/qresearch/ - Q Research

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CURRENT DOUGH

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Famed businessman Sir Ronald Brierley pleads guilty to possessing child abuse material

HEATH PARKES-HUPTON - APRIL 1, 2021

Millionaire businessman Sir Ronald Alfred Brierley has pleaded guilty in court to possessing graphic sexual images, with court documents saying they involved girls as young as two years old.

The elderly knight’s barrister Lisa-Claire Hutchinson asked that he not be required to stand in the Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday “due to his age” as she entered guilty pleas to three counts of possessing child abuse material.

The court heard that Brierley still disputes the number of images police allege in those charges.

An additional 14 counts of the same charge laid upon the famed corporate raider were withdrawn and he has been committed to the District Court for sentence.

The offence carries a maximum jail term of 10 years prison.

Now 83, Brierley was stopped by Australian Border Force officers at Sydney Airport after jetting in from Fiji in December 2019.

Australian Federal Police alleged at the time that he was caught with thousands of images and videos on electronic devices found in his carry on bags and at his Point Piper mansion.

According to court documents, he had photographs stashed on storage devices showing young girls aged “approximately between 2 years to 15 years of age in sexually suggestive poses”.

Court documents state that officers found 1615 images on a storage device at his eastern suburbs home during raids in 2019, although Brierley disputes this.

When Brierley was searched at the airport earlier that morning he was in possession of “one computer image” of child abuse material on a storage device, court documents state.

The charges that have now been withdrawn alleged the possession of tens of thousands more files discovered during the two searches, at the airport and at Brierley’s luxury home.

After the short mention, the frail, retired tycoon was helped to his feet by his solicitor Penny Musgrave before leaving the court using a walking stick.

Brierley had been considered business royalty in both his birth country of New Zealand and adopted home of Australia.

The Wellington-born former head of the Bank of New Zealand was knighted in 1988 and also served on the board of the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust.

Brierley will return to court on April 30, 2021.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/famed-businessman-sir-ronald-brierley-pleads-guilty-to-possessing-child-abuse-material/news-story/c537452e8dedea4a13895f87db36e231

Australia discussing 'contingency' plans with United States over possible Taiwan conflict

Andrew Greene - 1 April 2021

A senior American diplomat says Australia and the United States are discussing contingency plans in case a military conflict erupts over Taiwan.

The US embassy's most senior diplomat currently posted to Australia, Michael Goldman, has also praised Australia for standing up to China's "economic coercion" during the past year.

"We have enormous respect for what Australia's done over the past year, in calling for a COVID investigation, in standing up to economic coercion, and I should say in the course of that proving that your economy is much more resilient in terms of your markets than you may have anticipated," he said.

In a wide-ranging discussion on an Australian National University podcast, Mr Goldman was asked to describe the significance of Taiwan in conversations between the US and its allies in the region, including Australia.

"I think we're committed as allies to working together, not only in making our militaries interoperable and functioning well together but also in strategic planning," Mr Goldman said.

"And when you look at strategic planning, it covers the range of contingencies that you've mentioned, of which Taiwan is obviously an important component," he added.

Across the region, concerns are growing over escalating tensions between China and the democratic nation of Taiwan, which China considers a renegade territory of its own.

Mr Goldman is the chargé d'affaires in Canberra, with President Joe Biden yet to announce a replacement for the Donald Trump-appointed former ambassador Arthur Culvahouse, who returned home earlier this year.

He said while the US was focused on the risk of Taiwan facing an "overt crude military intervention", it was "also concerned with all sorts of other aspects of coercion that don't quite reach the level of a military invasion".

"You can think of all sorts of things, ranging from a blockade to cyber incursions to, you know, lobbing missiles over the island. We're thinking about all sorts of those other things," Mr Goldman said.

Australia does not formally recognise Taiwan diplomatically, but the government regularly calls for a "peaceful resolution" of differences between China and the small independent nation through dialogue and without the threat or use of force or coercion.

During his conversation with the head of ANU's national security college, Professor Rory Medcalf, Mr Goldman did not indicate whether the Biden administration expected Australia to deploy any personnel in the event of an armed conflict over Taiwan.

Mr Goldman, who has previously been posted to Taiwan, said the US was "bound by a moral obligation and also a matter of legislation to help Taiwan with its legitimate self-defence needs".

In December, a senior Taiwanese politician called for greater security and economic cooperation with Australia as his nation tries to counter China's increasingly assertive military.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-01/australia-discuss-contingency-plans-us-possible-conflict-taiwan/100043826

Capitol Riot Exposed QAnon’s Violent Potential

Masood Farivar - March 31, 2021

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WASHINGTON - Many followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory see themselves as digital warriors battling an imaginary cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who rule the world from the convenience of their keyboards.

But the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump exposed the potential for violence in a movement that reared its head on the fringes of the internet in 2018 and now boasts millions of adherents around the world.

At least 34 QAnon adherents participated in the Capitol siege that disrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory, while 32 other QAnon followers committed ideologically motivated crimes before and after the Capitol insurrection — for a total of 66 who engaged in criminal conduct.

This is according to researchers at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, who have conducted the most comprehensive study yet of QAnon’s criminal activities. The conspiracy theorists' alleged offenses ranged from weapons possession to kidnapping and murder.

The 34 followers who took part in the Capitol riot represent more than 8% of the roughly 400 rioters who have been arrested to date; that shows a greater QAnon presence in the riot than had been previously estimated. The number is likely to increase as the FBI continues to investigate the Capitol riot, said Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at START.

In the latest case not included in the START report, a Texas-based lifestyle coach and her QAnon-following boyfriend were arrested last week on charges of storming the Capitol, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday.

While the vast majority of QAnon believers don't advocate violence, the report shows the movement's potential for violence, an assessment first made by the FBI in 2019.

"Not all the violent extremists are jihadists or white supremacists, they come from these conspiracy theory groups as well," Jensen said in an interview.

Among the most notorious QAnon supporters arrested in the Capitol riot was Jacob Chansley, a 33-year-old Arizona man known as "QAnon Shaman." Sporting horns, a bearskin headdress, and red, white and blue face paint, he entered the Senate chamber where he left a threatening note for then Vice President Mike Pence that read, "It's Only a Matter of Time. Justice is Coming,” according to court documents.

The QAnon movement took off in late 2017 when an anonymous prognosticator began posting on the 4chan imageboard about an alleged plot by Satan-worshipping pedophiles and global elites seeking to undermine Trump. Though Q's predictions have failed to materialize, the conspiracy has lived on.

The first known QAnon-inspired criminal act occurred in June 2018 when QAnon follower Matthew Wright had a standoff with law enforcement officers in the middle of a bridge in Arizona, according to Travis View, co-host of the QAnon Anonymous Podcast.

Wright demanded the release of a Justice Department inspector general report on the Russia investigation that he believed would "reveal all of the things that the deep state was supposedly doing," View said.

"He was certainly motivated by QAnon ideology," View said.

(continued)

>>13341936

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The following year, Anthony Comello killed suspected Gambino crime family boss Francesco Cali outside the victim’s home, believing Cali was part of the deep state — the suspected invisible, sinister power structure — according to View. It was one of three homicides linked to QAnon since 2018.

"A lot of QAnon followers have this sense of moral righteousness that they are fighting a very noble crusade and this allows them to [use it] as moral justification to do some very dangerous and criminal things, which is the case with all extremists," View said.

The START report on QAnon offenders is part of an ongoing study of radicalization in the United States. It comes amid heightened concern in the U.S. about domestic violent extremism in the wake of the Capitol riot.

Reflecting the makeup of the broader QAnon stratosphere, the QAnon offenders studied by START are a diverse group.

“Some come from affluent backgrounds, with good educations and work experience, and have no known criminal histories,” Jensen said. “Others were unemployed at the time of their arrests, come from poor socio-economic backgrounds, and have substance abuse or mental health issues.”

However, several characteristics set them apart from other far-right extremists. For one, the QAnon adherents in the study tended to be an older group, averaging 42 in age. There were also far more women in their ranks; 16 of the 66 QAnon adherents facing charges are women. Among the 35 arrested before the Capitol riot, 63% had documented mental illness while 44% radicalized after experiencing trauma. Three of those people took part in the riot and were arrested again.

"There are a number of [women] whose children have been victims of physical or sexual abuse by family members [or] their children had been taken away from them," Jensen said. "That really sparked their kind of radicalization process into the movement, that they were drawn to the narrative that QAnon is fighting this ring of criminals that are engaging in child sex trafficking."

There were notable differences between the QAnon followers who took part in the riot and those who were arrested earlier. The most glaring was that those who took part in the riot had lower rates of substance abuse, mental illness, and unemployment. The non-QAnon rioters also had a generally low rate of unemployment, suggesting that the pro-Trump mob was a relatively well-off group with the means to take time off and travel to Washington.

Twelve of the 66 had known ties to other extremist groups, suggesting cross-pollination across extremist lines.

Seven belonged to the so-called "sovereign citizens" anti-government movement, two each were members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, and one was affiliated with the Wolverine Watchmen militia. But only two of the 12 — Oath Keepers Joshua Macias and Antonio Lamotta — participated in the Capitol riot.

In most cases, Jensen said, the QAnon followers with “dual affiliations” had already been immersed in other movements before embracing the conspiracy theory.

Colin Clarke, director of policy and research at the Soufan Group, said far-right groups see QAnon conspiracy theorists as "useful fools."

"We've seen on the Telegram channels online discussions from other aspects of the far-right, openly talking about whether or not and how to recruit these people now that these conspiracies have proven bankrupt," Clarke said.

What connects the two movements, Clarke said, is "a heavy dose of anti-Semitism" that permeates the conspiracy theory.

https://www.voanews.com/usa/capitol-riot-exposed-qanons-violent-potential

>>13341936

START releases new analysis of QAnon offenders in the United States

Erin Copland - February 24, 2021

A new research brief from START's Radicalization and Disengagement (RaD) team examines the characteristics of QAnon offenders in the United States. The new research brief explores both the characteristics of QAnon offenders, and the offenses they commit.

As of February 24, 2021, 56 QAnon followers have committed ideologically-motivated crimes in the United States, according to a new research brief. This includes two offenders who were inspired by the PizzaGate conspiracy, a precursor to QAnon, who committed crimes in 2016, and 27 individuals who participated in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. The offenders come from 27 states, including 7 from California, 4 from Arizona, 3 from New Jersey, 3 from New York, 3 from Pennsylvania, and 3 from Virginia. Using auxiliary data from the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) project, these infographics provide information on the characteristics of U.S. QAnon offenders and their crimes.

The brief, "QAnon Offenders in the United States" is available on the START website. Follow our Radicalization and Disengagement (RaD) team on Twitter for more: @RaD_UMD.

https://www.start.umd.edu/news/start-releases-new-analysis-qanon-offenders-united-states

—

QAnon Offenders in the United States

Abstract:

As of March 23, 2021, 66 QAnon followers have committed ideologically-motivated crimes in the United States. This includes two offenders who were inspired by the PizzaGate conspiracy, a precursor to QAnon, who committed crimes in 2016, and 34 individuals who participated in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. The offenders come from 30 states, including 9 from California, 4 from Arizona, and 4 from New Jersey. Using auxiliary data from the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) project, these infographics provide information on the characteristics of U.S. QAnon offenders and their crimes.

Full Citation:

Jensen, Michael and Sheehan Kane. 2021. "QAnon Offenders in the United States," College Park, MD. March.

START Author(s):

Michael Jensen, Sheehan Kane

Publication URL:

https://www.start.umd.edu/sites/default/files/publications/local_attachments/START%20QAnon%20Research%20Brief_3_23.pdf

https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/qanon-offenders-united-states

Dutton’s appointment in Canberra hints at more hawkish stance on China

Yu Lei - Mar 31, 2021

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been forced to reshuffle his cabinet after weeks of shocking allegations of mistreatment of women in federal politics. "Hawkish" Australian politician Peter Dutton - former home affairs minister - has now become the new defense minister.

Dutton has sharply criticized China for launching so-called cyber attacks against Australia, and smeared the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. He is also an extreme populist with a strong tendency of racism. These characteristics have helped Dutton win the favor of Australia's populist and racist political forces and the US' ultra-right political forces. It's fair to say Dutton becoming defense minister is due to the support of ultra-right political forces inside and outside Australia.

It is expected that Dutton may strengthen military cooperation with the US, including purchasing military equipment from the US such as fighters, submarines and missiles. On the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the South China Sea issue, Dutton may further follow the US' suit and face China with a tougher attitude.

Australia has easily made money by exporting minerals to China. It does not care much about spending money on purchasing military equipment from the US because this can please the US, win the support of US government and military. Only in this way can the Morrison government consolidate its position and cabinet.

In addition to the attitude toward China, Dutton's attitude toward New Zealand is also very tough. For example, he said earlier in March that Australia was "taking the trash out" by deporting criminals to New Zealand, which triggered the latter's political backlash. Dutton becoming defense minister will further widen the gap between Australia and New Zealand. However, Dutton is an extreme populist favored by Washington.

It is expected that Australia's neighbors will not welcome Dutton's coming into power as defense minister. Australia's relations with New Zealand, Indonesia and South Pacific island countries may all be impacted. But Canberra may believe that Washington's support is all it needs.

Former Australian politician Stephen Conroy said on Monday that Australia "is clearly" looking underprepared for "any tension" in and around the South China Sea, according to Sky News. Dutton "needs to get on top of a number of issues," he said.

Australia's attitude toward the South China Sea and many other issues is in line with that of the US. With Dutton being the defense minister, Australia will take further actions to cooperate with the US to stir up South China Sea issues. It is very likely that Australia will further meddle in the South China Sea issue together with the US, but it may not dare to enter China's 12-nautical mile territorial sea. Canberra does not yet have such courage and ability.

Australia has always been tough on Asian countries, which also shows its racism. Considering the history of the US-Australia alliance and the political, economic and regional interests that Canberra has gained from it, Australia's firm domestic support of the alliance will not change in the short run. Australia's national strength cannot be compared with that of the US, but it is learning the US hawks' attitude toward China and their diplomatic policies. Australia's current national conditions do not support the country to be aggressive in all aspects. However, it seems Canberra does not believe it will pay a price by confronting Beijing.

China-US disputes will be long-term, so are China-Australia disputes. China should guide its people to understand our "tug-of-war" with the US-led Western countries will exist in the long run. We should have patience, strategy and determination.

The author is chief research fellow at the research center for Pacific island countries of Liaocheng University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1219951.shtml

WHO Covid-19 report: New Zealand shuts its eyes to appease China

WILL GLASGOW and BEN PACKHAM - APRIL 1, 2021

New Zealand has refused to stand with Australia and its other Five Eyes partners to speak out against a much-criticised World Health Organisation investigation into the origins of COVID in China, as it tries to escape Beijing’s wrath.

The shortcomings of the investigation, which has been highly sensitive in China, were imm­ediately pointed out in joint statements released by the four other Five Eyes nations — the US, Britain, Canada and Australia — as well as Japan, South Korea and eight other countries, and in a separate statement by the EU.

Even WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus himself, who has been criticised for being too conciliatory to Beijing during the pandemic, acknowledged data had been with­held from the investigation team.

“In my discussions with the team they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data,” Mr Tedros said at a press conference, which was seemingly censored on the Chinese internet on Wednesday.

“I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing,” the WHO chief said.

But in Wellington, the Ardern government said it needed more time before it would comment on the report, even though it has been circulating among WHO members for days.

“Our technical experts are currently analysing the report,” a spokeswoman for New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta told The Australian.

“As this is a scientific report, we want to make sure we understand the science before making any comment,” she said.

While Australia’s relationship with China has imploded during the pandemic, New Zealand has become Beijing’s favourite member of the Five Eyes group.

Wellington was rewarded in January with an upgrade in its free trade agreement with China. That was signed as Beijing continued a trade retaliation campaign on more than $20bn worth of Australian exports aimed at punishing the Morrison government for calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus without forewarning Xi Jinping’s administration.

Tony Browne, a former New Zealand ambassador to China, said the Ardern government’s ­absence from the joint statement was not unexpected.

Noting that he did not want to sound critical of Australia’s approach, the retired diplomat said the Morrison government’s call for an inquiry was “framed in terms that were seen as provocative and even hostile in Beijing”.

“The way that the demand was outlined was seen by China as going beyond health into the political,” he told The Australian.

“Calling China into account for the nature of its political management of the issue might sound like a good thing to do, but you know for certain it’s not going to go anywhere in terms of any sort of co-operative involvement from China,” he said.

The WHO team in their report said they were unable to conclude where or how the virus began spreading, although they believe it most likely jumped from a bat or other animal host to a human.

‘Wuhan lab theory needs further study’

A statement signed by the US, Australia and 12 other countries said it was critical the WHO team be given “full access” so they could accurately study the origins of the coronavirus.

The EU statement said the report was a “helpful first step”, while regretting the late start of the study and the limited availability of early samples and related data.

A theory pushed by the Trump administration that the coronavirus emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan was described as the least likely hypothesis, but Tedros acknowledged the WHO team said that theory required further study.

“Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions,” he said.

China’s foreign ministry said Beijing had provided “full co-operation” to the WHO team and then repeated a conspiracy theory about the coronavirus leaking from a military lab in America.

“There is still a big question mark over the lab at Fort Detrick,” the foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, China’s state-controlled Global Times reported that the virus may have arrived in Wuhan on frozen food brought by foreign participants at the October 2019 Military World Games, a theory with no supporting evidence in the report.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/who-covid19-report-new-zealand-shuts-its-eyes-to-appease-china/news-story/d13e82a36ae8d88fea024beca3bb35b8

Ben Roberts-Smith: Afghan civilians to testify via video link in former soldier's defamation case

Fairfax Media’s case bolstered after court agrees witnesses would have little hope of travelling to Australia to give evidence

Christopher Knaus - 1 Apr 2021

Afghan civilian witnesses will be allowed to give evidence via remote link in the Ben Roberts-Smith war crimes defamation proceedings against the Age and Sydney Morning Herald, a judge has ruled.

The ruling is a win for the old Fairfax newspapers, allowing them to rely on alleged eye-witnesses as they fight allegations they defamed Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross winner and special forces veteran, by suggesting he committed war crimes.

The newspapers published a series of reports about Roberts-Smith’s actions between 2009 and 2012, including an allegation he kicked an Afghan civilian named Ali Jan off a cliff while he was bound. Jan was later shot.

Roberts-Smith has vehemently denied the allegations and is suing in the federal court.

The newspapers have been attempting to bolster their defence by introducing new evidence about Roberts-Smith’s alleged actions during deployment.

That has included evidence from five witnesses, including four Afghan civilians, who are unable to travel to Australia to appear in the federal court. The civilians include relatives of Ali Jan and witnesses to the alleged crime, the court heard.

One of the witnesses, known as person 62, was captured by Australian forces alongside Ali Jan. Person 62 says he was watching through a doorway when he saw a “big soldier” kick Ali Jan down a hill.

“Person 62 then moved from the door way to the outside,” the court said. “He then saw Ali Jan being taken from the dry creek bed below the slope/hill to the cornfield, ‘which was approximately 30 metres away’ by two soldiers.”

“Person 62 states that Ali Jan was then shot multiple times. After the soldiers had left in the helicopters, Person 62 saw Ali Jan’s body in the cornfields. He saw that he had been shot in the face, body and his arm.”

The court heard the witnesses had low prospects of travelling to Australia to give evidence, including because they would be unlikely to obtain visas.

Roberts-Smith’s lawyers opposed them giving evidence via video link from Afghanistan, saying it was “simply unworkable”. The witnesses would need to be shown photographs, maps and other representations of the landscape, structures and the persons involved, they argued. The secrecy restrictions governing the trial forbid the sharing of such sensitive documents via video-link, they said.

The evidence was also at odds with the testimony of other witnesses, his lawyers argued, meaning it needed to be led with precision on distance, proximity and location. That was said to be not possible via video-link and would be further complicated by the use of interpreters.

But in a decision on Thursday, Justice Anthony Besanko ruled it was permissible for the witnesses to give evidence from Afghanistan.

He said the evidence of the witnesses, if accepted as identifying Roberts-Smith, was “evidence of very serious misconduct” and was an “important aspect of the respondents’ case”.

Besanko said there was some risk of disadvantage to Roberts-Smith by the use of the video link. But he said two principles favoured allowing the witnesses to give evidence remotely.

“First, the application is based on the assumption that if the Afghan witnesses are not permitted to give evidence by [audio-visual link], then they will not give evidence in the proceedings,” he said. “The respondents have said that they will continue their efforts to bring the Afghan witnesses to Australia for the trial, but the assumption underlying the application is that that will not be possible and, absent an order that permits them to give evidence by AVL, they will not give evidence at the trial.”

“Secondly, I am satisfied that the respondents have made all reasonable efforts to bring the Afghan witnesses to Australia. Those efforts are likely to be unsuccessful.”

Nick McKenzie, the award-winning investigative reporter who authored the stories, described the decision as landmark and said it would be the first time Afghans would testify in an Australian case about an alleged war crime.

“The world will be watching,” he tweeted.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/01/ben-roberts-smith-afghan-civilians-to-testify-via-video-link-in-former-soldiers-defamation-case

https://twitter.com/Ageinvestigates/status/1377469432918761472

Ghislaine Maxwell Blasts Revised Indictment as Prosecutorial ‘Gamesmanship’

Patricia Hurtado - 1 April 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, slammed prosecutors for expanding their indictment against her by adding sex-trafficking charges, calling it “obvious tactical gamesmanship” that may force her to ask for a delay to her trial.

On Monday, prosecutors added more heft to their case by directly accusing Maxwell of sex trafficking minors over a decade through 2004. Maxwell, 59, has been in federal lockup in Brooklyn since her arrest in July on a host of crimes, including a scheme to entice minors to be sexually abused by Epstein.

But Maxwell fired back late Wednesday, arguing the new charges “drastically” change the focus of the case and hamper her ability to prepare for trial. In a letter to the trial judge, Maxwell’s lawyer Bobbi Sternheim complained that when the socialite was first arraigned on July 14, 2020, prosecutors said they didn’t intend to file additional charges.

The trial, which is scheduled to start July 12, was originally projected to last two weeks. But Sternheim said it may take at least that amount of time to select jurors who can be fair in a case that has received extraordinary media attention and where “dozens” of new witnesses could be called.

“Ms. Maxwell is entitled to a fair trial with effective assistance of counsel,” Sternheim said. “If counsel feel that additional time is required to guarantee those constitutional rights, Ms. Maxwell will suffer the consequence by her continued detention.”

Maxwell has three times failed to persuade the judge to free her on bond and in her letter, Sternheim again argued that her jailing has also hampered her ability to review evidence.

“The court has the power and, indeed, the discretion to accommodate this constitutional clash,” Sternheim wrote. “Granting a continuance and releasing Ms. Maxwell on the most restrictive conditions of home detention. Surely, the court can impose conditions that ‘clip her wings’ and satisfy perceived flight concerns without keeping Ms. Maxwell locked in a Bureau of Prisons cage.”

Maxwell’s defense team also asked that she have an in-person arraignment on the revised indictment and that the government call witnesses to show the strength of its case. When she was arraigned last year, U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan directed the hearing be held remotely with Maxwell attending it virtually from the federal jail in Brooklyn.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-01/maxwell-calls-revised-indictment-prosecutorial-gamesmanship

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.539612.192.0_7.pdf

Australians flagged in Shanghai security files which shed light on China's surveillance state and monitoring of Uyghurs

Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop and Echo Hui - 1 April 2021

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The identities of 161 Australian citizens — including a former intelligence chief, government officials and business leaders — have been exposed in a hacked Shanghai security database which reveals the inner workings of China's surveillance state.

Australian authorities are investigating whether the citizens may have been flagged for monitoring by Shanghai's Public Security Bureau (PSB), the city's powerful police force which has intelligence and immigration control functions.

Activists hacked an insecure server late last year, discovering the trove of more than 1.1 million Shanghai PSB and surveillance records.

The data was provided to Australian security officials, the ABC and a handful of media organisations internationally, giving a rare and detailed window into China's development of a national mass surveillance system.

The database contains PSB watchlists of tens of thousands of persons of interest, reports from informants, facial and vehicle recognition photographs, and immigration data.

The records also detail the monitoring and questioning of thousands of ethnic minority Uyghurs, some as young as five.

The database includes the passport details and photographs of more than 5,000 foreigners, flagged when they travelled to Shanghai since 2017.

The Australians include notable and influential identities, such as Geoff Miller, a former ambassador and head of the Office of National Assessments intelligence analysis agency.

Among the scores of other Australians unwittingly caught up in the data breach are business leaders and senior staff with access to sensitive technologies and information from companies including Telstra, NAB, Ernst & Young and NBN Co.

Mystery surrounds flagging of Australians

Hackers found the unprotected database, codenamed 'uyghur terrorist', on an open-source data platform used by security agencies across the world, and provided the information to Canberra-based cyber security firm Internet 2.0.

Internet 2.0 chief executive Robert Potter told the ABC the files appeared to be a piece of a larger database feeding into a burgeoning mass surveillance system.

"This draws on much larger systems which are significantly more advanced in both scope and scale than those operated in democratic states," he said.

"It demonstrates how China broadly seeks to control all data points within the enforcement of law and political control."

The mystery to Australian authorities is why 161 citizens were flagged passing through an immigration checkpoint at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport in 2018.

Authorities are investigating whether the Australians were identified for intelligence purposes or caught up in a broader data sweep.

The Australians included:

• A Telstra executive responsible for technology innovation

• A senior NAB data security consultant who went on to work for NBN Co

• A global firearms magnate

• Partners at global consulting firm Ernst & Young

• A headmaster of an elite Shanghai international school

• A university student who interned with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the US Senate

• A director of influential Chinese-language media company Australia China Media Group

• A senior executive at Australia's largest beef producer, the Australian Agricultural Company

Adding to the mystery, the database includes several Australian children, some as young as two.

