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Former QAnon supporter apologizes to Anderson Cooper ‘for thinking you ate babies’

MURI ASSUNÇÃO - JAN 30, 2021

A former QAnon supporter has told Anderson Cooper that he apologizes “for thinking you ate babies.”

On Friday, the anchor of the CNN news broadcast “Anderson Cooper 360” shared a clip of a special report on the conspiracy theory that will air on the network on Saturday night.

The short video features a man named Jitarth Jadeja who was a QAnon “believer until June 2019.”

“Did you, at the time, believe that Democrats, high-level Democrats and celebrities were worshipping Satan, drinking the blood of children?” the 53-year-old broadcaster asked Jadeja.

“Anderson, I thought you did that,” he responded.

“And I would like to apologize for that right now. So, I apologize for thinking that you ate babies But, yeah, 100%,” added Jadeja, who lives in Sydney, Australia, according to an Oct. 2020 interview with The Washington Post.

His direct answer seemed to surprise Cooper, who wanted to make sure he understood what Jadeja was saying.

“You actually believed that I was drinking the blood of children?,” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” Jadeja answered without hesitation.

Cooper pressed on, wanting to know if there was something about himself that made Jadeja feel that way.

“Q specifically mentioned you, and mentioned you very early on. He mentioned you by name … he also talked about, for example, your family.”

It’s unclear what specifically about Cooper’s family Jadeja was referring to. However, the award-winning journalist is an openly gay man, a prominent LGBTQ rights activist, and the proud father of a baby boy, who was born in April via a surrogate.

“I’m going to be honest, people still talk about that to his day” — as recently as four days ago, he continued, adding that some QAnon followers believe that Cooper is a robot.

“I at one stage believed that QAnon was part of military intelligence, which is what he says. But on top of that, that the people behind him were actually a group of fifth-dimensional, intradimensional, extraterrestrial bipedal bird aliens called Blue Avians,” he told Cooper via video call.

“I was so far down in this conspiracy black hole that I was essentially picking and choosing whatever narrative that I wanted to believe in,” he added.

“Inside the QAnon Conspiracy” airs on CNN Saturday at 9 p.m. ET.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-former-qanon-supporter-apologizes-anderson-cooper-eating-babies-20210130-6bjsplpdlbd6tbiwgwd5gpdeqm-story.html

—

Former QAnon supporter to Cooper: I apologize for thinking you ate babies

Anderson Cooper 360

CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke to former QAnon supporter, Jitarth Jadeja, about his former beliefs about the conspiracy theory, including those about Cooper himself. Watch the CNN Special Report, "Inside the QAnon Conspiracy," on CNN Saturday, January 30th, at 9:00pm EST.Source: CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/01/30/anderson-cooper-former-qanon-supporter-special-report-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn

Malka Leifer: how a long-running child sexual abuse case tested Australia's relationship with Israel

Allegations an Israeli minister interfered with the extradition of the former Australian school principal finally dragged the case into the spotlight

Elias Visontay - 31 Jan 2021

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When the accused child sex offender Malka Leifer was extradited from Israel to face a Melbourne court this week it was the result of a years-long campaign spearheaded by three of the former principal’s accusers.

The battle galvanised both sides of Australian politics and the country’s Jewish community. It also tested Australia’s relationship with Israel.

Australian politicians raised the matter with Israel at the highest levels. Malcolm Turnbull, when he was prime minister, pressed his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, in person over the repeated delays in Leifer’s extradition.

But Turnbull’s vocal representation in 2017 appeared to fall on deaf ears. The Israeli prime minister didn’t recognise Leifer’s name weeks after the issue was raised with him, despite it also being in the Israeli news, according to Australian officials who later discussed the case with Netanyahu.

Rather, Israeli politicians have told Guardian Australia, it was allegations of interference by one of Netanyahu’s senior ministers – and his links to a fringe ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism that he and Leifer followed – that raised the profile of the case.

Allegations the then deputy health minister, Yaacov Litzman, had delayed proceedings meant the extradition was no longer an issue the government could ignore. Litzman has denied any wrongdoing in relation to the case.

However, a senior Israeli diplomat, speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, is scathing about the allegations of political interference and says it, coupled with the protracted extradition proceedings, has done damage to the Australia-Israel relationship.

Australia’s Jewish community – whose media first reported the allegations against Leifer in 2008 – welcomed this week’s developments. Traditionally Israel-supportive organisations previously labelled the process a “circus” and repeatedly criticised the Jewish state over the extradition. Leifer’s alleged victims say the community stalwart Mark Leibler pushed the community to respond.

However, the Adass Israel community – which employed Leifer as principal of its girls school – has remained tight-lipped and hired a crisis PR firm to handle media inquiries.

The insular community – a group of about 220 families – comprises about 10 different ultra-Orthodox movements. It shuns the secular world in favour of strictly interpreting ancient laws outlined in the Torah.

This week it emerged the Adass community was linked to the only prison chaplaincy service religiously observant enough to cater for Leifer’s needs in prison. The school was also forced to find a new psychologist to offer staff and families support after the community worker initially recommended was revealed as a whistleblower in the Leifer case.

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The political campaign

Last week politicians who lobbied for Leifer’s extradition praised the efforts of three sisters – Dassi Erlich, Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer – who allege they were abused by Leifer as students between 2004 and 2008 when she moved to Israel.

Erlich brought a civil case against Leifer over her alleged abuse, which led to a Victorian supreme court judge in 2015 ordering the Adass Israel school to pay her more than $1m in damages. Following that ruling, an Israeli court suspended the ex-principal’s extradition proceedings because she claimed she was suffering mental health issues and was unfit to stand trial.

Leifer had not faced a Victorian court over the 74 charges of child sex offences levelled against her. She left Australia abruptly in March 2008 amid allegations of abuse. After a crisis meeting, the Adass Israel school’s leadership hastily organised a flight for Leifer and her family to Israel.

Following the setback, Erlich was persuaded to make a public push for extradition but it was only after she met the former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu that the public campaign began gaining momentum. Her sisters would later join the campaign.

Baillieu, who was Victorian premier against the backdrop of multiple state and national inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse, was acutely aware of the pervasiveness of alleged abuse in the state, and the response of some communities to shun alleged victims who spoke out.

Baillieu was not aware of Erlich’s story when they first met. She was brought to him by a Jewish victim of abuse, who Baillieu had invited to a meeting after he was troubled by the experiences she recounted at a discussion about alleged abuse in the Jewish community hosted the previous year by the Chabad community – a larger and more mainstream group of Melbourne’s Jewish community that had itself grappled with child sexual abuse scandals.

“Dassi had been shunned by her parents, her wider family, her school and her community,” Baillieu told the Guardian.

“My fundamental approach to these victims is telling them I can’t adjudicate legal situations, I can’t get you funding. What I can do with you is stand with you in public places so you’re not shunned by the community.”

Baillieu would go on to hold press conferences with Erlich and her sisters, and organised for them to meet Australian politicians, including Turnbull, when he was prime minister, in September 2017.

Political momentum had also been building in Victoria before Erlich went public as a victim. The Victorian Labor MLC Philip Dalidakis raised the issue with Israeli politicians and Victorian parliament throughout 2016 and, in mid-2017, the Caulfield Liberal MP, David Southwick, joined the chorus of concerned politicians.

Meanwhile, members of Israel’s parliament – the Knesset – who visited Australia were being urged to raise the matter when they returned home. Dalidakis recalls preparing a letter outlining the key facts and issues of the case, and handing it to several visiting members of Knesset (MK) in Australia.

One of the recipients of these letters was Michal Biran, an opposition MK from Israel’s Labor party, who visited Australia in mid-2017.

By that time, Erlich told her story to an Australian journalist for the first time, and when Biran sat down on her flight to Australia she was seated next to a frustrated Australian passenger who told her about the case. She would hear about it repeatedly in Australia but could barely find any mention of Leifer in Israeli media when she returned to Israel.

At this point, Leifer had been released from prison after psychiatrists ruled she was mentally unfit to stand trial. She was living in the West Bank settlement of Emmanuel.

“I thought, if she’s so insane and mentally unfit for trial, then how come she is living freely, without care?” Biran says.

Biran then put Erlich in touch with journalists at a popular Israeli TV current affairs program, and the story was soon followed up by other Israeli media. Erlich and her sisters would go on to make repeated trips to Israel to meet with other MKs.

After the story aired, Turnbull, who had previously met with Erlich, travelled to Israel in October for the 100th anniversary of the battle of Beersheba, and told journalists he had raised Leifer’s delayed extradition with Netanyahu at a meeting in Jerusalem.

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However, in December, when the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, met Netanyahu in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister reportedly reacted with surprise.

“At first he really didn’t know what the premier was talking about – it surprised me,” recalls Josh Burns, a former adviser to Andrews present in the meeting who has since become the Labor MP for Macnamara, the federal electorate that takes in the Adass Israel School.

“Netanyahu was very well briefed on every other topic Dan raised over the meeting except this, but he needed Yuval [Rotem, Israel’s former ambassador to Australia who was also in the meeting] to fill him in on the situation,” Burns says.

When the Guardian asks Turnbull about this reaction, he is surprised and reiterates that he did speak with Netanyahu about it. However, the lacklustre response would correlate with the lack of progress the case was having in the Israeli legal system.

Leifer case ‘just exploded’

By February 2019 Leifer was being held in Israel’s only female prison after being rearrested in 2018 following a police investigation prompted by a private investigator who had captured video of Leifer going about her normal life in Emmanuel seemingly unimpacted by mental illness.

When reports broke that Litzman, Israel’s deputy health minister, was being investigated by police for allegedly interfering in Leifer’s case by pressuring court psychiatrists to alter their mental health assessments of her, recognition of Leifer “just exploded” within Israel, according to Biran.

It also emerged that Litzman, who was chairman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party that was part of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, was a follower of the same Gur Hasidic sect of Judaism as Leifer.

Burns labels the allegations about Litzman “a big turning point” in how the Israeli system progressed the case. “That was what really pissed people off, that there was potentially government interference,” Burns says.

In Israel, the allegations against Litzman – which also included a separate investigation into an allegation of bribery – rocked diplomats and sparked fears about the relationship with Australia. Litzman has denied any wrongdoing, saying he worked “in favour of the citizens of Israel in total transparency and according to the law”.

It was apparent the issue had finally cut through with Israel’s government last year, when the president, Reuven Rivlin, visited Canberra in February. Australian politicians who met with him, including Burns, report Rivlin carried a piece of paper with key facts and developments in Leifer’s case, in anticipation of questions.

Rivlin came with a pledge that he would intervene in the case if it was delayed further.

Despite virtual hearings throughout the pandemic, in December, once the case entered Israel’s supreme court, Leifer was found to have been feigning mental illness and was fit to be extradited to Australia, and the court rejected her final appeal.

Leifer has consistently maintained her innocence in relation to the charges.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/31/malka-leifer-how-a-long-running-child-sexual-abuse-case-tested-australias-relationship-with-israel

‘Pete Evans in the party room’: Liberals, independents line up to take on Craig Kelly

James Massola - January 31, 2021

Controversial Liberal MP Craig Kelly is facing twin challenges to hold on to his southern Sydney seat of Hughes, with moderate Liberals and a local campaign hoping to blast him out of federal Parliament.

But a defiant Mr Kelly – who increased his margin by 0.5 per cent to 9.9 per cent at the last poll – has declared he is confident of again having the support of both the Liberal Party and the local constituents at the next election.

Mr Kelly, a climate change sceptic, frequently promotes the use of drugs hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to treat COVID-19 on his widely shared Facebook page. This is despite local and global health authorities stating they do not help treat the disease.

The MP’s outspoken advocacy for the medically unproven treatments are a growing headache for Scott Morrison, particularly as Australia prepares to begin vaccinating the population, with Labor demanding the Prime Minister rebuke Mr Kelly.

Ahead of a federal election tipped for the second half of 2021 Mr Kelly, first elected in 2010, could face another challenge from would-be Liberal candidate Kent Johns to retain pre-selection for the seat.

Mr Johns, a Liberal moderate, has previously planned to stand against Mr Kelly but interventions from three successive prime ministers – Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and then Scott Morrison – have blocked him.

At the same time a ginger group of local activists, We Are Hughes, are also searching for a candidate to stand against Mr Kelly.

Local Liberals the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age spoke to expect Mr Johns to stand against Mr Kelly, barring an intervention from Liberal Party head office. Former Sutherland Shire mayor Carmelo Pesce, who has also been discussed as a potential candidate, is said to be unlikely to throw his hat in the ring.

A NSW Liberal MP, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss internal party deliberations, said it was unlikely the prime minister would again intervene to save Mr Kelly, who is said to lack the rank-and-file numbers to win preselection this time.

“It should be a normal preselection. He’s never had the numbers other than when he was first pre-selected,” the MP said.

“People have become immune to what he says on climate change, it’s just Craig being Craig, but his comments on the Capitol riots [in Washington DC] shocked people.”

“His comments on COVID-19 are really damaging, it’s like having Pete Evans in the party room.”

Mr Evans is a celebrity chef who has questioned the efficacy of mask wearing and vaccines. His Facebook page was deactivated last year for sharing misinformation about COVID-19.

Mr Kelly said that every MP had to re-apply for their job at every election. “Since I’ve been outspoken defending traditional Liberal party values there is no doubt that many from the green left will try and run a targeted campaign against me”.

Another Liberal familiar with the party’s internal discussions about Hughes said Mr Kelly’s outspoken ways and frequent posting of fringe medical theories - the MP often posts three or four times per day to his nearly 90,000 followers on the topic - had angered not just the moderate faction but also sections of the party’s centre right and hard right factions.

“No one knows why he is doing what he is doing.”

Mr Kelly described the We Are Hughes group as “fake independents - they are the remnants of the Greens that see their best chance as trying to trick the electorate by disguising themselves as independent”.

But Linda Seymour, one of the organisers of the group, said it was a grassroots movement focused on on doing politics differently. They hope to find a strong candidate, similar to independent MP Zali Steggall who managed to unseat Mr Abbott in Warringah at the 2019 federal election.

“In Hughes we have no representation, we have Craig Kelly off on his own crusade. Irrespective of whether you’re Labor or Liberal you haven’t been represented in our seat,” she said.

Pre-selection for NSW Liberal Party lower house seats has not yet begun.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pete-evans-in-the-party-room-liberals-independents-line-up-to-take-on-craig-kelly-20210129-p56xwf.html

EU bans coronavirus vaccine exports to Australia

JACQUELIN MAGNAY and NATASHA ROBINSON - JANUARY 30, 2021

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The European Commission has slapped an immediate export ban on corona­virus vaccines to Australia so European citizens can be vaccinated first, throwing the rollout of Australia’s program into disarray.

In a dramatic move that could escalate into a broader trade war, the EU has begun hoarding the vaccines for 450 million Europeans after claiming the UK had “hijacked’’ doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine made in a Brussels plant.

The new rules, released overnight, will stop or slow the rate of export of any vaccines made or bottled in Europe to anywhere outside the continent, including Australia.

This will immediately affect Australia’s 80,000 doses of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine made in Puurs, Belgium, which is due in the coming weeks to start Australia’s vaccination program.

Australia’s 3.8 million international AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine doses, made in Seneffe, Belgium, had already been cut to 1.2 million and Europe’s moves have added fresh uncertainty about this reduced amount.

Australia failed to obtain an exemption from the European rules despite the diplomatic efforts of Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Health Minister Greg Hunt.

However the European Commission — the executive branch of the EU — has provided exemptions to countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Israel, Moldova, Ukraine, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and the Vatican City.

European politicians are under huge pressure to increase vaccination rates within the bloc after a slow start to their inoculation program, starting a month later than the UK; and exacerbated by supply issues. Only two per cent of Europe have been given a coronavirus inoculation compared to ten per cent of the UK who have had their first jab.

The European Commission said the measures were “to ensure timely access to COVID-19 vaccines for all EU citizens and to tackle the current lack of transparency of vaccine exports outside the EU’’.

EU bureaucrats want to know if the big pharmaceutical companies are fulfilling non-EU orders at the ­expense of delaying any supplies to the 27-nation bloc.

The commission says it will now assess if the volume of exports poses a threat to the execution of the Advance Purchase Agreements the EU has concluded with vaccine manufacturers.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn warned the German public of “at least another 10 weeks of shortages”.

The Commission’s new rules were flagged following manufacturing issues that halved supply of the Pfizer and ­AstraZeneca vaccines in recent weeks.

European politicians have scrambled to secure supplies as vaccination programs slowed drastically, and in some regions stopped altogether. In France, vaccinations for 12 million people living in and around Paris have been halted, and other regions have had to push back their plans by six weeks.

In Madrid and in North Rhine Westphalia, the Spanish and German governments have stopped new inoculations, preferring to use dwindling supplies to provide the second jab to those who have had the first one. Barcelona and the wider Catalonia region are due to run out of supplies by this weekend.

Italy and Poland have threatened legal action to try to force the European manufacturers to divert stocks to their countries.

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Earlier this week, Pfizer officials told The Weekend Australian “it is critical that governments do not impose export restrictions or other trade barriers that risk creating uncertainty and disrupting supply of vaccine to patients around the world’’.

Some of the uncertainty about Australia’s international supply stems from the country’s success in managing the virus. Australia’s perceived need for vaccines is much less than in Europe, where coronavirus death rates are still high and populations are under ­severe lockdown conditions.

The European issues stem from two unrelated problems.

Pfizer has had to halt production at its factory in Puurs for several weeks to increase its manufacturing output. At the same time, European officials have accused AstraZeneca of fulfilling an 100 million British order ahead of the Europeans’ contract for 400 million doses, providing British ­patients with jabs not only from its UK plants in Wrexham and ­Oxford, but from the Seneffe ­factory in Belgium and another in The Netherlands.

The amount of Australia’s ­initial supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being imported from Europe before local manufacturing begins, has already been slashed as the UK pharmaceutical giant struggles to fulfil global ­orders of hundreds of millions of doses of its viral vector shots, amid problems with vaccine yield at its Belgium plant.

European Council president Charles Michel said Brussels was exploring “urgent measures to ensure effective vaccine productions and supply for our population”.

Australian drug company CSL, which is contracted to make the AstraZeneca vaccine at its Broadmeadows plant in Melbourne, on Friday said it had experienced ­initial problems growing the cell culture to manufacture the 50 million doses onshore.

Australia is importing 3.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca jab from Europe, and CSL will manufacture 50 million doses in Melbourne. Australia is also importing 10 million doses of the Pfizer jab.

“Vaccine manufacture is highly complex, and it is not unusual to experience variations in yield ­levels in the initial product man­ufacturing runs — particularly for a new vaccine,” CSL said in a ­statement.

“In close consultations with ­AstraZeneca, we have leveraged our deep expertise in vaccine ­development and recombinant drug manufacture to optimise the AZD1222 manufacturing process and achieve higher yields for each batch.’’

CSL said it was “striving” to ­deliver the first doses of locally manufactured vaccine from late March, following Therapeutic Goods Administration approval and testing.

The Morrison government expects CSL will supply one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine per week from late March.

As well as orders for the AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs, Australia has also contracted to buy 50 million doses of the Novavax vaccine.

Phase 3 interim trial data for that vaccine, released on Friday, shows it has an effectiveness of 89.3 per cent with a strong protection against the highly contagious British variant of the virus.

The Novavax vaccine was found to be 95.6 per cent effective against the original COVID-19 virus and 85.6 per cent effective against the British variant.

It also appears to offer strong protection against the dangerous South Africa variant.

On Friday, Health Minister Greg Hunt defended the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the elderly, after Germany’s vaccine committee recommended it not be administered to people who are aged over 65. German officials were not satisfied that the ­efficacy of the vaccine had been demonstrated in the elderly, with only limited numbers of volunteers aged over 65 having been included in phase 3 clinical trials.

Mr Hunt said the TGA had noted there was “no evidence in relation to any risk with regards to effectiveness or other elements” in relation to the AstraZeneca vaccine’s administration to elderly people. The British regulator has approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in all age groups.

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Mr Hunt confirmed Australia’s first vaccinations were set to begin late next month, but the first weeks of the COVID-19 immunisation program would start slowly, with Pfizer able to guarantee the supply of only an initial 80,000 doses in late February.

The government expects to receive about 80,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine per week in March, with the company contracted to supply 10 million doses this year.

But Pfizer’s vaccine exports from its plant in Puurs, Belgium, could be interrupted by the EU’s export ban move to shore up supplies for the 27-nation bloc.

Pfizer’s manufacturing capabilities have been hindered by ­attempts to ramp up production in an effort to produce two billion doses of its vaccine by the end of the year.

As well as the diplomatic representations made by Senator Payne, Mr Hunt has been in discussions with his British and ­European counterparts in an ­effort to secure supply.

The EU has vowed to use “all legal means and enforcement measures” to ensure its own orders are fulfilled, including drawing up new rules to block exports.

“We understand that the whole world has to deal with supply shortages,” Mr Hunt said.

“But the Foreign Minister has confirmed that Australia will be making representations through the World Health Organisation, and through Europe, with regards to ensuring vaccine supplies and certainty for Australia.”

WHO European chief Hans Kluge said he was fielding representations from multiple nations.

“The telephone line is very hot, as you can imagine,” Mr Kluge said. “We stand by them and we do understand the situation.”

The moves to interrupt the ­export of vaccines from Belgium come as AstraZeneca struggled to provide a scheduled 80 million doses to the EU in the first quarter of this year. It has said it may be able to supply only 31 million doses, prompting threats of legal action by European countries.

AstraZeneca’s supply difficulties relate to the amount of usable vaccine it has been able to extract from each manufacturing run, which depends on how the virus is able to be grown inside human kidney cells in special bioreactors.

The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a chimpanzee cold virus to courier a piece of genetic code into the body to trigger an immune response, and the growing of this viral vector is highly sensitive to variations in temperature and oxygen levels, which can reduce the volume of cells that are grown.

The problems in Belgium are similar to those faced by CSL, and company chairman Pascal Soriot said the issues were not unusual.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/vaccine-supply-threat-sparks-diplomatic-standoff-with-eu/news-story/1c1c9de8fae0592a6b628ffa89abdecc

Spy agency ASIS used veil of secrecy to stop news of suicide

The Australian Secret Intelligence Service has been accused of being the “gold standard” for covering up mental health issues in its ranks.

Cydonee Mardon - January 30, 2021

One of Australia’s key spy agencies has come under fire for “hiding behind secrecy” over efforts to keep the suicide of an intelligence officer “under wraps”.

Senior military sources claim conversations in Defence public affairs were focused on planning how to “minimise awareness of the suicide before Christmas in the hope that it might become lost in the media lull post the holiday season”.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed the ex army officer, who was working as an intelligence officer with the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), died on December 21 in the Russell precinct car park.

