CNLive

Pro-Palestinian Israeli activist Miko Peled explains to an audience in Melbourne, Australia how the Israelis stole Palestinian cities and farmland in 1948 and continued its ethnic cleansing until today's brutal operation in Gaza.

"The Security Council is in a position to take decisive actions to end the wars precisely because it is clear that the interests of all U.N. Security members, Security Council members, and notably all of the P5 countries, is to bring these long standing wars to an end before they escalate into even more dangerous conflicts. The Security Council is vested with considerable powers by the U.N. charter when it has the resolve of its members. It can introduce peacekeepers and even armies if necessary. It can impose economic sanctions on countries that do not comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions. It can provide security guarantees to nations. It can make referrals to the International Criminal Court to stop war crimes. In short, the council is certainly able to enforce its resolutions if it chooses to do so. For the sake of global peace, let the Council now choose to end these wars." Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

"Health authorities on Friday said 1900 Palestinian civilians have been killed and another 7700 wounded by Israeli strikes that have turned entire buildings into rubble, and more than half of those killed are women & children." Greens Senator Dr Mehreen Faruqi Sydney, Australia

"Today may be my last day. My family and I will not make the mistake of the Nakba of 1948 and we will not leave our home. We are proud of our Palestinian blood until our last breath. I do not forgive the world, from east to west, for what will happen to us."

Palestine Action Group statement on last night's protest: "On 9 October 2023, Palestine Action Group organised a successful rally in support of Palestine, calling for the end of the occupation and for Australia to cut ties to Israel. Thousands on thousands of diverse attendees marched to the Opera House and demonstrated our opposition to Australia’s support to the State of Israel, a genocidal apartheid regime which has waged war on Palestinians for over 75 years. Today, we have woken up to the Premier of NSW, the Prime-Minister, the Foreign Affairs Minister and Independent MP, Allegra Spender condemning our protests and questioning why it went ahead. Let us affirm, we have the right to demonstrate. At a conjuncture where anti-protest laws widen to target anyone who opposes the colonial and capitalist structures of this state from First Nations movements to the Climate Justice movement, the states attack on Pro-Palestinian protestors is no different. Australia as a colonial and imperialist entity will always support Israel and the state is frightened by people in their masses showing that we oppose imperialism and colonialism. At a time where the people of Palestine resist over 75 years of war and massacres and Israel declares intent to commit genocide against the people of Gaza, we will demonstrate, we will continue to demonstrate and we will show this state that we oppose apartheid, we oppose settler-colonialism and we oppose genocide. Despite a very successful and peaceful rally, the media has reported on a tiny fringe (we estimate less than 20 people) of vile antisemitic attendees who showed up to the opera house for an event unrelated to the demonstration we organised. Media reports and videos circulating show young boys, mostly in their teens chanting “fuck the Jews”. From our observations this occurred for less than one minute and was not an ongoing chant. They were quickly condemned for their chants and asked to leave. Long-standing Palestinian organisers and activists, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim elders attending the protest were disgusted and deplored by the action. This is not what our movement stands for. We oppose Zionism, an ideology distinct from Judaism. We oppose Israel, a racist state which has waged genocide on Palestinians. We are an anti-racist and anti-colonial movement and we refuse to fight racism with racism. PAG has a long-standing history of working with Jewish activists and organisers who oppose Zionism, from Tzedek to Jews against the occupation, we share anti racist and anti colonial values with our anti-Zionist Jewish siblings. We thank them for their ongoing solidarity, including the contingent who attended this very rally. We’ve checked in with as many of those Jewish people in the contingent as we know to ensure they are feeling safe and okay. For over a decade we have organised peaceful Palestinian rallies and we have mobilised the Australian community and we will continue to mobilise. If you are an antisemite, you are not welcome at our rallies and are not a part of our movement. As we did today, we will ask you to leave and we will continue to do this. We thank the 99.9% who have continued to show up for Palestine, who have continued to help keep our rallies peaceful and promote anti-racist and anti-colonial values. We will be back on the streets at 1pm, Sunday 15 October 2023, at Town Hall to continue to protest both attacks on Palestinian resistance and Israel’s declaration of genocide on Palestinians. We will not bow to pressure from parliamentarians to end our mobilisations. We will demonstrate until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea! Free Palestine and f*ck racism. Today they stated: Peaceful protest this Sunday, 1pm at Town Hall. To those in the government and the media telling us to stop protesting, we say the following: - Has Israel stopped bombing Gaza? - Have they stopped killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians, grandmothers, children and whole families? - Have they stopped targeting journalists? - Have they lifted the blockade on food, water, electricity, fuel and medical supplies? - Have they cancelled their planned ground assault which will see thousands more killed? - Have they stopped calling Palestinians "animals" and other racist terms? - Will they stop demolishing Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank? - Will they cancel illegal settlement building, and stop the racist pogroms by Israeli settlers? - Will they release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners kidnapped and held in "administrative detention"? - Will they overturn the dozens of racist apartheid laws that oppress Palestinian people? - Will they allow the millions of Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homeland? - And will the Australian Government stop supporting all of this? No? Then we will keep protesting.

