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CURRENT DOUGH

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John Bolton urges the US and others to 'consider Taiwan an independent country'

Nick Baker and Tom Switzer - 28 August 2022

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Amid the latest spike in tensions between China and Taiwan, Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton has a characteristically blunt message.

"We ought to be clear to China that we consider Taiwan an independent country … I think the doctrine of strategic ambiguity [towards Taiwan] has served its purpose," he told ABC RN's Between The Lines during a visit to Australia.

"[The US] should exchange full diplomatic recognition, embassies, the whole nine yards, and so should other countries."

Bolton served in top positions for multiple Republican presidents, including as US Ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush and 17 months with Donald Trump before a well-publicised falling-out.

He's a conservative China hawk and has been outspoken about China's rise in the past.

"It's not Taiwan that's provoking this crisis. It's the determination in China to subjugate Taiwan," he said.

Tense times

China, or the People's Republic of China (PRC), considers Taiwan, or the Republic of China (ROC), to be a breakaway province and has vowed to "unify" the island with the mainland.

Australia's stance is that Taiwan is not a sovereign state and it does not regard the authorities in Taiwan as having the status of a national government. Meanwhile, China is Australia's largest trading partner.

But Bolton advocated a very different approach to Taiwan.

"The fact is, on Taiwan, the people have decided they want to be an independent country. And in terms of their identification over the last 30 years, they see themselves as Taiwanese. They do not see themselves as Chinese."

He said the Taiwanese "don't want a 'one country, two systems' approach [with China]. They want a separate, democratic government — which they have".

"People can say, 'oh, come on, they're all Chinese'. Well, those same people would have to say, 'you people in Australia shouldn't be independent. You're really British'."

Conventional wisdom in the US is that its interests are best served by maintaining a status quo that balances de facto autonomy with formal ambiguity of status for Taiwan.

Tensions between China and Taiwan have recently increased, with a visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, followed by subsequent Chinese military drills around the island.

"I think Pelosi was right to go," Bolton said.

Echoing comments he has previously made about China's rise, he said "there's no doubt we need increases in the [US] defence budget".

"This is still part of the hangover from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the 'peace dividend' was declared. The US and many other countries dramatically cut their militaries."

Trump 2024?

In a wide-ranging interview with ABC RN's Between The Lines, Bolton also unpacked the current state of US politics and warned against a return to power for his former boss.

Trump and Bolton fell out in 2019 after significant disagreements, including on North Korea, and Bolton is now a harsh critic of the 45th president.

He said he was "actually fairly optimistic that Trump's support was declining" until the recent FBI search of the former president's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Bolton claimed this "has caused a resurgence in his support".

"Before the subpoena, I believed Trump would not actually run for the nomination, he would talk about it incessantly … but he wouldn't actually run. He fears losing and being called a loser for Trump is the single worst thing," he said.

"But there's been a kind of tribal reaction to the Biden Justice Department going after Trump … I think Trump gathers support when he becomes the target of the Biden administration, or of the left in America. People rally around him."

Bolton said in his view, "[Trump's] real support within the Republican Party … his actual base, is maybe 15 to 20 per cent of the party".

And his message to Republican colleagues who say they will support Trump come hell or high water: "If you want to lose, be my guest".

"During the course of [Trump's] incumbency, he cost us the House of Representatives. He cost us the Senate. He cost us the White House. He cost us in state and local elections."

Bolton said for the upcoming November midterm elections "if [they're] about Donald Trump, Republicans will not do as well as they should".

Looking beyond to the next US presidential election, he said: "My super PAC [political action committee]'s polling shows within the Republican Party … [people] want to see a new face in 2024".

(continued)

>>17453741

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'A very dangerous thing'

Since falling out with Trump and publicly criticising him in interviews and a book, Bolton has received some cheers from the progressive side of US politics, who he has fiercely clashed with for decades.

"There's plenty of irony in it. But it shows one of the distorting factors that Trump has had in American politics — people lining up and saying 'are you with Trump or against Trump?'" he said.

"And I think that's a very dangerous thing to happen."

"In politics, you pursue philosophy and policies. You can agree with a person on this policy, but disagree [with them] on another," Bolton said.

"But if it's simply a loyalty test to a person as opposed to a philosophy, that's potentially very dangerous."

Ukraine is 'a race against exhaustion'

Bolton said of the current status of the war in Ukraine: "Both sides may be nearing exhaustion, in terms of casualties".

"The Russians have suffered casualties beyond comprehension in the West. I think it just shows their calculus about the value for human life is not what ours is," he said.

And he said while the Ukrainians "have been very silent about their total casualties, I don't think we should take that to mean they've been light — I think they've been very heavy".

"[So] we're in a race against exhaustion in a certain sense here. The most likely outcome, though, is that the war will simply continue because there's no diplomatic advantage, certainly for the Ukraine side, to bring it to a halt."

He said the West needs to keep the pressure on Russia, or even ramp it up.

"We need to make clear that the sanctions against Russia as a whole will remain in place and perhaps even increase until their troops are off Ukrainian soil."

A divided America

Despite the problems gripping America, Bolton said this is not the most divided the US has ever been. He swats down a comparison with the leadup to the country's civil war.

"I don't think the situation in America is even remotely close to what happened before the civil war, when the Union broke up," he said.

"It's just an exaggeration that really contributes to the problem and doesn't help find ways to solve it."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-28/john-bolton-on-taiwan-china-donald-trump/101377348

—

Geopolitics with John Bolton. Australia's economic outlook.

ABC Radio National - 26 Aug 2022

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/geopolitics-john-bolton-australia-s-economic-outlook-/14030220

More firepower on Australian Defence Force shopping list

BEN PACKHAM - AUGUST 26, 2022

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Australia is looking to push ahead with the expansion of its F-35 stealth fighter fleet and is considering buying US B-21 bombers to give the nation a new long-range strike capability, in a strategic review framed around the regional fallout from a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The Albanese government is also yet to lock in the former Morrison government’s decision to buy US Black Hawk helicopters, and could overturn the decision in favour of a next-generation ­rotary capability.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said the RAAF’s F-35As had proven themselves “indispensable”, and the government’s Defence Strategic Review would decide whether to lift Australia’s joint strike fighter order from 72 to 100 aircraft.

“The question about our fighter capability will form part of the strategic review that we are undertaking,” he said en route to the Northern Territory for the air force’s biggest drill, Exercise Pitch Black.

“Having a fifth-generation fighter capability is critically important – they can just do things the Super Hornets can’t. It is an utterly essential component to our air force and the potency of our defence force.”

Days after a senior American defence chief confirmed the US would consider selling its in-­development B-21 bomber to Australia, Mr Marles said the stealth aircraft were also being examined to give the ADF the ability to hold adversaries at bay over long distances.

The capability would be examined as the review considered the wider purpose of the Defence Force, and what it needed to do, Mr Marles said.

The review, being undertaken by former defence minister Stephen Smith and former ADF chief Angus Houston, is running against a backdrop of Chinese aggression towards Taiwan that will form the central scenario for the force posture plans developed under the ­process. A conflict over Taiwan is being examined by the reviewers as the most likely potential flashpoint for a war between China, with the review looking at how Australia can defend its interests and be taken seriously as a military power.

Mr Marles’ trip to Darwin comes ahead of an official trip to the UK, Germany and France to meet his ministerial counterparts, and inspect Britain’s frigate and submarine building operations.

The US State Department on Thursday approved the sale of 40 Black Hawks to Australia for $2.8bn, to replace the ADF’s trouble-prone MRH-90 Taipans as the army’s workhorse helicopter.

But the decision comes as the US Army considers replacing its own Black Hawks with a yet-to-be-designed rotary aircraft, developed specifically for Indo-Pacific operations, that will be faster and have a longer better range.

Mr Marles said that former ­defence minister Peter Dutton’s announcement last December that Australia would buy new Black Hawks was a “pretty fuzzy commitment”.

He said the tried and tested utility helicopter was “clearly” under consideration, but the purchase was not a done deal.

“A process is under way that is evaluating that capability in terms of what we have now and what we need in the future. I’m not going to pre-empt it now,” Mr Marles said.

(continued)

>>17453756

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At Pitch Black, Mr Marles met Australian and international participants and inspected Australian F-35s, German Eurofighters, US F15Es, and French Rafales.

This year’s exercise includes 2500 personnel from 17 countries including Australia, and features realistic combat simulations in one of the biggest air training ­spaces in the world. Germany, Japan, and South Korea are participating in the ­exercise for the first time.

Australia has 50 F-35As and is due to receive its full compliment next year before it can exercise its right to buy a further 28.

“It has taken a long time to come to fruition, but now that it is in significant numbers – most of them are in play – they are just indispensable,” Mr Marles.

When asked during a visit to Canberra this week whether the US would consider selling B-21s to Australia, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said his country “would be willing to talk to Australia about anything that there was an interest in from the Australian perspective that we could help them with”.

The ADF has not had a long-range aerial-strike capability since the retirement of the F111s in 2010.

Strategists believe Australia needs the B-21 to provide greater deterrence against potential adversaries such as China, particularly given the looming capability gap following the retirement of the Collins-class submarines from the mid-2030s.

The Defence Strategic Review is expected to release its final ­report in February, coinciding with the ­release of a report that will identify which nuclear submarine Australia will acquire, and whether an interim submarine capability will be required.

After weeks of tensions ­between China and the West over Taiwan, Mr Marles said Australia would not be deterred by Beijing’s heightened military posture in the region, and would continue to ­exercise its rights to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

“Australia’s national interest lies in protecting the global rules based order,” he said. “That includes in the South China Seas, that includes around Taiwan.

“Most of our trade goes through the South China Sea. And whatever the level of activity is from China it is critically important for Australia’s national interests that we continue to assert those rules. It is not an esoteric question for us.”

Mr Marles confirmed his ­department was re-examining whether to overturn the lease of the Port of Darwin to Chinese company Landbridge, after a ­Coalition review that Labor had not seen.

“We want to understand what risk is given rise to by virtue of the current set of circumstances and on the basis of that will then make our decision,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/more-firepower-on-australian-defence-force-shopping-list/news-story/e1b800f971dca451e01ca2e46cb1e67c

>>17453764

F-15E Strike Eagles

Buy several for what a single B-21 would cost

Can defend itself quite well

ANONS, REMEMBER:

GLOBAL REPORT ALL CHILD ABUSE MATERIAL!

ZERO TOLERANCE!

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

US Coast Guard cutter is denied port call in Solomon Islands

DAVID RISING - August 27, 2022

BANGKOK (AP) — A U.S. coast guard cutter conducting patrols as part of an international mission to prevent illegal fishing was recently unable to get clearance for a scheduled port call in Solomon Islands, an incident that comes amid growing concerns of Chinese influence on the Pacific nation.

The cutter Oliver Henry was taking part in Operation Island Chief monitoring fishing activities in the Pacific, which ended Friday, when it sought to make a scheduled stop at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, to refuel and re-provision, the Coast Guard office in Honolulu said.

There was no response from the Solomon Islands’ government for diplomatic clearance for the vessel to stop there, however, so the Oliver Henry diverted to Papua New Guinea, the Coast Guard said.

When the stop in Solomon Islands had been scheduled wasn’t disclosed, but the Coast Guard said the Oliver Henry had arrived in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Tuesday “following a patrol in parts of the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands.”

Britain’s Royal Navy did not comment directly on reports that the HMS Spey, also taking part in Operation Island Chief, was also denied a port call in Solomon Islands.

“Ships’ programs are under constant review, and it is routine practice for them to change,” the Royal Navy said in an emailed statement.

“For reasons of operational security we do not discuss details. The Royal Navy looks forward to visiting the Solomon Islands at a later date.”

During Operation Island Chief, the U.S., Australia, Britain and New Zealand provided support through aerial and surface surveillance for Pacific island nations participating in the operation, including Solomon Islands.

