanks to everyone who told me my hat looked terrible. I promise never to wear it again.
I'm here today to show my outrage at the fact that the Australian government has done nothing, while this heroic, courageous and visionary journalist, Julian Assange has been illegally held in prison, illegally psychologically tortured and now, illegally physically tortured because no reason other than the fact that through Wikileaks, he was able to tell the world what the United States didn't want us to know about what they were doing in their own grubby political world and other countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
We now know, because of Julian Assange and other whistleblowers [2] before him, that the American case for their wars against Iraq and Libya and Afghanistan was a pack of lies. We know that because of Julian Assange and courageous whistleblowers from within the ranks of the United States military and within the United States government who know that what the United States has been telling the world is a lie and they've proven this to us. They've given us the information to show us that they've been lying to us. [3]
Now, because the world knows so much more about what the United States has been doing, it means that they are not able, so easily, to make up a pretext towards another war against another country.
Obviously, two countries that are in America's cross-hairs is Venezuela in South America - they want to take over Venezuela and steal all their petroleum - and they want to take over Iran for daring to be a sovereign independent sovereign country not under the control of the United States.
Now, Julian Assange is an Australian citizen. To report the crimes of the Americans and their allies is not a crime. It's journalism.
To speak the truth is not a crime. It's journalism.
But, in the eyes of the crooked, vile people, that are running the United States, and their allies, it is a crime for people to speak the truth about their crimes, and that is why they have been trying, since 2010, to get their grubby little hands on Julian Assange and they have done that through subterfuge with the help of the crooked Swedish government and the London government, they've fabricated a charge that Julian Assange had sexually assaulted these two women in Sweden.
Julian was quite prepared to go Sweden to answer those charges, but the Swedish government would not agree to prevent him from being extradited to the United States. So, he knew that the Swedish government, in collusion with the United States, had attempted to get him on to Swedish soil only so that they could send him off to the United States.
In the United States there plan was to try him in secret before a jury made up exclusively of people from East Virginia, who are mostly working for intelligence agencies or their siblings. [4] So it is unlikely that this so-called jury would have [inaudible ] paid any attention to the argument of Julian Assange's defence team. They would have taken about 30 seconds to pronounce him guilty and once Julian Assange had been found to be guilty, their plan was to lock him in jail for 175 years and in his prison term he would be confined to a single cell for 23 hours a day and allowed outside for only one hour a day. [5]
He would be denied any books, any Internet, anything. His life would be an absolute misery. The people he would be in jail with would be convicted terrorists and other murderers.
The prospect of this was so terrible for Julian Assange that he was clearly thinking of committing suicide rather than allow himself to be locked in jail for 175 years.
Now, all this time, for the last 10 years, the Australian government has said almost nothing. It's been ages - weeks since the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has said a word about Julian Assange. All he has said is, "Oh, it's going on in England and it's not really our business to interfere with what the British courts are saying."
Not a word about the complete travesty of justice that Julian Assange is facing with the fact that every day he is brought to court - every day he was tried - he was brought to court inside a cage. He couldn't speak to his lawyers. He couldn't pass notes to his lawyers. He was stripped several times and searched each day before he went into court.
How is that 'due process' according to Foreign Minister Maurice Payne? She calls that 'due process'?
Clearly, this Australian government, that's supposed to have a duty of care towards Australian citizens, doesn't want to know.
They're turning their backs on Julian Assange and doing nothing.
Any government that allows another government - the British government, the American government - to treat any of its citizens, that have committed no crime, in this way, doesn't deserve to be in power.
And what we have to do is, when every member of Parliament asks for your vote at the next election, ask that member of Parliament: What have they done for Julian Assange for the last 10 years whilst an innocent Australian citizen, who has committed no crime, has been tortured physically, [6] confined illegally and psychologically tortured? Where have they lifted a finger for Julian Assange? Ask them that question and it will be amazed if any one of them can talk to you with a straight face.
What you have to do is you have to find some candidates who do have a backbone and do have principles who are prepared to stand up for Julian Assange. Find those candidates, vote for them.
So what we are going to do is to continue to hold these vigils every Friday night. We're going to try to reach a larger and larger audience, get more and more people to these vigils and these protests and make our voices so loud that it will be impossible for the Australian government to ignore and continue to do nothing for Julian Assange.
It's about time the Australian government acted. If they had a backbone. If they had any decency in them, here's what they would do:
Tomorrow they would send out an contingent of Federal Police. [7] They would go right to Belmarsh Prison. They would tell the Belmarsh Prison authorities that Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is being held there illegally by the British government. They would demand that the British government immediately release Julian Assange to come back to Australia. That's what a government with a backbone and decency would do.
Now the Australian government has done nothing. They've barely said a word about Julian Assange these last ten years. Any word they say is to cast aspersions on Julian Assange.
None of these people deserve your vote. None of them deserve to hold office. Make sure you act on that at the next federal election. Thank you.
Footnote[s]
[1] On the previous Friday 12 February, I had not gone to the vigil due to the sudden and unexpected, if short-lived, outbreak in Coronavirus infections on that day. On the Friday prior to that, Friday 5 February, the banner had been made with only one tubular canvas slot at each end into which the supporting dowel poles with which it could be held up for display could be inserted. Unfortunately, because of the banner's great size - 5 meters x 1.7 meters - one pole at each end was not sufficient to support the banner. A third tubular canvas slot was needed in the middle. As a workaround, I stood behind the banner (as pictured right) and held it up with my raised arms hands in the middle. After some time this fatigued me and we chose to place it flat on the ground facing upwards. (The image is linked to a short @melbourne4wiki tweet which contains a short video from which that image was copied. That tweet was re-tweeted by "Denver Free Assange" (@DNVfreeJA) The following Friday wooden poles to support the banner were inserted into its three long narrow vertical pockets, as you can see in the video.
[2] Correction: Julian Assange is, himself, a journalist and not a whistleblower.
[3] Corrrection: In fact the WMD fabrication that was used to start the war against Iraq in 2003 was not exposed by any whistleblower or Wikileaks. United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter. Scott Ritter, who had previously uncovered Iraqi chemical weapons, argued in 2003, that chemical weapons in Iraq didn't exist in quantities substantial enough to pose a threat. He consequently opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq but, for most people, that news was overwhelmed by the vast amount of corporate newsmedia reporting in favour of the invasion of Iraq.
[4] Two corrections: I should have said that the "jury ... are all working for intelligence agencies or their family" and not the "jury ... are mostly working for intelligence agencies or their siblings."
