Australian officials witness to Colombo-led torture

In how many countries is this kind of thing happening? Anything to keep those asylum seekers away from our shores is clearly the idea, whatever the human rights cost: The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) has expressed concern over the conduct of security forces working in cooperation with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Sri…

Australia’s immigration detention abused by Serco and government

This is what Australia currently faces; a system for asylum seekers that simply can’t cope with the inevitable anger, fear and prolonged detention of those fleeing persecution. Mental trauma is rife. British multinational Serco are unwilling to spend the required funds to service human beings but the fault largely lies with the federal government. Privatised…

What happens when you hire Serco to run detention centres; profit before care

As the Australian government is criticised for its detention centre system facing ongoing violence and chaos – the likely response is to be “tougher” on asylum seekers, a wonderfully humane outcome – Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young focuses on the culpability of Serco, the company that’s allowed to escape scrutiny: TONY JONES: Alright. We’ll come to…

Hello? Anybody? Ending Zionist occupation? No, move on, please

Welcome to the pathetic state of US-led “peace-making” in the Middle East: A Republican invitation for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address Congress next month is highlighting the tensions between President Obama and Mr. Netanyahu and has kicked off a bizarre diplomatic race over who will be the first to lay out a new…

Serco’s record on managing human beings far from ideal

While yet another detention centre in Australia, Villawood, run by British multinational Serco, is today facing refugee riots (and what do we expect, locking people up for months if not years? No mental trauma or anger?), earlier this week ABC TV’s 7.30 tackled the role of Serco. The story wasn’t bad (overly focused on under-staffing…

Just how genuine are Arab uprisings?

American government assistance for the purpose of “regime change” brings serious questions about what kind of Islamists are acceptable to the US (clearly some are, despite Washington being opposed to engaging, say, Hamas): The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming…

Marrickville madness over BDS but Palestine rights aren’t forgotten

I was present at last night’s Marrickville council meeting over BDS. It was a circus. Hundreds of people attended. Protesters, Zionists, students, unionists, Palestinians, Arabs, citizens. Countless numbers of people couldn’t fit into the council chambers (luckily I was inside for proceedings). In the end, the BDS didn’t succeed but in many ways this wasn’t…

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