Details of the incident have been kept under wraps, with the ACT Coroner’s court confirming it had received a report into the death, but “no further information could be given regarding the specific matter”, including whether a coronal inquiry would be held.

Sources say transparency has never been more important, considering the spike in suicides in the defence force and in civilian roles within the six spy agencies.

“Sadly, ASIS is the gold standard for covering up mental health issues, and this suicide was not out of the ordinary for that agency,” a former special forces officer said.

“Who is holding that agency to account?”

A senior ranking officer from within the Russell precinct said colleagues were starting to become “really disappointed at the focus on minimising media awareness and potential reputation damage as suicides occur, as opposed to allocating as much effort towards speaking openly and honestly and admitting that we are experiencing a severe spike”.

“It’s a time where affirmative action and empathetic leadership is needed,” he said.

A mid-level officer said news of the death of the intelligence officer spread quickly in military circles but in the ­following days information dried up.

“Everyone knew it was a suicide the day it occurred. This was even confirmed in conversations with police and security footage,” he said.

“That this was not dealt with honestly and immediately has caused resentment with many who feel morally disconnected by such coercive intentions.”

ASIS is one of six agencies that makes up the Australia Intelligence Community that works to collect, analyse and disseminate intelligence information and advice in accordance with Australia’s interest and national security priorities.

A defence spokeswoman said the incident in the Russell precinct has been referred to ACT Policing for investigation.

“As the matter is being investigated by ACT Policing, it would be inappropriate for Defence to comment, and any queries should be directed to ACT Policing,” the spokeswoman said.

There have been more than 12 defence suicides in the past two months, prompting renewed calls for a Royal Commission.

“The news of a number of Defence and veteran suicides over the last month are extremely worrying,” Labor’s spokesman for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel Shayne Neumann said.

“Anecdotally, we fear there may be many more than those reported and it’s clear the problem is getting worse.

“Nothing less than a Royal Commission into veteran suicide is needed to get to bottom of this shocking epidemic.”

https://www.themercury.com.au/news/national/spy-agency-asis-used-veil-of-secrecy-to-stop-news-of-suicide/news-story/2d0cd24d1f0582ebfefed7ff79b46c52

Popular craft website Etsy caught selling childlike sex dolls that breach Australian child abuse laws

Sex dolls resembling children as young as 10 are being sold on a popular global website that millions of Australians use to buy gifts and craft supplies.

Katy Hall - January 29, 2021

Sex dolls resembling children as young as 10 are being sold on a popular global website that millions of Australians use to purchase gifts and craft supplies.

E-commerce site Etsy is best known for selling handmade and vintage items like jewellery, bespoke wedding cake toppers and baby blankets. But the global shopping site has a growing dark underbelly selling child sex dolls and graphic slogan apparel.

One item available for sale titled “Boy sex doll” includes multiple explicit images of a silicon doll with a height of just 140cm, the average height for boys aged 10 -12 years old, and includes a diagram of how to move and position the doll.

Another listing gives purchasers the option to buy the child doll’s head as a stand-alone purchase.

One female doll is listed as having the height and weight of that commonly of girls aged 12 to 13 and is photographed wearing teenage-style clothing. The listing promises buyers “discreet shipping”, saying, “We ship in plain brown boxes with nothing on them but a shipping label.”

Many listings allow purchasers to select the skin, hair and eye colours of the dolls, as well as the height, weight and genital sizing.

Under Australian law, child sex dolls are considered child sex material. Importation carries a fine of up to $555,000 and up to ten years’ imprisonment.

In December last year, News Corp reported Australian Border Force had seized 191 dolls that had been sent to Australian consumers, up from 145 in 2019.

Also rife among the ‘global marketplace’, as Etsy refers to itself, are a growing number of highly graphic items like underwear and t-shirts with slogans such as ‘Daddy’s little c*t’, ‘Al Plz’, and ‘Daddy’s Little Ck W***e’.

Under Etsy’s current algorithm, the explicit items appear alongside items like writing journals and children’s clothing.

While the items do not violate Etsy’s community guidelines, Melbourne-based Etsy seller Anna Cordell, a long-time user who started selling face masks on the platform during Melbourne’s lockdown, said the products are inappropriate.

“As well as the fact these products are placed alongside Father’s Day gifts and baby clothes, they eroticise child abuse. It does not belong on Etsy,” Cordell said.

“Surely a ‘Daddy please’ tattoo emblazoned across bare genitals is in breach of these guidelines.”

Since discovering the disturbing products, Cordell has partnered with Collective Shout to launch an online petition asking Etsy to remove the items and ensure they do not return.

“I’m certainly especially shocked at the placement of the products, but it’s all part of the larger issue that this stuff simply does not belong on Etsy,” Cordell says.

Collective Shout campaign director Melinda Tankard Reist agrees, and said the t-shirts, underwear and temporary tattoos, while not illegal, are part of a larger societal problem.

“These products fetishise girls and suggest they really want to be sexually abused by their fathers,” she said

“Etsy is perpetuating this falsehood and playing into this paedophile fantasy.

The company is promoting the idea that abuse is sexy.”

Etsy told News Corp a number of profiles selling the dolls have since been deactivated.

“We take the safety of our marketplace very seriously, and we regularly revisit and adjust our policies. We will continue to closely monitor this space,” a spokesperson said.

In 2015, Etsy banned the sale of spells, hexes and potions from its platform.

It did not respond to News Corp’s questions about whether it would introduce a similar ban on child sex dolls.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts/popular-craft-website-etsy-caught-selling-childlike-sex-dolls-that-breach-australian-child-abuse-laws/news-story/b46800ade19bcd6558a31fae13b77baf

Perth plunged into five-day lockdown after positive case spends days in community

REBECCA LE MAY - JANUARY 31, 2021

Perth has been plunged into a five-day lockdown after a hotel quarantine security guard contracted COVID-19 then went to a large number of locations in the community, not knowing he had it.

WA Premier Mark McGowan held an emergency press conference on Sunday afternoon, revealing WA’s first locally-acquired case in almost 10 months.

He said the male guard aged in his 20s had been working at Four Points by Sheraton in the CBD where there were four active cases, including two of the UK variant and one of the South African mutant strain.

The Maylands resident had tested negative on January 15, 17 and 23 but developed symptoms on Thursday, January 28.

Mr McGowan said it was suspected the man had the highly contagious UK variant as he had worked on the same floor as a case of that strain.

“Exactly how the infection was acquired remains under investigation,” the Premier said.

“We suspect he contracted the illness on the Tuesday or the Wednesday.

“We are advised that he may have been a driver for one of the rideshare companies.

“The last day he worked in the hotel was Wednesday, but we are advised, and this is being carefully followed up, that he did not do any other work in the time since.”

WA Health Minister Roger Cook said the man was potentially infectious while out in the community, listing multiple businesses in Maylands he had been to as well as the Perth Convention Centre.

“Something did go wrong and we do need to get to the bottom of it,” Mr Cook said.

“It is a serious situation and that is why we invite everyone to undertake the measures that we are all familiar with, that we undertook during March and April last year.

“For five days … just make sure that we take the opportunity to get on top of this situation.”

The man shares a unit with three other people who have so far returned negative results - but that will likely change.

“We put them into hotel quarantine, because the chances are they will subsequently term positive,” Mr McGowan said.

WA chief health officer Andy Robertson said the man was probably infectious from January 26.

The lockdown applies to the Perth, Peel and South West regions and begins at 6pm WST on Sunday, running until 6pm on Friday.

“People in the Perth, Peel and South West regions need to stay inside their region for the next five days, unless for an essential reason,” the Premier said.

Those are: shopping for essentials like groceries and medicine, to receive medical care, exercising within your neighbourhood with one other person for one hour per day and working when doing so from home is not possible.

Wearing a mask at all times outside, while working indoors and on public transport is mandatory.

Mr McGowan strongly encouraged anyone currently in the Perth, Peel and South West areas who are from another WA region to stay put.

“Do not travel further outside of this area until the lockdown is over,” he said.

“If you do need to travel outside the region you are in now, that can only occur if you need to return to your place of residence.”

Pubs, bars and clubs, gyms, indoor sporting venues, playgrounds, skate parks, outdoor recreational facilities, places of worship, libraries and the Crown casino are among venues that must close.

Restaurants and cafes can provide takeaway service only and just 10 people can attend funerals.

Weddings are cancelled.

No visitors are permitted to homes unless caring for someone vulnerable or in an emergency, and no visitors will be allowed into aged care homes and hospitals unless there are exceptional circumstances.

School was due to start on Monday but that has now been put on hold.

Mr McGowan said international arrivals would continue for now.

“We currently have half capacity, 512 Australians returning per week,” he said.

“It alleviated the pressure on our hotels.

“In this circumstance it didn’t help us.

“Obviously we’ll see what happens over the course of the coming week, whether we need to make a request to the federal government for that continued reduction to continue for a longer period of time.”

Perth residents immediately descended on shops, with large queues forming outside pharmacists.

“Do not do panic shopping,” WA Police commissioner Chris Dawson urged.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/wa-plunged-into-fiveday-lockdown-after-positive-case-spends-days-in-community/news-story/ea12f4642b0db1e6a387a8de4dc0c1e7

Charges against journos, editors dropped in Pell case

MELISSA IARIA - FEBRUARY 1, 2021

All charges against Australian journalists and editors accused of breaching court suppression orders over the George Pell sex case have been sensationally dropped.

The development came on Monday when a trial against 27 media outlets and journalists and editors heard a deal had been reached with prosecutors.

In return for each corporate entity pleading guilty to a breach of the suppression order, the Director of Public Prosecutions has dropped dozens of charges against individual journalists and editors.

“Each corporate respondent has indicated that it will plead guilty, in respect of each publication for which they are charged, to contempt by breaching the proceeding suppression order,” DPP prosecutor Lisa De Ferrari SC told the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday.

Ms De Ferrari said that as a result, the DPP determined it was in the public interest to withdraw remaining charges.

The corporate respondents had agreed to pay a proportion of the DPP’s costs for the prosecution.

The media companies, journalists and editors faced a total of 79 sub judice and contempt charges over their reporting of the Pell case.

Among them are reporters and titles from News Corp Australia, Fairfax/Nine and Mamamia.

The individual journalists and editors were potentially facing severe penalties, including jail, if convicted over the charges.

The Director of Public Prosecutions argued the breach of the court orders prevented any reporting on Pell’s 2018 trial in Australia, because he was yet to face a second trial and the jury may have been impacted.

Cardinal Pell was not named in the reports and the second trial was dropped.

Cardinal Pell was eventually cleared of abusing two choirboys by the High Court and immediately freed from jail in April after 13 months behind bars.

The remaining charges will be heard at a plea hearing on February 10.

News Corp Australia is the publisher of NCA NewsWire.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/charges-against-journos-editors-dropped/news-story/45b7da6d135f564e6f8003adf3761484

The US Capitol riots showed what a 'bunch of entitled white people' can do

Sarah Ferguson - 1 February 2021

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"There's nothing scarier than a white mob. Especially in the United States."

These are the words of Democrat Congressman Ruben Gallego, who was evacuated from the US Capitol as a violent, angry mob closed in on January 6.

A former US Marine, Mr Gallego was ready to fight his way out of the chamber.

He says if the mob had got hold of members of Congress that day, they likely would have tried to kill them.

Watching the coverage of the Capitol Hill insurrection from Australia, you could be forgiven for seeing an element of pantomime in the events: costumes and crude levity among the rioters, a file of protestors walking almost dazed between velvet ropes in the Capitol rotunda.

But that ignores the real threat the mob posed.

Mr Gallego sees race as one of the key motivators.

"There is a population of this country that has gotten used to always being on top and not having to share power," he said.

"And now they have to do that, and they have to compete. And psychologically, it's breaking them."

Former director of national intelligence Jim Clapper told Four Corners there's a fear among white Americans that they are losing control.

"What we saw was a manifestation of something that has been building up in this country for a long time, preceding Trump. Trump exacerbated it, exploited it, amplified it, and in this specific case incited it." Mr Clapper said.

Yes, there were African Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans among the tens of thousands who converged on Washington DC in January for a last-ditch protest to prevent Joe Biden being confirmed as the winner of the Presidential election.

But at the forefront of the violence were members of far-right extremist groups like The Proud Boys and organised militias The Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, all with ties to white supremacist ideologies.

Former senior Trump appointee in the Department of Homeland security Elizabeth Neumann holds Donald Trump responsible for galvanising right-wing extremist views that fuelled the riot.

"The whole experience of this last six years, not only did his rhetoric allow and encourage white supremacists to feel like it's okay for them to be out in the open and talking about their ideology again … but it also increased recruitment and empowered some of these groups to take the actions that eventually led to January 6."

There is a large disenfranchised segment of the American population whose motivations are varied but who express a common fear of being eclipsed by an urban, racially mixed elite.

On January 6, Donald Trump successfully persuaded tens of thousands of them not only that the election had been stolen from him as their representative but that they must use "strength" to take it back.

'We're in a form of civil war right now': Clapper

According to Mr Clapper, America is now in an incipient civil war.

"I think we have an ambient or latent form of civil war right now, just because of the two contrasting camps that people are in," he said.

"So we're in a form of civil war right now."

Returning to live in Washington after a long gap, the divisions in the country are painfully evident.

The late 1990s, when I lived here before, were marked by a big shift to the right with Newt Gingrich's "Republican Revolution".

That morphed into the Tea Party taking the GOP further to the right and laying the groundwork for more extreme people to enter Congress, including at least one avowed QAnon fantasist, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has demanded the right to bring a handgun into the House chamber.

(continued)

>>12786176

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I chose to spend inauguration day in Washington's poorest neighbourhood, Anacostia, where activist Arianna Evans was handing out clothes and food to the capital's most needy residents. Evans had turned her back on the ceremony across town.

"I'm not watching because Joe Biden doesn't really represent me or my generation, or any of the values that I hold as a human being," she said.

Ms Evans has started a splinter group of the Black Lives Matter movement called the DC Freedom Fighters; she says she wasn't shocked by the threats made by the rioters on Capitol Hill or the photos they posted of themselves.

She viewed the insurrection as "a bunch of entitled white people getting what they want in this country, as they always have".

"They can threaten to hang their vice-president because this is their country, and all I saw when I saw that smug white man sitting in that chair with his feet kicked up on the speaker's desk was like, this is what white privilege looks like."

Ms Evans believes the rioters were able to rampage through the literal corridors of power because they were white.

"We would have been dead on the grass. We wouldn't even make it to the stairs. We wouldn't have made it to the white marble, because they wouldn't want to spray our blood off of that."

Threats of further violence

The FBI has arrested and charged 164 rioters so far, including members of organised right-wing militias. Indictments allege that militia members used military-grade equipment and real-time communication technology, including apps like Zello, as they stormed into the capitol.

As members of Congress were evacuated through a network of tunnels under the complex, the FBI claims a militia member received Facebook messages giving detailed instructions on how to find the senators and members of Congress sheltering in secret basement rooms.

One message read:

"All members are in tunnels under the capital (sic) seal them in. Turn on gas."

Last week in Washington, the Acting Director of Homeland Security issued a formal warning that violent extremists could "continue to mobilise to incite or commit violence in the months ahead."

Polls show that a large majority of Republican voters still believe that the 2020 election was stolen by the Democrats.

As assistant secretary for counter-terrorism and threat prevention, Elizabeth Neumann's job was to assess domestic terror threats in America.

She said: "When you have 50 million people in this country that believe in this big lie … then some small percentage, maybe it's only 1 per cent, but 1 per cent is 500,000 people — 500,000 people willing to commit acts of violence."

There will be painstaking investigations into the causes of the riot but in the meantime, the most shocking sight in Washington is not the armed soldiers on the street who will remain through the impeachment but the quick retreat from principle of Republicans in Congress.

In the immediate aftermath, there were calls from Republican leadership to condemn Trump for his role in encouraging the insurrection.

Within days, as the reality emerged of Trump's continued hold over the party and its voting base, the appetite for condemning the former president evaporated.

Trump looks likely to avoid a reckoning for his role in stoking American divisions and appears set to claim an acquittal in the upcoming Senate trial as the final victory in his presidency.

Watch the full investigation on Four Corners tonight at 8:30pm on ABC TV or livestream on the Four Corners Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/abc4corners/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-01/capitol-riot-trump-four-corners-sarah-ferguson/13098356

What does a new US govt mean for China-Australia ties?

Zhai Shilei - Feb 01, 2021

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With the completion of the power transfer between US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, the international community now has new expectations for the future of China-Australia relations.

Some people think that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government, which has been acting as an anti-China vanguard, would choose to quickly change his policy toward China and improve China-Australia relations. Yet others believe that Canberra would follow Washington's China policy and not rashly make obvious changes in the uncertain period of the US' power transfer. As a result, the "old questions" about whether or not Australia has clear policies toward China or it has independent diplomacy have emerged again.

First, Australia's China policy is based on the US-Australia alliance and lacks the basis of independence. Practice has shown that when China-US relations improve, Australia will strengthen its cooperation with China, Conversely, when China-US relations encounter challenges, Canberra adjusts its China policies to follow Washington.

Australia takes the so-called alliance diplomacy as its main theme and tries to maximize the benefits of its relations with China through the US' security guarantee. The wavering of this policy not only shows Australia's lack of autonomy in its diplomacy with China, but also reflects its opportunistic and short-sighted China policies overall.

Second, Australia has an incorrect perception of itself and insufficient understandings of China. The Morrison government claimed that for Australia to be a so-called middle power and defender of the liberal international order, it needs to stress issues such as the South China Sea, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Xinjiang governance. This was done under the guise of safeguarding international fairness and justice. But in reality, it interfered in China's internal affairs.

But Morrison's groundless accusations were based on the concept that Australia should be the spokesperson of the West in the Asia-Pacific region. But Morrison totally ignored the facts. In fact, Australia does have intellectuals and experts that know China well, but these rational perspectives are often suppressed by nationalist impulses. Voices calling for the collaboration with the former Trump administration to encircle and bash China were widely spread.

Undoubtedly, the external environment of China-Australia relations has changed due to the US' power transfer. Although the Australian government often claims that its foreign policy decisions are based on the assessment of national interests, it must be asked: What exactly are Australia's national interests? Do following the US' trade war with China and confronting its biggest trading partner apply to its national interests so the country suffers economically? Of course not.

(continued)

>>12786293

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Australia understands that it is the biggest beneficiary of economic and trade cooperation with China. On the one hand, it needs to be understood that the deterioration of China-Australia relations occurred in the context of the Trump administration's "trade war" against China. There is no fundamental conflict of national interests between China and Australia. Quite the opposite, cooperation between the two countries has been greater than their differences for a very long time.

On the other hand, in an era characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic and gloomy world economic development, Australia has not benefited from confronting China with the US. Nor has it achieved bigger says as a middle power in regional and global governance.

On the contrary, with the deterioration of relations with China, Australia's economic and trade interests have been seriously damaged. It has experienced historic decline in its exports of energy resources and agricultural products to China. International education and tourism development have also been massively damaged.

China and Australia are both important countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and cooperation between the two countries will not only benefit their domestic development, but also enhance the development of the whole region. In the long history of development, China and Australia have been friends rather than enemies for most of the time. This is a fact that Australia needs to treat with a more objective and pragmatic mindset.

At present, China and Australia are facing many similar issues of development, and there is room for cooperation between the two in the field of international governance. China and Australia share important common interests in promoting peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region. Both countries have long-standing communication and coordination with multilateral mechanisms and institutions such as the United Nations, the G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the East Asia Summit, and the Pacific Islands Forum. China and Australia make joint efforts and contributions to dealing with issues including the spread of infectious diseases, weapons of mass destruction, the global economic crisis, and global climate governance.

What is important to the smooth development of China-Australia relations is that both sides can follow the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefits, enhance mutual trust through dialogue, achieve win-win cooperation, and build a friendship through exchanges.

Facing the changes in the world not seen in a century, the improvement of China-Australia relations has already faced difficult external conditions. Australia needs to re-evaluate its policy toward China that had been under the influence of the Trump administration. It is Australia that needs to decide whether to continue the confrontation with China, or to resume positive dialogues.

The author is executive deputy director of the Center for Australian Studies from China University of Mining and Technology. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1214557.shtml

>>12780629

>seek help

you "offering"?

>Perth plunged into five-day lockdown after positive case spends days in community

>seek help

I would not seek your "help" even if i was up shit-creek, without a paddle AND in a holey raft.

Q: Do you have exosomes?

Diagnosing COVID-19 infection: the danger of over-reliance on positive test results

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20080911v4

… Contrary to the practice during previous epidemics, with COVID-19 health authorities have treated a single positive result from a PCR-based test as confirmation of infection, irrespective of signs, symptoms and exposure. This is based on a widespread belief that positive results in these tests are highly reliable. However, evidence from external quality assessments and real-world data indicate enough a high enough false positive rate to make positive results highly unreliable over a broad range of scenarios. This has clinical and case management implications, and affects an array of epidemiological statistics, including the asymptomatic ratio, prevalence, and hospitalization and death rates, as well as epidemiologic models. Steps should be taken to raise awareness of false positives and reduce their frequency. The most important immediate action is to check positive results with additional tests, at least when prevalence is low.

Craig Kelly backs Pete Evans’ right to spread conspiracy theories: ‘Ideas should be debated’

Josh Butler - Feb 1, 2021

Coalition MP Craig Kelly has defended his 90-minute appearance on a podcast from disgraced former celebrity chef Pete Evans, saying “you’ve got to be able to talk to people you don’t agree with”.

“I’m sure many people would think ‘I don’t agree with what The New Daily says, why the hell are you speaking to The New Daily?’” Mr Kelly told The New Daily with a laugh.

“I’m always happy to talk and put my side of the argument. That’s how our democratic society should work.”

Mr Kelly, the Member for Hughes, joined Evans for a long interview on Monday afternoon.

Evans, a former judge on My Kitchen Rules, has been heavily criticised for promoting dubious health advice through the pandemic, including vaccine scepticism and calling COVID a “scam” and a “fake pandemic narrative”.

He has also posted content linked to the baseless and dangerous Qanon conspiracy theory.

Evans was banned from Facebook in December for “repeated violations” of its policies around COVID-19 “misinformation”, while his podcasts were also removed from Apple and Spotify.

In November, he was dropped from numerous commercial arrangements and a book deal after posting a meme featuring a neo-Nazi symbol to his Instagram. He later apologised and claimed the post had been “misinterpreted”.

However, just hours after Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Mr Kelly was doing “a great job”, Evans revealed the Member for Hughes would appear as a guest on an upcoming podcast episode. Evans called him a “beautiful and beyond courageous man” and a “true hero”, after a 90-minute conversation.