[5] Julian Assange would be allowed out for only one hour every day into another adjacent cell as small as his main cell for exercise.
[6] Correction: During his illegal detention inside the Ecuadorian embassy, which lasted 6 years and 10 months (19/6/12 - 11/4/19) Julian was psychologically tortured, but not physically tortured. This changed after Julian Assange was dragged out of the embassy on 11 April 2019 and imprisoned at Belmarsh. There Julian Assange was subject to both psychological and physical torture.
[7] Monday 22 Feb 2021, 7:47AM +11 : Upon further reflection, whilst the British government's imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange is clearly illegal, Julian Assange's release is unlikely to occur simply as a consequence of a contingent of Australian Federal police officers attempting to enforce Australian law and international law on British soil.
However, were Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to speak to British Prime Minster Boris Johnson to demand Julian Assange's release, I think it highly unlikely that the British PM would not accede.
If Boris Johnson did not agree to release Julian Assange, Scott Morrison would have this recourse: He could threaten to take the case to to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or to the United Nations. The ICC would almost certainly find the United Kingdom's treatment of Julian Assange illegal, if not criminal.
If Julian Assange's case were ever brought to the United Nations, the United Kingdom's odious complicity with the US government would be clearly shown before the whole world.
In the high likelihood that Boris Johnson would then agree to release Julian Assange, Scott Morrison should then send a contingent of Australian Federal Police to escort Julian Assange from Belmarsh Prison back to Melbourne in order to safeguard him from any further malign behaviour by any agent of the United States government.
This is how a decent and humane national leader would behave.
End the illegal detention and torture of this Australian hero.
Why won't the Australian government act to get Julian Assange out of the Belmarsh hellhole?
By its stated intention to imprison the visionary Australian journalist and publisher, Julian Assange, for 175 years, the United States government has confirmed the criminality and malevolance of those who are truly in charge of it. State officials, including Hillary Clinton, have also been recorded talking openly about assassinating Assange.
Because mainstream media now only reports what the US government tells it, the world needs the Wikileaks news service to reveal the truth behind the United States' and its allies' wars, over the last three decades and beyond. Wikileaks has protected the identities and the ability of people in the military, government spy agencies, government bureacracy, or private corporations, to get vital information out to all of us about repeated dangerous and criminal acts of states towards ordinary people.
The United States' deep state has been trying since 2010 to get its hands on Julian to punish him for revealing its war-crimes to the world, and for refusing to reveal his sources. The US wants firstly to prevent Julian Assange from resuming his own work for Wikileaks, and secondly, to set a precedent that would allow the US henceforth to kidnap any other journalist, whose reporting would reveal to us facts about other invasions of, and meddling in the affairs of countries throughout much of the world - in countries like Venezula, Cuba, Bolivia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iran - that the US wants to keep hidden from us.
Julian Assange is not even an American. He is an Australian citizen. He has committed no crime - he has only been found guilty of the misdemeanour - skipping bail in 2012 to seek asylum in the London Ecuadorian embassy after the Swedish prosecutors had sought to extradite him for questioning over allegations of sexual assault by two Swedish women.
When the Swedish government refused to give Julian a guarantee that they would not allow the US to extradite him, he decided that the request for questioning could only be a ploy on behalf of the US. So, Julian skipped bail' and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. For thus acting to thwart US attempts to illegally kidnap him from Swedish soil 8 years ago, UK Judge Vanessa Barraitser sentenced Julian Assange to imprisonment alongside convicted terrorists and murderers in Belmarsh Prison for 50 weeks - the absolute maximum offence for the misdemeanour of skipping bail.
Even after Julian had served that outrageous sentence, Barraitser further extended his detention to allow more time for the US prosecutors to prepare their 'case' for extradition, which, after weeks of further kangaroo court proceedings, was denied to the US, whilst all the prosecution's smears against Julian were still upheld.
In spite of this unexpected ruling, Barraitser refused to release Julian. He is expected to spend many months in degrading conditions behind bars whilst various appeals by the US against her rulng are heard.
What you can do
Attend the Melbourne for Wikileaks (@melbourne4wiki Twitter page) vigil for Julian Assange at Flinders St. Station every Friday at 6:30pm.
In contrast to her loudly interveningon behalf of journalist Cheng Lei, and writer Yang Hengjun, who are both currently detained on criminal charges in China, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, in concert with this and former Australian governments, has ruthlessly turned her back on journalist and publisher, Julian Assange. Julian Assange, arguably of greater stature than any other journalist in the world, remains in the dungeons of the corrupt UK government, which is in league with the United States and its war machine. Assange's 'crime' was to expose United States war crimes (and those of other states) to the world. It is indicative of America's despotism that its allies will do its bidding against their own citizens, helping the US to try to destroy Assange as a warning to any journalist who might try to write the truth about war and corruption when it involves powerful people. It is shocking that President Trump pardoned the perpetrators of what came to be called 'Collateral Murder', but backed the continued persecution of Assange. Behind his saccharinely benign grandpa mask, Biden takes a similar stance. [Candobetter Editor: Title change on 10 Feb 2021]
If Assange had exposed sadistic Nazi crimes, he would be called a hero. By exposing sadistic United States war crimes, he is falsely and despicably branded as a criminal. Critics of the Nazi war and torture machine, when they were in power, were unlikely to survive. We know that critics of the American war and torture machine have similar poor life expectancy. What does that tell us about the US-NATO alliance and its most faithful supporter - Australia?
Some Australian journalists are more equal than others
The Australian government's efforts to free Cheng Lei from prison in China receive front page publicity.
"Payne said officials had visited Cheng six times during her detention, most recently at the end of January. In the days after Cheng’s August detention was made public, two Australian foreign correspondents were flown out of China, helped by Australian consular officials after the pair were questioned by China’s state security ministry." (Kirsty Needham, "Australian journalist formally arrested in China on suspicion of leaking secrets," Reuters, 8 Feb 2021.)
We saw similar grandstanding in efforts to rescue corporate media Al Jazeera journalist, Peter Greste who, along with Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, on 29 December 2013, was arrested by Egyptian authorities, who complained of journalistic misrepresentation. The three journalists were accused of helping Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood, and of doctoring news items in a manner that endangered the Egyptian state. Suzette Dreyfus later criticised Greste, for his repetition of opinions used to slur Julian's credentials as a journalist and publisher. Greste has written two such articles, "Julian Assange is no journalist: don’t confuse his arrest with press freedom," published by the so-called Alliance for Journalists' Freedom (AJF), April 16, 2019, and "Peter Greste on Julian Assange," also published by the AJF, Feb 25, 2020. With friends like this in the AJF, you might say, who needs enemies? Greste really throws the courageous Assange under a bus. Interesting, then, that Greste was released without explanation after an international outcry from the same western block that is either persecuting Assange or leaving him to rot.