China has been assertively trying to expand its presence and influence in the Pacific, and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare alarmed some neighbors, the U.S. and others after he signed a new security pact with China.

The pact has raised fears of a Chinese naval base being established within 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of Australia’s northeast coast. A Chinese military presence in the Solomon Islands would put it not only on the doorstep of Australia and New Zealand but also in close proximity to Guam, the U.S. territory that hosts major military bases.

Both the Solomon Islands and China have denied their pact will lead to a Chinese military foothold in the South Pacific.

Sogavare also raised eyebrows earlier in August when he skipped a memorial service marking the anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal, a key battle in World War II in which American and other allied forces wrested control of the islands from Imperial Japan.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, whose father was wounded during the Guadalcanal campaign and who attended the memorial, said Sogavare “missed an important opportunity” by failing to attend.

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn met with Sogavare in the Solomon Islands on Wednesday but it was not clear whether she raised the issue of the Coast Guard’s refused port call.

The Tennessee Republican said in a statement on her website that her visit to the Solomon Islands as well as Fiji and Papua New Guinea “was an important step in showcasing America’s commitment to the region and expanding our strategic relationships.”

The Coast Guard, in the statement from Honolulu, said it respects the sovereignty of its foreign partners and looks forward to future engagement with Solomon Islands.

Coast Guard Lt. Kristin Kam told the Stars and Stripes newspaper that the U.S. State Department had been in touch with the Solomon Islands government following the refusal of the port call and that they “expect all future clearances will be provided to U.S. ships.”

https://apnews.com/article/papua-new-guinea-us-coast-guard-solomon-islands-government-and-politics-b3aae9a2d5bede96034a5c7dac44772b

>>17458335

Solomon Islands denies port call for Guam-based US Coast Guard cutter

WYATT OLSON, STARS AND STRIPES - August 26, 2022

The Solomon Islands recently denied entry to a U.S. Coast Guard cutter for a scheduled port call, further raising concerns that the Oceania nation is severing U.S. ties in favor of China.

The USCG cutter Oliver Henry, which is homebased in Guam, was scheduled for a routine logistics port call on Guadalcanal, Lt. Kristin Kam, a spokeswoman for the 14th Coast Guard District in Honolulu, said in an email Thursday.

“The Government of the Solomon Islands did not respond to the U.S. Government’s request for diplomatic clearance for the vessel to refuel and provision in Honiara,” Kam said. “Accordingly, CGC Oliver Henry diverted to Papua New Guinea to refuel and provision.”

The Oliver Henry arrived on Tuesday in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, for a port visit, according to a Coast Guard news release that day. The visit followed the cutter’s patrol in “parts of the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea Exclusive Economic Zones,” the release said.

The Coast Guard declined to disclose the date the cutter had intended to make the Guadalcanal port call, citing operational security concerns.

“The U.S. Department of State is in contact with the Government of the Solomon Islands and expect all future clearances will be provided to U.S. ships,” Kam said.

SeaWaves magazine tweeted Aug. 24 that the Oliver Henry and the British patrol vessel HMS Spey were denied entry into the Solomons.

The islands were the setting for a major Allied campaign during World War II, beginning when U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal in August 1942.

In the decades since the war ended, American focus has drifted from the island nation. The U.S. closed its embassy in Honiara in 1993.

In 2019, Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing, following a years-long pressure campaign by China to do so.

In March, a leaked draft security agreement between the two nations seemed to authorize China to port warships and provide police assistance to the Solomons.

Officials of both countries have denied that China will establish a military base there.

Nevertheless, U.S. and Australian officials have reacted with alarm over the prospect of China displacing their longtime leadership roles in the region.

Most recently, Sen. Martha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, stopped Wednesday in the Solomons and Papua New Guinea en route to Taiwan, where she arrived Thursday.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy traveled to the Solomons earlier this month to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Guadalcanal.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare failed to show for the event, even though he was slated to speak, with some local media outlets calling it a “snub.”

Sherman and Sogavare met later that day, where the deputy secretary underscored U.S. concerns about the security pact with China, Reuters reported on Aug. 7.

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2022-08-25/solomon-islands-coast-guard-cutter-china-7106824.html

China on alert as US warships pass through Taiwan Strait

DIDI TANG, THE TIMES - AUGUST 29, 2022

Chinese troops were put on high alert on Sunday as two United States navy cruisers armed with guided missiles sailed through the Taiwan Strait.

The USS Antietam and the USS Chancellorsville conducted a “routine Taiwan Strait transit” through the waters, where “freedoms of navigation and oversight apply in accordance with international law”, the US 7th fleet said.

Eight Chinese warships and 23 Chinese military planes, up from five naval vessels and 21 aircraft the day before, were seen in the area as the US navy ships were due to pass through the strait, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.

It is the first passage through the strait by US warships since Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan triggered an angry response from Beijing, resulting in large-scale military exercises in effect blockading the self-governed island this month.

Shi Yi, a spokesman for the Eastern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), said the Chinese military would be monitoring and guarding the two Ticonderoga-class cruisers and had forces on standby “ready to thwart any provocation”.

In the past few weeks PLA ships and aircraft have been regularly crossing over the median line of the strait, which was previously considered an unofficial border separating the mainland and the island, after Ms Pelosi became the highest-ranking American politician to visit Taipei for 25 years.

The Chinese government, which wants to reunify Taiwan with its territory, lambasted the Speaker of the House of Representatives for interfering in China’s internal politics and encouraging those seeking independence for the island, which the US has vowed to defend in the event of an invasion by China.

China has since sanctioned Ms Pelosi, suspended high-level talks with the US and sent dozens of warships, military jets and drones to the strait and nearby waters. It has also fired ballistic missiles into the sea east of Taiwan.

Washington has accused Beijing of attempting to change the status quo in the strait after China declared in June its “sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The US has promised to continue sending military ships to defend freedom of navigation and its navy published photographs of the two cruisers, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, torpedoes and antiship missiles, on their latest transit.

Hu Xijin, a Chinese commentator, denounced the “new provocation” but argued that the operation was not a deterrent to China. “The US attempts to assure Taiwan’s authorities and regional allies that it would not retreat under military pressure from the mainland,” Mr Hu said, adding: “US warships have made nearly 100 trips through the strait since 2012 … but the effect of this kind of performance is diminishing.

“The Taiwan issue is a long-time struggle between China and the US and the only language the US understands and is willing to respect is strength.”

Undeterred by Chinese threats, three more US political delegations have landed on the island since Ms Pelosi’s trip. The most recent was by Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator, who arrived in Taiwan on Thursday.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/china-on-alert-as-us-warships-pass-through-taiwan-strait/news-story/9fefc7a27509ec66fe772f75327b3f64

>>17453741

Taiwan welcomes jaw-jaw sparked by John Bolton for strategic clarity to deter Xi Jinping’s China

WILL GLASGOW - AUGUST 27, 2022

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Taiwan has welcomed the debate about treating the liberal democracy as an independent country and indicated it is time to move to strategic clarity to deter a military attack ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Friday praised ­Donald Trump’s ­former national security adviser John Bolton, who this week advocated for what would be a momentous change during a visit to Australia.

“John Bolton is a very good friend of mine and his support for Taiwan is always unwavering … that kind of support is always highly appreciated,” Mr Wu told The Weekend Australian in Taipei.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s most senior envoy said the debate about ending Washington’s more than 40-year-old policy of strategic ambiguity was a “challenging one” and he emphasised Taiwan did not want to meddle in America’s domestic policy debate.

But he indicated there would be increasing co-ordination between the US and Taiwan over security and defence policy.

“I can tell you very frankly that the communication or engagement between the two governments has already been very close. And as far as I can see, it (will) only (get) closer,” Mr Wu said.

Mr Bolton had been a longtime advocate for ending strategic ambiguity, arguing the policy – which makes it unclear whether the US would get involved in a Chinese attack on Taiwan – had “served its purpose”.

Japan’s influential former prime minister Shinzo Abe was the most prominent advocate for the US making it military commitment to Taiwan clear. Mr Abe – whose assassination in July rattled many Taiwanese – also led a policy change in Tokyo to formally recognise that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency”.

A senior Taiwanese government official acknowledged there were “pros and cons” to strategic clarity, but said Taipei “welcomed the debate”. Many in Canberra, Washington and beyond worry the shift could provoke a catastrophic military response from Beijing.

The Taiwanese official said those concerns understated the deterioration of Taiwan’s security environment.

“We are dealing with this authoritarian government that has this expansionist ambition … It’s time to think about how to stop them,” the ­official said.

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo – who has indicated he wants to run as the Republican presidential candidate in 2024 – is scheduled to visit Taiwan in late September to give a speech at an event organised by The Liberty Times, a newspaper supportive of Ms Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party.

During his first visit to Taiwan, Mr Pompeo in a speech given in Taipei in March called for the US to formally recognise Taiwan as a sovereign nation separate from the People’s Republic of China.

“The United States government should immediately take necessary and long overdue steps to do the right and obvious thing which is to offer the Republic of China (Taiwan) America’s diplomatic recognition as a free and sovereign country,” he said, using Taiwan’s formal name.

(continued)

>>17458364

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Beijing years ago singled out Mr Pompeo as its most hated figure in the Trump administration after he gave a speech in July 2020 calling on the Chinese people to change the direction of the Communist Party.

His visit would be the most high profile since House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s historic trip at the start of August, which Beijing responded to with an unprecedented display of military force. The People’s Liberation Army practised blockade drills around Taiwan and blasted 11 ballistic missiles over and around the island.

On Friday, Republican senator Marsha Blackburn met with Ms Tsai in Taipei, continuing a stream of US congressional visits. Her trip closely followed a bipartisan delegation led by Democrat senator Ed Markey.

The Tsai government on Thursday signed off on a 14 per cent surge in defence spending in 2023. It was Taipei’s latest ­response to the PLA’s surging ­activity, which since Ms Pelosi’s visit has seen more than 320 Chinese warplanes cross the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

Mr Wu on Friday said Taiwan’s defence was its own ­responsibility: “If we are not ­determined to defend ourselves, we don’t have any right to ask others to help Taiwan.”

He again thanked the Australian government for condemning Beijing’s recent military aggression and said shared experiences of Chinese coercion had brought the two democracies closer together.

“Ever since China banned [it], we have been serving Australian red wine in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

“We think it’s a show of solidarity and we think it’s an important gesture to show to the Australians that we care about the situation they are in.”

“We will continue to look for ways that Taiwan and Australia can engage in more areas of co-operation: in trade, in people-to-people ties, in tourism … and security matters, a very important one,” Mr Wu said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/taipei-welcomes-jawjaw-sparked-by-john-bolton-for-strategic-clarity/news-story/371267d1789db3d8021e025ccb6b1389

>>17458364

Mike Pompeo Tweet

The Chinese Communist Party has stolen identities from our kids and trade secrets from our businesses. They are committing genocide against their own people and are arming themselves for war. We need to wake up and take this threat seriously.

https://twitter.com/mikepompeo/status/1563961614621106176

Australia seeks 'closest possible relationship' with Papua New Guinea - FM

Kirsty Needham - August 29, 2022

SYDNEY, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Australia wants the closest possible relationship with Papua New Guinea, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Monday, marking the new Labor government's first visit to its northern neighbour amid competition with China for influence.

Prime Minister James Marape was returned to the role in August after Papua New Guinea's national election, and will meet with Wong on Monday.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has previously turned down a Chinese offer to redevelop a naval base. Canberra is funding Telstra's acquisition of PNG's biggest mobile provider, Digicel, to counter a growing Chinese influence in the Pacific islands.

PNG and China agreed to deepen cooperation in energy, fisheries, communications and health during a visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in June, according to a Chinese statement released during the visit.

Papua New Guinea won independence from Australia in 1975 under a Labor government, and Wong said in Port Moresby on Monday the two countries had traded together for thousands of years and should continue to have the "closest possible relationship".

