This event has emerged from a citizen initiative promoted via social media that collected more than 90,000 supporters in less than one week and that has resulted in the call for a demonstration by the Catalan National Assembly and Òmnium Cultural. Its aim is to demand the release of the Catalan political prisoners currently in jail for defending the creation of the Catalan Republic.

The Catalan communities in Australia have worked together to support this initiative and carry out coordinated protests in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.

Catalans, wherever they may be, reject the current situation in Catalonia, where there are now 10 people jailed for political reasons, a president in exile and unjust policies being applied that currently damaging our institutions and projects (among them, the Catalan Associations of Australia).

Please bring a yellow item/garment to the gathering to show you also reject the idea of having political prisoners in Europe in 2017.

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Participants have denounced the violation of civil rights and an array of unprecedented repressive measures in Catalonia, as the Rajoy government attempts to block Catalonia’s referendum on independence scheduled for October 1st.

Since the referendum law was passed in the Catalan Parliament on September 6th, Catalonia has witnessed severe judicial and police actions against Catalonia’s population and its representatives. These include serious infringements of freedoms such as freedom of speech, assembly and press over the last 12 days. On September 20th, the Spanish military police force raided 22 Catalan government buildings, arresting 13 high-ranking government officials. While confiscating referendum material, they seized over 5 million leaflets and posters, performed raids on printing companies, closed government websites, suspended or interrupted conferences in towns and cities (e.g. by ordering power cuts) and handed warnings to newspapers, often following questionable procedures. The Spanish Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional) —a highly politicized Spanish court which was exceptionally given penal powers last November— has in the last few months issued over 1,000 warnings to Catalan officials. More recently, on Sept 13, Spain’s attorney general also ordered an investigation that led to sending summonses of 75% of Catalonia’s elected mayors for answering to their constituencies and committing themselves to enabling the vote on Oct 1. Over 700 mayors responded by denouncing such threats in a demonstration in Barcelona 4 days ago. Last Friday Spanish Finance Minister Montoro also claimed that his ministry would impose financial controls over Catalonia.

Since 2010 the Spanish government has refused to give Catalonia a serious political answer. After repeatedly and unsuccessfully asking for a referendum to be held (18 times), regional elections were called by the Catalan government two years ago. With a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament since that time, and supported by polls that consistently indicate that 75-80% of the population is in favor of voting on the independence issue, the binding referendum was finally scheduled for October 1st.
Catalan citizens and residents in Australia demand action from the International community to ensure that such a democratic exercise can take place without interference or attacks.

More photos

Source: Casal Català de Victòria Inc.

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Barcelona: Seven year-old Australian boy Julian Cadman was killed in the Barcelona terror attack, his family and Spanish officials have confirmed.

The Ministry of the Interior said Julian, an Australian and British dual national, had been identified through DNA.

The Cadman family released a statement through the Australian government, mourning the loss of their “funny and cheeky” boy.

“Julian was a much loved and adored member of our family,” they said.

The Age

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The performance, starting at 1:30pm, will consist of 15 performers using strength, agility and teamwork to build a human tower up to four storeys high.

“We’re passionate and proud to bring a part of the Catalan culture to Melbourne; we hope our performance will inspire others to join, have fun and learn about our traditions,” said group co-ordinator Oscar Hernandez.

Over 1,000 students are expected to attend the event as part of Berwick Primary School’s annual Cultural Week, which for 2017 is themed around the Catalan culture.

Building human towers or “castells” is an iconic tradition in Catalonia, Spain, and consists of people using their strength and balance to climb each other to create human structures.

Koales de Melbourne is the first group or “colla” in Australia, and have been practising and refining their technique since forming in late 2014. The group is made up of approximately 50 people whose diverse backgrounds span Europe, South America, North America, Asia and Australia.

The act of building human towers is included in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list; a register of internationally significant traditions that is passed onto future generations. The highest recorded human structure is 10 storeys high.

To find out more about Koales de Melbourne, visit their Facebook page.

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“It’s been 18 years since we have experienced a Christmas Day with temperatures this hot,” Ms Bradshaw said.

The temperature hit 36.3 degrees in 1998, but the highest on record was 40.7 degrees in 1907.