ABC journalist, Bill Bertles and Financial Review journalist, Michael Smith, probably escaped China just before being arrested. Arriving in Australia, they were feted by their colleagues and the government. Appropriately, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China:
Meanwhile Julian is checkmated in England by foreign powers egregiously manipulating the judiciary.
Australia turns a blind eye to utter corruption in the British judicial system against Julian Assange, time and time again:
In 2010 Assange voluntarily answered questions from the Swedish police about a very strange story of an alleged rape claimed by a female journalist. The police found there was not enough evidence, closed the case, and told Assange he was free to continue on to England. The United States subsequently leaned on Sweden to reopen the case, and England arrested Assange, where he went through three hearings about extraditing him to Sweden. His lawyers warned him that such extradition and the charges were a ploy to get him extradited from Sweden to the United States, where he had as much chance of a fair trial as anyone would in Nazi Germany, who reported on the concentration camps. Assange jumped bail and sensibly applied for and received asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. After this the British continuously tried to extract him from the embassy.
During this time, unbeknownst to the world public, the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny contacted the English Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in 2013 to let it know that she was going to withdraw the charges and an international warrant for Assange's arrest, (on the cooked up charges of 'rape'), because they were plainly excessive relative to the alleged crime. In an action demonstrating political influence on the justice system, biased against Assange, in favour of the United States, the British Prosecution Service tried to convince her not to drop the case for extradition. These communications were only revealed in 2018, although it was obvious to many that something like this must be going on. (See Bowcott, Owen; MacAskill, Ewen, "Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition in 2013, CPS emails show," The Guardian, 11 February 2018.)
Apparently, the Crown Prosecution Service succeeded in getting Prosecutor Ny to keep up the persecutory processes against Assange, despite public disapproval from within the Swedish legal fraternity. However, in March 2015, Sweden allowed Assange to respond to questions from the embassy in London. Most of the charges had expired under the Swedish statute of limitations by then but, to this day, many people in the world think that Assange was found guilty of rape. This is because of the eagerness of the corporate media to report and support the United States narrative, in preference to reporting the facts to a public that needs to be properly educated in this matter.
On 17 May Prosecutor Nye officially suspended their investigations and revoked the warrant to arrest Assange. The option of resuming the process was kept open in case Assange came to Sweden before August 2020.
On 11 April 2019, Assange was arrested and dragged out of the embassy by English police, in an aggressive display of naked contempt for his refugee status by the English state. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correra had been openly sympathetic to Assange, but could not serve a third term. He had refused to allow police into the embassy, according to his diplomatic rights under the Vienna Convention. The new president, Lenin Morero, quickly demonstrated hostility towards Assange and is thought to have been responding to inducements from the United States to breach the embassy refugee obligations to Assange. (See "Julian Assange Arrest Part of Lenin Moreno's Deal with IMF: Ex-Foreign Minister Patiño Under Morero," Telesur, 14 April 2019.)
Undercover Global, a Spanish defense and security firm, conducted multiple invasive surveillance activities on behalf of the United States CIA, involving filming and recording all Assange’s activities in the embassy, including conversations with his legal team, even when Assange tried to talk to them privately in the toilet area. Later British courts would unaccountably allow the United States to use this illegally gathered information, which should have been inadmissible, in their case for extraditing Assange. This conduct alone should utterly discredit their mission in the eyes of the world public but, sadly, the mass media has failed to alert and educate the public adequately.
Does anyone remember how the middle classes all over the world marched down their main streets, calling, "We are all Charlie!" when Islamic fundamentalists killed journalists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris? Yet, when a man who, arguably, will be the last journalist and publisher to be able to reach the world on issues of global surveillance, the military industrial complex, and mass media corruption, is thrown into a maximum security prison, silenced and maddened, there is an abject failure among the same classes who thought the Charlie Hebdo cause so chic, to shout, "We are all Julian Assange!" and demand that the Australian government intervene to stop his censorship, suppression, and imprisonment.
Federal Labour Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese ('Albo' - pictured right), on Australia Day, tweeted in praise of local Australian heroes, with the glaring exception of Julian Assange, the most widely-recognised Australian anywhere, whose suffering is unfathomable, and whose services to the anti-war movement are immeasurable. Why wasn't Julian Assange included and why does the Australian Government allow the UK and the US to continue their illegal persecution, imprisonment, and torture, of this Australian citizen?
Anthony Albanese's Australia Day tweet about Australian local heroes fails to mention another Australian who is at least as heroic of any one of the four people featured in that image, and far more famous: Julian Assange
In response to the following Tweet Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) the Leader of the Labor Party Opposition in the Australian Federal Parliament:
"These are the true heroes of Australia. They put themselves on the line every day of this pandemic – to keep us safe, to keep us healthy, and to keep Australia moving forward. On this Australia Day, on behalf of the nation, we say thank you."
Julian Assange is an Australian citizen who has committed no crime. Julian's only 'crime' is to set up the Wikleaks news service from which we have learned a great deal about the United States' wars, proxy wars, and economic sanctions, impacting extensively on humankind through recent decades. These malign actions by the U.S. government have cost the lives of many hundreds of thousands in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Bolivia, Haiti, Venezuela, and elsewhere, as well as causing economic devastation. Were it not for Wikileaks revealing to us much of what the U.S. government would prefer to have kept hidden from us, we can only guess what further amount of carnage and devastation would have ensued.
As has been found by Nils Melzer, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture [1], Julian Assange has been effectively imprisoned and tortured for 9 years now. Following the initial 8 years Julian spent confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy, in order to avoid being extradited to the U.S., he was outrageously locked up for an additional 50 weeks in a maximum security prison, mostly in solitary confinement, by the disgraceful London magistrate Vanessa Barraitser, for skipping bail in 2012. He had skipped bail only in order to legitimately seek asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Fifty weeks is the absolute maximum that anyone can be sentenced to for skipping bail, and the length of Assange's sentence was unheard of. When this outrageous sentence expired, Barraitser further extended it, giving the U.S. government lawyers' more time to prepare their 'case' for Julian's extradition.