"Our futures are tied together," she added.

"Our traditional partners have always been Australia when it comes to trade, economics, security and we will continue to do so … to make sure we have a safe region," PNG's new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Justin Tkatchenko, said at a livestreamed news conference.

Also on Monday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra he would host a visit by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta "in the coming period", without providing dates.

The Solomon Islands has had a tense relationship with the Australia and the United States since striking a security pact with China in May.

A United States Coast Guard vessel was recently unable to make a routine port call because the Solomon Islands government did not respond to a request for it to refuel and provision.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-seeks-closest-possible-relationship-with-papua-new-guinea-fm-2022-08-29/

>>17458412

Penny Wong needs to deal Beijing out of PNG

JEFFREY WALL and ANTHONY BERGIN - AUGUST 29, 2022

1/2

China sees Papua New Guinea as more strategically important than Solomon Islands. That’s why it’s good news that on Monday Foreign Minister Penny Wong will make her first official visit to PNG, our closest and most important regional neighbour. Wong’s visit is an opportunity to reset our relationship with the newly re-elected James Marape government.

It’s also a smart move that Anthony Albanese has invited Marape to the Prime Minister’s X111 rugby league match to take on PNG’s national side in Brisbane next month. PNG is the only country in the world where rugby league is the official national sport.

There are five issues Wong might consider raising with PNG’s new government. The first is China’s interest in the strategically important port of Daru, the closest reasonably inhabited community to northern Australia.

We shouldn’t be surprised if by the end of this year the multimillion-dollar proposed Chinese fishing and port facility on Daru is pushed up Beijing’s regional agenda.

Australia needs to be watching closely what China might be planning for PNG’s southern coast. We should be lifting our infrastructure funding and services on Daru and in the adjoining Western Province. We should give the people of Daru, upwards of 15,000, the same level of basic services that are enjoyed by Australian citizens on Thursday Island and other residents of the Torres Strait.

The second matter Wong should raise concerns over is an area close to Daru that’s arguably of greater risk to our national security. The Ihu-Kikori special economic zone in Gulf Province has already secured a $37m “grant” from China. That’s unusual given that China has shifted completely from grant aid to tied project support and loan funding.

China has achieved quite cheaply a strategic advantage on our northern border, and in an undeveloped PNG province that has enormous untapped gas, and probably oil, resources. In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Marape admitted he had no knowledge of the Chinese plans for Gulf Province. Australia needs to consider a comprehensive counter proposal given the proximity of Ihu-Kikori to northern Australia.

The third issue the Foreign Minister might discuss is one Marape himself highlighted post-election and that’s electoral reform. The whole process of the recent PNG elections eroded public confidence in parliament and democracy: out-of-date rolls, suspicious counting practices and attacks on counting centres. And there was violence, including murders.

Australia should grab the opportunity to offer PNG assistance from federal and state electoral bodies for detailed reform. That will help ease community unrest and secure a measure of political stability at a time when the country faces massive fiscal challenges before the next election in 2027.

(continued)

>>17458415

2/2

Marape has a big enough majority to be bold when it comes to cleaning up the electoral processes. Australia can offer him expert help in doing so. It’s something the Chinese dictatorship would never be able to match.

The fourth issue relates to the acquisition of Digicel, the largest telecommunications operator in PNG. The $2bn funding by Telstra and the Australian government to buy Digicel is our largest individual investment in our closest neighbour. Telstra needs to upgrade services and focus on meeting the unique needs of a vast and diverse nation. Wong should encourage Telstra to look at enhanced community engagement, a downward revision of charges and seek the support of Marape’s government in doing so.

Finally, there’s the issue of the Conflict Islands that lie in the Milne Bay Province of PNG, less than 1000km from Cairns. An Australian, Ian Gowrie-Smith, purchased the 21 atolls in 2003. He’s now saying he’ll sell the islands to China if he can’t get the price he wants from Australia. The Albanese government’s position isn’t unreasonable: it’s a private transaction, under relevant PNG law and we can’t be on the hook for every island in the Pacific.

But at the same time, we don’t want China buying the islands. They’re situated near one of Australia’s main shipping routes, the Jomard Passage. Perhaps Wong could suggest the Australian and PNG governments encourage a group such as the Nature Conservancy to buy the islands. That would be a sustainable solution for environmental management with no negative security implications. Maybe Australia could offer Nature Conservancy a long-term government loan for this purpose. Whatever Wong does in reshaping our relationship with PNG needs to be firmly focused on Australia’s national interests and the future stability and economic progress of PNG. The two objectives aren’t incompatible.

Jeffrey Wall has had a four-decade association with PNG, including as an adviser to several prime ministers. Anthony Bergin is a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/penny-wong-needs-to-deal-beijing-out-of-png/news-story/926c1a388a336188190b4de1f7ece9d4

Australian defence minister to visit France, Germany, Britain to boost ties

Sam McKeith - August 28, 2022

SYDNEY, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Australia's defence minister on Sunday said he aims to deepen defence ties with France, Germany and Britain during visits to the European partners this week, saying war in Ukraine has increased the importance of cooperation with likeminded nations.

The trip, from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1, will be Richard Marles' first since centre-left Labor won a general election in May.

The government said the France stop would help "restore and renew" their bilateral relationship, calling France one of Australia's "oldest and most capable partners".

Australia in June reached a 555 million euro ($553 million) settlement with French military shipyard Naval Group over its scrapping of a multi-billion dollar submarine deal last year.

Canberra hoped the settlement would help repair a rift after the previous government ditched the deal in favour of building nuclear-powered submarines with the United States and Britain under a new alliance dubbed AUKUS.

This week's trip will also see Marles participate in a roundtable with German defence industry representatives, while in Britain he will visit shipyards, the government said.

"Our relationship with the United Kingdom is both historic and mutually beneficial, and is reflected through our continued commitment to AUKUS," Marles said.

"My visit to Europe comes at a time when the war in Ukraine has shown the importance of increasing cooperation with likeminded partners, both in Europe and the Indo-Pacific."

In June, Marles visited Japan to promote defence cooperation to counterbalance China's growing military influence in Asia.

Also on Sunday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she would travel this week to nearby Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Timor-Leste.

Australia has moved to bolster relations in the Pacific amid growing Chinese influence, including a security pact between China and Solomon Islands in April.

Wong said she would meet PNG counterpart Justin Tkatchenko, recently re-elected Prime Minister James Marape and members of PNG's new cabinet.

From PNG, Wong will travel on Wednesday to Timor-Leste and meet officials including President Jose Ramos-Horta, Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak and Foreign Minister Adaljiza Magno.

She said she planned to discuss issues such as Australian support for Timor-Leste's economic development and its bids to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and World Trade Organization.

"Australia is committed to working together with both Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste in the interests of a stable, resilient and prosperous Indo-Pacific," Wong said.

($1 = 1.0039 euros)

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australian-defence-minister-visit-france-germany-britain-boost-ties-2022-08-28/

Deputy Commanders of USINDOPACOM and MARFORPAC Reinforce U.S-Australian Alliance

Capt. Joseph DiPietro - 08.27.2022

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA. – Lieutenant General Stephen Sklenka, Deputy Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), and Brigadier General Joseph Clearfield, Deputy Commander of Marine Corps Forces Pacific (MARFORPAC) visited the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) and the Australian 1st Brigade on August 25 to reinforce the strength and importance of the U.S.-Australian alliance.

“We can talk all day long about trade deals and policy deals, but what says a heck of a lot more is who is by your side when you are in a fight,” said General Sklenka, who serves as second-in-command of the largest U.S. combatant command. “Australia is always on our side when that time comes, and we will always remember that.”

General Sklenka visited MRF-D following a tour of the Indo-Pacific, which included a visit to Canberra to meet with senior Australian Defence Force (ADF) officials, and a trip to Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the U.S.-Australian victory on the critical Pacific island. His engagements with MRF-D also included a visit with the ADF’s 1st Brigade, MRF-D’s primary partner, to bolster defense ties and interoperability opportunities.

“MRF-D started as a bi-lateral initiative, and it has grown in quantity and quality over the years,” explained General Sklenka to a group of Marines and Sailors with the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). “Just look at PITCH BLACK, which is now up to 15 international Allies and partners, and you see the growth in our Indo-Pacific team.”

Joining the USINDOPACOM leader was MARFORPAC deputy commander, General Clearfield, who helps lead all Marine Corps activity across the massive Pacific theater. General Clearfield spoke to MRF-D about the importance of the Australian-based MAGTF and the relationship with our Allies.

“The MRF-D MAGTF is at the forefront and the cutting edge of force design and future Marine Corps organization,” said General Clearfield, a former Pacific Marine Expeditionary Unit commander. “It’s not lost on anyone at MARFORPAC or higher how much MRF-D is doing in the region and the tremendous opportunities the Australians provide to enhance training and interchangeability.”

During a tour with the MRF-D logistics combat element, General Clearfield emphasized the importance of interchangeability over interoperability when possible. He highlighted MRF-D 22’s effort to utilize Australian supply systems to integrate with U.S. procedures in addition to warfighting integration of the two Allied forces.

The pair of senior Indo-Pacific leaders also spent time with Brigadier Nick Foxall, the commanding officer for the ADF’s 1st Brigade and leader of the Australian unit most tightly paired with MRF-D 22. The leaders shared their future visions of littoral combat and Brigadier Foxall offered significant praise for the MRF-D team.

“Colonel Steele and his Marines have been tremendous guests and even better teammates since arriving here in Darwin,” offered Brigadier Foxall during the gathering. “MRF-D is really woven into the fabric of the Northern Territory and we couldn’t ask for better partners and friends.”

General Sklenka and General Clearfield join a long list of senior military leaders to visit MRF-D this year, including both the commanders of USINDOPACOM and MARFORPAC. Admiral Aquilino, General Rudder, and numerous other U.S. and international leaders visited with MRF-D in 2022, just one of a few ways Indo-Pacific Allies and partners recognized the importance of the mission here in Darwin.

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/428223/deputy-commanders-usindopacom-and-marforpac-reinforce-us-australian-alliance

Exercise Predators Run 2022: Finding common ground

Major Megan McDermott - 29 August 2022

When 102 Battery, 8th/12th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, received a call for fire on a target of opportunity, it was not only Australian soldiers who ran to man the gun.

The Darwin-based artillery unit is participating in 1st Brigade’s annual warfighter exercise, Predators Run, with embedded gunners from the Malaysian Armed Forces’ (MAF) 3rd Artillery Division.

It has also continued to provide general support to 1st Brigade Headquarters, which is coordinating multiple combined battle groups, including soldiers from the Philippine Army and US Marine Corps (Marine Rotational Force – Darwin).

Aside from the obvious differences in language and uniform, the Australian and Malaysian gunners operate in a similar way.

MAF 3rd Artillery Division Battery Commander Major Fahmi A. Razak said his team had been looking forward to sharing knowledge during two weeks in the tropical training ground, south-east of Humpty Doo.

“We’ve come here to learn and integrate with the Australian artillery,” Major Fahmi said.

“I’ve found working with them is just the same – our platforms, movements and battle rhythms are very similar, but there are differences in rank, as in who performs which jobs, and also some differences in processes,” he said.

During their time at Mount Bundey fighting against a fictional enemy, the Malaysian gunners have rotated through various soldier specialties, including the gun detachment positions and joint fires operators, and working with the command post.

Major Fahmi said both regiments operate the Howitzer, but while 102 Battery had transitioned to using digital communications, his regiment had more experience working with analogue processes.

Australian Army Command Post officer Lieutenant Toby Exton said this provided an excellent training opportunity for both forces.

“One of the significant threats against the artillery is an attack onto our communications network, be that from electronic warfare or network systems failure,” Lieutenant Exton said.

