The Wire

Operation Talisman Sabre, a joint training exercise between US and Australian troops, winds up this weekend with a noisy battle above Shoalwater Bay on Queensland’s Central Coast. Greenpeace have their vessel, the Vega, going into the exclusion zone in protest against the exercise which spokesperson James Courtney says involves Australian troops in working with a country that uses depleted uranium in warfare. Dr Danielle Villieux says Medical Practitioners Against War is also making a stand against Operation Talisman Sabre and local resident Peter Murray says there should be an inquiry into the health effects of the exercises which have been going on in the area since the sixties and which at times involve live ammunition and the bombing of two islands in the bay.