“Craig Kelly MP is sharing the truth over and over again and keeps moving forward without fear,” Evans wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of a beaming Mr Kelly brandishing a thumbs-up.

Evans also again hinted at a possible political candidacy, saying he wanted to meet Mr Kelly “in Canberra in the not-too-distant future”.

Mr Kelly, too, has come under fire for posting contested COVID-19 claims on his Facebook page, questioning face masks, expert medical advice and COVID treatments. Many of his claims have been refuted categorically by Australia’s chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly and the Therapeutic Goods Administration, among other global experts.

Labor MPs Tim Watts and Josh Burns were quick to criticise Mr Kelly, but the Liberal MP defended his appearance.

“I basically said to Pete Evans, ‘I disagree with what you say and I disagree with some of the things you’ve posted, however I defend your right to say those things’,” Mr Kelly told TND.

“If you’re posting wrong ideas, those ideas should be debated and challenged, rather than censored. That’s the way, in a democratic society, you get to the truth.”

Just hours earlier, Labor’s health spokesman Mark Butler had labelled Mr Kelly a “dangerous menace” over his social media activity.

When asked if he subscribed to the Qanon conspiracy theory, considering Evans’ prior posts about the topic, Mr Kelly said he “categorically” did not.

“Someone had to explain to me what Qanon actually was. I haven’t followed it, don’t understand it. To be honest, I still don’t understand it,” he said.

“As I understand it, it’s some crazy conspiracy theory.”

Mr Kelly also said he looked forward to standing for election as the Liberal candidate for Hughes at the next poll, and welcomed Mr Morrison’s “great job” comments.

“Great to have the Prime Minister’s support. We get on very well. I’ve been here for 10 years, and I think the team under Scott is the most united that it’s ever been since I’ve been in the place,” he added.

Mr Kelly has been on a personal crusade to promote hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug briefly boosted by former US president Donald Trump, and ivermectin, an anti-parasitic treatment, for coronavirus.

Both treatments have been repeatedly shot down by local and global health experts, including the TGA.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/02/01/craig-kelly-pete-evans-podcast/

https://twitter.com/joshburnsmp/status/1356147521001672705

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKvVrbzBdQC/

The QAnon threat to Australia’s vaccine rollout

Sam Williamson - 2 Feb 2021

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What began as a post on anonymous message board 4chan—home to trolls, internet shock-jocks and excursionists—has morphed into an international conspiracy theory posing a threat to Australia’s vaccination rollout against Covid-19. The QAnon movement has spread worldwide since 2017, beyond the control of those who originally dropped the cryptic posts into anonymous online threads.

QAnon conspiracists promote an endless, evolving slew of unfounded and disproven claims, ranging from various government officials having been arrested in the dead of night to bombshell political revelations that are ‘just around the corner’ and ‘only a week away’, never to eventuate. The continual goalpost-shifting allows the group to mould and shape the movement to whatever current events grab their attention.

The conspiracy spread like wildfire after the original posts, gaining traction in online far-right circles and eventually receiving mainstream promotion through prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was recently required to pay US$100,000 in defamation costs for falsely claiming that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. QAnon merchandise then appeared at a 2018 Donald Trump rally, entangling the movement with the president’s base in a symbiotic relationship. QAnon adherents found a crowd with which to spread and monetise the theory, while Trump supporters found a (somewhat) coherent explanation for the obvious chaos and disorder of the administration.

The disrupted and turbulent year that was 2020 provided fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and extremists—a chance to connect dots and internalise a narrative that simplifies the complex and fear-inducing nature of a global pandemic. Australian QAnon followers have blended the original claims relating to satanic government cannibals and their imminent arrest with other discredited conspiracy theories, such as that 5G technology spreads coronavirus and that the global pandemic has been an orchestrated event. Q merchandise makes regular appearances at Australian anti-5G and anti-lockdown marches.

Perhaps the most notable and prominent Australian in the clutches of the theory is ex-celebrity chef Pete Evans. The disgraced reality TV star continuously references the child trafficking and paedophilia accusations levelled by QAnon enthusiasts, and recently shared neo-Nazi iconography to hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. This high-profile addition to the movement signals a danger to Australian health officials not because of who Evans is but because of what he represents—the Q cult is no longer solely within the domain of the far right. His position as a notable bellwether within the ‘alternative’ (discredited) health community indicates that Australia isn’t immune to the spread of dangerous misinformation transcending ideological lines.

Despite the seeming absurdity of their claims, members of the QAnon cult have been linked to crimes as serious as kidnapping and murder in the US, as well as the attempted insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington last month. Supporters are evidently not afraid to engage in acts they see to be furthering the cause of the group based on flimsy evidence and debunked theories.

(continued)

>>12797050

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QAnon’s drawing in of the anti-vaccination and ‘plandemic’ crowd presents a clear threat to the success of the Australian government’s vaccination program, expected to commence later this month. It isn’t a stretch for someone who already accepts that a satanic cabal of paedophiles plays puppeteer behind the scenes to then believe inoculations are done for nefarious purposes. While outlandish, the prominence of the theory suggests more are susceptible to it than we may have thought. This risk underscores the importance of the messaging strategy the government employs as our national vaccine rollout begins.

The latest information on the AstraZeneca vaccine (of which we’ve secured 53 million doses for use pending approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration) appears to place the efficacy rate at 62%—a rate certain to save lives but still behind both the Moderna and Pfizer jabs. That lower efficacy rate positions the percentage among us who are highly sceptical of or hostile to a vaccine as a priority to the government. An Australian National University study found that up to 13% of people are either somewhat unwilling or completely unwilling to receive the vaccine, of which the majority are likely to raise both safety and efficacy concerns. This is a battle that information, transparency and trust can win.

Australia’s continued success in combating the pandemic has resulted in a highly favourable view of our government. While Covid-19 deaths are tragic, our comparatively low number of deaths and successful lockdowns despite localised outbreaks provide the government with a significant reservoir of goodwill and trust among Australians. Together with our historically high levels of vaccination, it will prove our best weapon in combating the conspiracy theories and misinformation we’re set to encounter in the coming months.

Confusion and fear surrounding the vaccination process will provide perfect fodder for extremists and conspiracists. A wall-to-wall campaign informing citizens of the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines we’re set to receive, accompanied with transparency on the consequences of lower-than-expected efficacy rates, is essential to ensure that the public is well informed of both the benefits and limitations of the vaccine.

Those who may be concerned about expedited approval processes must be reassured that corners weren’t cut, but that timeline improvements are instead due to unlimited volunteers being available for trials and a blank cheque financing the operations, before conspiracy theories about the vaccines spread like wildfire. ‘Pre-bunking’ the conspiracy theories that are bound to circulate will minimise the threat they pose to our best attempt at herd immunity. A focus on information and transparency will patch cracks that conspiracists will attempt to exploit when the vaccine rollout commences.

The ever-evolving nature of the QAnon conspiracy theories and the amalgamation of the movement with antivaxx activists will no doubt result in the spreading of misinformation about vaccination, and the Australian government must be ready to counter that not with rhetoric but with facts and clarity. The success of our vaccination program relies on both the government’s faith in the people and the people’s faith in the government.

Sam Williamson is a master’s student studying national security policy at the Australian National University

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-qanon-threat-to-australias-vaccine-rollout/

>>12796913

Top doctors' body hits out at Liberal MP Craig Kelly for appearing on Pete Evans' podcast

Nick Pearson - Feb 2, 2021

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One of Australia's leading doctor groups has criticised Liberal MP Craig Kelly for "disseminating misinformation" about coronavirus.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) hit out at Mr Kelly for appearing on a podcast hosted by conspiracy theorist and former TV chef Pete Evans.

Mr Evans called Mr Kelly a "beautiful and beyond courageous man" in a 90-minute interview on the podcast.

RACGP President Dr Karen Price said it was unacceptable the politician was podcasting with "a disgraced former celebrity chef".

"We are still in the middle of a pandemic that is leaving many people feeling understandably anxious and exhausted," she said.

"Those like Pete Evans are preying on that anxiety to peddle false information and he should not be enabled by anyone, especially a federal Member of Parliament."

The RACGP noted Mr Kelly had also likened compulsory mask wearing in schools to "child abuse".

But speaking to nine.com.au, Mr Kelly "categorically denied spreading misinformation".

"It's a disgraceful political beat-up from the opposition that has nothing to add to the political environment than to slander and smear," he said.

Dr Price said Australians should listen to the medical experts on COVID-19.

"I understand Mr Kelly's argument that he is happy and willing to advance his point of view with any interviewer," she said.

"However, he must appreciate that Pete Evans is using these platforms to spread alarming misinformation, including content linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory and COVID-19 denialist claims."

Mr Kelly defended appearing on Evans' podcast, describing the former celebrity chef as a "victim of cancel culture".

"If we were to have a society where we refused to discuss or talk to people who made a silly comment at one stage, what kind of society would we have?" he said.

"I seriously disagree that some things the ABC has said. But does that mean I don't speak to the ABC?

"I could go through that things that have been put to air on the ABC, and to defeat those ideas is not to censor them but to bring them out to public and show that they are wrong.

"The idea that we cancel this person from society, that is a stain on our democracy."

(continued)

>>12797160

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Mr Kelly, who represents the electorate of Hughes in Sydney's south, has no medical background.

When pressed on Mr Kelly's behaviour, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the National Press Club yesterday: "We've been very clear to point out where you get your information from.

"You don't get it from Facebook. You get it from official government websites.

"(Mr Kelly's) not my doctor and he's not yours. But he does a great job in Hughes."

Labor's communications spokesman Tim Watts said Mr Kelly's beliefs were not something "that should be laughed off".

"Craig Kelly's Facebook page was shared 10 times more than the Commonwealth Department of Health Facebook page since the start of this pandemic," Mr Watts said.

"This is something that is having a real impact in the community."

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese was just as scathing.

"Craig Kelly's actions are dangerous," Mr Albanese said.

"And what worries me isn't just that his comments are dangerous, that they endanger people's health, that those mixed messages will undermine our response to COVID."

Evans, who formerly appeared on Channel Seven's My Kitchen Rules, also has no medical training.

Evans has a long history of opposing vaccinations, as well as fluoridated water, dairy products and sunscreen.

Dr Price said Australians should be seeking medical advice from their local GP, and not from social media.

"My advice to all Australians is straightforward but more vital than ever – when it comes to the COVID-19 virus and the vaccine please heed expert health advice, including from your GP," she said.

"Avoid pseudo-scientific 'cures' and baseless conspiracy theories on social media platforms and elsewhere."

Last year Evans was fined $25,200 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for claiming a $15,000 light machine could be used against coronavirus.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/craig-kelly-pete-evans-tv-chef-coronavirus-covid19-vaccine-racgp-doctors/32a04d70-21ed-4003-8d5f-9e5eeef12efc

https://www.facebook.com/CraigKellyMP

>>12796913

Scott Morrison delivers first public rebuke of Craig Kelly over controversial opinions on coronavirus vaccination

3 February 2021

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has offered his first public rebuke of Craig Kelly as the Liberal backbencher faces mounting pressure for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

Earlier today, Mr Morrison hauled the Liberal MP into his office and ordered him to refrain from pushing views that are contrary to the accepted medical advice.

Mr Kelly has come under fire for promoting unproven COVID-19 therapies on social media, and for appearing in a podcast hosted by anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Pete Evans.

Mr Morrison told the Parliament he made his position clear to Mr Kelly.

"It is true views expressed by the Member for Hughes do not align with my views, or the views of the advice that has been provided to me by the Chief Medical Officer," the Prime Minister said.

"Earlier today, the Member for Hughes and I discussed these matters, and I made it very clear that was the view of me as a Prime Minister and of course the views of the Government."

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, a former health minister, clashed with Mr Kelly earlier on Wednesday, accusing him of spreading harmful information.

"My Mum lives in your electorate and I don't want her exposed to people who are not going to be vaccinated because of these crazy conspiracy theories that you're spreading," Ms Plibersek said.

Mr Kelly, who represents a Sydney electorate next to Mr Morrison, defended his actions and said he wasn't anti-vaccination but instead raising the concerns of an immunologist.

But Mr Morrison told the Parliament he wanted Australians to follow the advice of the nation's medical authorities.

"Vaccination is critical, it is our primary responsibility this year as we continue to respond to the pandemic, and I welcome the statement, which was issued by the Member for Hughes following our meeting," he said.

"Our job is to get on with the job of the vaccine. The Therapeutic Goods Administration is the authoritative body not just in this country, but respected around the world."

Mr Kelly released a written statement after his meeting with Mr Morrison in which he said he supported the Government's vaccine rollout.

The Prime Minister addressed the matter, unprompted, after Question Time.

Just days earlier, speaking at the National Press Club, he refused to distance himself from Mr Kelly, insisting he was a very good Member for Hughes.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he was pleased Mr Morrison had made a "belated statement" to distance himself from Mr Kelly.

"I hope that today sees an end to the information or disinformation from the Member for Hughes," he told the Parliament.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-03/scott-morrison-distances-himself-from-craig-kelly-covid-vaccine/13117776

https://twitter.com/SabraLane/status/1356761321912430592

>>12808065

Craig Kelly puts the gag on … for now

JACK THE INSIDER (Peter Hoysted) - FEBRUARY 3, 2021

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The irrepressible member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, has been repressed; gagged amid reports he had been given a dressing down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a 30-minute meeting in the PM’s office early on Wednesday.

The upshot is Kelly has agreed to stop posting COVID information on social media and stick to the government’s message on vaccines and treatments.

It will make for thin reading on Craig Kelly’s Facebook page.

The question is, why now? The colourful Kelly has been prosecuting his meme truth approach to all manner of social causes – climate change where he happily confuses climate with the weather, bushfire prevention and most frequently alternate treatments for Covid-19 which include an enduring advocacy for the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, more recently supplemented with ivermectin, an anti-parasitic most commonly used in the treatment of scabies.

On one Facebook post, Kelly wrote that mask wearing for children “is causing massive physical and psychological harm that can only be defined as child abuse,” to the sounds of crickets from the government with tumbleweeds gently wafting from side to side in the background.

It all seemed to be part of the maverick MP’s routine, one if not admired then vaguely tolerated within the party room.

Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, the Prime Minister fielded one question from the floor about Craig Kelly, responding with a smirk that “Craig Kelly is not my doctor and he’s not yours.”

While the member for Hughes might have the perfect build for a proctologist, he isn’t a doctor, of course, but his social media forays are widely read. Sifting through data early last year, it was determined Craig Kelly’s Facebook page had more hits than either Morrison’s or Albanese’s.

That gives the backbencher a lot more pull than your average workaday MP and given the numbers in the Lower House, with the government holding a majority of one, a certain laxity might be expected.

Prior to his entry into politics in 2010, Kelly worked for his parents as a salesman at their furniture business DV Kelly Pty Ltd. The firm imported Asian furniture and sold it to retailers, but financial troubles led the company to be wound up by the Australian Taxation Office in 2012, leaving creditors and employees owed over $4 million.

Kelly maintained he was not a director of the company but there were allegations that both he and his brother, Jason, had acted as ‘de facto’ directors. By then in the parliament, Kelly fended off these questions and ultimately the administrator and liquidator, Cor Cordis continued to sift through the wreckage.

It was onwards and upwards for Kelly who has managed to take a Liberal held marginal into more safe territory since his election 11 years ago.

A flip through Craig Kelly’s Facebook page shows the occasional mention of electoral events in the seat in Sydney’s south-west — the sort of guff one might see in almost any MPs social media posts, interspersed with dozens of others advocating for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19.

There are doctors and many of them who agree with Kelly, at least in part. Immunologist Professor Robert Craig is also an advocate for ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 infection but not in the absence of a vaccine.

The fact remains there is currently no known published data from randomised, controlled clinical trials on the efficacy or safety of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19, according to the US National Library of Medicine which publishes reports from clinical trials.

(continued)

>>12808137

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Earlier this morning, Kelly and Labor Deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, ‘clashed’ in the corridors of parliament as Plibersek asked if Kelly agreed with his Prime Minister.

“Listen to the words of our most senior immunologist …. He has said in the Sydney Morning Herald today, Craig Kelly is absolutely right,” Mr Kelly replied in that awful manner of athletes, celebrities and the occasional gormless politician, of referring to themselves in the third person.

When it comes to the roll out of Covid-19 vaccines, Kelly has not yet confirmed that he will roll his sleeve up and take the needle. But that again has provided no call for action from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The ball gag on Kelly’s Covid-19 treatment musing was probably whacked on this morning, nice and tight, after Kelly was interviewed on video by celebrity chef turned conspiracist, Pete Evans.

Evans was banned on Facebook for posting a raft of disinformation about Covid-19, and QAnon posts and until January 20 was peddling the lie that Trump won the US election. He continues to post on Telegram, an alternate version of Facebook but his 1.5 million Facebook followers have been left bereft of the chef’s occasional recipes mingled with alt-Right conspiracies.

On the video, Kelly made it clear he disagrees with Evans on Covid-19 vaccinations and vaccinations in general. For what it’s worth, Evans says he is not anti-vax but a supporter of safe vaccines. It’s just that he’s never met a vaccine he considers safe.

The interview was a step too far for the Prime Minister. Sure, Kelly doesn’t agree with Evans’ bizarre and frankly dangerous nonsense, but it is more about the company you keep. Just in the last week, Evans has posted QAnon rubbish and more drivel that Covid-19 is a deep state ‘plandemic’ and the disease itself is no worse than the common cold.

The stain of association with Pete Evans was, I’d argue, the reason Kelly was pulled up today. I expect the conversation in the Prime Minister’s office would have been pretty much all one way with the word ‘preselection’ featuring prominently.

The government’s fortunes are heavily invested in an efficient and effective roll out of Covid-19 vaccines this year. The chance to go to the people early depends on it.

Having one of his backbenchers buddying up to Pete Evans while remaining on the fence on Covid-19 vaccinations was the breaking point. What will be interesting is how long Craig Kelly keeps the gag on.

Peter Hoysted is Jack the Insider: a highly placed, dedicated servant of the nation with close ties to leading figures in politics, business and the union movement.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/craig-kelly-puts-the-gag-on-for-now/news-story/7762220fdaea591b46585f6316112576

https://www.facebook.com/CraigKellyMP

Ghislaine Maxwell gripes over prison conditions AGAIN, demanding she be granted access to her laptop because the computers inside the jail are 'very slow'

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Ghislaine Maxwell has griped about her prison conditions once again in a new court filing demanding she be granted access to her laptop because the computers at the jail are 'very slow.'

The suspected child sex trafficker and former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, as she awaits trial.

Currently, Maxwell is allowed to use her laptop on weekdays only to review court material, and must resort to using the computers at the prison on holidays and weekends.

In a recent letter to the federal court obtained by DailyMail.com, attorney Bobbi Sternheim pushed back against the restriction, claiming the computers at the facility have made it difficult for Maxwell to view documents and properly prepare her for her defense.

The filing also claimed prison guards have 'psychologically and physically abused' Maxwell and that her complaints had been met with 'reprisals'.

Sternheim, who has represented death row inmates in the past, claimed Maxwell has been forced to use 'utterly inadequate' prison computers that allegedly can't read certain files and shut down every two hours.

'In addition, the power of the central processing unit of the MDC computer is very slow. Uploading videos can take up to a half hour, time that cannot be used to review other documents,' the letter stated.

'Hard drives provided by the government have been mishandled by MDC staff (dropped on the floor and slammed on a cart) causing them to become degraded and unstable and to randomly shut down.

'The time, resources and funds expended on problems caused by the electronic discovery and the computers is unnecessary, wasteful, and frustrating'.

Maxwell, 59, was arrested last July on sex trafficking charges and has remained jailed on grounds she might flee.

She has pleaded not guilty to recruiting three teenage girls, including a 14-year-old, for Epstein to sexually abuse from 1994 to 1997. The indictment alleged she sometimes joined in the abuse.

The dispute is the latest complaint about Maxwell's conditions inside the MDC, where attorneys have claimed she has been mistreated.

Sterneheim wrote that the laptop issue was far from the only problem Maxwell was having inside the prison.

'Other than calls with family or communication with counsel, Ms Maxwell has no human contact except with guards who wield power over her, overmanage her, and have psychologically and physically abused her,' the attorney wrote.

'And complaints regarding mistreatment by guards have led to reprisals against Ms Maxwell'.

No details about what the nature of the abuse or the reprisals was given, though Maxwell's lawyers have previously complained about her being searched with a flashlight every two hours.

(continued)

>>12808288

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Officials from the prison and prosecutors however have painted a very different picture and said that Maxwell is getting more access to her laptop and her lawyers than any other prisoner.

Prosecutors in a letter said that after complaints from Maxwell's attorneys, lawyers for the US government 'hand delivered' the laptop to the MDC 'for the defendant's exclusive use'.

They also said the 13 hours a day Maxwell gets to review trial materials on a laptop computer is more time than any other prisoner is allotted.

The filing comes a week after Maxwell sought to have the charges against her dropped, claiming the indictment against her was obtained unjustly and doesn't allege crimes specific enough to bring before a jury.

Defense lawyers listed first among 12 separate arguments attacking the indictment that a non-prosecution deal Epstein reached with the federal government a dozen years ago should shield Maxwell from prosecution too.

The agreement sought to protect Epstein and those around him, but Maxwell was not identified by name in the document that was signed as Epstein agreed to plead guilty to state charges in Florida that forced him to register as a sex offender afterward.

Lawyers for Epstein had planned to argue that the deal with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008 protected him against sex trafficking charges lodged against him in July 2019 in New York City.

Manhattan federal prosecutors maintained they could proceed against Epstein or those who worked for him regardless. Epstein killed himself at a Manhattan federal lockup a month after his arrest.

Maxwell's trial is scheduled for July. In a recent bail application, Maxwell revealed that she had set aside $7.67million to be spent on lawyers out of $22.5million in assets belonging to herself and her husband.

In the event Maxwell's lawyers can't force a dismissal of the charges against her, they also made requests that would reduce the number of charges she faces.

Among the more unusual filings was a claim that the indictment should be thrown out because it was obtained from a grand jury seated outside New York City in White Plains, where the lawyers said Black and Hispanic grand jurors would have been underrepresented.

They said the coronavirus outbreak was used as an excuse to seat the grand jury outside of New York City when the pandemic was killing thousands of city residents. In a footnote, they wrote: 'The fact that Ms. Maxwell herself is neither Black nor Hispanic does not deprive of her of standing to raise this challenge.'

They said the fact that a Manhattan grand jury convened as early as June 25 showed there was no reason for prosecutors not to wait 'other than a publicity-driven desire to arrest Ms. Maxwell on the anniversary of the Epstein indictment.'

