/qnotables20/ - ===Q Notables 2020===

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867607 (020612ZDEC20) Notable: Australian and Chinese diplomats meet to seek apology over fake war crimes meme, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Scott_Morrison_urged_Coalition_MPs_not_to_amplify_the_tweet_posted_by_Chinese_Foreign_Ministry_deputy_director_general_Zhao_Lijian_featuring_a_fake_image_of_an_Australian_soldier.jpg, Twitter_refused_Scott_Morrison_s_demand_to_remove_the_offensive_Chinese_post.jpg

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Australian and Chinese diplomats meet to seek apology over fake war crimes meme

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Australian embassy officials have met Chinese counterparts in Beijing to seek a formal apology over the offensive fake war crimes meme shared by a senior Communist official, as Five Eyes security allies rallied behind Scott Morrison.

Consular officials from Australia met Chinese Foreign Ministry representatives late on Tuesday, after a meeting planned the night before was suddenly cancelled.

The Australian understands the US State Department was expected to issue a strongly worded statement overnight in support of Australia, following similar moves by Britain and New Zealand condemning China’s action.

The Prime Minister on Tuesday urged Coalition MPs not to amplify the tweet posted by ­Chinese Foreign Ministry deputy director-general Zhao Lijian, which depicted an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child.

Although Beijing has frozen contact between leaders and ministers over the past 12 months, The Australian understands back-channel relationships between diplomatic officials are still functioning.

A federal government source said the meeting had gone ahead but would not disclose the tone of the meeting or details of the exchanges between officials.

Speaking to the Coalition partyroom on Tuesday, Mr Morrison acknowledged the seriousness of Australia’s relationship with China and called for dialogue that would foster a working relationship between the two countries.

Attempts to ease tensions with Beijing will be tested further this week, with the Morrison government’s Foreign Relations Bill expected to pass through the parliament by Thursday. The legislation would give the federal government powers to scuttle agreements between foreign governments and Australian states, councils and universities. President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative deal struck between the Victorian government and Beijing would likely be a target of the new laws.

China’s embassy in Canberra, which came in for criticism from US ambassador Arthur Culvahouse Jr last week after it circulated a list of 14 grievances against the Morrison government, again refused to apologise over the tweet.

An embassy spokeswoman on Tuesday accused Australian MPs and the media of “misreading and overreacting” to the tweet, which was described by Mr Morrison as an outrageous and appalling slur against the Australian Defence Force. The spokeswoman called on the Morrison government to “face up” to the breakdown in relations with Beijing and “take constructive practical steps to help bring it back to the right track”.

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Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867646 (020617ZDEC20) Notable: Vieo: Wuheqilin (Fu Yu) - Chinese artist behind doctored image of Australian soldier says he's ready to make more

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Chinese artist behind doctored image of Australian soldier says he's ready to make more

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The Chinese artist behind a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child has taunted the Australian Prime Minister, saying that he would make another artwork in response to being "scolded".

The image — created to criticise Australia over the damning Brereton war crimes inquiry — was posted on Twitter by China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Monday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison labelled the post "repugnant", demanding it be removed and Beijing issue an apology.

Fu Yu — the political computer graphic artist behind the image, who is also known online as Qilin — responded to Mr Morrison's reactions in a video shared by Chinese media on Weibo.

"I get scolded by this Australian person called Morrison, and he demands my apology," said Mr Fu, who in the video identifies as also the owner of Beijing Wuhe Culture and Creativity Company.

"I feel sympathetic for him and fully understand Morrison's feelings right now.

"But I would advise Morrison to face reality, and put his attention and effort on his domestic affairs."

The Brereton investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Australian SAS forces found there was "credible information" to suggest they had murdered at least 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.

Mr Fu has called himself a "wolf-warrior artist", echoing China's aggressive diplomacy style in recent years.

His posts on Monday received over 1 million views by over 700,000 followers on Weibo.

Mr Fu urged Mr Morrison to "make sure his Government's military force becomes more disciplined to avoid any similar international tragedy", and described his work as an "effort to protect mankind".

"He should put less effort on pressuring and condemning a fact-based artwork and an artist who is ordinary and from a foreign country," he said.

"If I have energy tonight, I can make another artwork as my response."

The ABC has approached Mr Fu for comment.

What we know about the image

Mr Fu created the controversial computer graphic on the evening of November 22, according to China's state-owned media Global Times.

He said he had a sense of "fury and trembling" after reading news articles about Australian soldiers' "brutal killing of 39 civilians" in Afghanistan, including an unsubstantiated account that described how "soldiers cut the throat of two 14-year-old Afghan teenagers with knives".

The rumoured death of the two boys, allegedly suspected of being Taliban sympathisers, was not substantiated in the findings of the four-year-long Brereton inquiry.

"I created this CG illustration based on my anger and shuddering. The artwork was simply created out of a sense of humanitarianism," Mr Fu wrote for Global Times.

Mr Fu said he used an Australian flag to cover some bodies of the Afghanistan civilians behind the soldier, which contrasted with the little sheep in the boy's arms.

"What I have produced looks like an absurd scene, but it is something that really happened somewhere in this world," he said.

"I hope that more people will see this painting and pay attention to this real tragedy."

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Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867686 (020623ZDEC20) Notable: Scott Morrison appeals directly to Chinese citizens on WeChat, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: A_screenshot_of_Scott_Morrison_s_WeChat_account.jpg, Chinese_President_Xi_Jinping.jpg

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Scott Morrison appeals directly to Chinese citizens on WeChat

Scott Morrison has taken things into his own hands with a direct plea to millions of Chinese citizens on WeChat explaining Australia’s position.

Scott Morrison has appealed directly to millions of Chinese on the social messaging app WeChat to defend Australia’s honour after a barbaric fake image showed a soldier preparing to kill a child.

In an olive branch to Chinese voters, the Prime Minister has insisted the incendiary image would not diminish Australia’s respect for the Chinese community at home or abroad.

However, he warned Australia was a “free, democratic” country that was dealing with the war crimes allegations in a transparent way.

“I am extremely proud of all Australians who pull a uniform on for Australia. I am proud of their service and of their dedication to keeping Australia and Australians safe. I am proud of their loyalty to our country and its values,” he said.

“Where there are alleged events that have taken place that require action, well we have set up the honest and transparent processes for that to take place. That is what a free, democratic, liberal country does.

“The post of a false image of an Australian soldier does not diminish our respect for and appreciation of our Chinese Australian community or indeed our friendship with the people of China.”

The Prime Minister first joined the Chinese social messaging platform in the lead up to the 2019 election.

In his first post, Mr Morrison wrote: “I hope to establish closer channels of communication with Chinese Australians through this WeChat account to present my work and national policies.”

In Tuesday night’s post, the Prime Minister was at pains to note his respect for the nation’s Chinese community.

“We acknowledge and greatly appreciate and value the contribution that generations of Chinese migrants have made to Australia,” he said.

“Migrants from China have been arriving in Australia for more than two hundred years and Australians of Chinese background have added immensely to our nation.”

As he has previously noted, he said the Chinese community’s adherence to COVID-19 rules and quarantine was vital to containing the virus as Australians returned from Wuhan and other parts of China earlier this year.

“It was Chinese Australians in particular who provided one of the greatest defences to the COVID-19 pandemic we had in those early weeks,” he said.

“They were the ones who first went into self-isolation, they were the ones who were returning from family visits to China and they were coming home and it was through their care, commitment and patience that actually Australia was protected in that first wave. Australians are very grateful for that.”

The Prime Minister’s diplomacy comes amid a new campaign to urge drinkers to buy an Australian bottle of wine in a show of force to China.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) launched a new video overnight amid fresh threats to slap huge tariffs on wine exports.

“We are asking you all to join us in standing against Xi Jinping’s authoritarian bullying,” Miriam Lexmann, a Christian Democrat Member of the European parliament said.

On Tuesday, the Chinese embassy issued a blistering response to the “rage and roar” of Australian politicians accusing them of “overreacting” to the incendiary tweet.

“We would like to further stress the following: the rage and roar of some Australian politicians and media is nothing but misreading of and over-reaction to Mr Zhao’s tweet,” the statement said.

China’s state-controlled media has urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “kneel down on the ground and slap himself in the face” over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

“Morrison should kneel down on the ground, slap himself in the face, and kowtow to apologise to Afghans – all these should be done in a live telecast,” the editor wrote.

“No matter what harsh words people use on them for the murder, the Australian government should have accepted it. How dare they talk back and say they are offended!”

https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/scott-morrison-appeals-directly-to-chinese-citizens-on-wechat/news-story/a2a969f936914eae8b95f36276413655

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867746 (020630ZDEC20) Notable: Video: China’s Global Times publishes new offensive cartoon depicting a bloodied kangaroo while demanding Australia apologise to the artist behind the fake picture

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China’s Global Times publishes new offensive cartoon against Australia in scathing editorial

China has published a cartoon depicting a bloodied kangaroo while demanding Australia apologise to the artist behind the fake picture.

China’s government mouthpiece The Global Times has published a cartoon depicting a bloodied kangaroo while demanding Australia apologise to China’s “wolf warrior artist”.

Overnight the publication posted a series of scathing tweets about Australia and Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The latest cartoon appeared in a piece criticising the PM for his shock over a tweet featuring a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of what appears to be an Afghan child. The image was created by Chinese artist Fu Yu – known as Wuheqilin.

He finally spoke out about the original doctored image, posting a video from Beijing Capital International Airport advising Mr Morrison to “face reality” and writing a column for The Global Times.

In it, he said: “I am the one who illustrated the cartoon that pissed off Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

“It is totally hard to believe that a head of state like Morrison got totally bent out shape about my computer graphics work. I am flabbergasted that he even organised a press conference to fume about it.”

The artist said he created the image, which he calls a cartoon, on the night of November 22.

The faked image was then published to Twitter by China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian earlier this week, who said he was “shocked by murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers”.

It has led to global outrage and criticism against Beijing.

“Morrison called my cartoon ‘fabricated’,” Wuheqilin wrote. “Some overseas netizens claimed it was doctored. I’d like to tell them that their focus should not be on whether or not it is a real picture or an artistic creation. It is an incident embedded in a cartoon.”

The latest cartoon depicting a bloodied kangaroo in a suit with a bloodied knife next to it, was created by a different artist, Chen Xia.

The publication posted a series of tweets overnight about Australia, including a graphic listing of alleged war crimes.

The tweets are simply flagged: “China state-affiliated media.”

In the latest Global Times piece defending Wuheqilin, writer Yu Luxu said: “A cartoon is cartoon. It is not a photo. So how can it be ‘faked’ as Morrison and some Australian outlets claim?

“Cartoon has characteristics that exaggerate some points with an emphasis on artistic expression and visual shock. This is very common around the world. This is far from fabricating facts. Still, Wuheqilin’s work is based on facts.”