Should the United States government succeed in having Julian Assange extradited, he stands to be tried in secret [2] before a jury selected from the Eastern District of Virginia, a community which consists almost entirely of U.S. spy agency employees and their spouses. It is highly unlikely that any one of these jurors would pay the least regard to any evidence put forward in Julian Assange's defence. Almost certainly, he stands certain to be found guilty and thence to be sentenced to 175 years in solitary confinement. Once Julian Assange's sentence commences, he would only be allowed to leave his cell for 1 hour each day for exercise - this is effectively a death sentence, if not worse,
Even the extradition hearings have been a cruel medieval travesty of justice. Julian was deprived of sufficient preparation for his defense. He was subsequently brought into the courtroom in handcuffs, held inside a glass cage from which he could not hear clearly, and denied the right to speak in private to his lawyers. Public seating at the court was severely limited, so coverage of the event was grossly inadequate. The mainstream press avoided covering this crucial international matter and, when it did, it tended simply to publish press releases from the US legal team, ignoring Julian's defense. The trial was not publicly filmed and the alternative press had virtually no access to what was going on. Although disallowing Julian's extradition on medical grounds, the judge threw out matters relating to the political nature of the United State's pursuit of Julian because he had exposed its war-crimes and corruption, with US officials urging his assassination, and the public right to know about these crimes and anything else that governments do. Two Australian parliamentarians have visited Julian and have tried to stick up for him, but the Australian Government ignored their reports. Unfortunately the United States has been allowed to appeal even the judge's denial of extradition on medical grounds, and Julian continues to be held in prison whilst his massive team of persecutors prepare more ersatz legal arguments whereby they claim the right to cover up their own grotesque crimes.
Surely the Australian government has a duty of care to any Australian citizen, but particularly to a citizen who has contributed so much to humanity and who has committed no crime. Even skipping bail was deemed justified by the United Nations, which has tried to intervene on Julian's behalf, but which the UK government has persistently and shamelessly ignored.
It is long past the time in which the Australian government should have intervened against the U.S. government's efforts to kidnap Julian Assange from London. The Australian government should act now to demand that the U.K. immediately free Julian Assange from his illegal detention and send him on a flight back home to Australia, with a guarantee of immunity from United States pursuit when he gets here. Were the Australian government not to do this, the matter certainly should be raised on the floor of Parliament by Anthony Albanese and debated. But Albanese is missing in action so far.
Footnote[s]
[1] Nils Melzer's full title is "United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"
[2] Were Julian Assange to be tried in public, the United States 'case' against him would fall in a heap. The whole world would see the real United States' government for the outlaw rogue regime that it really is. Although I have, so far, not viewed the documentary evidence for this, I think it is safe for me to assume that the United States' government intends to conduct its 'trial' of Julian Assange in secret, hidden away from public view. In retrospect, I don't know if this was ever raised by Julian's defence team, but had the U.S. prosecution refused to give an undertaking to try Julian public, it's 'case' would have been shown to be even more of a joke than it already was.
On Jan. 20, 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network urges Australians to reflect on our relationship with the US during this inauguration and think deeply about how we may forge an independent and peaceful foreign policy in the coming years.
While President Biden promises to differ from former-President Donald Trump, Australia faces issues that will persist regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
On-going conflicts in the Middle East, the growing power of China, the ramifications of global warming and many more issues necessitate an intelligent foreign policy informed by the need for peace, science and our national interests.
IPAN has established the People’s Inquiry exploring the costs and consequences of the US alliance and US-led wars to assist in the development of this foreign policy. The Inquiry is already receiving submissions which will result in a report covering the Australian public’s opinion on the US alliance and its alternatives.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s admission that Australia is “joined at the hip” to the US is a worrying prospect - a sentiment that has continued under Prime Minister Scott Morrison – and is one not supported by an Australian public that routinely disagrees with US foreign policy.
Australia needs to build a diplomatic and policy apparatus that can not only deviate from Washington but pursue the interests of the Australian people.
This will only happen when a cohesive and informed foreign policy approach is established. The People’s Inquiry will contribute to this through soliciting public submissions and expert opinion.
Details of this Inquiry can be found at the following link: https://www.independentpeacefulaustralia.com.au
Republished, with embedded 25 minute Video, from Assange extradition court ruling (11/1/21) |PressTV. This is the most recent edition of Richard Medhurst's (pictured) weekly Communiqué broadcast.
A British Judge has ruled on whether Australian journalist Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States. The WikiLeaks founder is wanted on espionage and computer hacking charges and faces up to 175 years in prison.
As Richard Medhurst, who attended the extradition hearing, explains, the judge's decision to block extradition solely on health grounds still leaves press freedoms at risk and validates the politically charged indictment by the US.
Conceivably, were the prosecution, at a subsequent hearing, to assure Judge Vanessa Barraitser that they would take tender-loving care of Julian Assange during his solitary confinement and 'trial' before a jury packed with U.S. secret service operatives, she could then rule that the health grounds objection to the U.S. plans to extradite Julian Assange no longer holds whilst again disregarding the clear politcal motivation behind the U.S. extradition request.
Update (Thursday 1/4/2021): Melbourne supporters of Julian Assange will be holding our weekly vigil tomorrow evening at Flinders Street Station from 6:30pm Good Friday, this Friday 2 April. For more information see @LorineBrice
Melbourne supporters will be holding their weekly vigil for Julian Assange this Friday at 6:30pm outside Flinders Street Station. It is vital for every Australian, who values free speech and opposes the unlawful detention and torture of Julian Assange by the U.K. government at the behest of its U.S. master, to demand that our government act now to free Julian Assange. For more information, see @LorineBrice, @Melbourne4Wiki.
Be there: 7:30pm, this Friday, at Flinders Street Railway Station. Listen to speeches and help us hand out leaflets.
Failure to act could well result in Julian's death, as Greek Australian activist, Yanis Varifoukis, explains in the video embedded below:
This household had a moment of great joy last night, to hear that Judge Vanessa Baraitser, presiding at the Magistrate's court, has disallowed Julian Assange's extradition on medical grounds. She found there was a high risk of his suiciding if confined in a US prison. However, she apparently threw out the grounds of public interest (protection of journalists); political persecution, and oppression. She also seems to have upheld the honouring of the UK treaty obligations to the United States, as the only public interest matter. For some of us, her decision on medical grounds, that Assange would probably suicide in US prison conditions, is equivalent to preventing the extradition of a prisoner to Nazi Germany, on grounds that they would probably not survive the concentration camps. The US prison system actually allows major corporations to benefit from slave labour of prisoners; it conducts secret trials; and it holds prisoners indefinitely without trial - as in Guantanamo Bay prison. The war crimes and international surveillance of governments and private individuals that Julian Assange exposed show the United States as a totally rogue state. It is not even a party to the International Criminal Court. Julian Assange's defense team called the UK treaty obligations with this rogue state into question. We need an international media and state denunciation of state alliances with the United States, but that would, ironically, require journalists to run the danger of being pursued by this rogue state, just as Julian Assange has been. One hopes that a defense of Julian Assange against the US appeal would benefit from a higher court looking again at the points of law disallowed by Judge Baraitser.