The lawyers also asked that Maxwell be tried separately on charges that she committed perjury when she testified in a civil case brought by one of Epstein's accusers. They said prosecutors were using those charges improperly as a way to introduce evidence from after the 1990s.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9215449/Ghislaine-Maxwell-gripes-prison-conditions-demands-access-laptop.html

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.130.0_2.pdf

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.129.0_1.pdf

Australian police say no criminal misconduct in Vatican funds transfer

Renju Jose - 3 February 2021

SYDNEY (Reuters) - There was no evidence of criminal misconduct in the transfer of an estimated to A$9.5 million ($7.23 million) from the Vatican to Australia between 2014 and 2020, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said on Wednesday.

Australia’s financial intelligence unit, AUSTRAC, last month reduced its estimate of money transfered from the Vatican to Australia from A$2.3 billion ($1.75 billion), citing a computer coding mistake.

“No criminal misconduct has been identified to date,” AFP said as it completed its analysis of the information provided by AUSTRAC about payments to Australia from the Vatican.

“If the AFP receives additional information from Australian or international partners it will be reviewed accordingly,” it said in a statement.

AUSTRAC’s original report about the fund transfer, which the Vatican said sounded like “science fiction”, saw some media reports speculate on possible money laundering.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was the Vatican’s treasurer from 2014 to 2017, had said he was relieved to hear billions of dollars were not laundered through the Vatican when he was head of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Pell, who is now in Rome, returned to his native Australia in 2017 to face charges of historical sexual abuse and spent 404 days in jail before his conviction was overturned last April.

($1 = 1.3141 Australian dollars)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-australia-funds/australian-police-say-no-criminal-misconduct-in-vatican-funds-transfer-idUSKBN2A307D

—

AFP statement on payments from the Vatican to Australia

Wednesday, 3 February 2021

The AFP has completed analysis of the financial intelligence provided by AUSTRAC in relation to payments from the Vatican to Australia.

No criminal misconduct has been identified to date.

If the AFP receives additional information from Australian or international partners it will be reviewed accordingly.

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/afp-statement-payments-vatican-australia

Victoria returns to harsher COVID-19 restrictions after hotel quarantine worker tests positive

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Victoria will return to harsher COVID-19 restrictions and up to 600 Australian Open players, officials and support staff have been told to isolate and get tested after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive to coronavirus on Wednesday.

Premier Daniel Andrews said in a late-night press conference on Wednesday that the state would return to mandatory masks indoors, would reintroduce caps on gatherings to 15 people in a household and would pause the 75 per cent return to work, scheduled to begin on Monday.

The case brings an end to the state’s 28-day run of zero community transmission.

“We have to assume that this person has infected others,” Mr Andrews said.

“All of us across this state, having been through everything we’ve been through, having been as a community so united, and had that real sense of purpose to this thing. I’m confident that we all know what we have to do.”

In a statement issued late on Wednesday night, the Health Department said the individual last worked at the Grand Hyatt on January 29 and was tested at the end of their shift, returning a negative result.

Subsequently, the worker developed symptoms and was tested again on February 2. He returned a positive result late on Wednesday.

Mr Andrews said the infected person was a CFA volunteer and had attended at least one other CFA function.

Exposure sites also include Club Noble in Noble Park, Northpoint Café in Brighton, Kmart Keysborough and Brandon Park, Coles Springvale, Bunnings Springvale and Melbourne Golf Academy in Heatherton.

The Grand Hyatt was one of three main quarantine hotels used by players and personnel arriving for the Australian Open. Most players were released from quarantine on January 29 and 30.

The health department said it had contacted all Australian Open players, officials and support staff who were staying at the Grand Hyatt from January 29 to February 2.

“They are considered casual contacts. They must immediately isolate and get tested,” the department said.

Mr Andrews said up to 600 tennis players and officials associated with the Australian Open could be considered close contacts.

“They will be isolating until they get a negative test, and that work will be done tomorrow,” he said.

“So may have an impact on tomorrow’s play in the lead-up event. But, at this stage, there’s no impact to the tournament.”

Tennis Australia said late on Wednesday night it would not be providing any updates yet about the changing situation regarding the competition.

(continued)

>>12811076

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Mr Andrews said the fresh outbreak was not related to a breach of the coronavirus rules in place at hotel quarantine.

“This is one case. There’s no reason for people to panic or be alarmed. We know what to do.”

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the worker had provided detailed information to health authorities.

“That’s all you need to get on top of transmission, to know where someone who’s infectious or potentially infectious has been,” he said.

“No other worker has tested positive, including those who’ve gone on to different workplaces, because the Hyatt closed down as a quarantine site.

“This is a test that’s come through in the afternoon. We’ve already ramped up every aspect of the response that we know needs to be in place to get ahead of it.”

Professor Sutton said he expected people to be calling friends and family to identify close contacts as he spoke and dozens of close contacts were being identified on Wednesday night.

Mr Andrews said he had messaged the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to update him on the situation.

The Health Department said major testing sites in Melbourne’s south-east would open early on Thursday morning, with additional lanes open at drive-through testing sites.

The fresh case comes as Victorian health authorities investigate a transmission of the UK variant of COVID-19 within one of the state’s quarantine hotels after the virus jumped from a hotel room to a guest in the opposite room.

The state’s public health team believe viral particles may have exited the room of a family who all later tested positive. Somehow, the virus either lingered in the air or attached itself to a hard surface, which then caused a woman in another room to contract the same strain of COVID-19.

A member of the family recalled opening the hotel room door - either to collect food or put out laundry - at the same time as someone in the room opposite opened their door. CCTV footage has not shown any occasion on which members of the two rooms exited their rooms simultaneously.

The Andrews government hotel quarantine program has previously come under intense scrutiny.

Last year an inquiry was conducted into the first iteration of the quarantine program after several private security guards and workers in quarantine hotels contracted COVID-19 then spread it into the community in May and June.

The spread sparked Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19, which claimed more than 800 lives and caused four months of tough restrictions.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/worker-in-victoria-s-hotel-quarantine-program-tests-positive-for-covid-19-20210203-p56zca.html

https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1356905272413880320

Prime Minister Scott Morrison in talks with Google boss Sundar Pichai

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has held a meeting with global Google chief Sundar Pichai following the tech giant’s threat to shut down search in Australia if proposed media compensation laws come into effect.

Mr Morrison was joined in the online meeting on Thursday morning by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is leading the government’s push to force Google and Facebook to pay news publishers for using their content on their platforms.

The meeting comes after rival Microsoft declared its support for the proposed laws on Wednesday and pledged to invest in its search engine Bing to fill the void in the event Google exited the market.

Microsoft president Brad Smith said he and global chief executive, Satya Nadella, had met with Mr Morrison last week to inform him the company “fully supported” the news media bargaining code.

“We are comfortable with a model that, frankly, reduces the revenue that is coming to the search service and increases the revenue that is going to news publishers,” Mr Smith told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Microsoft is not currently subject to the proposed code, which will force Google and Facebook into binding commercial agreements to pay Australian news providers for the ability to display news content in newsfeeds and search results.

But Mr Smith said the company would be prepared to sign up to the code if required and was prepared to pay publishers.

The Morrison government has been locked in a battle of brinkmanship with the platforms since unveiling the code on December 8. A final vote on the code is expected early this year after a Senate committee examining the laws delivers its report on February 12.

Both Google and Facebook say the code is “unworkable” in its current form. Google has threatened to turn off its search engine in Australia if the proposed code becomes law, while Facebook has said it would be forced to remove news articles from its main app.

Australia’s largest media companies such as Nine Entertainment Co, owner of this masthead, and News Corp are urging the government to pass the laws.

Mr Frydenberg also revealed this week that he had been contacted by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg to discuss concerns about the code.

“Mark Zuckerberg did not convince me to back down,” Mr Frydenberg told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/prime-minister-scott-morrison-in-talks-with-google-boss-sundar-pichai-20210204-p56zfw.html

What Assange and WikiLeaks said about Australia

Jessie Tu - February 4, 2021

He has been called “truth-telling hero”, “evil and perverted traitor”, “heroic, trickster, mythical – reviled”. Robert Manne called him the “most consequential Australian of the present time”. The new US President has called him a “high-tech terrorist”.

The protean narratives of Julian Assange, who will be 50 in July, have been brewing since 2010, when his website published “The Afghan War Diaries”, “Iraq War Logs” and “Collateral Murder”, a video showing the US military killing two Reuters employees in Iraq.

December marked 10 years since Assange has been “arbitrarily detained” in Britain, according to Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau in their introduction to A Secret Australia – a collection of 18 essays that survey the impact WikiLeaks has had on Australia’s media landscape and the consequences of our government’s attraction towards America’s intelligence and military empire.

The potpourri of authors and thinkers includes Julian Burnside, Antony Loewenstein, Scott Ludlam and Helen Razer, who critique “the powers opposed to openness and transparency” and examine the evidence, “not the likelihoods, the probabilities, the suspicions, and assumptions” around the “subversive, technology-based publishing house”.

WikiLeaks invented a “pioneering model of journalism” – one that embodied the “contemporary spirit of resistance to imperial power”, says Richard Tanter, from the school of political and social sciences at the University of Melbourne. It brought renewed debates on free speech, digital encryption and questions around the management and protection of whistleblowers who risk their lives to expose covert, deceitful actions by governments.

The documents exposed the “brazen duplicity” of the Australian government towards its citizens and presented “off-stage alliance management conversations”, Tanter writes. They invited the layperson into the green room of the performance that is politics and international diplomacy.

WikiLeaks unmasked reports that showed governments recommending media strategies to deceive the public, demonstrating their unethically utilitarian approach to international diplomacy and governance and “enlightened the public on the dark corners of wars”, writes journalist and author Antony Loewenstein.

Assange is still in a cell at London’s Belmarsh Prison, facing an appeal by the United States in its bid to extradite him to face charges for the 2010 publications. He is continuing to be “denied adequate medical care” and “denied emergency bail in light of the COVID-19?, says Lissa Johnson, a clinical psychologist and writer for New Matilda – one of the few Australian publications that have paid genuine attention to the WikiLeaks saga.

In Australia, there’s been a “striking absence of a solid debate on WikiLeaks in the mainstream public discourse”, according to Benedetta Brevini, a journalist and media activist who insists that our concerning “lack of a thorough and sustained debate” is incomprehensible. Loewenstein calls Australia’s lack of journalistic solidarity with Assange “deeply shameful”. He says we have an “anodyne media environment” – perhaps not unsurprising, considering our highly concentrated media market, one of the most severe in the world.

Most of the essays expostulate on the same things: Assange is a journalist, not a hacker. He’s won a Walkley Award (at least six mentions of this). We have an undeniable legal obligation to him. His persecution is a “gruesome legal experiment in criminalising journalism” – a long and tortured legal process that Ludlam declares “has degenerated into an unworkable shit-show”.

The standout essays come from Guy Rundle and Helen Razer – whose amusing voice cuts through the somewhat parched tenor of cold academic-speak that lightly threads through the other essays. Her addition is a breath of fresh air in the middle of a chain of same-same arguments.

The most useful essay is Rundle’s take on the historical basis for WikiLeaks. He surveys the swirling currents of Australian history that led to its founding, identifying WikiLeaks as a continuation of political activist Albert Langer’s resistance to capital.

“We need a whole new organisation of how recent Australian history is told,” Rundle concludes, seconding Lissa Johnson’s opinion that we demand citizens who “cut across the acquiescence and consent, remove the deadbolt on the torture chamber door, turn down the music and expose what is going on inside”. This collection of polemics, though at times repetitive, takes us closer to a future where these demands no longer seem beyond reality.

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/what-assange-and-wikileaks-said-about-australia-20210129-p56xyo.html

UN should be given immediate access to Uighurs: Payne

Anthony Galloway and Eryk Bagshaw - February 4, 2021

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Foreign Minister Marise Payne says reports of systematic torture and abuse of women in the Chinese province of Xinjiang are “deeply disturbing” as the Chinese government claims they are fabricated.

The rare testimony, aired by the BBC on Wednesday, included first-hand accounts of rape, sexual abuse and torture in Uighur detention camps in China.

An estimated 1 million Uighurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic minority group, have been held in what the Chinese government claims are “re-education camps” over the past decade. The Communist Party has claimed the facilities, which are heavily fortified, are necessary to combat terrorism after isolated acts of violence occurred between 2011 and 2014.

Senator Payne said Australia had been consistent in raising its “significant concerns with the human rights abuses in Xinjiang”.

“These latest reports of systematic torture and abuse of women are deeply disturbing and raise serious questions regarding the treatment of Uighurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” she said.

“We consider transparency to be of utmost importance and continue to urge China to allow international observers, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, to be given immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang at the earliest opportunity.”

Australia has previously raised reports of arbitrary detention, restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, pervasive surveillance and forced labour both in bilateral discussions with China and at the United Nations.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, on Thursday night said the claims raised in the BBC report had no “factual basis at all”.

The report included on-the-record testimony from former inmates and an anonymous guard who had his details verified by the BBC. This masthead was not able to independently corroborate the claims made in the report but the BBC’s investigation found the travel histories, maps and camps matched the identification of the guards and detainees.

One Uighur woman, Tursunay Ziawudun, who spent nine months in detention and now lives in the US, said she was raped by groups of masked Chinese men and had an electrified stick inserted into her. Another, Qelbinur Sedik, an Uzbek woman who was a Chinese language teacher at one of the camps, said there were “four kinds of electric shock” — “the chair, the glove, the helmet, and anal rape with a stick”.

The guard said detainees who failed loyalty tests would be subject to increasingly severe punishments including food deprivation and beatings.

Mr Wang did not address the allegations of torture and rape specifically. He accused the women of being actors spreading false information but did not provide evidence for his claim.

“I want to say that this is not the first time that the BBC has made some false reports on Xinjiang, and each time we refuted false claim and cleared out the situation,” he said.

“I must stress that so far, the Chinese side has published eight Xinjiang-related white papers, and the government of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has held more than 20 press conferences, showing with detailed figures and examples that people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang live in peace and contentment, unity and harmony, and that all their legal rights are effectively guaranteed.”

Mr Wang also pointed to a 2019 letter from more than 50 countries to the UN Human Rights Council commending China’s counter-terrorism and de-radialisation efforts and protection of human rights.

The letter was signed by ambassadors from China’s economic partners including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Cuba, Algeria, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Nigeria, Angola, Togo, Tajikistan and the Philippines among others.

Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, said “anyone reading these women’s testimonies would be disgusted by what they were subjected to”.

“This evidence is counter to China’s international human rights obligations and is not consistent with the behaviour of a respected and responsible international power,” she said.

1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) provides confidential sexual assault counselling

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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/un-should-be-given-immediate-access-to-uighurs-payne-20210204-p56zgp.html

>>12816083

Transcript - Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin's Regular Press Conference on February 3, 2021

Reuters: According to testimonies in a report by the BBC, women in Xinjiang's re-education camps are subject to systematic sexual abuse and torture. Do you have any comment on this report?

Wang Wenbin: I hope you have noted that the government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region held the third special press conference in Beijing not too long ago. I want to say that this is not the first time that the BBC has made some false reports on Xinjiang, and each time we refuted false claim and cleared out the situation. I must stress that so far, the Chinese side has published eight Xinjiang-related white papers, and the government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has held more than 20 press conferences, showing with detailed figures and examples that people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang live in peace and contentment, unity and harmony, and that all their legal rights are effectively guaranteed. In recent years, more than 1,200 diplomats, journalists and representatives of religious groups from more than 100 countries have visited Xinjiang. They witnessed with their own eyes the unity, harmony, joy and peace of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

The BBC report on alleged abuses of women's rights in Xinjiang you mentioned has no factual basis at all. There are simply no "re-education camps". Some of the interviewees in previous reports turned out to be actors spreading false information. I'd like to share some more facts about Xinjiang with you here. In July 2019, more than 50 countries' permanent representatives in Geneva sent a joint letter to the President of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights commending China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts and protection of human rights. In October 2019, over 60 countries spoke at a Third Committee session of the 74th UNGA applauding the tremendous progress in Xinjiang's human rights cause. In July 2020, 46 countries delivered a joint address at the 44th session of the UNHRC in support of China's position, practice and progress on issues relating to Xinjiang. In October 2020, nearly 50 countries recognized the measures China has taken in Xinjiang when the Third Committee of the 75th UNGA was reviewing relevant issues. Also in October 2020, 20 Arab states' diplomats in China and Arab League delegates visited Xinjiang. After the trip, they all spoke highly of the region's progress in counter-terrorism and de-radicalization, protection of religious freedom, promotion of economic growth and livelihood.

We hope relevant media will acknowledge the facts and stop the baseless vilification of China on Xinjiang-related issues.

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1850934.shtml

‘Loony lies and conspiracies’: The Republican Party’s identity crisis

Matthew Knott - February 4, 2021

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Washington: As Scott Morrison works to convince Craig Kelly to rein in his more eccentric views on the coronavirus, he need only look at the US Congress to see that things could be far worse.

Kevin McCarthy, the most senior Republican in the US House of Representatives, is facing the challenge of how to deal with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a first-term congresswoman from Georgia whose inflammatory rhetoric makes Kelly’s Facebook posts seem tame.

Before entering Congress, Greene voiced support for QAnon - the wild conspiracy that regards Democrats as Satan-worshipping paedophiles. She berated mass shooting survivors in public, claiming mass shootings were actually hoaxes.

She used Facebook to advocate the killing of prominent Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and argued that laser beams from space started the deadly 2018 California wildfires.

Somewhat predictably, she was a leading proponent of Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him.

The mounting evidence of Greene’s conspiracy theorising and violent rhetoric has led to growing calls for McCarthy to remove her from the House education committee.

There’s precedent for such an action: Republican congressman Steve King was stripped of his committee assignments, and later forced out of office, in 2019 for remarks that appeared to condone white supremacy.

After Morrison spoke to Kelly this week, his office briefed out that the Prime Minister had told Kelly to pull his head in and stop undermining scientific advice.

It was a different story when McCarthy met with Greene in Washington for 90 minutes this week.

In a statement on Thursday (AEDT) McCarthy said that he unequivocally condemned Greene’s past comments and that they “do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference”. But McCarthy hasn’t taken action to remove her from her committee post.

He has come under pressure from Democrats for his inaction.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had earlier released a pointed statement claiming McCarthy’s “failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene - an anti-Semite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 Truther.”

Pelosi’s release designated “McCarthy (Q-CA)“, a scathing spin on the minority leader’s designation “R-CA”, as a Republican from California.

But McCarthy dismissed Democrats’ calls to remove her from legislative committees as a “partisan power grab.”

In Pelosi’s statement, she said Democrats are continuing to seek the removal of Greene from her position through a full vote in the House.

(continued)

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While Greene may be an unwelcome irritant to McCarthy, he is aware that she is a popular figure among the Trump base.

Indeed, Greene has touted that she spoke to Trump in recent days and said that she has his support.

Trump himself, of course, gained popularity among conservatives by promoting the false conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born overseas.

Instead of marginalising Greene, some Republicans are instead focused on punishing Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House, for voting to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, even flew to Cheney’s home state of Wyoming to call her her to be stripped of her leadership role.

A vote is expected this week on whether Cheney remains in her position.

The bickering reflects a deeper schism within the party about how to balance its establishment wing (represented by Cheney) and its populist, pro-Trump faction (represented by Greene). While the Republican base may be enthused by Greene’s conspiratorial style, many the party’s corporate donors don’t want to be associated with her extremist views.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell made his position clear in a statement praising Cheney as “a leader with deep convictions and courage.”

In another statement - clearly aimed at Greene -McConnell said: “Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country.

“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality.”

Republican Senator Mitt Romney this week said that Republicans must “separate ourselves from the people that are the wacky weeds” while strategist Karl Rove called her a “problem for our party”.

But it’s unclear whether these views will carry the day with their Republican colleagues in the House.

Republican congressman Jim Jordan told Fox News there would be a slippery slope if Greene is punished for her views. “Tell me where it ends,” he said. “Who’s next? Think of the cancel culture.”

In a two-party system like the US, the Republican and Democratic parties must be broad churches in order to have a shot at victory.

We’re about to learn whether the Republican Party is a broad enough church to house traditional conservatives like Cheney and conspiracy theorists like Greene.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/loony-lies-and-conspiracies-the-republican-party-s-identity-crisis-20210204-p56zem.html

Australian Federal Police Tweet

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https://twitter.com/AusFedPolice/status/1356417312857837568

Joe Biden set to invite Scott Morrison to White House climate summit

RICHARD FERGUSON - FEBRUARY 4, 2021

US President Joe Biden is set to invite Scott Morrison to a White House climate summit in April, and the new US leader has not pushed the Prime Minister to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.

After the President called Mr Morrison on Thursday for the first time since he took the White House, Mr Morrison said he and Mr Biden discussed the need to lead on climate technology. Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Presidential Envoy on Climate John Kerry earlier agreed to set up a joint working group on low emission technology.

Mr Morrison and Mr Biden also discussed the pathway towards net zero emissions, as the Australian leader says he would like to meet that climate action goal “preferably” by 2050.

The Prime Minister also denied Mr Biden pushed Australia to strengthen its climate targets.

“We had a very positive discussion about the path we’re on, and the commitments that we’ve made. And, more importantly, how we have been able to exceed those commitments,” Mr Morrison said in Canberra.

“The strong level, particularly of solar in households take-up in Australia, which is the strongest in the world. And also what we’ve achieved in terms of our emissions reductions since 2005, which indeed is higher than what has been achieved in the United States and almost double that of the OECD.

“We’re very focused on the technological challenge, and joining together not just Australia and the United States – I mean, they are going to be investing significantly in those technologies.”

After the phone call, Mr Morrison said the pair discussed the April climate leaders summit and that the “invitation is coming.”

It comes after Mr Morrison was snubbed last year from a similar climate summit organised by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Mr Biden also told the PM the Australia-US relationship was an anchor for peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Prime Minister and Mr Biden spoke about the coronavirus, security issues in the Indo-Pacific, and looked forward to the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS alliance this year.

“We talked about the stewardship we share, a stewardship that has been held by prime ministers and presidents over a very long time. And particularly this year. some 70 years of the ANZUS Alliance that we will celebrate in September of this year,” Mr Morrison said in Canberra.

“(We) spoke of the fact that Australia looks to the United States, but we never leave it to the United States. We do our share of the heavy lifting in this relationship, and that is absolutely respected by the President and appreciated.