“So it is good to observe the Malaysians’ expertise in the degraded environment, as they’re used to operating against these threats and, with our transition to digital communications, it’s crucial to retain expertise using these means.”

Before deploying into the field, the Malaysian gunners spent a week at Robertson Barracks, getting to know their Australian counterparts and learning about life on the gun line in the Australian outback.

“We conducted a Command Post Exercise – a dry rehearsal of how it works out here at Mount Bundey,” Lieutenant Exton said.

“The Malaysian gunners stepped in and adopted the roles that we would normally have for Australian gunners, and then we swapped positions. This was a good chance to see the parallels of gun duties with our partners.”

The gunners ended their week in barracks with social activities to remove the formal structures and build trust before moving into the field.

“Having this time to rehearse and get to know each other prior to coming out was a necessary safety step to ensure everyone was on the same page,” Lieutenant Exton said.

“This is particularly important around heavy weapons systems where safety procedures are crucial.”

The exercise wraps up with a live-fire manoeuvre on September 5.

https://news.defence.gov.au/capability/finding-common-ground

United States Strategic Command Tweet

#ICYMI: This year over 100 aircraft from and 2500 personnel from (Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S. and the U.K.) will take part in the @AusAirForce hosted multilateral exercise #PitchBlack22.

https://twitter.com/US_STRATCOM/status/1563554275438931972

—

Royal Australian Air Force Tweet

All the flying nations have now arrived & an extra warm welcome goes to our Pitch Black 1st-timers from Germany, Japan & the Republic of Korea.

Can't wait to fly with old friends & new on #PitchBlack22!

#AusAirForce

@JASDF_PAO @Team_Luftwaffe @ROK_MND

It's time to kick things off!

Want to find out more?

Follow #PitchBlack22

Click through to www.airforce.gov.au/PB22

https://twitter.com/AusAirForce/status/1562217485276815367

https://www.airforce.gov.au/exercises/pitch-black-2022

>>17463297

MRF-D 22 and 1st MAW Participates in the Pitch Black Open Day

Video by Cpl. Cedar Barnes - 08.27.2022

A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268, Aviation Combat Element, Marine Rotational Force-Darwin (MRF-D) 22, and a C-130 with 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), participate in a static display to be toured by the public as part of exercise Pitch Black 22 Open Day at Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin, Darwin, NT, Australia, Aug. 27, 2022. Marines with MRF-D 22 and 1st MAW participated in the Pitch Black 22 public static display that showcased aircraft to the local Darwin community and allowed the public to engage with the rotational force. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Cpl. Cedar Barnes)

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/855638/mrf-d-22-and-1st-maw-participates-pitch-black-open-day

Sustaining our liberal ideals the best hope in dark times

GEORGE PELL - AUGUST 27, 2022

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Some would claim that it is not surprising that I, as a grumpy old male entering into his ninth decade of life, would echo the words of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, that “the time is out of joint”.

Are my origins, in the ancient provincial mists of Ballarat, sufficient to explain away my suspicion, with Hamlet, that “something is rotten in the state”? Am I blinded by sentimental nostalgia for a simpler, vanished past? After all, I was born during World War II and now we have no world war, only the naked Russian aggression in distant Ukraine and clumsy but disturbing Chinese belligerence as it attempts to re-establish the Middle Kingdom as the world’s No.1 power.

I don’t think Australian life is rotten at the core but times are changing, and not always for the better.

The inevitable royal commission of the future into Victoria could find a situation parallel to that of Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland in the 1970s and ’80s, and too many Australians were content with the over-reaction of bossy nanny states during the Covid-19 crisis, when the churches were closed before the casino (at least in Victoria). Many in the Catholic leadership were too docile.

But the times are changing and many are uneasy, especially the social conservatives, regularly assailed by the woke activists even in sport.

Some leaders in big business have buckled or enthusiastically embraced anti-Christian meas­ures. Corrs, the lawyers, recently dumped the Melbourne Archdiocese as a client without consultation and after being retained for more than 60 years.

It was under a federal Liberal government that official forms replaced the terms mother and father with “birth persons”. I had spoken with a succession of Labor leaders about the importance of maintaining a situation where pro-life and pro-family candidates could still be endorsed (unlike the Democrats in the US), but I have been surprised by the exuberance of so many woke activists in the Coalition parties.

I did not anticipate such a rapid collapse. I am tempted to claim that the only conservative blow struck by the last federal government was to reduce substantially the numbers of students doing poisonous arts courses, although they did protect the maths curriculum against the woke nonsense.

Parliaments are dominated by a tertiary-educated meritocracy, increasingly secular where the two major parties do not differ too much, at least on non-economic measures. This is the context for the taming of the social conservatives, exemplified in the NSW parliament where the main parties are led by two good men, believing, practising Catholics, and produced the most draconian euthanasia legislation in Australia.

Despite all this, I am not predicting religious collapse, complete disaster in the next decade or so. In the post-Christian vacuum that is developing, the esteem for freedom, the linchpin of the liberalism project from which society and the church have received substantial benefits, is also under sustained assault. The renamed climate change movement has many of the characteristics of a low level, not too demanding, pseudo-religion. When religious belief is lost or deconstructed the survivors like to embrace some grand narrative and seem to need something to fear. Almost unconsciously they seek to appease the higher powers (of nature in this case) with the sacrificial offering of fossil fuels, of coal and oil.

Unfortunately for them most modern economics will continue to need coal and oil. Democratic majorities in Australia and throughout the First World will not consent to regular electrical blackouts, power failures at the height of summer or winter. And of course our foes and allies in the Third World need coal and oil for their industrial and modernising programs, just as we did in the past and continue to do so. They are sensible and clear-headed on this point and would be bemused by Western virtue signalling. In 2021, 1893 new coal-fired power stations were being constructed around the world, 446 in India, 1171 in China, and none in virtuous Australia, which also abstains from developing nuclear power stations.

(continued)

>>17463555

2/3

There is no one obligatory Catholic position on climate change because we are a religion, teaching faith and morals, and do not impose any scientific straitjacket. My main concerns are elsewhere; with the Catholic Church and the rise of a belligerent China.

The 2021 census in Australia showed a spectacular rise in the number of those who declared they subscribed to no religion, now numbering 38.9 per cent; an equally spectacular drop in the numbers of the Uniting and Anglican churches, with losses of 22 per cent and 20 per cent respectively; and the substantial, unprecedented decline by 4 per cent of Catholic Church membership in five years. All this slippage followed significant Christian losses in the previous five years.

All of those who love Christ and the church are dismayed by these losses, but differ, sometimes acrimoniously, on how they should be addressed. We have a clear division between those who believe that we are the servants and defenders of the Apostolic Tradition, with no power to change substantially the doctrines that come to us from Christ and the apostles through scripture and the Catholic magisterium. Opposed to them is an older cohort, who give the last word to modernity, who believe we are masters of the Apostolic Tradition and can amend it, for example to bless homosexual unions and to create women priests. The recent Catholic Plenary Council has come and gone and was largely irrelevant to the preaching of the gospel and the threat of decline.

The tribal power politics of the advancing cancel culture is threatening to overthrow the foundations of liberalism, which has allowed the churches to survive in Australia even as the Judaeo-Christian legal foundations on life, marriage, family and sexuality were undermined.

In the new politics of gender and race, white males and especially old white males represent the worst of the past, of the detested racism, colonialism, sexism and patriarch. The issues in dispute could scarcely be more basic. Reason, freedom, truth, risk banishment, while notions of divine law, immutable natural law have a quaint antiquated ring about them, and are seen as expressions of a failed mythology.

Some writers recognise liberalism’s debts to Christianity. Most do not. My suspicion is that the links are even more profound and any Western society that is based on the premise of equality before the law for all people and ascribes a common dignity to each person, citizen or foreigner, productive or dependent, young and healthy or old and dependent – such a society can continue only when sustained by Christian ideals of universal love, often expressed as human rights, derived from a creator God.

One does not need to be a Christian for this as a post-Christian instinct or sympathy can suffice, but this too is declining, savagely dismissed in our universities. In a hostile post-Christian Australia, sustaining the liberalism ideal may be as difficult as planting democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I do not believe the battle is over, that the field has been lost. Recently a senior public figure told me the only option now for Christians in Australia is to head for the catacombs and that the rot could be stopped only by a few martyrdoms. I hope and believe that this is a misreading of the situation, excessively pessimistic. But the situation is on the turn and mighty tides are running against many, but not all Christian teachings.

(continued)

>>17463562

3/3

Most Australians still believe “everyone has a right to a fair go”. Just as certainly if the situation is not to worsen, not only Christians but all those who value our Western way of life need to “have a go”, which is the second bedrock of the Australian consensus, the common sense of our ancestors that gave us our decency and prosperity.

War is a real possibility in the next decade, more probably over Taiwan, but not necessarily. One of the vitally important tasks of the Albanese government is to increase our capacity to defend ourselves, inflict damage on any aggressor in the short term and for the next 20 or 40 years. We hope and work for peace, but if the worst was to happen, or even big trouble occurred, largely fought out to the north, present high levels of rhetoric would then be of absolutely no use. Deeds are needed, not words.

China regards us as a weak link in the American alliance because of our trade dependency with them and because of our military weakness. A power vacuum and an unprotected and frivolous society are temptations for dictators, especially if they are wanting to distract their citizens from local problems such as poverty and inequality, oppression and discontent, 35 or 40 million surplus males and the prospect of over 200 million fewer people in the workforce in 2050.

China will refocus the Australian national conversation, however the situation develops, and I am not just talking about increased taxes for defence spending or the introduction of national service.

Australia might be forced to decide whether we love our nation sufficiently to be prepared to defend it; whether we believe in freedom and democracy enough to resist a powerful dictator. Almost inevitably Australia will be forced to draw on the strengths of its Western civilisation in the centuries of dialogue or struggle that will accompany the rebirth of the Middle Kingdom, a once mighty civilisation, as old as Greece and older than the Roman Empire; but very different from our way of life, and presently oppressive towards its citizens.

Another significant factor is that Christianity, mainly Protestantism, is spreading in China as it spread in the hostile pagan Roman Empire. Already China probably has 60 million to 90 million Christians and is one of the largest Christian countries in the world.

Every society, to avoid going backwards, needs social conservatives from across the spectrum to transmit to the young what is worthwhile from the past. Children need adults who will bring stability, set down boundaries so that love and respect can flourish and where the concepts of duty, honour and compassion are exemplified. Youngsters need to be shown that there are moral truths, of right and wrong, which we do not invent, just as there are truths of maths, physics, ecology and public health.

The culture wars continue and, while our losses are considerable, the field has not been lost. The many victims of the chaos will be increasingly open to our message.

This is an edited extract of Cardinal George Pell’s recent address to Campion College.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/sustaining-our-liberal-ideals-the-best-hope-in-dark-times/news-story/95b038ce182a8360e6672e618813edfd

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

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

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

Student of Sydney swim teacher Kyle Daniels thought alleged touching was normal in breaststroke

A girl who was allegedly sexually touched by her swim coach during a lesson has told a court she thought it was “what a teacher does”.

Lauren Ferri - August 29, 2022

A young girl who was allegedly sexually touched by her swim teacher has told a court she thought it was just a normal part of her lessons.

The girl was one of nine alleged victims of former swimming teacher Kyle Daniels, who is standing trial over 21 charges relating to sexually touching his students at Mosman Swim Centre on Sydney’s north shore between 2018 and 2019.

He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual intercourse with a child aged under 10, eight counts of sexual touching of a child and eight counts of indecent assault, including two considered alternative charges.

Mr Daniels is accused of touching the girls – who were under 10 years of age at the time – both on top and underneath their swimming costumes.

The now 23-year-old had been working part-time as an instructor while attending university.

On Monday, the court was told the girl’s parents went to police following initial media reports about Mr Daniels.