The article demanded Mr Morrison and the Australian Government “take full responsibility for the deteriorating relationship with China” and claimed “Australia exaggerated and distorted Zhao’s comment and use of cartoon over the crime of Australian troops, calling it “a false image”.

“The country that owes an apology is Australia – to China. And to Afghanistan first and foremost for slaughtering their innocent people.

“It should also apologise to the Chinese artist, whose work was groundlessly smeared as a ‘false image’.

“It needs to seriously reassess the damage done its own international optics caused by this double standard outburst regarding ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘human rights’.”

Meanwhile Mr Morrison appealed directly to millions of Chinese people on the social messaging app WeChat to defend Australia’s honour.

In an olive branch to Chinese voters, the Prime Minister has insisted the incendiary image would not diminish Australia’s respect for the Chinese community at home or abroad.

Last night the Chinese Embassy issued a blistering response accusing Mr Morrison of “overreacting” to the tweet.

“We would like to further stress the following: The rage and roar of some Australian politicians and media is nothing but misreading of and over-reaction to Mr Zhao’s tweet,” the statement said.

“The accusations made are simply to serve two purposes. One is to deflect public attention from the horrible atrocities by certain Australian soldiers. The other is to blame China for the worsening of bilateral ties. There may be another attempt to stoke domestic nationalism.”

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/chinas-global-times-publishes-new-offensive-cartoon-against-australia-in-scathing-editorial/news-story/daf99bf5cb766c5f72a8e33b1237760f

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867772 (020634ZDEC20) Notable: PM muddies Aussie's own waters with double-standard outburst - Yu Luxu - globaltimes.cn, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: b8b720f6_bcd8_498f_8b96_3c572625.jpg

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>>181128

PM muddies Aussie's own waters with double-standard outburst

Yu Luxu, Global Times - 2020/12/1

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Australia's hypocrisy and double standard on human rights and so-called freedom of speech have again made waves in its relations with China.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian made a post on his personal Twitter account of a cartoon that condemns Australian troops' murder of civilians in Afghanistan. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison then reacted immediately with a press conference, calling the cartoon "a false image" and demanded an apology from China.

What Zhao posted was a satirical cartoon illustrated by Chinese young artist Wuheqilin and based on reports from Australian media outlets. A four-year inquiry recently released by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force found evidence of 39 murders and the cruel treatment of two others by Australian special forces deployed in Afghanistan. The long-running probe found "credible information," according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation report on November 19.

The report has sparked controversy online and across the world. Humanity has condemned such misconduct. Wuheqilin, who is to some extent well-known in China for his ironic cartoons, is one of them. Many of his previous works satirizing the US were quite popular among Chinese netizens. But soon after Zhao posted his latest cartoon on Twitter, it was accused by the Australian side of fueling "horrific anti-Australia propaganda."

A cartoon is cartoon. It is not a photo. So how can it be "faked" as Morrison and some Australian outlets claim? Cartoon has characteristics that exaggerate some points with an emphasis on artistic expression and visual shock. This is very common around the world. This is far from fabricating facts. Still, Wuheqilin's work is based on facts. "I was only using my work to record what had happened. I see it as my responsibility to record truth," Wuheqilin said.

To clarify matters: A Chinese artist expressed his anger and condemnation against Australian troops' war crimes in a neighbor country of China with a cartoon. A Chinese diplomat put it on Twitter to show his own opinion about these outrageous crimes. That's all. Did they do anything wrong? They are practicing their freedom of speech, something Australia claims to love and fight for. Ridiculously, such moves are intolerant to Australia's current PM.

Australia and some other Western countries including the US, have long applied double standards toward China over human rights and freedom of speech, as Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Monday. These countries always describe themselves as defenders of human rights, yet they wantonly criticize other countries' human rights conditions.

Zhao's condemnation over Australian soldiers who committed wars crime in Afghanistan is legitimate. On what ground did Morrison feel angry over the use of the cartoon? Is Canberra that thin skinned and delicate? Qian said this fully exposes the hypocrisy of the West on topics such as "human rights" and "freedom of speech" - mantras Australia is always bleating like a sheep.

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Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867791 (020635ZDEC20) Notable: PM muddies Aussie's own waters with double-standard outburst - Yu Luxu - globaltimes.cn, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: b55f8ebe_aeb0_4681_9ec4_a7d7cb56.jpg

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>>181129

2/2

Morrison loses his cool over a diplomat and computer graphic artist with just one social media post. The post was against the atrocities not the country per se. Yet the Australian government should put those guilty on trial - not drop the diplomatic ball with a knee-jerk reaction and misconstrue the cartoon as "anti-Australia propaganda."

In this pressurized climate, Canberra and the Morrison government in particular should take full responsibility for the deteriorating relationship with China. Canberra in recent days has repeated irrational and reckless provocations against China. It is acting as a proxy field and little Washington fixer to contain Beijing.

Against this backdrop, Australia will use any silly pretext to smear China. Therefore, Australia exaggerated and distorted Zhao's comment and use of cartoon over the crime of Australian troops, calling it "a false image." The Chinese diplomat and the artist also have the freedom to criticize Australia's soldiers murdering civilians. But Australia and its media outlets showed no respect for their freedom of speech.

China's criticism over Australia soldiers' cruel killing is based on "credible evidence" and is legitimate. By contrast, Australia has made up a large number of fake messages about China. For example, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has long spared no effort to portray China as Australia's biggest threat. In a bid to instigate anti-China sentiments, this institute churns out a host of absurd "reports" on China which confuse right and wrong. Has Australia apologized to China?

The country that owes an apology is Australia - to China. And to Afghanistan first and foremost for slaughtering their innocent people.

Indeed, Canberra should apologize to the unarmed people who were brutally killed by Australia's elite soldiers, and to their families and friends. It should also apologize to the Chinese artist, whose work was groundlessly smeared as a "false image." It needs to seriously reassess the damage done its own international optics caused by this double standard outburst regarding "freedom of speech" and "human rights."

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1208627.shtml

https://web.archive.org/web/20201201100545/https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1208627.shtml

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867808 (020638ZDEC20) Notable: Fact-based illustration not 'fake photo'; Aussie accusation aims to 'divert attention': FM - globaltimes.cn, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Hua_Chunying.jpg

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>>181128

Fact-based illustration not 'fake photo'; Aussie accusation aims to 'divert attention': FM

Global Times - 2020/12/1

Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the illustration featuring an Australian soldier murdering a child is based on facts and not a "fake photograph," pointing out Australia's attempt to divert public attention from its inhumane crimes in Afghanistan.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier Monday demanded an apology from China over a tweet by foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, claiming the cartoon was fake and that China should feel "ashamed" of it.

On Monday, Zhao tweeted a satirical illustration, created by Chinese cartoonist Wuheqilin, depicting an Australian soldier murdering an Afghan child.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on Tuesday said Morrison's accusation is groundless, as the circulating picture is not a photograph but a computer-generated illustration.

"An illustration is different from a fake photograph," Hua noted.

This illustration is based on an investigation report by the Australian Department of Defense, Hua pointed out, noting, "Although it is a painting, it reflects the facts."

Hua also quoted the cartoonist as saying: "Mr. Morrison, your soldiers have done worse things than the illustration shows."

Hua said Morrison's real purpose is clear, and that is to divert attention and shift pressure from Australian war crimes to criticism against China.

Some Australian politicians and certain Australians hold inexplicable and unreasonable arrogance and hypocrisy, Hua said. They are trying to deprive China of its right to tell the truth as they are afraid of the truth, she noted.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1208647.shtml

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867815 (020640ZDEC20) Notable: Cartoon demands justice for murdered Afghans, Morrison blunder-struck with hypocrisy - Wuheqilin - globaltimes.cn, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Scott_Morrison.jpg

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>>181128

Cartoon demands justice for murdered Afghans, Morrison blunder-struck with hypocrisy

Wuheqilin, Global Times - 2020/12/1

I am the one who illustrated the cartoon that pissed off Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

It is totally hard to believe that a head of state like Morrison got totally bent out shape about my computer graphics work. I am flabbergasted that he even organized a press conference to fume about it! Even blame it as "anti-Australia" propaganda!

Actually, Morrison's outrage should not target my illustration, which was inspired by reality. Instead, he should be taking to task his own country's government and the troops deployed overseas, especially those who committed the brutality on our good neighbors in Afghanistan.

He should be ashamed that his country has been slow to make its troops more disciplined.

I made the cartoon through the night of November 22 and the day of 23 after reading the news that Australian forces in Afghanistan killed 39 civilians and prisoners. Some even killed two 14-year-old boys by slitting their throats.

I felt outrageous and frightened after seeing the news. I could hardly imagine that in today's world where human civilization has massively improved, national forces of certain so-called developed countries could have conducted such cruel acts. Based on pure humanitarian sentiments, I channeled my fury and fear into my artistic creation. As a human being, I feel ashamed for those soldiers who committed the slaughter of the innocents.

Morrison called my cartoon "fabricated." Some overseas netizens claimed it was doctored. I'd like to tell them that their focus should not be on whether or not it is a real picture or an artistic creation. It is an incident embedded in a cartoon.

As an ordinary and unknown computer graphics cartoonist, I just use my work and ideas to record truth. This is my responsibility.

The cartoon is my creation based on facts. Of course, the elements in the cartoon and the scene are not real. In reality, there was no scene in which an Australian soldier stands on the national flag and uses the flag to cover the head of an Afghan youth who holds a sheep.

But what really happened is far more disturbing: An Australian soldier slit the throat of an Afghan boy. I don't want to show this brutal scene to the audience directly. So when I made the illustration, I used the national flag to cover the corpse behind the Australian soldier and intentionally wrapped the head of the boy with a corner of the flag. I also made the boy hold a sheep to make a difference in color. So when the audience sees the cartoon, they will notice the sheep first and then the boy having his throat slit. I also designed an effect in which the blue part of the Australian national flag ripped through the red part of the Afghan national flag. This is a reflection of what the US and Australian troops have actually done in Afghanistan. The scene in my illustration looks preposterous. But it truly happened to real people who had loved ones and friends. I hope more people will see this cartoon and pay attention to this tragedy.

During the process of my creation I did use Photoshop, but the cartoon was not doctored in anyway. How could it be? It's a cartoon. Again, all elements in my computer graphics cartoons were created by myself with some composition with Photoshop. Many of my previous works also employed this blended technique.

It is a 100-percent fact that Australian troops brutally killed Afghan civilians. Australia should tell the Afghans and the world how many people its troops have killed and how they will be held accountable for it. What's happening in the real world is much more brutal, bloody and frightening than what my cartoon shows.