Geoff Miller, a former Office of National Assessments director-general and ambassador to Korea and Japan, was flagged when he landed in Shanghai for a week-long sightseeing tour with his wife in September 2018.

"Anyone checking in Chinese immigration would see that I had visited China a few times, and with Australian ministers and prime ministers," Mr Miller told the ABC.

"They might have decided, 'what's this bloke doing coming back?' so I can see that it could have happened."

Janis Manning, the co-owner of the long-running media industry publication Mediaweek, was added to the database on a one-day stopover in Shanghai.

"I'm more intrigued and mystified than anything else," Ms Manning said.

"I don't think, realistically, there's any reason why they'd be interested in me or my movements as an individual.

"I just think I've popped up on some database possibly because I've throughout my career been connected with the media in some senior positions."

The investigation into the database comes amid heightened fears for Australians in China, with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade last year warning citizens not to travel there because Beijing had detained foreigners for allegedly "endangering national security".

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Database part of larger national program, expert says

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Samantha Hoffman, a world expert on Chinese surveillance, has looked at similar public security databases in her research.

She believes the records are a piece of a larger public security and surveillance system being developed in China.

"I've seen evidence of the same system type being developed in other cities and provinces across China in a standardised way," she said.

"Although this data is showing information from a limited time period, it shows how foreigners could get caught up in China's surveillance state when they've passed through the country, even if that system isn't fully established yet.

"While there's no clear evidence in this data why these Australians have been flagged, it illustrates the risks in the future when Chinese security officials could track anybody travelling within the country.

"It shouldn't be a surprise to any foreigner visiting China that they might be tracked."

Dr Hoffman believes the data feeds into a national program in development, called Skynet, which will connect facial recognition cameras, public security databases, command-and-control systems and threat intelligence across the country.

Human Rights Watch's China director Sophie Richardson says the database is "further evidence of the Chinese government's efforts to hoover up enormous amounts of data from people without their really knowing about it, or being aware of how it's being used".

"But I think it's also interesting that this is another data leak, one in a series over the last couple of years, that amongst other things shows how vulnerable this data is, even though it's been gathered by the authorities."

'You can be listed as a terrorist simply because you went to a mosque'

The leaked files reveal the identities of more than 25,000 persons of interest who face intense monitoring in China, including ethnic minority Uyghurs, political dissidents, children, people with mental illness and alleged criminals.

The database contains records of the PSB's efforts to monitor, detain and question thousands of Uyghurs named as "suspected terrorists" — believed to be just a small sample of the country's vast blacklists.

The Uyghur "suspected terrorists" include more than 400 minors, some as young as five, who are logged in the files as having been examined in person by PSB officials.

About 8,000 Uyghurs are flagged in the database for "suspected terrorism" and other crimes such as "assembling a crowd to disturb social order", an offence often used to jail activists.

The ABC confirmed the identities of several of the Uyghur "suspected terrorists", including two successful businessmen who were detained in Xinjiang and later fled to Turkey with their families.

Both men were listed on a PSB technology division blacklist, which recorded that they had been tracked in Shanghai.

The ABC has agreed not to identify them for their safety.

Speaking from Turkey, one of the businessmen told the ABC he believed he was placed on the blacklist after a day trip to Shanghai Disneyland during a visit to nearby Hangzhou in 2017.

He said PSB officers questioned him and searched his hotel room on the first night of his stay in the city, which was hosting a major national event.

"The police told me no Uyghurs are allowed to stay in Hangzhou because the city was holding an important meeting," he told the ABC.

He said that after returning to Xinjiang, he was held for a month in a detention centre, wearing only his underpants in a cold, overcrowded cell.

He believes the leaked database is important evidence supporting claims of cultural genocide against the ethnic minority.

"It shows what we said was the truth," he said.

"You can be listed as a terrorist simply because you went to a mosque.

"I think the Chinese government wants to eliminate us."

The second man, who spent 10 months without charge in a Xinjiang jail, told the ABC he feared being forced back to China under a looming extradition deal with Turkey.

"I was shocked to learn I am on the list and by what that means to me and my family," he said.

"I'm seriously considering whether I should leave Turkey."

The treaty is awaiting ratification by Turkey's parliament after China approved it in December.

The Turkish government denies it would affect the country's 40,000 Uyghurs.

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The new evidence of monitoring and control comes amid rising international pressure on China, in the wake of horrifying accounts of rape and torture of Uyghurs in a network of internment camps in Xinjiang province.

The United States, European Union, Britain and Canada last week launched coordinated sanctions against Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang which the US and Canada described as genocide.

The Australian government welcomed the sanctions, but they provoked swift retaliation from Beijing which claims it targets Uyghurs to stamp out terrorism.

Persons of interest flagged for mental illness, past drug use

One watchlist in the database identifies 10,000 persons of interest according to seven priority categories declared by China's national Ministry of Public Security.

The categories include people flagged for monitoring because of mental illness, past drug use or criminal history.

The crimes identified range from theft and fraud to "illegally acquiring state secrets" and defection.

Listed alongside them as key persons of interest by the ministry are people involved in "disturbing social order" and repeat "petitioners" — people who file official petitions against government officials about issues including corruption, medical negligence, police brutality, unfair dismissal, land grabs and malfeasance.

The leak also contains the private information of thousands of police informants and people making complaints to the Shanghai PSB.

Their personal details — including names, home addresses and phone numbers — are exposed in records of calls to Shanghai police stations made since early 2018.

It follows a huge leak of Chinese police informants' data in 2014.

Companies and employees flagged

The database also reveals how Shanghai authorities monitor employees of flagged foreign-owned and Chinese companies.

It contains a watchlist of the employees of 976 companies, which have been flagged because of their access to dangerous chemicals, explosives-making materials, and drugs.

A quarter of those companies are foreign owned, including American manufacturing giant 3M, German pharmaceutical company Bayer and Japanese heavy industries and electric company Mitsubishi.

The records show how 48 employees from the flagged companies were tracked by facial recognition cameras as they moved around Shanghai's Jinshan harbour district.

The database also contains records of hundreds of thousands of vehicle recognition photographs taken by cameras in the same area.

The vehicles targeted are from a watchlist of China's "intelligent vehicle-monitoring" system, under which the owners of vehicles carrying dangerous materials, trucks and passenger buses are required to have video and GPS installed for PSB surveillance.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and the Department of Home Affairs declined to comment when contacted by the ABC.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade referred Australians who are in China or considering travelling there to its Smartraveller travel advice.

China's embassy in Australia did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

The companies named in the article were also contacted for comment. In a statement, NBN Co said it did not comment on personnel matters but had "rigorous contractual, safety and security measures in place to protect our people, company and network".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-01/shanghai-files-shed-light-on-china-surveillance-state/100040896

Christian Porter: ABC reporter Louise Milligan accused of deleting social media posts

STEVE JACKSON - APRIL 1, 2021

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The ABC’s star reporter Louise Milligan has been accused of deleting social media posts that could affect the outcome of Christian Porter’s defamation proceedings against the public broadcaster over an online article she filed revealing a senior cabinet minister was facing historic rape allegations.

The former attorney-general’s legal team has formally outlined a number of complaints about the journalist’s conduct leading up to and following the publication of the story on February 26; and also raised concerns her use of “encrypted messaging apps that have the capacity to automatically delete communications after a set period of time” might impinge on their ability to recover key conversations relating to the story’s production.

The allegations were contained in a letter sent to the ABC’s Head of Disputes & Litigation Team, Grant McAvaney, by reputational risk lawyer Rebekah Giles on March 23 following a federal court order that Mr Porter provide the broadcaster with “further particulars of identification, republication and/or aggravated damages” relating to his defamation action.

“It has come to our attention that Ms Milligan and perhaps the ABC have been deleting social media posts relevant to these proceedings which could go to issues of identification, aggravation, and malice, if it becomes relevant. In our view this is a serious matter that requires your urgent attention,” Ms Giles said in the letter.

“Over the last two weeks we have captured the social media pages of your clients. Any deletions will be immediately apparent. We request you let us know your position in relation to this matter.

“We have also been informed that Ms Milligan uses encrypted messaging apps that have the capacity to automatically delete communications after a set period of time. This is also of significant concern to us.

“We request that any such communications that have since been automatically deleted that are relevant to these proceedings be sought to be identified. We will expect such communications to be specifically listed in any list of documents and in answers to interrogatories.”

Ms Giles went on to request the ABC furnish her with a list of all alterations made to Milligan’s online report since it was first published, noting “we are instructed that the article has been amended at least once”.

“So that time and costs are not wasted we request that you now produce any earlier versions of the Article as they appeared on the ABC website,” she said in the letter.

Mr Porter publicly outed himself on March 3 as cabinet minister accused of sexually assaulting a woman – now deceased – in Sydney in 1988 but claims the online story had already identified him to potentially thousands of people even though he had not been named in it.

He has vigorously denied the allegations and spent most of last month on leave for his mental health before being moved out of the role of Attorney-General in a cabinet reshuffle this week.

Mr Porter launched legal action against the ABC and Milligan on March 15, claiming he had been subjected to a trial by media following the publication of the “false allegations against him”, and has retained a powerhouse legal team comprising Bret Walker SC, Sue Chrysanthou SC and Ms Giles to prosecute the case.

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In her letter to the ABC, Ms Giles appealed to the public broadcaster to concede it had effectively identified Mr Porter as the subject of Milligan’s historic rape allegation story despite not publishing his name to avoid “wasting” money slugging it out in court.

“Many tens of thousands of dollars have already been and will be expended on the question of identification,” she wrote. “It is obvious that Mr Porter was reasonably identified as the subject of the Article.

“We request, in accordance with your clients’ obligations … that you give an early indication as to your clients’ position on the issue of identification before extensive further time and costs are wasted.

“We note that requires the ABC (amongst other obligations) to not cause unnecessary delay or cost, and to avoid, prevent and limit the scope of legal proceedings wherever possible.

“In particular the ABC is required to minimise costs by not requiring our client to prove any matter that it knows to be true. In our view the question of the identification of Mr Porter plainly falls into this category.”

Ms Giles noted that “Google searches of Mr Porter’s name increased significantly and much more so than any other senior male cabinet members” following the publication of the online article and that the ABC News’s political editor, Andrew Probyn, had admitted “the Minister’s identity was widely known in political and media circles” during a news report the day before Mr Porter self-identified.

To underscore the point, she offered a “sample list” of political and media figures who would have been able to identify the former attorney-general based on Milligan’s report, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Senator Penny Wong, former political staffer and advocate against sex harassment Dhanya Mani, The Australian’s Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore and Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly, along with The Australian Financial Review’s editor, Michael Stutchbury, and his columnist Joe Aston.

“In addition to the classes of persons, there was an overwhelming number of members of the public who named Mr Porter as the minister the subject of the article but did not specify how they came to that knowledge,” she added.

“Some of those people contacted our client. The sheer number of such persons leads to the conclusion that his identification was reasonable even without knowing how each such person came to that conclusion.”

Addressing Mr Porter’s claim for aggravated damages, Ms Giles made 19 allegations regarding the conduct of the ABC and Milligan in reporting the historic rape allegations, including their “failure” to disclose to their audience that the alleged victim had not signed a police statement or reveal that her parents were concerned that “she may have confected or embellished the allegations” against the then Attorney-General.

Ms Giles further questioned the decision by the ABC and Milligan to leave the disputed article online “where it has been continuously published after Mr Porter has been plainly identified” and accused them of “disingenuous conduct … in claiming that they acted properly in their failure to put the allegations to Mr Porter prior to publication”.

She also singled out Milligan’s retweeting of a “despicable, unjustified and improper comment made by the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull stating that there was a need for an inquest to question the complainant’s cause of death and suggesting that her death may not have been caused by suicide and had something to do with the cabinet minister the subject of the article.”

The ABC denied that Milligan had deleted any posts relevant to the Porter case and were fully aware of their legal obligations.

“The ABC and Ms Milligan understand their obligations to retain material relevant to the proceedings and are fulfilling these obligations,” a spokeswoman said.

“The suggestion that the ABC or Ms Milligan have deleted social media posts relevant to the defamation proceedings is strongly denied.”

The ABC has said it would be defending the defamation proceedings launched by Mr Porter and has been given until May 4 to file its defence with the federal court, with Mr Porter’s legal team to submit its response by May 11.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/christian-porter-abc-reporter-louise-milligan-accused-of-deleting-social-media-posts/news-story/f6745b941150825928e33068a998403e

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New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern moves to strip Sir Ron Brierley of his knighthood, Wellington College removes signage

Matthew Tso - Apr 01 2021

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has asked for the process to strip Sir Ron Brierley of his knighthood to begin following his guilty plea to charges of possession of child sexual abuse material.

Wellington College has also said it will strip Brierley’s name from signage in the school.

The Wellington-raised businessman pleaded guilty to three out of 17 charges in a Sydney court this morning. The rest were withdrawn.

Brierley, 83, was detained by Australian Border Force officials while attempting to board a flight from Sydney to Fiji in December 2019. Detectives seized his carry-on bags, laptop and electronic-storage units and allegedly discovered more than 200,000 images and 512 videos.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the prime minister said Ardern had asked for the process for Brierley to forfeit his title to be initiated.

Stop Demand, an organisation seeking to stop the sexual exploitation of women and children, joined calls for Brierley to lose his title.

Founder Denise Ritchie said, “the trade in material featuring children being sexually violated, raped and sexually denigrated would have to be one of the most abhorrent trades seen today, and needs to be denounced in the strongest possible terms”.

“We would argue that the crimes to which [Brierley] has pleaded guilty to brings the honours system into disrepute.”

Brierley was knighted in 1988 for services to business management.

National MP Simon Bridges has also called on Ardern to strip Brierley of his title.

Brierley is an old boy of Wellington College and has been a benefactor to the school, which has the Brierley Theatre and Sir Ron Brierley Turf.

“Wellington College began removing all signage referring to Sir Ron Brierley from the school following confirmation of his guilty plea,” Wellington College Board Chairperson, Paul Retimanu said.

Brierley was known for his love of cricket and stamp collecting.

Last year, Brierley was removed as a patron of Cricket Wellington. At the time the organisation declined to comment as to why. He remained as a life member.

Former Wellington city councillor and New Zealand cricketer John Morrison criticised Cricket Wellington for “dumping” Brierley before legal proceedings had concluded.

Morrison, a Cricket Wellington life member, declined to comment on Thursday when approached by Stuff.

In a statement, Cricket Wellington chief executive officer Cam Mitchell said the sporting body was shocked to hear of the guilty plea, and Brierley’s status as a life member would be reviewed.

Cricket Wellington had not received a donation from the businessman since October 2017, he said.

The body would not be commenting further until the review of Brierley’s Life Member status was complete.

Stamp dealer John Mowbray, a longtime friend of Brierley’s also declined to comment. Both Morrison and Mowbray had been unaware of this morning’s court proceedings.

Writer Yvonne van Dongen wrote the 1990 biography Brierley, the Man Behind the Corporate Legend. She told Stuff the charges and today’s guilty plea were consistent with material broached in her book which included his frequent trips to Asia when he enjoyed encounters with young women, including teenage prostitutes.

”I’m not surprised given his behaviour as described in my book. These charges are not a million miles away from that.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/124725740/pm-moves-to-strip-sir-ron-brierley-of-his-knighthood-wellington-college-removes-signage

Australian adviser to overthrown leader charged under Myanmar secrets act

Chris Barrett - April 2, 2021

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Singapore: Australian economist Sean Turnell has been charged along with Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi with breaching the country’s official secrets act and faces a prison term if found guilty.

Khin Maung Zaw, the senior lawyer representing Suu Kyi, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Thursday night that Turnell, an adviser to Suu Kyi, was charged on March 25 in East Yangon District Court. Suu Kyi and three of the ministers from her government were also charged under the colonial-era act, he said.

The lawyer said Turnell and Suu Kyi were charged under section 3.1C of the Burma Official Secrets Act. It refers to the collecting, publishing or distributing against the interests of the state of “any secret official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy”.

It is punishable with a prison term of up to three years or, in the case of naval, military or air force affairs of the state, up to 14 years.

Khin Maung Zaw said “all five of them were charged under the same section” and that he would be defending Turnell and the three ministers as well as Suu Kyi, who was already facing a string of other charges.

Turnell, who was devising reform of Myanmar’s banking processes, was accused on state television last month of trying to flee the country with secret government financial information, but the lawyer said he had not been given the details of the allegations being made by prosecutors against the Sydney-based academic.

“We haven’t got that information because we haven’t officially been appointed as his lawyers yet and we cannot look at the papers of that case,” he said.

“Three senior lawyers and two junior lawyers from Yangon will represent those five.”

The charging of Turnell, which was first reported by Reuters on Thursday night, is an alarming development for his family and friends who have said the former Reserve Bank of Australia senior analyst had not been trying to leave the country in the days after the February 1 coup and had spent years dedicating himself to improving the financial system in Myanmar.

It is also a further blow to the efforts of Australian officials in Yangon, who have been attempting to secure Turnell’s release since he was detained five days after the military seized power again.

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More than 530 people have been killed in the crackdown against the pro-democracy movement in the two months since then, among them many children, as the south-east Asian nation teeters on the brink of total collapse and civil war.

Turnell was allowed to speak over the phone to his wife, Sydney economics lecturer Ha Vu, about a month ago and the junta’s spokesman said at a press conference last week the military would permit more such communication.

It has not been disclosed, however, exactly where he has been held for the past two months.

A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Friday called on the military regime to “allow Professor Turnell to return to his family in Australia”.

“Professor Turnell has been detained with limited consular access for almost two months. The Australian government continues to consider this to be arbitrary detention,” the spokesperson said.

“Australia continues to seek his immediate release and official information about the reasons for his detention both in Myanmar and through the embassy in Australia.”

Suu Kyi had previously been hit with several less serious charges including illegally importing six walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions during last year’s election, which her National League of Democracy won in a landslide.

Her government was to begin another term on February 1 but she was arrested that morning, along with many other NLD politicians, as the country was abruptly returned to military control following a decade-long flirtation with democracy.

Two other Australians, Matthew O’Kane and Christa Avery, who have lived in Myanmar for 10 years and run a business consultancy there, were prevented from leaving the country on a relief flight nearly a fortnight ago and placed under house arrest.

On Friday (AEDT), a special meeting of the UN Security Council issued a statement strongly condemned the use of violence against peaceful protesters in Myanmar and the deaths of hundreds of civilians, but dropped the threat of possible future action against the military.

The British-drafted press statement approved by all 15 council members after intense negotiations expressed “deep concern at the rapidly deteriorating situation”. The original draft was much stronger and would have expressed the Security Council’s “readiness to consider further steps”. It would also have “deplored” the use of violence against peaceful protesters.

But at the insistence of China, Myanmar’s neighbour and friend, the reference to “further steps” was eliminated and the stronger language, including the words “killing” and “deplore”, was softened.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/myanmar-s-deposed-leader-aung-san-suu-kyi-australian-adviser-charged-20210401-p57g2c.html

Tortured by Iran, trolled at home: academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert hits out at vicious attacks

STEPHEN RICE - APRIL 2, 2021

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Since walking free from the hellhole of Iran’s brutal Evin Prison four months ago, Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has had to face a new trauma — a ­vicious online trolling by sacked university professor Tim Anderson, who claims that she was an ­Israeli spy and helped organise “repeated terrorist murders”.

Dr Anderson, a far-left “anti-­imperialist” who once flew to Syria for an audience with President Bashar al Assad, has been prominent in pushing Tehran’s unsupported claims that Dr Moore-Gilbert was a Mossad agent and has posted propaganda videos that allege her “missions” included spying on the Iranian nuclear program.

But now Dr Moore-Gilbert has had enough.

The Melbourne University lecturer in Islamic Studies has hit back, labelling Dr Anderson an “Iran puppet and con­spiracy theory zealot” fired for “peddling the propaganda” of ­regimes such as Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

“He is clearly just a mouthpiece for these regimes,” Dr Moore-Gilbert told The Weekend Australian. “It’s not just him; there’s quite a few useful idiots in Western countries who are happy to do a deal with these guys.

“I honestly don’t see any logical explanation for his fixation on me, that months after my release he’s still tweeting about me the same propagandistic stuff that was released by the regime. He’s been told he has to promote that narrative and he’s doing his job.”

Dr Moore-Gilbert no longer sees the posts: she has blocked Dr Anderson, and some of his more aggressive followers.

The 33-year-old was released from jail late last year after being held in the notorious Evin Prison for more than two years on trumped-up charges of spying.

Dr Anderson, a political economy lecturer, was sacked by Sydney University in 2019 after a series of misconduct findings that included posting an image that featured a Nazi swastika super­imposed on the Israeli flag and sharing a photograph of one of his PhD students wearing a badge that said “death to Israel” and “curse the Jews”.

Dr Anderson may be an outlier in academia, and even on the radical left, but he has more than 30,000 Twitter followers. He describes himself as director of the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies and says he was “sacked from the University of Sydney for offending Israeli killers”.

He is appealing his dismissal in the Federal Court in what’s set to become a test case on the limits of academic freedom. His appeal is backed by the National Tertiary Education Union, which argues “cancel culture” led to his axing.

Dr Moore-Gilbert doesn’t buy it. “I think in all universities it’s a fireable offence,” she said. “I mean, if you ­replaced comments about Jews with comments about any other minority group — Muslims, African-Australians, homosexual people — there would be a huge outcry about it.

“I don’t see why making anti-Semitic remarks should be any ­different. It’s a violation of the university’s policies and he’s violating his employment contract by making such remarks and therefore, as would I or any academic, should expect that they would take disciplinary action against you.

“We are, as academics, tasked with conducting research and teaching that is informed by data, and informed by the facts, and the kind of narratives that this guy’s promoting do not at all appear to me to be informed by any research basis or factual basis that an academic would be speaking from.”

(continued)

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How the Murdoch War Megaphone pulls the wool over our eyes

Dr Tim Anderson - 3 APR 2021

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In some ways I should be flattered by repeated front page smears from the Murdoch media. After all, this appalling media monopoly has backed Australian involvement in every one of the seven Middle East wars over the past two decades, while I have opposed all of them.

But why such an effort? Why is it important to a huge company to repeatedly smear one person? What’s wrong with their usual tactic of just ignoring little people?

Of course, the war media asserts, Kylie was held in a “hellhole” for no reason at all, because ‘Iran is the problem’, not the US war machine.

The Australian Government made an extraordinary effort to free Kylie from an Iranian prison, organising a prisoner exchange with a third country. Now that government and much of the corporate media is making an extraordinary effort to portray her as an ‘innocent abroad’, falsely asserting that Iran presented ‘no evidence’ against her.

So the latest Murdoch smear is that I supposedly made ‘vicious attacks’ on Kylie. Back in 2014 they said I had stirred ‘fresh controversy’ by visiting Syria. In 2017 they called me a ‘Sarin Gasbag’, for criticising the repeated fake stories about Syria using poison gas. And in 2018 they claimed I had praised the North Korean leader, when in fact I had written nothing at all about him.

I visit countries under attack by the big powers as part of my research work, in part because I believe that war and threats of war dehumanise entire populations, and undermine our understandings of other cultures.

And yes I do compare the Israeli massacres in Gaza with the racial massacres of the Nazis, because the gravity of their crimes against Palestinians is far too often understated.

Well this work seems to undermine the drive for war; so the Murdoch media periodically unloads a torrent of abuse on me, in attempts to intimidate anyone else from visiting or sympathising with peoples under attack.

Putting aside the petty distortions and lies that abound in these Murdoch attacks, I would like to focus on some common threads in this propaganda.

First the Murdoch scribes use classical propaganda devices with deceptive simplicity, repetitively asserting the same lines, without the need for much rational argument.

The old proverb “Oh! that mine enemy would write a book!” meant that one’s enemies’ words could be used against them. No such nicety is required by the Murdoch stable. I have not seen either of my research books on the Middle East wars (The Dirty War on Syria 2016; and Axis of Resistance 2019) quoted by them. They seem to not care about such trivia.

Second, they seem unable to imagine that someone may act on principle – in this case defend targeted countries from aggression – unless they are a paid agent or a fanatic. So the latest from Stephen Rice showcases a string of abuse from Kylie, saying I was an

“Iran puppet and conspiracy theory zealot … [who] flew to Damascus for a photo op with Bashar Al Assad at the same time Assad was bombing his own civilian population with chemical weapons … He is clearly just a mouthpiece for these regimes … [nevertheless] for me it’s quite upsetting to be called a Zionist.”

Recent exchanges have led Kylie to drop her previous pseudo-neutral stance, of a disinterested observer, to speak of the “odious regimes” of Iran and Syria and to repeat the fake and ludicrous war propaganda clichés (“Assad … bombing his own civilian population”) against Syria. And not a word against the Apartheid regime in Palestine.

Her line of reasoning, and that of the Murdoch stable which uses her, suggests that people could not oppose Australia being subject to foreign invasions, terrorism and economic siege unless they were fanatical mouthpieces for Australia’s hereditary monarchy and Scott Morrison. Just childish.

(continued)

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>>13350524

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That brings me to the question of Kylie as an Israeli spy, which to my mind might not be such a big issue had it not been denied so vehemently by the Murdoch media and Canberra.

What basis was there for her conviction? ‘nothing’, says the Murdoch stable.

In fact there is such information. First of all, Iran’s media published a short documentary which summarised the case; a version with an English translation of the narration is published here. That video says Kylie was recruited to the Mossad by her then Israeli boyfriend Ruslan Hodorov. Only after her release from prison did western media acknowledge that she had married an Israeli. But there is more.

