UK police raiding Ecuador Embassy to capture Julian Assange?
Ecuador to announce Assange asylum, Britain threat to raid embassy 
http://www.news.com.au/technology/ecuador-to-announce-assange-asylum-britain-threat-to-raid-embassy/story-e6frfro0-1226451411725#ixzz23kTVyVq3 Charles Miranda, wires From: News Limited Network August 16, 2012 Reports suggest British police have been seen
entering the Ecuadorian embassy.
The Press Association had earlier reported officers arriving outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, close to the Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London.
EARLIER BRITAIN is threatening to raid the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange.
Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, told a news conference that the South American nation had received a written and verbal threat on Wednesday from Britain that “it could assault our embassy” if Assange was not handed over.\
Patino also said that Ecuador “has made a decision” on Mr Assange’s asylum bid and will announce it on Thursday at 7am local time (10pm AEST).
“Ecuador rejects in the most emphatic terms the explicit threat of the British official communication,” he told a press conference in Quito. He said such a threat was “improper of a democratic, civilised and rule abiding country”.
“If the measure announced in the British official communication is enacted, it will be interpreted by Ecuador as an unacceptable, unfriendly and hostile act and as an attempt against our sovereignty. It would force us to respond,” he said.
“We are not a British colony.” He said the threat was delivered to Ecuador’s foreign ministry and
ambassador in London.
The letter said: “You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the Embassy.
“We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange’s presence in your premises, this is an open option for us.”
Decision on Ecuador asylum for Julian Assange to be stated soon
Ecuador grants Assange asylum: report August 15, 2012 – Megan Levy WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange will be granted political asylum in Ecuador, according to an official in the South American country, British media is reporting.
The Melbourne man, who is wanted in Sweden over sexual assault allegations, has been holed up at Ecuador’s London embassy since June 19, when he officially requested political asylum.
Officials within Ecuador’s government told The Guardian newspaper in London that president Rafael Correa had agreed to give Assange asylum. “Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange,” an official in Ecuador’s capital Quito told the newspaper. Continue reading
Poor safety record of Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA)
Inadequate Safety Practices at Lucas Heights and Inadequate Regulation by ARPANSA, Friends of the Earth 10 Aug 12 Since 2007, a saga has been unfolding regarding contamination accidents at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), ANSTO’s handling of those incidents, ANSTO’s treatment of whistleblowers, the handling of the matter by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), and the 
independence or otherwise of ARPANSA.
The saga has exposed inadequate safety practices at ANSTO and an inadequate performance by the regulator ARPANSA. The problems would not have been exposed and partially rectified if not for a number of ANSTO whistleblowers.
A few snapshots of this saga are noted below and more details can be found on the Friends of the Earth website:
28 August 2008 − Incident at ANSTO involving a vial of molybdenum-99. An audit found that proper processes were not followed: evacuation of the area did not occur, timely communication and event reporting, thorough investigation and follow-up did not occur. The staff member in question had not completed occupational health and safety induction training or a radiation safety course.
June 2009 − David Reid, an ANSTO employee and staff-elected health and safety officer, was suspended in June 2009 and sacked in June 2011. He repeatedly raised concerns about contamination incidents and some of his concerns were later vindicated. ANSTO states that his suspension and dismissal were unrelated to his statements regarding safety problems at ANSTO.
5 May 2010 − The ABC report states: “ARPANSA is Australia’s nuclear industry watchdog and Lateline has obtained a copy of its report into the accident. It largely supports David Reid’s concerns and raises further questions about safety at Lucas Heights. Continue reading
Tiny attendance at Dr Helen Caldicott’s Roxby Down talk, as BHP Billiton films the meeting
BHPB felt the meeting enough of a threat they sent their own film crew -57 Films- to record the full event. Somewhat sheepish when Helen challenged them as to why working for BHPB.
Dr Caldicott was outraged at what she saw with the heavy hand of the SA cops, demanding full names and addresses from protestors leaving the camp, not only the driver. Data base for ‘troublemakers’ into the future for the cops?
David Bradbury 24 July 12, If you look at the numbers you’d be very disappointed with the fruits of
our labour and cost in taking Dr Helen Caldicott to Roxby. But some things are not messured by numbers alone. The seeds must be sown and you never know when the harvest will come. Or that you will be rewarded to see the harvest on yr time. You can only do yr bit with the best intregrity and listen to the voice of guidance that comes from Spirit.