The author is a computer graphics cartoonist. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1208645.shtml

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11867899 (020654ZDEC20) Notable: Wuheqilin Weibo Post: To Morrison '-apologize!!-', MISSING MEDIA/FILES: WQ_2.jpg, WQ_1.jpg, f0660ae6_a0ac_47eb_b998_3853ae2a.jpg

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>>181126

>>181132

Wuheqilin Weibo Post

《致莫里森》 ​​​​

To Morrison

https://weibo.com/1566936885/JwulSerwN

https://weibo.com/qilinshendian

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868137 (020734ZDEC20) Notable: Don’t listen to Donald Trump’s delusions, they aren’t yours to bear - JACK THE INSIDER (Peter Hoysted) - theaustralian.com.au

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Don’t listen to Donald Trump’s delusions, they aren’t yours to bear

JACK THE INSIDER (Peter Hoysted) - DECEMBER 2, 2020

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On Tuesday, the US Attorney-General William Barr, a Trump appointee, told Associated Press, he has “not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”

Barr’s statement is the latest rejection of Trump’s increasingly desperate claims of electoral shenanigans that cost him a victory he believes was his due. The FBI, GOP governors, election officials across the land have already said much the same thing as Barr. In any event, the states Joe Biden flipped – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia have all certified their results.

Still, Trump clings to mad unsubstantiated conspiracy theories – he has said that the Department of Justice and the FBI “maybe” are involved in his contrived conspiracy. His latest Tweets offer little more than incredulity that Biden had won 80,000 million votes.

The President is stuck deep in denial and that phase of the grieving process looks set to last with acceptance a long way away.

Perhaps the saddest element is not, as commentators here and in the US have indicated, that Trump is undermining public faith in the democratic process. There is that certainly, but it may turn out to be a self-defeating argument, with many Trump voters in Georgia saying they won’t cast a ballot in the two Senate run-off election on January 5.

If those two run-offs go the Democrats way, giving them the balance of power in both Houses of Congress, I guarantee the GOP’s own version of the stages of grief will quickly turn to anger directed at Trump, whose tantrums firstly discouraged Republican voters from casting mail-in ballots for the presidential election and now effectively dissuade those in Georgia from voting at all.

But the real problem is not the 74 million voters who voted for Trump but the subset of them who are going dangerously along for the ride with the President’s deranged conspiracies.

Let’s go back to polling day. On the morning of the election White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was on Fox News predicting a landslide win for Donald Trump.

“Our campaign believes that tonight will be a landslide,” McEnany said.

Florida and Ohio were “a lock” for the President she said. McEnany was right on that score. But she also tipped Trump would win Nevada and Minnesota. Biden won Minnesota by seven points, a margin of almost 250,000 votes with 3.2 million votes cast in the state. Nevada was closer but Biden still won by more than two points.

Had Trump won those states it still would not have constituted a landslide win. Where else might Trump have flipped blue states? Virginia? Biden won by ten points. New Hampshire? Biden won by seven and a half points. Colorado? Biden won by 13 points. New Mexico? Biden won by eleven points. There was never any prospect of a Trump landslide win.

Maybe we can put McEnany’s statements down to a little pre-count excitement, a bit of barracking for the team. It happens. It’s not unusual. But the Trump rusted-ons were saying the same thing. Forget the polls. Trump would win by a landslide.

McEnany clearly believed a substantial win was coming Donald Trump’s way because she went on to say this: “We believe this will be a landslide and for the Biden campaign to come out and double down on Hillary Clinton’s egregious statement that (under) no circumstance should you concede just tells you all you need to know,” she said.

Back in August the failed presidential candidate had advised Joe Biden not to concede on election night. At the time, the Biden camp did not respond.

But here we are a month after the election and McEnany’s boss is yet to concede and probably won’t ever.

(continued)

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868149 (020736ZDEC20) Notable: Don’t listen to Donald Trump’s delusions, they aren’t yours to bear - JACK THE INSIDER (Peter Hoysted) - theaustralian.com.au

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>>181134

2/2

The media played a role in creating confusion and suspicion about the results. When Americans went to bed on election night, US commentators and analysts were generally of the view that Biden could not win Pennsylvania. Highly paid analysts in expensive suits were staring at maps and babbling about a replication of the 2016 result without taking the time to look – and it was there for all to see – that dark blue counties around Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg had less than ten per cent counted.

But they didn’t even have to look that far because at the very same time, Biden trailed by ten points in Lackawanna County, PA.

Viewers of the US production of The Office starring Steve Carell as the regional manager of fictitious paper company Dunder Mifflin, will know Lackawanna County is home to Scranton, Pennsylvania’s sixth largest city. It is also Joe Biden’s birthplace.

Did anyone seriously believe Biden would lose in the county of his birth? He ended up winning by almost 10,000 votes with 110,000 counted.

Talk about your fish and chip wrapper analysis. It was dead in the water in the space of a night.

If people wish to continue to support Donald Trump’s version of conservative nationalism and MAGA populism, fair enough. Seventy four million Americans did. Their views are genuine, their political beliefs authentic and their aspirations worthy.

But there is a big difference between political affiliation and faith based devotion.

I keep a very close eye on QAnon, the US-based cult with perhaps as many as three million followers worldwide. Post-election, the usual channels of the cult went quiet. ‘Q drops’ – the messages from the fictitious deep state insider ceased. The usual QAnon grifters, all of whom make a very nice living out of the cult through web subscriptions, donations and merch, fell silent.

I’d like to think that many Anons took that silence as an opportunity to reflect that of all the Q prophecies, not one has come true, from Comet Pizza or Pizzagate on. I hope many would have walked away, reached out to their families for the first time in years and maybe even broken bread once again over Thanksgiving dining tables.

In the last ten days QAnon has stirred, revved up by Sidney Powell’s bizarre accusations. Powell’s claims, now filed with the State of Georgia’s District Court, assert that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who has been dead for seven and a half years, orchestrated massive electoral fraud with the assistance of CIA black ops, and the Republican Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, to rig Dominion voting machines to shuffle not thousands but hundreds of thousands of votes from one side to another.

Irrational presumptions and charlatanism are the cornerstones of cults. There’s no point in trying to punch holes in their belief system. Hell, you could drive a Leopard tank through them, do a U-turn and come back and do it all over again.

The point is if you believe them, if you give these ridiculous claims the time of day, you are on the verge of joining a cult. Call it QAnon, call it the Cult of Trump, you are on a one-way ticket down a very deep, dark rabbit hole from which there may be no coming back.

There are other signs. You find people avoiding your company. That extended family members stay away. That Christmas dinner looks like a solitary exercise. That your phone doesn’t ring with mates wanting nothing more than a friendly chat. Or you spend more and more time in a darkened room chatting in bleak corners of the web with those of deluded like mind.

The best advice I can give is to pull back. Embrace the good things in life — family and friends. Maybe forget about politics for a while. It’s a win-lose game and you can’t win all of the time. Trump’s delusions are not yours to bear.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1333856259662077954

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1333405854297632770

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/dont-listen-to-donald-trumps-delusions-they-arent-yours-to-bear/news-story/3dd5a8cceb125d98d56a002e2e5af3be

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868755 (020919ZDEC20) Notable: Video: Iran targets Kylie Moore-Gilbert in sick propaganda video, claims she and her secret Israeli husband were spies

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>>181122

Iran targets Kylie Moore-Gilbert in sick propaganda video

Freed Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert is the target of a new Iranian propaganda campaign that claims she and her secret Israeli husband were spies.

The identity of Dr Moore-Gilbert’s husband Ruslan Hodorov has remained a tightly guarded secret throughout her incarceration given the sensitivities of her being married to an Israeli as Australia negotiated her release with the rogue state.

The Herald Sun reports today the propaganda videos released by Iran also includes images that purport to show Dr Moore-Gilbert in army greens that Iran claims were taken in a training camp in Haifa.

“Kylie received army training in this centre and in that year she was present in the office of the Central Studies known as Counter-Terrorism, which was connected to Herzliya,” one of the Farsi-language videos claims.

“Herzliya is the name of an institute in Israel which, under the cover of a private research college, carries out many spying activities.”

“After being recruited by the Israeli spying services, she succeeded in being accepted at the University of Cambridge in England,”

“She also got her British citizenship.”

Dr Moore-Gilbert has always vehemently denied being a spy in letters smuggled out of Iranian prisons.

“I am not a spy. I have never been a spy and I have no interest to work for a spying organisation in any country,’’ she wrote in a letter smuggled out earlier this year.

But in a letter from jail early on in her incarceration she implied her arrest was linked to her husband, who lives in Melbourne.

His image appears to have been wiped from social media and the internet.

“They have also attempted to use me as a hostage in a diabolical plot to lure my husband, an Australian permanent resident (and soon to be now citizen) into joining me in an Iranian prison,’’ she wrote.

Both the couple and the Australian Government deny they were spies, but government sources have confirmed that the Iranians’ discovery she was in a relationship with an Israeli was the initial trigger for her arrest at the Tehran airport in 2018.

She was subsequently sentenced to a 10-year jail sentence and served over 800 days in some of Iran’s most notorious prisons.

She was released under a prisoner swap deal last week with a news website affiliated to state television in Iran repeating claims she was a spy.

“An Iranian businessman and two Iranian citizens who were detained abroad on baseless charges were exchanged for a dual national spy named Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who worked for the Zionist regime,” it said.

Dr Moore-Gilbert touched down in Canberra over the weekend in a taxpayer-funded charter flight where she is recovering from her ordeal and staying with a family member.

According to the propaganda videos posted on The Iranian-American Trial Lawyers Association’s Twitter account, Dr Moore-Gilbert’s husband was a refugee who sought asylum in Israel in the 1990s.

“He was also an officer in the Israeli army. Ruslan, Kylie’s husband, after a while started working in a spying ­establishment under the cover of an Australian company belonging to one of the members of the (Israeli) internal security services,” one of the videos claims.

“Ruslan, through his manager, introduced Kylie to one of the officers in Mossad (the Israeli spy agency) by the name of Zoohar. He (Ruslan) sends an email to Kylie and mentions that she will meet with this security officer and discuss issues related to the Middle East.”

The videos claim she had converted to Judaism back in the late 2000s while travelling in Israel and feature images of her traditional Jewish wedding.

Dr Moore-Gilbert has thanked those “who have supported me and campaigned for my freedom, it has meant the world to me to have you behind me throughout what has been a long and traumatic ordeal”.

“I can’t tell you how heartening it was to hear that my friends and colleagues were speaking up and hadn’t forgotten me,’ Dr Moore-Gilbert wrote.

“It gave me so much hope and strength to endure what had seemed like a never-ending, unrelenting nightmare.

“My freedom truly is your victory. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/iran-targets-kylie-mooregilbert-in-sick-propaganda-video/news-story/2884ec350163a0a676d5526d11a15c44

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868770 (020922ZDEC20) Notable: Iran targets freed academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert and her husband Ruslan Hodorov - an Israeli of Russian origin - claiming both are spies, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: The_video_purports_to_show_Kylie_Moore_Gilbert_and_her_husband_Ruslan_Hodorov.jpg, IATLA_1.jpg, Kylie_Moore_Gilbert_and_her_husband_in_the_video.jpg, Kylie_Moore_Gilbert_in_what_appears_to_be_her_wedding_in_the_video.jpg, The_Iranian_videos_claim_to_show_Dr_Moore_Gilbert_at_Israel_s_Wailing_Wall_in_Jerusalem.jpg

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>>181137

Iran targets freed academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in propaganda war

Freed Australian hostage Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been the target of a mass Iranian propaganda campaign following her release, with Iranian media releasing personal photos of her and her husband Ruslan Hodorov and claiming both are spies.