Iran says she at first travelled to Syria, then began to work on Israel’s Iranian nuclear program file, which involved finding out ways in which Iran bypassed US sanctions. After military and leadership training she was appointed as an inspector, vetting Iranian defectors who visited Israel. Then she carried out her two visits to Iran, on the second of which she was captured. This is Iran’s summary of their case.

It has corroboration in Israeli sources. Murdoch journalist Stephen Rice was either too lazy or too dishonest to look at the links I sent him, the day before his article, as he mentioned just one Israeli article: “but the linked article says nothing about “leadership” or “training”; those words are an invention by Dr Anderson.”

In fact I had referred Stephen to several articles, as you can see in the two DMs reproduced below. The Plus61j article, combined with information on Tikvah fellowships and the Ein Prat academy (where Kylie spent one month in 2011), show that she was indeed engaged in Israeli “leadership training”.

The Ein Prat Israeli leadership academy, attended by Kylie Moore-Gilbert as a Tikvah fellow, is set in Alon ‘settlement’, one of many illegal colonies in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. It sits right in the middle of the occupied West Bank, between Jerusalem and Jericho. Travel to this academy must be under armed escort and entry to the colony is by an ‘Israeli only’ road. The Plus61j article simply says that Kylie “explored her Jewish identity in an Israeli program on the West Bank in 2011”.

However the Tikvah Fund, which provided her with a scholarship, says it is “committed to supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish State”, while Ein Prat calls itself an “Academy for Leadership” which “has acted as an incubator for civilian leadership in Israeli society since 2001. We believe that young people, secular and religious, have the power to build a better Israel.”

Since the Israeli colony has engaged in literally hundreds of attacks on “Iran backed” groups in the region and has assassinated several of Iran’s nuclear scientists, it is not hard to imagine why Tehran does not look kindly on Israeli agents.

Nevertheless, apparently confident that his Murdoch megaphone was loud enough to ignore any such any checking, Stephen Rice pretended Kylie’s Israeli “leadership training” simply did not exist. He misled his readers.

This wilful ignorance and distortion of facts allows the Murdoch stable to keep representing the US backed regional wars (in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen) as humanitarian exercises.

For example, the Murdoch media backs US Secretary of State Blinken’s absurd claims that his country is the greatest humanitarian donor to the Syrian people, while ignoring facts that I point out in my books: that this same USA is bombing Syria, backing anti-Syria terrorists, imposing a genocidal siege and occupying Syria’s land while it steals Syria’s fuel and food.

This is how the Murdoch War Megaphone tries to pull the wool over our eyes.

https://counter-hegemonic-studies.site/murdoch-megaphone-1/

Pope Francis holds mass with cardinal he cast out of the Vatican - Cardinal Angelo Becciu

TESS LIVINGSTONE - APRIL 2, 2021

In a surprise move, Pope Francis celebrated Holy Thursday mass privately with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, whom he abruptly fired last September amid financial scandals. They said the mass, one of the most important of the year, commemorating the Last Supper and Christ’s instituting the Eucharist, in the chapel of Cardinal Becciu’s private apartment.

A Vatican source would not comment on the Pope’s “private engagements”, but said “a fatherly gesture like this, on a day like Holy Thursday, does not seem strange”.

Francis normally celebrates Holy Thursday mass in public. But this year he delegated the task to the dean of the college of cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re, who offered the mass in St Peter’s ­Basilica with restricted attendance due to COVID-19.

At the time of his sacking last year, Cardinal Becciu said the Pope “told me that he no longer has trust in me because a report came from the magistrates that I allegedly committed acts of ­embezzlement’’. He denied any wrongdoing. Four months ago, he sued an Italian magazine for €10m, claiming reports of corruption investigations had ruined his reputation and eliminated his chances of becoming pope.

In October 2019, Vatican police raided the offices of the Secretariat of State, where Cardinal Becciu had formerly been second in charge. There, he was an ardent opponent of the financial reforms initiated by Cardinal ­George Pell when he was the Vatican’s prefect for the economy. Cardinal Becciu banned internal and external audit processes, Police reportedly raided the Secretariat of State because they were investigating a dubious ­investment of several hundred thousand euros by the Vatican in real estate in London’s up-market Chelsea. The deal reportedly cost the Vatican millions of euros in payments to middlemen.

The Pope’s gesture of reconciliation towards Cardinal Becciu was made amid seething tensions in the highest levels of the church over the banning of private masses at the 45 side altars and chapels of St Peter’s Basilica. Outspoken Hong Kong cardinal Joseph Zen this week became the fifth cardinal to speak out against the move.

“If it were not for the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus, I would take the first flight to come to Rome and get on my knees in front of the door of Santa Marta (the papal residence) until the Holy Father has this edict withdrawn,” he said on his website. Cardinal Zen, 89, is a vocal critic of the Vatican’s secret pact with the Chinese Communist Party. Before the pact was renewed last October he travelled to the Vatican to meet Francis to discuss it. But he left after four days, without being granted an audience.

Cardinal Zen said the private masses he has said in the Basilica during visits to Rome over many years were “the masses that, in my life, I celebrated with more fervour and emotion, sometimes with tears praying for our living martyrs in China.

“It was the thing that strengthened my faith most every time I came to Rome: At exactly seven o’clock I would enter the sacristy, a young priest would come forward and would help me to dress in the vestments, and then they take me to an altar in the Basilica proper or in the grottoes, that would make no difference to me, we were in St Peter’s Basilica!’’

In a passing reference to the same controversy in his Easter feature in Inquirer today, Cardinal Pell wrote: “Individual masses have been banned on the side altars at St Peter’s Basilica; stopped, probably for the first time since Charles V’s German Protestant troops sacked Rome in 1527.’’

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/pope-francis-holds-mass-with-cardinal-he-cast-out-of-the-vatican/news-story/d830f2b685981c1f0728e51db023d0e4

>>13350655

Add another national broadcaster to reflect other views, says George Pell

TESS LIVINGSTONE - APRIL 3, 2021

Australia should consider a ­second national broadcaster to present an alternative outlook to the ABC, Cardinal George Pell believes.

Writing in The Weekend Australian from Rome, Cardinal Pell said: “Very sensibly Italy has at least a couple of government-sponsored television stations to reflect the different points of view, which is an option that should be considered by any national conservative government in Australia, where the ABC is dominated by a Gramscian hegemony, hostile to social conservatives, most Christians and often to Western civilisation. The Italian media is divided and disputatious but not monochrome.”

Asked if his view was shaped by the ABC’s coverage of the child abuse charges against him that eventually were overturned 7-nil by the High Court and the ABC’s coverage of a rape allegation against Christian Porter, the cardinal said his was a broad observation but those matters were part of it. “Everybody has a right to due process,’’ he said. “I think they were so convinced that their position was correct that they cut corners on due process and it is always dangerous.”

Asked whether he regretted not following the same path as Mr Porter, who is suing ABC journalist Louise Milligan and the corporation for defamation, Cardinal Pell said: “I don’t regret it too deeply.” Would he still consider doing so? “No comment.”

He said a free press was more important to democracy than ever in the era of “wokeness’’ and “cancel culture’’. He would not support privatisation of the ABC but greater diversity in national broadcasting was essential. “But beyond one or two (government-funded) outlets, most of the media should be part of an open market.”

Cardinal Pell said he doubted whether the old BBC ideal of impartiality was possible any longer given the green-left outlook of most humanities courses taught in Australian universities.

Writing from his apartment beside the Eternal City’s Leonine walls, constructed by Pope Leo IV in 850 after Rome had been ravaged by Saracens, Cardinal Pell said Catholic Rome, battling COVID-19, was “ill at ease, as the Vatican’s financial troubles begin to bite, with the cardinals’ salaries being clipped by 10 per cent and other staff by 8 per cent”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/add-another-national-broadcaster-to-reflect-other-views-says-george-pell/news-story/92a9031e17d059b4e4918e1212d52f74

>>13350655

>>13350667

Reflection and belief in the quiet Eternal City

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL - APRIL 3, 2021

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Easter comes at the correct time of year in the northern hemisphere as spring produces new life. The cherry blossom is out in our piazza and on the streets of Rome, and small green shoots are beginning to appear on the branches of the large western plane trees that run alongside the Leonine walls first constructed by Pope Leo IV in 850 after Rome had been ravaged by the Muslim Saracens. The wall was heightened in 1277-80 by Pope Nicholas III and a walkway constructed linking the Vatican to the fortress Castel Sant’Angelo, which had started out as a colossal mausoleum for the great Emperor Hadrian and his family in AD128.

The elevated walkway has been used by at least three popes as an escape route; by the notorious Borgia pope Alexander VI in 1494 when the French were advancing on Rome, then in 1527 by Clement VII while fleeing the Germans, and by Pius IX in 1870 when the French troops left the Papal States.

The Eternal City is a ghost town as tourists and pilgrims have vanished. It is a perfect setting for obligatory Lenten penances. A third wave of infections has swept the country so that more than 3.5 million Italians have been infected and 110,000 have died, much worse than in Australia. The school closures are keenly felt and two weeks before Easter there were protests in 23 cities against the lockouts.

Nearly everyone in the Vatican has been vaccinated but the rollout in Italy is slow, as it is across the continent, while Britain’s program is steaming ahead. It is fascinating to see the obstacles created and the prejudices against the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheap and easily stored.

Italy has a new national government, the 66th since World War II, to meet the crisis and the Premier and many ministers are not elected members of parliament. The national debt is enormous, but for the immediate future of the EU Italy is too big to fail, with a larger economy than both Spain and Greece. Sensibly, Italy has at least a couple of government-sponsored television stations to reflect the different points of view, which is an option that should be considered by any national conservative government in Australia, where the ABC is dominated by a Gramscian hegemony hostile to social con­servatives, most Christians and often to Western civilisation. The Italian media is divided and disputatious but not monochrome.

In these COVID times Catholic Rome is also ill at ease, as the Vatican’s financial troubles begin to bite, with the cardinals’ salaries being clipped by 10 per cent and other staff by 8 per cent. Individual masses have been banned on the side altars at St Peter’s Basilica; stopped, probably for the first time since Charles V’s German Protestant troops sacked Rome in 1527.

(continued)

>>13350671

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On a happier note on a sad theme, the increased number of homeless living around the Vatican, sometimes in the colonnades, are well looked after, fed, able to take a shower, and supported by the Pope’s almoner, young Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, with a hands-on approach and a heart of gold. He himself was able to restore the electricity supply of one of his friends when it was interrupted. Many of the younger cardinals have more colourful backgrounds than the old hands.

Most of the poor and all of the taxi drivers in Rome have a viewpoint on religion and the Vatican, while everyone knows when Lent is ending, Holy Week is approaching and has a rudimentary grasp of Christian claims. The Easter bunny doesn’t get much of a run in Rome; thanks be to God.

In Australia, everyone enjoys the Easter break, as they enjoy the Queen’s Birthday holiday, but many haven’t much of a notion about the Christian origins of the celebration, even of Good Friday.

This is partly because the Christian teachings about Easter are quite uncompromising; an explicit claim to supernatural happenings, to the triumph of good over evil through the redemptive suffering and death of the Son of God, despite the reality of so much continuing suffering in the world. Christians claim that in his dying Christ went through to the highest heavens, absolving the faults of many. He looked evil in the eye and defeated it through his own defeat. A large claim.

Christians believe in redemptive suffering, that our personal sufferings can be turned to a good purpose through Christ. This belief can be a wonderful consolation in bad times. I like to recount the anecdote about Karl Marx who, when he had a bad attack of boils, lamented that he did not have a God to whom he could offer his sufferings. At least he knew what he was missing.

Christians claim not only that God continues to work through history, but redemption was achieved through actual events in Jerusalem when Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor and Herod was tetrarch. Christ died on Calvary. Few dispute this. Is he truly risen from the dead? There were no bones in the tomb after the resurrection, only a miraculous liberation, more marvellous even than the Jewish escape from Egypt under Moses. Such might be mistaken claims but they are not a bloodless myth, not an attractive apparition from the dreamtime, but an assertion that the cross has triumphed through the execution of an uneducated preacher, a non-Roman who was crucified like a slave in a difficult outlier province of the empire.

Naturally my words are spoken with a disciple’s tongue and an increasing percentage of Australians, often people of goodwill, cannot accept that they are true; or do not even know what is claimed. Some aren’t interested, others would like to believe but they cannot. I am blessed, or lucky, to have been brought up to believe that this account of God’s love at work is true and I have explicitly chosen to continue to believe. I suspect most Christians at some stage are tempted to wobble, to wonder about the truth, perhaps even to doubt, although the great 19th-century English thinker St John Henry Newman explained that difficulties do not necessarily lead to doubts. But too many are lapsing into disinterest or unbelief. Unfortunately, the sad little story of two clergy, sliding towards agnosticism and discussing theology, does not belong entirely in the realms of fantasy.

“Did you hear,” said the first speaker, “that Jesus’ bones have been found?” “What,” replied his friend, “are you saying that Jesus really existed?” I think we can safely assume that neither of these fictional figures would believe that eternal consequences might follow from the morality or immorality of our actions. Unlike the pagan gods of Greek and Rome, the Judaeo-Christian God is interested in how we live.

(continued)

>>13350677

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Easter is harder to swallow than Christmas, as it is harder to believe that God’s Son suffered and died, than it is to believe that a messenger of God came to live among us to provide moral support. The big difficulty for the Christian case comes from the scriptural evidence because Jesus cannot be portrayed as a good bloke, not even as a good commonsense fellow. His claims are too bizarre.

As CS Lewis rightly concluded from the evidence, Jesus was either a liar, or a lunatic, or the Son of God; or the evidence is completely untrustworthy. From whatever starting point we come to Easter, the author of the beatitudes, of the parables was a religious genius. It is almost beyond dispute that he came to a bad end, was condemned unjustly. Why would his mythmakers burden such an attractive figure with claims that after three days in the grave he rose from the dead; and in that three-day interval, “descended into hell” to liberate the souls of the just who had died earlier? From most points of view the story does not add up.

But the story is coherent for believers and Easter will be celebrated with faith and reverence in all the Christian denominations. Many Catholic churches will have a congregation two or three times bigger than the usual Sunday community.

Most Italians are Catholic or ex-Catholics, with a significant dose of hostility as unbelief is spreading, especially in large cities. But the culture cannot escape its Catholic history. The Pope is the most important person in Italy and, although Pope Francis will celebrate with his cardinals in an almost empty St Peter’s, the church is everywhere with its parishes, monasteries, nuns and friars in their medieval robes.

Italian society with a higher percentage of believers does Easter better than we do in Australia. Italy has no Stawell Gift, no Easter horseracing carnivals, although the soccer has AFL levels of popular support. A cynic once claimed to me that more Italians, especially perhaps in the south, believed that Jesus suffered and died than believe in the resurrection. But in the villages after the Good Friday ceremonies, the procession of the dead Jesus will wind through the streets with Jesus and his mother going to different places to await the resurrection.

In my first Easter as a priest in 1967 in the mountains of Abruzzo, I was performing my ablutions on Easter Sunday morning when a series of loud explosions rocked the village. Were the Vietcong mounting an attack? It was only the locals exploding powerful fireworks to celebrate Jesus’ comeback, his return from the dead.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/reflection-and-belief-in-the-quiet-eternal-city/news-story/4df26208170c5d1d9acaaa69a0eb9c69

https://qanon.pub/?q=Pell

https://qanon.pub/?q=cardinal-george-pell

https://qanon.pub/?q=pecking

Seven blood clot deaths in the UK after AstraZeneca vaccine

Queensland’s chief health officer has warned people to “seek urgent advice” if they have symptoms of a rare vaccine side effect, after seven died in the UK.

Natalie Brown - APRIL 3, 2021

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Seven people in the UK have died from unusual blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 jab, as Australian health officials vow they’re taking the “potential risk very seriously”.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency confirmed to the BBC that out of the 18 million people vaccinated across the UK up to March 24, 30 had presented with the blood clots. Out of those, data showed 22 cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a type of blood clot in the brain.

It remains unclear whether the condition is a side effect of the vaccine or just a coincidence, with investigations underway to determine if the AstraZeneca vaccine is causing the rare syndrome.

News of the deaths come after the first case of the condition was identified in Australia, in a 44-year-old Melbourne man who received the jab on March 22. Yesterday, he presented to the Victorian capital’s Box Hill Hospital with a fever and abdominal pain, and was found to have abdominal clots with a very low platelet count.

Both the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee and TGA vaccine safety investigation group will hold emergency meetings on Saturday to look into the case and consider responses.

This morning, Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeannette Young, insisted the vaccine is perfectly safe for the vast majority of people, but warned people to be aware of the symptoms of rare but serious side effects like blood clots.

“It is very, very unlikely, but if you do (become unwell four to 20 days after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine), then you should seek urgent advice. That’s important,” Dr Young advised, adding that at this point in time, “people shouldn’t be concerned”.

“We know that all vaccines have some very, very rare side effects that can be serious, and we know if we are giving the same vaccine to large numbers of people across the whole world, we would expect to see those rare side effects because we’re giving the vaccine to millions and millions and eventually billions of people.

“People just need to be aware of any symptoms and just come forward if they do have them.”

Yesterday, acting chief medical officer Michael Kidd urged Aussies to stay calm.

“Investigators have not at this time confirmed a casual link with the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine but investigations are ongoing,” Professor Kidd told reporters.

The “very rare disorder” has “previously not been known to be associated with the vaccine, however it has been noted as a complication of people who have contracted COVID-19”, Professor Kidd said.

(continued)

>>13350803

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Before reassuring Australians that health officials are taking the “potential risk” of the clotting disorder “very seriously”, Prof Kidd also reinforced the importance of people getting vaccinated against coronavirus.

“We continue in Australia to be at risk of another serious outbreak of COVID-19 at a time when most of our population has no immunity from either past infection or from vaccination,” he said.

“We do have low risk of transmission of COVID-19 in Australia at this time but we are being open about possible risks and acknowledge the uncertainty that this will cause. We are taking this potential risk very seriously.

“At this time, the risk of serious disease and death from COVID-19, if we experience another severe outbreak, especially among older Australians and those with severe health conditions, is far greater than the very small potential risk of a very rare clotting disorder associated with the vaccine.”

While health officials in the UK and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) repeated a similar sentiment, overnight the Netherlands joined a growing number of countries in halting its use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“We must err on the side of caution, which is why it is wise to press the pause button now as a precaution,” Health Minister Hugo de Jone said.

The Netherlands follows Canada and France, where the vaccine has been suspended to people aged under 55, and Germany, where use of the vaccine has been restricted to those aged over 60, among others – prompting the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) to also reassess its position.

ATAGI found no link between the vaccine and blood clots but, in a new warning, told patients who received of the COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer or AstraZeneca) to be aware of common side effects which include fever, sore muscles, tiredness and headaches usually 24 hours after the dose.

“The reports from overseas of rare clotting disorders have occurred later than this. Before day four and day 20, after vaccination, and have generally caused severe symptoms requiring hospitalisation,” the warning reads.

“People should be particularly alert to severe persistent headaches occurring 4-20 days after vaccination and which are different to the usual pattern of headaches that people may experience at other times and which do not settle with paracetamol or other over the counter painkillers.”

In a statement, ATAGI said there would be no change to the clinical guidance on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, following findings by the EMA that the condition may be associated with clots linked to thromocytopenia, a rare but serious condition involving low levels of blood platelets.

“ATAGI considers the benefits of vaccination in protecting people in Australia from COVID-19 outweigh the rare potential risk of these rare blood clotting events, and supports the continued rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia,” they said.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/health/seven-blood-clot-deaths-in-the-uk-after-astrazeneca-vaccine/news-story/c9f9547573a55ca8a8050fcb1e9a883f

‘We must cut China ties I helped build’, says former SA trade minister Tom Kenyon

DAVID PENBERTHY - APRIL 2, 2021

A former state trade minister who backed a controversial Chinese consulate in Adelaide now says Australia must “disengage economically” from China as Beijing becomes hard line.

Tom Kenyon, who served for two years as trade minister in the Weatherill Labor government, said Beijing’s trade war and ­increased militarism meant there was little point trying to pretend the relationship between the two nations would continue to be of value. He told The Weekend Australian that President Xi Jinping was more akin to Mao Zedong than the pragmatic and economically focused Chinese leadership of the 2010s when he was trade minister and South Australia was keen to boost its ties with Beijing.

Mr Kenyon said that during his time in the ministry SA pulled back on its trade presence in countries such as Malaysia and the UAE and moved its focus aggressively towards China, leading several trade delegations to China and boosting the sister province relationship between SA and Shandong.

At that same time the SA Labor government gave Beijing approval to acquire a 5600sq m suburban block in Joslin for a rumoured $5m, where its new consular complex was launched this week by SA Liberal Premier Steven Marshall amid angry protests led by SA’s large Uighur community.

Mr Kenyon said it was now time for Australia to pull back, saying it was increasingly obvious that China did not share our values and that Australia now had to make a choice.

“Up until this point, Australia has been able to have a strong trading relationship with China and a strong political friendship with the US,” Mr Kenyon said.

“Unfortunately, we no longer have this luxury. Australia needs to begin disengaging economically from China or, at the very least, limiting our exposure to the Chinese economy.”

Mr Kenyon said the relationship between Australia and China had “fundamentally changed” since he was trade minister.

“When I took the role we were in the final days of Hu Jintao’s presidency and Australia, along with the rest of the world, had been engaging with China expecting China to become more open and more collegiate.

“That all changed within a few months when current and now-permanent President Xi Jinping took over, as well as continuing his role heading the Chinese Communist Party.

“Since that time, the CCP has become more aggressive, more hostile and more likely to interfere in events in foreign countries. President Xi seems to be a genuine communist more in the mould of Mao Ze Dong than Jiang Zemin. This does not augur well for us.”

Mr Kenyon said he regretted that so much goodwill and hard work on trade and cultural ties ­between Australian and China was now being undone by Beijing’s aggressive stance.

“It’s important to remember here that the Chinese people are not the problem,” Mr Kenyon said.

“The CCP is the problem ­because it is an organisation that is hostile and alien to Western freedoms and values.”

Mr Kenyon’s comments were echoed by another SA Labor government minister, former ­attorney-general Mick Atkinson, who was in government when the consulate was given approval to expand.

Mr Atkinson told The Weekend Australian that China’s ­increased disregard for human rights in Hong Kong meant Australian politicians needed to ­reconsider their preparedness to deal with Beijing.

“The horror of Chinese Communist Party rule in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong is something the Premier will have weighed in his decision to attend the opening of the new Chinese consulate in Adelaide,” Mr Atkinson said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/we-must-cut-china-ties-i-helped-build-says-tom-kenyon/news-story/41233663dac6b9d600056898c43a8bbb

>>13351013

New Zealand’s failure to call out China throws spotlight on nation’s relationship with Beijing

There are concerns from New Zealand Five Eyes’ allies that it may be the weak link in dealing with China as the Ardern Government, again, failed to call out Beijing.

Benedict Brook - APRIL 3, 2021

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Last week, 13 nations across the globe raised their concerns about China’s apparent meddling in the World Health Organisation’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which include Australia, Canada, the UK and US, all signed the joint declaration.

Well almost all. One Five Eyes nation, New Zealand, declined to put its name to the communique.

It’s led to a lingering concern that the government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is weaker when it comes to standing up to Beijing. It’s even been dubbed the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes.

Wellington may have seen the diplomatic and trade tussles between China and Australia and has decided it doesn’t want to end up in the same position. But as New Zealand has found out, even mild criticism can enrage China.

NZ fails to join Five Eyes’ China statements

“New Zealand has been criticised for its perceived reluctance to join with other states and speak up on matters of concern with China,” University of Canterbury China specialist Professor Anne-Marie Brady wrote in magazine The Diplomat last year.

“It is practising deliberate ambiguity in its China policy, and so far, it seems to be getting away with it.”

But New Zealand’s attempts to find a win-win way to deal with Beijing has led its political will to be questioned by its allies.

In January last year, British newspaper the Financial Times stated that New Zealand was “on the edge of viability as a member” of the Five Eyes and had a “supine” attitude to China.

A piece of evidence backing up that view occurred this week when even WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called out China for its reticence to provide the WHO COVID-19 investigation with the raw data scientists had demanded.

That New Zealand did not back up the WHO, the Five Eyes, or the likes of Japan, South Korea and Israel in calling out China was striking.

The Ardern Government said its reluctance to join the chorus of disapproval was because it hadn’t fully read the report. That’s despite everyone else, including tiny Estonia, having had sufficient time to swot up on its contents.

“Our technical experts are currently analysing the report,” a spokeswoman for New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta told The Australian.

“As this is a scientific report, we want to make sure we understand the science before making any comment.”

The prevarication has happened before. In January, New Zealand failed to sign another official statement from the other Five Eyes condemning the arrests of pro-democratic politicians in Hong Kong.

Also in January, Kiwi trade minister Damien Cook said Australia should follow New Zealand and “show respect” to China and be “cautious with wording”.

That advice led former diplomat and current Liberal MP Dave Sharma to say he “expected a little more from trans-Tasman solidarity”.

“It betrays a lack of acquaintance with basic facts that I would not expect from a close friend and partner like New Zealand,” he told the SMH.

Many eyebrows have been raised about New Zealand’s handling of its relationship with China.

Unlike Australia, it has signed up to an aspect of Beijing’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative. According to the Financial Times, Chinese Communist Party-linked businesspeople are big donors to New Zealand’s main political parties.

A recent New Zealand MP admitted to teaching Chinese spies English to monitor other country’s communications prior to emigrating. But he has denied passing information about his adopted country back to Beijing, reported the website Stuff.

(continued)

>>13351022

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NZ dubbed Five Eyes’ ‘soft underbelly’

“Tiny New Zealand may seem like a strange target for Communist party infiltration, but the country is attractive to Beijing as the soft underbelly of the Five Eyes,” wrote Jamil Anderlini in an opinion piece for the Financial Times last year.