A major people's Inquiry into the costs and consequences of the US Alliance and Australian involvement in US-led wars has been launched. Why is this inquiry so different? Because it is not run by government. It is run for the people by the people. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has trumped most voluntary organisations by taking democratic power into its own hands. This people's inquiry was conceived of and agreed to by IPAN members and is run and officiated by volunteers, in cooperation with web news-site Independent Australia. You are invited to make a personal or organisational submission because they really want to know what you think about Australia's foreign policy. Please consider donating. The Inquiry was launched on 26th November 2020, and details can be found on the Inquiry website, namely https://independentpeacefulaustralia. In the video below, organising participants describe the aims and basic organisation of the inquiry. After some preliminary explanations, at 8.10 minutes into the video, Kellie Tranter, the Inquiry Chairperson, gives a great speech about why "Australia must reconsider its relationship with the U.S." We republish the transcript of her speech from her website. Other speakers follow.
Speech at the launch of IPAN’s US-Australia Alliance Inquiry, November 27, 2020 by Kellie Tranter.
I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and future.
May I thank IPAN, particularly Annette Brownlie, for inviting me to be a part of the first national public inquiry into the costs and consequences of the Australia-US Alliance.
May I also say what a privilege it is to be given the opportunity to work alongside the panel of experts Alison, Jeannie, Greg, Ian, Terry, Vince, Chad and Peter, who collectively bring such depth of knowledge, experience, wisdom, and energy to the conversation.
Our aim
Condensing the views of many experts to date on the direction in which we must head in terms of defence and foreign policy, the general consensus is that our aim is to:
- be a responsible independent middle power taking a more independent position with multilateral organisations;
- be respected internationally not only for our moral clarity, integrity and values but also for our domestic governance systems, constructive global activism and human rights advocacy, provided always that what we espouse must be consistent with what we practice at home;
- recapture our strategic independence;
- recognise the paramount importance of peace in the Pacific to our national interests;
- determine our own foreign policy, respecting other nations and interests but looking after our own interests;
- gradually downgrade military cooperation with the United States and involve the parliament and the people in the development of our foreign and defence policy;
- be self-starting and self-reliant rather than sitting back waiting for a friend who may not come;
- prioritise our own security;
- understand that our future lies in South East Asia and make our way in Asia ourselves. Develop a coalition of interests; and
- accept that we can’t squeeze China down and that Asia will not be shaped by US military force or economic measures.
Leadership
Achieving our aims requires leadership.
We are a competent people and should be a confident country. Our political leaders need to expend some political capital and time doing these things to prepare us for the new era that is dawning.
We need leaders with imagination, courage and intelligence, who will put the nation’s interests before their own. People who recognise that a time of change has come, who have sensible views about how it should be met and who can provide the leadership to drive change forward.
The current status
The current status is perhaps best summed up by Paul Keating when he said there’s “Nothing ever impressive about Australia’s Foreign Policy.”
We are a dependent middle power. We wait for signals from Washington before we speak.
There are not enough of our own foreign policy achievements. There are few examples of Australia deciding what it wants in the world, working out how to get there and taking steps to achieve that.
Australia is too closely tied to United States.
In July 2019 US made a $300 million push to expand naval facilities in the Northern Territory, with 2500 marines being rotated through Darwin in recent times.
It is unlawful and morally wrong to let another country take us to any war of aggression, but it is despicable to do so when those wars are based on lies and misinformation. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria are the most recent examples.
Apropos Afghanistan, too little reflection has come now, following the release of the Brereton report. Immediately after the September 11 attacks the Howard government invoked the provisions of the ANZUS Treaty which references the United Nations Security Council in Articles I, IV and VI. UN Security Council resolutions 1368 and 1373 adopted before the US led invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001 did not authorise the use of force and didn’t even mention Afghanistan. We now know that the US did not even seek specific legal support from the United Nations Security Council for its actions in Afghanistan.
The first Australian parliamentary debate about the war didn’t take place until October 2010, after we’d been there nearly a decade, and only after activists, lawyers, independent journalists, diplomats and humanitarian organisations had been publicly agitating for it.
A month later it was reported that the then Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, had cracked down on media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, gagging senior Defence Force officers and insisting that any media inquiries to the Defence Force be diverted to his office. Defence Force personnel were also barred from talking to the media during the parliamentary debate on the war.
The point missed by mainstream media is point 38 of the Brereton report which states that ‘the events discovered in this inquiry occurred within the ADF, by members of the ADF, under the command of the ADF. To the extent that the protracted and repeated deployment of the relatively small pool of Special Forces personnel to Afghanistan was a contributing factor – and it should be recognised that the vast majority of Special Forces personnel did repeatedly deploy to Afghanistan without resorting to war crimes- it was not a risk to which any government, of any persuasion, was ever alerted.’
If that is true, then the government has allowed Defence to operate independently on foreign soil and without proper supervision. That is culpable in itself and, even accepting that the principles of ministerial responsibility and of military chains of command meshed with responsibility seem to have been thrown by the wayside, cannot continue.
On 18 November Australia was still waiting for a decision from Trump on an Afghanistan troop withdrawal so we could follow suit even though our government was sitting on the horrific findings of the Brereton report which was released publicly the next day.
So we have a report saying there’s credible evidence our soldiers have committed war crimes and we’re still waiting on Washington to tell us what to do.
How many lives could have been saved if all individual members of parliament and the Australian people were permitted to air their concerns and openly evaluate strategies without consequences.
How many people know that we currently have troops serving in Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, the Golan Heights, the Sinai, Cyprus , South Korea, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and in every single State of the United States, either serving or embedded.
My FOIs to find out precisely what we’re doing in the Golan Heights and the United States were declined.
One wonders what else Australia might have had knowledge of or been involved with overseas when in 2017- a year after it was first reported that retired Australian Major General Mike Hindmarsh was serving as a senior advisor for the United Arab Emirates forces engaged in conflict in Yemen – we voted against a UN resolution about the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of people to self-determination, and in September this year we voted against the implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the UN Secretary General on the causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa (A/RES/74/302).
