tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88773472008-06-12T04:40:31.689+08:00Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1117199287469752972005-05-27T20:58:00.003+08:002008-06-05T10:06:23.330+08:00

Boy oh boy, what a week it was. DIMIA shaking on its foundations, the Kooyong rebels launching - after years of unhappiness with Howard's asylum policies - their trump card in the two Private Members' Bills, and Vanstone in the vice between Bill Farmer, incisive questioning by the Senate Estimates Committee and Petro Georgiou and friends.After years of unhappiness? Come off it, you may say, but

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1113829412479837122005-04-18T20:48:00.000+08:002005-04-25T07:07:44.093+08:00

Narrogin WA, April 18 2005 - If you read what everyone should have read around the 2001 Tampa election, you would know Lynton Crosby reasonably well. After all, thanks to Crosby John Howard successfully scooped up his unlikely win at that election through applying a considerable degree of wedge politics, designed by his former advisor Lynton Crosby in his role as the Liberal Party's election

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1107778969982860682005-02-07T20:11:00.000+08:002005-02-12T07:08:40.563+08:00

Narrogin WA, 7 February 2005 - Astounding is the word, but I guess the story is familiar by now. 'Anna', or as we know now, Cornelia, an Australian citizen, went missing, and based on the fact that she was disoriented, spoke some German, and could not be identified, she ends up in Baxter's punishment block, after 'having been assigned' to DIMIA, the Department of Immigration, for being an alleged

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1106382469895088312005-01-22T16:25:00.000+08:002005-01-23T21:09:17.386+08:00

Narrogin WA, 21 January 2005 - It really is astounding that Ardeshir Gholipour has spent the last five years in an Australian detention centre. He's been left to dry in Australian detention centres since 1999; he's been in the Port Hedland detention centre and now he's in Baxter. Astounding, because he also spent two years in Evin Prison (read also this), "the world's largest prison for

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1105536833389374012005-01-12T21:17:00.000+08:002007-08-21T06:15:43.749+08:00

Narrogin WA, 12 Jan 2005, 9:25pm - It had to happen sooner or later: someone on a flight, bound, gagged and muffled, moved under the highest secrecy, deported by force, not only with duct tape over his mouth, but the entire story covered up. Using the Christmas holidays, the absence of the lawyers, the expected silence of those advocates that can block their work - and, as we saw this week, using

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1105154214318512332005-01-08T11:03:00.000+08:002005-01-08T11:57:34.366+08:00

Narrogin WA, 8 January 2004, 11:15am - The US election in 2004 was rigged. So they say. Sloppy security safeguards - or lack of any security systems whatsoever, that should have governed the system of computer voting, led to an introduced bias and stacking of votes for the Bush camp, or so the claimants claimed. Below is the report of the investigation, as well as the contents of several other

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1104453804062067152004-12-31T08:38:00.000+08:002005-01-05T09:15:25.716+08:00

An exploration of some Australian and global issues associated with ecological and seismic disasters, and the links between the two aspects of a planet under pressure - and the implications for a world community 'on the move'. They will be on the move by the thousands and thousands. They will be coming in boats, in trucks, on trains - and in lorries, in aircraft wheel housing spaces, crouched

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1104377795268304082004-12-30T11:31:00.001+08:002008-06-05T10:04:59.752+08:00

Narrogin 30 Dec 2004 11:33am - As the phone calls came one after another yesterday evening from folks on the ground in Port Augusta, from people in networks in Melbourne, Sydney and other places, the Bakhtiari family boarded the chartered nearly white BA-146a with its strangely drooping wings, seemingly burdened by the sheer weight of its four Rolls Royce engines. Alamdar looks once more through

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1104147498916113822004-12-27T19:36:00.000+08:002005-01-03T07:49:06.536+08:00

Narrogin WA, 27 Dec 2004, 19:30pm - Last week, on Christmas eve, many Sri Lankans living in the community around Australia received a letter from the immigration minister Amanda Vanstone. Bluntly speaking, the letter said: "Get your bags, organise the contents, and bugger off outta here". That was our generous Christmas present to many of the about 500 Sri Lankans who arrived before the

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1104020162993998602004-12-26T07:53:00.001+08:002008-06-12T04:40:31.731+08:00

Narrogin WA, 26 Dec 2004 - Politicians are notorious for their inferior skills in clinically assessing and promoting the facts, but they're masters in stating their own case, defending conclusions, elaborating on them, and "selling them", provided they get their policies successfully backed up. One of those cases defended through thick and thin by politicians is the ongoing case of mandatory

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1103855558292266012004-12-24T10:27:00.000+08:002004-12-25T20:13:58.993+08:00

Narrogin WA, 24 Dec 2004, 9:30am - (from today's Press Release) Reports of the sixteen hunger strikers, although the wording is minimal, indicate that the strike has reached a stage where critical organs start to be damaged beyond recovery. A supporter in Port Augusta wrote yesterday evening: "I just received a message from a hunger striker in Baxter saying that people were now very weak and some

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1103560812387452162004-12-21T01:18:00.000+08:002005-01-08T14:18:46.353+08:00

Narrogin WA, 21 Dec 00:25 - So it's true then. The Bakhtiaris may soon be expelled to Pakistan in the dark of night, to a country they don't know anything about, whose language Roqia does not speak. All of these silly and upsetting, traumatising enemy and war games, just to feed the Canberra gang, who, right until the end, want to persist in the suggestions, fed by Mr Ruddock to the Australian

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1103541463114135532004-12-20T19:04:00.000+08:002004-12-24T11:04:42.050+08:00