The term “soft underbelly” haunts Ms Ardern. In 2018, the Canadian Government used it in an official document to describe how China views New Zealand as a weak point in security intelligence. It added that Beijing’s relationship with Wellington was a model for future China-Australia relations.

New Zealand exports $18 billion of products to China, double that which goes to Australia.

“Presumably out of fear Beijing would respond with economic sanctions, Ms Ardern has gone out of her way to avoid even mentioning the topic of Chinese political interference,” added Anderlini.

She need only look across the Tasman to see the trade pain China has caused Australia after Canberra called for the WHO investigation, banned Chinese tech giant Huawei from sensitive infrastructure and continued to criticise Beijing’s human rights record.

In contrast, earlier this year, a free-trade deal between China and New Zealand was upgraded.

CCP mouthpiece the Global Times lauded Wellington, saying “it doesn’t take sides” between the US and China and “has maintained its own judgment in major China-related agendas”.

China’s constant call is for western nations to not take sides, which also has the handy side effect of weakening any push back that might come its way.

Search for a ‘safe way’ to deal with China

Prof Brady said New Zealand was searching for a “safe way” to deal with China. But said the country was actually more aggressive in pushing back against Beijing than it had been in the past.

She has dubbed it New Zealand’s “quiet shift” from the “blind eye” it had previously adopted.

“New Zealand is … seeking to find a safe way to deal with China’s increased political interference activities and aggressive foreign policy,” she said.

“The New Zealand government has strenuously avoided confronting China directly. Instead the government has carefully managed a case-by-case recalibration of the New Zealand-China relationship, all the while claiming any changes were ‘country agnostic’.”

In a piece in The Guardian, Prof Brady said New Zealand could learn from Australia’s China “missteps”.

The danger for New Zealand, however, is there may be no safe way to manage China and its dainty glass jaw. Any criticism of Beijing is met with hostility.

In December, Ms Ardern backed – in a somewhat muted fashion – Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s frustration of a tweet from a Beijing apparatchik that depicted a digger slitting the throat of an Afghani child.

The Global Times duly aimed its barbs Wellington’s way. A warning shot, perhaps.

“Kiwis bleat like Aussie sheep but don’t condemn Afghan killings,” said the newspaper, which claimed Ms Arden’s comments were something she “has to say” to maintain trans-Tasman relations.

NZ not silent on China, but perhaps more muted

New Zealand has certainly not been silent on China. It has expressed dismay at the smashing of Hong Kong’s already limited democracy. It has also banned Huawei from sensitive infrastructure. Last week, the foreign ministers of Australia and NZ said they had “grave concerns” about the treatment of the Uighurs.

Ms Ardern said New Zealand law prevented sanctions being levied against China. That get-out meant China did not levy sanctions in return, which occurred for the US, UK and Canada. Nonetheless, Beijing still took a swipe admonishing it for interfering in the nation’s “internal affairs”.

It’s a difficult balancing act for Ms Ardern and the New Zealand government.

Its aim may be to not poke the dragon. But when its allies are routinely smarting from Beijing’s wrath, there may be pressure for Wellington to give up its “quiet shift” and more stridently support Australia and other world democracies in pushing back against China.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/new-zealands-failure-to-call-out-china-throws-spotlight-on-nations-relationship-with-beijing/news-story/38340b8efbbefb7e4ade864bd9a91fa8

Covid ‘just China’s first virus threat’, warns Mike Pompeo

GREG SHERIDAN - APRIL 2, 2021

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The world faces new pandemic outbreaks at least as deadly as COVID-19 because of the ­continued biological weapons ­research being undertaken in Chinese laboratories, Donald Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo has declared.

“The Chinese Communist Party continues to engage in this sort of biological research,” Mr Pompeo told The Weekend ­Australian in a wide-ranging ­interview.

“The risk of this sort of thing happening again from a Chinese facility is real and significant.

“We can see in the millions of lives lost and the billions of dollars of wealth that’s been destroyed, the world must make sure that this does not happen again.”

Mr Pompeo believes that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan laboratory, but that it was not released intentionally by Chinese authorities.

“I am highly confident the virus began in Wuhan, China,” he said. “I am reasonably confident it came from the (Wuhan Institute of Virology) laboratory. I am less certain of that and the CCP has diligently tried to make sure we never know. But the weight of evidence suggests it likely came from that laboratory.”

Mr Pompeo is unimpressed by the joint World Health Organisation/China investigation into the origins of the virus and said Beijing stood condemned for its cover-up.

“We still don’t know who patient zero was,” he said. “We still haven’t seen the original strain. We still haven’t interviewed the doctors that were working in the laboratory.

“The central moment that the Chinese knew they had a virulent virus that was human-to-human transmissible, their choice was to lock down Wuhan and to lock down the world from understanding the risk that was presented to it. That cover-up alone, regardless of where the virus actually began, is something the CCP must be held to account for.”

Before he became secretary of state in 2017, Mr Pompeo was CIA director; before that he was a member of the congressional ­intelligence committee. He endorsed recent remarks by US Indo-Pacific commander Philip Davidson that Beijing could launch military action against Taiwan in the next few years.

“In my time in service I saw the Chinese actions and the intelligence we had about their intentions,” Mr Pompeo said.

“The reunification of Taiwan is something they are intent upon. The means that they will use are likely to be coercive at the front end and military at the back end, only when necessary.”

Mr Pompeo believes the best way to avoid conflict and safeguard regional democracies is for the US and its allies to make clear to Beijing that military action against Taiwan would come at an enormous cost.

Mr Pompeo sees the Quadrilateral Dialogue, involving the US, Australia, Japan and India, as critical in resisting Chinese ­domination. “These are four great friends,” he said. “They are real democracies, with all the noise and hubbub that comes with that, but they are real democracies working every day to make their countries great.”

Mr Pompeo said the chief method of coercion Beijing ­employed was economic power, citing recent trade actions against Australia as an example. But the Quad nations between them were powerful enough to resist such ­coercion, he said.

“We four represent a very ­significant piece of the economic activity between free and open ­societies. We should do our best to get rid of tariffs on each other, make sure we have as open and free arrangements between our countries as we can, and demand that other countries participate on the basis of those same rules.”

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However, Mr Pompeo believes the US and its allies, including Australia, are not acting with sufficient vigour in the hi-tech competition with Beijing.

“We are not doing enough, not nearly enough,” he said.

Hi-tech fields such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, blockchain and a few others would be the “commanding heights of the next generation” whereas in the past they were resources such as oil. “We must make sure the technology of the future is democratic technology and not totalitarian technology,” he said.

He gave a cautious pass mark to the Joe Biden administration in its early handling of China and Asia policy. “I’m hopeful,” he said. “There is a bipartisan consensus in the US on the threat from China. I’m rooting for the current administration to have the backs of our friends like Australia, India and our friends in Southeast Asia as they are confronted by all the things we know the Chinese are likely to do.”

Mr Pompeo strongly contests the idea that Beijing is a status quo power with limited objectives.

“The Chinese Communist Party deeply believes their ­Marxist/Leninist ideology is the right ideology for the world, and they attempt to impose that ideology everywhere. Their intentions are to undermine democracy.”

He is more critical of the Biden administration in its weakening of US policy towards Iran, and cites the recent China-Iran economic agreement as a dangerous development.

“The Chinese need oil and the Iranians need money and weapons systems,” he said.

Because of the Biden administration’s weakening of US sanctions on Iran, Mr Pompeo said Tehran now faced almost no limitations on the weapons systems it could acquire.

“You will see increased trafficking in arms systems,” he said.

“The Iranians have the ­capacity to build some of these on their own. But Chinese cyber capabilities, Chinese missile ­technology, all the things the ­Chinese have been working on these last 25 years are now likely to find their way to an ayatollah who will use them to destabilise the Middle East. It’s a really negative outcome to see China and Iran working so closely together.”

Mr Pompeo would not accept that his former boss’s language and undisciplined tweets were a significant problem.

He argued that the Trump ­administration deserved to be judged by what it did, rather than whether it lived up to diplomatic niceties.

Rumours are strong that Mr Pompeo plans to run for the presidency in 2024.

He said: “It’s a long ways off. I’m always up for a good fight. But I have a mission before that.

“The Republicans do not control any of the Houses of Congress. We’ve got to get them back. I want to help that happen.”

That response will convince both his admirers and his critics that Mr Pompeo plans to have a crack at the Oval Office.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/covid-just-chinas-first-virus-threat-warns-mike-pompeo/news-story/c3f84010077b4bf081a2d84b1e54d9f7

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Pompeo rallies allies against China threat

GREG SHERIDAN - APRIL 2, 2021

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Mike Pompeo was the surviving resident adult in the national ­security administration of former president Donald Trump. He was, successively, a pro-Trump congressman, CIA director for a year, then secretary of state for two. Uniquely in that turbulent, unstable administration, he not only survived, but left each position with his reputation enhanced and solid achievements under his belt.

Pompeo was certainly controversial, and by previous diplomatic standards strikingly direct. But his accomplishments are undeniable. He achieved a string of peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbours, which would have been unthinkable under Barack Obama. And he established a completely dominant new US ­position on China, which the ­administration of Joe Biden has honoured by not changing in any significant way.

More than that, in the neurotic performance drama of Trump’s erratic statements and mercurial emotions, there was a ballast — a substance and reliability — to Pompeo that every US ally valued.

Now he looks to be running, if as yet unofficially, for president in 2024. Although an ebullient and engaging personality, he sees a pretty dark world with one enormous problem at the centre of everything — the Communist Party of China.

In a wide-ranging and lengthy interview over Zoom, I asked Pompeo what he thought Beijing’s strategic ambitions really were. His reply was less than cheerful.

“Two things we can point to in making predictions about their ­actions. First is what they say. Their central idea is to undermine democracy everywhere. The Chinese Communist Party deeply ­believes their Marxist/Leninist ideology is the right ideology for the world, and they attempt to ­impose that ideology everywhere.

“Second, observe their actions. They chastise their counterparts. Any time someone dares ask what’s happening in western China (Xinjiang), in Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mongolia, they say stay out of our business, that’s our internal affairs.”

Pompeo argues the best way to avoid conflict and keep democracies safe is for the US and its allies and friends to make it clear to ­Beijing that breaching its inter­national obligations carries a cost.

“When the CCP says we’re going to allow the people of Hong Kong to be semi-autonomous for 50 years and then violates it, the world has to take note, the world has to respond to it, the world cannot say ‘Oh darn it, that’s just the Chinese doing what they do’.

“When the CCP puts a million people in internment camps, the world can’t just say ‘Oh, you know, it’s an internal matter’.”

Pompeo agrees with the US ­Pacific Commander Admiral Philip Davidson that there is a serious chance Beijing could launch military action against Taiwan: “In my time in service I saw both the Chinese actions and the intelligence we had about their intentions. The reunification of Taiwan is something that they are intent upon. The means that they will use are likely to be coercive at the front end and military at the back end, only when required.

“But you can see them already ratchet up the pressure. They challenge every time the US lives up to simply what we promised to do, to provide weapons to the people of Taiwan so they can defend themselves. We have a responsibility to live up to our commitments.

“When we hear the words of the most senior Pacific commander for the US, we know that the world has a responsibility to make it clear to the CCP that such an undertaking against Taiwan is simply unacceptable.”

Sensibly, Pompeo would not commit, even out of office, to backing a specific US military response if Taiwan is attacked (despite my strenuous efforts to get him to do so), but the thrust of his sentiment is clear: “Look at the actions we (the Trump administration) took for four years — the clarity with which we spoke about these issues, the preparedness we demonstrated to engage Taiwan, the efforts we made to get Taiwan into the World Health Organisation, the work we’ve done with Taiwan on the commercial side.

“We have a broader responsibility that is wrapped up in this to make it clear to the CCP that their continued abrogation of their international responsibilities has real costs.”

(continued)

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Pompeo argues that Beijing’s actions right now — not its speculated future actions — put the world at risk.

He believes the COVID-19 virus came from a Chinese laboratory, but even if it didn’t the danger of such an event in the future is real. The world faces the prospect of new pandemic outbreaks as bad or worse as the COVID-19 pandemic we are still grappling with, he claims, because of continued Chinese biological weapons work.

“This is an ongoing challenge because the CCP continues to engage in this sort of biological research. The risk for something like this happening again from a Chinese facility is real and significant,” he says. “We can see in the millions of lives lost, and the billions of dollars of wealth destroyed, that the world must make sure that China never does this again.”

This is a tough-minded assessment. But Pompeo’s view of all this is a little more nuanced and qualified than he is sometimes given credit for. Let him explain:

“I am highly confident that the virus began in Wuhan, China. I am reasonably confident it began in the (Wuhan Institute of Virology) laboratory. I’m less certain of that and there are still more facts that are unknown and the CCP has ­diligently tried to make sure that we never know. But the weight of evidence suggests that it likely came from that laboratory. There is enormous evidence for that.”

Before considering the rest of the Pompeo argument, it’s important to gauge precisely what he has said. He thinks the virus came from the lab, but he’s not sure. The Australian agencies that assessed this question came to what seems to be the opposite conclusion. They think the virus did not come from a lab but from the animal kingdom to human beings. But they, too, readily admit that they are not sure.

Thus Pompeo on one hand, and our agencies on the other, ­accept the same range of possibilities, accept that they cannot know for sure, but weight the different factors a bit differently. Neither position is unreasonable.

I ask Pompeo, could the Chinese possibly have released the virus deliberately? “I’ve seen no evidence that they intentionally set it loose,” he says. “None”.

There is now a big and public literature on these questions. Many nations which do biological warfare research, and that’s a lot of nations, engage in what is called “change of function” research. In this, they manipulate viruses within the laboratory to make them more transmissible or more deadly. They justify this on defensive grounds. Doing this research allows them to develop potential ­vaccines and other defences in case they are ever attacked with such biological weapons. But the very act of this research creates enormous dangers.

The laboratories create deadly viruses that nature had not previously created. You only need the cleaning or protective protocols to break down once and there is a ­potential deadly spread.

Pompeo is much clearer that Beijing stands condemned over the cover-up regarding the virus. Like most commentators, he is deeply unimpressed with the recent World Health Organisation report that cleared Beijing of all culpability.

Pompeo says: “We still don’t know who Patient Zero was. We still haven’t interviewed the doctors who were working in the laboratory. The central moment the Chinese knew they had a virulent virus that was human-to-human transmissible, their choice was to lock down Wuhan and lock down the world from understanding the risk that was presented to it.

“The Chinese know what happened They have data that could answer all these questions. As you and I sit here today, they are choosing not to divulge it to us. I think that’s incredibly telling.”

Pompeo is deeply committed to the US-Australia alliance and ­believes that the Quadrilateral Dialogue involving the US, Australia, Japan and India is a key to dealing with the challenge posed by Beijing’s strategic ambitions.

“These are four great friends. We are great friends because we have a shared interest in what ­humanity could look like in 10 years, in 100 years.

“We are real ­democracies, with all the noise and hubbub that comes with that — real democracies working every day to make their countries great.

“I view these four countries as essential in pushing back against the CCP. The primary tool used by the Communist Party of China is economic power. It has 1.4 billion people. They have spread their power around the world, using predatory means via the Belt and Road Initiative.

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“These four (Quad) countries represent a very significant piece of economic activity among open and free societies. They have enormous potential to influence who can trade and how they can trade. We can demand fairness, openness, free trade. We should do our best to get rid of tariffs on each other.”

Pompeo at no point will criticise Trump, but free trade does ­figure in his rhetoric much more than it did in Trump’s. Pompeo gives a cautious pass mark to the Biden administration for its early performance on China and Asia: “I’m hopeful, in that there is a ­bipartisan consensus in the US on the threat from China. Democrats understand this as well as Republicans. I’m rooting for the (Biden) administration to have the backs of our friends like Australia, India, our friends in Southeast Asia, when they are confronted by all the things we know the Chinese are likely to do. I hope the administration will not contain, but ­convince, the CCP that their ­aggressive, malign activity will simply not be successful.”

One area he is clear the US and its allies are operating well below par is in the competition in key ­hi-tech fields such as artificial in­telligence, blockchain, quantum computing, hypersonic weapons. The Chinese are intensely focused on this technology competition. These new technologies, Pompeo says, will be the commanding heights of the next generation, whereas previously the commanding heights were provided by resources like oil: “We have to make sure the technology of the future is democratic technology, not totalitarian technology.”

If Pompeo gives Biden a cautious pass on China, he is far more critical on the loosening of US ­policy towards Iran and what he sees as the potentially extremely dangerous economic deal Iran and Beijing have just concluded.

“The Chinese need oil and the Iranians need money and weapons systems,” Pompeo observes.

“We (the Trump administration) were able to successfully deny Iran the ability to ship crude oil in significant amounts to China. Now we’ve got Iran freed from any prohibition on arms sales.”

Under the international agreement, which Trump repudiated, there was a temporary ban on ­Iranian arms sales, but it has now expired. The Biden administration has abolished the unilateral mechanisms which Trump and Pompeo used to keep Iran away from the international arms trade. Now, it’s much more open slather.

“You will see increased trafficking in weapons systems,” Pompeo tells me.

“The Iranians have the ­capacity to build some of these on their own, but Chinese cyber capability, Chinese missile technology — all the things the Chinese have been working on these past 25 years — are likely to now find their way to an ayatollah who will use them to destabilise the Middle East.”

Pompeo is unhappy with North Korea’s recent ballistic missile tests. He notes that they were relatively short-range systems, but they are clear breaches of UN ­Security Council resolutions. However, he makes a point which to me has always seemed obvious. It is impossible to reform North Korea meaningfully unless Beijing itself decides that it wants North Korea to change.

I try to draw Pompeo into some kind of comparison between his own targeted remarks and the sometimes wild and scattergun things Trump said as president. But he certainly won’t criticise Trump. He makes the reasonable point that the Trump administration should be judged on what it did, rather than whether it lived up to diplomatic niceties.

“I’m from Kansas and my diplomatic skills are about two out of 10,” Pompeo says.

“The president was the same. We say what we think.”

Actually Pompeo is being too modest there. His remarks, while you might have disagreed with them occasionally, were always judged, making a case. Even his best friend couldn’t say that with a straight face about Trump.

But Pompeo achieved what he did by running his own race while never being disloyal to Trump.

So, is he now planning to run for president?

He laughs, then says: “I’m always up for a good fight. But I have a mission before that. Republicans don’t control any of the houses of Congress. We need to get them back and I want to help with that.”

Pompeo is a man with a lot ­invested in the future.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/pompeo-rallies-allies-against-china-threat/news-story/2dd6bba82346b7263a3d1bcec140ed57

Exclusive: Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother says 'self-destructive' Prince Andrew will not be a witness

Ian Maxwell says that Duke of York is 'hostage to fortune' and that his sister has become a hate figure as she awaits sex trafficking trial

Robert Mendick - 2 April 2021

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Ian Maxwell is adamant his sister, Ghislaine Maxwell, will not be calling the Duke of York as a witness for the defence when she stands trial this summer. Following Prince Andrew’s last public interrogation – on BBC television by the journalist Emily Maitlis – he considers it wouldn’t be a good idea for the Queen’s son to spring to Ms Maxwell’s defence. “It was the most remarkable piece of self destruction,” says Mr Maxwell. “I think he would be – as he proved in that interview – I think he's a pretty serious hostage to fortune. I don't think that's going to happen.”

Mr Maxwell, 64, is giving a wide-ranging interview in defence of Ms Maxwell. He believes his younger sister (now aged 59) has become a hate figure, in part because she is a woman accused of sex crimes. He says she is being treated far worse ahead of her trial than famous (now infamous) men, such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, who were both subsequently convicted of sex offences.

He has written a letter to Joe Biden’s Attorney General, pleading for the US to give Ms Maxwell a fair trial. In the letter, he draws a comparison between his sister’s plight and that of Field Marshal Lord Bramall, the former head of the Army and D-Day veteran, who was falsely accused of being a paedophile by a fantasist subsequently jailed for 18 years.

Ms Maxwell, he believes, risks becoming a victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice, a “patsy” in his words for the sex crimes committed by her one-time boyfriend, the billionaire financier, who hanged himself in the summer of 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex abuse.

“It is completely Kafka-esque,” said Mr Maxwell of his younger sister’s predicament. She is languishing in a Brooklyn jail on charges relating to allegations that took place – in some cases – 27 years ago and made by four women, now presumably middle-aged, whose identities the courts will not reveal. This, says Mr Maxwell, is the American justice system. And he holds it in pretty low regard. Ms Maxwell is in a tiny cell, watched over 24 hours a day, woken up and checked on every 15 minutes to ensure she hasn’t killed herself, as her former boyfriend did. Mr Maxwell likens the “truly horrific” conditions of her captivity to “torture” and questions how she can mount a defence in such “circumstances”. There are two million pages of discovery documents for her to plough through.

“My sister has been banged up for 280 days. It really is grotesque,” he says. It’s a word he uses a lot in relation to his sister’s current situation. So too “Kafka-esque”. When – or if – she is acquitted, he says, she plans to campaign for the other half a million people who spend month after month on pre-trial detention in the US.

In the latest twist in the Maxwell saga, the British socialite was informed this week she faces two further charges of sex trafficking of a minor after a new woman came forward claiming she procured her for Epstein. In total, she faces eight charges over allegations made by four women over a 10-year period. Mr Maxwell insists there isn’t a shred of corroborative evidence to back up historic allegations and that the new charges, perversely, suggest the US prosecutor’s case is a weak and desperate one. He points to testimony given by a police officer in a civil case against Ms Maxwell who under oath said her name had never come up in a previous criminal investigation into Epstein dating back to a conviction 2008. “It’s not in her nature to do any of these things,” says Mr Maxwell.

Ms Maxwell, says her brother, is now in a quandary. If she delays her trial – due to start in July – in order to prepare her defence against the new allegations, then she will spend more time in jail. A fourth attempt to secure her bail is being prepared.

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In his letter to Merrick Garland, the new US Attorney general, Mr Maxwell writes: “I live in Britain and am completely confounded by the American legal system.” He complains of the repeated decisions to block bail but adds: “What is most puzzling is the court’s refusal to identify the now four anonymous complainants who only stepped forward after Epstein’s death, 25 years after the offences were alleged to have been committed. As you may be aware, Ghislaine is adamant that she has committed no crime. Given the anonymity of the accusers she is unable to prepare her defence, simply because she doesn't know who they are and of what she is accused.”

He then draws parallels with Operation Midland, the police investigation in the UK in which a man named as “Nick” and later revealed to be Carl Beech, accused a series of VIPs of being involved in a murderous paedophile gang.

“One of them was the former Head of the Armed Forces, Field Marshall Lord Bramall and in particularly tragic circumstances his wife, who had been made aware of the allegations, sadly died before he was cleared,” writes Mr Maxwell. “Lord Bramall himself died a couple of years later. After all of this suffering it was determined that the accuser had fabricated the entire story and he was subsequently tried and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for his lies.”

Mr Maxwell had known and befriended Bramall – they worked together at a military publishing company owned by the Maxwells – and is adamant his sister too is being falsely accused.

“This D-Day vet must have been churning inside with anger,” says Mr Maxwell in an interview conducted over zoom from his London home. “The reason that I raised it [Operation Midland] is simply that here we have a situation where we have now four anonymous accusers. Their allegations have never been put to the test, no-cross examination, no evidence furnished, no names provided. It's completely Kafka-esque. You don't know who's accusing you; you don't know what you're accused of specifically; you don't know when it's alleged to have happened other than it did happen.”

He criticises prosecutors and the FBI for staging what he calls a “dog and pony” show to announce she had been captured, in the hours after Ms Maxwell’s arrest last July at a remote home she had bought in New Hampshire. What followed was, he says, “an outrageous perp walk of a press conference, designed to be prejudicial and it’s been highly successful. If you look at the headlines Ghislaine is a ‘monster’ or a ‘madame’ or whatever else she has been described as and it’s grotesque and really offensive.”

Mr Maxwell doesn’t buy conspiracy theories that his sister is somehow being put in a squeeze to give up bigger names. Epstein, aged 66 when he was found dead in his New York jail cell, was friends with not just Prince Andrew but also Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. All of them deny vehemently any suggestion of wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s behaviour. An infamous black book of his influential contacts has been widely circulated on the internet.

“The reality is that as far as my sister is concerned this is completely peripheral,” says Mr Maxwell although he wonders if their associations have created more publicity and fanfare.

He doesn’t recognise the sister he knows, her depiction as a sexual predator and procurer of girls and young women. “We grew up together in England seeing a lot of each other and she has the right values. You couldn't be a child of Bob Maxwell and be some kind of floating socialite, doing nothing. It just was not possible to be in our family and be like that.”

Their father, the publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, fell overboard and died off his yacht the Lady Ghislaine in November 1991, leaving behind a business empire in tatters and which fell apart soon after. People have tried to draw a connection between father and daughter, suggesting they both had “bad genes” but that is unfair, says Mr Maxwell.

Mr Maxwell says his sister’s subsequent work promoting environmental concerns over the oceans has been utterly “disparaged” in the wake of her association with Epstein.

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Her next project will be to help 500,000 pretrial detainees should she ever be set free. “She wants to use her name; she wants to use her case; she wants to use her resources, her intelligence, her network to get a powerful light shone on this absolutely unacceptable side of American, so-called justice. It’s wrong,” says Mr Maxwell. “If she is exonerated, which she fully expects to be, she's not going to just walk away and forget about this. She's going to put her shoulder to the grindstone trying to do something positive to get that situation changed.”

After attending the University of Oxford, Ms Maxwell moved to the US while her brother remained in the UK and they saw less and less of each other. But Mr Maxwell is now riding to his sister’s defence. The last time he heard his sister’s voice was nine months ago, listening to her give monosyllabic answers at an early court hearing that was viewable online. She has lost weight – and hair – while in jail and communicates through her lawyers.