“Whether it’s on COVID and whether it’s on the economic recovery, global and regional security issues, the multilateral initiatives and reforms that we are partnering in. But also, as we discussed today, achieving a net-zero pathway through technology, and the co-operation that is needed to do that, and the work that has already begun.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/climate-coronavirus-on-menu-as-joe-biden-calls-scott-morrison/news-story/d338fc38896356d1bf43f91e5aa201f1

>>12817106

Biden keen to visit Australia, spoke to Morrison about emissions reduction

Rob Harris - February 4, 2021

US President Joe Biden has told Scott Morrison he is enthusiastic to visit Australia in his new job in a phone call between the two leaders on Thursday morning, in which the pair talked about reducing global emissions.

Less than two weeks after taking office, Mr Biden told the Australian prime minister it would be a “high priority” for his administration to work with allies and partners within the Indo-Pacific region.

Mr Morrison, who was criticised for being overly close to Mr Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, said the conversation was “very warm” and there was “nothing to fix” in the relationship between the two nations.

“He said to me again today, he sees the Australia-US relationship as providing the anchor for peace and security in our region,” Mr Morrison told reporters in the prime ministerial courtyard on Thursday.

“And that is true. We share that view. In terms of our relations between Australia and the United States, there’s nothing to fix here, only things to build on.

“We do our share of the heavy lifting in this relationship, and that is absolutely respected by the President and appreciated.”

Mr Biden’s rise to power is poised to add momentum towards a pact from the world’s leading economies to aim for net zero emissions by 2050.

Mr Morrison said the pair canvassed the issue, reaffirming that both countries wanted to achieve a net-zero pathway through technology.

He said cooperation between countries was needed to achieve that and that had already begun from discussions between the US special climate envoy John Kerry and federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor.

“We’re very keen on pursuing that relationship and the technology partnership,” Mr Morrison said.

“Our goal is global emissions, not just emissions in some country. Global emissions reduction. And that is how you solve the problem.”

Mr Morrison reminded Mr Biden of a standing invitation to visit Australia this year for the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS alliance in September of this year.

The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty, known as Anzus, is a 1951 collective security non-binding agreement between Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the US, to co-operate on military matters in the Pacific Ocean region.

“He told me he needs no special reason to come to Australia, he loves the place,” Mr Morrison said. “They would very much like to be in Australia at some point, and we’ll see how that progresses.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/biden-keen-to-visit-australia-spoke-to-morrison-about-emissions-reduction-20210204-p56zka.html

>>12817106

Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Call with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia

FEBRUARY 03, 2021

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia to highlight the strength of the U.S.-Australia alliance, which remains an anchor of stability in the Indo-Pacific and the world. They discussed how we can work together to address global and regional challenges, including dealing with China, beating the COVID-19 pandemic, and combating climate change. They also agreed to work together, alongside other allies and partners, to hold to account those responsible for the coup in Burma. The leaders affirmed their commitment to working together to advance our shared values, global security and prosperity.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/03/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-with-prime-minister-scott-morrison-of-australia/

>>12817106

Prime Minister Scott Morrison Tweet

Great to speak to US President Joe Biden again today. We discussed our many shared interests in the Indo-Pacific and agreed the importance of technology partnerships in reducing emissions towards net zero and driving economic growth, and keen to meet at an early opportunity

https://twitter.com/ScottMorrisonMP/status/1357178094889574401

Coalition deletes references to rising far-right extremism in Senate motion

Bill condemning extremism passes only after references to Craig Kelly and George Christensen were removed and far-left anarchism and communism added

Paul Karp - 4 Feb 2021

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Labor has accused the government of seeking to “downplay and dismiss” the threat of rightwing extremism in contradiction of national security advice, after the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, denied extremism is on the rise in Australia.

Hawke made the comments on Sky News on Thursday morning, and was backed by his Senate colleagues who rewrote a motion deleting references to a “significant increase in far-right extremism” in Australia.

Labor had moved a Senate motion seeking to condemn far-right extremism, including claims about voter fraud in the US election and the cause of the Capitol insurrection promoted by Liberal MP Craig Kelly and National MP George Christensen.

The motion passed on Thursday, but only after references to Kelly and Christensen were removed, and condemnation of far-left extremism, communism, anarchism and violence generally were added.

In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Australia’s spy agency Asio has been blunt about the risk from far-right terrorism, labelling it an “enduring threat” that is “real and growing”. It estimates that far-right violent extremism now constitutes up to 40% of its counter-terrorism priority caseload.

Commenting on the Scanlon report, which found rising complaints of racism, particularly among Chinese-Australians, Hawke said “the government rejects [shadow home affairs minister Kristina] Keneally’s thesis, that there is rising extremism in Australia”.

“It is extreme elements, fringe elements, in Australia that need tackling, they are being tackled,” he told Sky News. “What we have here is increased social cohesion, not increasing extremism.”

The comments echo home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s attempts in February 2020 to blunt warnings about far-right extremism by warning of “leftwing terrorism”, which he falsely claimed included Islamist groups.

In the Senate, Labor moved to condemn rightwing extremism, including the National Socialist Network, an Australian neo-Nazi organisation that “caused fear” in the Grampians on Australia Day and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The draft motion also condemned Kelly and Christensen for “promotion of a range of conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns relating to Covid-19, climate change, voter fraud, and false-flag operations in the United States”.

Kelly and Christensen deny promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories, although both have questioned the election of US president Joe Biden by claiming he may have benefited from “dodgy” votes and argued that far-left Antifa members may have been present in the US Capitol insurrection.

Kelly has promoted unproven treatments for Covid-19, and was backed by Christensen on free speech grounds, before the prime minister, Scott Morrison, urged him to stop undermining the government’s vaccination messaging.

(continued)

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The Senate voted 34-27 to substantially rewrite the motion, with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Centre Alliance’s Stirling Griff and independents Rex Patrick and Jacqui Lambie siding with the Coalition.

The revised motion deleted the observation far-right extremism is on the rise, claiming instead Australia is “one of the most successful multicultural countries in the world”.

References to Kelly and Christensen were deleted, although condemnation of the National Socialist Network was retained.

The government leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, said the amendment “makes clear this Senate condemns all forms of extremism and allows for a unifying motion”.

Birmingham accused Labor of proposing a motion “for wedge purposes” and said condemnation of far-right and far-left extremism would “condemn extremism and show respect for all Australians”.

Keneally said the government had decided to “white out the advice of national security agencies” including the home affairs department secretary, Michael Pezzullo, Asio, the Australian federal police, and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who has warned that antisemitism and Holocaust denial is on the rise.

“[Rightwing extremism] is the terrorist threat we must confront,” Keneally said. “This government has sought to downplay it and dismiss it. That’s what this amendment has sought to do.”

Labor supported the amended motion, while the Greens indicated if a vote had been taken they would have opposed it.

Responding to news Canada has listed the Proud Boys as a terrorist organisation, Keneally told reporters in Canberra Australia is the only Five Eyes country that has not listed a far-right group.

Keneally said failing to proscribe groups banned in the UK and Canada “sends the message we’re turning a blind eye” to right-wing extremism.

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said he had increased funding to Asio and the AFP and “constantly raised with them the threat of lunatic fringe groups like this one [the Proud Boys]”.

“It is not a political decision to proscribe a terrorist organisation,” Dutton said.

“If the director-general of Asio makes a judgement that there should be an organisation or an individual proscribed, then I act on that advice.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said Australia’s law enforcement agencies “focus on threat and criminality regardless of ideology or motivation”.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/04/coalition-deletes-references-to-far-right-extremism-in-senate-motion

https://twitter.com/Paul_Karp/status/1357134928010387456

Opinion: Rod Sims’ big tech fixation blinds him to Murdoch’s monopoly

Kevin Rudd, Former Australian prime minister - Feb 4, 2021

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It’s understandable that Rod Sims worries about emergent digital monopolies. They are huge. But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman’s fixation on new media monopolies has blinded him to existing ones – especially Rupert Murdoch’s 70 per cent stranglehold on print readership.

As Sims recently told The Australian Financial Review, Murdoch isn’t such a “big, bad guy”. After all, he says, News Corp’s global market capitalisation is just a fraction that of Google or Facebook.

This same attitude guided Sims to green-light Murdoch’s cementing of his undisputed domination in Queensland in 2016 through the acquisition of APN Australian Regional Media’s 12 daily newspapers, 60 community titles and 30 websites.

Murdoch already owned the Brisbane Courier-Mail, Gold Coast Bulletin, Townsville Bulletin and Cairns Post, plus local papers and The Australian. What was Sims’ rationale? Readers were “increasingly reading online sources of news, where there are alternatives”.

Sims’ decision – apart from demonstrating his weak grasp of the nexus between professional local newsrooms and quality local news – had disastrous consequences. Only one of the APN dailies, the Toowoomba Chronicle, has survived.

The others – spanning the Sunshine Coast, Fraser Coast, Ipswich, Gympie, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Mackay, Warwick, Stanthorpe, Lismore and Grafton – have all stopped, their newsrooms slashed and websites packed with syndicated non-local news.

Readers are now referred to The Courier-Mail, which is produced up to 800km away by journalists who have probably never visited their towns.

News Corp vowed publicly to maintain APN’s “vibrant newspaper operations”. In reality, Murdoch bought out his competitors, waited for a few years to keep up appearances, then unceremoniously slaughtered them under the cover of COVID-19.

Sims should share responsibility for that result. Sims’ experience as an economist is acknowledged, but he is way out of his depth on the critical question of media diversity. The APN sale wasn’t just about transfer pricing or market capitalisation; it was about preserving the flow of copious, accurate, local information.

Attempted power grab

Murdoch’s predatory behaviour continues through his assault on AAP Newswire, which he seeks to replace with his own NCA NewsWire. If he is allowed to succeed, Murdoch’s content will be seeded throughout the media, including at the ABC. Yet the ACCC’s response to this attempted power grab has been barely audible.

Sims doesn’t realise that Murdoch’s print monopoly remains the feedstock for most broadcast media, telling TV and radio stations which stories are important, and framing the issues. Murdoch’s Sky News Australia is now broadcast free-to-air across 30 regional markets and nationwide through taxpayer-funded Foxtel, and it has a bigger YouTube base than channels Nine, Ten and Seven combined.

Its agenda-driven programs are steadily radicalising the Liberal Party and Nationals base, dragging more MPs to the far right.

He should ask Rupert’s own son, James Murdoch, who quit the family business after decades in its inner sanctum. He accuses the company of abusing its power to deny science, pursue hidden agendas, legitimise disinformation and sow doubt into public debate to obscure facts.

A company with a record of bribery, hacking into innocent people’s devices, and tolerating sexual predators such as Roger Ailes should not be allowed to dominate the flow of information in our democracy.

(continued)

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The Fox News effect

This attitude persists even after the attempted insurrection in Washington, when armed paramilitaries were apparently ready to abduct and execute congressional leaders.

This was in part the consequence of Fox News spreading disinformation about a “stolen election”, and its general weaponisation of grievance-based identity politics.

Murdoch’s outlets indulged the QAnon cult before the insurrection, and make apologies for it now. Fox News, having become a national echo chamber for America’s far right, has charted the path for even more extreme voices. Fox News remains Murdoch’s template for Australia.

We should act against digital monopolies and their aggressive data harvesting. Indeed, the national petition calling for a royal commission to ensure a strong, diverse news media explicitly identified Google and Facebook as warranting scrutiny. The record-breaking petition gathered more than 500,000 signatures, including mine and Malcolm Turnbull’s.

But I remain wary of Sims’ proposed news media bargaining code, which establishes an income stream for news outlets that would shrink and grow with the “shareability” of their articles. The incentive for news outlets is clear: produce greater quantities of sensational, less reliable content in pursuit of social media clicks.

This TikTokisation of news content risks the degradation of reliable journalism over time.

The code also promises news organisations advanced notice of algorithmic changes – a distinct advantage for the few organisations that have the resources to capitalise on such information. Murdoch’s market power is set to grow under the Sims code.

Unlike Sims, I don’t believe Australia must be paralysed working out which monopolistic demon to slay. Successive regulatory failures over many decades have delivered us monopolies on multiple fronts. The course is clear: a royal commission to focus a light on the problem and offer options for the future.

Given time and resources, a commissioner could review the latest evidence and best examples of media governance around the world. Only then would Parliament have an appropriate evidence base from which to make informed decisions to ensure a free and reliable media as the lifeblood of our democracy.

Kevin Rudd is president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and was the 26th prime minister of Australia. Connect with Kevin on Facebook and Twitter.

https://www.facebook.com/MrKRudd

https://twitter.com/mrkrudd

https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/rod-sims-big-tech-fixation-blinds-him-to-murdoch-s-monopoly-20210203-p56zam

George Pell’s prison notes are forgiving

GERARD WINDSOR - FEBRUARY 5, 2021

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Once, nuns were never seen eating. They just taught or nursed, and prayed. Similarly Princes of the Church dress up, perform in cathedrals and utter fiats, but their flocks don’t know, for example, that they might fancy sausage rolls with tomato sauce, or use Harpic in their toilets.

It is one of the virtues of George Pell’s Prison Journal that he lets us see much of the off-duty human being. He also likes two rows of Cadburys each evening as well as an occasional pie with tomato sauce, even if it’s invariably cold.

He watches Sunrise, Mass for You at Home, AFL (lots), horseracing, Songs of Praise, and SBS 6.30 News. He plays two games of Sudoku each day.

He reads, during those first six months of his imprisonment, The Book of Job, the Epistle to the Hebrews, The Book of Revelation. This is his prescribed priestly reading and matter for daily meditation. For secular purposes he also reads The Spectator and Quadrant and War and Peace. He admits the Rostovs keep him up past his bedtime.

These personal domestic details are one of four elements that make up Pell’s account of his life from February 27 to July 13, 2019, in the Melbourne Assessment Prison. The other three are thoughts about his case and discussions with his lawyers, his visitors and incoming correspondence, and his twofold ideological obsessions.

In all this there is no self-pity, just the assumption that the wrong eventually will be righted, that God knows what he’s doing, and that the suffering involved can be put to fruitful use. Pell is clearly a model prisoner, and speaks with gratitude of his guards. Though he is not given any special favours. Far from it: he undergoes two unheralded strip searches within 10 days. It must be said that he comes through his whole ordeal nobly.

Hope, plausibly encouraged by his legal team and multiple legal friends, springs eternal. He is given reports that Judge Peter Kidd, presiding at the two trials, disagreed with the guilty verdict, that there is widespread belief among the legal fraternity that the case should never have gone to trial, that his appellate judges will decide three nil in his favour.

Pell writes that his appeal can only fail if the Devil intervenes. And his solicitors “informed me that they have seen written evidence that J., the complainant, did not want the second trial to go ahead and informed the authorities of this”.

The other injection of optimism is given by the correspondence he receives: more than 2000 letters in that six month period, and from all over the world. The prison, having only one officer devoted to censoring mail, can’t cope, and Pell regularly has letter droughts while the backlog is inspected.

(continued)

>>12821416

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People remind him of relevant texts in the Scriptures, send him written prayers and assure him of their own prayers. And he is grateful and buoyed. Apart from the flood of strangers writing, he has an immense company of friends: individuals are regularly identified in footnotes as simply “a friend of Cardinal Pell”.

And he makes new acquaintances, if not exactly friends; one of his atypical correspondents is the man he believes is in the cell next door (but being in solitary Pell never sees another prisoner and the guards reveal nothing). This is George Gargasoulas, the Bourke St Mall murderer, and the pair have a protracted correspondence. Pell says nothing of the content except that he disagrees with “his logic”.

All the correspondents believe in his innocence. All are on his conservative wavelength. With, as far as I can tell, just two exceptions: I myself and Bishop Pat Power of Canberra, who both wrote to offer support because we thought there’d been a miscarriage of justice.

Power seems to have enclosed a personal credo, and Pell takes several pages of his journal to criticise it. Which brings me to the fourth element in this book.

Pell is a warrior Prince. And in jail he continues to wage war. On two fronts. Against the “militant secularists” that he has no doubt conspired to bring him low, and about which, he readily repeats, “there is a whiff of evil”.

His other war, which he fights with even greater determination because he can have more effect there, is against his fellow Catholics. Pell champions what he calls “Crucifixion Christianity” and “the Gospel Fightback” against the left/liberal element in the Catholic Church which he says is not faithful “to Christ and his teaching” and “where the bland are leading the bland”.

To put this intellectually vacuous slur in terms of personalities, Pell’s “side of the angels” (also proudly referred to as “the deplorables”), includes “Saint John Paul II the Great”, Anthony Fisher “who knows where the battles are and will certainly lead in the right direction”, Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenal Way, and various Vatican cardinals whose ear Pell has. On the other side, presumably of the devils, there’s not much … the Jesuits, and Pope Francis (but softly softly on that one).

Pell acknowledges that his social conservatism has encouraged enmity towards himself and his church. Understandably so, because Pell makes no distinction between his religious, social and political views.

The secular animosity does exist, but liberal Catholics squirm that their faith sustains collateral damage from, for example, Pell’s scepticism about climate change. They don’t want to be lumped with the mike-hogging uncle in the family. Least of all when he writes, “Trump is a bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways he is ‘our’ (Christian) barbarian.”

Where does this leave Christians who never saw anything remotely Christian in Trump? Joe Biden, for example, a devout Catholic, if not of Pell’s tribe? One can be of the Left and be a superb Catholic. But Pell will have none of it.

To end with two fine, and revealing, Pell aphorisms. “Until sin makes a comeback, the Church cannot go forward” and, a little more positively, “the decision to forgive … needs regular nourishment”.

Gerard Windsor’s books include The Tempest-Tossed Church: Being a Catholic Today.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/george-pells-prison-notes-are-forgiving/news-story/2f13627d533bf644273216e42c6032fd

Virginia Roberts Giuffre Tweets

Chilling image of Epstein emerges - I know who that little girl is and have been threatened if I ever say her name…again. Very very sad what she was subjected too & that the parents are being protected. #Enough #Terrified #Help #IRemember

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1357482193463877633

Chilling image of Epstein emerges

A photograph has emerged of disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein cuddling a sleeping child on his lap on board his ‘Lolita Express’ jet.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chilling-image-of-jeffrey-epstein-hugging-a-child-on-his-lolita-express-jet-emerges/news-story/e0b33814fba701344f179828596d9c5b

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M.O.A.B. Patriot @DrMichaelSutter

Replying to @VRSVirginia

Can you word Scramble to The name? Or we just assuming it’s Jon-Benet

https://twitter.com/DrMichaelSutter/status/1357483614552920066

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Replying to @DrMichaelSutter

It’s not Benet. Read my old posts, you will see where I was forced to stop talking about this family. I need to keep my own family safe, hence why I can’t just blurt out the name. Do some research, not hard to find.

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1357488222633218048

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Chilling image of Jeffrey Epstein hugging a child on his ‘Lolita Express’ jet emerges

Magda Ibrahim, The Sun - FEBRUARY 5, 2021

New images have emerged showing paedophile Jeffrey Epstein cuddling a sleeping young girl on his private jet in 2004.

The recently emerged pictures show Epstein reclining in a large brown leather plane seat. The girl is on Epstein’s lap, his arms wrapped around her while she sleeps following an outing at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

There is no suggestion the unidentified girl in the picture was one of Epstein’s victims, and her identity remains anonymous.

A source who was on the trip say they were horrified at seeing the previously-unseen images of Epstein at the theme park.

“There is no doubt that picture is absolutely chilling based upon what everyone now knows about Epstein,” said the source.

“It had been a long day and the girl just fell asleep in his arms. The picture is terrifying based upon what we know now but it was entirely innocent.”

The twisted paedophile – who was found dead in jail in August 2019 – can be seen with his head turned towards the girl as she sleeps, seemingly staring at her, with one arm draped across her bare legs.

Other images from the trip show the depraved financier eating lunch in a restaurant at the resort, surrounded by unsuspecting families.

In two of the pictures, he can be seen chatting with a young girl, who is sitting on an adult’s lap next to Epstein.

Epstein had organised the no-expenses spared outing for a group of 10 guests, including now-jailed girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

Epstein’s carefully-crafted luxurious and glamorous life began to unravel in 2008 when he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution and served 13 months in jail.

In July 2019 he was busted over the alleged sexual abuse of dozens of young girls in his Upper East Side townhouse and his waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005.

Court documents alleged at least 40 underage girls were brought to Epstein’s mansion for sexual encounters.

The new pictures from 2004 were taken at the height of the alleged underage sexual abuse at his homes.

Prosecutors had alleged that Epstein used his private planes – including the Boeing 727 dubbed the ‘Lolita Express’ – to transport his sex trafficking victims between his residences and locations including New Mexico, Paris and the US Virgin Islands.

The source revealed how Epstein spared no expense for the Disney World trip.

“We all boarded the jet after leaving his home in Palm Beach and then we took the short plane ride to Orlando where we were picked up and taken to Disney World,” they said.

“We were given a VIP tour of the park and someone was escorting us around from ride to ride. The group never had to be in line for a ride – we went to the front of the line each time.”

The group ate in a restaurant with two of Epstein’s associates they had met at the park and stayed “until late in the evening” watching the Disney parade, a water show and fireworks.

“After a long day we boarded the plane in Orlando and went back to Palm Beach,” added the source. “That was when the little girl fell asleep on his knee.

“It is so sinister to see him there nursing the youngster when the world now knows his terrible secrets and crimes.”

Other guests included Ghislaine Maxwell, his personal assistant Sarah Kellen and Slovakian model Nadia Marcinkova, the source said.

The latest pictures come as jailed former girlfriend Maxwell has demanded her own personal laptop, while moaning prison computers are too slow.

The 59-year-old has been held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York since last year on charges of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse girls.

This story originally appeared in The Sun and is reproduced here with permission

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chilling-image-of-jeffrey-epstein-hugging-a-child-on-his-lolita-express-jet-emerges/news-story/e0b33814fba701344f179828596d9c5b

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EXCLUSIVE: Never-before-seen photos show pedophile Jeffrey Epstein cuddling a sleeping young girl on his lap on board his private jet after spending a day at Disney World with unsuspecting families

KAYLA BRANTLEY - 3 February 2021

Jeffrey Epstein is seen cuddling a sleeping young girl on his lap while on board his private jet after a VIP visit to Walt Disney World, in disturbing photos obtained by DailyMail.com

The haunting images of the pedophile financier at 30,000ft provide a chilling look at the billionaire's unrestricted access to young girls.

Epstein is seen slumped back in a leather seat and looks at the girl while his arm is wrapped around her back and the other over her bare leg. She sleeps soundly following a long day at the Florida theme park with his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

There is no suggestion that the unidentified girl in the photograph was a victim of Epstein and her identity has remained anonymous.

Other shocking images show the disgraced financier enjoying himself at the resort and eating lunch surrounded by unsuspecting families at The Crystal Palace buffet restaurant in the Magic Kingdom.

In one picture, Epstein is seen talking to the same little girl while in another photo Disney character Piglet posing with the group.