The Herald Sun reports on Monday that three propaganda videos posted online since Dr Moore-Gilbert’s release from prison in Iran claim to show her in army greens at an Israeli training camp and show both photos of her Middle East travels and her wedding to Mr Hodorov – an Israeli of Russian origin.

“After being recruited by the Israeli spying services, she succeeded in being accepted at the University of Cambridge in England,” one of the Farsi-language videos claims.

“He was also an officer in the Israeli army. Ruslan, Kylie’s husband, after a while started working in a spying ­establishment under the cover of an Australian company belonging to one of the members of the (Israeli) internal security services.

“Ruslan, through his manager, introduced Kylie to one of the officers in Mossad (the Israeli spy agency) by the name of Zoohar. He (Ruslan) sends an email to Kylie and mentions that she will meet with this security officer and discuss issues related to the Middle East.”

The videos claim to show several photos of Mr Hodorov including his personal I.D.

Dr Moore-Gilbert has repeatedly denied she was a spy in court and in letters from Evin Prison in Iran.

“There is no hope for a fair trial. Indeed, a guilty verdict has been predetermined in a legal system wholly controlled by the Revolutionary Guards,” she wrote in one prison letter.

“I came to Iran as an academic researcher and consider myself a political prisoner.”

The Iranian videos claim to show Dr Moore-Gilbert at Israel’s Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and photos taken in 2013 in an army training centre situated in the Israeli city of Haifa.

“Kylie received army training in this centre and in that year she was present in the office of the Central Studies known as Counter-Terrorism, which was connected to Herzliya,” the Iranian propaganda video claimed.

“Herzliya is the name of an institute in Israel which, under the cover of a private research college, carries out many spying activities.”

Dr Moore-Gilbert landed in Canberra last week after a prisoner swap arranged between Australia, Iran and Thailand.

The federal government has repeatedly said it did not accept the espionage charges levelled against the Melbourne academic.

The Australian approached the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for comment.

https://twitter.com/IATLAnet/status/1332287786360115200

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/iran-targets-freed-academic-kylie-mooregilbert-in-propaganda-war/news-story/141537f6e94cbc291b0477db12e12b42

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868882 (020946ZDEC20) Notable: Iranian-American Trial Lawyers Association Tweet: Who is #KylieMooreGilbert? Beyond Propaganda & Disinformation Part I

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>>181137

>>181138

Iranian-American Trial Lawyers Association Tweet

Who is #KylieMooreGilbert?

Beyond Propaganda & Disinformation

Part I

/

https://twitter.com/IATLAnet/status/1332287786360115200

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868891 (020947ZDEC20) Notable: Iranian-American Trial Lawyers Association Tweet: Who is #KylieMooreGilbert? Beyond Propaganda & Disinformation Part II

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>>181139

Who is #KylieMooreGilbert?

Beyond Propaganda & Disinformation

Part II

/

https://twitter.com/IATLAnet/status/1332289302299074562

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868897 (020948ZDEC20) Notable: Iranian-American Trial Lawyers Association Tweet: Who is #KylieMooreGilbert? Beyond Propaganda & Disinformation Part III

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>>181140

Who is #KylieMooreGilbert?

Beyond Propaganda & Disinformation

Part III

/

https://twitter.com/IATLAnet/status/1332291884933406721

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11868963 (021003ZDEC20) Notable: United States Ambassador Arthur Culvahouse Jr accuses China of spreading misinformation over Afghan soldier image, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: This_image_was_tweeted_by_Chinese_Government_spokesman_Lijian_Zhao_It_has_been_blurred_by_the_ABC.jpg, Arthur_Culvahouse_Jr_said_China_should_follow_Australia_s_example_and_share_what_it_knows_about_the_origins_of_the_coronavirus.jpg, Chinese_Foreign_Ministry_spokeswoman_Hua_Chunying_accused_Australia_of_trying_to_divert_attention_from_alleged_war_crimes_committed_by_soldiers.jpg

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>>181083

United States Ambassador Arthur Culvahouse Jr accuses China of spreading misinformation over Afghan soldier image

The United States has broken its silence on the furious dispute between Australia and China over war crimes in Afghanistan, accusing Beijing of spreading disinformation.

China's Foreign Ministry, the Chinese embassy in Australia and multiple Chinese state media are all ramping up their attacks on Australia over the Brereton report, which found credible evidence special forces committed at least 39 unlawful killings during the war in Afghanistan.

The furore first erupted on Monday when China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted an artwork depicting an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child.

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison denounced the move and angrily demanded an apology.

But China has mocked those demands, with a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying last night holding up a copy of the Brereton Report during a press conference and accusing Australia of trying to divert attention from the crimes of Australian soldiers.

The controversy has drawn international media attention, but few governments have weighed into the dispute.

The incoming Biden administration has not yet issued any public statements.

But in a statement responding to questions from the ABC, US Ambassador to Australia Arthur Culvahouse Jr defended the Government.

Mr Culvahouse took aim at China's Foreign Ministry, accusing it of "[spreading] disinformation through fabricated images and disingenuous statements".

He also said Australia had taken steps to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan, and called on China to show similar transparency.

"Australia responsibly investigated and disclosed allegations that its soldiers committed crimes in Afghanistan," Mr Culvahouse said.

"The world can only wish that the Chinese Communist Party were to bring the same degree of transparency and accountability to credible reports of atrocities against the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

"[China] would do well to follow Australia's example and disclose to the world all it knows about the origin of the COVID-19 virus."

The US State Department also issued a statement backing Australia, with its deputy spokesperson Cale Brown calling China's verbal attack on Australia "another example of its unchecked use of disinformation and coercive diplomacy".

"Its hypocrisy is obvious to all. While it doctors images on Twitter to attack other nations, the CCP prevents its own citizens from reading their posts," he said.

France also dragged into diplomatic dispute

The furore in Australia also sparked a fresh diplomatic dispute in France.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for France's Foreign Affairs ministry criticised the tweet from Mr Zhao, labelling it "shocking" and "not worthy of the methods to be expected of the foreign ministry of a country like China".

The Chinese embassy in Paris responded furiously, accusing France of ignoring "freedom of expression" and embracing "double standards".

"It is hard not to ask on hearing this shocking statement, whether [France] is positioning itself on the side of war criminals rather than on the side of international justice and the human conscience," the embassy said.

Back in Australia, China's contemptuous response to the Prime Minister's demand has drawn an angry response from some crossbench parliamentarians, who are calling on the Federal Government to retaliate by shuttering Chinese diplomatic missions in Australia.

But the Federal Government has made it clear it will not go down that path and has been trying to dial down the temperature of the dispute.

Labor has backed the Prime Minister's response to the tweet, but has been steadily ramping up its criticism of the Government's handling of the broader relationship.

This morning, Labor leader Anthony Albanese accused the Coalition of "[presiding] over a complete breakdown of relationships" with China.

"The fact that ministers can't pick up the phone to each other, I find that extraordinary," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-02/us-ambassador-china-spreading-misinformation-afghan-image/12942856

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11869024 (021014ZDEC20) Notable: U.S. Dept. of State Deputy Spokesperson Cale Brown Tweet: As the CCP spreads disinformation, it covers up its horrendous human rights abuses, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Cale_Brown_1.jpg

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U.S. Department of State Deputy Spokesperson Cale Brown Tweets

We stand with our Australian partners in calling out @MFA_China for spreading disinformation by fabricating an image of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. This is a new low, even for the Chinese Communist Party.

https://twitter.com/StateDeputySPOX/status/1333965963126067201

—

The CCP’s latest attack on Australia is another example of its unchecked use of disinformation and coercive diplomacy. Its hypocrisy is obvious to all. While it doctors images on @Twitter to attack other nations, the CCP prevents its own citizens from reading their posts.

https://twitter.com/StateDeputySPOX/status/1333965964958965760

—

As the CCP spreads disinformation, it covers up its horrendous human rights abuses, including the detention of more than a million Muslims in Xinjiang. The CCP seeks to change the subject to avoid accountability. We can’t let them.

https://twitter.com/StateDeputySPOX/status/1333965966271721472

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11871921 (021722ZDEC20) Notable: Social media platform WeChat censors Scott Morrison's post directed at Chinese community

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>>181127

Social media platform WeChat censors Scott Morrison's post directed at Chinese community

A message by Prime Minister Scott Morrison that was directed at the Chinese community and critical of an inflammatory post by a senior Beijing bureaucrat has been censored by a Chinese tech giant.

The statement on social media platform WeChat was published on Tuesday night. However, it has now been blocked because it "violates" the company's regulations.

Mr Morrison had taken to WeChat to again voice the Australian Government's disgust at Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijiang's tweet on Monday, which showed a fake image of an Australian soldier created by a Chinese artist.

The Prime Minister said in the WeChat post Australia was dealing with allegations of war crimes detailed in the landmark Brereton Inquiry in an "honest and transparent way", which was how any "free, democratic and enlightened nation" would act.

Mr Morrison followed the swipe at Beijing with a promise the diplomatic spat would not diminish the respect and appreciation Australia had for the Chinese people.

On Wednesday, the WeChat post was no longer accessible.

A message from the social media platform was displayed in its place. It said the post was "involving the use of words, pictures, videos" that would "incite, mislead, and violate objective facts, fabricating social hot topics, distorting historical events, and confusing the public".

The ABC has contacted WeChat's parent company, Tencent, for comment, as well as the Prime Minister's office.

Last year Mr Morrison was grilled by reporters about whether his WeChat account could be censored by the Chinese Government.

He replied: "No, we haven't experienced any such censorship."

One Government official told the ABC it was too early to gauge whether Mr Morrison's post had been pulled down by Tencent on the orders of the Chinese Government.

On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying brandished a copy of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force's report into allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, and took aim at the Australian Government for demanding the tweet by her colleague be removed.

"They are trying to style themselves as defenders of freedom and democracy, but it is a travesty of freedom and democracy," she said.

"It is all double standards and hypocrisy."

Earlier the Chinese embassy in Paris hit out at comments by the French Foreign Ministry labelling the Twitter post "shocking". The embassy accused the French Government of trying to stifle freedom of expression.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-02/scott-morrison-post-censored-by-wechat-china/12944796

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11872209 (021746ZDEC20) Notable: Belt and Road Initiative: The deal Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews can’t back out of, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Victorian_Premier_Daniel_Andrews_gave_a_press_confernce_in_Melbourne_today.jpg, Victorian_Premier_Daniel_Andrews_gave_a_press_confernce_in_Melbourne_today_2.jpg, Danny_Pearson_has_refused_to_condemn_the_China_tweet.jpg

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Belt and Road Initiative: Deal Daniel Andrews can’t back out of

Daniel Andrews is facing an increasingly awkward situation this week over a major deal he signed, but batted away the pressure with one word.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is facing an increasingly awkward situation as Australia-China relations plunged to a new low this week.