Narrogin, Mon 20 Dec 18:30 - The hungerstrike at the Baxter detention centre is still on. Fifteen men are still part of the team, even while the attention of all of Australia focuses on the Bakhtiari family. My advice is, don't stop what you're doing, what you're planning and what you stand for, because the leopard hasn't changed its spots, and there is no prospect of the beast soon changing them

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1103295862914519502004-12-17T22:47:00.000+08:002005-01-09T15:18:33.056+08:00

Narrogin Sat 18 Dec 9:00am - The start of this fifth report on the Baxter hungerstrike makes for depressing reading, but I intend that to be the case. I could have easily spared you and myself this introduction, which may come across as just an unwelcome diversion into matters not directly related to the strike, but because the year is nearing its end, and previous reports have hinted at the link

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1103176182265100562004-12-16T13:40:00.000+08:002004-12-24T11:08:36.303+08:00

Narrogin WA, 16 Dec 13:30pm - Day 11 for the first man on the roof of the Baxter gymnasium, and temperatures at Port Augusta are soaring towards the Centigrade mark: as I look at the temperature at local time in SA of 16:00pm, Wunderground.com's gauge stands at 35� C. The Department of Immigration has gone silent; Your Right To Know does not play a role. No news or updates have come in directly

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102986527287820862004-12-14T08:55:00.000+08:002004-12-24T11:10:38.686+08:00

Narrogin WA, Dec 14 - The situation in the Baxter detention centre is deteriorating. Two of the men who had stiched their lips, were taken to the Port Augusta hospital yesterday. Independent from the hunger strike, lawyers for another man who takes part in the hunger strike, filed an order in the court for the man to be released from the Baxter centre for a full and independent psychiatric

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102894364022441562004-12-13T07:26:00.000+08:002004-12-13T07:32:44.023+08:00

G'day all I picked up the material below by chance, at an Australian e-group, the Hopecaravan list. Although it's from the US, it shows how alert and alarmed we should be Down Under as well, with a government which has its hands in the pockets of the Bush government. It's a good idea to keep in touch with the folks of the Civil Rights Network a group in Melbourne that keeps track of the

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102828635059226782004-12-12T13:53:00.000+08:002004-12-24T11:12:45.180+08:00

The hunger strike at the Baxter detention centre has entered its second week, and as the Iranians slowly loose their mind and their physical strength, Project SafeCom remains adamant that the reasons for this hunger strike point squarely at the feet of the Immigration Minister, the Howard government and its "deals" with the Iranian Mullahs and the explicit policies of trying to forget the fact

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102754038843269202004-12-11T16:29:00.001+08:002008-05-15T06:01:10.486+08:00

Government curbs debate on trade deal bill - Internet freedom threatenedPress Release Kerry Nettle Senator for NSW (Greens) 6th December 2004 Greens Senator Kerry Nettle has condemned a government decision to curb debate on legislation implementing further negotiations on the US free trade agreement. A government motion to allow the Copyright Legislation Amendment Bill 2004 to be passed this

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102474229964260182004-12-08T10:34:00.002+08:002008-06-05T17:42:13.956+08:00

"More than many other countries, the fact that Iran, under the control of the Religious Council, reserves more than 70 forms of torture for dissenters, for people who run away, for people who declare themselves to be Christians, should be grounds for the immediate protection by Australia. But the Howard government, which does not want to loose trade with Iran, puts their commercial interests

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102411764995318322004-12-07T17:28:00.000+08:002006-11-16T00:38:06.006+08:00

"Cameron Doomadgee was found to have suffered four fractured ribs, a ruptured liver and torn protal vein. He died from these injuries he sustained while in police custody on Palm Island. Apparently he sustained these injuries when he fell off a table. Yeah, sure he did." (from Margo Kingston's Webdiary, by James Woodcock) It is the New Zealand media which reports that a massive Maori

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102250314824921962004-12-05T20:34:00.000+08:002004-12-05T20:38:34.826+08:00

Here we go again - another avoidable Australian failure of regional diplomacy, but spun to a credulous media at home as a success; even the spurious backgrounding argument that "we were ambushed by ASEAN over this" and that we were somehow clever and tough not to be caught in their trap. Howard gets away with this schoolboy stuff, because few commentators do their homework and challenge his

Tony Kevin fanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10196537614906982706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1102144785435636012004-12-04T15:00:00.000+08:002004-12-07T13:14:13.840+08:00

This week refugee activists in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane had their homes raided as several were charged with passport forgery offences, allegedly committed to assist asylum seekers with their escape from Australia to countries such as Canada and New Zealand, and refugee activists, refugee advocates, refugee supporters and all other agents will need to make up their mind about supporting

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1101805926558828652004-11-30T17:07:00.000+08:002004-12-01T20:43:32.663+08:00

Moves are afoot from the judiciary, indicating it's sick of the intransigence of the Howard government's Department of Immigration, the draconian Immigration legislation as laid down in the Migration Act, and the deepseated misery it has created amongst asylum seekers and refugees. There is some good news today, and I think it stands in a context of developments around Australia which are also

Project_SafeComhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16933911938491645789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-1101639303197810212004-11-28T18:51:00.000+08:002004-11-29T10:30:52.893+08:00

Antony Loewenstein writes the Engineering Consent column for Margo Kingston's Webdiary on the workings of the media. He also wrote a chapter in Margo's book Not Happy John!, and he writes for Counterpunch. This article was first written for and published at Margo Kingston's Webdiary, and it is reproduced here with his permission. You can e-mail Anthony at antloew(at)yahoo.com.au Israel has a

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