The girl did not tell anyone about being allegedly touched because she was “too shy” but finally told her mother following reports in the media about his arrest.

In March 2019, the girl’s parents decided to raise the issue with their daughters, with the court previously told their mother brought it up while on a drive to McDonald’s.

“Girls, I’ve got something I want to talk to you about, you know it’s not appropriate for anyone to touch you on your private parts,” the mother told her daughters, the court was told.

The girl said to her mother: “Mum, do you know my swimming teacher touches me there.”

When her mother questioned her more, she said the teacher allegedly “pushes her along” by touching her there while doing breaststroke.

The girl’s evidence was played to the court on Monday. She said she didn’t want her mother to tell anyone because she “didn’t think it was important”.

“I didn’t think there was anything to worry about because I thought it was just like what a swimming teacher does, even though it had never happened before at previous swimming schools,” the girl told the court.

When the girl found out her mother had told her dad, she said she was annoyed.

She told the court her teacher had put one hand on her bladder and the other on her private parts.

“I thought it was how you got taught to do breaststroke even though it wasn’t how it happened at my previous school,” the girl said.

Mr Daniels was arrested on March 12, 2019, and taken to Manly police station.

Following his arrest, police appealed for further information from parents associated with the swim school and received complaints from other alleged victims.

The trial before Judge Kara Shead continues.

https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/courts-law/student-of-sydney-swim-teacher-kyle-daniels-thought-alleged-touching-was-normal-in-breaststroke/news-story/c7c7777b1185692d165b384be0bd8279

Swim coach Paul Douglas Frost preyed on young students’ ‘trust and vulnerability’, court told

Miklos Bolza - August 29, 2022

GRAPHIC WARNING: This story contains details that may be disturbing for some readers.

A Sydney swimming coach allegedly preyed on the vulnerability of his young students through grooming and indecent sexual acts in the 1990s and 2000s, a jury has heard.

Paul Douglas Frost, 46, is accused of sexually abusing 11 children over 13 years while working as a coach at a swim school in Sydney’s southwest.

On Monday, Crown prosecutor Darren Robinson said the Sylvania man groomed his victims by building trust, and that he normalised sexual behaviour such as masturbation by frequently bringing it up in discussions with his young pupils.

“The accused preyed on their youth, their trust, their vulnerability,” Mr Robinson said in opening submissions to the District Court jury.

Frost would routinely masturbate and perform oral sex on his students in the swim centre’s male change room and storage room, dragged his hand over his pupil’s bodies as they swam, and encouraged them to swim naked in the facility’s baby pool, Mr Robinson said.

The swim coach has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The alleged victims include 10 boys and one girl. Frost is accused of performing oral sex on the children and enticing them to do the same to him.

Mr Robinson explained in his opening that a trainee swim coach attending the school noticed Frost sitting with a student on his lap while massaging the boy’s shoulders. “Paul is a bit strange in the way he acts around the kids,” she wrote in a diary entry for that day.

Frost allegedly told one of his male students, who he had kissed on the lips, that he loved him.

“The accused told the complainant, ‘Next time I see you, I’m going to f— you’,” Mr Robinson told the jury.

He was also claimed to have spoken openly about his student’s genitalia.

Mr Robinson said the swim coach treated those who went along with his desires favourably, giving them free lollies and allowing them access to the facility’s gym equipment. He was cold and ignored those who rejected his advances, the court heard.

On one occasion, Frost allegedly lured a boy to feel a swimsuit he was wearing saying it was the same worn by Australian swimming superstar Ian Thorpe.

When the boy touched his leg, Frost allegedly said, “That was nearly there, a little bit higher.”

Students are expected to give evidence that they complied with Frost’s instructions because he was their coach and they felt pressured into going along with what he wanted.

The hearing in front of Judge Michael King continues.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/swim-coach-preyed-on-young-students-trust-and-vulnerability-court-told-20220829-p5bdmi.html

Pedophile tradie Bryan Michael Grange appeals 30-year jail sentence over child sexual abuse

A tradie who was jailed after inflicting “depraved” sexual abuse on a newborn and preschool-aged children is appealing his sentence.

Lauren Ferri - August 29, 2022

WARNING: Confronting

A tradie who was jailed for 30 years after he sexually abused an eight-week-old baby and two girls under five is appealing his sentence in the state’s highest court, claiming it is “manifestly excessive”.

Bryan Michael Grange was jailed in 2021 after stomach-churning details of the abuse he inflicted on three children between 2014 and 2018 were laid bare in the NSW District Court.

He pleaded guilty to a string of child sex offences under both state law, concerning his abuse of the girls, and Commonwealth law, regarding the possession of abuse material.

Judge Kara Shead sentenced Grange to 30 years behind bars for child sexual abuse and an additional 4½ years for possessing child abuse material and lashed his actions as “shocking and depraved in the extreme”.

Grange has since lodged an appeal against his sentence in the Court of Criminal Appeal and appeared before Justice Robert Beech-Jones, Justice Geoffrey Bellew and Justice Desmond Fagan on Monday.

Barrister Sue Kluss represented Grange in the hearing, telling the court his sentence had been “manifestly excessive in all the circumstances”.

“The assessment of objective criminality was above what was appropriate in the circumstances,” Ms Kluss said.

She told the court her client had pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity and claims there had been “considerable overlap” in the charges of producing child abuse material and sexual abuse.

“These children were not physically injured, the perception they would have psychological injury given their ages is quite speculative,” Ms Kluss said.

“The ultimate submission is that this level of sentence is just too high.”

A Crown prosecutor opposed the appeal, saying Grange’s breach of trust was “egregious”, with the offending occurring in his own home.

Representing the Commonwealth DPP, Krista Breckweg, told the court it should be taken into account Grange had admitted to being sexually attracted to children.

“In particular the sexual paedophilia,” Ms Breckweg said.

“The sentence imposed appropriately reflects the totality, given this was very serious offending.”

During his sentence in 2021, the court was told one of Grange’s victim was an eight-week-old baby who he opportunistically abused while the infant’s mother and Grange’s wife smoked a cigarette outside.

He later told a psychiatrist: “I had Viagra that morning. It was a pretty f*cked up time. I have no excuse for it.”

Judge Shead told the court “all right-minded members of the community would be disgusted and disturbed” as she described the infant’s rape.

Another victim was a toddler, aged one or two when she was abused by Grange as he accompanied her in a public toilet, while a third girl was repeatedly molested by Grange over a number of years when she was aged between infancy and five years old.

The court was told Grange filmed one of the girls and incited her to expose herself to the camera, as he said: “You are getting good at it.”

He made numerous videos depicting himself molesting the girls as well as filming their genitalia from carefully crafted camera angles.

Many details of the abuse are too graphic to publish.

Grange amassed more than 30,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse, storing the sickening material across seven devices.

Hundreds of his videos and images were classified as the very worst kind, including videos of children who were restrained, forced into bestiality and subject to highly degrading sexual acts.

Grange used his own name and credit card details to sign up to a subscription website where he spent $7156 on child abuse material.

The appeal judgment has been reserved.

https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/courts-law/pedophile-tradie-bryan-michael-grange-appeals-30year-jail-sentence-over-child-sexual-abuse/news-story/b4f8426a85dd96a4a1b1d0988b4145af

Haileybury College facing legal action from estate of woman whose son suffered sexual abuse

The elite private school faces legal action from the estate of a woman whose son suffered sexual abuse in the 1960s.

Susie O'Brien - August 28, 2022

An elite private school faces legal action from the estate of a woman whose son suffered sexual abuse in the 1960s.

Child sex abuse victims’ campaigner Michael Advocate is in the County Court after ­negotiations with Haileybury College broke down, seeking to recover up to $1m in damages for nervous shock to the victim’s deceased mother.

The family has asked that they not be identified.

The woman’s son attended Haileybury in the late 1960s and settled a claim with the school in 2019, believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The man claimed injury, loss and damage after a teacher hit him on the bare bottom and legs in front of the class with a fibreglass cane.

He also claimed that on a school camp in 1967 he was stripped naked and 10 boys plus the same teacher lay on him and hit him repeatedly on the stomach. He said he had a torch stuck down his throat on cadet camp, and had his head forced down a hole used as a toilet, which led to a nervous breakdown.

The estate of the man’s mother, who died in May 2020, is now pursuing the claim of nervous shock on the mother’s behalf.

“It was a huge burden and tremendous shock that her only child was sexually ­assaulted and abused, causing irreparable damage to him throughout his life,” Mr Advocate said.

Before her death the woman told Mr Advocate: “I didn’t make big sacrifices to pay substantial college fees over many years for my son to then be sexually abused, ­molested and alienated.”

It comes as the Supreme Court has ruled that the father of a former choirboy who was ­alleged to have been sexually abused by George Pell can pursue civil action against the cardinal and the church.

Legal experts say the case will allow other similar claims from family members of sexual abuse survivors to come to court.

“Child sex abuse of a student can also cause major personal injuries to the parents and family of the victim, that’s been obvious for decades” Mr Advocate said.

“We now have a precedent that a member of the family has rights, and this puts to bed the question of whether it’s possible to sue.

“We hope this will also pressure other colleges to refund fees out of good faith.”

The impending action comes as new benchmarks are being set for historical childhood sexual abuse cases, including a payout of $2.7m to a student from Geelong College.

Michael Advocate – a pseudonym – is a survivor of child sexual abuse himself and the founder of advocacy group Victim Justice.

Haileybury College declined to comment.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/victoria-education/haileybury-college-facing-legal-action-from-estate-of-woman-whose-son-suffered-sexual-abuse/news-story/0bd5043f6ab067d6e91f734a64c4edc6

Victorian Ombudsman set to consider reopening red shirts investigation

Shannon Deery - August 29, 2022

Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass is set to be asked to formally consider reopening an investigation into the Andrews government’s infamous red shirts elections rort.

It comes after the Herald Sun last week revealed a police whistleblower involved in the initial investigation made a formal statement claiming police command purposely thwarted the probe.

The explosive 29-page statement to the Independent Broadbased anti-Corruption Commission claimed police work was actively interfered with and obstructed by senior police.

Leader of the opposition in the upper house David Davis will this week seek to force a parliamentary referral of the matter to Ms Glass.

It will call on her to assess the material and, if appropriate, reopen an investigation into the matter.

The scheme saw almost $388,000 in taxpayers’ money spent on part-paying electorate staff to campaign for the 2014 election.

Former Minister Adem Somyurek successfully had the matter referred to Ms Glass earlier this year after securing the deciding vote of then Labor MP Kaushaliya Vaghela.

Ms Vaghela, who sensationally crossed the floor to vote to have the matter reinvestigated, subsequently resigned from the ALP.

Ms Glass ruled in July there was no new evidence of criminality or corruption to warrant further action.

“It is time to end this debate,” she wrote in her report.

“I cannot, of course, rule out that further evidence may yet come to light, but with the passage of time and difficulty in proof I am not prepared to spend further public resources on these matters.”

The police whistleblower, a veteran of 33 years, was directly involved in the 2018 investigation, arrest of suspects and subsequent interviews.

“For some strange reason the Labor MPs in this investigation were not arrested,” they said.

The whistleblower also claimed detectives were refused permission by police command from obtaining the phone records and other computer data relating to Labor MPs.

“The refusal by Police Command to allow the Fraud Squad investigators to search thoroughly and gather all of the available evidence, in order to do their job fairly, properly and without fear or favour is very unusual and suspicious.

“I believe that the police investigation and the decision on whether to charge the Labor MPs were intentionally delayed until after the election in November 2018 for political reasons. It is indicative that there probably was political interference in the criminal investigation.”