We voted no and the African nations themselves voted yes. The same African nations we romanced for a time to secure a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, then abandoned, and whom we will have to court again when we next bid for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2029-30 given that for successful election to UN bodies African votes are key to reaching the required 2/3rds majority.
Australia’s position of doing everything it can to oppose the ban on nuclear weapons, because it believes we rely on US nuclear weapons as a deterrent, is well known but misguided. It naively ignores the grave risks of “nukes” to all people of the world, particularly the scope for human error to lead to devastation, and leads to an absurdly militaristic mentality as demonstrated last year when we voted against a UN resolution for further practical measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space. That was no doubt because of our government’s longer running enthusiasm to ‘deepen our cooperation with the United States on hypersonics’.
Post-COVID Scott Morrison announced that Australia will ramp up defence spending to $270 billion over the next decade as the country prepares for a “post-COVID world that is poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly.
About $90bn of that will be spent on advanced new kit, including “hypersonic” weapons, fighter jets and a cyber warfare capability. Australia will also put its own spy satellites in space.
Richard Speier, a member of the adjunct staff at the non-profit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation warned of the proliferation risks of hypersonics:
‘Hypersonic missiles travel at a speed of one mile per second or more—at least five times the speed of sound. They are able to evade and conceal their precise targets from defences until just seconds before impact. This leaves targeted states with almost no time to respond….It could authorise the military rather than the national leadership to conduct retaliatory strikes, but this would raise the risk of an accidental conflict.
We are enmeshed in the United States military machine. In Brian Toohey’s book ‘Secret’ he states that the US requires almost all countries that buy its weapons systems, including Australia, to send sensitive components back to the US for repairs, maintenance and replacements without the owners being allowed access to critical information, including source codes, needed to keep these systems operating…Australia could not conduct operations requiring the use of its advanced weapons platforms for any length of time without US support….This means we could be defenceless if attacked, unless the US allows the Defence Force independent access to key operational components of fighter planes, missiles, submarines, surveillance systems and so on… ‘
Australia’s relationship with China, on the other hand, is at its lowest point since diplomatic relations were established in 1972. We bait and antagonise.
In a July 2020 survey of how urban, educated Chinese view Australia’s bilateral relations going forward, 49.5% of respondents said the United States is the biggest impediment.
No doubt fuelled by Murdoch media and politicians, a Pew Research poll on 6 October 2020 found that negative views of China increased most in Australia, where 81% now say they see the country unfavourably.
Unsurprisingly, Australia abstained from voting on the yearly UN resolution about combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
Australia’s justification for abstention can’t possibly be support for free speech and freedom of expression when its own citizen, Julian Assange, having exposed US war crimes, sits in a high security prison facing extradition to the United States where, according to US prosecutors, 1st amendment protections don’t apply to foreign journalists.
Our Government has done nothing and remains silent.
In terms of respect for international rules-based order, last year Scott Morrison criticised the UN and called it an unaccountable internationalist body. Australia was criticised for blocking progress at the UN climate conference in Madrid by trying to use carry over credits for beating Kyoto targets. We have long ignored international criticism of our treatment of asylum seekers and Indigenous Australians. We continue to permit the export of weapons and/or componentry to countries known for human rights. And we continue to abstain from votes calling for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
Our Defence and foreign policies don’t seem to be underpinned by any strong or even substantial human rights values.
The path forward
I’m looking forward to the ideas generated by and through this Inquiry. The good news is that on the back of all I’ve said, there’s plenty of room for improvement in the defence – foreign policy space.
The first thing this requires is that Australia recognise and support the fact that diplomacy is vital to safeguarding our national interests. An annual spend of $28 billion on Defence compared to $1 billion on diplomacy is unsustainable and moronic. Not only that, but it has been reported that a numerical deficiency in strategically minded staff at DFAT has allowed Home Affairs and Defence Departments to step in and fill the strategic void.
The late former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser warned that ‘If the United States goes to war in the Pacific we don’t have an option to stay out of it. That as it stands the Australian Prime Minister has no capacity to stand up in Parliament and say we’re going to pass this one by because of US troops in Darwin and presence of Pine Gap.
Fraser called it a “total betrayal of Australian sovereignty, the parliament and the people.”
He proposed giving the United States 6-12 months to put their troops somewhere else, and to pull out embedded troops where it would lead to a conflict of interest.
He said Pine Gap would be more difficult, suggesting we give the United States 4-5 years to replicate Pine Gap somewhere else but pull out Australian personnel so it becomes known that it is a US controlled base. Signal that we’re not complicit.
In considering Pine Gap it’s important to remember that Wikileaks released a U.S. Strategic Sites List of 300 sites critical to US national interests and that would critically impact on the US’s ability to defend itself. It did not include Pine Gap.
I would also add that Australia must demand that it be able to operate key Defence systems independently of the United States.
Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University, Hugh White, has already pointed out that in 10 years from now, China’s GDP will be US $42.4 trillion and America’s US $24 trillion, that money is power and that the United States will be unable to persuade or compel China to live within the rules of a regional order US has set and upheld for so long.
At a National Press Club meeting in August the Deputy head of mission for China’s embassy in Australia, Wang Xining, offered his embassy’s offices to get Ministers talking to each other. Assuming the Chinese wouldn’t adopt Australia’s approach to negotiations with East Timor and plant bugs, that sounds like a good place to start in terms of understanding, building relationships, testing each other and permitting criticism where necessary and warranted.
Australia needs a concerted effort to show it is serious about engaging with China. A strategy for enhancing Australian-Chinese relations. Possibilities might include a specific plan to open up dialogue, targeted Ministerial letters highlighting opportunities for engagement, the expansion of DFAT’s South East Asia expertise, investment in the expansion of our diplomatic network in China and it might, just might, help if the Prime Minister actually visited China.
Former Prime Minister Paul Keating sees the United States as a balancer or conciliator in South East Asia, bearing in mind the United States is on the other side of the world. A new President in the White House wanting to restore America’s international reputation may now offer us a chance to reset the current trajectory towards war with China, even if that desire is fuelled in part by his own or his family’s commercial self-interest.
I would like to end on climate change.
Within about a decade, dealing with the consequences of climate change will be the only game in town.
Dr Jaci Brown, research director at the CSIRO’s climate science centre, says that in 10-20 years’ time, our 2019 climate will not be seen as unusual and that this decade will be one of the coolest in the next hundred years.
The recent Bushfire Royal Commission report noted that warming over the next two decades is baked in. If we start acting now containment is the best likely outcome.
