STOP THE WAR COALITION
Updated Monday, 6th April, 2009
NB: DUE TO A PUBLIC HOLIDAY, THE NEXT STOP THE WAR COALITION MEETING DATE IS...
6.30pm MONDAY JUNE 22
STUDENT ASS'N MEETING ROOM
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ABOUT STOP THE WAR COALITION
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AFGHAN FEMINIST MP TO SPEAK IN SYDNEY
Updated Monday, 4th May, 2009
Author of Raising My Voice, MALALAI JOYA has been described as the bravest woman in the world. As a teenager she worked as a woman's rights activist under the Taliban, running underground classes and clinics in her native Afghanistan that would have resulted in her torture and execution if she'd been caught. After the fall of the Taliban, Malalai was elected as one of the few women to represent her province at the first assembly to frame a new Afghan constitution.
Here she dared to speak out against the crimes of the war lords, who - backed by the Americans - now ruled the country. To her their crimes were almost as bad as those of the hated Taliban, yet the West seemed content to support them as part of their Realpolitik approach to Afghanistan - my enemy's enemy is my friend. Her public denunciation resulted in several attempts to assassinate her, and for the last five years she's lived under constant threat, moving from safe house to safe house. It hasn't stopped her speaking out though, and on the back of her courage she was elected to Afghan's first parliament.
She represents the voiceless, the oppressed, the victims and the innocents of Afghanistan's endless cycle of violence. She's outspoken, passionate and fearless - an extraordinary woman to emerge from decades of brutal and misogynistic repression. Her book and her voice are set to resonate around the world...
7.15pm TUESDAY JUNE 30
PALACE CINEMA
99 NORTON ST
LEICHHARDT MAP
STOP TALISMAN SABRE! NO WAR GAMES! JULY 10-13
Updated Wednesday, 20th May, 2009
STOP TALISMAN SABRE 09!
NO WAR GAMES!
PEACE CONVERGENCE 10-13 July
ROCKHAMPTON + YEPPOON
QUEENSLAND MAP
Operation Talisman Sabre is the name for the biennial war games between Australian and the United States military and will run for three weeks in July this year.
These joint exercises occur in some of the most environmentally precious locations in Australia including the biodiverse region of Shoalwater Bay on the central coast of Queensland.
A PEACE CONVERGENCE is planned to call for an end to our involvement in war and war preparations...
* * * * * MEDIA RELEASE * * * * * MEDIA RELEASE * * * * *
Friday, 29th May GOVT IRRESPONSIBLE ON SWINE FLU, SAY PEACE CAMPAIGNERS
The Federal Government is being accused of risking Australian lives and health from Swine Flu by allowing thousands of US military personnel into the country to take part in a massive military exercise in Queensland in early July...
BOYCOTT SRI LANKA: TEA, TEXTILES, TOURISM
Updated Sunday, 24th May, 2009
The Sri Lankan government started a war against the Tamil People and refused to enter a ceasefire, despite calls by the UN and several countries.
Every dollar that consumers spend which reaches Sri Lanka buys a bomb or a bullet that could kill another Tamil Civilian...
BOYCOTT SRI LANKAN PRODCTS. BUY AUSTRALIAN INSTEAD! www.boycottsrilanka.com
Haaretz, June 9: JERUSALEM RAIL OPERATOR JUMPS SHIP
The light rail projects for Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are both facing difficulties. In a body-blow to the future Jerusalem light rail, the French company Veolia, which was supposed to run the train system after its construction, is abandoning the project...
GAZA DEFENCE COMMITTEE - CAMPAIGNING FOR A FREE PALESTINE
Updated Thursday, 28th May, 2009
Next GAZA DEFENCE COMMITTEE MEETING:
7pm MONDAY MAY 4
rear, 140 Haldon St, Lakemba MAP
(Enter via Davids Lane - carpark nearby)
ALL PALESTINE SUPPORTERS WELCOME
* Freedom and self-determination for Palestine
* End the blockade of Gaza
* Reparations for victims of the recent war
* All Israeli troops out immediately & unconditionally
* End all Australia-Israel ties until Gaza is free
* Paul McGeough is a former Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and is now its chief correspondent spending much of his time in conflict zones -- Iraq and Afghanistan in particular.