Chief Commissioner Shane Patton has defended Victoria Police against the claims, saying he was not aware of any interference in the investigation.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victorian-ombudsman-set-to-consider-reopening-red-shirts-investigation/news-story/f915290b40dee62d55dd6d82a957aad3

Inquiry into far-right extremism in Victoria makes 12 recommendations to counter spread

abc.net.au - 30 August 2022

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The findings of a six-month inquiry into the re-emergence of far-right extremism in Victoria have been released, highlighting issues such as decreasing public trust in mainstream media and government and young people engaging with extremism.

Chaired by Northern Metropolitan member Fiona Patten, a committee investigated the spread of far-right extremism in Victoria since 2015, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and possible preventative measures to stop radicalisation.

"This report, its findings and recommendations are not the complete answer to the problems caused by extremism nor all the answers to combating it," Ms Patten said.

"They should be seen as a starting point. More work is required to understand extremism and further ways to prevent it."

The committee made 46 findings and 12 recommendations, based off submissions from dozens of interest groups and stakeholders around the state.

The government has six months to respond in writing to the recommendations.

Youth increasingly engaged with extremist ideology

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) told the inquiry that Australia had seen an increase in the number of young people engaged with extremism.

In 2021, minors made up 15 per cent of new counter-terrorism investigations, up from 2 to 3 per cent in previous years.

On average, minors comprised more than half of ASIO's highest priority investigations per week.

Soo-Lin Quek from the Centre for Multicultural Youth told the inquiry that young people were at greater risk of radicalisation when forced to deal with social isolation, family breakdowns or mental health issues.

"What the research has told us is those young people have little real or deep knowledge of the religious or political doctrines that they are supporting," Ms Quek said.

"They get drawn into them because a lot of young people … are highly disengaged."

The committee recommended consistent resourcing of youth supports and programs in response.

It also called for further support grassroots, community-led initiatives to promote social cohesion, citing the success of Believe in Bendigo as an example of such a program.

Social media and distrust of traditional media are key factors

The committee found a decreased public trust in mainstream media and government, leading to the rise of social media as a major source of information.

It estimated more than one-third of Australians get their news from Facebook alone.

The report cited the increased use of social media apps such as Telegram to share information and "potentially dangerous content".

The use of overtly vulgar memes and jokes — called 'sh*tposting' by the report — was also found to be used by extremist organisations to create environments conducive to recruitment.

A review of critical literacy skills taught in Victorian schools to identify misinformation was suggested by the report.

(continued)

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COVID restrictions may have caused further divides

The report stated that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic provided an incubator for far-right extremism in Victoria.

Social isolation, economic insecurity and inequality were listed as risk factors that played a part in increasing susceptibility to extremist narratives and were all exacerbated by the pandemic.

However it found that while a small number of far-right extremist groups and individuals attended protests against the Victorian Government's COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates in 2021, extremist ideology was not the primary motivating factor for the majority of those attending.

The committee recommended that in future public health emergencies, "the Victorian Government build on its outreach and communication efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that there is an emphasis on public information that is in plain language, timely, accessible and easy to interpret".

While the focus of the inquiry was on far-right extremism in particular, the committee acknowledged that all forms of violent extremism were a risk to society and did not rule out future investigations of other forms of extremism.

The ASIO submission to the inquiry noted that left wing extremism is not currently prominent in Australia, although overseas groups that attract individuals to the ideology do exist.

Other recommendations in the report include suggestions that the government further amend gun laws to crack down on members of extremist groups and introduce a national cross-jurisdiction database for registered firearms.

Praise for 'watershed report' from anti-hate campaigner

Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dvir Abramovich applauded the findings of the report and said it should spur the government into action.

"This watershed report is a timely wakeup call that far right-extremism in Victoria is a problem from hell that we can't run or hide from and that this is a whole-of-society challenge," Dr Abramovich said.

"The bottom line is that we can’t rest easy while these homegrown domestic terrorists in waiting, ticking time bombs, are on a recruitment drive of young disaffected white men and women."

Dr Abramovich said the government should take action in advocating to the Commonwealth to reclassify far-right extremists.

"We do not need to wait for a Christchurch like massacre in Melbourne to designate these movements, as the report recommends, as terrorist organisations," he said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-30/victoria-far-right-extremism-inquiry/101387574

>>17463297

Australian air base opens gates for a closer look at Pitch Black military hardware

SETH ROBSON, STARS AND STRIPES - August 30, 2022

DARWIN, Australia — A display of military hardware from the multinational force taking part in the biennial Pitch Black exercise in northern Australia drew scores of locals and troops for a closer look.

Thousands packed Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin over the weekend to inspect an inventory of military equipment a small nation would envy. Aircraft like an MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor and an Indian air force Sukoi SU-30MKI Flanker fighter jet shared the stage with mundane equipment like armored vehicles and cargo trucks.

Marine 1st Lt. Kevin Nguyen, 24, of Ashburn, Va., said he thought the Marines’ own Osprey was the coolest aircraft on the ramp, although he found the Australian version of the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter equally impressive.

“I think they are taking a little bit of the focus away from the trucks,” said Nguyen, commander of the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin motor transport platoon.

The event was organized as part of the biennial Pitch Black drills involving 2,500 airmen, over 100 aircraft and 17 nations underway in Australia’s Northern Territory until Sept. 8.

The open house at RAAF Darwin put on display much of the equipment at work for the six-month rotational force and the participants of Pitch Black.

Cattle grazier David Pattemore, 63, queued up on Saturday to peer inside the Osprey, said the Air Force and Marine presence is welcome in the Northern Territory.

“Unfortunately, the world’s not a beautiful place all over,” he said before bringing up China’s rapid military buildup and “aggressive” efforts to gain influence in the region.

Hardware available for inspection included armored vehicles, bomb-defusing robots, border-patrol boats and fighter aircraft from the U.S. Air Force and European allies: F-16 Fighting Falcons, Eurofighter Typhoons and Australia’s new, stealthy F-35A Lighting II.

Vintage planes such as a World War II-era P-51 Mustang fighter stood nearby.

In addition to the Falcon and the Osprey, the U.S. brought an Air Force F-15 Eagle and a Marine KC-130J aerial refueler. The Marines brought along some tactical vehicles, too.

Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan Hernandez, 22, of Oceanside, Calif., was helping locals check out a logistics vehicle replenishment system.

People were eager for selfies in the big green truck, said Hernandez, who has been in Australia with the rotational force for six months.

The worst part of the deployment has been the heat, he said; the best part is the “beer and parties.”

Another Marine, Cpl. Armando Valtierra, 21, of Los Angeles, showed off an all-wheel-drive, 7-ton truck that moves personnel, ammo, hazardous materials and fuel.

The Marines have been impressed by Australian army trucks during their time Down Under, Valtierra said.

“We like to look at their trucks and they look at ours,” he said. “I like the ‘G Wagon,’ which is a kind of dune buggy they use for off road.”

Nguyen, the transport platoon leader, said Marines attended another military expo in Darwin in July.

“It’s great for the community and great for the Marines,” he said.

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2022-08-30/pitch-black-exercise-darwin-australia-7152189.html

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft forced to come clean on child abuse material

Jordan Baker - August 30, 2022

Australian authorities have served Apple, Microsoft and the owner of Facebook and Instagram with world-first legal orders to come clean on what - if anything - they are doing to detect and report child sex abuse material or face fines of more than half a million dollars a day.

Apple made the fewest reports of child exploitation of any tech giant last year, with just 160 instances reported to a US database last year despite many of its 2 billion users having access to FaceTime, and the live-streaming of abuse having proliferated since the pandemic.

Late on Monday notices were also issued to Snap and Omegle under the new laws, which empower Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to compel organisations to explain the steps they are taking to combat online child exploitation and abuse.

Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said there was little to suggest companies that knew their platforms were weaponised by abusers were doing much to stop it. “No one has yet put the companies’ feet to the fire, saying, ‘what are you doing?’” she said.

“I don’t think we know the true scale and scope of the problem. We can’t know the scale of child exploitation until we know what the platforms are doing to detect abuse. We can’t be an effective regulator if we’re constantly trying to regulate with blind spots.”

The existing data is self-reported to the US-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. Last year, Apple reported 160 instances. Omegle, which connects people for “random chats” with strangers, reported 46,924.

Microsoft, which owns Skype - believed to be used widely in the live-streaming of abuse – reported 78,603 cases. Instagram, owned by Meta – which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp - reported 3.4 million instances. LEGO System reported 37 and Microsoft Xbox reported 170.

Australia’s move will be watched internationally. There has been bitter debate, especially in the United States, over whether child security should trump privacy. Apple has previously elected not to search for abuse images to protect its users’ privacy.

Decisions over which companies received the first tranche of notices were based on considerations such as the number of complaints to e-Safety, the company’s reach, and how much information is already public. More orders are likely to be issued.

Inman Grant said some in the sector had an attitude that if they were not aware of the problem, they were not responsible for it, even though some organisations had technology that could track and pull down dangerous material.

Each company will be asked different questions to elicit information that is not publicly available. “We’ve got a range of questions for Meta and WhatsApp, in terms of where they’re scanning, what they’re scanning, how they’re scanning,” Inman Grant said.

The responses will also be examined on a case-by-case basis. If the companies are found to be non-compliant after 28 days, they can be fined $550,000 a day.

“In my experience, having worked in the industry [at Microsoft for 17 years], companies are moved by anything that challenges their revenue, anything that harms their reputation, and any significant regulatory threats,” Inman Grant said.

The internet has led to a booming online child exploitation industry, involving both shared and live images. “For the past 15 years there’s been a trade in livestreaming child exploitation material,” Inman Grant said.

“With lockdowns around the globe, what we started to see was the Philippines at the epicentre of pay-per-view child abuse material. Now we have so many video conferencing platforms that can facilitate that sexual abuse material.”

NSW Police Detective Superintendent Jayne Doherty, the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad Commander, said officers “welcomed any opportunity to help identify, target and prosecute persons involved in the abuse of children”.

Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the reporting from the companies would “help inform future government decisions around what needs to be done to protect Australians online, and improve transparency to the public”.

Apple faced a significant backlash from privacy advocates last year when it flagged a new feature, CSAM, that would scan iCloud photo libraries against known child sexual abuse material (photos that have been validated by at least two agencies).

The company’s website no longer makes reference to the CSAM technology. It has added a new feature, involving an intervention if users search for child exploitation material on its search tools. The interventions explain “that interest in this topic is harmful and problematic, and provide resources from partners to get help with this issue”.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/apple-facebook-microsoft-forced-to-come-clean-on-child-abuse-material-20220829-p5bdjg.html

Chinese hackers pose as Australian News Corp sites in cyber espionage scam

Matthew Knott - August 30, 2022

Australian government agencies, news outlets and manufacturing companies have been targeted by a sophisticated year-long espionage campaign in which Chinese government-aligned hackers pose as media employees to implant malicious software on the victims’ computers.

Under the phishing scam, which began last year and continues to today, the hackers send out emails in which they claim to be employees from fictional outlets such as “Australian Morning News” or real publications such as The Australian and the Herald Sun.

Recipients are then directed to fake news aggregation sites that can implant a harmful code on their devices and allow the hackers to harvest technical information about the victims.

A prolific China-based entity known as TA423 or Red Ladon that has been operating since 2013 is behind the scheme, according to a new report by PWC and US cybersecurity company Proofpoint.

The hackers have targeted an array of defence contractors, manufacturers, universities, government agencies and legal firms across the Asia-Pacific.

“This is a government espionage group located in China, sponsored by the Chinese government,” Sherrod DeGrippo, Proofpoint’s senior director of threat research and detection, said.

“Much of the targeting is towards organisations located in Australia that have something to do with the military, military contractors or South China Sea operations.”

The latest phishing campaign has also targeted heavy industry manufacturers which conduct maintenance of fleets of wind turbines in the South China Sea.

“In this particular case, what they’re looking for is access to intellectual property and information that can be used for espionage,” DeGrippo said.

“Further down the road, they are likely looking for things that can provide the Chinese government an advantage economically and militarily in the South China Sea.”