Maximum number of miners and wives there:15. Three bubs. Continue reading
Eminent Australian lawyer calls for support for Julian Assange against USA’s unjust campaign
Public opinion can make a great difference in determining that such a prosecution not take place. Such a situation as not very different from what eventually happened in the case of David Hicks.
Think of the different amount of attention given by the Australian Government to Assange’s case, compared to that given to the case of the Australian woman solicitor in Libya by Bob Carr, our Foreign Minister.
It can’t be that Assange has a bad reputation. He is the recipient of many awards testifying as to his courage and excellence as a journalist and about him generally.
A Support Assange & WikiLeaks Coalition Statement by Mr Kep Enderby QC JULY 15, 2012 BY KELLIE TRANTER ” ….There is something terribly wrong going on in both the Assange and Manning cases, and we are being told very little about it.
Sweden’s sex laws are unrealistically repressive, the most repressive in the world! That was made clear in the recent ABC interview with Phillip Adams and in the recent book by Oscar Swartz “A History of Sex in Sweden”.
Bradley Manning has been in custody for long periods of solitary confinement on the ground that he might injure himself, despite psychiatric opinion to the contrary and despite public protest that it amounts to pre-trial punishment without being brought to trial. He was arrested more than 2 years ago.
America still uses the ancient archaic old English medieval grand jury system of determining whether a criminal trial should take place to determine whether a person has committed a serious crime or not, with all its scope for the manipulated injustice. During the hearing the target of grand jury, the person perhaps to be an accused,
cannot put on a defence.
In America, in Virginia, a federal grand jury has already commenced investigating WikiLeaks – which means Julian Assange – to determine whether an indictment should be served on him. Eminent commentators are claiming that the evidence is mounting that the WikiLeaks case is part of a much broader campaign by the Obama Administration to crack down on all leakers. Continue reading
Police agree on ‘right to protest’ – but block off road 4Km from Olympic Dam uranium mine
Police block mine road to protesters, BY: MARK SCHLIEBS The Australian July 12, 2012 POLICE will set up roadblocks around BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in outback South Australia, creating further anger and warnings of confrontations with anti-uranium activists who plan to “shut down” mining operations during a five-day protest at the site.
Two roads leading to the Roxby Downs mine, in the state’s remote centre, have been blocked ahead of the first day of the protest on Saturday. The road protesters planned to use has been blocked 4km from the mine’s southern gates.
Only mine workers, emergency services workers and people individually approved by police can use the roads.
Protest organisers had hoped between 200 and 2000 activists would attend the demonstration and a music festival. One organiser, Nectaria Calan, said yesterday the police were being deliberately antagonistic.
“They’re blocking a public road,” she said. “On the one hand, they’re saying we’ve got the right to protest but on the other hand they’ve already made moves to prevent us from doing so.” She said the activists would decide how the protest would proceed once they reached Roxby Downs, but would not rule out blockading the roads.
Hundreds of police reinforcements, including special operations officers, have reportedly been sent to the town….. A company spokeswoman would not confirm whether hundreds of private security contractors had been flown to Roxby Downs but said preparations had been made. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/police-block-mine-road-to-protesters/story-e6frgczx-1226423874130
Peaceful anti-nuclear protest in South Australia might be met with police violence, as in the past
Still fresh for many campaigners are the memories and scars of an anti-nuclear protest at the Beverley Uranium Mine in May 2000…. a nasty example of police violence
we should also try to engage genuinely with the important moral issues that the protestors are highlighting.
Their agenda is quite public , which is more than could be said for the private sector interests they are protesting. We might also question why the police are deploying over 200 personnel to “manage” a peaceful protest and what violence police have instigated during similar events in the recent past.
Peaceful dissent and a lizard’s revenge http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/07/10/3541989.htm PETER D. BURDON ABC 10 JUL 2012 Protesters at the Beverley uranium mine were treated in a “degrading, humiliating and frightening” manner in 2000, according to a later judgement.
THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT in Australia can be characterised by several key themes – colour, lentils, solidarity and a commitment to nonviolent acts of resistance. Another pervasive theme that characterises the past forty years of activism is power imbalance. On one side of the struggle you have poor and sometimes dislocated indigenous people, students and concerned community members (greenies). On the other side there are billion dollar companies, the Government, State police and the media.
Such is this power imbalance that many campaigners will spend decades resisting without reward. Those who are fortunate to be involved in a campaign victory (or even a slight concession) have also seen promises betrayed and decisions reversed.
Yet, despite many crushing defeats, antinuclear activists continue to resist. They do so, not because they have nothing better to do, or because they are violent delinquents (the images commonly portrayed in the media), but because they are acting in accordance with their conscience. Continue reading
Western Australia’s repressive police regime, in the interests of mining companies
So is this the new Australia, produced by the longest mining boom in our history? One in which the views of residents and traditional owners are meaningless and where the state provides armies of foot soldiers, free of charge, to the big end of town? All this while the companies behind the project remain stony silent about actions taken in their name to divide and destroy Broome.
Not a word when last year Aboriginal women and their grandchildren were dragged away by tactical response police to allow the safe passage of Woodside’s contractors down the access road to James Price Point.
Miners hiding behind Barnett’s police army BY:LYNDON SCHNEIDERS . The Australian , May 19, 2012 THIS week the government of Western Australia dispatched about 200 police officers to the sleepy tourist town of Broome to do the dirty work for several of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.
This mini army has been assembled on the doorstep of the Kimberley wilderness for one purpose — to suppress the widespread opposition of the Broome community to the construction of the proposed $40 billion James Price Point industrial precinct.
In a startling admission, WA police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan confirmed earlier this week that the decision to drag police off their beats across the state and send them to Broome would cost taxpayers $100,000 a day, for an undisclosed period and with no cost to the companies involved in the project. The final bill will likely be several million dollars.
All this to move away and silence a dogged and growing band of locals who have stood in the way of the plans of a consortium of the world’s biggest companies, including Shell, Chevron, Woodside, BP and BHP Billiton, to build this massive gas plant in a beautiful and sensitive part of the remote Dampier Peninsula. Continue reading
Australia’s Energy Minister pushes for government spying on behalf of energy companies
Protests against coalmining so far have been peaceful. Resources and Energy Department briefings show that only four protests have interfered briefly with electricity generation.
ASIO eyes green groups, The Age, Philip Dorling, April 12, 2012 AUSTRALIA’S leading counter-terrorism agency has been providing intelligence to the federal government on environmental groups that campaign against coalmining.
Greens leader Bob Brown said yesterday it was ”intolerable that the Labor government was spying on conservation groups” and condemned the ”deployment of ASIO as a political weapon” against peaceful protests……
ASIO is exempt from freedom of information laws and is described on
its website as ”the only agency in the Australian intelligence community authorised in the normal course of its duties to undertake investigations into the activities of Australian persons”. Other FOI documents confirm that Mr Ferguson pressed then attorney-general Robert McClelland in September 2009 to see whether ”the
intelligence-gathering services of the Australian Federal Police” could be used to help energy companies handle increasing activity by coalmining protesters….. Continue reading
Australia, Cocos Islands and our regional neighbours do not need USA drones
Stop pandering to the Americans http://www.theage.com.au/national/letters/stop-pandering-to-the-americans-20120329-1w12a.html#ixzz1qjD0C9Zs The Age, Adrian Jackson, March 30, 2012 SUGGESTIONS that the Cocos Islands could be abase for US drones is not in Australia’s national interest (”Australia may host US drones at Cocos”, The Age, 28/12). We have good relations with China and India, the new superpowers of the 21st century as the US and Europe decline. Why antagonise large nations in our region which are also good trading partners?
Australia is capable of patrolling the Indian Ocean off our west coast. If drones are to be operated from Australian soil, let it be drones owned by the RAAF, not the USAF. Have the Australian residents of the Cocos Islands been consulted?
We know how the residents of Diego Garcia and Bikini Atoll suffered forced relocation and how Okinawa has been treated by military base occupation. Many Okinawans loathe the Americans. Even the construction of the detention centre on Christmas Island causes problems for Australians, particularly house rent prices. Australians on the Cocos Islands deserve better and our government should not pander to the paranoia of the US.
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) bullied employees, to shut them up about radiation concerns
In their statement to Comcare’s investigator, Mr Howe and Mr Bourke said that while they had been reinstated, they were still being harassed.
The case follows that of David Reid, a former staff-elected health and safety officer who was suspended in June 2009 and sacked last June. He had also raised concerns about contamination in the ARI.
Lucas Heights nuclear reactor bullying exposed, BY: LEIGH DAYTON, The Australian March 16, 2012 ADMINISTRATORS at Australia’s only nuclear reactor facility used findings of an inaccurate, biased and partially fabricated in-house report as the pretext to suspend – and recommend the dismissal of – two employees who raised health and safety concerns over the mishandling of radioactive materials. Continue reading
Intimidation tactics against climate scientists
“I have been subject to all sorts of personal attacks, threats to my safety, my life, threats to my family, and it’s not just me, it’s
dozens of climate scientists in the US, in Australia and many other regions of the world where our findings are finding that climate change is real and potentially poses a threat to civilisation if we don’t confront that challenge. That represents a threat to certain vested interests and they’ve tried hard to discredit the science, often by discrediting and intimidating the scientists. “
VIDEO http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3454652.htm Climatologist slams intimidation of scientists Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 15/03/2012
Reporter: Emma Alberici Climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Centre in Pennsylvania State University Michael Mann joins Lateline.
Transcript Continue reading
Look out: Australia’s National Open Source Intelligence Centre is watching you
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one, will be piqued if I am not on Jody and Amanda Lambden’s list of secret “issue monitoring”. I know that the big corporations run a list of “hostile websites” – and I am a proud member of that list.
But I didn’t know that Martin Ferguson had couple of pals in my very own home town, watching us evil environmentalists. I’ve been at least 5 years on the job, and I expect to be included.
It’s only fair, Martin Ferguson. After all, we’re all watching you and your subservience to the nuclear lobby. – Christina Macpherson
The watchdog’s kennel in clandestine Croydon, The Age, Philip Dorling January 7, 2012 AN INCONSPICUOUS Melbourne apartment block is home to a monitoring service that keeps watch on environment groups at the request of the federal government. The National Open Source Intelligence Centre, a private intelligence company, works under contract for the Australian Federal Police and Federal Attorney-General’s Department to monitor activist websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter to provide warning and analysis of protest activity.
Owned jointly by Croydon couple Jody and Amanda Lambden, NOSIC has been operating since 1999. It aims to provide law enforcement agencies and other private clients with internet monitoring and analysis directed at groups engaged in
”radical activism, criminal (terrorist) activity or unlawful behaviour”.
Services provided by NOSIC include ”issue monitoring”, ”tactical intelligence”, ”threat analysis” and ”trend analysis and
forecasting focus on emerging patterns and trends in activism”. NOSIC has been engaged on contract by the AFP and the
Attorney-General’s Department since at least 2003. From 2006 to 2008, it was paid $184,800…..
NOSIC’s website does not identify its director, Mr Lambden, and provides no phone number or business address.
However, corporate records list the company’s principal place of business as a residential apartment block on Hewish Road, Croydon….
Federal security sources told The Saturday Age that NOSIC provided a ”cost-effective service” that ”frees AFP analysts from spending time chasing publicly available information”. http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-watchdogs-kennel-in-clandestine-croydon-20120106-1poox.html#ixzz1ioI5bPri
Martin Ferguson pushing for increased surveillance of environmental activists
The Greens leader, Bob Brown, condemned the surveillance, saying it was “intolerable that the federal Labor government is spying on conservation groups” and wanting to “criminalise political protest”……
AFP spies targeting green activists SMH, Philip Dorling January 7, 2012 THE Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, has secretly pushed for increased surveillance by federal police intelligence officers of environmental activists who have been protesting peacefully at coal-fired power stations and coal export facilities. Continue reading
Greens Senator helping Julian Assange, amid silence from Australian government on Assange’s human rights
Scott Ludlam (left) in Europe to ‘protect Julian Assange’s human rights’ Herald Sun, : AAP December 26, 2011 SWEDISH officials have met an Australian senator to discuss the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As extradition proceedings against the 40-year-old Australian continue in London, Greens Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam has
embarked on a European mission to secure guarantees about Assange’s human rights, should he be extradited to the Nordic nation. Swedish prosecutors want Assange in Stockholm for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in the capital inAugust 2010.
Assange denies the claims and is refusing to return to Sweden, fearing that the country will hand him over to the United States, where his secret-leaking website is the subject of a major investigation……
From February 1, Assange will face a panel of seven British supreme court justices for a two-day hearing where he will appeal the rulings of lower courts that he should be extradited to Stockholm.
Senator Ludlam plans to take the information he has learned in Stockholm to the Australian Parliament and seek cross-party support for the Government to do “everything possible to prevent this
extradition”. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/greens-senator-scott-ludlum-in-europe-to-protect-julian-assanges-human-rights/story-e6frf7lf-1226230346843
Experts said the evidence may open Assange to a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. Assange to face US spy charges Courier Mail, December 25, 2011 JULIAN Assange may face spying charges in the US for his alleged role in stealing military documents. During this week’s hearing into the Private Bradley Manning case at
Fort Meade, Maryland, lawyers produced online chat logs which purport to show that the 40-year-old Australian coached Mr Manning on how to break passwords and gain anonymous access to military computer networks, The (London) Times reported. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 