McGeough was in Afghanistan just before September 11 and in New York on that day and has written several books about his reporting experiences, including Manhattan to Baghdad: Despatches from the frontline in the War on Terror and In Baghdad: A Reporter's War.
A hallmark of McGeough's writing is the human dimension he brings to world affairs.
ISRAEL'S DEADLY RESPONSE TO THOSE WHO OPENLY OPPOSE ITS APARTHEID WALL
Wednesday, 10th June, 2009 (09:33 AM)
IMEMC, June 6: 5TH DEATH THIS YEAR OF NONVIOLENT ANTI-WALL DEMONSTRATOR
Villagers of the West Bank village of N'ilin and the neighbouring villages and other local and international supporters took to the streets on Saturday for the funeral of Akel Srour, 36 who was killed by Israeli military's gunfire in the village on Friday, during a nonviolent demonstration against the construction of the wall on the village's land...
This powerful documentary tells how the United States government circumvented tradition and law to adopt torture as official policy. The film draws on interviews, archival footage, and recently declassified documents to piece together the development and dissemination of torture tactics from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib -- and the document trail leads right to the top of the chain of command...
Reuters, June 1: GUANTANAMO EVIDENCE MUST BE MADE PUBLIC: U.S. JUDGE
A federal judge rejected on Monday a U.S. government request to keep secret the unclassified evidence that it says justifies the continued imprisonment of more than 100 Guantanamo Bay prisoners...
Google News, June 2: JUDGE HOLDS BAGRAM DETAINEE CASES PENDING APPEAL
A federal judge on Monday put a hold on his groundbreaking order allowing detainees at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan access to U.S. courts until an appeals court can rule on the case involving prisoners held in an active war zone...
NEW TORTURE PHOTOS: MORE DIRTY SECRETS FROM A DIRTY WAR...
U.S. RAMPS UP PRESSURE ON ISRAEL
Wednesday, 3rd June, 2009 (06:07 AM)
SMH, June 3: STATUS QUO IN ISRAEL IS UNSUSTAINABLE: OBAMA
THE US President, Barack Obama, has increased the pressure on Israel to seek a peaceful resolution to its conflict with the Palestinians, declaring that the status quo was "unsustainable".
His comments came as the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected a US demand that he freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and as Jewish settlers went on a violent rampage, attacking Palestinian civilians and setting fire to Palestinian property near the West Bank city of Nablus...
SRI LANKA AVOIDS UN WAR CRIMES PROBE - DESPITE COMMITTING WAR CRIMES
Saturday, 30th May, 2009 (01:08 PM)
It is possible that TWO war crimes cover-ups have now been staged to mask what really happened in the final days of the war on the Tamils: one by the Sri Lankan govt, and one by the UN...
TamilNet, May 28: 'UNPRINCIPLED, SHAMELESS, ORWELLIAN' WAR CRIMES RESOLUTION
"This is one of the most unprincipled and shameless resolutions ever adopted by any body of the United Nations in the history of that now benighted Organization. It would be as if the U.N. Human Rights Council had congratulated the Nazi government for the "liberation" of the Jews in Poland after its illegal and genocidal invasion of that country in 1939," said Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, referring to the resolution passed at the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Sri Lanka war...
ISRAEL LEGISLATES TO SUPPRESS DISSENT AND DENY THE TRUTH
Friday, 29th May, 2009 (11:04 PM)
SMH, June 3: STATUS QUO IN ISRAEL IS UNSUSTAINABLE: OBAMA
THE US President, Barack Obama, has increased the pressure on Israel to seek a peaceful resolution to its conflict with the Palestinians, declaring that the status quo was "unsustainable"...
Reuters, May 31: ISRAELI CABINET REJECTS LOYALTY OATH
Israel's cabinet rejected on Sunday a proposal to require that residents swear loyalty to the Jewish state, dealing a setback to a measure critics said could have curbed the rights of Arab citizens.
The measure, proposed last week by the ultra-right Yisrael Beitenu Party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, may still be introduced privately in Parliament, though without government backing its chances for approval were uncertain.
A draft introduced by lawmaker David Rotem called for all Israelis to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish, Zionist and democratic state" before receiving a national identity document the law requires all Israelis over 16 to carry.
The bill also would have forced all citizens to either serve in the army or perform a period of national service.