While other countries such as North Korea use cyberattacks opportunistically to make money, she said China was focused on gathering strategic information that could help them in the long term.

“Gathering this information is intended to catapult them ahead of the game,” she said.

“China is really able to have the run of the place right now in terms of what they can focus on and not get distracted.”

The phishing email headlines carry a variety of subjects including “Sick Leave,” “User Research,” and “Request Cooperation”.

The latest annual report by the federal government’s Cyber Security Industry Advisory Committee, released last week, found that Australia is an increasingly attractive target for malicious actors and cybercriminals.

“Australia is now literally under constant cyberattack,” advisory committee chair Andy Penn, the former chief executive of Telstra, said.

“In our increasingly interconnected and inter-dependent society, no one is truly safe, and no one can afford to drop their guard.”

There was a 15 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of ransomware cybercrime reports to the Australian Cyber Security Centre.

DeGrippo said Proofpoint had been able to intercept attempted attacks on its clients, but the fact the campaign had continued for over 13 months showed that the hackers had successfully infiltrated some users’ devices and gained access to useful data.

The federal government last year called out China’s ministry of state security for exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange software to affect thousands of computers and networks worldwide, including in Australia.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra said at the time that China “always firmly opposes cyber-attacks and cyber theft in all forms” and called the accusations “groundless”.

A News Corp Australia spokesman declined to comment on whether the company was aware hackers had been posing as employees from its publications.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/chinese-hackers-pose-as-australian-news-corp-sites-in-cyber-espionage-scam-20220830-p5bduz.html

>>17458335

US ships ‘not welcome’ as Solomons cosies up to Beijing

BEN PACKHAM - AUGUST 30, 2022

Solomon Islands has imposed a temporary ban on naval visits by US ships, amid heightened tensions between the countries over the Pacific Island nation’s security pact with China.

The US was informed of the moratorium on Monday – a week after the Solomons government refused diplomatic clearance for the US Coast Guard cutter Oliver Henry to dock in Honiara to refuel and take on provisions.

The Oliver Henry, which was participating in a ­regional crackdown on illegal fishing with the Pacific Island Forum Fisheries Agency, was forced to ­divert to Papua New Guinea to refuel and replenish its supplies on August 23.

Solomon Islands’ government subsequently allowed a US Navy humanitarian ship to dock in ­Honiara for a two-week community health mission, before ­informing US officials of the moratorium.

“On August 29, the US received formal notification from the government of Solomon Islands regarding a moratorium on all naval visits, pending updates in protocol procedures,” the US ­embassy in Canberra said on Tuesday.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration was “dis­appointed” at the moratorium but expected future clearances would be provided to US ships.

“Clearly we’ve seen the Chinese try to bully and coerce ­nations throughout the Indo-­Pacific to do their bidding and to serve what they believe their selfish national security interests are rather than the broader interests of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Mr Kirby said.

He clarified his comments, saying he was not referring specifically to the Solomons incident but to China’s actions more generally.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman warned Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in August that the Biden administration was watching carefully to see how his controversial security agreement with Beijing was implemented.

Ms Sherman also declared she “felt sorry” for Mr Sogavare, after the Prime Minister snubbed a commemorative service she ­attended in the country to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal.

She said he would “have to answer to his own citizens about why he made the choice that he did”.

Senior US officials warned Mr Sogavare in April that his security agreement with China risked destabilising the region and the US would “respond accordingly” if it led to a de facto Chinese military presence in the country.

Mr Sogavare, who insists he would not allow a Chinese base in the country, responded furiously to the US warning, suggesting his country had been “threatened with invasion”.

He said he deplored the “lack of trust”, saying his country had been ­treated by critics of the pact like “kindergarten students walking around with Colt .45s in our hands”.

Under the its security deal with China, Honiara can ­“request China to send police, armed police, (and) military personnel” to the country, and “carry out logistic replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in, Solomon Islands”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/us-ships-not-welcome-as-solomons-cosies-up-to-beijing/news-story/3eb7c7dc8b066027568c77115353a644

>>17458335

Solomon Islands Blocks All Naval Port Visits After U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Denied Entry

Benjamin Felton - August 30, 2022

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Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sogavare has announced a temporary moratorium on visits by foreign naval vessels after turning away a U.S Coast Guard Cutter last week.

Speaking at a ceremony welcoming hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) to Honiara, Sogavare said that bureaucratic issues were behind the denial of diplomatic clearance to USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC-1140).

“Unfortunately, by the time the approval was communicated on the evening of 20th August 2022, the Ship’s captain had decided to leave our waters.” Sogavare said in statement.

The port call was routine, said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby during a press conference Tuesday. Oliver Henry planned to stop at Solomon Island to refuel and resupply, but after the U.S. did not receive diplomatic clearance in time, the ship diverted to Papua New Guinea.

“We’re disappointed in this decision,” Kirby said during the briefing. “While the lack of diplomatic clearance for the Oliver Henry was regrettable, however, the United States is pleased that the U.S. Navy ship Mercy – it’s a hospital ship – received diplomatic clearance and was able to take port in Solomon Islands on the 29th.”

While Solomon Islands took time to review its diplomatic clearance process, foreign partners had been asked to postpone upcoming naval visits until further notice, he said.

“To this end we have requested our partners to give us time to review and put in place our new processes before sending further requests for military vessels to enter the country,” Sogavare said. “Once the new mechanism is in place, we will inform you all. We anticipate the new process to be smoother and timelier.”

In a Tuesday statement, Solomon Islands government said that the new rules would apply to all visiting naval vessels.

“The government has asked all partner countries with plans to conduct naval visits or patrols to put them on hold until a revised national mechanism is in place,” according to a government statement. “These will universally apply to all visiting naval vessels.”

U.S. hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) has been exempted from the moratorium and is expected to remain in Solomon Islands for several weeks as part of Pacific Partnership 2022.

(continued)

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In May, Solomon Islands signed a secretive security agreement with China. While the details of the deal haven’t been made public, a leaked draft suggested that People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels would be permitted to make logistics stops in Solomon Islands, raising concerns that Beijing may be planning to establish a permanent overseas presence.

Since the deal was signed, Sogavare has been accused of consolidating power along Chinese lines. Last month the state-owned broadcaster, SBIC, was brought under the direct editorial control of the government, while Sogavare has gone so far as to suggest banning foreign journalists from the country.

Beijing has also deepened security cooperation with the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSPIF), which Chinese police have begun to train.

The U.S Embassy in Canberra told USNI News in a statement that it was “disappointed” that Solomon Islands had turned away USCGC Oliver Henry.

“On Aug. 23, the Government of Solomon Islands failed to provide diplomatic clearance to a U.S. Coast Guard ship for refuelling and provision in Honiara,” according to the statement. “The United States is disappointed that the U.S. Coast Guard ship was not able to make this planned stop in Honiara.”

The U.S Embassy also confirmed that the U.S Government had been officially notified of Solomon Islands’ decision to impose a moratorium on August 29th.

“On Aug. 29, the United States received formal notification from the Government of Solomon Islands regarding a moratorium on all naval visits, pending updates in protocol procedures,” according to the statement. “The U.S. Navy Ship Mercy received diplomatic clearance prior to the moratorium being implemented. We will continue to closely monitor the situation.”

Before being denied permission to dock in Honiara, USCGC Oliver Henry participated in Operation Island Chief alongside a USCG HC-130J. Operation Island Chief is one of four operations conducted annually by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) which focuses on countering Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.

A spokesperson for U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia / Sector Guam confirmed to USNI News that, as part of Operation Island Chief, Oliver Henry had been conducting patrols within Solomon Islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

As a result of being denied access to Solomon Islands, Oliver Henry diverted to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG) to refuel and restock, arriving on Aug. 23. The Office of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare did not respond to questions from USNI News as of this posting.

https://news.usni.org/2022/08/30/solomon-islands-blocks-all-naval-port-visits-after-u-s-coast-guard-cutter-denied-entry

>>17458335

>>17465759

Solomon Islands Government Statement

PM SOGAVARE CLARIFIES MISINFORMATION ON US COAST GUARD VESSEL

August 30, 2022

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has clarified some misinformation currently carried on international media about the visit by the US Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Henry and HMAS Spey.

Speaking at a ceremony to welcome the visiting United States Hospital Ship USNS Mercy in Honiara this evening, Sogavare said there had been a delay in the granting of approval for entry into the country to the US Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Henry due primarily to the appropriate information not sent to the Office of Prime Minister on time.

The Prime Minister’s Office sought and received the required information on 20th August 2022. Approval was granted for the US Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Henry to enter the country and participate in the FFA operation Island Chief event on 20th August 2022.

“Unfortunately, by the time the approval was communicated on the evening of 20th August 2022, the Ship’s captain had decided to leave our waters,” Sogavare said.

In relation to the HMAS Spey, the approval process to enter Solomon Islands was aborted when the Prime Minister’s Office received notification from the British High Commission in Honiara, that they were no longer seeking approval for HMAS Spey to enter the country.

The delay in these approvals demonstrate the need for the government to review and refine its approval requirements and procedures for visiting military vessels to Solomon Islands.

“To this end we have requested our partners to give us time to review and put in place our new processes before sending further requests for military vessels to enter the country. Once the new mechanism is in place, we will inform you all. We anticipate the new process to be smoother and timelier,” Sogavare said.

The government has asked all partner countries with plans to conduct naval visits or patrols to put them on hold until a revised national mechanism is in place. These will universally apply to all visiting naval vessels.

Solomon Islands have had unfortunate experiences of foreign naval vessels entering the country’s waters during the course of the year without diplomatic clearance granted, hence would like to avoid such incidents from reoccurring.

Solomon Islands would like to see partnership is in place to build national capacity to police our Exclusive Economic Zones. Once the process and procedures are in place suspension of naval vessel visits will be lifted.

The Government have communicated its position to all countries requesting to send in naval ships into Solomon Islands waters.

Meanwhile, the Government and people of Solomon Islands welcomed the visit of United States Hospital Ship USNS Mercy now in Honiara.

The United States Medical team in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Medical Services will be carrying out a number of health programmes in the Capital and in some provinces over the next few days.

https://solomons.gov.sb/pm-sogavare-clarifies-misinformation-on-us-coast-guard-vessel/

Woman who kept ‘sex slaves’ weeps in court as she appeals conviction

A woman found guilty of forcing two women from Thailand into sex slavery has wept in court as she appealed her conviction.

Duncan Murray - August 31, 2022

A woman who forced two Thai women into sex slavery sobbed in court as lawyers discussed her “good character” during an appeal to have her conviction overturned on Wednesday.

Rungnapha Kanbut also wept when the court heard a disabled relative had experienced significant hardship without her.

Ms Kanbut was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2019 after being found guilty of intentionally possessing a slave, exercising powers of ownership over a slave and dealing with the proceeds of crime.

She appeared in NSW Supreme Court from prison via videolink and used a translator to appeal for her conviction to be quashed or, failing that, her sentence to be reduced.

The now roughly 60-year-old was found to have subjected two women to severe mistreatment and prison-like conditions after they moved from Thailand to Australia between 2004 and 2005.

When the women arrived in Sydney, Ms Kanbut confiscated their passports and told them they would each need to pay off a $45,000 debt, a jury was told during the initial trial.

The women were frequently forced to work up to 12 hours a day at multiple brothels, with almost all of their earnings going towards the “debts”.

Naked photos were also taken of the women and used to exert extra control by threatening to release them on the internet, a court heard during the trial.

Ms Kanbut’s lawyer, David Barrow, told a panel of judges a relative had been diagnosed with autism shortly before she went to prison and had suffered from bullying and isolation.

He told the court the relative remained “entirely reliant” on her.

“This is a vulnerable individual,” Mr Barrow said.

Mr Barrow also told the court that testimonies as to her character were missing from the trial and if included, may have impacted the jury’s opinion of her.

