noreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:40:31 +0800Blogger http://www.blogger.com57125https://www.safecom.org.au/fixingaustralia.htmen-ushttps://www.safecom.org.au/2005/05/kim-beazley-and-georgiou-bills.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Fri, 27 May 2005 20:58:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-111719928746975297Boy 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2005/04/lynton-crosby-globetrotting-spreading.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:48:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-111382941247983712Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2005/02/finding-anna-when-immigration-gets-it.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Mon, 7 Feb 2005 20:11:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110777896998286068Narrogin 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 allegedhttps://www.safecom.org.au/2005/01/ardeshir-gholipour-how-we-torture.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sat, 22 Jan 2005 16:25:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110638246989508831Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2005/01/man-with-gag-witnessing-forced.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:17:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110553683338937401Narrogin 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, usinghttps://www.safecom.org.au/2005/01/manipulated-us-presidential-election.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sat, 8 Jan 2005 11:03:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110515421431851233Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/changing-worlds-coming-of-envirogees.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Fri, 31 Dec 2004 08:38:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110445380406206715An 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/bakhtiari-family-taken-deported-to.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:31:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110437779526830408Narrogin 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 throughhttps://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/australias-christmas-gift-to-sri.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Mon, 27 Dec 2004 19:36:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110414749891611382Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/bakhtiyari-bungling-and-dimia-media.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sun, 26 Dec 2004 07:53:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110402016299399860Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/baxter-hunger-strike-reaches-medical.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Fri, 24 Dec 2004 10:27:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110385555829226601Narrogin 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 somehttps://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/christmas-in-wilderness-keeping-howard.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Tue, 21 Dec 2004 01:18:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110356081238745216Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/hungerstrike-in-shadow-of-bakhtiari.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:04:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110354146311413553Narrogin, 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 themhttps://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/baxter-bakhtiyari-and-bullshit-battle.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:47:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110329586291451950Narrogin 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 linkhttps://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/baxter-eleven-days-on-tin-roof.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:40:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110317618226510056Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/baxter-hungerstrike-health.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:55:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110298652728782086Narrogin 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/undermining-civil-rights-in-usa-and-in.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Mon, 13 Dec 2004 07:26:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110289436402244156G'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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/baxter-iranians-start-second-week-of.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sun, 12 Dec 2004 13:53:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110282863505922678The 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/internet-freedom-threatened-copyright.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:29:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110275403884326920Government 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/baxter-iranians-acts-of-extreme.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:34:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110247422996426018"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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/palm-island-will-indigenou_110241176499531832.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Tue, 7 Dec 2004 17:28:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110241176499531832"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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/tony-kevin-howard-in-vientiane-another.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Tony Kevin fan)Sun, 5 Dec 2004 20:34:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110225031482492196Here 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/12/escape-from-australia-wwii-role-models.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sat, 4 Dec 2004 15:00:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110214478543563601This 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 https://www.safecom.org.au/2004/11/australian-courts-free-themselves-from.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:07:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110180592655882865Moves 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 alsohttps://www.safecom.org.au/2004/11/antony-loewenstein-australia-reports.htmnoreply@blogger.com (Project_SafeCom)Sun, 28 Nov 2004 18:51:00 +0800tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8877347.post-110163930319781021Antony 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