Israeli liberals had denounced the measure as liable to restrict the rights of minority Arab citizens, most of whom are not drafted for military duty that is compulsory for Jews.
Arab citizens make up about a fifth of Israel's population and are descended from those who remained while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled what is now Israel or were driven out during a 1948 war over Israel's founding.
Jamal Zahalka, an Israeli Arab lawmaker, hailed the vote by the Israeli cabinet's law committee as "an achievement in the fight against fascism and racism", Israeli media reports said...
SRI LANKAN ARMY ACCUSED OF OF MASSACRING 20,000 TAMIL CIVILIANS IN FINAL ASSAULT
Friday, 29th May, 2009 (10:38 PM)
Telegraph.co.uk, May 29:
The death toll among refugees trapped in the last Tiger redoubt in north eastern Sri Lanka is three times higher than that acknowledged by the government.
Sri Lankan authorities say their military observed a "no-fire-zone" and stopped using heavy weapons on April 27 when 100,000 Tamil civilians were trapped.
However aerial pictures and witness testimony suggest the army in fact launched a three week artillery barrage from the end of April.
Confidential United Nations documents say 7,000 civilians had died in the zone by the end of April and sources told the Times newspaper the toll then grew to around 1,000 a day.
The figures would put the final death toll, before the zone was finally overrun and Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was killed, at more than 20,000.
"Higher," a UN source told the newspaper, "Keep going."
Aerial photographs show makeshift sandy burial mounds in the no fire zone MORE
SMALL BUT IMPORTANT VICTORY FOR MAMDOUH HABIB
Friday, 29th May, 2009 (03:41 AM)
An appeals court on Thursday struck down a conviction against Mamdouh Habib stemming from an incident which happened several years ago in a takeaway food restaurant in Sydney's south-west, and which police had claimed to have 'witnessed'. The judge accused police of 'manoeuvring' the case to affect the outcome and, apart from dismissing the case, has awarded costs to Mr Habib... MORE SOON...
SMH, May 16: NO INQUIRY INTO HABIB TORTURE DESPITE FRESH EVIDENCE
DESPITE fresh evidence emerging in Washington of US rendition and torture of terrorism suspects, the Rudd Government is maintaining John Howard's refusal to hold an independent inquiry into the treatment of former Guantanamo Bay inmates Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks
WSWS, May 21: AUST FEDERAL POLICE CHIEF QUITS 18 MONTHS EARLY
Between 2002 and 2005, the Howard government, backed by Labor, gave the AFP and its intelligence partner, ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) draconian powers. Based on a definition of terrorism so wide that it potentially covers many forms of political dissent, they can detain and interrogate people without charge, recommend the outlawing of organisations and initiate semi-secret trials of alleged terrorist suspects.
Keelty became a public advocate of these measures, defending the launching of highly-publicised raids and arrests of Muslims as the Howard government whipped up fears of terrorism to justify the legislation and its decision to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
At the same time, close relations were forged with the Indonesian police, particularly in operations against refugees and terrorist suspects. This was highlighted after 353 asylum seekers, including 150 children, drowned off Australias northern coast in October 2001 aboard a rickety wooden boat known only as the SIEV X. Keelty aggressively denied evidence that AFP agents had been involved in sabotaging refugee boats setting sail from Indonesia.
Keelty became involved in defending the governments crimes. In 2002, he was among Australian officials, and government ministers who received, and covered-up, evidence that Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, had been tortured while illegally detained in Pakistan, Egypt and Guantαnamo Bay
NOW IT'S THE AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN WAR
Thursday, 28th May, 2009 (05:32 AM)
SA Times, May 22: SLOUCHING TOWARDS BALKANISATION
PEPE ESCOBAR: Happy Days are here again. It's as if the George W Bush years in Afghanistan had never left, with Washington still wallowing in an intelligence-free environment. A surge is coming to town - just like the one General David Petraeus engineered in Iraq. A Bush proconsul (Zalmay Khalilzad) wants to run the show - again. A hardliner (General Stanley McChrystal) is getting ready to terrorize any Pashtun in sight. A new mega-base is sprouting in the "desert of death" in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. And as in Bush time, no one's talking pipeline, or the (invisible) greatest regional prize: Pakistani Balochistan
Pip Hinman: WAR IN AFGHANISTAN - WHAT SOLUTIONS?