Other images show how families were oblivious to the rich and powerful businessman who was dining in their midst as costume character Tigger also greeted guests.

A source who was on the trip to Disney World tells DailyMail.com of their horror at discovering the tucked away images of Epstein at the theme park around 2004.

It wasn't until 2008 that Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution and served just 13 months in jail. And then in July 2019 he was arrested on sex trafficking charges, but killed himself in prison a month later while awaiting trial.

'There is no doubt that picture is absolutely chilling based upon what everyone now knows about Epstein,' they said.

'It had been a long day and the girl just fell asleep in his arms. The picture is terrifying based upon what we know now but it was entirely innocent.'

The insider told how Epstein spared no expense for the trip and flew a group of ten people for the trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida on his dime.

Other guests included Ghislaine Maxwell, his personal assistant Sarah Kellen and Slovakian model Nadia Marcinkova, the source said.

'We all boarded the jet after leaving his home in Palm Beach and then we took the short plane ride to Orlando where we were picked up and taken to Disney World,' the insider revealed.

'We were given a VIP tour of the park and someone was escorting us around from ride to ride,' they said. 'The group never had to be in line for a ride – we went to the front of the line each time.

'Jeffrey wouldn't go on any though. He didn't seem to like them. Perhaps it was something to do with not being in control, something which he liked to be all the time.

'It was a fun day. We ate in a restaurant with two of Jeffrey's friends who he met there. Jeffrey however did not eat lunch. I hardly ever saw him eat at a restaurant. Food always had to be prepared by a personal chef.

'That could be to do with his obsession with cleanliness or maybe a health thing.

'The day was actually very enjoyable and we stayed until late in the evening when we watched the parade, a water show and fireworks.

'After a long day we boarded the plane in Orlando and went back to Palm Beach. That was when the little girl fell asleep on his knee.

'It is so sinister to see him there nursing the youngster when the world now knows his terrible secrets and crimes.'

Meanwhile, Epstein's alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell has griped about her prison conditions once again, in a new court filing demanding she be granted access to her laptop because the computers inside the jail are 'very slow.'

The suspected child sex trafficker and former girlfriend of Epstein is currently being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, as she awaits trial.

In a letter to the federal court obtained by DailyMail.com Tuesday, attorney Bobbi Sternheim pushed back against the decision to block Maxwell from accessing her computer outside of the working week.

The filing also claimed prison guards have 'psychologically and physically abused' Maxwell and that her complaints had been met with 'reprisals'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9215741/Never-seen-photos-Jeffrey-Epstein-cuddling-sleeping-young-girl.html

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Virginia Roberts Giuffre Tweet

They’re pure evil, they went as far as grooming their eldest daughter for Epstein. Who lets their 6/7 yr old daughter get a naked massage on Uncle Epstein’s balcony. They were the tester couple to see how far they could push a girl & the “get rid” of couple. Investigators? #Help

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1303435829080018945

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Marlon Ettinger @MarlonEttinger

For those unfamiliar with the Dubins, Eva was one of Jeffrey's ex-girlfriends. Her and Glenn let Jeffrey be the godfather of their daughter, and Eva wrote this creepy letter to Epstein's probation officer vouching for Jeffrey's character.

https://twitter.com/MarlonEttinger/status/1303435000973529100

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Virginia Roberts Giuffre Tweets

Not only were they my “Tester” couple but Eva who laid in bed heavily pregnant in the next room knew exactly what her husband was doing with me. She was Epstein’s 1st madam- they go way way back, all will be revealed in good time. #TruthMatters #bebold #EnoughIsEnough #woke

https://twitter.com/Psalm82_3/status/1225671526189416454

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1225673110260568064

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Lizzy Bizzy @LizzBizzy

These people connected to Epstein, probably trade their very own chrildren to each other like sexual trading cards. Glenn Dubin, Eva Dubin trafficked @VRSVirginia for sex all brought to you by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and their financial backers.

https://twitter.com/LizzBizzy/status/1225678194365218822

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I gotta say your pretty damn warm- google Dubin’s eldest daughter whom she called “Uncle Jeff”- she was just a kid and call it grooming or normalising. I call it sick and depraved. They do not deserve to be parents, they deserve to be in jail. #LockThemAllUp #EnoughIsEnough #Evil

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1225680596401176577

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I don’t care how good they want to make themselves look or what “evidence” they have- it’s BS!! Glen abused me at the Breakers in Florida and they were around so much I got to know the kids- that we’re being groomed. Horrible ppl with lots of skeletons in their closet. #KidsToo

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1303438968852160514

For Billionaire Glenn Dubin, the Epstein Saga Isn’t Over

Jeffrey Epstein is dead, but there are still questions about his ties to hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin and his wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/09/glenn-dubin-epstein-questions

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Virginia Roberts Giuffre Tweet

Eva Dubin was married off to him after she aged beyond Epstein’s liking. Both the Dubin’s are protected by their billions of dollars which in turn may buy them freedom- unless we the people, stands with me to help show them that $$ does not buy justice. #Arrest_ALL_Pedos #kids

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1330466148035530753

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Truth Seeker @Lanaray99028792

Replying to @VRSVirginia

The Dubins are terrible people.

I remember hearing a story of a young Swedish girl they brought in and sent her to Epstein’s island. When she came back she was terrified. I think it was the dubins chef that was asking the girl questions if she was ok.

https://twitter.com/Lanaray99028792/status/1330718090905202689

>>12827870

Epstein prosecutors ask hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin to hand over any docs showing communication between his three kids and the pedophile financier - who wanted to marry his 19-year-old daughter

CHEYENNE ROUNDTREE - 24 November 2020

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Jeffrey Epstein prosecutors have asked hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin to hand over any documents that show communication between the late pedophile and his three children, according to newly released court papers.

Officials in the US Virgin Islands - where Epstein owned a private island - filed a subpoena in September, seeking 'all documents and communications related to any of your three children, Maye, Celina or Jordan, which also relate in any way to Jeffrey Epstein or any Epstein entity.'

Dubin, 63, and his wife Eva Andersson-Dubin, 59, have long been connected to Epstein, with Eva dating Epstein in the 1980s for 11 years.

The couple remained staunch friends of the convicted pedophile throughout the years, and were regulars at his home in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida.

They were so close that Epstein told associates in 2014 that if he was ever to get married, it would have been to the couple's daughter Celina, who was 19 years old at the time and called him 'Uncle Jeff', according to Business Insider.

Epstein said he wanted Celina to inherit some of his reputed $500 million fortune, including his private island, and marriage would help avoid inheritance taxes.

There is no evidence that Epstein ever had a romantic relationship with Celina.

In 2014, Epstein named Celina as a beneficiary to his trust, but she was removed in 2015 before the Dubin family was aware that she was listed. A source familiar with Epstein's finances said the trust amounted to around $50 million in 2019.

Last August, it was revealed that the Dubin family was financially, philanthropically and socially tied to Epstein for decades before his death.

After Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a child for prostitution, the Dubins wrote an email to his probation officer saying they were '100% comfortable' with Epstein interacting with Celina, who was then 14 years old.

'I could not ask for a better friend or godfather to my children,' Eva wrote.

However, the family appeared to publicly distance themselves from Epstein after his arrest in July 2019.

Davidson Goldin, the Dubin family spokesperson, echoed the sentiment in a statement.

'Glenn saw him perhaps once a year in large group settings and had no business interactions with him whatsoever after 2007. Eva and Celina Dubin accepted less than a handful of invitations to gatherings that included the founder of Microsoft and a DNA pioneer.'

'The Dubins are horrified by Jeffrey Epstein's despicable conduct. Had they been aware of it, they would have cut off all ties instantly,' he said.

(continued)

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Epstein's death was ruled a suicide in August 2019. His alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in connection to his alleged sex trafficking ring this 2020. She is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.

The subpoena states that it is requesting any documents related to Dubin and Epstein from January 1, 1998 to the present.

It also asks for 'all Documents and Communications regarding a Swedish female traveling with or employed by Jeffrey Epstein or regarding transportation You provided or arranged for her,' as well as any papers that regard the departure of Rinaldo and Debra Rizzo.

Rinaldo Rizzo worked as a butler for the Dubins. During a 2016 deposition which was revealed publicly for the first time last year where he tearfully described seeing a 15-year-old girl in his boss's kitchen in 2005.

He testified in his deposition that the girl was brought to the home by Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein, who were visiting the Dubins.

The butler said that the girl reminded him of other girls he saw at Epstein's home. Rizzo said the girl sat in a stool next to a kitchen counter in the Dubins' home.

She was 'distraught and shaking…literally quivering' as she described her treatment at the hands of Epstein's alleged madam, and her assistant, Sarah Kellen, in the US Virgin Islands.

He claims the girl told him that they had demanded sex from her and taken away her passport and threatened her when she refused.

Rizzo testified in a deposition which was part of Giuffre's defamation lawsuit brought against Maxwell.

Giuffre also accused Dubin of participating in the sex-trafficking ring, according to court documents.

The Dubins have denied these allegations, with a spokesperson for the couple telling DailyMail.com: 'Glenn and Eva Dubin are outraged by the allegations against them in the unsealed court records and categorically reject them.'

Epstein prosecutors also are seeking 'all Documents and Communications related to or reflecting any massage you received at any of Jeffrey Epstein's properties or performed by someone sent to Your property at the direction of Jeffrey Epstein'.

The US Virgin Island Attorney General is also investigating allegations of racketeering against Epstein, issuing subpoenas to several people connected to him.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8978445/Jeffrey-Epstein-prosecutors-ask-Glenn-Dubin-hand-documents-pedophile-kids.html

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>>12827921

Jeffrey Epstein wanted to marry ex-girlfriend’s teenage daughter who called him ‘Uncle Jeff’

Lee Brown - December 18, 2019

Jeffrey Epstein once wanted to marry an ex-girlfriend’s teenage daughter who called him “Uncle Jeff,” according to a report.

The late pedophile openly declared his plans to wed Celina Dubin, the daughter of former Miss Sweden Eva Andersson Dubin, who had dated Epstein for 11 years until the early ’90s, sources told Business Insider.

The pair had developed an “especially close relationship” when Celina was just 12, with “Uncle Jeff” at times having “substituted” for her dad, the Palm Beach Post has previously reported, citing a profile made by Epstein’s lawyers.

Epstein was telling associates in 2014 that if he ever married, it would be to Celina — who was 19 at the time, sources told Business Insider.

There is no evidence that Epstein ever had a romantic relationship with Dubin, who is now 24, the site reported, saying his motivation to marry may have been driven by a desire to avoid inheritance taxes.

However, her father, moneyman Glenn Dubin, has long been tied to the Epstein scandal — with longtime accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre naming him in court documents as one of many men she alleges she was forced to have sex with.

He has previously “categorically” denied the allegations through a spokesman, who said he has “evidence disproving them.”

The Dubins, prominent socialites in Epstein’s main hangouts of New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, also defended him when he was released from a Florida jail in 2009 on his earlier child sex conviction, Business Insider previously revealed.

The couple wrote an email to his probation officer saying they were “100% comfortable” with Epstein spending time with Celina, who was then 14, and their two other minor children, Business Insider said.

“I could not ask for a better friend or godfather to my children,” Eva Dubin wrote of her ex, who also spent Thanksgiving at their Florida home the year after his release, the report said.

Eva Dubin had been 20 when she met Epstein in about 1981, and their 11 years together made her his longest-time girlfriend, the report said. They split before the former beauty queen married hedge-funder Glenn Dubin in 1994 and they had three children together.

Their daughter Celina is at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and had been named one of the “15 Hottest Freshmen” by the Harvard Crimson in 2014, three years before she graduated from the university.

Epstein had wanted the then-teen to inherit his fortune — including his private island in the Caribbean — so that he could avoid inheritance taxes, an associate told Business Insider.

He even made her the beneficiary of a trust in 2014, removing her name the following year, the publication said, citing financial documents provided by a second source. That trust now has $50 million in it, the report says, noting it was unclear if Celina ever benefited before her name was removed.

The Dubins distanced themselves from the now-notorious pedophile in a statement to Business Insider.

“Glenn saw him perhaps once a year in large group settings and had no business interactions with him whatsoever after 2007,” Dubin family spokesman Davidson Goldin told the publication.

“Eva and Celina Dubin accepted less than a handful of invitations to gatherings that included the founder of Microsoft and a DNA pioneer.

“The Dubins are horrified by Jeffrey Epstein’s despicable conduct. Had they been aware of it, they would have cut off all ties instantly,” the spokesman insisted.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/jeffrey-epstein-wanted-to-marry-ex-girlfriends-teenage-daughter-who-called-him-uncle-jeff/

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>>12827921

Paedophile Jeffrey Epstein 'wanted to marry the 24-year-old daughter of ex-girlfriend who called him "Uncle Jeff" so she could inherit his $50million trust'

LAUREN EDMONDS - 18 December 2019

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Jeffrey Epstein reportedly told associates that he considered marrying the younger daughter of his ex-girlfriend.

Celina Dublin, now 24, is the daughter of physician and former Miss Sweden Eva Andersson Dubin, and the billionaire hedge-fund manager Glenn Dubin.

Eva Andersson Dubin started dating Epstein in the 1980s for 11 years before she married Glenn Dubin in 1994.

Business Insider reports that as recently as 2014, Epstein told associates that if he was ever to get married, it would have been to Celina Dubin, who was 19-years-old at the time and once called him 'Uncle Jeff.'

There is no evidence that Epstein ever had a romantic relationship with Celina, but it's implied that the union would have been for financial reasons.

Epstein said he wanted Celina to inherit some of his reputed $500 million fortune, including his private island in the Caribbean, and marriage would help avoid inheritance taxes.

That year, Epstein named Celina as a beneficiary, but she was removed in 2015 before the Dubin family was aware that she was listed.

A source familiar with Epstein's finances said it amounted to around $50million in 2019.

In August, it was revealed that the Dubin family was financially, philanthropically and socially tied to Epstein for decades before his death.

After Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a child for prostitution, the Dubins' wrote an email to his probation officer saying they were '100% comfortable' with Epstein interacting with Celina.

However, the family appeared to publicly distance themselves from Epstein after his arrest in July this year.

Davidson Goldin, the Dubin family spokesperson, echoed the sentiment in a statement.

'Glenn saw him perhaps once a year in large group settings and had no business interactions with him whatsoever after 2007. Eva and Celina Dubin accepted less than a handful of invitations to gatherings that included the founder of Microsoft and a DNA pioneer.'

'The Dubins are horrified by Jeffrey Epstein's despicable conduct. Had they been aware of it, they would have cut off all ties instantly,' he said.

Epstein created the irrevocable trust in 2004 and transferred the money to Deutsche Bank, along with other entities, in 2013.

The $50million trust accounted for close to 10 percent of the total value of Epstein's declared wealth, according to sources.

The trust, and other similar ones, appear to have been partially used to manage payments to women in Epstein's circle.

The trust named six people as beneficiaries, including three female associates of Epstein who were listed in the trust document as residing at his Upper East Side home.

Two of Epstein's longtime lawyers, Richard Kahn and Darren Indyke, were also named as beneficiaries and their names were on several documents relating to Epstein's enterprises.

Epstein allegedly used various trusts to facilitate money to different women in his life, including women who have publicly been identified as victims and co-conspirators of his sex trafficking.

Deutsche Bank said in a statement: 'Deutsche Bank is closely examining any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and we are absolutely committed to cooperating with all relevant authorities.'

(continued)

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Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman who is accused of recruiting women and girls for Epstein, was listed as a beneficiary on multiple trusts, a source said.

Nadia Marcinko, who was described as a 'sex slave' in police reports and alleged by several accusers to have participated in sex acts with Epstein and underage girls, was the recipient a payment earlier this year.

Anouska de Georgiou, a British actress who identified herself as a victim, was also reportedly a recipient.

In recent years, Epstein sent money to women in Russia who appeared to be models, the source told Business Insider, describing some of the transactions as tuition payments.

Before Epstein died of an apparent suicide in August, prosecutors claimed Epstein used his wealth to, 'influence individuals who were close to him during the time period charged in this case and who might be witnesses against him at a trial.'

They cited a transfer of $100,000 to one unnamed co-conspirator and a $250,000 payment to a separate co-conspirator.

After Deutsche Bank ended their relationship with Epstein in 2018, the source says the $50million trust was transferred to an account at FirstBank Puerto Rico.

Epstein became close with the family before he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida in 2008.

A dossier from Epstein's defense attorneys at the time contained statements gathered from his associates, including Celina.

Celina reportedly wrote: 'I got to the class alone. but then soon enough a quick phone call to Uncle Jeff didn't leave me standing there, alone for more than 10 minutes. Uncle Jeff substituted for my father that night, and the way he rushed to the class felt exactly like having my father there.'

Eva remained a good friend during Epstein's 2008 arrest, a representative told The New York Times in July.

Epstein reportedly spent one major holiday with the family in 2009, and Eva and Glenn were often invited to dinner when the billionaire hosted prominent guests.

Business Insider also reports that Epstein had a 2011 playlist on his Spotify called 'Celina' with a majority of the music from David Guetta.

Epstein and the family were also connected through their philanthropy.

Epstein donated to Eva Andersson Dubin's breast-cancer organization, the Dubin Breast Center of the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, in 2009.

In 2016, Epstein donated $10,000 to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where Celina was a medical student, and $50,000 to Harvard's Hasty Pudding Institute, where she studied as an undergraduate.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7804457/Pedophile-Jeffrey-Epstein-wanted-marry-24-year-old-daughter-ex-girlfriend.html

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>>12827933

Butler who worked for billionaire couple friendly with Jeffrey Epstein says he met 15-year-old Swedish girl who was pedophile's 'sex slave' while she was 'held hostage on his island'

ARIEL ZILBER - 10 August 2019

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A 15-year-old Swedish girl was allegedly confined to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private island and kept there as a sex slave, it has been claimed in newly unsealed court documents.

The horrific allegations were made by a butler who worked for hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin and his wife, Eva Andersson-Dubin.

During a 2016 deposition which was revealed publicly for the first time on Friday, the butler, Rinaldo Rizzo, tearfully described seeing a 15-year-old girl in his boss’s kitchen in 2005.

Rizzo testified in his deposition that the girl was brought to the home by Maxwell and Epstein, who were visiting the Dubins.

Andersson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden, once dated Epstein.

The butler said that the girl reminded him of other girls he saw at Epstein's home.

Rizzo said the girl sat in a stool next to a kitchen counter in the Dubins' home. She was 'distraught and shaking…literally quivering' as she described her treatment at the hands of Epstein's alleged madam, and her assistant, Sarah Kellen, in the US Virgin Islands.

He claims he told her that they had demanded sex from her and taken away her passport and threatened her when she refused.

Rizzo testified in a deposition which was part of Giuffre's defamation lawsuit brought against Maxwell.

Giuffre also accused Glenn Dubin of participating in the sex-trafficking ring, according to court documents.

The Dubins have denied these allegations, with a spokesperson for the couple telling DailyMail.com: 'Glenn and Eva Dubin are outraged by the allegations against them in the unsealed court records and categorically reject them.'

Rizzo said the girl sat in a stool next to a kitchen counter in the Dubins’ home. She was ‘distraught and shaking…literally quivering’ as she described her treatment at the hands of Epstein’s alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, and his assistant, Sarah Kellen, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

‘She sat down and sat in the stool exactly the way the girls that I mentioned to you sat at Jeffrey’s house, with no expression and with their head down,’ Rizzo testified.

According to Rizzo, he introduced himself and his wife to the teen after Andersson-Dubin stepped out of the kitchen for a few moments.

‘She doesn’t really respond,’ Rizzo testified.

‘Nothing verbal, no cues, her head is still down.

‘I asked her if she would like some water, tissue, anything, and she basically doesn’t respond.’

Rizzo testified that he then tried to make small talk with the teen.

‘Oh, by the way, do you work for Jeffrey?’ he asked her.

‘Yes,’ the 15-year-old replied.

‘What do you do?’ he asked.

‘I’m Jeffrey’s executive assistant, personal assistant,’ she said.

Rizzo said she appeared way too young for that. He then asked her how she got the job and her age.

‘And she says to me, point blank, “I’m 15”,’ Rizzo testified.

‘And I said to her, “You’re 15 years old and you have a position like that?”

‘At that point she just breaks down hysterical, and I feel like I just said something wrong, and she will not stop crying.’

Rizzo testified that at this point he and his wife tried to console the young girl.

He said they offered her tissue and water, but this did not help calm her down.

‘And then in a state of shock, she just lets it rip, and what she told me was unbelievable,’ Rizzo testified.

(continued)

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‘She proceeded to tell my wife and I… “I was on the island and there was Ghislaine, and there was Sarah,” and she said, “They asked me for sex. I said no”.’

According to Rizzo, after the young girl refused to have sex, Kellen took the young girl’s phone and passport and gave them to Maxwell.

‘And at that point, she said she was threatened,’ Rizzo testified.

‘And I said, “Threatened?”

‘She says, “Yes. I was threatened by Ghislaine, not to discuss this”.’

After Rizzo asked the girl if she spoke to her parents, ‘She says, “I’m not supposed to talk about this”.’

Rizzo testified that the teen told him Epstein threatened her to keep quiet about what she knew.

‘The word she used was sex,’ he testified.

As far as the girl’s emotional state was concerned, Rizzo said that she was ‘shaking uncontrollably.’

Rizzo testified that the girl stopped answering questions once she realized that someone was heading toward the kitchen.

It was Eva Andersson-Dubin, according to Rizzo.

‘Eva comes in and tells her that she will be working for Eva in the city,’ Rizzo testified.

‘As a nanny.’

Rizzo testified that he saw the girl about a month later on board a flight with the Dubin family to Sweden.

She was dropped off at an airport in the Scandinavian country, according to Rizzo.

Rizzo testified in a deposition which was part of a defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Maxwell.

The case was settled in 2017, but 2,000 pages of documents from the proceedings were ordered unsealed on Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Giuffre, who alleged that she was Epstein’s and Maxwell’s ‘sex slave,’ accused Glenn Dubin of participating in the sex-trafficking ring, according to court documents.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of sex trafficking in girls as young as 14, from at least 2002 to 2005.

Maxwell has not been criminally charged. Reuters was not immediately able to reach Maxwell for comment.

The documents were released after the appeals court rejected her bid to keep them under seal.

‘Glenn and Eva Dubin are outraged by the allegations in the unsealed court records, which are demonstrably false and defamatory,’ a spokesperson for the family told The Daily Beast on Friday.

‘The Dubins have flight records and other evidence that definitively disprove that any such events occurred.’

Glenn Dubin is the billionaire co-founder of Highbridge Capital Management. His net worth is valued at $2.1billion, according to Forbes.

In 1994, he married Eva, a former model who became a doctor.

