Sydney IMC

In a radio interview with Neil Mitchell, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that the Head of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, is "talking through her hat" for connecting the NSW bushfires with climate change and that "these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they are just a function of life in Australia." It seems Mr Abbott is in denial on all the wildfire research done on the increase in fireweather and increase in frequency and intensity in bushfires both in Australia and globally.

Related: Raging Bushfires surround Sydney with early start to Fire season | Mega bushfire feared as State of Emergency declared in NSW | Guardian Australia: Australian prime minister denies 25 years of research linking climate change to bushfires.

Widespread October bushfires in NSW are unusual, but have happened before, such as in 1991. This year there was an Early start to Australian bushfires, record temperatures in early September.

It is now the 7th time this bushfire season a total fire ban has been declared in Sydney. Very Unusual. If the fire weather is this bad so early in the season, it can get worse over the coming months as Summer heats up, especially if we have extreme summer heatwaves similar to 2013.

Update: Sunday 20 October: Premier Barrie O'Farrell has declared A State of Emergency across NSW for 30 days as weather conditions are now forecast to be worse than anticipated. Indefinite Total fire bans, and increased powers for emergency personnel. The State Mine fire in the Blue Mountains has burnt 38,000 hectares and is burning on a broad front from Lithgow to west of Bilpin.

Gerry Georgatos - courtesy of The Stringer - http://thestringer.com.au/empowerment/#.UmIBIVCno8I

Photo: National Empowerment Project: William ‘Biri’ Duffin (Kuaranda, Qld), Cheviena Hansen (Perth, WA), Angela Ryder (Perth, WA), Dezerae Miller (Northam, WA), Andy Charles (Mildura, Vic), Glenys McGrady (Toomelah, NSW), Terry Brennan (Mildura, Vic) – seated – Vanessa McGuire (Narrogin, WA), Donna Ingram (Sydney, NSW), Adele Cox (Perth/Kimberley, WA), Professor Pat Dudgeon (Perth/Kimberley WA)

On September 7 Australia elected the Liberal National parties - the Coalition - to Federal Government, with Tony Abbott as our new Prime Minister. It is a Government firmly in climate denial, intent on winding back carbon pricing; undermining renewables; and closing down the Climate Commission setup to communicate and engage the public on climate science and its impacts.

Related: Early start to bushfires, record temperatures

Gerry Georgatos - I stand alongside those who let nothing get in the way of what is right, what is in the common good. I stand alongside those who will let no injustice go unheard, untold. I stand alongside Private Chelsea Manning who has been sentenced up to 35 years in prison for serving humanity's interests. Manning's decision to report to humanity was out of concern for humanity.

Manning should be relieved of the cruel and unfair burden of her prison sentence with a presidential pardon, and she should be acknowledged as both a patriot and as a true citizen of the world.

Manning, Assange, Snowden….but before the age of Wikileaks came brilliant electronics, communications and surveillance expert and whistleblower William Francis Roy who was killed at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia in March 1991.

With Edward Snowden's plight as a whistleblower in the news, William Roy should be remembered as perhaps the only other insider known to have attempted to expose U.S. government surveillance of citizens of Australia and many other countries, seeking planetary domination through force, violence and spying in a grave violation of civil and political rights. Edward Snowden will hopefully live, but William Roy knew without a doubt that he would die, yet such was his bravery in the shadow of the world's most powerful and possibly most malevolent government that he would not back down or leave the country.

From: ecnt@iinet.net.au

Traditional Owners and the Protect Arnhem Land community campaign (based in Maningrida) are seeking the assistance of environment groups and Indigenous networks in Sydney to help raise awareness of the threat to Arnhem Land from oil and gas exploration.

Five traditional owners are travelling from Maningrida to Sydney in mid July and will hold a public event in Martin Place outside the offices of Paltar Petroleum at midday on Friday 19 July.

- The following article has been republished on a number of sites in various formats, originally from various versions on The Stringer and in The National Indigenous Times. - Gerry Georgatos' investigations reveal the beginning of the end for Julia Gillard as Australia’s Prime Minister started with the revelations of the involvement of the Office of the Prime Minister to use the 40th anniversary Aboriginal Tent Embassy celebrations to wedge Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. Gerry broke the story nationally that parliamentary staffer, Tony Hodges did not act alone.

Two distinguished environmental scientists accused the Victorian Government of forestry policies knowingly designed to drive Leadbeater's Possum, one of the two fauna emblems of Victoria, to extinction.

In a letter to sciencemag.org, the publication of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, Professors David Lindenmayer and Hugh Possingham say, "Government-sanctioned legal logging of the reserve system will significantly increase the chance of extinction of Leadbeater's possum. To the best of our knowledge, and despite state and national threatened species legislation, this is the first time an Australian government has taken calculated actions to substantially reduce the viability of an IUCN-listed endangered species with full knowledge of the likely consequences." (Read full letter reproduced at end of this article)

Petition: Defer the Bill that would lock-in long-term native forest logging | Help Save Leadbeater's Possum | My Environment Appeal 2013 Leadbeater's Possum | Ethical paper pledge

Melbourne 22 May 2013: The Australian government has separated 14 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers, 4 men, 3 women and 6 children (including a 6 month old baby), who arrived by boat and were detained in a remote immigration detention centre in Christmas Island from other asylum seekers and have informed them that:

a/ They are not going to be allowed to make an application for asylum.
b/. They are going to be forcibly deported to Sri Lanka.

by Gerry Georgatos - May 11th, 2013
Australia incarcerates its Aboriginal youth at the world’s highest rates, it imprisons one in 14 Western Australian Aboriginal adult males and it removes one in 14 children from Western Australian Aboriginal families into the care of the State, and for Aboriginal peoples the whole of the Northern Territory is a prison built brick by brick by the Commonwealth, and this prison is loosely known as the ‘Intervention’.

Since 1992, the rate of Aboriginal incarceration in Australia has grown 14 times faster than that of non-Aboriginal incarceration.

By Gerry Georgatos - courtesy of The Stringer - http://thestringer.com.au/

In the United States, the Annie Casey Foundation’s report ‘No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration,’ has an assembly of juvenile crime statistics that evidence why locking up children does not work. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rates of adults and children than any other nation.

On Sunday around 300 residents rallied in Campbelltown in western Sydney and called on the NSW state government and Federal Government to protect drinking water and drinking water catchments, and for local communities to protect their farmland and water resources from Coal seam gas (CSG) development. Jess Moore from Stop CSG Illawarra spoke passionately and outlined the campaign to stop coal seam gas mining in Sydney's water catchments and the threat it poses to the millions of people who live in greater Sydney area. Here is her speech with transcription.

Following the 2013 Mardi gras parade (the corporate gaystream shadow of a radical and militant queer protest in 1978) a video was released online that showed a young shirtless man being choked by a police officer, then slammed headfirst into the pavement while handcuffed.

Outrage quickly spread across the Queer community and far beyond. Within two days, Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) called for a demonstration against police brutality on Friday 8th of March. The rally was to gather at 6pm Taylor square, then to march to Surrey Hills cop shop then back.