In his press conference yesterday, he slammed the graphic fake image of an Australian soldier slitting a child’s throat that caused so much outrage this week.

He said that image was “just beyond the pale”.

“It’s wrong. I condemn it,” he said. “I would hope the rhetoric, the commentary, social media posts, comes to an end.”

But as the relationship sours between Canberra and Beijing, he is being forced to re-examine a controversial deal he made with China back in 2018.

The Belt and Road agreement has been heavily criticised by Mr Andrews’ detractors and it has fuelled conspiracy theories as an intense spotlight fell on his government during the coronavirus second wave.

He copped heat over the deal throughout his state’s lockdown, and yesterday he was asked again by reporters whether he would be turning his back on it — given what has happened between Australia and China this week.

Giving a single word answer of “no”, his intentions were clear.

“This relationship is far too important to farmers, to manufacturers, to workers, to profits for Victorian companies and therefore prosperity for our state,” Mr Andrews said.

“This is not just our biggest customer, but it is all about jobs. We need a good relationship but it has to be a fair and respectful one.”

He called on the federal government and China to “refocus on trying to repair” their relationship.

“I’m confident that the commonwealth government knows and understands how important this relationship is. I’m certain of that, and that’s why, as challenging as this is, people have to find a way to work through it,” he said.

Although Mr Andrews criticised this week’s infamous China tweet, his minister who played a key role in the Belt and Road negotiations refused to.

Danny Pearson, who travelled to China twice in 2019 to secure the deal, said he had “no responsibilities for those matters”.

Mr Andrews hit back when he was asked whether he would counsel Mr Pearson over his comments.

“I don’t think I’d waste my time. That’s a trivial matter, with the greatest of respect,” he said.

“I haven’t seen his comments, I’ve just given you some pretty frank and clear answers, you’ve invited me to go a bit further, I haven’t, and I don’t necessarily think I’m going to spend every day before you guys interpreting every word that comes out of every other minister’s mouth, that’s not, I think, where we’ve got to.”

He may be standing firm on a controversial Belt and Road agreement, but Mr Andrews may see it fall through due to federal powers that are out of his control.

This week, federal government laws are set to be passed that will give it the power to scrap agreements struck with foreign governments by states, local councils and universities.

The Coalition says the changes are about protecting Australia’s national security and sovereignty and the vast majority of deals, but it effectively gives them the powers to tear up Victoria’s agreement if they see problems with it.

However, Mr Andrews hit out at the scope of the laws, saying it would allow the federal government to stick their nose into innocuous agreements like sister city relationships.

“Like, matters of massive international intrigue like sister city arrangements. Who Dandenong is the sister city with. Who Monash, where I live, is the sister city with,” he said sarcastically.

“The federal parliament can do as they please. They are accountable for the decisions they make. If this is the biggest and most important thing for them to be doing at the moment, well, I look forward to them explaining that to everybody.”

In 2018, Mr Andrews signed a “memorandum of understanding” with China on belt and road initiatives which he said was aimed at big state infrastructure investment.

They were supposed to have a road map together by the middle of this year, but that hasn’t happened.

However, a framework of the deal shows China was looking to build partnerships with Victoria on biotechnology, agriculture, food, cosmetics, and other of industries

It is not a legally-binding agreement, but despite intense scrutiny over the deal, the Victorian government is not walking away.

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/politics/belt-and-road-initiative-deal-daniel-andrews-cant-back-out-of/news-story/a73a64530e76ccdc178817e01d01cdc1

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11872246 (021749ZDEC20) Notable: Australian Federal Police to be given unprecedented authority to launch cyber attacks on dark web pedophiles, terrorists and drug-traffickers under new laws, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Home_Affairs_Minister_Peter_Dutton.jpg

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Australian Federal Police set for dark web attacks on crime

National security agencies will be given unprecedented authority to launch cyber attacks targeting pedo­philes, terrorists, drug-traffickers and organised crime gangs operating in the darkest reaches of the internet under new laws.

The Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intellig­ence Commission would be able to use the sweeping powers to obtain warrants taking over the online accounts of suspected criminals using the anonymity of the encrypted­ dark web, modify and delete data to disrupt offenders, and covertly collect intelligence.

The Morrison government will table its dark web amendments to the Surveillance Dev­ices Act and Crimes Act on Thursday, but the laws are unlikely to pass through the Senate until next year.

The AFP and ACIC have argued­ that dark web powers were needed to track, disrupt and apprehen­d the worst offenders, who would otherwise be invisible to police and security agencies.

Previous police investigations involving right-wing and Islamic extremists, drug-traffickers, org­an­­ised crime gangs, child-sex ­offenders and cyber criminals using encrypted messaging apps and dark web accounts would have been fast-tracked using the new warrants.

Under the legislation, investig­ators will be able to crack encrypt­ed messages, devices and software facilitated by cyber criminals and tech companies, and target anony­mous criminal syndicates hiding in the dark web.

The reforms, announced as part of the 10-year Cyber Security Strategy, give security and intelligence agencies powers to “identify and disrupt threats that are proliferating on the dark web and through other anonymising technologies”.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said rapidly evolving technology had changed criminals’ tradecraft, with authorities lumbered with outdated laws adding years to investigations.

“This bill will allow the AFP and ACIC to shine a light into the darkest recesses of the online world and hold those hiding there to account,” Mr Dutton said. “As a government, we are determined to provide our agencies with all reasonable powers necessary to protect the lives of children and to protect the Australian public from criminals acting anonymously online­ to perpetrate other serious crimes.”

The current AFP and ACIC computer access­ powers are not designed to address emerging threats “perpetrated by the increased­ use of anonymising technologies by large networks of criminals operating online”.

Mr Dutton said the new powers­ were critical in “enabling law enforcement to tackle the funda­mental shift in how serious criminality is occurring online”.

“Without enhancing the AFP and ACIC’s powers, we leave them with outdated ways of attacking an area of criminality that is only increasing in prevalence,” he said.

“This bill demonstrates the government’s commitment to equipping the AFP and ACIC with modern powers that ensure serious­ criminality targeting Australians is identified and disrupted as resolutely in the online space as it is in the physical world.”

Network activity and data disruptio­n warrants would grant the agencies powers to collect intelligence on the “most harmful and serious criminal networks operating­ online” and disrupt ­serious criminality online, includ­ing remote modification of data to frustrate offenders.

The data disruption warrant would allow investigators to modify­ or delete child abuse images and the account takeover power enables the AFP and ACIC to take control of a person’s online account for the purpose of “gathering evidence leading to prosecutions of a serious offence”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/afp-set-for-dark-web-attacks-on-crime/news-story/3a0226f1d690ea4f833b99031c6c4cdf

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11872321 (021755ZDEC20) Notable: Good Samaritan anonymously pays $16k worth of customer lay-bys at Gold Coast toy store, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Staffer_Rachael_Thompson_says_parents_were_brought_to_tears_by_the_act_of_generosity.jpg, Single_mum_Alanah_Loadsman_says_she_would_love_to_give_the_generous_donor_a_huge_hug_for_paying_off_her_lay_by.jpg, Mr_Toys_Toyworld_at_Burleigh_Waters.jpg

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Good Samaritan anonymously pays $16k worth of customer lay-bys at Gold Coast toy store

An anonymous 'Santa's helper' has paid off all the lay-bys at a toy store on Queensland's Gold Coast, totalling more than $16,000, with customers surprised and emotional with the gesture of Christmas goodwill after a tough year.

Staff at Mr Toys Toyworld at Burleigh Waters said a woman came into the store with two others at lunch-time last Thursday and paid the outstanding balances on more than 80 lay-bys in the lead-up to Christmas.

Employee Maddie Gillespie said she had never witnessed such an act of generosity.

"We were all speechless — it was a really crazy moment," Ms Gillespie said.

Employee Rachael Thompson said she had to console parents who had been overcome with emotions when they were informed about the stranger's kindness.

"We wish she could know how grateful people are," Ms Thompson said.

Single mum of two Alannah Loadsman had put down a $60 deposit on a $300 dollhouse when she called the store on Tuesday and learnt the gift for her seven-year-old daughter had been paid off in full.

"It's helped massively for a single mum — so generous I almost cried," she said.

"It goes to show there are so many good people out there — it's definitely made a bad year into a good year, that's for sure.

"I would give her a huge hug and say thank you so much."

As for the identity of the donor and her two friends, staff would only say the trio looked like they were aged in their late 20s or early 30s.

"We didn't get their names — all they said is to tell people it was Santa's helpers," Ms Gillepsie said.

Ms Gillespie said the generosity had not ended end with the lay-bys.

She said the trio returned to the shop about an hour later and gave gifts to all the staff members.

The women then returned that evening and picked one lucky customer and walked around the shop with him as he selected toys.

"They paid for his family's — what I'm assuming is — their entire Christmas shop … off the top of my head that was $3,000-$4,000," she said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-02/qld-good-samaritan-pays-toy-store-laybys-16000-dollars/12944056

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11883647 (030538ZDEC20) Notable: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Australia will not give ground to China’s grievances

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>>181019

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Australia will not give ground to China’s grievances

Australia will not give ground to China’s grievances despite the importance of the relationship with its largest trading partner, Josh Frydenberg says.

The Treasurer’s comments come after social media platform WeChat censored a message from Scott Morrison to the Chinese community.

“This is a challenging time in that important relationship with China,” Mr Frydenberg told ABC RN.

“If you look at that list of grievances that they outlined, on not one of those would we give ground.

“Our positions are well known and our positions have not changed. So lets see where things go.”

Tensions between Australia and Beijing have flared in the past week with Beijing slapping tariffs on Aussie wine imports, and China’s foreign ministry spokesman tweeted an inflammatory image about alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

The prime minister on Monday called the post “repugnant”, which Mr Frydenberg said was a message to China on behalf of all Australians.

“(Australians) found that tweet very offensive,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“He made those views clear from the top of Australia’s political leadership.

“He also posted, as you know, on WeChat a message which made it very clear that despite the challenges in the relationship with China, it in no way diminishes our close relationship with the Chinese-Australian community, as well as our respect for the Chinese people.”

However, that message was removed from WeChat on Wednesday, the social media platform claiming it breached regulations and distorted historical events.

Mr Frydenberg said the censorship was a matter for the platform to explain.

But deputy Labor leader Richard Marles said it was regrettable that the message had been taken down.

“I do think the pulling down of the prime minister’s tweet was a significant moment,” Mr Marles said.

“It was an important tweet and it should have been allowed to be viewed.

“It is a platform which is extensively used by many Australians but it is really important that freedom of speech be central to the way in which social media, but all the media, operates in the context of our society.”

Five eyes allies have also condemned Beijing for spreading disinformation through “fabricated images and disingenuous statements”.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has criticised the government’s handling of the relationship.

