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The Indigenous Social Justice Association released the statement below on September 14. *** Several sovereign Aboriginal nations are considering giving Julian Assange refuge and sanctuary in their nations. It was argued that as Julian is an Australian citizen he should be allowed to seek sanctuary in one of the sovereign Aboriginal nations in the lands known as Australia.

Up to 200 Bagot community residents and supporters rallied outside Country-Liberal Party MLA Dave Tollner’s office on August 16, angry over his plans to “normalise” their home. Bagot was a reserve established in 1938 and included a residential facility for Stolen Generations children.

What's in a name? Everything, for Aboriginal rapper Eskatology. His music has his name written all over it. Eskatology, also known as 26-year-old South Australian Jonathan Stier, first came across the term "eschatology" through studying religion. "Religion does play a part in my life, and I was doing a bit of religious studying and came across this word and it intrigued me," he tells �鶹��ý Weekly.

Newcastle punks Local Resident Failure are heavier than Clive Palmer, tighter than Gina Rinehart and have just dropped a motherlode of a debut album.

In the early hours of June 29, the Australian Senate passed legislation that is expected to entrench assimilation, disadvantage and racism for another decade in the Northern Territory.

"We wanted to do everything on this album," Tjimba Possum-Burns tells �鶹��ý Weekly. He is talking about Standing Strong, the aptly-titled second album by Yung Warriors.

Rapper Sky'high is a strong, Black woman surrounded by strong, Black women. "This is correct," she tells �鶹��ý Weekly. "My family's full of strong, Black women." But when asked if there are any strong men in her family, she replies: "My father and brothers' father both passed away."

A study of national hospital audit figures found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who suffer a stroke had threefold odds of dying or becoming dependent as a result of lower post-stroke care. The study, conducted for the National Stroke Foundation, said: “Australian Indigenous patients with stroke received a reduced quality of care in hospitals and experienced worse outcomes than non-Indigenous patients.”

Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, has slammed the Northern Territory intervention, saying that it is making the problems facing Aboriginal Australians worse, AAP reported on October 7. He said the government’s “top-down externally driven” efforts to close the gap on Aboriginal socio-economic disadvantage were instead having the opposite effect”. Amnesty was appalled that current policies had in effect caused “forced evictions from their traditional homelands”.

Federal Liberal/National Coalition leader Tony Abbott left Normanton, in far north Queensland’s gulf country, on November 10, having failed to win Aboriginal elders' backing for his bill to repeal Queensland's Wild Rivers legislation. The existing Wild Rivers legislation aims to protect the wilderness rivers of the tropical north, and provide Aboriginal control of employment and economic development in the region.

One of Australia’s richest men, mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, used Australian television on October 24 to send an address to the nation about his “Generation One” campaign, which aims to “close the gap” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I don’t have any air-time, but I do have page space. This is my address to Twiggy. * * * Dear Mr Forrest, I think we have something in common (yes, I’m surprised too).