Mr Maxwell insists his sister’s relationship with Epstein was not a normal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship and that they maintained separate homes. “I don't think you could characterise this as a kind of conventional lovey-dovey living together relationship,” he says. “I think the most important thing that you could possibly report is that they never lived together, ever. He had his place. She had her place. It's hugely important for a man who was as compartmentalised as Jeffrey Epstein clearly was.”

Epstein, he believes, kept his sordid sex life and criminality secret from Ms Maxwell. It is an argument that her lawyers will need to win to persuade a jury of her innocence.

Dozens of women have filed lawsuits against the Epstein estate, valued at close to $600 million on his death. To date, four women are involved in the criminal prosecution of Ms Maxwell. It is unclear if others will give supporting evidence. The new charges, announced last week, had the effect of “lobbing a grenade into the proceedings”.

Mr Maxwell says: “Ghislaine is facing charges effectively created by the US government solely to satisfy the media, to appease accusers, and their trial lawyers, bolstering a weak case in an effort to justify huge settlements for crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein, and by Jeffrey Epstein alone. They're trying to revive Epstein by relitigating crimes, with a proxy defendant Ghislaine. That just ain't right.”

The latest charges relating to sex trafficking between 2001 and 2004 are intriguing, not least because that is a timeframe when Prince Andrew, Ms Maxwell’s long-time friend, was becoming close to Epstein. The pair met in about 1999. Prince Andrew gave an interview to the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight in November 2019, three months after Epstein died, in which he denied any wrongdoing but failed to express sympathy for Epstein’s victims and argued, for example, that the account of one victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre was false because he did not sweat and had, anyway, been at Pizza Express.

The claims opened Prince Andrew up to ridicule but Mr Maxwell doesn’t believe that interview had any bearing on the subsequent pursuit of Ghislaine. The die was cast when Epstein died in custody and, says Mr Maxwell, authorities – the then Attorney general William Barr was “livid” – needed somebody in the dock.

“I don't actually agree that this particularly reignited [the case],” says Mr Maxwell. “I think it was, it was bubbling away there after Epstein died… it [the interview] did sort of shine a light back on it, but it was the most remarkable piece of self-destruction.”

Prince Andrew and Ms Maxwell, long-time friends since her Oxford days, last saw each other in June 2019 when she was visiting London at the start of a charity car rally. In almost two years since then their lives have been turned upside down over their association with Epstein. The Duke of York is banished from public duty, free to roam the Queen’s Windsor estate. Ghislaine Maxwell is confined, meanwhile, to her 9ft by 7ft jail cell. A trial, should it take place in July, will decide once and for all if she deserves anyone’s sympathy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/02/exclusive-ghislaine-maxwells-brother-says-self-destructive-prince/

Civilian expert tracks the child abusers

DAVID MURRAY - APRIL 3, 2021

Australian police are using civilian sleuths with expertise in open source intelligence techniques to help solve the world’s toughest online child sexual abuse cases.

Since September last year, carefully selected images from a dozen cases have been sent overseas by Queensland’s Task Force Argos to a volunteer online investigator with remarkable skills in finding locations from small clues in photographs.

Working with a team of other international volunteer investigators, the engineer has directly tracked down locations or generated significant leads in 10 of the cases, leading to authorities rescuing children.

He first discovered his proficiency in online investigations through Europol’s Trace an ­Object crowdsourcing campaign, in which the public is asked to identify objects and places from unsolved child abuse cases.

The Australian Federal Police-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) in March launched its own version of the campaign, ­initially releasing images of nine objects.

Investigators say they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new images being generated every day and public assistance is key to fighting back against child exploitation.

“In many cases, we know the sex offender communities are ­demanding more content from some of these people,” says ­Detective Superintendent Jon Rouse, manager of covert online investigations, victim ID and training at the ACCCE.

“So, you know it’s going to keep happening, and police are working against the clock with what we have, to try to find the ­location and get an investigative team somewhere in the world or Australia onto it.

“There’s people out there that once they realise what we are up against, and with the very, very, very thin blue line that we have to put against it, they want to help.”

ACCCE victim identification analyst Laura Smith has been driving the Australian Trace campaign since returning from a three-year stint with Interpol’s Crimes Against Children Unit in France.

“The crime type as a whole can be a really hard and uncomfortable topic to talk about for people in general, but it’s so important because the effects of abuse on children last a lifetime,” she said.

The hope is that in some cases the victim would come forward and recognise that the object used to belong to them, and that they know that they’ve been abused and photographed.

Superintendent Rouse said ­investigators had been unable to identify hundreds of abused and at-risk Australian children on photographs and videos retrieved from the surface web, dark web and other sources, so had to think laterally to try to solve them.

“Crime scenes are something police deal with all the time,” Superintendent Rouse said.

“Our problem is we don’t know where the crime scene is, we don’t know who the victim is and we don’t know who the ­offender is. And all that we’ve got is that image or video.”

Since its launch, Trace an ­Object Australia’s website has had about 37,500 page visits and received 425 reports from the public that are being assessed, an AFP spokesman said on Friday.

Victim identification analyst Adele Desirs from Argos has been selecting images for the civilian investigator.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/civilian-expert-tracks-the-child-abusers/news-story/a9a4ec119ba3c16c85000fd37c06f8b1

https://accce.gov.au/report/trace

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Citizen sleuths to the rescue in child abuse cases

If you’ve got an eye for piecing together clues, Trace an Object needs you.

DAVID MURRAY - April 2, 2021

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The picture shows a young girl standing on a deck, paint peeling off the railings behind her, with a partial view of a lake in the background. Carefully edited to conceal the girl’s identity, it was almost all that Carlos Gonzales had to go on, and the clock was ticking. According to police, this non-explicit image was of a girl who was being abused by a man who appeared to be her father.

Gonzales is an engineer, not a cop, who just happens to have discovered he has a freakish talent for identifying locations from tiny clues in photographs.

His skills first came to the fore after Europol, the EU’s police force, launched its groundbreaking Trace an Object campaign.

As part of the campaign, which has been running for almost four years and recently has been replicated in Australia, investigators publicly release images of objects and places from unsolved child abuse cases to try to find victims.

Gonzales tried his hand in tracking down the Europol images and had some stunning success, publishing his results on investigative journalism website Bellingcat.

It earned him the attention and respect of some of the leading child-victim identification experts in international law enforcement, who were soon approaching him for assistance.

Since September last year, Australian police — at the forefront of the global fight against child exploitation — have been sending pictures from the world’s most intractable cases to Gonzales, tapping into his skills in forensic online investigations, popularly known as open source intelligence.

One of the images shared with him was of the girl by the lake, along with some images of blurred background objects from other pictures in the same series.

She could have been anywhere in the world, but one object, a partially obscured water bottle, allowed Gonzales to narrow the search.

“I tracked it to one specific region in Mexico, found a lake in the city where I thought the image was from, and bang! Found it,” Gonzales tells Inquirer this week. “Three days it took us to narrow down the place and time­frame.”

Co-operative effort

Adele Desirs pulls up the girl’s redacted image on her over-size computer screen at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation.

“Once he had the location, we managed to identify the girl and the father. So we forwarded all of that to the country (Mexico),” she says. Desirs is a French police captain recruited to work as a victim identification analyst in the Queensland Police Service’s renowned anti-online child exploitation squad, Taskforce Argos, four years ago.

In a remarkable example of federal and state co-operation, Desirs now sits side-by-side with Australian Federal Police analysts at the new federally funded ACCCE facility in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. By dismantling cross-agency silos, the centre is raising the capacity of investigators in the pursuit of a single goal — protecting children.

Inquirer was allowed on to the investigation floor as the victim ID analysts arrived for work from 6am, followed by covert investigators.

“I first heard about Carlos from what he did in Trace an Object Europol because I read his articles on Bellingcat,” says Desirs.

“I was just very, very impressed, from an old series that was not even really reviewed any more, how much he could find. I learned a lot from what he did.”

Believing that Gonzales might be able to find other children, Desirs initially sent him images from five unsolved cases. To the amazement of Desirs and her colleagues, he found all five locations, working on each for just five days with a team of other volunteer online investigators.

Gonzales is extremely generous with his time and will “work on one picture for hours and hours and hours”, she says. Police, on the other hand, must “work every day, as much as we can, on thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures and cases”.

On the anonymous dark web, where Desirs is focused, vast new sets of photographs and videos are shared among global networks of offenders each day.

As they appear online they are filtered through law enforcement databases to automatically identify those already discovered, while Desirs and her colleagues scramble to find the new images of children at immediate risk of harm.

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Experienced victim identification analysts can instantly recognise children and locations from sets they have seen years earlier, preventing them from wasting precious time on chasing down old leads.

“At some points it’s very sad but what we do is triage,” Desirs says.

“It’s really like in the war when doctors have to choose who they prioritise — we only go to the ones we can save, and save fast, because there’s so many.

“I cannot spend thousands of hours on one image, it’s impossible. I can’t allow myself to do that because there’s just too many others to look at. If I’m spending 50 hours on a case, how many others am I missing?”

The pace is frenetic and losing just a day or two of monitoring can leave Desirs and her colleagues inundated.

It’s why she’s at her desk early until late each workday, her computer screen permanently clogged with dozens of open tabs.

“You really have to keep up. It’s very important. If you’re not here to look at it at the moment that it’s published, it can be gone forever,” she says.

That's where external resources such as members of the public can make all the difference.

“If they can help speed up that process, that’s where we are all winners,” Desirs says.

‘I like to help’

The name Carlos Gonzales is a pseudonym. His real identity is known to law enforcement, but for now, with a young family to consider, he keeps it private because of the nature of his volunteer work.

“I like to help, I like to contribute, but I am not keen to be famous,” he says via Zoom audio, from an undisclosed overseas location.

Gonzales discovered his aptitude for online investigations after watching a television news report on Trace an Object Europol that explained the agency had a database of 40 million images of abused children it was trying to identify.

“They were asking members of the public for help to identify these objects, and they were portraying a guy in Finland who was an architect and he managed to identify an image in China,” Gonzales says.

“I thought, well, if that guy’s an architect and I’m an engineer, why can’t I give it a go?”

He started copying Bellingcat investigative techniques and tracked down his first image. His obvious ability led to an invitation to collaborate with Bellingcat, then with US-based charity the National Child Protection Task Force.

NCPTF members include cyber security experts, intelligence analysts, retired investigators and other civilian cyber sleuths who volunteer to help law enforcement agencies tackle child exploitation, human trafficking and missing person cases.

“The main constraint (for law enforcement) is time,” Gonzales says. “The amount of cases is overwhelming, the resources are little and the time is short, so that’s where we actually kick in.”

Some of Gonzales’s earlier work on Trace an Object Europol images is detailed on Bellingcat, revealing painstaking and methodical analysis and cross-referencing of the smallest details in images.

In one case, a solitary chimney stack was first narrowed down to five Russian-speaking cities via a single tree, before other clues led to a perfect match with a factory in northern Moscow.

In another, his investigations into a low-resolution photograph of a desolate landscape, showing just weeds and some rural buildings in the background, led to a Ukrainian child modelling studio.

Desirs, from Argos, has now sent him 12 cases. Incredibly, Australian investigators reveal, he discovered one location in Asia through a single decorative tile in a swimming pool.

Police ask that methodology be kept to a minimum because abusers are constantly watching what they are doing and adjusting their behaviour to avoid arrest.

Gonzales estimates he spends about 100 hours on each case and says the support, input and instincts of fellow investigators from the NCPTF have been essential. He is never exposed to any explicit material.

“From 12 cases … we have managed to identify or at least produce valuable leads in 10 of them. We have managed to identify cases in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, France, Chile, Croatia, China and Mexico.

“In some cases we have seen how law enforcement has been able to rescue children and bring offenders to justice as a product of our findings.

“At that moment, I knew that I wanted to work on these sorts of investigations and I wanted to keep helping in the way that I’m doing.”

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Raising awareness

Three weeks ago, the ACCCE launched its own Trace an Object campaign, the first outside Europe, initially sharing nine objects. Australian investigators hope it will attract an army of online sleuths such as Gonzales, but they stress that people don’t need to be experts to contribute.

The real success will come if people in the wider community simply take a regular look at the images as they are progressively published on a dedicated AFP website, accce.gov.au/report/trace, to see if they recognise them.

AFP victim identification analyst Laura Smith, who sits beside Desirs in the ACCCE, selected the first set of images. She says six are “without question” from Australia and three are from Asia.

“I wanted to include a higher percentage of Australian images, particularly with this first round, because we have direct control over what happens with that information,” she says.

“If it leads to identification or an area, we can as the law enforcement body go out and directly execute a search warrant or interview people.”

She says it’s already generating valuable leads from around the world. On her computer, she pulls up a photo someone has sent in of Disney bedsheets on a Japanese woman’s blog.

It matches one of the new campaign’s nine images — a relatively new case in which the child is most likely still being abused.

“We’re able to see the full pattern of the sheets and recognise the brand,” Smith says. “Along with a lot of other indicators that we had from the series, we’ve been able to go, OK, well, this is a Japanese series. We’ll this week be referring this case over to Japan.”

There are strict rules about what can be published, Smith says.

“It needs to go through a very stringent victim ID process to make sure that we’ve exhausted all options,” she says.

“If we’re putting something on here, we generally don’t have any other avenues of investigative inquiry with it.”

Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, ACCCE manager for covert online investigations, victim ID and training, says it’s intended that the campaign will run permanently.

Gonzales describes the civilian investigators trying to find the objects as being akin to “X-Men” characters.

“So many people are doing things out there which are incredible. Every one of them has like a superpower,” he says.

“For example, some of us are good with satellite imagery, some of us are good with the dark web, some are good in Facebook or analysing social networks and gathering information.

“I’m in the geolocation and visual investigation unit so I think I’m good at analysing images.

“Rather than speed, I am like a bit of a sniper. I’m taking my time, but I will get there and I will find it.”

He encourages everyone to look at the images being shared by police, regardless of technical or investigative skills.

“The more people are aware of the campaign, the better,” Gonzales says.

“We all have object memory. The other day I recognised one that was from my country, and it took me just two minutes.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/trace-an-object-citizen-sleuths-to-the-rescue-in-child-abuse-cases/news-story/29c3cc8cef1c4e123fbe5405f011495e

https://accce.gov.au/report/trace

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Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation

Stop child abuse - Trace An Object

The smallest clue can often help solve a case.

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We need your help in the fight against online child sexual exploitation.

The below objects have been taken from the background of child sexual abuse images. We are convinced that more eyes will provide more leads and ultimately help to save these children.

TRIGGER WARNING: The following content contains images that may be distressing to some people.

Can you help us recognise these objects?

We specifically want to trace their origin (location/country).

If you recognise any of these objects, click on the item and provide the ACCCE with the information you have. This can be done anonymously. Once we know where the object is, we will inform the relevant law enforcement agencies to further investigate this lead and hopefully speed up the identification of both the offender and the victim.

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https://accce.gov.au/report/trace

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Out of respect for the victims, we urge you not to share any personal information (recognisable pictures, names, etc.) on social media or anywhere online. Your useful tips can be shared with us in a secure way via this website form. Thank you for your support.

https://accce.gov.au/report/trace

https://qanon.pub/#1735

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Dutton warns contractors on submarine, frigate deliveries

BEN PACKHAM - APRIL 4, 2021

New Defence Minister Peter Dutton has warned the big prime contractors delivering the nation’s new submarines and frigates that he expects the platforms to be delivered on time and on budget, and won’t allow “slippage” on Australian industry content.

Mr Dutton has revealed he has requested full briefings on all of Defence’s major programs, including the $90bn Attack-class subs and the $45bn Hunter-class frigates, “to make sure that everything is on track and on budget”.

He said program costs and time frames would blow out “from time to time”, given the huge cost of the Defence mega-platforms.

But he said he was determined to ensure Australia, and particularly Australian industry, received value for money from the investments.

“I want to make sure there is a very clear message to the primes here,” Mr Dutton told Sky News in his first major interview in his new portfolio.

“We are not going to tolerate slippage in relation to the Australian content.

“And I’ve been very clear with the secretary of the Defence department, and the (Chief of Defence) as well. that we will work to budget, and if we need additional expertise, if we need additional resources, then they will be applied to deliver these projects on time and on budget.”

The firm message to the defence multinationals follows criticism of his predecessor, Linda Reynolds, over her lack of public commentary on the projects.

Mr Dutton said the government was determined to ensure Australia’s small and medium-sized defence firms benefited from the huge investments being made.

“Making sure they are taken care of is an important part of the spend as well because it creates jobs, it creates industry, it has a massive multiplier effect in the Australian economy,” he said.

Mr Dutton also backed Australia’s special forces community, which has been rocked by the Brereton inquiry’s findings that up to 19 Australian soldiers murdered at least 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.

“We have one of the most feared fighting machines in the world and we need to support them,” he said.

Mr Dutton said there was “a relatively small number of people who have done clearly the wrong thing”.

“I don’t want to overshadow the very significant, outstanding work, particularly that the SAS and others have done within the Australian Defence Force in the Middle East and conflicts going back a long period of time,” he said.

Mr Dutton said the government needed to do more to support veterans, and was “very open” to a royal commission into veterans’ suicide.

But he said the government had made it clear it wanted “a standing royal commission” so that future veterans’ suicides could also be given appropriate attention.

Mr Dutton said Australia would continue to work closely with the United States, together with “Quad” partners India and Japan and traditional ally the United Kingdom, to ensure regional peace.

“We don’t support militarisation of ports, we don’t support any foreign country trying to exert influence here by cyber other means, we don’t want to see conflict in our region,” he said.

He said China had “obviously” had a long-term ambition to take over Taiwan, but Australia would work with its international partners, and with the Chinese Communist Party, to prevent conflict from occurring.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/dutton-warns-contractors-on-submarine-frigate-deliveries/news-story/580e01582ec568e8325eee3a6d30a055

Australians Christa Avery and Matthew O'Kane freed from house arrest in Myanmar

Tasha Wibawa - 5 April 2021

An Australian couple has been freed from house arrest in Myanmar and allowed to leave the country without charge.

Business consultants Christa Avery and her husband Matthew O'Kane were refused permission to leave Myanmar last month when they were about to board a flight home.

The country has been in turmoil since a February military coup ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with violence between anti-coup protesters and armed forces rising in recent weeks.

"I am, of course, incredibly relieved to have been released and to be on my way home with my husband, Matt," Ms Avery said in a statement.

"Even though I knew that I had done nothing wrong, it was very stressful being held under house arrest for two weeks."

Janelle Saffin, a friend of the couple and the state MP for Lismore, told the ABC that their release was "great news".

"The fact that they were detained … this just shouldn't happen at all," Ms Saffin said.

"We now can't wait until we hear the same news about our colleague and friend, Sean Turnell."

In a statement to the ABC, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) "welcomed" their release.

DFAT also confirmed it provided the couple with consular assistance prior to their release, while it also assisted their departure from Yangon on April 4.

The couples' current location remains unclear.

DFAT said it was unable to release further detail due to privacy obligations.

Couple calls on Myanmar to release other Australian

Another Australian, Sean Turnell, an economic adviser to Ms Suu Kyi, was detained shortly after the army seized power and remained in prison.

"I hope that even if Sean cannot be released very soon, he can, at least, be moved to house arrest for his physical, mental and emotional wellbeing," Ms Avery said.

Australian economist Tim Harcourt, a friend of the couple and of Mr Turnell, told the ABC he spoke to Mr O'Kane during the early days of detention but had not heard from either since.

"They're two independent business people doing work in agriculture in Myanmar," Mr Harcourt said.

"They do know Sean [Turnell] because he's a celebrity over there, but they're not directly connected.

"They just happen to be Australians."

Mr Harcourt said he was "very relieved" that the couple had now left home detention.

"Their release allows the Australian government to focus its efforts on the release of Professor Turnell from Myanmar," he said.

"Professor Turnell's wife Ha Vu is in good spirits and well supported by friends and family and the economics faculty at Macquarie University."

Authorities have said Mr Turnell is under investigation, but no charge has been announced against him.

A lawyer for Ms Suu Kyi said last week that he understood Mr Turnell faced charges under the Official Secrets Act, but no charges had been confirmed.

Thousands remain in detention post-coup

Crowds have continued to come onto Myanmar's streets day and night despite an internet blackout, and threats of arbitrary detention and death.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), an activist group monitoring casualties and arrests, said the toll of dead had risen to 557, as of late Saturday.

In the capital, Naypyitaw, two men were killed when police fired on protesters on motorbikes, the Irrawaddy news site reported.

One man was killed earlier in the northern town of Bhamo, the Myanmar Now news outlet said.

A social media user later posted pictures of what appeared to be a women medic lying wounded and unattended on a street after curfew in the second city Mandalay following a protest there.

A huge crowd, including many women in straw hats, streamed through the central town of Taze chanting slogans, pictures from DVB TV News showed. Crowds were also out in other towns.

The AAPP said 2,658 people were in detention, including four women and a man who spoke to a visiting CNN news crew in interviews on the streets of Yangon last week.

A spokesman for CNN said the network was aware of reports of detentions following the team's visit and was pressing the authorities for information.

Local police and a spokesperson for the junta did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-05/australians-christa-avery-matthew-o-kane-arrest-free-myanmar/100048568

China winning Pacific vaccine diplomacy war

BEN PACKHAM - APRIL 4, 2021

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Australia is in a race against time to secure millions of COVID jabs for the Pacific in the next four weeks or risk a Chinese vaccine diplomacy victory that would push regional partners closer to Beijing.

Papua New Guinea has accepted 200,000 Chinese Sinopharm jabs in recent days, and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare says Chinese vaccines are the next step in his country’s COVID response.

Fiji says it will also accept Chinese jabs when they are approved by the World Health Organisation, which is expected to occur by the end of the month.

Australia has donated 8500 AstraZeneca jabs to PNG to vaccinate frontline health workers amid a worsening COVID crisis, but has been unable to secure a promised one million shots for the country from Europe.

Burnet Institute director Brendan Crabb said PNG, which he believes now has more than one million COVID cases, needed to source vaccines wherever it could.

He said once the Chinese vaccines received WHO approval, “I see no reason why they shouldn’t be used in PNG as well”.

“It’s an ‘all hands on deck’ situation,” Professor Crabb said.

Supplying the shots is only half the battle. Transporting them across the country and “getting them into people’s arms” was also an urgent priority, he said.

PNG accepted the one-shot Chinese vaccines ahead of WHO approval on the basis that they would be used to vaccinate Chinese citizens in the country.

However, there are far fewer than 200,000 Chinese in PNG, leaving thousands of Sinopharm shots potentially available for Papua New Guineans.

Lowy Institute Pacific program director Jonathan Pryne said Australia was in “a race to get the Pacific access to Western vaccines … It will be a significant blow to Australia, just as we are stepping up our effort in the Pacific, for China to take the lead in a vaccine rollout, and in turn economic recovery, in the Pacific

“Should the WHO approve the (Chinese) vaccines, Pacific nat­ions would be absolutely within their rights to take whatever is offered and readily available. Australia would have no moral authority to stop them,” Mr Pryke said.

“Ideally, we would want ­Pacific nations to have Western vaccines but if the only option is a Chinese WHO-endorsed vaccine, then we should be helping with the rollout.”

The US could reportedly assist in getting Australia’s one million paid-for AstraZeneca doses to PNG from Europe, where EU authorities have so far blocked them from being exported.

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Amid heightened tensions between Western allies and China, Defence Minister Peter Dutton said Australia would continue to work closely with the US to maintain regional stability. “We don’t do it in an antagonistic way, we do it in a way to protect our sovereignty and our national interests,” he said. “We don’t support militarisation of ports, we don’t support any foreign country trying to exert influence here by cyber or other means, we don’t want to see conflict in our region.”

PNG Health Minister Jelta Wong told a Lowy Institute podcast that his country was grateful for the assistance it was receiving from all of its international partners. “We’re getting help from everywhere, and it’s good help,” Mr Wong said, adding that the vaccine rollout would be “a real challenge”, given high levels of misinformation circulating on Facebook. “When Facebook hit PNG, everybody became an expert. (It was like) everyone had a PhD. They could be sitting under a coconut tree and get a PhD,” Mr Wong said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australia was providing “a comprehensive package of support to help PNG respond to its COVID crisis”.

“Australia has committed $144.7m to ensure PNG has access to full coverage of safe and effective vaccines, and the systems in place for a broad national rollout,” a DFAT spokeswoman said.

“We are working with PNG, the WHO and ­UNICEF to help prepare for the fast and safe large-scale rollout of vaccines. This includes working on supporting planning, logistics, training and public information.”

Australia has also pledged $80m to the UN-backed Covax initiative to help vaccinate 20 per cent of the population of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The scheme will provide 588,000 vaccines for PNG by June.

Labor Pacific spokesman Pat Conroy said Australia needed to urgently deliver on its commitment to the region or risk ceding influence to China. “It is vital Australia remains the partner of choice for Pacific island nations,” he said. “If Australia does not step up and provide adequate and timely assistance, this will create a vacuum that will be filled by ­nations such as China.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced in February it had provided or planned to provide vaccine assistance to 53 countries and export to 27 countries.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently denounced China’s vaccine diplomacy, saying it came with “strings attached … We shouldn’t tie the distribution or access to vaccines to politics or to geopolitics.”

The WHO hopes to issue recommendations on China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines by the end of April.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/china-winning-pacific-vaccine-diplomacy-war/news-story/dc44360538370bf40cf216a7d3ffa1db

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Solomon Islands Premier Daniel Suidani said no to China’s bribe

STEVE JACKSON - APRIL 5, 2021

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It may seem an unlikely reaction from the leader of an impoverished province in the middle of the South Pacific but Daniel Suidani insists he is filled with an overwhelming sense of patriotism whenever he sees the words “Made in Taiwan” on products floating around his ­island home.