“This government seems to have presided over a complete breakdown of relationship,” he told 2SM radio on Wednesday.

“The fact ministers can’t pick up the phone to each other, I find that extraordinary.”

But Mr Frydenberg accused Labor of ‘playing politics’ with the issue.

“We are willing to engage in a respectful dialogue but we also reserve our right to pursue those trade issues in multilateral forums,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/treasurer-josh-frydenberg-says-australia-will-not-give-ground-to-chinas-grievances/news-story/b5ef4d3acbf23adf7efac5926b980528

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11883972 (030620ZDEC20) Notable: Malka Leifer case to come before Supreme Court for what could be final time, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Malka_Leifer_seen_on_a_screen_left_via_a_video_link_during_a_court_hearing_at_the_Jerusalem_District_Court_on_July_20_2020.jpg, In_this_photo_from_February_27_2018_Malka_Leifer_right_is_brought_to_a_courtroom_in_Jerusalem.jpg

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>>181150

Leifer case to come before Supreme Court for what could be final time

Top legal body set Thursday to hear appeal of lower court ruling to extradite former principal wanted in Australia on 74 charges of child sex abuse

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The Supreme Court will convene Thursday morning to adjudicate what could well be the final appeal from Malka Leifer’s defense team, with its six-year effort to prevent the alleged child rapist from being extradited to Australia just about out of options.

The latest appeal is against the Jerusalem District Court’s September decision in favor of extraditing the former headmistress of Melbourne’s Adass Israel ultra-Orthodox girls’ high school back to Australia, where she is wanted on 74 charges of child sex abuse.

The 9 a.m. hearing will be the 74th court date in a drawn-out saga whose delays have tested Jerusalem’s relations with Canberra. Frustration in Australia — which has registered its interest in Leifer’s swift return at the highest levels of Israel’s government — peaked last year when allegations came to light that then-deputy health minister Yaakov Litzman was pressuring state psychiatrists to diagnose Leifer, who fled to Israel in 2008, as mentally unfit to face justice. The accusations came in light of the fact that the physician assigned to the case had changed his assessment three times regarding Leifer’s mental state. Police have recommended that Litzman be indicted for his alleged conduct involving the case.

The hearing is expected to last several hours, and a decision will likely be handed down several days later. Sex abuse victims’ advocates following the case have expressed optimism that the appeal will be rejected given that the makeup of the Supreme Court panel is identical to the one that ruled against Leifer in September.

Then, justices Anat Baron, Isaac Amit, and Ofer Grosskopf unanimously rejected an appeal from the defense seeking to overturn a psychiatric panel’s determination that Leifer had been feigning mental illness to evade extradition and was in fact fit to face justice. The judges in their decision also scolded the Jerusalem District Court for allowing the legal proceedings to drag out for so long.

If the Supreme Court once again rules against the defense, Leifer’s extradition will be placed before Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn for his signature. An official in the State Prosecutor’s Office told The Times of Israel that while the defense is technically allowed to file an appeal once more following the justice minister’s decision, it is unclear whether the Supreme Court would agree to hear the case again after having already just done so.

Once Nissenkorn signs off on the extradition, Israel will have 60 days to place Leifer on a plane to Australia.

(continued)

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11884225 (030659ZDEC20) Notable: Republican Senator Marco Rubio criticises Twitter for putting warning labels on tweets by President Donald Trump but not doing so for Chinese Foreign Ministry tweet, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Jake_Sullivan_Joe_Biden_s_choice_to_be_national_security_adviser_defended_Australia_on_Twitter.jpg, JS_1.jpg, SBM_1.jpg, 0001.jpg, 0002.jpg

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Biden adviser says US stands 'shoulder to shoulder' with Australia

Washington: One of US President-elect Joe Biden's most senior advisers has declared that the United States will continue to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Australia in an apparent response to China's increasingly hostile actions towards the country.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry's fabricated tweet depicting an Australian soldier cutting the throat of a child in Afghanistan has drawn bipartisan criticism in Washington, with a Trump administration spokesman describing it as "a new low, even for the Chinese Communist Party".

Jake Sullivan, whom Biden has chosen to be his national security adviser, tweeted on Thursday (AEDT): "The Australian people have made great sacrifices to protect freedom and democracy around the world.

"As we have for a century, America will stand shoulder to shoulder with our ally Australia and rally fellow democracies to advance our shared security, prosperity, and values."

Sullivan previously advised Biden when he was vice-president on national security issues and served as his top policy adviser during his presidential campaign.

Cale Brown, the US State Department’s deputy spokesperson, tweeted: "This is a new low, even for the Chinese Communist Party.

"The CCP’s latest attack on Australia is another example of its unchecked use of disinformation and coercive diplomacy.

"Its hypocrisy is obvious to all."

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey to complain that the image had not been removed from the social media platform.

"It defies belief that Twitter is unaware of the image, which falsely portrays an Australian soldier holding a bloody knife to the throat of a young Afghan child, as Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison requested the image be taken down," Rubio said.

Rubio criticised Twitter for moving quickly to put warning labels on tweets by President Donald Trump but not doing so for the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweet.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said of the tweet: "This is despicable & beneath the dignity of a nation with 5000 years of culture & history."

"The Australian people deserve an apology—and the Chinese Foreign Ministry needs to demonstrate it understands how to conduct diplomacy as a constructive member of the [international] community."

China's decision to place tariffs on Australian wine imports has also been noticed in the US capital, with the White House National Security Council tweeting: "Australian wine will be featured at a White House holiday reception this week. Pity vino lovers in China who, due to Beijing’s coercive tariffs on Aussie vintners, will miss out. #AussieAussieAussieOiOiO."

Earlier this year Republican Senator Rick Scott, one of the leading China hawks in Congress, urged Australia to help the United States win a new "cold war" against an increasingly expansionist Chinese Communist Party.

"All democracies are going to have to say to themselves: are they going to continue to appease the Communist Party of China, which is clearly focused on world domination and has taken jobs from democracies all over the world and stolen technologies from all over the world?" Scott told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

"Every democracy needs to stand up for what they believe in.

"If you believe in fair trade, that's not what China believes in. If you believe in human rights, that's not what China believes in."

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that more than 1000 Chinese researchers have left the US amid a crackdown on alleged industrial espionage and technology theft. The researchers were not the same as the 1000 whose visas were revoked for similar reasons in September. Top US security officials also said Chinese agents were already targeting the incoming Biden administration and "people close" to his team.

"Only the Chinese have the resources and ability and will" to engage in the breadth of foreign influence activity that US agencies have seen in recent years, said John Demers, chief of the US Justice Department's National Security Division.

And the New York Times reported on Thursday that the US House of Representatives has passed legislation to increase oversight of Chinese companies listed on US stock markets, the latest attempt to scrutinise financial ties with China.

The bill, the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, would require the companies to disclose more information about any ties to foreign governments and the Chinese Communist Party, and would remove them from the US exchanges after three years if they did not provide US regulators access to their audit information.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/biden-adviser-says-us-stands-shoulder-to-shoulder-with-australia-20201203-p56k3p.html

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11884275 (030708ZDEC20) Notable: Witness K lawyer Bernard Collaery wins international free speech prize for his efforts exposing Australia’s spy operation in Timor-Leste, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Bernard_Collaery_is_still_being_pursued_by_the_Australian_government_in_court_for_allegedly_sharing_protected_intelligence_information.jpg

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Witness K lawyer Bernard Collaery wins international free speech prize

Lawyer earns the UK’s Blueprint for Free Speech whistleblowing prize for his efforts exposing Australia’s spy operation in Timor-Leste

The Australian lawyer Bernard Collaery has won a prestigious British free speech prize for his efforts exposing a secret Australian operation to bug Timor-Leste’s fledgling government during sensitive oil and gas negotiations.

Collaery is still being pursued by the Australian government through the criminal courts and, if convicted, the barrister and former ACT attorney general faces jail for allegedly sharing protected intelligence information.

The charge stems from an episode during which Collaery, who frequently acted for intelligence officers, represented an Australian spy known as Witness K, who had grown increasingly concerned about a 2004 mission to bug the government offices of Timor-Leste during commercial negotiations with Australia, an ally, to carve up the resource-rich Timor Sea.

The actions of Witness K and Collaery helped Timor-Leste, one of the world’s poorest nations, take a case to the international courts and, eventually, renegotiate a fairer deal.

Now, Collaery has been recognised with the International Blueprint for Free Speech Whistleblowing prize, which recognises the bravery and integrity of whistleblowers who have made a positive impact in the public interest. Previous winners of Blueprint for Free Speech awards include Chelsea Manning, who won while behind bars in 2016 at a maximum security prison in Kansas, and Nick Martin, the doctor who blew the whistle on Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers on Nauru.

Collaery will share £12,000 in prize money with another winner, Sally Masterton, a former Lloyds Banking Group employee who revealed a failure to act on evidence of fraud.

Collaery told the Guardian he was honoured to win the prize.

“I’m honoured and privileged and I’m going to dedicate the award to funding a granddaughter of mine through years 11 and 12,” he said.

“The rule of law, I learned from my years in Cambridge, has been more securely protected there than it is in Australia, and I’m deeply grateful that the award has come from Britain, a country my father died, as an Australian, protecting.”

One of the judges, Lady Hollick, an award-winning former investigative television journalist, described Collaery’s story as “extraordinary”.

She said it showed the dangers posed to those who told the truth about the Timor-Leste scandal.

“It’s a story of spies, international espionage and corporate greed,” she said. “One of the richest countries in the Asia Pacific spied on and betrayed one of the poorest.

“Today the tiny nation of Timor-Leste has finally achieved a better outcome. Australia has been forced to give it a fairer proportion of the oil and gas revenues.

“However, those who have told the truth about the case are still in a dangerous situation due to retaliation.

“Bernard Collaery’s story highlights that those under threat no longer include only whistleblowers and the journalists who work with them in the public interest. Increasingly, whistleblowers’ lawyers are now being targeted.”

Collaery and Witness K’s cases both remain before the courts in the Australian Capital Territory.

In October, the Law Council of Australia threw its support behind Collaery. It took particular umbrage at the secrecy surrounding his case, in part enforced through the national security information act, which is designed to govern the handling of sensitive and protected information by the courts.

The council warned that the laws were protecting “broadly defined national security at the expense of the rights of the accused”.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/03/witness-k-lawyer-bernard-collaery-wins-international-free-speech-whistleblower-prize

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11884356 (030724ZDEC20) Notable: Beijing controls Chinese-language media agencies in Australia, says Australia's peak intelligence agency, The Office of National Intelligence, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Relations_between_China_and_Australia_have_reached_new_lows.jpg

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Beijing controls Chinese-language media agencies in Australia, says intel agency

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Australia's peak intelligence agency has warned the federal government that the Chinese Communist Party covertly controls sections of Chinese-language media in Australia as part of its foreign interference and influence operation.

