Amanda Vanstone had the power to grant this family a temporary visa on compassionate grounds. She, and her Government, chose instead, at Christmas time when christians are supposed to act with compassion, to deport them in the middle of the night to Pakistan to face an uncertain and potentially dangerous future...

[Deported in the Dead of Night...] :: [ Story in the Age ] :: [Full Story]

[ Extensive Report by Project Safecom - "Bakhtiari family taken: Deported to danger"]

[Discuss on Perth Indy]

Much of the affected coastal regions in Indonesia (id) (Photos from Aceh), Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma) (UNICEF report), Sri Lanka (UNICE F report), India (UNICE F report), Maldives, and as far away as the coast of Africa, have poor communications and infrastructure which have hampered a full assessment of the disaster and immediate disaster relief.

According to UNICEF Child ren account for one third of tsunami dead. The UN Population fund warns that women and girls are especially vulnerable to the "second wave" of the disaster as millions of people face health risks due to contamination of drinking water, and devastation of health infrastructure.[ Read More ]

IMC Stories: Barcelona IMC (es) | Italy IMC report 1, 2 (it) , Audio (it) , Jakarta IMC (id) , Aotearoa (en), Melbour ne IMC (en)

Links: Worl d Health Organisation | Relief Web latest News | Wikiped ia | Tsunami News Updates

[ Discussion on Perths Newswire | Jakarta Indymedia | Special feature (Indonesian) ]

Please donate to the Red cross.

Merry Christmas from everyone at Perth Indy

We wish you happiness and liberty, but this Christmas, spare a thought for those inside who have neither.

Today its turkey, and tomorrow the streets!

The Silex laser uranium enrichment project had varying levels of US monetary support over the protected by US-Australia bilateral agreement that hid the project as 'protected data'. Successive Australian governments have supported the nuclear enrichment research. Despite being privatised in recent years the Silex project continues to occupy taxpayer-funded public space and use the resources at Lucas Heights. It has violated the rights of local citizens to know of the danger they are living in the vicinity of.

The laser uranium enrichment project has been described by UK physicist Dr Frank Barnaby as a "considerable risk" to nuclear proliferation, being a cheaper process using smaller facilities to create weapons grade uranium.

"The risk of terrorists getting primitive nuclear explosives is real and I think it's only a matter of time before they do because it is relatively simple in this day and age to find out how to and to actually produce a primitive nuclear weapon," Dr Frank Barnaby told ABCTV's 7:30 Report on December 10th.

Lucas Heights security was breached by 46 anti-nuclear activists in 2002 indicating that advanced nuclear material in Australia is not being held securely. Many sites exist where nuclear material sufficient for terrorists to make weapons such as 'dirty bombs' are being kept in relatively insecure circumstances such as at Steritech nuclear irradiation plants that use Cobalt-60. [Anti-nuke map of Australia] Alleged terrorist Willie Brigitte was alleged to have been planning to blow up Lucas Heights reactor. [article here]

Australia's hidden nuclear enrichment project indicates the close ties our government has with the US on nuclear issues, ties that perhaps led them to recommend Foreign Minster Alexander Downer as new head to the International Atomic Energy Agency. It also makes a mockery of Australia's push to censure Iran for nuclear proliferation that we have been doing in secret. [article here]

Victor Sobral from Community Radio 4ZzZ102.1fm in Brisbane talked to Greenpeace nuclear campaigner James Courtney about the revelations. [interview here]

[ Perth Indy: Nuclear Purpose for Australian Railway? ]

[ Discuss this story ]