The Copenhagen City Court ruled on September 2 that climate activists Natasha Verco, a 32-year-old activist from Australia, and Noah Weiss, a US student, were innocent of the charges against them.
The two climate activists had been charged for organising 鈥渋llegal activities鈥 during the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. Verco and Weiss had been accused of planning violence against police, disturbance of public order and vandalism.
The charges could have lead to several years of prison and deportation. But the charges didn鈥檛 stand up in court.
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A 21-year-old Tamil refugee has allegedly been the victim of an assault while in detention.
Leela Krishna was recognised as a refugee by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in April this year, but is still held in Villawood detention centre.
He was waiting for security clearance from ASIO before release. But, on August 21, he was allegedly assaulted in an isolation unit by a former professional kick boxer.
The police are investigating the attack, and Serco 鈥 the private contractors who manage the centre 鈥 have placed Krishna in the 鈥渉ousing鈥 component of Villawood.
In 2007, federal election candidates made much of the seven vultures that were feeding on the carcass of the Howard government as it flailed around shifting further and further to the right.
Those seven vultures were:
鈥 the denial of climate change;
鈥 touting of the war in Iraq;
鈥 Work Choices;
鈥 policy failure on education spending;
鈥 poor vision of infrastructure;
鈥 destruction of research and development; and
鈥 persecution of refugees with the Pacific Solution.
In the lead-up to the 2004 federal election, legislation was passed against marriage rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. The 2004 marriage ban became the catalyst for the development of a powerful protest movement. This movement has won a series of important victories. These include the repeal of 85 pieces of federal legislation discriminating against same-sex couples, but not the repeal of the discriminatory marriage ban. Recognition of civil unions has been won in the ACT, after a five-year struggle.
Prisoners detained without trial at the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin have staged dramatic protests. On August 29 and 30, about 120 Indonesian detainees, accused of (but not charged with) 鈥減eople smuggling鈥, staged protests on the jail鈥檚 roof and set fire to garbage. On September 1, about 90 Afghan Hazara refugees broke out of the jail and held a peaceful protest on the Stuart Highway.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told AAP on August 30 she believed the Indonesians were poor fisherpeople who had been conned into making the journey.
Adam Bandt, the MP elect for the seat of Melbourne (long considered a 鈥渟afe Labor seat鈥), and the Greens' first House of Representatives member to be elected in a general election has been very busy since August 21. He says he left the triumphant Greens' election night party at 11pm thinking that he would have to do some media the next day so should get a good night's sleep. He woke up the next morning and after a couple of hours having coffee and reading the paper, the situation sunk in.
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