Tanieris Dieguez, Cuban Ambassador to Australia, on the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état in Chile. Filmed at New South Wales Parliament House.

Magdalena Mira & Victor Martinez perform 'Qué he sacado con quererte' by Violeta Parra on the 50th anniversary of the coup d'état in Chile. Filmed at New South Wales state parliament, Australia.

Alejandro Salvador Fernandez Allende, grandson of Salvador Allende, commemorates the fallen leader 50 years after Pinochet's bloody coup d'état in Chile.

Joe Lauria reports on Assange news from Australia, including the pending arrival of the 'DCSix', an all-party delegation of parliamentarians who are coming to Washington on September 20 to argue for the imprisoned journalist's release. Lauria is followed by Alison Mason, who speaks about the high level of public support for Assange in Australia, and how it has come about. The presentation was delivered to a remote audience at the Tabbard Inn, Washington DC on September 8. The event was co-ordinated by Dr Margaret Flowers.

The Dutch Independent Journalist Association (VVJ) has awarded Consortium News the first Julian Assange International Award at a conference of the Dutch Stichting 11 September (11 September Foundation) in Driebergen, Netherlands on Saturday. The awards committee informed CN: “We are delighted and honoured to let you know that Consortium News have been selected as the winner of the first Julian Assange (International) Award. Your steadfast reporting on the framing and persecution of Assange, since it first started, and the excellent live tweets that enabled the world to witness the shielded court hearings in London, especially during the corona crisis, make you the perfect candidate for this prize. The idea for the award sprouted last year, during a dinner with Julian’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, in Amsterdam. We have applied different criteria for the Dutch and the international awards: The Dutch award will go to the independent journalist or media outlet who has, in the spirit of WikiLeaks, done most to make censored information available to the general public. For the international award we wanted to recognise a journalist or media outlet who has been crucial to finding out the truth behind the persecution of Julian Assange.” Consortium News started covering the Assange case on Dec. 16, 2010 with an article by founding editor Robert Parry, one of the leading investigative reporters of his generation. Bob argued that Assange was practicing journalism in the exact way that he did. He wrote: “… the process for reporters obtaining classified information about crimes of state most often involves a journalist persuading some government official to break the law either by turning over classified documents or at least by talking about the secret information. There is almost always some level of ‘conspiracy’ between reporter and source. Though some elements of this suspected Assange-Manning collaboration may be technically unique because of the Internet’s role – and that may be a relief to more traditional news organizations like the Times which has published some of the WikiLeaks documents – the underlying reality is that what WikiLeaks has done is essentially “the same wine” of investigative journalism in ‘a new bottle’ of the Internet. By shunning WikiLeaks as some deviant journalistic hybrid, mainstream U.S. news outlets may breathe easier now but may find themselves caught up in a new legal precedent that could be applied to them later.” Since that first article, Consortium News has published more than 700 articles and 350 videos on Assange and WikiLeaks. That’s because CN recognized the historic importance of the case against Assange, which has justly been compared to the trials of John Peter Zenger and Alfred Dreyfus. CN‘s Assange coverage has dug deeply into the meaning of the case, legally, politically and historically. It was inside the London courtroom for the February 2020 start of Assange’s extradition hearing, and has had remote video access to every part of the legal process since, publishing daily print and video reports and special editions of CN Live!

"There have been noises made by the U.S. ambassador to Australia saying that a plea deal is possible. And that's what the Australian Government have been pushing for as a way to solve it. What I can tell you is that there have been no official approaches from the American government indicating any willingness to soften or ameliorate their position. The position of the Biden administration still seems to be that they wish to persecute and destroy Julian and lock him up for life for publishing the truth about war crimes, and for publishing. We should never forget Julian is the publisher. Julian is not a whistleblower. The whistleblower was Chelsea manning. Julian is just a publisher, just as The Guardian and The New York Times and The Washington Post were publishers of the same information. So there's no evidence of any sincerity on behalf of the U.S. government in these noises we've been hearing. It seems to be to placate public opinion in Australia, which is over 80% in favor of dropping the charges and allowing Julian to go home to his native country... The American ambassador has made comments about, oh well, a plea deal might be possible, but this is just rubbish. This is just talk in the air. There's been no kind of approach or indication from the Justice Department or anything like that at all. It's just not true. It's a false statement, in order to placate public opinion in Australia." Craig Murray, former British diplomat Full interview on Randy Credico Live on the Fly: https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=43767

Visit shorturl.at/vHUY4 to join the Free Assange virtual rally in the Wistaverse, a game world designed for collective online protest. Speakers include Stella & Julian Assange, Jeremy Corbyn, Roger Waters, Kristinn Hrafnsson, Susan Sarandon & more. Produced by Don't Extradite Assange, artists and coders.

Republished with permission from The Duran. Watch the full episode here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0hBwzjcBmE