After she survived breast cancer, the couple donated millions of dollars to found Dubin Breast Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center, which opened in 2011.

They have three children.

Before marrying Glenn Dubin, Eva Andersson dated Epstein.

After Epstein was arrested for sex trafficking, Andersson-Dubin released a statement to The New York Times saying that the allegations 'are completely counter to the person she is familiar with.'

As more details emerged about Epstein's alleged behavior, the couple released another statement saying: 'The Dubins are horrified by the new allegations against Jeffrey Epstein … Had they been aware of the vile and unspeakable conduct described in these new allegations, they would have cut off all ties and certainly never have allowed their children to be in his presence.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7343029/Butler-wealthy-NYC-couple-says-met-Swedish-girl-15-Jeffrey-Epsteins-sex-slave.html

Catholic Church paedophile networks to be mapped 'like organised crime' by academics

''Giselle Wakatama - 5 February 2021"

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A "mafia-like" code of silence among "dark networks" within the Catholic Church has begun to emerge from a world-first project mapping clerical paedophile networks, says an academic behind the project.

The project is led by Newcastle sociologist Kathleen McPhillips and criminologist Jodi Death (pronounced Deeth) from Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) law faculty.

The research builds on work done by Sally Muytjens, one of Dr Death's doctoral students, who mapped Catholic paedophile networks in Victoria.

The mapping will now include other hotspots such as Newcastle and the role of women in the church, nuns and seminaries.

The Victorian project identified 99 clergy members as abusers linked to 16 paedophile networks in the Melbourne and Ballarat dioceses.

It found there was a "mafia-like" code of silence among clergy perpetrators who formed dark networks (DNs) within the Victorian Catholic Church.

"The covert nature of DNs is due to the illicit activities being conducted by the network," Ms Muytjens said.

"Examples of DNs include terrorist organisations, youth gangs, drug-trafficking rings, price-fixing cartels, and other criminal enterprises."

Hunter survivors in focus

Abuse at the hands of paedophile clerical networks in the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese is now on the radar of the researchers.

They have been briefed by about 50 abuse survivors and family members associated with the Clergy Abuse Network (CAN).

"There is enormous enthusiasm for the project because a lot of the survivors are convinced that there were, and probably are, networks of paedophiles," said CAN founder and survivor Bob O'Toole.

Dr Death said the survivors were invaluable as they held so much information about what happened and how it happened.

Dr McPhillips said it was a world-first project.

"It is very important, this project, in the sense that we think the work that we are about to do is uncovering a network in a way it has never been seen before," she said.

"We are using documents, but for the very first time we are using the oral histories of survivors to map these paedophile networks across the Catholic Church, so the potential is enormous."

Dr Death said every survivor likely held information they may not be aware was important in a larger map.

"The end result is we want a map that tells us about all the connections," she said.

"In Victoria we found there were clusters of abusers who ended up clustered together, and abusers weren't just moved around randomly they were removed really quite strategically.

"We would like to know if that's the case across the country and, in the long-term, around the world — we would like a world map."

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Light shone on nuns, seminaries

Women in the Church will be examined as part of the mapping process.

"We know it's coming from nuns and lay teachers," Dr Death said.

"Nuns are interesting and may also be part of the dark network, sexualising things like discipline.

"They are really understudied, and nuns were also vulnerable as victims themselves.

"We need to map and unpack that issue."

Seminaries, colleges where priests where received training, were also deemed a lure for paedophiles, Dr Death said.

"Seminaries were places where people would make connections," she said.

"There is also evidence of clergy taking young boys back to a seminary to be abused by other seminarians."

'Like a chocolate wheel'

Clerical abuse survivors have backed the project, with dozens telling the ABC they will share their stories.

Scott Hallett was abused by Vincent Ryan, who was banned from priestly duties after abusing more than 30 boys.

He said it sickened him to think paedophiles were shuffled around.

"It was like a chocolate wheel. Somebody offends, let's spin the wheel and, 'Righto mate, you're there now,'" Mr Hallett said.

Gerard McDonald was abused by the same priest and welcomed the mapping project.

"It is about time. People need to realise that it has been happening for too long and it is time people stood up," he said.

British child migrant Mick Kenny was six in the 1950s when he was placed in a Newcastle children's home.

He said the mapping project would be confronting, but well worth it.

"The nuns, every now again, they would take two or three of us to a nursing home and leave us there with a priest — they knew, they knew," Mr Kenny said.

Geoffrey Nash's brother Andrew is the youngest known clerical abuse suicide victim in Australia.

Andrew Nash died in 1974 aged 13 and Geoffrey said the mapping project was a painful but positive step.

"It is work that has been coming for many years and I think it is going to draw all the work that has been done in the past together," he said.

Australia's first dedicated police strikeforce into Catholic clergy abuse was set up in the Hunter Valley in 2007.

Strikeforce Georgiana netted 19 offenders who were convicted of more than 600 offences, relating to 182 victims.

Researchers have not put a timeline on the mapping project but say once finished in Australia they intend to move their research offshore.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/paedophiles-mapped-like-organised-crime/13122320

Australia watching China PNG city proposal

Daniel McCulloch - 5 February 2021

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has downplayed a Chinese company's proposal to build a new mega city just kilometres from Australian territory.

Leaked documents reveal a conceptual plan to build a 100 square kilometre city with a major seaport, industrial area and free-trade zone on Papua New Guinea's south coast.

The "New Daru City" would be built within kilometres of Australian islands in the Torres Strait and less than 200 kilometres from the mainland.

Mr Morrison said the ambitious plans were "very speculative at this point".

"I'm not surprised by it but I think at this stage it would be best to file it under 'speculation'," he told reporters in Canberra on Friday.

A spokesman for PNG Prime Minister James Marape said he was unaware of the project but the country would not turn away foreign investment, so long as it complied with laws and benefited locals.

Australian security agencies have grown increasingly concerned about China's interest in PNG, with the superpower intent on growing strategic power and economic influence in the region.

Another Chinese company plans to build a $200 million fishing park in the same impoverished PNG province.

"I have a very close relationship with prime minister Marape as I've had with previous prime ministers in Papua New Guinea," Mr Morrison said.

"We regularly discuss the various pressures in our region and I think we're very much on the same page about those issues."

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said the $39 billion development proposal was evidence of a regional leadership vacuum created by the Morrison government.

Senator Wong said the proposal represented a security and strategic threat.

"Australia should be the partner of choice in our region, working with allied and aligned nations to build the sort of region we want - one that is stable, prosperous and respects sovereignty," she said.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he was very keen to discuss the proposal with the PNG government.

"We will have a look at it. I think there are all sorts of sovereignty issues and there are local issues in terms of landowners and land rights that I think would provide a significant hurdle," he said.

"So we will look at it closely but Australia will always act in our best interests and we will seek to support our neighbours."

The development plans would need to secure approval from local landholders and multiple layers of government.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the Chinese proposal.

"I'm not going to go into what our government knows about various matters," he told reporters in Melbourne.

"Our relationship with Papua New Guinea is very strong, it is co-operative, it is multifaceted. And between prime minister Morrison and prime minister Marape, there is constant dialogue."

https://thewest.com.au/politics/australia-watching-china-png-city-proposal-ng-s-2048257

Sydney man arrested over child exploitation material import

05-02-2021

A 58 year-old Sydney man has been charged for allegedly importing a child-like sex doll and possessing child exploitation material.

On 15 December 2020, Australian Border Force (ABF) Officers examined an air cargo consignment which arrived from China. The package was declared as containing a fashion model, but officers who opened the parcel found a child-like sex doll.

Yesterday, 4 February 2021, ABF investigators, ABF Digital Forensics and NSW Police executed a search warrant at a home in Merrylands. Investigators located child abuse material on a mobile phone and laptop found in a vehicle. Additional electronic devices including mobile phones, computers and hard drives were removed from the premises for further examination.

The man was arrested and taken to Parramatta police station where he was charged with the following:

1 x count Customs Act s233BAB(5) Import prohibited import (child abuse material).

1 x count Customs Act s201A omit from complying with an order.

2 x counts Crimes Act s91H possess child abuse material.

Acting ABF Enforcement Operations East Commander Garry Low said tackling child exploitation is a priority for the ABF.

“ABF officers are committed to stopping all child exploitation material, including child-like sex dolls, at the border,” A/g Commander Low said.

“That’s why we work with our law enforcement partners to protect innocent children and ensure this kind of deplorable material does not end up in the Australian community.”

Assistant Minister for Customs, Community Safety and Multicultural Affairs Jason Wood thanked the ABF for its role in making Australia a safer place.

“Child exploitation is a disgusting crime and we must protect children from predators,” Assistant Minister Wood said.

“I applaud our law enforcement agencies for seeking out and prosecuting those who seek to exploit the most vulnerable.”

The man appeared in Parramatta Local Court today. He has been remanded in custody to appear again on 2 April 2021.

The Customs Act 1901 provides that child-like sex dolls are a form of child abuse material.

Under section 233BAB(5) of the Customs Act 1901(Cth), an individual caught attempting to import child abuse material, including a child-like sex doll, can be charged with importing Tier 2 goods. The maximum penalty, if convicted, is up to 10 years’ imprisonment and/or fines of up to $555,000.

Anyone with information about those who may be importing child-like sex dolls or other child abuse material should contact Border Watch at www.Australia.gov.au/borderwatch . By reporting suspicious activities, you are helping to protect Australia's border. Information can be provided anonymously.

https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/what-we-do/borderwatch

https://newsroom.abf.gov.au/releases/sydney-man-arrested-over-child-exploitation-material-import

Women held as sex slaves, drugged and tattooed as being 'property', Queensland police say

Talissa Siganto and Jim Malo - 5 February 2021

A man and woman have been charged with drugging several women and keeping them as sex slaves for clients at two Brisbane residences.

Police said 35-year-old Matthew James Markcrow gave the women stupefying drugs, controlled their finances and work conditions and tattooed them as "being his property".

Officer-in-charge of the Prostitution Enforcement Taskforce, Detective Inspector Juliet Hancock, said the crimes were an example of modern-day slavery.

"We've been shocked by this, we didn't think this was happening in Australia, let alone Brisbane," she said.

"It's something that you see that's happening overseas… it's quite hard to shock police. This is quite horrendous offending."

Mr Markcrow and Crystal Marie Sawyer, 23, were arrested on Thursday during a search of two properties, at South Brisbane and Mount Gravatt East.

Four women, between the ages of 17 and 24, were found at the Mount Gravatt East home, but police believe there are more alleged victims.

Covert recordings of the sex acts were also found during the search, as well as drugs, and evidence to support sexual servitude and organised prostitution offences.

Detective Inspector Hancock said she found the tattooing especially reprehensible.

"What we also found out in the course of that investigation was they had been tattooed and marked as the property of the person who had actually recruited them," she said.

Detective Inspector Hancock said officers began investigating in October following a tip-off from the public.

"This investigation has been confronting when you consider those aspects, vulnerable young women being recruited, being drugged, being prostituted and being tattooed, that's pretty confronting," she said.

"The women are now safe thanks to the information from members of the public and the diligence of our officers.

"We believe there are other victims who have been exploited by the man and I encourage them to come forward and contact police."

Women 'heavily under the influence of drugs'

Detective Inspector Hancock said she spoke yesterday to one of the women found at the properties.

"It would be, I think, fair to say that some of them do not understand they have been exploited," she said.

"A couple of them yesterday were definitely very heavily under the influence of drugs.

"I don't think they understood yesterday when I was speaking to them."

Detective Inspector Hancock said they were hoping to talk to clients who were secretly filmed.

"It is quite hard, I think, for clients to understand if someone's being exploited. If there are any clients who want to come to speak to police, we'd encourage that," Detective Inspector Hancock said.

Mr Markcrow, from Mount Gravatt East, has been charged with 10 offences, including conducting a business involving servitude, unlawful prostitution, drug possession, possessing tainted property, and recordings that breach the Privacy Act.

Ms Sawyer has been charged with knowingly carrying on the business of unlawful prostitution.

Police prosecutor Mark Hughes told the the court Ms Sawyer admitted she was in a relationship with Mr Markcrow and had told police she was "like a mother" to the four women.

"She took care of them," he said.

"She exercised a degree of control over the other girls."

Police opposed Ms Sawyer's bail on the basis that she would continue to operate the alleged prostitution business for Mr Markcrow and that she would interfere with witnesses.

Mr Hughes told the court that while being arrested, Ms Sawyer told Mr Markcrow "I'll take care of everything for you".

Defence lawyer Lily Berkeley said the prosecution had brought charges on her client "somewhat prematurely".

"The objection to bail fails to provide any concrete evidence she has been operating in this business," she said.

"At this point in time, it's not a strong case for them in respect to how they've charged her."

Magistrate Stephen Courtney described Mr Markcrow's offending as having a "particularly sinister flavour" but believed Ms Sawyer could be granted bail under strict conditions.

"More may well be revealed once the investigation is complete," he said.

She was granted bail in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday afternoon.

Mr Markcrow appeared briefly in the Brisbane Magistrates Court and did not apply for bail.

The court heard he was on a return to prison warrant.

While appearing in the dock, Mr Markcrow blew a kiss to supporters sitting in the public gallery.

Both matters will return to court later this month.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/brisbane-prostitution-charges-sex-slaves-mount-gravatt/13125336

Jeffrey Epstein victim compensation fund puts payout offers on hold

Priscilla DeGregory - February 4, 2021

COVID-19 is causing a delay in the compensation payout to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, as the settlement fund is running low on cash because the late sex perv’s estate is having trouble finding buyers for his many properties, officials announced Thursday.

Victims’ Compensation Program administrator Jordana Feldman said that she won’t make any more compensation offers to victims until after March 25 because the estate informed her it doesn’t currently have enough cash to replenish the fund.

Estate lawyer Daniel Weiner confirmed that the estate is having issues selling off its non-liquid assets to convert them into liquid cash due to the havoc the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked on the global economy.

“Because the great bulk of the estate’s assets are illiquid — including residential properties, private investments and aircraft — the co-executors have been attempting for months to sell those illiquid assets in order to fund the program and cover the estate’s expenses,” Weiner said in a statement, which did not specify which of Epstein’s assets were up for sale.

“The co-executors continue to seek to liquidate assets of the estate, in the full expectation that the program can soon fully result its regular operations,” Weiner said.

Feldman said in the meantime, she will continue to accept and review claims and will be ready to begin issuing offers as soon as possible.

“Although I sincerely regret having to take this action, I have concluded that it is necessary to protect the interests of eligible claimants who have not yet resolved their claims through the program,” Feldman said in a statement. “Issuing a compensation offer that cannot be timely and fully funded and paid, consistent with the way the program has operated to date, would compromise claimants’ interests and the guiding principles of the program.”

“I remain deeply committed to ensuring that the program continues to operate with transparency and integrity, and that all eligible claimants receive the compensation and validation they deserve,” Feldman said.

Since the fund went into effect in June, it has received over 150 claims by women who say they were sexually abused by Epstein. The fund has paid out $50 million to those who had eligible claims, Feldman said.

Weiner said that as of Dec. 31, Epstein’s estate was valued at $240 million after the estate paid taxes, funded the victim compensation fund and defended against multiple lawsuits. Epstein’s estate was once valued at $634 million.

Weiner said while over $50 million has already been paid out to victims, the estate has funded the program with $87 million so far, not including additional costs it has paid to run the program.

That case, brought in January 2020, alleged that Epstein ran a decades-long sex-trafficking scheme from his private Caribbean island.

The 66-year-old hedge funder died by suicide in August 2019 in a Lower Manhattan jail cell as he was awaiting criminal sex-trafficking charges.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/04/epstein-victim-compensation-fund-puts-payout-offers-on-hold/

Ghislaine Maxwell Claims It’s ‘Clear, Explicit, and Unambiguous’ That Jeffrey Epstein’s 2007 Plea Deal Protects Her to This Day

ADAM KLASFELD - Feb 5th, 2021

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Ghislaine Maxwell’s latest effort to thwart her prosecution for allegedly enabling Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex-trafficking empire will test the outer limits of the adage: a deal’s a deal.

Signed in 2007, Epstein’s plea deal with the U.S. government allowing him to characterize his alleged child sex-trafficking empire as soliciting prostitution from a minor had an unusual clause that sparked a scandal after the Miami Herald called attention to it roughly a decade later.

The United States agreed “it will not institute any criminal charges against potential co-conspirators of Epstein,” in one of seven pages of clauses negotiated under the supervision of Florida’s then-top federal prosecutor Alex Acosta and approved by the senior Justice Department officials.

With Epstein now dead, Maxwell’s lawyers claim that the agreement from more than a decade ago is very much alive in one of several defense motions they filed late on Thursday night.

“‘The government cannot now ask this court to rewrite the agreement in a way more favorable to its current position, nor overlook key distinctions in the agreement, by claiming that they were drafting mistakes or omissions,” Maxwell’s attorney Mark S. Cohen, from the firm Cohen & Gresser, writes in a 38-page memorandum. “Nor may the government ask this court to construe ambiguities in its favor, in contravention of black-letter law that non-prosecution agreements must be construed strictly against the government.”

Long anticipated but now-filed, Maxwell’s motion to dismiss her prosecution as a violation of that dusty agreement represents a reckoning over a plea agreement that has sparked as much scrutiny and outrage as any in U.S. criminal law.

The publication of the Herald‘s investigative series Perversion of Justice renewed interest in the deal at a time when its author, Acosta, had been serving as then-President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor and Epstein’s attorney Alan Dershowitz had been one of the White House’s most visible defenders. Acosta resigned after the paper’s exposé, and the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility would find that he exercised “poor judgment” and “agreed to several unusual and problematic terms” in the non-prosecution agreement.

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Maxwell’s lawyers claim it is too late for buyer’s remorse.

“The government is bound by the agreement it negotiated and executed,” the defense brief states. “And the [non-prosecution agreement] is clear, explicit, and unambiguous.”

Epstein’s alleged victims have tried, and failed, to invalidate it.

In 2019, a federal judge in Florida found that prosecutors violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by negotiating the non-prosecution agreement without consulting the women Epstein allegedly abused when they were girls, but the women ultimately lost their effort to void the agreement. The document stood as a Chekhovian gun pointed at any case that U.S. prosecutors would bring against Epstein’s associates.

Federal prosecutors have anticipated this defense motion and believe that they can easily overcome it, claiming that the deal negotiated on behalf of the “United States” referred to the Southern District of Florida and not the Southern District of New York.

The government also argued that Maxwell, not being a party to the deal, cannot enforce its provisions.

In a six-count indictment, prosecutors claimed that Maxwell groomed minor girls for Epstein’s predation and lied about her role in his sex-trafficking Pyramid scheme under oath in civil litigation. The defense argued that the case is really about the government mollifying decades of public controversy in the case, up to allowing Epstein to turn up dead in his pre-trial lockup.

“One does not need to engage in complex analysis to understand what has happened here: the government has sought to substitute our client for Jeffrey Epstein, even if it means stretching—and ultimately exceeding—the bounds of the law,” the defense said.

Maxwell’s motion about the non-prosecution agreement was one of more than a dozen that her defense team filed in a blizzard late on Thursday night. Her lawyers also alleged that the allegations over “25-year-old conduct” are time-barred and that prosecutors obtained evidence for the perjury charge against her improperly. She hopes to dismiss all of the counts of her indictment and suppress broad swaths of the evidence against her for supposed constitutional and due-process infirmities.

The Southern District of New York declined to comment on the latest defense barrage.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/ghislaine-maxwell-claims-its-clear-explicit-and-unambiguous-that-jeffrey-epsteins-2007-plea-deal-protects-her-to-this-day/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.142.1.pdf

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.142.0_1.pdf

Craig Kelly MP grows anti-vax COVID support base after Scott Morrison reprimand

Despite peddling dangerous conspiracy theories and being dressed down by Scott Morrison, rogue MP Craig Kelly’s popularity continues to grow.

Ellen Whinnett - February 6, 2021

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s public rebuke of Liberal MP Craig Kelly for spruiking unproven COVID-19 treatments appears to have boosted the maverick MP’s popularity and influence on social media.

The member for Hughes in Sydney’s south was hauled into the PM’s office this week for a 30-minute lecture on how he was undermining the Government’s message on the COVID-19 vaccine.

The PM had earlier made a cease-and-desist phone call to Mr Kelly when the backbencher appeared on a podcast with anti-vaxxer chef Pete Evans, who was fined last year for trying to flog a $15,000 light machine he claimed could cure COVID.

But after a live-to-air clash with journalist Allison Langdon on the Today show, followed by a toe-to-toe row with Labor’s Tanya Plibersek in front of the Canberra press gallery, Mr Morrison upped the pressure.

Mr Kelly was ordered into the PM’s office for a talking to, whereupon he agreed to cease what Labor has described as a campaign of disinformation.

But far from the controversy putting off his constituents, Mr Kelly has picked up support.

His official Facebook page, where he posts an eclectic array of articles supporting unproven COVID treatments, questions climate change, and suggested making children wear face masks was akin to child abuse (children do not have to wear face-masks in Australia), had 86,000 followers last month.

By Thursday night, he had almost 95,000, many of them defending him from what they saw as a concerted attack by the mainstream media, the government establishment, and the Left of politics. He picked up another 1000 followers in the 24 hours to Friday morning.

While Mr Morrison and Labor leader Anthony Albanese both have a much larger group of social media followers, Mr Kelly has vastly more than other backbench MPs, meaning his reach and ability to talk directly to like-minded voters is powerful.

This was part of the dilemma for Mr Morrison, who had to tread carefully for fear Mr Kelly would go completely rogue.

“You don’t want to make a martyr out of him. Every time you do he picks up another 5000 followers,’’ one source close to the action said.

Senior Liberals, more interested in spruiking the Government’s COVID vaccine and highlighting Labor leadership tensions, were fretting about his freelancing, which was dominating the airwaves.

“It’s just not helpful,’’ one MP said. Another said his views were “dangerous.’’

It’s not the first time Mr Kelly, who worked for his parents’ furniture business before being elected in 2010, has been dragged into line by the Prime Minister’s Office over his Facebook page. It happened a year ago, after another high-profile clash with a woman.

Mr Kelly had appeared live on the top-rating Good Morning Britain show in the UK last January, got into a stoush with the presenters over Australia’s bushfire disaster, and took umbrage at being called a “climate denier.’’

He used Facebook to describe Laura Tobin, the program’s meteorologist, as an “ignorant Pommy weather girl,’’ in a post which unleashed a stream of sexist and vile comments from some of his followers, and led to an order from the PM’s office to delete the post.

He did.

