A Freedom Flotilla carrying indigenous Australian protesters bound for the restive Indonesian territory of West Papua set off from Queensland—despite threats from Jakarta.
Nuclear disaster was narrowly averted in Sydney when one of the wildfires sweeping New South Wales threatened an atomic research station near the city.
When the Greek neo-fascist organization Golden Dawn tried to open a chapter in New York City’s Greek neighborhood of Astoria, they were quickly met with vocal repudiation.
Leon Panetta in Auckland announced that US naval cooperation with New Zealand will be resumed—cut off in 1985, when the Pacific nation declared itself a nuclear-free zone.
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David Boyd issued an urgent call for accelerated action to combat climate change. The statement comes after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on the impacts of global warming of 2°C—the increase permitted under the Paris Accord. Boyd said that climate change is "one of the greatest threats to human rights" and will have devastating effects on the "rights to life, health, food, housing, and water, as well as the right to a healthy environment." In order to meet human rights obligations, Boyd called on counties to exceed their Paris Agreement obligations. If the temperature increase is allowed to increase to 2.0°C, it would result in "human rights violations upon millions of people." (Photo via Jurist)
Chilean activists protested in Santiago against the signing of the new Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, now rebranded as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), or TPP-11. Protesters outside La Moneda Palace, headquarters of the Chilean government, held banners reading "No to modern slavery, no to the TPP-11" and "The TPP and TPP-11 are the same!" Lucía Sepúlveda, leader of the organization Chile Mejor Sin TPP, said the agreement would "deliver full guarantees to foreign investors" at the expense of "rights and national interests." (Photo: Chile Mejor Sin TPP)