Action on climate change is in our national interests and defence procurement must align with that purpose. Needless to say it is my view that it’s pure insanity for the Federal government not to endorse the key recommendation of the Bushfire Royal Commission to create its own aerial water-bombing fleet.
At least Defence seems to be close to the head of the pack in terms of awareness and concern.
In a 2019 speech General Campbell warned that “In about 10 years from now global warming above pre-industrial levels is set to rise by 50%. At 1.5 degrees of warming we can expect more significant impacts. Particularly in regards to oceans, low-lying areas and human health. The poor and most vulnerable will be hardest hit. Livelihoods lost. Food scarce. Populations displaced. Diseases spreading. And this now looks like our best-case scenario…”
My views on political failure to deal with climate change and the over-reliance on Defence to deal with its consequences are well known.
By itself, Defence will not be able to cope with the likely concurrent events, and one can only assume the same problem exists for the United States.
Indeed the Pentagon is planning for extreme temperatures, collapsing countries, wars on multiple continents and simultaneous natural disasters in circumstances where there are not enough troops to defend the United States and to address foreign catastrophes. In short, a substantial degradation of the ability to deal with conventional military problems, but in the context of a demonstrated inability of the United States government to respond properly, in terms of both logistics and capacity, to its own domestic crises. The problem was clear after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, but its tragic depth only really surfaced in the parlous lack of response to the ongoing COVID nightmare.
One must ask, if a situation arose where the US has to choose between allocating scarce military resources between preserving one of its imperial conquests and dealing with an out of control crisis at home, would the exceptionalist American psyche permit the embarrassment of an overseas withdrawal of an occupying force.
Mother Nature will almost certainly force our hand to navigate our own way forward independently of the United States. We shouldn’t wait for a crisis to get us to that point: we had better begin planning our route while it’s still light.
"Investigation into how hysterectomy might modify other disease processes has been conducted using Rochester Epidemiology Project (REP) data. These studies have linked hysterectomy to long-term health consequences including pelvic floor dysfunction and fracture risk, as well as dementia, depression, and Parkinson’s disease." (Stewart, Elizabeth A., et al, "Reassessing Hysterectomy," Minn Mid. 2012 Mar; 95(3):36-39.) Yet, hysterectomy is one of the most common operations performed in Australia and New Zealand. Every year in Australia, around 30,000 women have a hysterectomy. In fact, it is the second commonest major surgical operation after Caesarean section for women under the age of 60. This is despite the fact that other surgical and other treatments exist for many of the conditions for which hysterectomy remains an apparently unthinking and profitable default for surgeons. As well as the implications of both partial and complete removal of the uterus, general anaesthetics carry increasing risks of dementia with age. The use of hormone replacement therapy post hysterectomy has been shown to be an important protective factor against dementia.
"• Surgical menopause is associated with faster cognitive decline and worse cognitive performance later in life.
• The younger the age at surgery, the more rapid the decline in cognitive function.
• Early surgical menopause at ≤45 years of age is further associated with higher risk of dementia.
• The limited number of available studies highlights the need for large cohorts to further examine this research question." (Georgakis, Marios K. et al, "Surgical menopause in association with cognitive function and risk of dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Psychoneuroendocrinology, Volume 106, August 2019, Pages 9-19, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453018311478.)
[Long-term] Outcomes of Gynecological Surgery
"There has been remarkably little investigation into the long-term outcomes of hysterectomy, particularly given its widespread use. Studies limited to one year of follow-up consistently show that hysterectomy outcomes are good, with a low risk of complications and improved quality of life. However, findings from the few longitudinal studies that have been conducted suggest that there may be long-term consequences. Some studies report favorable symptom relief and quality of life improvement at five to eight years, whereas others raise concern about long-term risks related to dementia and cardiovascular disease. Moreover, experts argue that many outcomes of hysterectomy require 20 to 30 years to manifest.
Investigation into how hysterectomy might modify other disease processes has been conducted using Rochester Epidemiology Project (REP) data. These studies have linked hysterectomy to long-term health consequences including pelvic floor dysfunction and fracture risk, as well as dementia, depression, and Parkinson’s disease.
Most of the attention to long-term risk of morbidity and mortality after hysterectomy has centered on prophylactic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) at the time of hysterectomy. As recently as 2006, data showed that the rate of oophorectomy or salpingo-oophorectomy either alone or with hysterectomy was approximately 73% of the rate of hysterectomy (14.0/10,000 versus 19.1/10,000).
The rationale for elective BSO at the time of hysterectomy has been twofold: BSO would decrease the risk of ovarian cancer, and once a woman reached menopause, her ovaries were no longer hormonally active and, thus, no longer useful. Both suppositions are flawed. First, research has shown that hysterectomy with BSO puts women at greater risk for mortality from conditions and diseases far more common than ovarian cancer. Although ovarian cancer can be difficult to diagnose, it is a relatively rare disease. When considering mortality risk for more common diseases including coronary artery disease and hip fracture, a decision analysis model favored retention of the ovaries until at least age 65 for women with an average risk for ovarian cancer. Similarly, in a large nationwide cohort study, hysterectomy alone performed in women younger than 50 years of age increased the risk of cardiovascular disease later in life, and there was additional risk among those who undergo oophorectomy. Second, the notion that the ovaries are no longer useful after menopause has been shown to be flawed as well. Although ovarian estrogen production plummets after menopause, the ovaries continue to make substantial amounts of androgens. These ovarian androgens undergo peripheral conversion to estrogens and may have direct beneficial effects on mood and libido. Recent REP studies have focused attention on the long-term risks of removal of the ovaries with or without hysterectomy.
Even hysterectomy with ovarian conservation has been shown to have significant effects on ovarian function, resulting in earlier menopause. Moreover, losing one ovary early in life appears to be associated with a significant increase in risk for dementia late in life. This challenges conventional gynecologic thought that the loss of one ovary would not have serious medical consequences. In fact, it appears there may be a stepwise increase in dementia risk for women who have undergone hysterectomy alone, hysterectomy with unilateral oophorectomy, and hysterectomy with BSO. In summary, the removal of either ovary or of the uterus may have far-reaching health consequences. Therefore, the surgical removal of female reproductive organs should be considered carefully." (Stewart, Elizabeth A., et al, "Reassessing Hysterectomy," Minn Mid. 2012 Mar; 95(3):36-39.)