For the past year and a half, the first-term Premier of the Solomon Islands’ most populous province, Malaita, has been in open ­rebellion against his national government’s decision to sever its longstanding diplomatic ties with Taiwan, adopt a “one-China” foreign policy and cash in on Beijing’s political and economic ambitions in the region.

He refuses to accept any aid from the People’s Republic of China and — much to the chagrin of his country’s central government — continues to recognise the sovereignty of his “old friend” ­Taiwan and turn to it for help with medical supplies throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

The 51-year-old is now calling on Australia to up its ­involvement in his developing ­nation, saying he fears some of his political contemporaries in the Solomons Islands have already been compromised by China and his country’s democratic processes risk being corrupted by political interference from the communist regime.

“What we have seen with the PRC’s involvement in other countries in the region is that everything looks quite good at the start but at the end of the day, the countries eventually find it difficult to handle the problems that come with dealing with China,” he says.

“As far as Malaita goes, we don’t want any help from the PRC as we don’t want to have any constraints put on our independence.

“We don’t have the legal safeguards in place to protect us from the involvement of these people and they are not welcome here.”

The former primary school teacher says he had barely finished celebrating his first electoral victory in June 2019 when he was ­approach­ed by agents acting on Beijing’s behalf and pressured to accept a SI$1m (AUD$165,000) bribe in exchange for switching Malaita’s diplomatic ­allegiances from Taiwan to China.

“I received the offer by phone and they told me where they were and said they wanted to meet with me to discuss it,” he says. “I knew I needed to take a strong stance against such an offer and I drove to where they were staying so I could tell them that I do not accept.

“When I arrived, I made up my mind that it is not right for me to even go up and see them. I called and said I was not for sale and they should keep their money.”

Mr Suidani says what troubles him most is that the illicit overture came from agents who had already infiltrated his national government. While he refused their offer, he suspects the same cannot be said for all his fellow premiers and national MPs.

Within two months of him being offered the bribe, the island nation announced it had ended its 36-year relationship with Taiwan and would no longer recognise it as an independent nation.

“I cannot comment on whether (China) has given money to other (politicians) but you have to think that if they came to me (with a bribe), then it is certainly possible they made approaches to other people too,” he says.

“In some cases, I suggest (the decision to switch allegiances) was made because the PRC had been involved in funding election campaigns and helping MPs retain seats, and now they had to fulfil on commitments they had made.

“It’s all very, very cloudy and it’s difficult to come to terms with what that means for the Solomon Islands if our very democracy has been interfered with.”

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Mr Suidani’s defiant anti-China stance has reignited the deep-seated ethnic and cultural tensions within the Solomon Islands that gave way to a prolonged period of civil unrest between 1998 and 2003, while his critics in the country’s national cabinet have accused him of exploiting the issue to fuel simmering separatist sentiment within Malaita.

The claims have done little to temper his resolve: at the height of the pandemic last June, he issued a provocative public statement praising Taiwan for its support, adding that Malaita was in “a unique and a privileged situation to have been assisted by a country that has stood against the might of the Wuhan virus”.

Mr Suidani’s comments were immediately denounced by outraged officials in China’s embassy in the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara, and further condemned by the Solomon Islands Foreign Minister, Jeremiah Manele, who admonished him for referring to Taiwan “as a state rather than a province of the People’s Republic of China”.

The government was so furious it seized a shipment of medical supplies arriving in Malaita from Taiwan three days later, with ­Attorney-General John Muria Jr saying the cargo represented an “act of defiance of a government decision” and could be considered a breach of the Sedition Act.

The growing friction caused by Mr Suidani’s stand-off with the Solomon Islands’ central government is being closely monitored by bureaucrats in Canberra.

After 14 years on the ground heading up the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, Australian soldiers wrapped up their peacekeeping role in the Pacific nation in June 2017, but Lowy Institute Pacific program director Jonathan Pryke says there are concerns China’s involvement could undo much of the progress made throughout the operation.

“One key driver of the breakdown of law and order which led to the RAMSI intervention was the inter-island rivalries, largely driven by frustrations around uneven distribution of benefits,” he says. “While RAMSI helped put the country back together, those tensions are still very present and simmer just under the surface in Solomon Islands — and it is very worrying that the swap from Taiwan to China is now playing into these domestic tensions.

“It would have been easier for Australia if the Solomon Islands maintained its alliance with Taiwan because we are so anxious about the kind of investments China is making and what they’re going to use that influence for.

“At the same time, we recognise Solomon Islands is a sovereign nation and can make their own decisions.”

For now, neither side is willing to cede ground. For months, Mr Suidani has talked of the possibility of calling a province-wide vote on whether Malaita should secede from the Solomon Islands, a move that has been laughed off as ridiculous and illegal by his political opponents.

Whatever happens, the Premier says one thing is certain: as long as he is in power, China’s interests will remain in exile on his island.

“This is our place and we will never share it with people who don’t share our values and principles of democracy and independence,” he says. “As long as the Malaita people still exist, we will continue to fight against China and anyone who threatens to take that independence away from us.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/solomon-islands-premier-daniel-suidani-said-no-to-chinas-milliondollar-bribe/news-story/215022fd3edfd2982af7ec0925137685

Group mocks QAnon, Easter by placing over 3K eggs containing Kool-Aid packets around DC

WJLA STAFF - April 5th 2021

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WASHINGTON (WJLA) — A local group is mocking QAnon and Easter by placing thousands of Easter eggs containing Kool-Aid packets hidden around multiple neighborhoods in D.C. on Sunday.

A group called INDECLINE placed over 3,000 eggs that are hidden throughout the city. INDECLINE distributed Colorful banners advertising the fake QAnon Easter Egg hunts around the District late Saturday night.

7News reporter Nick Minock spoke with a member of INDECLINE who says Sunday they are poking fun at Easter and QAnon. The man reportedly linked the conspiracy group to the Easter holiday.

INDECLINE in a release says the Kool-Aid packets are labeled to reflect the "controversial conspiracy groups ideologies and buzzwords" associated with QAnon.

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INDECLINE is an American activist collective founded in 2001. It is comprised of graffiti writers, filmmakers, photographers, and full-time rebels and activists. Indecline focuses on social, ecological, and economical injustices carried out by American and international governments, corporations, and law enforcement agencies. INDECLINE is not an anarchist group, according to its website.

The Easter eggs are located at parks and surrounding neighborhoods including but not limited to the following locations:

• Garfield Park

• Stanton Park

• Lovejoy Park

• Meridian Hill Park

• Rose Park

• Logan Circle

• Kalorama Park

• Farragut Square

https://wset.com/news/local/group-places-easter-eggs-containing-kool-aid-packets-around-dc

Khazarian Mafia Running Biden Psy-Ops Out Of Switzerland

Benjamin Fulford April 5, 2021

The grotesque psychological warfare operation against the American people known as the “Biden presidency” is run out of an underground base in Switzerland, MI6, NSA, FSB, CIA, and other sources agree. The base straddles the borders of Lichenstein, Austria, and Switzerland, allowing entry from any of those three countries, according to a CIA source. However, despite the overwhelmingly dark story of pandemic doom and “foreign enemies,” in the corporate media, the fact the ruling class has been forced to retreat to Switzerland is actually a sign they are losing the war for the planet.

We are getting word that not only the White House is unoccupied, but also Congress, Senate, Supreme Court, Federal Reserve Board, Treasury Department, etc. in Washington DC as well.We are also now hearing from the NSA that state government buildings too are unoccupied. We urge our readers who live in DC and near state government buildings to become citizen reporters and try to confirm if this is true. Certainly, live camera feeds indicate this is the case but, in this day of digital trickery, human eyes are the most reliable source.

In any case, the group that controls the Biden psy-ops is definitely the Rockefeller clan and their Swiss handlers, the sources concur. Last Friday MI6 sent the following message:

“We had confirmation today of the CIA involvement in the counter-coup of the coup that installed Mr. Trump. It appears Hillary Rodham Clinton [Rockefeller] is running the show in the background.”

The NSA for their part says the current Hillary is the sixth one being used. We all remember how during the 2016 presidential campaign Hillary was stuffed into a black van and ABC news subsequently reported her death. However, she appeared 20 pounds lighter and much younger several hours later. Also, the picture below clearly shows the current “Hillary” is much shorter than the original.

Nonetheless, whatever Hillary avatar, body double, or clone they are using; the group known as the Rockefellers are clearly running the Biden horror show.

Their plans were outlined in a March 2020 article in the Rockefeller flagship magazine Foreign Relations that was supposedly written by Joe “green screen” Biden. https://archive.is/SGLAj

What this shows is the group now in charge of U.S. corporate media and the fiat money computers inside the U.S. are planning to take us back in time to the 1980s and the cold war with its easy to identify enemies. Lets’ face it “commies” are easier to rally against than amorphous “terrorists” who keep changing their brand name.

Russian FSB sources, for their part, say a very serious attempt to start World War III was now underway in Ukraine. On Monday, April 5th, Japan time, they sent us this message:

“A couple of hours ago a C-17 military transport aircraft (95-0107) with a certain military cargo arrived directly from the USA (with refueling in Seville, Spain) to Lviv Airport in Western Ukraine.”

Sauce: https://benjaminfulford.net/2021/04/05/khazarian-mafia-running-biden-psy-ops-out-of-switzerland/

*Khazarian Mafia = Jewish Mafia

Malcolm Turnbull dumped from new NSW Government climate job

MAX MADDISON - APRIL 6, 2021

NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean has backflipped on his decision to appoint Malcolm Turnbull as his climate energy tsar, dropping the former prime minister just days after his appointment.

The appointment of Mr Turnbull as chair of the Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board had enraged some Coalition MPs who pointed to his constant criticism of the federal government since he was deposed in 2018.

One Liberal MP speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Australian: “This is just another stunning example of Matt’s appalling judgment”.

Several other Liberal MPs privately said the role was inappropriate considering he was simultaneously running Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s green steel investment fund.

In a statement released on Monday, Mr Kean succumbed to the pressure, saying the “focus should not be on personality”.

“No person’s role on the Board should distract from achieving results for the NSW people or from the Government’s work in delivering jobs and opportunities for the people of NSW,” Mr Kean said.

“For this reason, I have decided not to proceed with his appointment as chair.”

Mr Turnbull blamed the decision to dump him on “thuggery” from the “the right-wing media ecosystem”.

“The right-wing media — they cracked the whip as bullies do, and got their way,” Mr Turnbull told Nine Newspapers. “In actions like these, you have to ask, ‘who’s in charge?’”.

He also denied being against jobs in the Hunter but rather supported transitioning coal miners into new industries as the sector declined.

The NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Hugh Durrant-Whyte will head the board until a replacement is found, Mr Kean said.

Mr Kean had faced ongoing criticism from sections of his own party and the media, with several questioning whether a letter sent by Mr Turnbull objecting to the expansion of an Upper Hunter coal mine was evidence he had a conflict of interest.

The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday reported Mr Turnbull had last month written to object to the expansion of the Mount Pleasant mine in Upper Hunter, where the Coalition is facing a by-election fight with One Nation and Labor and where support for coal is a key issue.

In the letter, which Mr Turnbull cosigned with his wife Lucy, the former Wentworth MP cited worsening air quality, saying the existence of other mines in the area had done “considerable damage” to the local environment, which included his family’s nearby 2700 acre grazing property.

Coalition sources were concerned Mr Turnbull’s appointment could prove detrimental to The Nationals chances of retaining the Upper Hunter seat at the upcoming by-election.

Deputy leader John Barilaro labelled the decision to drop Mr Turnbull as a “great result for common sense”, saying he had personally given the benefit of the doubt to Mr Turnbull but “he pulled my pants down within 48 hours”.

“We are not proceeding with the appointment of Malcolm Turnbull as chair. I give credit to Matt Kean. He accepts even if you want to go down this position of Net Zero board and that target you don’t need an individual who clouds or makes controversial – you need someone who brings people together and not divide and unfortunately Malcolm has done the opposite,” Mr Barilaro told Ray Hadley on 2GB.

NSW opposition leader Jodi McKay said the decision to appoint Mr Turnbull was a “monumental failure of judgment”:

“How on earth did it even come to this? John Barilaro backed Turnbull’s appointment in cabinet. This should never have been a political appointment and was always going to be divisive. A monumental failure of judgment by John Barilaro.’’

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/malcolm-turnbull-dumped-from-new-nsw-government-climate-job/news-story/5245b7932b02f34e2e492e0e13015b7b

https://twitter.com/kloussikian/status/1379218097941348355

https://twitter.com/JodiMcKayMP/status/1379223147518386176

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>>13351027

Australia pressures New Zealand to toe the line of Washington

Yu Lei - Apr 05, 2021

The Australian media outlet News.com.au reported on Saturday that, "There are concerns from New Zealand Five Eyes' allies that it may be the weak link in dealing with China as the Ardern Government, again, failed to call out Beijing."

This is not the sole article delivering grievances regarding New Zealand's China policy. There seems to be many of them that harangue Wellington when it does not join in chorus with Washington, London, Ottawa and Canberra to browbeat and belittle China. The conservative US news website Washington Examiner published an article on January 11 entitled, "Appeasing China, New Zealand abandons the Five Eyes."

Indeed, Wellington's policy toward Beijing does differ from its allies in the Five Eyes, especially Washington and Canberra. The following reasons lead to it. For one, New Zealand's economy is comparatively small in the global marketplace, and heavily depends on international trade, especially the Chinese market. At the end of 2019, China was New Zealand's largest goods market, largest source of international students, and second largest source of tourists. It was also a significant foreign investor.

Most exports from New Zealand resemble those from the US and Australia. In this context, Wellington has attached great importance to maintain close and friendly relations with markets it has opened, such as China. The two countries on January 26 signed a deal upgrading their existing free trade pact, which gives exports from New Zealand greater access to China.

For another reason, in comparison to the US and Australia, where the white mainly determines their foreign policy, the Maori today have occupied a considerable position in politics. Therefore, Wellington's policy focuses more on domestic affairs and tends to be more pragmatic.

The US persuaded 13 other countries to released a joint statement on March 30 expressing so-called "shared concerns regarding the recent WHO-convened study in China." Except for New Zealand, four other members of the Five Eyes were among the group. In regard to this event, the News.com.au article remarked that the administration of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been "dubbed the 'soft underbelly' of the Five Eyes."

Such narrative reflects the mindset of some Australian elite politicians. They have seen their country as a hegemonic force in South Pacific, second only to the US. This makes them believe New Zealand should also follow Australia's lead. However, it is wishful thinking. Wellington has long remained independent with its national interests, and has been reluctant to obey orders from Washington and Canberra.

For example, in 1984 New Zealand passed legislation that made the entire country a nuclear-free zone, which effectively barred US warships from docking in their ports. As a consequence, the US froze New Zealand out of the Australia-New Zealand-US military alliance, and downgraded their diplomatic status from a close ally to a friend.

Even under US pressure, New Zealand is still a nuclear-free zone.

Four other allies of the Five Eyes are anticipated to pile pressure on New Zealand hoping to put more pressure on China. Yet judging from historical experience, Wellington will not easily yield to pressure.

As a matter of fact, the Five Eyes is an alliance for interests only. It does not do so for the pursuit of the share values of democracy and freedom, which is a disguise. Just as late UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, "We have no lasting friends, no lasting enemies, only lasting interests." This can be illustrated by the fact that the US in 1812 declared war against Britain and Canada.

In the post-Brexit era, the UK may temporarily maintain close ties with the US. As a neighbor of the US, Canada appears to be not bold enough to deviate from Washington's stronghold. For many years, Australia has relied on the US to pursue its regional hegemony in South Pacific.

Against this backdrop, China is supposed to do its own thing well. And Beijing will patiently counter their potential moves.

The author is chief research fellow at the research center for Pacific island countries of Liaocheng University in East China's Shandong Province. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1220252.shtml

Explainer: China’s ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats howl at Xinjiang critics

AFP / theaustralian.com.au - APRIL 6, 2021

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China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats are back after a brief lull, firing insults over Twitter, smearing critics and suggesting conspiracies.

The hyperactivity of the envoys follows renewed global pressure over Beijing’s treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang region.

Here are five things to know as the wolf warriors once more bare their teeth:

When did it start?

The term “wolf warrior diplomacy” became common parlance in 2019, when Chinese envoys — most prominently spokesman Zhao Lijian — adopted a vociferous defence of the Communist-led country on social media platforms such as Twitter, which is blocked in China.

The nickname derives from a film about a Rambo-like Chinese special forces soldier.

China insists it was forced into the change of tone, which came amid the fulminations of Donald Trump’s White House.

But officials like Zhao, who made headlines in 2019 over controversial tweets as an envoy to Pakistan, took to his fresh combat role as foreign ministry spokesman with particular aplomb a year later.

He has promoted conspiracy theories including that the US military might have brought COVID-19 to China, and then railed against Canberra in tweets alleging “the murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers”.

That post came with an illustration of a soldier holding a bloody knife to a child’s throat. It was denounced by Australia’s prime minister, but set the tone for feuds that still dominate relations.

Trump’s rhetoric over the “China virus” saw Beijing’s envoys up the ante as the pandemic roiled the world.

Experts say the switch into attack mode partly reflects the new assertive China of President Xi Jinping.

Why did the wolves return?

As Joe Biden settled into the US presidency in January, China’s diplomats floated hopes of a reset in relations.

But the ceasefire collapsed at a US-China meeting in Alaska in mid-March, where the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi threatened action over “US interference”.

“Yang’s tough talk in Anchorage seems to have encouraged senior Chinese diplomats to indulge in inflammatory remarks,” said Mathieu Duchatel, director of the Asia Programme at Paris-based think-tank Institut Montaigne.

China’s consul-general in Rio de Janeiro Li Yang has since referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “boy” while calling Canada a “running dog of the US”.

And in late March as the European Union, Britain, Canada and the United States imposed sanctions over Xinjiang, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying went as far as to suggest the CIA helped cook up rhetoric on the northwestern region to destabilise China.

In response to backlash against brands like H&M and Nike who raised concerns over the textile supply chain in Xinjiang, Hua showed a photo she said showed Black slaves in US cotton fields.

Referencing the transatlantic slave trade that same week, she argued others were in no position to criticise China.

(continued)

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Attack mode

China’s envoys say Beijing has been forced to retaliate as rivals — particularly in the West — gang up to curtail its rise.

But officials’ attitudes have markedly shifted under Xi from late leader Deng Xiaoping’s philosophy to “hide your strength, bide your time”.

When France recently summoned the Chinese ambassador over “unacceptable” behaviour, the embassy said he would not immediately comply and instead come to “make representations” over sanctions and Taiwan issues.

Observers suggest there are bigger geopolitical calculations at play with a benefit in slinging mud at the once untouchable bigwigs of the global political order.

“The uncertainty of the international environment also gives Beijing a particular strategic development space to challenge the existing international order,” said Zhao Alexandre Huang, an academic at the Universite Gustave Eiffel in France.

What’s next?

Signalling strength and threatening costs for non-compliance may lead to friction with some states but could cow others, said Chong Ja Ian of the National University of Singapore.

Nations dependent on Chinese trade “are more susceptible to submission”, he said, adding that those with experience handling Chinese pressure may find it easier to ride out Beijing’s ire.

But if it wants to signal costs in opposing China, Beijing may edge towards demonstrating “capacity and determination to escalate at each moment of confrontation”, Duchatel said.

While the wolf warriors have overturned many diplomatic assumptions, the surge into social media has not all been to Beijing’s benefit.

In September 2020, a Twitter account belonging to Liu Xiaoming, China’s longstanding firebrand ambassador to Britain, “liked” a pornographic foot fetish video on Twitter. He played off the incident as a hack.

Liu retired a few months later.

China’s embassy in Ireland drew mirth last week when it cited a fable to push back against the wolf warrior label: “Aesop described how the Wolf accused the Lamb of committing offences…BTW, China is not a lamb.” The tweet appears to have since been deleted.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/explainer-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomats-howl-at-xinjiang-critics/news-story/38c9395b906f3bba2c605b75628409b9

Andy Meddick slams AustraliaOne party after supporters of the far-right party gathered in Torquay

A local politician has slammed a “disgusting” and “hateful” political group that was seen promoting itself on Torquay’s busy foreshore over the Easter weekend.

RUSTY WOODGER - April 5, 2021

A LOCAL politician has slammed a “disgusting” and “hateful” political group that was seen promoting itself on Torquay’s busy foreshore over the Easter weekend.

A small group of people aligned to AustraliaOne, a fringe far-right party, converged on The Esplanade at Torquay on Good Friday.

As families flocked to the nearby beach, supporters erected a large sign displaying the party’s logo, along with messages including one that proclaimed: “It’s time to take back our country.”

The party, which claims it is not a far-right group, holds controversial views on a range of topics.

It opposes immigration, lists China and Islam among “The Five Threats” to Australia, and wants to reinstate the death penalty for crimes of treason.

Its founder has also appeared at rallies alongside members of True Blue Crew, an extremist group that has been linked to far-right terrorism.

Andy Meddick, a state politician who lives in Torquay, said he was “shocked” to learn of the party’s views after being alerted to Friday’s gathering.

The Animal Justice Party MP labelled the group “racist, homophobic and transphobic”, stating their presence in his hometown was further evidence of the “rise of the far right”.

“These hateful people, and their hateful ideology, do not represent the attitudes of Australia,” he wrote in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.

“They have no place here or anywhere.

“It is all our responsibility, all of us, to rid our society of these disgusting groups.”

It is understood the party’s presence in Torquay was to attract signatures for a petition calling for the lifting of all suppression orders involving convicted paedophiles.

Its signage, however, promoted other issues such as “military power” and “political freedom”.

Passers-by were encouraged to visit the party’s website where it outlines contentious policies, including opposition to same-sex marriage and what it describes as “weird gender ideologies”.

It also proposes a ban on accepting Muslims as migrants or refugees.

Mr Meddick told the Geelong Advertiser it was troubling that some of those targeted by the party’s views may have witnessed the group’s presence in Torquay.

“Anybody in any of those groups would rightly be quite concerned and it wouldn’t surprise me to find they were quite fearful,” he said.

“There has been a rise in far-right extremism … We should be concerned.”

AustraliaOne was founded by Riccardo Bosi, a former NSW Senate candidate for the Australian Conservatives.

A promotional video on the party’s website shows Mr Bosi speaking at a True Blue Crew rally in 2018.

True Blue Crew has achieved notoriety in recent years, with a former member of the far-right group, Phillip Galea, serving a 12-year jail term after being found guilty of terrorism offences.

Mr Bosi was approached for comment but did not respond before deadline.

https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/andy-meddick-slams-australiaone-party-after-supporters-of-the-farright-party-gathered-in-torquay/news-story/adeb88d8f5251a439dd9c06d903b09d8

Cops lay 45 charges against 15 alleged sex criminals busted preying on Territory children online

Police have charged 15 people with a total of 45 offences following a months long operation targeting sex criminals preying on Territory children via online chat forums.

JASON WALLS - April 6, 2021

POLICE have charged 15 people with a total of 45 offences following a months long operation targeting sex criminals preying on Territory children via online chat platforms.

During Operation May, police executed 19 search warrants between January and March throughout the NT and Queensland, as well as successfully extraditing a 52-year-old man from Western Australia.

In a sting conducted as a part of the bust, officers posed as a 12-year-old girl who engaged with a 28-year-old man online before arranging to meet up.

The investigators tracked the man while using an undercover operative as a decoy and arrested him when he showed up at the arranged location.

He and the other men, aged between 21 and 52 were charged with offences including using the internet to procure a child, using a carriage service to transmit child abuse images and indecent dealing with a child under 10.

The offences were allegedly committed against four girls in the NT aged between 5 and 8.

NT Police Acting Commander Lauren Hill said the joint operation with Queensland Police and the Australian Federal Police was the first time such a large scale raid focusing on the NT had been undertaken.

“Police had identified an investigation in the Tennant Creek area and a result of examination of devices held by that person allowed us to conduct some intelligence and assessment and from that assessment we rolled with the operation,” she said.

Cmdr Hill warned parents that any of the online platforms children had access to could be harbouring “predators on the other side”.

“We would encourage parents to know what they’re children are doing in relation to online,” she said.

“Who they’re engaging with online, where their chat conversations are, what gaming platforms they’re accessing and potentially using any security enhancements that are available on their own devices.”

AFP Detective Superintendent Paula Hudson said the operation was another example of Australian law enforcement’s dedication to working hand-in-hand to protect children and ensure predators were detected and prosecuted.

“This is also a warning to any adult who wants to prey on children online,” she said.

“You may not be talking to a vulnerable child, you could be talking to a police officer.”

Detective Sergeant Paul Lawson said the alleged offences and the potential for further offending by the perpetrators was “horrific”.

Stopping the abhorrent intentions of people like them, drives officers within the joint operation every day to rid our society of this type of offending,” he said.

https://www.ntnews.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts/cops-lay-45-charges-against-15-alleged-sex-criminals-busted-preying-on-territory-children-online/news-story/eadaa9c679d62e79ab36321f2727b5cf

Shayan Sardarizadeh Tweets

Based on the finale of #QIntotheStorm Q drops are over for good. Both Jim and Ron told @CullenHoback Q would end after the election, and that's exactly what happened.

We already had proof of the end given there haven't been any drops since 8 December, but we can now be certain.

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1379097929072443400

—

This, of course, doesn't mean the end of QAnon by any means.

There are nearly 4,953 Q drops. Followers will forever refer to those drops and link them to current events at any given time regardless of context.

That's what they've been doing since December anyway.

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1379099213661937665

—

Q Post #3466

Jul 22 2019 19:51:16 (EST)

These people are stupid.

Enjoy the show!