TAMIL SELF-DETERMINATION & THE LTTE: SOME LESSONS FOR THE STRUGGLE
Monday, 25th May, 2009 (12:21 PM)
Links.org, May 21:
REIHANA MOHIDEEN: To save the lives of our people is the need of the hour. Mindful of this, we have already announced to the world our position to silence our guns to save our people", said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the head of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) International Diplomatic Relations on May 17, thus flagging the military defeat of the LTTE.
While the military defeat of the LTTE does not necessarily mean its demise, and it most certainly does not represent the end of the struggle for Tamil self-determination in Sri Lanka, nevertheless it is a major setback to the struggle for a Tamil Eelam.
And while calls for a political settlement of the conflict must be supported, the possibility of a genuine political settlement, i.e. peace with justice, is probably far less likely today than when the Tigers were still a powerful military force willing to negotiate a political settlement. The Tigers are in a far weaker position to negotiate a political settlement for a liberated Tamil homeland today than they have been in previous years.
At the same time, the Sinhalese government victory is a veritable double-edged sword. The Tamil struggle will rise again and it could take more desperate forms. The fact that the Sinhalese army feels compelled to hold Tamil youth prisoners in military camps, and according to defence ministry spokesperson Lakshman Hullugalle, even for up to two years if necessary, is an acknowledgement of this possibility.
The defeat of the Tigers, one of the most powerful liberation armies in the world, which controlled northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, does come as a shock. How was the Sinhalese government able to defeat a disciplined armed force, with substantial support among the Tamil population? While international intervention, such as military support to the Sinhala government by imperialist countries such as the UK and Israel are factors that weighed against the Tigers, the strategy of the LTTE itself needs to come under scrutiny, particularly by those very Tamil youth who will continue the struggle for Tamil self-determination MORE
FREE THE TAMILS RALLY, MAY 23 IN SYDNEY
Sunday, 24th May, 2009 (07:41 PM)
PEACEFUL, POWERFUL RALLY FOR THE TAMIL PEOPLE...
On May 23, 2009 members of Sydney's Tamil community joined with the Stop The War Coalition in a march to protest the Sri Lankan government's genocidal war against the Tamil people and call for justice, full human rights, and an end to the persecution...
TAMILS DESERVE SAFE HAVEN IN AUSTRALIA: OPPOSITION
Friday, 22nd May, 2009 (06:31 AM)
ABC, May 22:
The Federal Opposition says the Government should offer temporary protection visas to Sri Lankan Tamils affected by the civil war in their country MORE
news.com.au, may 22: COLOMBO WARNING TO AUSTRALIA OVER REFUGEES
AUSTRALIA faces a diplomatic rift with Sri Lanka after its high commissioner yesterday warned the Rudd Government not to accept Tamil refugees from its civil war
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NB: DUE TO A PUBLIC HOLIDAY, THE NEXT STOP THE WAR COALITION MEETING DATE IS...
Author of 
STOP TALISMAN SABRE 09!
The Sri Lankan government started a war against the Tamil People and refused to enter a ceasefire, despite calls by the UN and several countries.
LATEST POSTINGS:
BDSinSYDNEY:
Next GAZA DEFENCE COMMITTEE MEETING:
An evening with PAUL McGEOUGH at Politics in the Pub...
Reuters, June 11:
IMEMC, June 6:
This powerful documentary tells how the United States government circumvented tradition and law to adopt torture as official policy. The film draws on interviews, archival footage, and recently declassified documents to piece together the development and dissemination of torture tactics from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib -- and the document trail leads right to the top of the chain of command...
SMH, June 3:
It is possible that TWO war crimes cover-ups have now been staged to mask what really happened in the final days of the war on the Tamils: one by the Sri Lankan govt, and one by the UN...
SMH, June 3:
Telegraph.co.uk, May 29:
An appeals court on Thursday struck down a conviction against Mamdouh Habib stemming from an incident which happened several years ago in a takeaway food restaurant in Sydney's south-west, and which police had claimed to have 'witnessed'. The judge accused police of 'manoeuvring' the case to affect the outcome and, apart from dismissing the case, has awarded costs to Mr Habib... MORE SOON...
SA Times, May 22:
Fairfax Digital, May 26:
ABC, May 22:
