In a "stunning victory for civil liberties", the Barnett government has announced that they will introduce legislation to enable police officers to enter private houses without a search warrant and without the permission of the property owner.
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Author and filmmaker John Pilger sent the speech below to be read out at an August 19 protest outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London to defend Julian Assange.
* * *
I have known Julian since he came to London and gave the world vital information about Afghanistan and Iraq, which governments had suppressed and denied.
Australian historian Humphrey McQueen gave the speech below at an August 17 pro-WikiLeaks protest outside the British High Commission, Canberra.
Fifteen years of Labor in NSW set in motion changes that severely and negatively affected the well-being of our community. Unfortunately these regressive policies are being pursued even more aggressively by the Barry O’Farrell Coalition government.
Labor gave the Coalition the framework for changing planning laws to take away community say in planning decisions, commenced the privatisation of electricity assets and sale of public housing, and approved hundreds of coal seam gas mining licenses including at St Peters in the heart of Heffron.
The Union of South American States (UNASUR) threw its support behind Ecuador in its diplomatic dispute with Britain over Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, after a meeting of UNASUR foreign ministers yesterday in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
UNASUR unites 12 South American nations (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela).
On August 16, Ecuador granted Assange diplomatic asylum in its London embassy due to fears his human rights could be violated if extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges.
"Why is it that an Australian, facing prosecution from a European country, decides to appeal for asylum to a South American republic?" Tariq Ali posed and eloquently answered this important question when he spoke outside the Embassy of Ecuador in London on August 19, 2012.
Protest against TAFE cuts by the Baillieu government. Combines video footage from the rally (including Kevin Hunt's TAFE 4 ALL) with information on the $300 of cuts by the Baillieu government.
Greens candidate for Heffron in the August 25 NSW by-election Mehreen Faruqi gave the speech below at a refugee rights rally in Sydney on August 15.
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Seeking asylum is a legal and a human right. But our current government and the Coalition are bent upon stripping these rights and protections from vulnerable people who most need them.
The Fullerton Cove Residents Action Group released the statement below on August 20.
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Residents of Fullerton Cove, on the outskirts of Newcastle, have set up a blockade this morning to prevent Dart Energy from drilling two coal seam gas pilot production wells, which are currently under construction.
Former diplomat Tony Kevin gives a very different view to the political and media commentary about 'evil people smugglers'. He says the main danger to the lives of refugees is not those who assist desperate people fleeing war and persecution, but government border protection policies that prioritise political spin over saving lives.
Julian Assange's speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorean embassy in London on August 19.
Insidious war
civil war
worldwide
to the accompaniment
of patriotic
grandiose
really unrelenting
drumming
honourable members of society
in paranoid march
socialisation savagely civilising
national hypnosis
general narcosis
lest we feel the mines
secretly scattered around
by wretched powerful creatures
who with vacant gaze
and tight jaws
injure the truth
in guileless eyes unsettled
in broad limelight
they carry around
their deaf dead bodies
smartly disguised
with immaculate clothes
flashing spouses
palace-like houses
their filthiest linen
in grand pits they flush
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