Bureau forecasters report there will be no significant cool change in the city until tomorrow, with temperatures to dip slightly to 24 degrees overnight.

More in The Age

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ABCnews: Read full story

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Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews described the plot as an “act of evil”, while Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said police had seized “the makings of an improvised explosive device”.

Speaking at a press conference today, Mr Turnbull said: “Overnight our police and security agencies have disrupted a very substantial terrorist plot.

“Overnight, the Victoria Police, working with the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, have arrested seven persons, five of whom are still in custody, searched five premises and are continuing to search them.

“What they have uncovered is a plot to explode improvised explosive devices in central Melbourne in the area of Federation Square, on or about Christmas Day.

“This is one of the most substantial terrorist plots that have been disrupted over the last several years.”

More: ABCnews

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ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS ARE descendents of the first people to leave Africa up to 75,000 years ago, a genetic study has found, confirming they may have the oldest continuous culture on the planet.

Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, who led the study, says Aboriginal Australians were the first modern humans to traverse unknown territory in Asia and Australia. “It was a truly amazing journey that must have demanded exceptional survival skills and bravery,” he says.

A century-old lock of hair, given by a West Australian indigenous man to an anthropologist, has led to the discovery that ancestors of Aboriginal Australians reached Asia at least 24,000 years before another wave of migration that populated Europe and Asia.

Experts from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and Murdoch University were part of an international team that analysed DNA from the hair, and found no hereditary material from European immigrants to Australia. This made the man’s DNA a perfect candidate for looking at the history of Aboriginal migration.

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Aboriginal Australians first to cross Asia

Studying his DNA, the researchers found that the ancestors of Australian Aboriginals had split from the first modern human populations to leave Africa, 64,000 to 75,000 years ago. Dr Joe Dortch, a scientist at UWA, says the discovery turns on its head the existing theory that Aboriginals arrived here less than 50,000 years ago. The findings are detailed today in the journal Science.

“[The discovery] strongly supports the idea that Aborigines were [part of] an early and separate wave of human expansion out of Africa, before the subsequent wave that established Europeans and Asians,” says Professor Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide. “However, while this is a major step forward, the key unresolved question remains the unique story of Aboriginal history within Australia.”

“This new DNA study powerfully confirms that Aboriginal Australians are one of the oldest living populations in the world, certainly the oldest outside of Africa,” agrees evolutionary biologist Professor Darren Curnoe of UNSW. “Australians are truly one of the world’s great human populations and a very ancient one at that, with deep connections to the Australian continent and broader Asian region. About this now there can be no dispute.”

Oldest living population in the world

In another study, in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers found that when these ancestors of Aboriginals crossed through Asia, they may have interbred with Siberian people known as the Denisovans.

For that study, DNA was extracted from a finger bone excavated in the freezing temperatures of Siberia to analyse the migration of people to tropical parts of Asia and Australia more than 40,000 years ago.

Examining DNA from the finger, researchers from the Harvard Medical School in the US and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany concluded that the Denisovans – a primitive group of humans descended from Neanderthals – migrated from Siberia to tropical parts of Asia. They contributed DNA to Aborigines along with present-day New Guineans and an indigenous tribe in the Philippines known as Mamanwa.

Aboriginal people had Siberian ancestors

To make the link between the Denisovans and indigenous Australians, the study looked at two Aboriginal populations, one of which was from the Northern Territory. The researchers concluded that Denisovans interbred with modern humans in South-East Asia 44,000 years ago, before Australia separated from Papua New Guinea.

“This paper helped fill in some empty pieces in the evolutionary puzzle that began after early humans left Africa, and reinforces the view that humans have intermixed throughout history,” say the scientists behind the research in a summary of the findings.

“The study also confirms controversial claims that the ancestors of all living Eurasians interbred with the Neandertals, while past Asians/Oceanians also mated with the mysterious ancient humans from Denisova cave[s] in Siberia,” comments Darren from UNSW. “This is clear and independent validation of DNA work on both these extinct humans [the Neanderthals and the Denisovans], confirming today’s other big announcement about their deep connections to Australians and other indigenous people in our region.”

More: Australian Geographic

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