The Office of National Intelligence has confidentially briefed the government that many of Australia's most popular Chinese-language news outlets have been co-opted by Beijing to advance China's strategic interests.

The briefings also highlight that hugely popular WeChat news sites in Australia are subject to complete control and censorship by Beijing, with some accounts directly managed by the Communist Party.

The revelations came as relations between China and Australia plunged to new lows after Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian shared a fabricated image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child's throat. The post followed months of escalating trade sanctions.

Official sources who could not be identified because they were not authorised to speak have confirmed that the Office of National Intelligence's Open Source Centre, which "collects, interprets and disseminates" non-classified material "of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia", has analysed 20 months of content from 14 online Chinese-language news sites and 10 popular WeChat sites. It has also checked ownership structures and Communist Party links.

The analysis had found that online news media platform the Southeast Net Australia was fully and openly controlled by the Communist Party but Beijing's sway over other domestic outlets was, while more subtle, still evident.

The sources said two outlets were possible fronts for Beijing's United Front Work Department, the Chinese government's peak overseas influence organisation. These were Melbourne's Pacific Media – which publishes WeChat news account au123 – and Sydney's Nanhai Group, which publishes Australia's third most popular WeChat site, WeSydney, which has about 400,000 subscribers and is registered to a company owned by the United Front's China News Service.

Nanhai also publishes the Chinese-language edition of the Qantas inflight magazine and runs an annual Sydney community event, the New Year Lantern Festival, that has been attended by senior Australian politicians, including former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott.

The Office of National Intelligence assessments concluded that the most popular online Australian Chinese-language news portals are pro-Beijing and have varying links to the Chinese state via the China News Service, which is controlled by the United Front Work Department.

Australia's most popular news WeChat account is Sydney Today, which is connected to a news website managed by several media figures with connections to United Front groups. Australia's second most popular WeChat account, ABC Media (which has no connection to the national broadcaster) is part of a Sydney-based media group run by a businessman who is also an adviser to the Hunan People's Political Consultative Committee, a United Front-controlled political body.

(continued)

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11889146 (031748ZDEC20) Notable: Dassi Erlich Tweet: The judge commented along the lines, 'if you would stop resisting the extradition then the jury will not be so informed', MISSING MEDIA/FILES: DE_62.jpg

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>>181150

Dassi Erlich Tweets

Today, #courtdate74 was heard in the Supreme Court - an appeal by Leifer against her extradition.

The defense lawyer threw many arguments including (again) that the abuse was consensual and that Leifer wouldn't get a fair trial in Australia......

https://twitter.com/dassi_erlich/status/1334419332953112581

—

...The judge commented along the lines, 'if you would stop resisting the extradition then the jury will not be so informed'.

These arguments are always difficult to hear, but once Leifer faces an Australian court we will have a chance to speak our truth...

https://twitter.com/dassi_erlich/status/1334419334458789888

—

....Now we wait for a decision!

Will this be the last court hearing?

Once the decision comes though Israel has 60 days to send Leifer back.

#bringleiferback

@NicoleYMeyer

@EllySapper

https://twitter.com/dassi_erlich/status/1334419336232980482

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11889167 (031749ZDEC20) Notable: Malka Leifer extradition ‘technically invalid’, lawyers argue, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Lawyers_for_Malka_Leifer_right_claimed_she_had_been_mentally_incapacitated_by_the_stress_of_the_proceedings.jpg

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>>181155

Malka Leifer extradition ‘technically invalid’, lawyers argue

Lawyers for accused sex predator Malka Leifer have told a panel of Israel’s most senior judges that her extradition to Australia was “technically invalid” in a last-ditch bid to stop her being put on a plane.

Ms Leifer was not in court in Jerusalem as her appeal against extradition was heard on Thursday, capping a decade-long saga to bring her to justice over the alleged sexual assault of three sisters at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne.

British-born international law expert Nick Kaufman said the extradition orders were contradictory, depicting Ms Leifer as being both in a consensual relationship with her alleged victims and having assaulted them by force. “They contradict each other and cannot stand together,” Mr Kaufman told a packed Supreme Court of Israel.

If the mother of eight loses the appeal, Israel’s Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn need only sign the extradition order for it to be executed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year assured a senior Australian delegation headed by former prime minister John Howard and former deputy PM Wayne Swan that ministerial approval would be swiftly granted.

The same Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Yitzhak Amit, presiding, Justice Anat Baron and Justice Ofer Groskop in September slapped down an earlier appeal by Ms Leifer against a Jerusalem District Court finding that she was fit to be returned to Australia to stand trial on 74 counts of sexual assault against former students Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper while she was principal of the Adass Israel school.

Since being arrested on behalf of the Australian government in Israel in 2014 — where she fled when her alleged crimes were exposed — Ms Leifer’s lawyers have played cat-and-mouse with the Israeli courts, claiming she had been mentally incapacitated by the stress of the proceedings.

Mr Kaufman also submitted that intense publicity of the case would prevent Ms Leifer from receiving a fair trial, “especially where there is a finding by a judge in an Israeli court that she was fit to stand trial”.

Justice Groskop gave this short shrift, referring to September’s judgment upholding the ruling by Jerusalem District Court judge Chana Miriam Lomp that Ms Leifer was fit to be extradited.

“You have our judgment,” he told Mr Kaufman. “We found that her decision ... for the purposes of the extradition hearing and that Leifer’s mental fitness for the purposes of Australian criminal law would have to be determined by an Australian criminal court, applying Australian criminal law.”

An Israeli court was not the place to determine her guilt or innocence, with the criteria for extradition requiring no such assessment of the charges filed against her in Australia, the judges insisted.

Justice Baron said: “You can’t fight this for years and receive decisions from courts and then claim that because of that your client cannot be extradited. If the decision were reversed and the District Court Judge had found Leifer was not fit to stand trial, you would have expected to abide by that.”

Another member of Leifer’s defence team, Eitan Maoz, said if she were sent to Australia and convicted Ms Leifer should not be imprisoned here for compassionate reasons, “a thread of mercy” requiring a commitment that Leifer be imprisoned to Israel to do any jail time. She was not an Australian citizen — having entered the country of a 457 work visa — and had never taken Australian citizenship even though she had the opportunity to do so.

“She sent her children aged 13 and 14 back to Israel to complete their studies and never learnt English to a high standard,” Mr Maoz said.

“The critical mass of her life, 38 years, is connected to Israel. Her life is here, husband, eight children, more than 30 grandchildren — she doesn’t have a person in Australia. She should not be held there.”

From Melbourne, Dassi Erlich said Israel would have 60 days to return Ms Leifer to Australia should the Supreme Court reject her appeal against extradition.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/malka-leifer-extradition-technically-invalid-lawyers-argue/news-story/3944c70ce38a0c48f15c73f54f0e9289

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11898499 (040608ZDEC20) Notable: Edward Snowden asks Trump to pardon Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, claims the pardon would save Assange's life, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: snowden.jpg

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Edward Snowden asks Trump to pardon Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Snowden claims the pardon would save Assange's life.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter today to ask US President Donald Trump to pardon Wikileaks founder Julian Assange during his last days in office.

"Mr. President, if you grant only one act of clemency during your time in office, please: free Julian Assange. You alone can save his life," Snowden tweeted.

Assange, who has gained international fame for founding the WikiLeaks portal, is currently in custody in London, UK.

He was arrested in April 2019 for breaking pre-trial release conditions in a 2012 UK case.

At the time, Assange absconded and requested political asylum in the Ecuador embassy in London, where he lived until his arrest in 2019 when Ecuadorian officials withdrew the WikiLeaks founder's asylum status.

US authorities formally charged Assange for conspiring to leak US classified materials a month after his arrest. The indictment was updated a month later to include accusations that Assange tried to recruit famous hacker groups like Anonymous and LulzSec to carry out hacks on his behalf and steal sensitive files to publish on WikiLeaks.

The WikiLeaks founder has been fighting the extradition case ever since his arrest, but a first ruling is expected on January 4, 2021.

Assange has repeatedly threatened to commit suicide if extradited to the US, threats that his lawyers have been using as the central piece of their defense case — and the reason why Snowden mentioned that a pardon from Trump would save Assange's life.

Trump previously also considered pardoning both Snowden and Assange.

Last week, Tulsi Gabbard, a House representative for the state of Hawaii, also asked Trump to pardon both Assange and Snowden. In October, Gabbard also introduced a bill to have the 2013 legal case against Edward Snowden dropped and allow the former NSA threat analyst to return to the US.

However, the pardon requests may come at a bad time for Trump, recently embroiled in a bribery-for-pardon scheme.

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1334608745192677380

https://www.zdnet.com/article/edward-snowden-asks-trump-to-pardon-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11898532 (040612ZDEC20) Notable: Pell contempt charges against media whittled down, but most remain, MISSING MEDIA/FILES: Cardinal_George_Pell_on_Monday.jpg

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>>180989

Pell contempt charges against media whittled down, but most remain

Most of the contempt charges remain against Australian media companies and their journalists over the way they initially reported George Pell's conviction on child sex abuse charges, after a judge dismissed most of the media's arguments they had no case to answer.

Supreme Court Justice John Dixon on Friday said he had found four media companies and four individual journalists each had no case to answer on one charge but dismissed the rest of the media's applications and found in favour of prosecutors. Those companies and journalists still face other contempt charges.

The ruling means 79 charges remain against more than 20 media companies and individuals, including The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald and some of their journalists.

Prosecutors allege news outlets and individual journalists breached a suppression order and other rules by publishing reports in December 2018 about Cardinal Pell's conviction, in the days after he was found guilty and while he was still awaiting another trial.

The media companies are defending the contempt charges. Their reports did not name Cardinal Pell but said a high-profile person had been found guilty of serious charges and was awaiting another trial.

Cardinal Pell was released from prison in April when the High Court quashed his convictions on appeal.

The contempt trial last month began with 100 charges against 30 media companies and journalists but prosecutors withdrew 13 charges against News Corp publications and three of the company's digital editors.

That decision left 87 charges in place, and Justice Dixon's ruling on Friday means a further eight charges were withdrawn.

After prosecutors closed their case against the media, lawyers for the news companies and journalists argued their clients had no case to answer on the remaining charges and called for them to be struck out.

Prosecutors allege the media breached rules about reporting criminal trials and conditions of the suppression order imposed by the County Court, and encouraged readers, listeners and viewers to search online for more information about Cardinal Pell's case.

Prosecutors also argue individual journalists can be held liable for publishing, as they prepared their reports with the intention they were to be published or broadcast. Lawyers for the media submitted to Justice Dixon that prosecutors had failed to prove the case on whether journalists were responsible for publishing.

Justice Dixon on Friday found The Sydney Morning Herald, The Courier Mail and The Daily Telegraph and their editors all had no case to answer on one charge each. The judge also dismissed one charge each against radio station 2GB and presenter Chris Smith.

But those newspapers, editors, 2GB and Mr Smith still face other contempt charges.