Evans, Elizabeth Casiano et al summarised in "Salpingo-oophorectomy at the Time of Benign Hysterectomy, A Systematic Review, "
"TABULATION, INTEGRATION, AND RESULTS:
Studies were extracted for participant, intervention, comparator, and outcomes data. When compared with hysterectomy with BSO, prevalence of reoperation and ovarian cancer was higher in women with ovarian conservation (ovarian cancer risk of 0.14–0.7% compared with 0.02–0.04% among those with BSO). Hysterectomy with BSO was associated with a lower incidence of breast and total cancer, but no difference in the incidence of cancer mortality was found when compared with ovarian conservation. All-cause mortality was higher in women younger than age 45 years at the time of BSO who were not treated with estrogen replacement therapy (hazard ratio [HR] 1.41, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04–1.92). Coronary heart disease (HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.04–1.54) and cardiovascular death were higher among women with BSO (HR 1.84, 95% CI 1.27–2.68), especially women younger than 45 years who were not treated with estrogen. Finally, there was an increase in the prevalence of dementia and Parkinson disease among women with BSO compared with conservation, especially in women younger than age 50 years. Clinical practice guidelines were devised based on these results.
Victorian Kangaroos need your signature on this petition! They have been decimated by bushfires and the Victorian Government estimates of numbers are way out. The Mornington Peninsula contains a landlocked group of grey kangaroos that are menaced by several processes, including increased development, traffic, fencing, shooting, and the so-called Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP). These animals need our help and protection. The petition calls upon the Victorian Government to suspend its 'harvest' program. See below.
In this video, BBC journalist Orla Guerin interviews Azerbaijan President Aliyev, assuming that Azerbaijan press and politics are heavily censored, and presses him on that. He denies the accusation, then asks her why Julian Assange has been held inhumanely for years, if the British and western press are so free. The BBC journalist simply won't acknowledge the situation for journalists and the media in her own country, kind of proving the president's point.
Over the past year, the Center for a Humane Economy worked closely with United States Representatives Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., to formulate legislation to ban the trade in kangaroo-sourced products into the United States. When the “Kangaroo Protection Act” was introduced into Congress on February 9, 2021, word spread quickly throughout Australia by way of the press (
[See videoed 10 min speech inside.] "The new administration in the USA needs to hear from us. I recently stood in the Australian Senate and made a plea to US President Joe Biden and newly appointed US Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop all charges against Julian Assange so we can bring him home to Australia. It was a lie and terrible deception that led us to war in Iraq - a manufactured deception about weapons of mass destruction by some of the most powerful people on this planet. It is terrifying that foreign nations like the US could extradite and charge journalists who have exposed their wrongdoings. If we don’t defend press freedoms and learn from the mistakes and lessons of history we are bound to repeat them. Without a value on truth, there is only one path left to tread, and it gets more dark and dangerous from here – we must continue the fight to free Julian Assange. 
Perth, West Australia: A delegation of community leaders will deliver over 25,000 messages calling for the South West forests to be protected at Dumas House tomorrow. The event is the, "Voices for the Forests - Grand Postcard Handover," Wednesday, 10th March, 12 noon, Dumas House, 2 Havelock St, West Perth. Professor Fiona Stanley, will be joined by climate scientist and IPCC lead author, Dr Bill Hare, acclaimed actor, Kelton Pell, and a number of other well-known and influential West Australians at the event. 
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Video inside with Ian Lowe talking on the impact of war on carbon gas production, and Peter Catt asking for people's views on the connection between war and refugees. The general public is invited to give their opinion in this democratic inquiry. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) is a national network of community, peace and faith organisations, environment groups, trade unions and individuals concerned about the social, economic, environmental, military and political costs of Australia’s involvement in US-led wars. IPAN advocates an independent and peaceful Australian foreign policy. IPAN is conducting a broad People’s Inquiry examining the costs and consequences of Australia’s involvement in US led wars and the US alliance. 
Trailer inside. "An Australian tale of retribution, revenge, redemption and reconciliation." Screening and Q&A session at Rosebud Cinema, 7 PM Saturday 13th March of The Flood by screenwriter, director and producer, Victoria Wharfe McIntyre.The movie was mainly filmed around Kangaroo Valley NSW, it has become a stunning visual record of so much that was lost in the Southern NSW mega fires. 
US President Joe Biden ordered military airstrikes against facilities belonging to anti-terror resistance groups on the Iraqi-Syrian border. The military action, the first of its kind under US President Joe Biden, has been met with negative reactions, with many observers likening Biden's approach to that of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
A fundamentally flawed proposal to bust open super for first home buyers housing deposits could hike the nation’s five major capital city median property prices by between 8-16%, preliminary analysis from Industry Super Australia shows.
Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) are partnering with filmmaker Maxine Trump on the Australian premiere of her award winning film To Kid or Not to Kid in Melbourne and Perth on the 26 and 27 February. The documentary is being screened as part of SPA’s ‘Stop at Two’ campaign. This will be the first time the film will be screened in theatres before being released on Amazon Prime on February 27th. 
In contrast to her 
On Jan. 20, 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network urges Australians to reflect on our relationship with the US during this inauguration and think deeply about how we may forge an independent and peaceful foreign policy in the coming years. 
A major people's Inquiry into the costs and consequences of the US Alliance and Australian involvement in US-led wars has been launched. Why is this inquiry so different? Because it is not run by government. It is run for the people by the people. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has trumped most voluntary organisations by taking democratic power into its own hands. This people's inquiry was conceived of and agreed to by IPAN members and is run and officiated by volunteers, in cooperation with web news-site Independent Australia. You are invited to make a personal or organisational submission because they really want to know what you think about Australia's foreign policy. Please consider donating. The Inquiry was launched on 26th November 2020, and details can be found on the Inquiry website, namely 
"Investigation into how hysterectomy might modify other disease processes has been conducted using Rochester Epidemiology Project (REP) data. These studies have linked hysterectomy to long-term health consequences including pelvic floor dysfunction and fracture risk, as well as dementia, depression, and Parkinson’s disease." (Stewart, Elizabeth A., et al, "Reassessing Hysterectomy," Minn Mid. 2012 Mar; 95(3):36-39.) Yet, hysterectomy is one of the most common operations performed in Australia and New Zealand. Every year in Australia, around 30,000 women have a hysterectomy. In fact, it is the second commonest major surgical operation after Caesarean section for women under the age of 60. This is despite the fact that other surgical and other treatments exist for many of the conditions for which hysterectomy remains an apparently unthinking and profitable default for surgeons. As well as the implications of both partial and complete removal of the uterus, general anaesthetics carry increasing risks of dementia with age. The use of hormone replacement therapy post hysterectomy has been shown to be an important protective factor against dementia.
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