Published by courtesy of Stephen Hagan, Editor of the National Indigenous Times
The story appeared in its 15 February edition

A nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory is a step closer to reality, after the ALP and the Federal Coalition parties revealed they had struck a deal on laws to allow a facility to be built. Despite calls from a local Aboriginal group at Muckaty Station and the Australian Greens for debate to be postponed, the Senate began debating the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill last week.

Not for as long as it takes to blink were Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott so much as threatened, even less endangered, on the 26th of January by demonstrators from the 40th anniversary Aboriginal Embassy camp in Canberra. Vision footage from activists and mainstream media almost inundating the internet makes irrefutably clear that it was police who were violent and caused the bedlam. At one point uniform was even roughing up plainclothes. For at least 10 minutes after Gillard/Abbott had been driven away, when there was nothing and no one left to “protect”, the police line kept pushing us back, some punching, shoving, throwing people on the ground and “f”- swearing at demonstrators.

Tent Embassy statements: Aboriginal Provisional Government statement | Declaration of Independence for a Sovereign Union of First Nations | Press conference | Comment: Embassy more relevant than ever | I see no riot or attack | Media paints black as white and might as right | Protest speaks for itself | A lesson in over-reaction and social context | No apologies are due to either politician, nor to anyone else |Forget the race card, they're playing the whole deck | Michael Anderson explained the importance of the Embassy on Radio Australia | First hand accounts: Chris Graham: fact v fiction, black v white | From field notes and footnotes | “You shoe’da come!” | Video | Photo essay by Green Left Weekly (what the media didn't show) | ABC’s Media Watch: An Australia Day beat up | AFP to review officers' conduct | Kim Sattler, Secretary, Unions ACT, to Barbara Shaw: "And Abbott's just made a statement to the press that the tent embassy should be pulled down ... he's over there." | Gerry Georgatos’ source: Multiple calls from Gillard’s office, awards ceremony not disturbed | Solidarity actions: Solidarity billboard in Melbourne | Banner drop in Canberra

20 January 12 -- A northwest NSW Aboriginal leader, Michael Ghillar Anderson, has condemned proposals for writing Indigenous people into the constitution as a treasonous act and serious fraud against Aboriginal peoples, because it does not represent their interests across the nation.

The proposals, handed to the Gillard government by a panel, fail to deal with the central and substantive issue of sovereignty and true land rights, the leader of the Euahlayi nation writes in a media release.

In the early hours of Sunday, January 8, three forest rescue activists boarded the Japanese whaling fleet security vessel Shonan Maru No 2 off Bunbury, Western Australia as an act of solidarity with Sea Shepherd in their campaign to stop Japanese commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. While in the Antarctic Sea Shepherd activists from the Bob Barker continue to pursue and harass the main whaling fleet.

Related: Sea Shepherd Media Release - Three Australian prisoners detained on a Japanese whaler in Australian waters | Captain Paul Watson on Forest Rescue men go out on a limb for Sea Shepherd