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Mr Kelly’s last half-dozen posts are about China’s use of coal, a news article about “global cooling’’, defending himself over his support of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID, an article entitled The Hydroxychloroquine Scandal (published by the Epoch Times, backed by the Falun Gong movement), another post about hydroxychloroquine and a sixth on “climate alarmism.’’

He added a further post late on Thursday praising Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy, who has supported Mr Kelly’s debate on the two drugs. In his post, Mr Kelly asked people to bring it to the attention of “Tanya and Ally” – presumably referring to Ms Plibersek and Ms Langdon.

A comment by one follower on the article about the “scandal’’ involving hydroxychloroquine (which is not recommended by leading health agencies in Australia, the EU, the UK or US) sums up the vibe of many of those posting.

“Simple, two reasons. One is that it would not make enough money for Big Pharma. Two: President Trump praised them, so it had to be attacked from the biginning! (sic) Deep State works!’’

The idea of a deep state network working against the interests of its citizens is one spread by QAnon conspiracy theorists. Mr Evans has posted QAnon messages on his social media in the past.

Mr Kelly fell out with the Liberal pre-selectors in his seat years ago, and has been saved twice from being disendorsed, first by former PM Malcolm Turnbull, and most recently by Mr Morrison.

Liberal MPs have made clear he won’t be saved a third time.

Queensland Nationals are now making mischief and suggesting Mr Kelly should join their party.

Mr Kelly told News Corp he knew some would attack him after he agreed to “being interviewed by Mr Evans.’’

“However I thought it an important principle of free speech and a push back against ‘cancel culture,’’ he said.

“I don’t agree with everything that Mr Evans has said – but we have to be able to debate issues with those we don’t agree with, if that’s not the case, it’s sad reflection on public debate in 2021.’’

He did not answer questions on whether he would receive the Government’s COVID-19 vaccine, or whether he would encourage others to do so.

In the podcast, he again spruiked the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, citing unnamed “studies from all around the world’’ and claiming “big government’’ had “interfered’’ to stop doctors proscribing the two drugs.

“In a free democratic society that decision should be between myself and my doctor. There shouldn’t be someone second guessing that decision from some office and ivory tower down here in Canberra.

“We’ve had close to a thousand Australians die here without, with being denied access to a medical treatment.’’

Amid widespread concern Mr Kelly was undermining confidence in the Government’s COVID-19 vaccine, Mr Morrison made a rare statement to the House distancing the Government from Mr Kelly’s views and urging the public to only follow expert health advice.

The PM also tweeted out a link to an interview Australia’s most senior health official Professor Brendan Murphy did with the ABC, saying “this is well worth a watch. Professor Brendan Murphy, who heads the Government’s expert advisory group on COVID-19 vaccines, clears up some of the misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.’’

The key line from Professor Murphy was: “There is no current evidence that supports a role for hydroxychloroquine (in) stopping the coronavirus pandemic.’’

After his meeting with Mr Morrison, Mr Kelly issued a statement where he broadly agreed to toe the Government line.

Unsurprisingly, he has not posted that statement to his Facebook followers.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/craig-kelly-mp-grows-antivax-covid-support-base-after-scott-morrison-reprimand/news-story/49636064f463ac5e2eb9bd8e9c6ba0b2

Afghan militia leader Matiullah Khan gave gold watches to Australian Special Forces commanders

Andrew Greene - 6 February 2021

Australian Special Forces commanders were given gold watches by a corrupt Afghan warlord who doubled as a powerful local police chief.

The ABC can reveal notorious Afghan militia leader Matiullah Khan, who was killed in 2015, regularly presented Rado watches worth more than $1,000 to senior Australian soldiers during rotations in Uruzgan province.

Former soldiers who served in Australia's Special Operations Task Group told the ABC the lavish gifts caused unease among troops.

Khan, a provincial strongman with a reputation for brutality, was a key figure during Australia's lengthy involvement in the Afghanistan War.

Believed to have been killed in a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul, he was a friend and ally of former President Hamid Karzai.

Khan's political connections and his private army helped keep the Taliban at bay in Uruzgan Province, where Australian forces operated for many years.

He grew rich through coalition military support, magnifying his already substantial power and influence.

When he became police chief, his officers were accused of murder and torture.

Australian National University Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies John Blaxland said Australia benefited from its close relationship with the police chief.

"He was very well connected, and he had his own force that was well-placed to strike a deal with Australia in order to keep the Australian military footprint to a minimum," he said.

"And the price of that deal was that we gave Matiullah Khan a degree of profile, prestige and influence."

Australian soldiers said Khan distributed gold watches as a demonstration of his status and to refuse the luxury items might have caused offence or embarrassment.

"Australian government practice is essentially to try to avoid receiving gifts but there are instances, particularly when dealing internationally with other cultures where it is demonstrably inappropriate not to take the gift," Professor Blaxland said.

An Australian Department of Defence spokesperson said in response that "defence policy requires that personnel do not accept or provide gifts or benefits if the acceptance or provision would create an inappropriate impression, or create a perception or expectation of preferential treatment."

"Defence does not comment on operational matters," the spokesperson also said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-06/afghan-militia-leader-gold-watches-australia-special-forces/13122922

Thousands of US marines to touch down in Darwin before June 2021

Lauren Roberts - 6 February 2021

Thousands of US marines will begin arriving in the Northern Territory within days as part of an annual training rotation, the Department of Defence has confirmed.

About 2,200 marines will arrive in Darwin from the United States between now and June this year, arriving in batches of 200-500 marines.

The Department of Defence says each marine will have to do a coronavirus test within 72 hours of their departure and show a negative result before boarding the plane to Australia.

After they touch down in the Northern Territory, the marines will have to do another COVID-19 test and then undertake 14 days of quarantine. Before leaving quarantine, each person will be tested again for COVID-19.

To accommodate the large group, the Marine Rotational Force — Darwin (MRF-D) unit has rented a secure facility outside the NT capital for most of the US arrivals to quarantine in.

The first two groups, however, will quarantine in isolated accommodation on an unnamed Australian Defence base.

Earlier this year, the use of a Darwin CBD hotel as a quarantine facility for international military arrivals was the subject of significant criticism from health groups, including the Australian Medical Association and the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the use of the leased facility and Defence base would ensure the marines' arrival had no impact on repatriating Australians from overseas, which remained a key national priority for the Australian Government.

Ms Reynolds said the rotation would build on the success of last year's modified deployment.

In 2020, the annual rotation of marines was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, and a modified rotation of about 1,200 — roughly half the usual numbers — trained in the Northern Territory.

"The ability for this year's MRF-D to go ahead under challenging global circumstances, is a testament to the endurance and adaptability of the Australia-US Alliance," Ms Reynolds said.

While in the Northern Territory, the US marines and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will do training activities including security operations and high-end live-fire exercises.

"COVID-19 permitting, the ADF and MRF-D will also train with partner countries throughout the year, including exercise Talisman Sabre," Ms Reynolds said

Exercise Talisman Saber is the largest bilateral combined training activity between the US and Australian militaries and is planned to run from June to August this year along the Queensland coast.

The arrival of the 2021 cohort will be the 10th annual rotation of US marines in Darwin.

MRF-D Commanding Officer Colonel David Banning described the alliance between the US and Australia as "outstanding".

"We are excited to commemorate the 10th anniversary with two highly capable and interoperable forces that advance our shared goals, demonstrate the strength and endurance of our alliance, and contribute to regional security," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-06/united-states-marines-to-arrive-in-darwin-amid-coronavirus/13128778

>>12836590

Arrival of the 2021 Marine Rotational Force-Darwin

6 February 2021

United States Marines from the tenth Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) will soon begin arriving in Darwin. They are the first group arriving in the Northern Territory over the next five months. Each group to arrive will be between 200-500 personnel.

Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds CSC said the rotation would build on the success of last year’s modified deployment.

“The ability for this year’s MRF-D to go ahead under challenging global circumstances, is a testament to the endurance and adaptability of the Australia-US Alliance,” Minister Reynolds said.

“The annual rotation demonstrates Australia’s and the United States’ commitment to Indo-Pacific stability and security.

“The MRF-D and Australian Defence Force (ADF) will conduct a comprehensive range of training activities, including humanitarian assistance, security operations and high-end live-fire exercises.

“COVID-19 permitting, the ADF and MRF-D will also train with partner countries throughout the year, including exercise Talisman Sabre. These opportunities are a priority for the US Force Posture Initiatives, developing people-to-people links, interoperability and the sharing of expertise.”

A total of around 2,200 personnel will arrive in Darwin by June.

The procedures for managing the MRF-D’s arrival, quarantine and possible cases of COVID-19 have been developed and agreed in full consultation with NT Health authorities and will strictly adhere to all Australian Government requirements to mitigate the risk of COVID-19.

Measures in place include:

• A comprehensive COVID-19 risk management plan, agreed to by the Northern Territory Chief Health Officer;

• All US personnel undergoing COVID-19 testing within 72 hours of departure for Australia and presenting a negative result before boarding;

• All US personnel completing mandatory 14-day quarantine, including COVID-19 testing on arrival in Australia and again before exiting quarantine; and

• MRF-D and ADF medical personnel monitoring the health of personnel.

To accommodate the US Marines this year, the MRF-D has leased a secure facility outside Darwin for the majority of personnel to complete the mandatory 14-day quarantine. However, the first two groups will quarantine in isolated accommodation on a Defence base.

The use of the leased facility and Defence base will ensure the MRF-D’s arrival has no impact on repatriating Australians from overseas, which remains a key national priority for the Australian Government.

“Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner and I have discussed the extensive arrangements that have been put in place to manage the risk of COVID-19. I have also reaffirmed the Morrison Government’s commitment to Defence investment in the Northern Territory,” Minister Reynolds said.

“I thank the Northern Territory Government for their continued support in facilitating these strategically important activities for our nation.”

The extent of COVID-19 mitigations implemented underscores the seriousness with which the Australian, Northern Territory and US Governments are prioritising the health and safety of all Australians.

“Additionally, this year marks 10 years since the United States Force Posture Initiatives were announced by Australia and the United States, and 70 years of the ANZUS treaty. During my discussions with Secretary Austin last week, I conveyed that my focus for this year included progressing bilateral force posture initiatives,” Minister Reynolds said.

The MRF-D’s arrival will have no impact on the return of Australians from overseas, and Defence is working closely with other relevant government agencies to ensure no disruption to repatriation efforts.

https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/lreynolds/media-releases/arrival-2021-marine-rotational-force-darwin

>Talisman Sabre

>Magic Sword

Kevin Rudd Tweets

Murdoch has zero interest in stopping dangerous far-right extremism. He sees QAnon as just another marketing tool to sucker people into his parallel universe where he can take their money and tell them how to vote. #MurdochRoyalCommission

https://twitter.com/MrKRudd/status/1357519643410272256

Tucker Carlson defended QAnon and said attacks on it were part of a government plot to control people's minds

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday defended the QAnon conspiracy-theory movement, whose adherents groundlessly believe that Donald Trump is planning a purge of child-abusing Democrats who run the world.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fox-news-tucker-carlson-defends-qanon-conspiracy-theory-movement-2021-1

—

In America, the Murdoch media continues to support a QAnon congresswoman who is notorious for her racist, antisemitic nonsense. The lesson for Australia? Murdoch will back bigger fruitcakes than Craig Kelly if he thinks there’s money and power to be gained

https://twitter.com/MrKRudd/status/1357556909650243584

Fringe-Watching: Marjorie Taylor Greene

From The Daily Show

Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s marriage breakdown after husband had secret affair with her colleague

Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent 804 days in Iranian prisons, before returning home to find out her husband was having an affair with her colleague.

Stephen Drill - February 7, 2021

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It was the ultimate betrayal. Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent 804 days in Iranian prisons, mostly in solitary confinement in a 3m x 2m cell with not enough warm clothes or blankets for the freezing temperatures.

She also went through psychological torture, with other prisoners at the same jails saying that they were regularly forced into fake executions.

But back in Australia, her Russian-Israeli husband Ruslan Hodorov was having an affair with her University of Melbourne colleague and PhD supervisor Dr Kylie Baxter.

Despite sources revealing some other people were aware of the affair, Dr Moore-Gilbert would only learn of the betrayal after arriving back in Australia in November last year.

The University of Melbourne was informed of Dr Baxter and Mr Hodorov’s relationship on November 29 last year, two days after Dr Moore-Gilbert landed in Australia.

Dr Moore-Gilbert, 33, is now divorcing Mr Hodorov, who was next of kin and a point of contact for the Australian government advisers working on her case.

He kept up the facade of a doting husband to her family during her jail ordeal on spying charges she always strongly denied.

Friends of the couple revealed Mr Hodorov, 31, and Dr Baxter, 43, who was married with children, secretly began their affair about a year after Dr Moore-Gilbert’s arrest, which was in September 2018.

Mr Hodorov had been keeping Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family, who live in Bathurst, NSW, informed of work on her case.

They only found out about his new relationship at the same time as Dr Moore-Gilbert.

Dr Baxter, who was also a lecturer in Middle East studies at the University of Melbourne, had told colleagues she was in direct contact with Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family, when she was voluntarily campaigning on her behalf.

Dr Baxter travelled to the US in 2019 to visit Scholars at Risk, which is headquartered at New York University.

The group provides “advisory and referral services” to more than 300 academics across the world, who were “suffering grave threats to their lives.”

In a lecture that Dr Baxter gave on Academic Freedom for a new course she was hoping to set up, she said that “the university has approved me to go to New York in November”.

She said the course would help “influence Australian government policy” on cases of detained academics.

“In an ideal crazy part of the Baxter world, in five years’ time, a DFAT meeting would be at least cognisant that the Melbourne Uni project was taking on a particular case,” Dr Baxter told students.

“Is it with public petitions, is it interviews, is it media, how do we best influence policy?”

However, it was understood that the New York trip was not funded by the university, nor did it ask or authorise Dr Baxter to speak on its behalf about Dr Moore-Gilbert’s case.

Dr Baxter and some of her colleagues volunteered to be involved in Dr Moore-Gilbert’s case, but were not asked for help by the university.

The volunteer group kept in contact with the university about what other staff, human rights groups and students had been saying, but they were not part of the official team, according to sources familiar with the matter.

That official team, of which Dr Baxter was not included and received no funds from, was backed with significant investment in staff and money, sources said.

Dr Baxter informed the University of Melbourne of her relationship with Mr Hodorov on November 29, 2020, after Dr Moore-Gilbert had landed back in Australia, and eight months after she had resigned from the university.

Some of Dr Moore-Gilbert’s colleagues and supporters were aware of the relationship before the disclosure to the university. The University of Melbourne said it would not comment on Dr Moore-Gilbert’s private life.

“The University is grateful that Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert has returned to Australia and is recovering with family and friends,” a statement said.

“Our priority is her health and wellbeing. We are looking forward to her returning to campus when she is ready.

“We will not be commenting on Kylie’s private life.”

(continued)

>>12846304

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The shock at Mr Hodorov’s new relationship would have been immense for Dr Moore-Gilbert, who vigorously defended him while she was in jail.

She refused a fiendish plot by her captors, the ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), who wanted her to lure Mr Hodorov there as a trap.

A letter from Dr Moore-Gilbert to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, smuggled out of Evin prison in Iran to this newspaper in late 2019, revealed how the IRGC had tried to set a trap for Mr Hodorov, whom they wrongly suspected of being an Israeli spy.

This newspaper was aware of the IRGC’s erroneous suspicions about Mr Hodorov’s links with Israel in September 2019, but chose not to publish to avoid harming Dr Moore-Gilbert’s chances of release.

“The Revolutionary Guard have imprisoned me in these terrible conditions for over nine months in order to extort me both personally and my government,” Dr Moore-Gilbert wrote to the PM.

“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 new citizen) into joining me in an Iranian prison.”

Dr Moore-Gilbert married Mr Hodorov in 2017. They were still in the honeymoon period when she left for a trip to Iran.

Mr Hodorov maintained a blog before Dr Moore-Gilbert’s arrest where he discussed his early life in Russia before he moved to Israel in the 1990s.

About one million Russian Jews moved to Israel at the time, following the fall of the Soviet Union as they felt persecuted there.

Among discussions about his studies and views on sustainability, he also talked about his insecurities and also wrote about his leadership aspirations, quoting famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

Part of that letter defending Mr Hodorov, which included details of Dr Moore-Gilbert’s hunger strike plan, was reported by this newspaper on Christmas Eve, 2019, prompting Mr Morrison to respond to her case at a press conference that day.

It was around this time, or slightly earlier, that Australia’s top spy Nick Warner, who was Australia’s ambassador to Iran in the 1990s, began a campaign to free Dr Moore-Gilbert.

Mr Warner was able to use back channels gained during his time as ambassador to speak directly with the IRGC, the military in Iran who in some cases have more power than the government.

Dr Moore-Gilbert had been held a 3m x 2m cell in unit 2a of Evin prison for most of her sentence. Prisoners in that unit are given only three blankets, one to use as a mattress, one to keep warm and one as a pillow.

In a tweet on December 26, 2020, Dr Moore-Gilbert described some of the conditions when referring to another prisoner: “She is blindfolded every time she leaves her small, cold, empty cell. She is even masked and blindfolded when taken to the outdoor ‘exercise’ area. If she refuses, she will be handcuffed and dragged there by force. No one has heard from her since her transfer.

Unit 2a was controlled by the powerful IRGC, meaning that the Australian government needed to negotiate with them, rather than the Tehran government.

Dr Moore-Gilbert’s freedom was co-ordinated with the help of Thailand, who released three failed terrorists, including one who had blown his own legs off, on the same day as her.

Days after Dr Moore-Gilbert’s release, Iran’s propaganda machine released a series of videos erroneously claiming that Mr Hodorov was a spy.

(continued)

>>12846322

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WHO IS RUSLAN HODOROV?

It was the fairytale dream that became a nightmare.

Ruslan Hodorov followed Kylie Moore-Gilbert around the world, from Israel to Cambridge in England, where she was studying, and finally to Australia.

They’d set up home in Melbourne’s outer east, where Dr Moore-Gilbert bought a house, shortly before she was arrested at Tehran’s International Airport in September 2018 on trumped up spying charges that she has always denied.

Ruslan Hodorov and Kylie Moore-Gilbert met almost a decade ago in Israel before they finally married in 2017 in a traditional Jewish ceremony at Mt Baw Baw in Victoria’s east.

Mr Hodorov packed his belongings for Cambridge, where Dr Moore-Gilbert, a dual UK-Australian national was studying. Mr Hod­orov did not study while he was there.

When Dr Moore-Gilbert finished her Masters they moved to Melbourne.

Most of Mr Hodorov’s online presence has been scrubbed, except for a 5798 word blog, where he poured out his fears, insecurities and complaints about trying to find his way in Australia.

In 2016, he wrote that he walked away from a “full-time management position” to study a “Bachelor Of Science Advanced Global Challenges”.

He complained about ­approaching the “big 3-0” ­although he acknowledged that he had a supportive relationship. “Have you ever felt bogged-down in trying to solve something alone, or buried under a workload?” he wrote.

“Relationships are important for many reasons, and one of them is that they can help us gain this perspective, overcome mental barriers or provide a shoulder to lean on throughout the journey.”

The couple’s seemingly fairytale romance came to a shattering halt in 2018 when Dr Moore-Gilbert was arrested by Iranian authorities as she was returning home from a conference.

She would spend the next 804 days imprisoned at Tehran’s Evin prison and later in the notorious Qarchark prison, considered one of the worst ­female jails in the world.

Iranian regime propaganda outlets claimed Mr Hodorov, who migrated to Israel in the early 1990s like more than 1 million other Russian Jews, was a spy.

He did enlist in the Israel Defence Forces, which is compulsory for both men and women when they turn 18.

But there is no evidence to support the espionage 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 (SHABAK),” a video released by a Twitter account linked to the regime claimed after Dr Moore-Gilbert’s release.

However, there is no suggestion that the claims are anything but a fantasy of the paranoid Iranians who were trying to justify keeping Dr Moore-Gilbert under horrific detention conditions.

Dr Moore-Gilbert’s letters, smuggled from Evin prison, revealed she had resisted an Iranian plot to get him to travel there to be caught in a trap.

She also refused to become a spy for Iran, saying she would leave the country as a free woman, always denying any spying charges.

When she returned home, according to friends, she expected to wait until after the two weeks’ quarantine to be ­reunited with her husband.

But soon after she arrived she received a message from him saying that it was over and that he had moved on with a new relationship.

That new relationship would be with her former friend and University of Melbourne colleague, Dr Baxter.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/kylie-mooregilberts-marriage-breakdown-after-husband-had-secret-affair-with-her-colleague/news-story/15788021717a5ee1b2979eb476dd4dcb

China confirms detained Australian Cheng Lei is accused of leaking state secrets, as her family breaks their silence

Bill Birtles - 8 February 2021

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The family of an Australian single mother detained in China on national security grounds has broken their silence, saying her children are devastated by her absence and keep asking when she is coming home.

Cheng Lei, a business anchor for China's state television network CGTN, has been locked up in Beijing without charge or access to a lawyer for six months.

In recent days, Chinese authorities confirmed for the first time that she is accused of unlawfully supplying or intending to supply state secrets or intelligence to an overseas organisation or individual.

Authorities have not provided any further details, but under Chinese law, punishments can range widely, including a life sentence for the most serious offences.

Locked in a cell without fresh air or natural light, Ms Cheng has faced multiple interrogations and recently guards tightened restrictions on her ability to write letters and exercise.

"When we were first notified about her detention, we were all in shock," said Louisa Wen, Ms Cheng's niece and spokeswoman for the family.

"We don't understand anything about the case.

"But we do know she's been in detention for five-and-a-half months, and her conditions are worsening."

Ms Cheng's 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son are being cared for by their grandmother in Melbourne.

When coronavirus shut their Beijing school in early 2020, Ms Cheng sent them temporarily to Melbourne, unaware that the pandemic would later shut China's border.

Her plans to come home to Australia to reunite with them were scuttled when a group of state security police arrived at her apartment in Beijing's inner-east on August 13, taking her and her electronic devices away.

"I think at 9 and 11, you're old enough to understand a little bit about why Mum isn't here, or why Mum isn't able to contact you," Ms Wen said.

"But I feel like the children don't fully understand the situation, so it's probably quite tough on the kids wondering what's going on.

"Every time we do something fun, we're thinking of her and how she can't enjoy these things with us."

Ms Cheng has not been charged, but in a sign her case is progressing, she has now been formally "arrested".

It is a step that confirms investigators are preparing to prosecute her, but leaves an open-ended timeline for how long it will take.

In some other national security cases, investigators have managed to use various measures to continually prolong the time suspects spend detained while they continue to gather evidence.

"I don't think she would have done anything to harm national security in any way intentionally," Ms Wen said.

"We don't know if she's just been caught up in something that she herself didn't realise."

(continued)