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/

THE USS Green Bay pulled into the Port of Darwin on Wednesday with assault and utility helicopters on her deck and a 41m landing boat in her guts.

“Our charge is to make sure those marines are where they need to be, when they need to be there, ready to fight,” Capt McCallum said.

“What this entails is amphibious landings both from air and sea.

“We’ll have landing craft (and) helicopters on board that will be able to transport the Marines and equipment to where they need to be.”

This year, for the first time, amphibious landings that previously took place in Queensland as part of the biennial wargames will now turn to public beaches in Fog Bay, threatening sensitive turtle nesting events.

The command ship of the US Navy's seventh fleet arrives in Sydney today ahead of this month's joint-training exercises with Australia.

On board, Mr Abbott will meet senior US military figures and address the visiting American sailors.

The command ship of the US seventh fleet will play a key role in this month's Talisman Sabre joint training exercises between the Australian Defence Force and US military in northern Australia.

The biennial Talisman Sabre war games between Australia and the US will this year also include troops from New Zealand and Japan. It officially opens on July 5.

About 27,000 troops are due to hit the ground at Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton and Darwin for the training exercise.

An Aboriginal land council has said it was partially briefed about the US military using a port on the Tiwi Islands to the north of Darwin.

The revelation came amid political argy-bargy at a Senate committee hearing about whether the Tiwi Land Council should publicly talk about the issue.

Senator Nova Peris asked the Tiwi Land Council about facilities at Port Melville.

"Has the Tiwi Land Council been briefed on the potential for the facilities to be used by US Marines or other US military organisation?" Senator Peris asked.

Tiwi Land Council executive member Andrew Tipungwuti was reluctant to go into details.

"We have been briefed on that but in part, it's not to the full extent," he said.

"If you'd really like to know, there is opportunity for any vessels floating around the Tiwi Islands, once the port gets to a development stage and does the processes, there's going to be opportunity for boats to pull in and fuel up."

Singapore-based company Ezion took out a sub-lease for Port Melville in 2010.

The Australian newspaper previously reported the company was in talks with the US military about storing military equipment there and had one day hoped to service military vessels.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion had argued Senator Peris's questions were not relevant to the hearing.

"They're asking the land council whether or not they've been briefed about the use of land that's already been leased out and sub-leased in some cases," he said.

"It just seems that the questions are coming from the position as if the land council would still be in some sort of control of the land."

But Greens Senator Rachel Siewert intervened.

"All Senator Peris asked, I would have thought it was a fair question to ask, have you been briefed? It's a pretty important issue," she said.

Tiwi Land Council acting chief executive Brian Clancy told the ABC he was unable to comment further on the briefing.

The Port Melville redevelopment has now been taken over by AusGroup.

The port was subject of considerable controversy when it was revealed that construction this month that the developer ignored environmental assessment processes.

Marine and Navy leaders are looking to engage with more partner nations in Southeast Asia, which could leave a portion of the Corps' land-based unit in Australia aboard ships, traveling around the region.

Lt. Gen. John Wissler, head of III Marine Expeditionary Force, discussed future plans for the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin, which deploys to Australia's Northern Territory each spring, during the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space conference in mid-April. In the years ahead, the Marines deployed with MRF-Darwin could spend some time at sea, he said.

Having Marines on ships would extend their reach far beyond Australia so they could "continue that engagement and partnership throughout Southeast Asia," Wissler said.

About 1,170 Marines arrived in Australia in mid-April to form the fourth iteration of MRF-Darwin, a six-month rotational deployment that fits into the military's broader plan to shift its focus to the Asia-Pacific region. The Marine Corps began sending company-sized rotations in 2011, and leaders plan to eventually build up to a 2,500-person Marine air-ground task force there.

Wissler said U.S. and Australian officials are working on the agreements to plus-up to MAGTF-level. How future sea-basing options will be worked into the unit's deployments are still in the planning phases, he said.

"That could be any sort of unit, task organized for the available Navy shipping and the mission, just executed from a sea-based platform," Wissler said.

Like the patrols the Japan-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit conducts in the region. Wissler said the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert has stated that "he's committed to having second set ... of two 90-day patrols."

"[We will] introduce this second amphibious ready group," Wissler said.

In March, Greenert said the amphibious assault ship America — which has not yet formed an ARG — is a "prime candidate" to lead the blue-green team in and around Australia.

"They will go into Darwin ... and conduct on-load and off-load," Greenert said.

Wissler said the military-to-military partnerships in U.S. Pacific Command are expanding. He highlighted two recent Marine training events with partner militaries in Southeast Asia: Malaysia and the Philippines.

"Our numbers of engagements and execution of the PACOM U.S. Security Cooperation plan are continuing on the rise ... in the quality and the location and where we're going and where we're reaching out," he said.

sea-basing further confounds any local agency over the growing foreign military presence.