Q

https://qanon.pub/#3466

Q: Into the Storm set to provide answers on dangerous QAnon cult

JACK THE INSIDER (Peter Hoysted) - APRIL 7, 2021

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On August 7, 2020 President Donald Trump spoke to American people. “We’re going to win,” he said. “And we’re going to win big. Q just watch. We have the cards – they don’t.”

The ‘Q’ was almost certainly a mispronunciation, but millions of QAnon observers latched on to it. Trump was their man. Trump was their saviour. Anons believed President Trump had set himself to war against the Deep State and with their help, he would triumph.

Q: Into the Storm is an HBO six-part documentary currently screening in Australia on Foxtel. It is the first serious attempt to get to the bottom of the QAnon cult and determine the real identity of the deep state “insider” known as Q.

Three years in the making, Director Cullen Hoback and executive producer Adam McKay traversed the globe investigating the movement fuelled by conspiracy theories and revealed how the Q drops war gamed the internet, hijacked politics, and manipulated people’s thinking.

The documentary is also a study on freedom of speech. QAnon itself is an exercise in speech without consequence, of deliberate use of dangerous misinformation designed to inspire violence.

The great cult of the 20th Century, Scientology, was based on the charismatic manner and style of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, his books and his cultist toys like the e-meter. It drew people in due to a mistrust of psychology and peddled easy answers to complex personal and societal problems through old technology and communication methods.

QAnon is a 21st Century phenomenon. It could only have happened in this time, driven by social media and imageboard websites like 4 Chan and 8 Chan/kun.

The preconditions of its success are grounded in a profound sense of disconnection from the political process and a deep mistrust of mainstream media.

Ironically, the darkest claims of QAnon fall in the historical, founded on the bizarre belief that the world is run by Satan-worshipping paedophiles who eat babies. The baby eaters are Democrat politicians, Hollywood liberals, even Pope Francis I.

The slaughter and cannibalism of infants is an age old propaganda ploy, used widely to inspire anti-Semitic pogroms for centuries.

Interestingly, the GOP congressman from Florida, Matt Gaetz, who is facing allegations of sex trafficking and possibly trafficking of a minor for the purposes of prostitution, has found support from QAnon cultists who have posted recently on Telegram declaring Gaetz has been set up.

Unlike most cults before it, QAnon is political rather than religious or spiritual in nature.

QAnon is more than a conspiracy theory. It’s the mother of all conspiracy theories. At one level, it’s an online game that encourages adherents to play their own role in a revolution which will solve the evils of the world.

We don’t yet know who Q is, but his messages called Q drops are largely based on repetition, a useful tactic in psy-ops. There have been more than 5000 Q drops, almost all cryptic in meaning while emphasising a key set of phrases – “Do your own research”, “Trust the Plan”, “Where We Go One, We Go All,” and predicting Apocalyptic scenarios like “The Storm” and “The Great Awakening”.

Q drops are then analysed by influencers and turned into memes where they filter through the social media before ending up on grandma’s Facebook page.

In 2018, the cult of QAnon came to the belief that sealed indictments had led to the arrest of 55,000 people, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, Bill Gates. In 2020, the Australian branch of QAnon were shrieking that Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews had been arrested and was cooling his heels in Guantanamo Bay and had been replaced by a body double.

None of this happened, of course, but it didn’t diminish the fervour.

(continued)

>>13376039

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Why is it dangerous? QAnon is a cult and cults practice exclusion – members of the cult are separated from their friends and families. QAnons are ‘redpilled’ – a term first used in the film, the Matrix where the Keanu Reeves character, Neo, takes a red pill in order to find a hidden reality.

Like all cults, it separates followers from their money who splurge on donations and merchandise to Q-influencers.

QAnon’s most dangerous element is that it encourages its adherents to take matters into their own hands. In its early days and in its earliest expression, a Washington DC family restaurant, Comet Pizza, became the scene of a siege when one Anon entered the restaurant with an AR-15 seeking to rescue abducted children kept in the basement. There were no abducted children. There was no basement.

A swat team circled the building, arresting the gunman, Edgar Maddison Welch, a 29-year-old resident of Salisbury, North Carolina. No one was injured although patrons fled the building terrified. Welch, who has just completed a four year jail sentence, offered no apologies, claiming only that his shocking assault was a case of “bad intel”.

The storming of the Capitol building on January 6 was not exclusively a QAnon event, but it had been promised by Q and Q-influencers for years. It wasn’t just the Q Shaman, Jake Angeli, who turned up. Thousands of Anons pushed their way into the Capitol Building, clashed with police and threatened the very heart of American democracy.

Intriguingly, Q Posts have stopped. There hasn’t been one since December 20, 2020, a typically cryptic message but this one attempted to put an end to the dangerous nonsense.

It hasn’t worked. Anons are now off the leash, free to make all sorts of torturous predictions. There was a flurry of activity online when the Ever Given became blocked in the Suez Canal. Part of the container ship’s registration included the initials “HRC” – Hillary Rodham Clinton. The ship is operated by Taiwanese transport company, Evergreen Marine. Evergreen was Hillary Clinton’s secret service ascribed codename.

Anons started chirping that abducted children are being transported around the world by container ship. QAnon has now become a danger to shipping.

Who was Q? You’ll have to watch the documentary to find out but the name of Ron Watkins, the administrator of the message board 8kun, the conspiratorial movement’s online home, looms large.

But there are so many questions still to be answered. Was this a political psy-op designed to create a hard base of Trump voters or was it a crazy game that spun out of control and led millions of people around the world to fall under its spell? And who should pay the price for entrapping millions of people into a violent fantasy, giving them a sense of connection and enhanced identity by propelling them into battle, the foot soldiers in a contrived fight against evil?

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/life/q-into-the-storm-set-to-provide-answers-on-dangerous-qanon-cult/news-story/3e505fc9d6608d12f4029429ac923a44

China denies abuse of Uyghurs in bizarre press conference

Australian journalists have been invited to a surreal press conference by the Chinese embassy, where they have been fed the nation’s propaganda.

Finn McHugh - APRIL 7, 2021

The Chinese government has held an extraordinary press conference in Canberra, trotting out members of a Muslim ethnic minority to deny they had been persecuted by the communist nation.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra invited Australian journalists to the meeting on Wednesday to defend Beijing’s human rights record in Xinjiang Province, where human rights groups believe more than a million Muslim Uyghurs have been sent to internment camps.

But in a surreal press conference, Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye insisted Uyghurs were not subjected to oppression in Xinjiang.

China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, said the point of the press conference was to combat “disinformation” about Xinjiang and the Uyghurs.

“Over some time, there has been quite some distorted coverage about Xinjiang in certain Western media,” Mr Cheng said.

“Those reports are basically based on disinformation or misinformation.

“Today’s press conference is to help you Australian journalists to have a better understanding of the actual situation in Xinjiang.”

Journalists were shown a six-minute propaganda video – entitled “Xinjiang is a Wonderful Land” – depicting the region as one of “economic development, social stability, livelihood improvement and religious harmony”.

The video suggested the Communist Party of China had “transformed” Xinjiang “into a land of life, a land of thriving vitality”.

China has long insisted the camps are designed to quell a growing separatist movement in the region, driven by the Uyghur population.

Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association president Ramila Chanisheff said the number of people to have passed through the camps could range between 5 and 8 million, with more than 380 sites across Xinjiang.

She said the press conference was a sign of “desperation” from Beijing, which was “very much afraid” of the growing international scrutiny about the province.

“I think what we can see is that they’re desperate, they’re trying every way to cover up the reality of the actual statistics and the pure evidence that’s coming out of Xinjiang,” she told Sky News.

“The world is realising what’s happening out there, they’re seeing it for what it is. I think China is very much afraid at the moment.”

Ms Chanisheff said China’s economic and international influence meant it would likely become more vocal as it defended its record in Xinjiang.

Canada’s parliament in February declared a genocide was under way in the region, while UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab accused China of a “highly disturbing program of oppression” last month.

“This is one of the worst human rights crises of our time and I believe the evidence is clear, as it is sobering,” he said.

Despite deteriorating relations between Canberra and Beijing over the past year, Australia has so far resisted following suit.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne last month indicated Australia would not declare a genocide in Xinjiang.

“We have a slightly different approach to that turn of phrase, and I don’t mean this in a pedantic or semantic way,” she said.

But Ms Payne called on China to allow the UN high commissioner for human rights to have access to the region.

https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/china-denies-abuse-of-uyghurs-in-bizarre-press-conference/news-story/7efadf8abb39157b810e4acc3cdab7f4

HIV-positive paedophile Jadd William Brooker to be charged with 100 more offences involving six child and teenage victims

The HIV-positive paedophile who vowed to infect children will be charged with 100 more crimes, while another alleged offender is now co-operating with police.

Sean Fewster - April 7, 2021

Investigators are poised to charge HIV-positive paedophile Jadd William Brooker with 100 more offences – including the depraved abuse of six children and teens in Australia.

The Advertiser can reveal the new allegations, which include “contact offending” against children, will be laid before Brooker’s next court appearance in June.

Some of those alleged offences are regarded as “category five” crimes, meaning they involve acts such as coerced bondage, sadism, torture or bestiality.

The Advertiser can also reveal another man facing charges arising from the Brooker case is now co-operating with AFP and SA Police investigators.

The 37-year-old senior Correctional Services Department officer last week told a court he wanted his identity suppressed – and his lawyer, Stacey Carter, said the situation “may change”.

“I can confirm my client has co-operated fully with SA Police,” she said.

“I am permitted to confirm he has provided police with the identity of the alleged victims … this may change the suppression order application.”

Brooker, 38, of Glenelg East, has already pleaded guilty to seven child abuse and exploitation charges – earning a potential 40 per cent sentencing discount.

Prosecutors have previously alleged he expressed his intention to infect adults and children with HIV, then acted on it while filming himself.

They said he had a teenage victim – who has been tested for the virus – in an eastern states city, and can be connected to 40 other paedophiles worldwide.

A month after Brooker’s arrest, in September last year, police had analysed just 30 per cent of the 4.5 million files on his electronic devices.

They allegedly discovered 10,000 images of child exploitation, 7000 of which were new and “not pre-existing” on the internet.

That prompted further investigations resulting in the arrests of the senior correctional services officer and of former Labor Party staffer Ben Waters last week.

Court documents released on Wednesday allege the senior correctional services officer’s offending occurred at Port Lincoln, the northern suburbs and the Eyre Peninsula in 2020 and 2021.

It is alleged that, between June 2020 and January 2021, he both produced and disseminated exploitation material featuring children under the age of 14 years.

It is further alleged that, between June 2020 and March 2021, he indecently filmed an adult without their consent.

The man allegedly produced further exploitation material between November 2020 and January 2021, and was caught in possession of such material on March 30 this year.

Last week, the man’s counsel sought an identity suppression and, when that failed, said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.

That appeal has meant the man’s unmasking will be postponed until his legal challenge has been heard on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Brooker faced court on the charges filed against him so far.

Those include the seven counts to which he has confessed, and 36 further charges involving the alleged production, possession and dissemination of child abuse material.

Tim Clarke, for Brooker, asked for the existence of those 36 charges, and any pending charges, to be suppressed from publication.

“I’ve spoken to the prosecution and we’re seeking to negotiate these matters … those negotiations are ongoing, and there has been correspondence,” he said.

“We’ve been identifying the counts that are likely to resolve by way of plea … we expect these matters are likely to resolve.”

He argued the suppression was needed to ensure the integrity of ongoing investigations – a claim rejected by both prosecutors and The Advertiser.

The state’s chief magistrate, Judge Mary-Louise Hribal, declined to impose a suppression order and remanded Brooker in custody until June, when he will enter his pleas.

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-sa/hivpositive-paedophile-jadd-william-brooker-to-be-charged-with-100-more-offences-involving-six-child-and-teenage-victims/news-story/49f349e4e7cd6c00634edfd6c7618b2b

Ghislaine Maxwell ordered to clean dirty and smelly prison cell

Ghislaine Maxwell’s life behind bars is arduous but the Bureau of Prisons says that she’s the one making it harder.

Marta Dhanis - 7 April 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell’s life behind bars is arduous but the Bureau of Prisons says that she’s the one making it harder. It turns out the British socialite is keeping her cell "very dirty" and smelly but had complained about those conditions a couple of months ago.

In a letter to a judge, the government details Maxwell’s latest conditions of confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), in Brooklyn. "MDC staff directed the defendant to clean her cell because it had become very dirty. Among other things, MDC staff noted that the defendant frequently did not flush her toilet after using it, which caused the cell to smell," prosecutors said.

Moreover, her cell became "increasingly dirty" as she didn’t clean it "in some time."

For one thing the accused madam of Jeffrey Epstein can be thankful for: she has now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The MDC medical staff considered that the defendant is "physically healthy" despite her lawyers’ suggestions that she may not be able to stand trial due to her deteriorating health. The staff indicated that the defendant’s weight has fluctuated between the 130s and the 140s, what they consider an adequate weight for her 5’7" height. The MDC also refuted the idea that the defendant has experienced any noticeable hair loss.

Maxwell’s sleep deprivation suggestions were also turned down.

Prosecutors said that, at night, the MDC staff are required to confirm every 15 minutes that the defendant is not in distress. In order to do so, they point a flashlight to the concrete ceiling of the defendant’s cell to illuminate the cell sufficiently to make sure that the defendant is breathing. This shouldn’t disturb her much, they argued, since the defendant has been seen wearing an eye mask when she sleeps.

The MDC also observed that Maxwell is a privileged inmate who gets more time "than any other inmate" to review documents and evidence in her case to prepare for trial. "Specifically, the defendant is permitted to review her discovery thirteen hours per day, seven days per week."

For that purpose and while in a day room separate from her cell, she has access to both a desktop and a laptop computer, and a phone through which she can communicate with her attorneys.

Despite the MDC having resumed in-person visitation in mid-February, her attorneys have so far declined to meet with the defendant in person.

The DOJ has recently filed more charges against Maxwell, and she is expected to be arraigned on the superseding indictment on April 23. Her trial is currently scheduled for July 12.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ghislaine-maxwell-ordered-clean-dirty-and-smelly-prison-cell

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.539612.196.0_2.pdf

Contact books of Australian diplomats hacked in major ‘phishing’ scam

Anthony Galloway - April 7, 2021

Senior Australian diplomats, including ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos, have been caught up in a sophisticated identity theft scam in which cyber attackers impersonated them on encrypted messaging services WhatsApp and Telegram in a bid to get sensitive information from their contacts.

The Australian Federal Police is investigating the security lapses after a number of heads of mission reported experiencing suspicious activity on their phones.

The cyber scare appears to mirror the attacks on senior cabinet ministers, including Finance Minister Simon Birmingham and Health Minister Greg Hunt, whereby the attackers are impersonating the individuals on WhatsApp or Telegram by using their names and personal phone numbers and gaining access to their contact book. There is also a third federal MP who has been hit by the scam who has not been identified.

The “phishing” attacks have unsettled some senior members of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the extent that they are now operating on the basis their phones have been compromised. This climate of fear has been exacerbated by a number of other unrelated cyber attacks against diplomats, as well as sophisticated hacks on the computer networks of Parliament House and Nine News (publisher of this masthead).

Mr Sinodinos confirmed a Telegram account was created in his name and said the matter had now been addressed by the AFP.

The AFP’s investigations, which included having MPs hand over their phones, so far show none of the devices have been physically hacked into, despite their contact books being stolen. But cabinet ministers did have their phones replaced out of caution.

Under the scam, senior politicians and diplomats are being sent messages asking them to validate new WhatsApp and Telegram accounts. Once they click on the link or download the app, the hacker then has access to their contact book and the ability to impersonate them on the new account. The cyber attackers are then sending unsolicited messages to the person’s contacts asking for contact details of people in Hong Kong.

The person impersonating Senator Birmingham’s phone began sending messages to a number of his contacts on Telegram, with one of the recipients asked: “Do you have a contact in Hong Kong. An Aussie preferably.”

After one of the recipients handed over contact details for two pro-democracy activists not knowing they were speaking to an imposter, the cyber hacker responded: “Let me know if you have reached out to the both of them.”

The AFP has yet to establish whether a criminal syndicate or a foreign country is behind the scam, but security agencies believe it is more likely to be a criminal group. While the focus on Hong Kong activists has sparked concern among some members of the government that China is behind the cyber attacks, the attackers appeared to be wanting money.

Some people contacted were asked to transfer money to a Hong Kong bank account with the account name “Yat Ting Ho Laundry Co”. The account was with Standard Chartered Hong Kong.

A spokeswoman for the AFP said it was aware of the matter and was investigating.

“There is no compromise of the affected users’ devices,” the AFP spokeswoman said.

The AFP has organised briefings for MPs to educate them on how to look out for phishing scams.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/contact-books-of-australian-diplomats-hacked-in-major-phishing-scam-20210406-p57gte.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1617741524

Secret recordings to be used in case against alleged Chinese spy

Hundreds of thousands of messages and secret recordings will form part of the court case against an alleged Chinese spy.

Genevieve Alison - April 6, 2021

Hundreds of thousands of messages between an alleged Chinese spy and an “associate of interest” are being combed through by federal investigators ahead of a court case – the first of its kind in Australia.

Sixty witness statements and almost 10 hours of audio captured on secret listening devices will form part of the court case against Di Sanh Duong, a former Liberal party candidate and the first Australian charged with a foreign interference offence in November.

The Surrey Hills man, known also as “Sunny” Duong, was charged with the single offence of preparing an act of foreign interference following a year-long probe by domestic spy agency, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and the Australian Federal Police.

The investigation was dubbed Operation Fruithof.

In a brief hearing before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, prosecutor Christopher Tran requested a ten-day extension to finalise their case.

Seven mobile phones, two laptops, two tablets and one computer were among the devices seized during a raid on Mr Duong’s home in October 2020.

An affidavit released to the Herald Sun revealed the “enormity” of the material currently being analysed by investigators – the vast majority of which is in a foreign language.

The AFP has recruited three translators who have been working around the clock for the past 12 weeks so translate 90 per cent of the material into English.

According to the affidavit, the large brief of evidence includes 502 pages of statements from 60 witnesses, 9 hours and 28 minutes of covert recordings and more than 2000 forensic files seized from laptops and other devices as a result of the investigation.

Investigators said that on just one iPhone, 105,351 images, 1449 videos, and 916 conversations on WeChat containing 234,940 messages were found.

Defence lawyer Charles Morgan did not oppose the extension and Magistrate Marita Altman approved the application.

Mr Duong did not attend the brief hearing and remains on bail.

In December, the Sunday Herald Sun revealed Mr Duong is barred from contacting any embassy and consulate staff, must surrender his passport and cannot possess any mobile phones while he awaits his next court date.

Mr Duong, who has lived in Melbourne for decades, is the first person to be charged under foreign interference laws which went through the federal parliament in 2018.

If convicted, Mr Duong could face up to 10 years behind bars.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/secret-recordings-to-be-used-in-case-against-alleged-chinese-spy/news-story/64f893752958b9874bb68d540ad09874

Labor staffer allegedly involved in foreign interference plot claims evidence was illegally obtained

Elizabeth Byrne - 7 April 2021

Australia's foreign interference laws will be tested in the High Court in Canberra today, when former Labor adviser John Zhang challenges the validity of warrants used to seize his passport, phones and computers.

Mr Zhang has not been charged with anything.

But Australian Federal Police (AFP) seized material from him during an investigation into an alleged Chinese plot to infiltrate the New South Wales Parliament through the office of Labor backbencher Shaoquett Moselmane.

Mr Zhang used to be an adviser to Mr Moselmane.

The AFP said it is investigating whether Mr Zhang and his accomplices used a chat group on the Chinese social media platform WeChat to encourage Mr Moselmane to support Chinese government interests, while concealing or failing to disclose to him they were collaborating with the Chinese state.

Mr Zhang has categorically denied the claim.

Submissions from his lawyers say the warrants were invalid on several fronts.

"In respect of the stated offence under [the law] the warrants did not identify the target with precision," the submission reads.

Mr Zhang's lawyers submitted that the foreign principal is identified only by implication as the Chinese government, the ministry of state security and the United Front Work Department.

Mr Zhang will also argue the laws interfere with the implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication.

But the government submissions say, even if that is the case, the laws are still valid.

"The purpose of the provisions — protecting Australia's sovereignty by reducing the risk of foreign interference in Australia's political or governmental processes — is not only legitimate, but serves to preserve and enhance the system of representative and responsible government," the government's submission reads.

"The provisions are reasonably appropriate and adapted to that significant purpose."

Zhang seeks return or destruction of seized items

Another key battleground will be over what happens to the items and materials seized under the warrants.

Mr Zhang wants them returned or destroyed.

The phones, passport, hard drives and other personal items were collected by police during three searches, including at the NSW Parliament.

Government lawyers will argue that even if the warrants weren't valid, police should get to keep the material, citing the recent judgement in the case of former News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst, where police were allowed to keep the material they gathered, even though the warrants were overturned.

In that case, the judges said:

"… It has long been accepted that the courts will refuse to exercise their discretion to grant equitable relief when to do so would prevent the disclosure of criminality which [would] be in the public interest to reveal."

Mr Zhang's case escalated tensions between Australia and China, with three Chinese journalists who were part of the WeChat group known as FD (Fair Dinkum) leaving in June last year shortly after being questioned by ASIO.

Another two scholars had their visas cancelled.

The diplomatic crisis also saw the ABC's Bill Birtles and the Australian Financial Review's Michael Smith evacuated from China.

The High Court hearing is expected to run for a day.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-07/act-foreign-interference-laws-challenged-john-zhang-moselmane/100051188

Five AFP officers examine Higgins rape allegations

Daniel McCulloch - Apr 7, 2021

A team of five Australian Federal Police officers has been assembled to investigate rape allegations raised by Brittany Higgins.

But deputy commissioner Neil Gaughan will not say whether the alleged perpetrator has been interviewed.

“Natural justice has to be held here in relation to this particular issue,” he told ABC radio on Wednesday.

“Of course, this person that has allegedly undertaken any crime is not obliged to be actually subjected to an interview, they have the right to remain silent.

“It’s up to them, it’s a matter for them, that’s the way our democracy is and the way our laws have been crafted.”

Ms Higgins alleges she was raped by a male colleague inside a ministerial office in Parliament House after a night out in 2019.

The former Liberal staffer initially decided not to pursue a police complaint, fearing her job could be affected.

But Ms Higgins re-engaged with the AFP about the alleged rape in February.

Four investigators assigned to her case are being overseen by an AFP detective-inspector.

“We will follow the evidence to where it takes us,” Mr Gaughan said.

“We’ve got to get this right, clearly, and we will be methodical.

“We will work through the evidence, we will work with the DPP and when we are ready and when they are ready, we will make some further public announcements about it.”

Mr Gaughan would not say how long the investigation might take.

“How long is a piece of string,” he said.

“I don’t want to put a timeline on it – I think that’s really dangerous – I don’t want to put pressure on investigators.

“My job is to provide them with time and space to do their job and that is my intention.”

Mr Gaughan said he would not provide “blow-by-blow” details on progress of the case but any major milestones would be accompanied by public media releases.

“We’ll just have to see where that takes us in the coming weeks.”

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/crime-news/2021/04/07/brittany-higgins-rape-afp/

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Uyghur community leaders in Australia appalled and outraged the government allowed a Chinese Communist Party propaganda parade

Bang Xiao - 7 April 2021

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Uyghur community leaders say Australia should be ashamed for allowing a Chinese government propaganda presentation to take place, and have called for the alleged atrocities against the minority group to be labelled a genocide.

Their comments come after the Chinese embassy in Canberra held a press conference where journalists were played five propaganda videos about conditions in Xinjiang in China's far west.

It has been estimated that more than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim ethnic minorities have been detained in what the Communist Party (CCP) calls vocational education centres.

The United Nations calls the facilities "re-education camps".

The press conference was joined by government officials in Urumqi, Xinjiang.

The videos, titled Xinjiang Is A Wonderful Land, presented the Chinese government's interpretation of the human rights concerns in the region, including forced sterilisation, concentration camps and forced labour.

In the videos, one woman featured said she has put in an intrauterine device (IUD) voluntarily while another emphasised she has been more satisfied with her life after receiving "training" from one of the re-education camps.

The fact that the Chinese government allows Uyghur parents in Xinjiang to have more than one child per family was also used in an attempt to demonstrate there was no genocide in the region.

Six speakers from Uyghur background also shared their "real stories" that echoed the Party's narrative after the screening. Most of them were women, too.

Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye stated that the press conference aimed at "helping Australian journalists to understand the real situation in Xinjiang".

He criticised the Western media's allegations as being based on fake news and misinformation.

Xinjiang Vice-Governor Erkin Tuniyaz also spoke.

Both the Governor and the videos hit very familiar themes, saying the government maintains "ethnic harmony" in Xinjiang while cracking down on terrorism.

In Mr Tuniyaz's 20-minute speech, he stressed the "prosperity" and "harmony" of the region.

He said media and Western politicians were lying about the alleged treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities.

Members of the Uyghur community in Australia tell a different story.

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'It's just preposterous propaganda'

Mamutjan Abdurrahim, an Adelaide Uyghur man and an Australian permanent resident, said he had been separated from his wife Muherrem Ablet, his daughter Muhlise and son Hikmet for more than five years.

Mr Abdurrahim told the ABC his wife was once taken into a re-education camp after she returned to Xinjiang from Malaysia, where the family had lived for about three years, with their two children.

He said he didn't believe the video Chinese officials played at the press conference in Canberra on Wednesday afternoon.

"Their passports were confiscated," Mr Abdurrahim said.

"The CGTN (China Global Television Network) had just made a counterclaim to that and falsely accusing me as a family abandoner.

"Because in that propaganda case, they also said that my wife was arrested in 2019 for provoking ethnic hatred, which is one of the common charges that are levelled against Uyghurs who were wrongfully detained after being detained in the concentration camps for years."

