this Sunday a Darwin man was arrested while attempting to obstruct war rehearsal operations at Lee Point.

Despite standing in the water off Lee Pt right in the path of the USA Navy LCAC amphibious craft, it continued to rush back and forth past the protester until he was removed from the area by water police.

The arrested man said he was protesting the context of a growing foreign military presence in and around Darwin.

"This growing foreign presence has contributed to the largest ever Darwin component of the biennial Talisman Sabre war rehearsals, amid dangerous posturing towards China."

"Australia should maintain good relationships with the USA, which may include a military alliance, but this should not extend to tolerating USA military bases in Australia. It may make sense to do some joint training, but we should be careful to not allow this to be abused by our ally to send dangerous signals to other nations in our region."

This lone protest coincided with two protesters in Queensland entering the Shoalwater Bay live-fire training range to obstruct war preparations there.

Earlier this week, three other protesters were arrested in the same area.

further details: http://peaceconvergence.org/media-releases/

AUS­TRALIAN, Amer­i­can and Japanese troops will storm the beach to­day at Fog Bay, just west of Dar­win.

Dig­gers from the 2nd Bat­tal­ion will test Aus­tralia’s abil­ity to mount a full-blown am­phibi­ous as­sault as part of north Aus­tralia’s Ex­er­cise Tal­is­man Sabre, which in­volves 30,000 sol­diers, marines, sailors and fly­ers from Australia, the USA, New Zealand and Ja­pan.

The test will not only in­volve a success­ful land­ing and as­sault, but also the abil­ity to op­er­ate seam­lessly with a mas­sive force of USA Marines and their vast ar­ray of equip­ment that in­cludes huge hov­er­craft, Har­rier jump jets, Osprey ver­ti­cal take­off air­craft and am­phibi­ous land­ing craft that emerge from the wa­ter like sub­marines with wheels.

The 2nd Bat­tallion has be­come the na­tion’s first truly am­phibi­ous force and while they are not tech­ni­cally Marines the sol­diers are train­ing to spend months at a time on board one of the navy’s three new am­phibi­ous ships.

note: the aussies do still recognise they are not technically working for a foreign military.

ENEMY forces are dug in and poised in the jungles of Northern Australia waiting for thousands of allied troops to storm ashore and drop from the skies for the nation’s biggest war game — Talisman Sabre 2015.

The Seventh Fleet is the biggest American naval force with 51 ships, 10 submarines, 170 aircraft and 40,000 personnel.

That is more fire power than the entire Australian Defence Force.

When asked directly if China figured in any of the exercise planning his response was, “No”.

He said the exercise focus was on interoperability between the forces involved.

“You really develop a common play book between Australian defence forces and US military so that we can respond to any contingency,” Admiral Thomas said.

"interoperability" - you keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think that it means.

ALMOST 19,000 troops will be playing war games in the Territory and off the coast of Northern Australia in July as part of the Australian and US military exercise, Talisman Sabre.

The biennial event is the Australian Defence Force’s biggest combined military exercise.

Australian Army Brigadier Robert Brown said the Northern Territory part of Talisman Sabre had grown this year and would involve about 18,800 Navy, Army and Air Force personnel from Australia and the US.

“This year a larger portion of the exercise will be staged in the Top End,” he said.

“For 2015, the focus of the exercise, particularly air and maritime operations, will be in the North Australian Range Complex, Timor and Arafura seas however, a number of land activities will continue to be carried out at training areas in the East Australian Range Complex in Queensland.


“We continue to work with traditional owners to fine tune a staged beach landing at Fog Bay which will occur before the exercise moves into the vast Bradshaw Field Training Area on the Northern Territory and Western Australian border.”

A public open day will be held at the Darwin Showgrounds on July 5 and there will be heightened military activity in the Darwin region.

This year will be the sixth time the exercise has been conducted and will involve about 30,000 Australian and US participants with planning and military operations at sea, in the air, and on land.

The exercise will be run in the Northern Territory and Queensland from July 5 to 21.

Japan's Ground Self-Defence Force (JGSDF) — its army — will send 40 personnel to participate in Talisman Sabre, a two-yearly drill that begins on July 7 which will involve around 27,000 servicemen, a spokesman told AFP.

"We will participate in joint exercises with the US Marines rather than operating directly with the Australian military," he said.

But the participation was seen as part of efforts to strengthen defence ties between Japan and Australia, he added.

The drill, which takes place in Australia, is intended to "improve tactical expertise in amphibian operations and to strengthen Japan-US interoperability", an army statement said.

News of Japan's participation came as tensions remain high in the region, with increasing criticism of China's behaviour in the South China Sea, where it has accelerated building artificial islands in disputed waters.

In July last year the United States, India and Japan held week-long war games in the Pacific.