Al Jazeera English covered the Sydney rally for Wikileaks yesterday: Pro-WikiLeaks demonstrations have been held across Australia against the arrest of… Julian Assange, the whistleblowing website’s… founder. In Sydney, around 500 demonstrators [editor; more like 1500 people] gathered on Friday, to push for the release of Assange, who is in a British jail fighting extradition to Sweden…
Showing all posts tagged Julia Gillard
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on big Sydney Wikileaks rally
Today’s big rally for Wikileaks in Sydney (I think around 2000 people were there) saw a wide cross section of people outraged with the intimidation of Wikileaks and Julian Assange and the Gillard government’s capitulation to American demands. I spoke and chaired the event. This story appears in the Daily Telegraph: Protestors today converged on…
Wikileaks exposes the bromance between journalists and politics
My following article appears on ABC Unleashed today: Who can now say that the WikiLeaks cables detail no new information? It was only last week that ABC TV’s 7.30 Report featured a story with supposed foreign affairs experts, including the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove, who largely dismissed the significance of the document dump. Within a…
Top Aussie journalist calls for colleagues to defend Wikileaks
After winning the country’s top journalism prize last night, the Walkleys, reporter Laurie Oakes had a message for his fellow scribes. How many will speak up? Oakes also attacked Ms Gillard and Attorney-General Robert McClelland for their response to the release of secret US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. “What they said was ridiculous,” he said.…
Sydney Morning Herald on Wikileaks and Gillard government
I was interviewed yesterday by the Sydney Morning Herald online (audio here and here) to discuss the vital importance of Wikileaks for democracy and the Gillard government’s shameful damning of Julian Assange in the name of placating its Washington masters.
Wilkie damns Gillard capitulation over Wikileaks
At least there are some rational and strong political voices in Australia: Key independent MP and former whistleblower Andrew Wilkie has accused Julia Gillard of trashing freedom of speech and ignoring Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s right to be presumed innocent. As the fallout from the WikiLeaks revelations continues, the Tasmanian federal crossbencher also said today…
Gillard is pro-Israel and pro-US and gets tick from US
It’s almost inevitable that anybody who would become Prime Minister of Australia has been vetted by Washington. By the time a person is near the top job, their views on a range of issues is known. Not being utterly in thrall to America would cause angst in the corridors of power. Pressure would be applied.…
Assange cannot be the new David Hicks; abandoned to his fate
Cameron Stewart writes a perceptive piece in the Australian on the troubles for the Australian government. It either stands up for its citizen, Julian Assange, or is made to simply follow Washington’s dictates. The evidence thus far is not good: Australia faces potentially the greatest political fallout of any non-American nation from the WikiLeaks controversy.…
Australia’s view of the world; suck Washington’s left toe hard
More invaluable insights into how diplomacy really works. Egos and bowing to the US and Israel. That’s quite a vision for world peace and security (and what’s a few thousand civilians killed by our cluster bombs?) Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is an abrasive, impulsive ”control freak” who presided over a series of foreign policy blunders…
Open letter to Julia Gillard and the Australian government over Julian Assange
I was honoured to be called by Overland editor Jeff Sparrow on Sunday to discuss the possibility of launching a petition in support of Julian Assange. I offered a little advice and was one on the first signatories. Released publicly today (and lead story on ABC) and already garnering more than 2000 comments, this issue…