Mr Abdurrahim said he was trying his best to advocate for his wife and was waiting for her release.

But he said the press conference had left him enraged.

"It's just preposterous. It makes me furious and makes me even shiver as to I cannot find any words … to describe those outrageous claims. It is outrageous to say that people are happy," he said.

"How can people going through such massive persecution be happy?

"It is just preposterous propaganda."

Australia asked to stop allowing CCP to spread propaganda

Nurmuhammad Majid, the president of East Turkistan Australian Association, described China's campaign as a "propaganda mission" for both domestic and international audiences.

"They are advocating for the legitimacy of the crackdown policy in Xinjiang region," Mr Majid told the ABC.

"But they are ignoring the factual grounds of how Uyghur nations are actually living in the worst conditions and worst circumstances we have seen since 2017.

"The entire region has become a dystopian state."

Mr Majid said the Chinese government had been showcasing videos on different platforms to "deceive international communities".

"Today's briefing in Canberra by the Chinese authorities is actually another means of deception," he said, adding that over 20 of his family members were detained and sent to re-education camps in Xinjiang.

"And I call on the Australian government and the public to be shamed for allowing the Chinese government to have such a big platform in a democratic country to spread its political agenda.

"Australia has moral, ethical [and] legal obligations to call such atrocities committed by the Chinese government a form of genocide."

No contact with family for three years

Reyhangul Abliz, a Melbourne-based Uyghur woman, said she has several relatives who have been missing, detained or imprisoned.

"I am here to testify that my parents and other family relatives have been caught by the Chinese communist regime," Ms Abliz told the ABC.

"Some of them are detained in camp since 2017, and have not been released."

She said her father, 71, and mother, 68, were both successful business people who were victims of China's re-education camps.

"They are typical victims of the Chinese concentration camp," she said.

Ms Abliz said her parents were not criminals and neither of them needed any training.

"It's been more than three years now. I totally lost my contact with my parents and my other siblings," she said.

"Every single minute I am suffering this situation about my parents.

"I am begging the Australian government to help all my people, my parents, and try to help them through the worst situation.

"Recognise the genocide."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-07/uyghur-leaders-call-china-atrocities-genocide-xinjiang/100053014

Defrocked US priest revered in East Timor accused of abuse

AP / nzherald.co.nz - 8 Apr, 2021

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WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

It was the same every night. A list of names was posted on the Rev Richard Daschbach's bedroom door. The child at the top of the roster knew it was her turn to share the lower bunk with the elderly priest and another elementary school-aged girl.

Daschbach was idolised in the remote enclave of East Timor where he lived, largely for his role in helping save lives during the tiny nation's bloody struggle for independence. So, the girls never spoke about the abuse they suffered. They said they were afraid they would be banished from the shelter the 84-year-old from Pennsylvania established decades previously for abused women, orphans, and other destitute children.

The horrors of what they said happened behind closed doors over a period of years is now being played out in court - the first clergy sex case in a country that is more solidly Catholic than any other place aside from the Vatican. The trial was postponed last month due to a coronavirus lockdown, but is expected to resume in May.

At least 15 females have come forward, according to JU,S Jurídico Social, a group of human rights lawyers representing them. The Associated Press has spoken to a third of the accusers, each recalling their experiences in vivid detail. They are not being identified because of fears of retribution.

They told AP Daschbach would sit on a chair every night in the middle of a room holding a little girl, surrounded by a ring of children and staff members praying and singing hymns before bed.

"The way that you determine who sits on his lap is by the list that he'd have on his door," one accuser said. "And that meant that you were the little girl that was going to go with him."

Later in his room, they said Daschbach would strip down to white boxer shorts and a T-shirt and then undress the girls, giving them deodorant to put on before fondling them and quietly guiding their hands to touch him. Then, they said, there would often be oral sex. One accuser also alleged she was raped.

He would sometimes ask the children with him on the lower bunk to switch places with one or two others sleeping on the mattress above, they said, adding abuse also occasionally occurred during afternoon naps.

Daschbach faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. He and his lawyer declined to be interviewed by the AP.

The church defrocked Daschbach in 2018, saying he had confessed to sexually abusing children. But he maintains strong political ties and is still treated like a rock star by many, especially at the Topu Honis shelter, which means "Guide to Life."

Former President Xanana Gusmao attended the trial's opening in February. A month earlier, the independence hero visited Daschbach on his birthday, hand-feeding cake to the former priest and lifting a glass of wine to his lips, as cameras flashed.

Daschbach's lawyers have not made their legal strategy public, and court proceedings are closed. But documents seen by AP indicate that they will argue he is the victim of a conspiracy.

In January, however, the former priest appeared to be preparing his supporters for the worst. He told local reporters that his message to the children who remain in the orphanage is this: "Be patient. We won't meet again because I will be detained for life, but I will still remember you and you have to be happy there."

The son of a Pittsburgh steelworker, Daschbach began his religious studies as a teenager. In 1964, he was ordained by Divine Word Missionaries in Chicago, the Catholic church's largest missionary congregation, with around 6000 priests and brothers serving in more than 80 countries.

When he arrived in Southeast Asia a few years later, the nation now known as East Timor was under Portuguese control. That colonial rule would last until 1975 when the country was almost immediately invaded by neighbouring Indonesia. A bloody, 24-year independence struggle followed, leaving as many as 200,000 people dead — a quarter of the population — through fighting, famine, and starvation.

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Daschbach started the shelter in 1992 and earned his reputation during the conflict. He often told visitors about defending the women and children living in Topu Honis and surrounding areas, sheltering them in a cave, and leading a ragtag group armed with spears to stave off attackers.

Stories about the charismatic priest who joined in traditional dances with bells on his ankles, spoke local languages fluently, and gave mass where he blended Catholicism with the area's customs and animist beliefs, spread far beyond East Timor.

Foreign donors, tourists, and aid workers who made the three-hour hike up the steep, narrow jungle path to Kutet village were met by the grandfatherly priest who was often surrounded by laughing kids playing hopscotch in matching uniforms. In many photographs of Topu Honis taken by visitors and posted online, young girls are seen by Daschbach's side, on his lap, or with his arm pulling their tiny shoulders against him.

Some visitors stayed on the mountain for weeks or even months, so impressed by what they saw that they sent tens of thousands of dollars to support the shelter or pay for college scholarships.

Jan McColl, who helped fund Topu Honis, said she was devastated after she and another longtime Australian donor, Tony Hamilton, flew to East Timor and asked Daschbach point-blank whether he was a peadophile.

"He said, 'Yes. That's who I am. And always have been,'" said McColl, adding he responded calmly while continuing to eat his lunch. "So, we just got up and left the table. We were just absolutely distraught."

Hamilton said the exchange was jarring and surreal, and he has struggled to make sense of it while continuing to support some of the children. He and McColl have given affidavits.

"I think in some crazy way, he recognises that what he has done is a crime," he said. "But he reconciles it somehow with the good that he's done."

The global clergy sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church for more than two decades, has led to billions of dollars in settlements and the establishment of new programmes aimed at preventing further abuse. But experts have seen a growing number of victims coming forward in developing nations like Haiti, Kenya, and Bangladesh, where priests and missionaries deployed by religious orders often operate with little or no oversight. Even if they're caught, they rarely face consequences. For some, the idea of ever jailing a priest, no matter the crime, seems blasphemous.

Many supporters in East Timor insist the accusations against Daschbach are lies and part of a bigger plot to take over the shelter and other property, including a beachside boarding school. After the trial's opening, dozens of mostly women and children waited outside the courtroom, wailing as the ex-priest waved goodbye to them from a vehicle.

"Law enforcers must see which one is better: Omitting one person or eliminating the future of many?" said local resident Antonio Molo, one of the doubters, who worries that hundreds of children may lose a chance at a better life if Daschbach is gone.

Though the Vatican acted swiftly to investigate and remove the priest when accusations were levelled three years ago, the local archdiocese was more accommodating.

It agreed to lodge him under informal house arrest at a church residence in the town of Maliana. But Daschbach still moved around with relative ease, including taking an overnight ferry to Oecusse enclave where he returned to the children's home, infuriating accusers and their families. Despite being stripped of his priestly duties, local media reported he continued to perform mass while there.

Monsignor Marco Sprizzi, Vatican ambassador to East Timor, stressed that Daschbach should not be allowed to be among children, but said there's little the church can do now.

"Once he's defrocked … he's no more a priest. He is no part of the clergy," he said. "And, of course, that house for children was not - since the beginning - was not belonging to his religious congregation. He did it by himself, and it was in his own name."

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Zach Hiner, executive director of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the church had a moral responsibility to do more and should have recalled Daschbach to the US before laicising him.

"We fear for the vulnerable children that he may still have access to," he said.

But Daschbach still has strong support within factions of the church, locally.

Late last year, the Archbishop of Dili sacked the president of the church's "Justice and Peace Commission" and publicly apologised following the publication of a report naming the victims and implying prosecutors, police, and NGOs investigating the allegations had sexually abused the accusers, themselves, by carrying out forensic exams. The report also alleged human trafficking, referring to seven accusers who had been moved to a safe house.

Former donors and the accusers were outraged, saying the report put the lives of those who came forward in danger. Threats of violence have been made against anyone who speaks out against Daschbach.

The ex-priest faces 14 counts of child sexual abuse, one count of child pornography and one count of domestic violence. He also is wanted in the US for three counts of wire fraud linked to one of his California-based donors, which accused him in a court case of violating an agreement to protect those under his care. An Interpol Red Notice has been issued internationally for his arrest.

The accusers who spoke to AP described systematic abuse and inappropriate behaviour, including Daschbach regularly overseeing the girls' showers. They said all of the children removed their clothes and stood together around a large concrete water basin outside, with the nude priest going from girl to girl shampooing their hair and splashing water on their private parts. They said he also took photos of them naked as they played in the rain, and that some girls were told he didn't want them to wear underwear.

His accusers said they were filled with hope when they arrived at the shelter. For the first time, they, along with many others, had clean clothes, time to play, and an emphasis on school. Most importantly, they had food. The meals were basic but steady.

The adoration and respect for the white American missionary was so commanding, the accusers said they did whatever he wanted without question.

One recalled first arriving at the shelter still distraught after her father had died and said the priest raped her that same night. She said he continued to do so frequently the entire time she was there.

She said he would lock the door and pull the curtains, telling her they had to be careful and that no one could know. She said he typically chose young children, but for those like her who were nearing puberty, Daschbach exercised caution.

"He would pull out and say, 'I have to stop, otherwise you'll be pregnant,'" she said.

Now, accusers say they struggle to process how someone who appeared so kind and selfless could ask them to do things that felt so wrong.

"When I was getting abused, I was like, 'Is this sort of like the payment?'" one accuser said. "That's what I was computing in my head … 'this must be the price that I have to pay to be a part of this.' You know, like those shiny little dresses that these girls are wearing to church. That's not free. This is the price tag."

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/child-sex-abuse-case-defrocked-us-priest-revered-in-east-timor-accused-of-abuse/25KHMBPKKHHP63GVTX7NAWA3TE/

https://www.1800respect.org.au

https://www.lifeline.org.au

https://ntv.org.au

https://kidshelpline.com.au

China researchers face abuse, sanctions as Beijing looks to silence critics

Lily Kuo and Gerry Shih - April 7, 2021

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The Internet has become an unbearable place for Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, a 26-year-old analyst based in Australia. Over the past week, she was shocked to see her name trending on Chinese social media, with millions of views and thousands of negative comments.

The flood of attacks posted and re-posted by state-media outlets and nationalist bloggers followed similar themes. Xu, part of a team documenting abuses of Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region last year, was a traitor, a pawn controlled by the West, or a “female demon.” Queries for her name turn up thousands of results, including videos claiming to reveal details of her dating life, calling her “promiscuous” and “drug infested.”

On Weibo, people have called for her family to be tracked down and ordered to apologize for raising such a daughter. Others said Xu should never be allowed back into China, issuing not-so-veiled threats. “Meet a traitor, kill a traitor,” one user wrote. Her family asked her to change her name for her own safety.

The torrent of abuse targeting Xu, one year after she co-wrote an Australian Strategic Policy Institute report on Uyghur labor in supply chains, is the most extreme example of a growing Chinese campaign to defend its Xinjiang policies and to silence overseas researchers through sanctions and intimidation.

In recent weeks, China has imposed sanctions on scholars and think tanks while state propaganda organs fanned nationalist anger at companies such as H&M and Nike for not using cotton from Xinjiang. Researchers like Xu, who said people close to her in China have been detained and interrogated because of her work, face increasingly personal attacks.

“As someone who analyzes propaganda activities for a job I can see it’s clearly a coordinated attack,” she said. “At this point, the Chinese government has made it abundantly clear that if you want to keep talking about Xinjiang, the Chinese state would not treat you nicely.”

In March, Beijing announced travel bans and asset freezes on more than 20 scholars and officials, and their families, as well as think tanks in the European Union and Britain, in response to sanctions from the United States, the E.U., Britain and Canada on Chinese officials linked to abuses in Xinjiang. China also barred its citizens and organizations from dealing with the blacklisted entities and individuals.

Scholars focusing on China, who have already seen more restrictions on academic exchanges between China and Western countries, say the latest measures will damage fragile ties and mutual understanding over the long term. More than 1,150 scholars have signed a statement urging Beijing to revoke the sanctions, which they say amount to “academic repression.”

“There is no legal or moral basis for the persecution of scholars, merely because they expose and criticize a powerful government’s human rights abuses,” it said.

Silencing voices

Foreign scholars say the personal attacks against researchers and sanctions on institutions go beyond the scope of recent Western measures against China, which only target government officials, and represent a shift in Beijing’s focus to U.S. allies in Europe.

Among the institutions now banned by China is the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, whose researchers publish analysis about Chinese politics, foreign and economic policy and the China-Europe relationship.

“MERICS is probably the one think tank in Europe doing the most pathbreaking work on sensitive issues like Xinjiang and Made in China 2025,” said Bonnie Glaser, incoming director of the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program, referring to the Chinese state-directed manufacturing plan criticized by foreign governments as unfair.

“The Chinese thought by shutting down these small numbers of voices and their access to China, that they would limit the bad news and negative analysis coming out of Europe. They don’t have that option in the United States,” she said, noting Europe has far fewer institutions researching China.

(continued)

>>13383087

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European scholars said Beijing’s measures were more likely to encourage China skeptics in government and academia who see China as a rival and cautioned against an investment deal now in jeopardy because of the sanctions.

Björn Jerdén, director of the Swedish National China Center, who has been targeted by the new sanctions, said Beijing’s retaliation was “much stronger than expected.” “The Chinese are trying to break what they see as an anti-China alliance but I think the only effect will be that Europe is more eager to coordinate with the U.S.,” Jerdén said.

'Not getting solid information'

Sympathetic Western and Chinese scholars say academic institutions are a crucial venue for both sides to talk, glean insights — and avoid catastrophe — amid mounting tensions. But China’s hard-liners, driven by growing paranoia of foreign infiltration and desire to punish critical voices abroad, are cutting off a useful source of information.

Attacking researchers and blocking channels of information “would be incredibly damaging” for China, said Scott Kennedy, a specialist in China’s economic policies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In mid-2018, China dispatched scholars and diplomats to think tanks in Washington to get a better read on President Donald Trump, whom they struggled to understand. Kennedy said he warned visiting Chinese officials and scholars skeptical of Trump’s tariff threats to take him more seriously. Trump eventually announced tariffs, kick-starting a trade war that rocked Chinese manufacturers.

Since China detained the Canadian researcher Michael Kovrig in 2018, more foreign researchers have worried about traveling to China to conduct fieldwork — and whether they too might be detained, Kennedy said.

Some Chinese researchers also worry about academic decoupling between China and the West. Last month, Jia Qingguo, a member of a foreign policy advisory body, wrote in a proposal that the Chinese government should lift “unnecessary” restrictions on Chinese academics that limit meetings with foreigners to twice a year and prohibit one-on-one meetings.

“If any Chinese entering the U.S. is a suspected secret agent and anybody from the West suspected as a possible spy, that’s not good,” Jia said in an interview. “We need to allow people to exchange views and opinions, and we need to know the other country, how people of the other country are thinking, so that we can be better informed and develop more realistic policies.”

For researchers who have spent their careers focused on China, losing access has been devastating.

Jo Smith Finley, who researches Uyghur identity at Newcastle University in Britain, said the sanctions mean she cannot stay in touch with contacts in China, where she has been traveling for more than three decades.

“My friends in Beijing are some of my oldest and dearest soul mates,” she said, describing adrenaline-filled days after the suppression of pro-democracy protests in Beijing in 1989.

“The thought of no longer being able to sit in Beijing cafes and restaurants with them and set the world to rights is just unthinkable, surreal,” she said.

The online onslaught against Xu, named in countless headlines as the unexpected “black hand” behind the West’s anti-China campaign, has continued with tacit if not outright support from Chinese state media. “Even as a Chinese person, she insists on going against China; the doxing of Xu Xiuzhong and trashing of her reputation are in no way undeserved,” said an editorial in the state-run China Daily.

Xu, who has tried to stay away from the Internet recently, said she will not stop her work on detention camps in China and forced labor targeting Uyghurs. “For me, it’s always been about writing what’s really happening — discovering and revealing the truth. And there is such a thing as truth.”

And she will not be changing her name, she said. “It’s too late for that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-online-threats-academics-xinjiang/2021/04/07/2ff73360-968f-11eb-8f0a-3384cf4fb399_story.html

https://www.vickyxu.com/

https://twitter.com/xu_xiuzhong

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale

https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2021-03/Uyghurs%20for%20sale%2016%20March%202021.pdf

Ipswich man charged with possessing child abuse material

A 35-year-old Ipswich man is due to appear in court today (8 April 2021) charged with child exploitation offences following an Australian Federal Police (AFP) child protection investigation.

Officers from the Brisbane Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team (JACET) executed a search warrant at an address in Gailes, Ipswich on 28 January 2021 after receiving a report from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States.

The report indicated a person, believed to be in Queensland, was uploading child abuse material using a Google account.

During the search of the Gailes home officers located two laptops, an iPad and five USBs, allegedly containing child abuse material. Three mobile phones and two external hard drives were also located and seized for forensic analysis.

The man was later charged with three counts of possessing child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service and five counts of possessing child exploitation material, as well as unrelated state offences.

The maximum penalty for these Commonwealth child abuse material offences is 15 years imprisonment.

He is due to appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court today.

AFP Detective Superintendent Child Protection Operations Paula Hudson, said the AFP’s international partnerships were vital to stopping those spreading child abuse material online.

“It takes a network to break a network and this arrest is an example of our strong relationships with international law enforcement,” Detective Superintendent Hudson said.

“Our message to offenders accessing, transmitting and exchanging child abuse material is that the AFP will not stop investigating those responsible for spreading this abhorrent material and bringing them before the court.”

Members of the public who have any information about this network or people involved in child abuse and exploitation are urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

https://crimestoppers.com.au

You can also make a report online by alerting the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation via the Report Abuse button.

https://www.accce.gov.au/report

Note to Media:

Use of term 'CHILD ABUSE' MATERIAL NOT 'CHILD PORNOGRAPHY'

The correct legal term is Child Abuse Material – the move to this wording was among amendments to Commonwealth legislation in 2019 to more accurately reflect the gravity of the crimes and the harm inflicted on victims. Use of the phrase "child pornography" is inaccurate and benefits child sex abusers because it:

• indicates legitimacy and compliance on the part of the victim and therefore legality on the part of the abuser; and

• conjures images of children posing in 'provocative' positions, rather than suffering horrific abuse.

Every photograph or video captures an actual situation where a child has been abused.

Editor's Note: Images of this investigation are available via Hightail - https://spaces.hightail.com/space/Ker98mFsVT

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/ipswich-man-charged-possessing-child-abuse-material

>>13376573

Fight over Ghislaine Maxwell's jail conditions heats up

The rancorous fight over jail conditions for Ghislaine Maxwell are reaching new lows

LARRY NEUMEISTER - 9 April 2021

NEW YORK – The rancorous fight over jail conditions for Ghislaine Maxwell is reaching new lows, with prosecutors blaming the British socialite and Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend for creating a stink by failing to flush her toilet and her lawyer saying her health is declining in a facility so mucky that even her salad has mold in it.

The latest exchange in letters to a Manhattan federal court judge came this week as the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled oral arguments for late April on Maxwell's appeal of her thrice-rejected application to be freed on bail before her July 12 sex trafficking trial.

Maxwell has been at a Brooklyn federal jail since her July arrest on charges she recruited three teenage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s. Charges were recently expanded to allege the sex trafficking of girls for Epstein to abuse in the early 2000s. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.

Attorney Bobbi Sternheim wrote in a letter late Wednesday that an effort by prosecutors “to publicly embarrass and humiliate Ms. Maxwell in the hostile court of public opinion further erodes the likelihood that her case will be tried by a fair and impartial jury."

She says Maxwell has been mistreated, including over 1,400 physical searches and flashlight checks to ensure she's breathing every 15 minutes while she sleeps, as jail officials overreact to Epstein's August 2019 self-inflicted death in a Manhattan jail as he awaited trial on sex charges.

The letter came a day after prosecutors got specific about Maxwell's jail conditions as they refuted claims Sternheim made in February that her 59-year-old client was “withering to a shell of her former self — losing weight, losing hair, and losing her ability to concentrate.”

Sternheim had also alleged that Maxwell was physically abused when she was shoved into her cell by a guard prior to a pat-down search and then was retaliated against for reporting it when she was ordered to clean, sanitize and scrub the walls of a shower.

In their letter, prosecutors said an investigation of the pat-down search complaint proved Maxwell's complaint unfounded.

They wrote that Maxwell was directed to clean her cell, not in retaliation, but because it had become “very dirty." They noted that Maxwell “frequently did not flush her toilet after using it, which caused the cell to smell.”

Prosecutors said jail staff reported Maxwell, fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, to be physically healthy.

They said the jail's medical staff monitor the 5-foot-7 Maxwell daily and weigh her weekly, finding her weight fluctuates between the 130s and the 140s, normal for her height. They said staff has not observed any noticeable hair loss.

In Wednesday's letter, Sternheim criticized the government, calling it “debatable whether the public has a ‘right to know’ about Ms. Maxwell’s conditions of confinement.” She said prosecutors violated her client's privacy rights by releasing medical information related to weight and vaccination status.

“She is weighed while clothed on scales that are erratic and not set to zero,” Sternheim said. “Her eyesight is failing, and her hair is thinning. The guards are far from qualified to assess Ms. Maxwell’s physical condition.”

As for Maxwell's toilet, Sternheim said her client avoids using it in a cell closely observed by video and guards but flushes it frequently, as directed by guards, to help alleviate a stench from overflowing toilets in the cellblock above.

“Blaming Ms. Maxwell for the filth of her severely restricted environment is utterly misplaced. To suggest she willingly lives in squalor is absurd,” the lawyer said.

Sternheim said the building where Maxwell is held is permeated with mold and vermin, and even a salad she was given earlier this week had mold in it.

“Cockroaches and rodents are plentiful and glue tracks have been placed in Ms. Maxwell’s day area to help remediate the problem,” she said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyers-raise-stink-british-socialites-jail-care-76951589

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.539612.197.0_1.pdf

Taiwan charges alleged spy after outed by Chinese operative who defected to Australia

Taiwan authorities have charged an alleged Chinese spy and his wife with money laundering after they were identified by self-confessed Chinese intelligence operative Wang Liqiang who defected to Australia.

Businessman Xiang Xin and his wife Gong Qing, both directors of the company Wang says employed him to run interference operations, were detained at Taiwan’s main airport in November 2019 as they tried to leave the country after reports in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes identified Xian as a Chinese spy.

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office announced on Thursday it had filed charges of money laundering against the couple, while they were also under investigation under the country’s National Security Act.

According to a report in Taiwan publication United Daily News, the prosecution’s investigation found Xiang and Gong received $HKD203 million in illegal profits. The prosecution also said they were suspected of violating the National Security Act and travel bans had been placed on them.

Wang Liqiang, who in 2019 sought political protection in Australia, said he had worked as an agent for China and had helped interfere in Hong Kong’s democracy movement and Taiwan’s municipal elections.

Wang said he worked for a Hong Kong-based company, China Innovation Investment Limited (CIIL), a front set up to interfere on behalf of China. The company denied the claims and said Wang did not work there, while the Chinese declared he was a fraud.

CIIL’s two directors, Xiang and Gong were stopped at Taiwan’s Taoyuan Airport by the country’s Investigation Bureau on November 24, and were prevented from leaving the country. Prosecutors had twice extended the exit ban on them and had until April 14 to charge them under Taiwanese law.

Wang claimed to be the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover in Australia, and he revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as providing details of how they fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.

As of late 2019, Wang had taken his material to Australia’s counter-espionage agency, ASIO, and was seeking political asylum, but his whereabouts now are unknown.

According to multiple Australian government sources, security agencies in the United States were also interested in the information and material Wang had to provide. At the time of his defection, Wang said his main task was coordinating the relationships between his organisation and other intelligence agencies and “collecting information related to pro-independence” activists. He claimed he took instructions from Chinese military intelligence officials.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/taiwan-prosecutors-charge-alleged-chinese-spy-with-money-laundering-20210408-p57hl4.html

Yaron Finklestein Scott Morrison's Cabal Handler

https://heightzone.com/yaron-finkelstein-wikipedia-scott-morrison-principal-secretary/

Talpiot program????

https://youtu.be/R2e757Dh8zU

Attached is the Finklestein network that operates in the US

>>13386283

Finklestein network

Malka Leifer: Former principal of ultra-orthodox Jewish school to face alleged victims

CAROLINE SCHELLE - APRIL 9, 2021

Three sisters who accused former principal Malka Leifer of sexually abusing them want to face their alleged abuser in person, a court has been told.