Justice Dixon's ruling against the media on Friday does not mean they are guilty of the contempt charges, as prosecutors still have to prove their case. The trial will resume in January.

The County Court imposed the suppression order over Cardinal Pell's case to ensure jurors in the proposed second trial did not know he had been found guilty at the first trial, and therefore could not be influenced.

The second trial was abandoned by prosecutors in February last year, which allowed Australian media to name the cardinal and report the guilty verdict.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/pell-contempt-charges-against-media-whittled-down-but-most-remain-20201204-p56kpt.html

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11899048 (040733ZDEC20) Notable: Q Post #1350 - God bless our brave fighting men & women. They deserve our deepest gratitude. Through their strength, and the millions of united Patriots around the World, we will succeed in this fight. Peace through strength., MISSING MEDIA/FILES: US_aircraft_carrier_USS_Nimitz.jpg, A_navy_drill_involving_ships_from_India_Australia_Japan_and_the_US.jpg

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US Navy to increase Australia port visits, in message to China

Australia will receive more port visits from United States Navy ships following the Trump administration’s decision to re-establish the nation‘s 1st Fleet as an expeditionary force in the Indo-Pacific.

Analysts said the announcement, which effectively “locks in” an incoming Biden administration, will send a message to China that “they aren’t going to have it all their own way” in the region.

US Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite said the fleet, which was disbanded in 1973, would be re-raised to patrol the waters of Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

While Singapore was previously discussed as a potential home for the fleet, Mr Braithwaite revealed it would be “an agile, mobile, at-sea command”.

The fleet will report to US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii and include the Straits of Malacca – which a quarter of the world’s oil passes through – in its area of operations.

The head of the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Brendan Sargeant, said the fleet would be a check on Chinese expansion and coercion in the region.

“It will strengthen the American presence in the region and in that sense, be a force for stability,” Professor Sargeant told The Australian.

“It will send a big message to China that they aren’t going to have it all their own way.”

He said the announcement was a response to China and its “increasingly expansionist and assertive tendencies”.

“It’s also an attempt to give expression to rhetoric coming out of Washington that the Indo-Pacific is important, and that they’re not leaving,” Professor Sargeant said.

He said the incoming Biden government would be unable to reverse the Trump administration’s announcement without creating an impression the US did not care about the region.

Scott Morrison said the move reflected a “universal view” in American politics of the importance of the Indo-Pacific.

“They have been here for a long time and their presence is welcomed not just by Australia but (by) the many countries of our region,” the Prime Minister said.

“I would expect to continue in the same way it always has, regardless of the administration.”

Secretary Braithwaite told the US Senate‘s Armed Services Committee the government was determined to make the “bold changes” required to ensure US forces would “dominate any potential battlespace and return home safely”.

“In order to improve our posture in the Indo-Pacific we will reconstitute the 1st Fleet, assigning it primary responsibility for the Indo and South Asian region as an expeditionary fleet,” Mr Braithwaite told the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

“This will reassure our partners and allies of our presence and commitment to this region while ensuring any potential adversary knows we are committed to global presence, to ensure rule of law and freedom of the seas.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/us-navy-to-increase-australia-port-visits-in-message-to-china/news-story/091d52062db5173f853cf5d89ce820d3

>Peace through strength.

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11899213 (040814ZDEC20) Notable: Sweeping review of Australia's spy laws calls for overhaul of convoluted and outdated laws governing digital surveillance

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Sweeping review of Australia's spy laws calls for overhaul of digital surveillance

The largest review of Australia's spy laws since the early 1980s has recommended an overhaul of the convoluted and outdated laws governing digital surveillance and data collection.

The Federal Government has publicly released a declassified version of the independent review today, a year after the 18-month investigation was concluded by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson.

It follows calls from the federal opposition to publicly release the report, with parliament set to debate a number of significant national security reforms before the end of the year.

Of the 1600-page report's 203 recommendations, 190 have now been released to the public in a 1300-page declassified version.

Announcing the review's release this afternoon, Attorney-General Christian Porter said that Mr Richardson's "centrepeice" recommendation is the creation of a single, consolidated electronic surveillance act.

More than a quarter of the report's recommendations relate to this recommendation.

Mr Porter described the move as "the biggest national security legislative project in recent history", requiring the re-writing of almost 1000 pages of law on warrants, interception and communication.

The current telecommunications interception and access act was developed in 1979, before the development of the World Wide Web or digital technologies.

The act, which originally run to 19 pages, has since been amended 107 times and is now 411 pages long.

"It is no longer fit for purpose in the digital world of internet smart phones and end-to-end encryption," Mr Porter said.

"They (the acts) have become increasingly hard to navigate and are unnecessarily complex."

He said that this and several other acts would be consolidated into one simplified document - a complex process that is anticipated to take between 12 and 18 months.

Of the review's 203 recommendations, the government has only rejected four.

These include a recommendation that the Australia Defence Force (ADF) should not be given immunity for telecommunications offences in a similar manner to intelligence agencies.

Mr Porter admitted there were "narrow circumstances" where the ADF would require such an immunity, but "more work needs to be done" on any such legislation.

Another recommendation spurned by the government was that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) - which is responsible for Australia's overseas intelligence collection - be blocked from supporting ASIO onshore.

"I think one of Dennis's concerns… was not the fact of ASIS assistance but he did not want there to be conflict or competition between two intelligence agencies working in Australia," Mr Porter said.

Instead, Mr Porter said that the government concluded a better approach would be to only allow ASIS assistance at ASIO's request.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/richardson-review-into-australian-spy-laws-publicly-released-calling-for-overhaul-digital-surveillance-data-collection/6c62a286-ff9b-4999-aeac-c0ab7ba534dd

Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community

https://www.ag.gov.au/national-security/publications/report-comprehensive-review-legal-framework-national-intelligence-community

Government response to the Comprehensive review of the legal framework of the National Intelligence Community

https://www.ag.gov.au/national-security/publications/government-response-comprehensive-review-legal-framework-national-intelligence-community

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11899318 (040846ZDEC20) Notable: Video: Scott Morrison's demand for apology over fake image of Australian soldier 'unfortunate', says China's deputy ambassador Wang Xining

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Scott Morrison's demand for apology over fake image of Australian soldier 'unfortunate', says China's deputy ambassador Wang Xining

China's deputy ambassador to Australia has accused Scott Morrison of overreacting to an inflammatory tweet by a Chinese official and has reiterated that Australia will have to take "concrete steps" if it wants to improve the bilateral relationship.

Chinese state media, the Chinese embassy in Canberra and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing have all berated Australia this week after the Prime Minister demanded China apologise for the tweet, which featured a fake image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child.

The tweet is a reference to the Brereton report on alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. It includes reports that Australian soldiers slit the throats of two teenagers, although that allegation has not been substantiated in the report's unredacted sections.

The controversy has also lit up Chinese social media channels this week.

The deputy ambassador, Wang Xining, told the ABC Mr Morrison's response was "unfortunate" and suggested it may have been a tactical stumble.

"Now there is much larger visibility of the Brereton report in China. More people are attentive to what happened in Afghanistan," he said.

"People wonder why a national leader would have such a strong opinion to [sic] an artwork by a normal young artist in China."

The Government has been trying to dial down the temperature of the dispute in the last few days, with the Prime Minister saying that Australia wanted "happy co-existence" with China and stressing he still wanted to reopen channels of communication with top Chinese leaders.

Mr Wang denied China was refusing to talk to Australian leaders, despite the fact that multiple ministers have repeatedly said they cannot get their counterparts on the phone.

"Meetings between ministers and even the higher level must be prepared. It's a normal international diplomatic practice," he said.

But in the next sentence he seemed to link the diplomatic freeze to the broader dispute, saying: "We still hope to see concrete actions done by the Australian side to promote favourable atmosphere for stronger collaboration and to bring our relationship back to normal."

Mr Wang also said the so-called list of "14 grievances" which the embassy handed to a journalist earlier this year was not a definitive statement of China's demands.

"They were some examples where we disagree with the Australian Government both in terms of essence and in terms of posture," he said.

"It has been given a name and over-simplified."

And he seemed to suggest that Australian's stance towards China was being distorted because ministers were paying too much attention to hawkish officials, rather than Australian businesses.

"Taxpayers are the backbone of society and keep the host community running," he said.

"Unfortunately, the leadership here have been ill-advised by people who consume tax, not contribute to tax. I hope people could have a clearer mind of what is happening on the ground."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-04/china-australia-deputy-ambassador-scott-morrison-tweet/12951162

Originally posted at >>>/qresearch/11911147 (050725ZDEC20) Notable: US and Australia sign first-ever cyber agreement to develop virtual training range - the Persistent Cyber Training Environment

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>>181169

US and Australia sign first-ever cyber agreement to develop virtual training range

U.S. Cyber Command | Dec. 4, 2020

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As part of the Dept. of Defense’s efforts to sharpen lethality, reform business practices, and strengthen partnerships in cyberspace, the United States and Australia have launched a first-ever agreement to continuously develop a virtual cyber training range together.

Both nations recently signed a Cyber Training Capabilities Project Arrangement, Nov. 3- this bi-lateral, international agreement enables U.S. Cyber Command to incorporate Australian Defence Force feedback into USCYBERCOM’s simulated training domain, the Persistent Cyber Training Environment.

The PCTE is a cyber training platform for real-world defensive missions across boundaries and networks; its shared use and development will constantly evolve it and sharpen readiness in cyber tactics, techniques, and procedures.

“This project arrangement is a milestone for U.S.-Australian cooperation. It is the first cyber-only arrangement established between the U.S. Army and an allied nation, which highlights the value of Australia’s partnership in the simulated training domain,” said Elizabeth Wilson, the U.S. signatory and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Defense Exports and Cooperation. “To counter known and potential adversarial threats, the Army has recalibrated our strategic thinking; we’ve made smart decisions to refocus our efforts to invest in the new, emerging and smart technologies that will strengthen our ability to fight and win our nation’s wars.”

Previously, U.S. and allied cyber forces developed cyber training ranges for specific scenarios that would be used once, a process that could take months. Now, PCTE offers a collaborative training environment, enabling cyber forces around the world to develop and re-use already-existing content and train at the individual and group levels anytime.

“Australia and the U.S. have a strong history of working together to develop our cyber capabilities and train our people to fight and win in cyberspace,” said Australian Army Maj. Gen. Marcus Thompson, the Australian signatory and head of Information Warfare for the Australian Defence Force. “This arrangement will be an important part of the ADF’s training program, and we look forward to the mutual benefits it will bring.”

Partnerships in cyberspace are key to generating and sharing insights of threat actors, enabling mutual defense against cyber attacks, and conducting the operational training necessary to hold adversaries accountable in cyberspace– and such training platforms enable lethal cyber mission forces in defense of U.S. and allied interests.

“Agreements like this one are crucial to the efficiency of our joint modernization,” Wilson said. “They lay the framework for our mutual growth, allowing us to become stronger and more interoperable as allies.”

(continued)