Submissions by a number of people who knew Ms Kanbut in the time following her crimes were said by her lawyer to express “shock” at the alleged crimes.

One of the witnesses was quoted as describing her as a “kind and generous woman”.

“Had this material been available, it would have painted a very different picture of the accused,” Mr Barrow said.

At the time of sentencing, Judge Nanette Williams said Ms Kanbut was “not without compassion” for the women but had effectively kept them in a prison with no bars.

“Those who choose to involve themselves in slavery reap significant financial benefits at the great cost of those enslaved,” she said at the time.

One of Ms Kanbut’s victims said she was spat on and bruised by some of her customers, but was told to “put up with it until the time was up and kick the customer out”.

Ms Kanbut’s second victim reported being forced to service up to 10 clients a day.

“I will have to live with the scars of these experiences for the rest of my life,” she said.

https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/courts-law/woman-who-kept-sex-slaves-weeps-in-court-as-she-appeals-conviction/news-story/968a5c1e018d553d115cd1aaec9711df

COVID-19 isolation period shortened to five days

Jake Evans - 31 August 2022

People who test positive for COVID-19 will only be required to isolate for five days except in vulnerable settings following a meeting of national cabinet.

Workers in high-risk settings such as disability and aged care, and people still displaying symptoms would be required to keep to the seven-day isolation period.

"We want people to stay home. We want people to act responsibly," Mr Albanese said.

The reduced isolation requirement will come into effect from September 9.

Support payments for people required to isolate will also be reduced from the same date, and requirements to wear masks on domestic flights will be dropped.

The current pandemic leave payment of $750 is scheduled to end on September 30, but the Prime Minister said conversations on whether to extend that payment were continuing.

The ABC understands the reduced payment will amount to about $540.

Mr Albanese said he and state and territory leaders believed the relaxed rules were a "proportionate response at this point in the pandemic".

"We had a discussion about people looking after each other, people looking after their own health and being responsible for that … there aren't mandated requirements for the flu or a range of other illnesses," he said.

"What we want to do is to make sure that government responds to the changed circumstances, the COVID likely is going to be around for a considerable period of time."

The Health Services Union this week called for mandatory isolation to be scrapped for people who did not have symptoms.

But the Australian Medical Association has expressed concern, and its president Steve Robson says reduced isolation could in fact worsen workforce shortages

"We know there is significant potential for transmission, and it may be that the changes they have made will make work attendance worse, we will have to see from here," Professor Robson said.

"Almost a third of people on day six and seven after they contract COVID are still potentially infectious.

"Allowing people who perhaps have no symptoms but could still infect others into the workplace may not achieve what the government is hoping to achieve."

The United States maintains a five-day isolation requirement for positive cases, while the United Kingdom has scrapped mandatory isolation.

Workforce shortages discussed on eve of jobs summit

Mr Albanese said ongoing labour shortages were a key topic for national cabinet, ahead of tomorrow's highly anticipated jobs summit.

He said state and territory leaders agreed to develop a new skills agreement to come into effect in 2024, which would identify and coordinate priority skills needs.

More than 100 delegates from business, unions, academia and advocacy groups will meet in Canberra tomorrow for a two-day summit focused on improving productivity and wages.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-31/covid-isolation-requirements-shortened-to-five-days/101389766

No snub: Marles makes belated trip to UK but can’t say when London post will be filled

Latika Bourke - August 31, 2022

Glasgow: Defence Minister Richard Marles has refused to say if the federal government will appoint a High Commissioner to the UK by the end of the year, even though the countries are in critical negotiations over the acquisition of nuclear submarines under the AUKUS agreement.

Marles will on Wednesday, UK time, visit BAE’s shipyards in Barrow, in England’s north, where the nuclear-powered Astute-class submarines are made, amid growing expectations Australia’s first nuclear submarines will be bought “off-the-shelf” from either Britain or the US, but most likely from the Americans.

On Tuesday he visited BAE’s shipyards in Govan, Glasgow, where he urged the company to get “back on track” with the program to supply Australia’s new Hunter class of frigates.

Marles, also the deputy prime minister, is on the first official visit to the United Kingdom by any minister from the new government after the May election and Australia has not had a High Commissioner in the UK since April, when former attorney-general George Brandis’ term expired. The Coalition did not extend his term ahead of the election.

The vacancy is being looked after temporarily by career diplomat Lynette Wood who is fluent in Japanese and widely regarded as a frontrunner to be sent to Tokyo.

The government has appointed bureaucrats as ambassadors to several countries since its election but left the London post vacant. Asked if Australia would have a High Commissioner in place in London by the end of the year, Marles would only guarantee that one would be sent “in due course”.

The new cabinet, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has made global diplomacy central to restoring Australia’s reputation abroad, with ministers bombarding the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the United States with official visits. However, Britain has been left off the itinerary, until now, and the Labor has moved to build public support to cut ties with the monarchy with the appointment of the inaugural minister for a republic, Matt Thistlethwaite.

Marles, who represented the prime minister at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda, said the relatively late visit was “certainly not” a snub. “We’re here now,” he said.

Marles pointed to the Tory leadership contest, triggered last month, as one of the reasons the government had kept away.

“There’s a process that Britain is going through as we speak,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an interview after dining with his UK defence counterpart Ben Wallace.

“We see the relationship with Britain as being very central to our national interest and our world view. We have will have a very intense and ongoing agenda with Britain; Britain is our oldest relationship,” he said.

Marles’ Europe visit began in Germany on Monday and will end in France on Thursday as part of the new government’s ongoing efforts to mend relations with the country, after Scott Morrison reneged on a $90 billion submarine contract to sign the AUKUS agreement.

Marles said Germany had agreed for the first time to send German troops to take part in war games alongside Australia and its allies next year.

Germany’s air force is currently taking part in exercises in Darwin and has sent its frigate to the region as well, but next year’s plan to take part in Operation Talisman Sabre will be the first time troops have taken part in war games alongside Australia and its allies.

Marles welcomed Germany’s “remarkable shift” in foreign policy which had taken place in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said this week that Germany would invest in new relationships to diversify away from China, having outlined his country’s attempts to de-link its gas supply from Russia.

Marles said both Australia and Germany had learned a vital lesson “that economic interdependence doesn’t guarantee peace”.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/no-snub-marles-makes-belated-trip-to-uk-but-can-t-say-when-london-post-will-be-filled-20220831-p5be43.html

>>17469881

Australians to train on UK nuclear submarines under landmark pact

Matthew Knott and Latika Bourke - August 31, 2022

Australian naval officers will be allowed to train inside Britain’s nuclear-powered submarines for the first time to ensure they are prepared for the eventual arrival of the highly prized technology under the AUKUS pact.

Defence Minister Richard Marles is set to announce the landmark agreement at a press conference with UK Secretary of State Ben Wallace in the English port town of Barrow-in-Furness on Thursday.

“The idea of Australian crew working with either British or American crews to get experience on British or American vessels in the shorter term is what we are seeking to do,” Defence Minister Marles said in an interview with the London Times.

“Having the opportunity for Australian submariners to gain experience on the submarines of either the United States or the United Kingdom is going to be absolutely fundamental.”

Marles is making his first visit to the UK since Labor’s May election victory.

Defence contractor BAE Systems is currently constructing a fleet of nuclear-powered Astute-class submarines for the UK Navy at its shipbuilding yards at Barrow-in-Furness, as well as a fleet of Dreadnought-class ballistic-missile submarines.

The US Congress is also considering a bill that would allow Australian submariners to join their American counterparts for training and operations on the US Navy’s nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines.

Under the legislation, at least two Australian submarine officers would be selected each year to train with the US Navy and study at the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion School.

Marles is expected to stress that the UK training announcement does not indicate Australia is leaning one way or the other as it decides whether to acquire nuclear submarines from the US or UK.

Despite the critical submarine negotiations, in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Marles declined to say whether the government would appoint a high commissioner to the UK by the end of the year.

Previous high commissioner George Brandis stepped down in April.

“We see the relationship with Britain as being very central to our national interest and our world view,” Marles said. “We have … will have a very intense and ongoing agenda with Britain; Britain is our oldest relationship.”

Marles said the government was speaking to the UK and the US about possible options to speed up the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines.

“I mean, the former government left us with, really, a situation of not having a prospective boat in the water until the 2040s,” he told the ABC.

“This is a long way into the future and we are trying to examine, with both the United Kingdom and the United States, about whether there is any way in which we can get that date brought forward, and to the extent that there is any capability gap that arises as a result of whenever that date is, ways in which we can fill that capability.”

Marles declined to say whether Solomon Islands had issued Australia with a moratorium on naval visits to the Pacific nation as it had with the US.

“I’ve seen the reports,” he said. “Ultimately, that is a matter for Solomon Islands.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australians-to-train-on-uk-nuclear-submarines-under-landmark-pact-20220831-p5be8p.html

>>17458412

Australian FM visits PNG nominally for cooperation to conceal veiled aim to sow discord through 'China debt trap' narrative, coercion

Xu Keyue - Aug 30, 2022

1/2

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed Canberra's wish to have the "closest possible relationship" with Papua New Guinea (PNG) as she started her first visit to the South Pacific island nation on Monday after the new Labor government took office. Observers pointed out that while Wong's trip is nominally to enhance cooperation with PNG, it actually aims to drive a wedge between China and PNG, woo the island nation to the US-led camp containing China, and allow it to remain as a "big brother" in the region.

Wong touched down in Port Moresby on Monday, marking Labor's first trip to the country since claiming government back in May, Australian media outlet Sky News reported on Tuesday.

The foreign minister stressed the "importance" of Australia's relationship with PNG and providing ongoing infrastructure support to the neighboring nation amid concerns over its ties with China, according to the report.

Since December 2020, when China signed a $200 million fisheries deal with PNG, which is aimed at helping PNG to maximize its commercial fishing capacity in the area, cooperation between PNG and China has grown deeper. This deal was just one of the Chinese overseas investments in developing countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In recent years, trade and investment cooperation between China and some Pacific island countries like PNG that have already signed up for the BRI has been strengthening on the basis of mutual benefits.:

Also, PNG and China agreed to deepen cooperation in energy, fisheries, communications and health during a visit by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in June, according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

But the series of cooperation agreements between China and Pacific island nations based on mutual trust and equality have struck a nerve with Canberra especially after China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, another island nation in the Pacific, earlier this year.

Wong claimed that Australian aid in the Pacific comes with "no strings attached," the Guardian reported, noting this remark was "in a veiled reference to China's expanding power in the region."

The Guardian report claimed that "China is striking a range of deals in the Pacific and, in some cases, is offering large loans for infrastructure," in an apparent attempt to hype the fabricated "China debt trap" theory.

(continued)

>>17469909

2/2

Wong's remarks highlight Australia's anxiety and awkwardness in the face of the need for economic development in Pacific island countries, Chen Hong, president of the Chinese Association of Australian Studies and director of the Australian Studies Centre at East China Normal University told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Australia and the US-led Western world want to sow discord between China and the island nations with the groundless and malicious "China debt trap" narrative and "China threat theory," as they try to drive nations into the US-led anti-China camp under the so-called Indo-Pacific Strategy, said Chen.

They fabricated the "China debt trap" theory, and attempted to use the Australian aid nominally with "no strings attached" to lure the island nations to jump into their "political trap," observers pointed out.

China has a long history of cooperation with the South Pacific region and has never imposed any political or other conditions. On the contrary, the US, Australia and their allies have always been ideologically driven, imposing Western systems and models on the South Pacific region by coercion, Chen noted. Although Papua New Guinea won independence from Australia in 1975, Australia never gave up its outdated mentality of colonialism and tried to remain as a "big brother" in the region, the observer noted.

According to media reports, Wong is set to take a similar message to Timor-Leste when she flies there on Wednesday.

In June, President of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos-Horta warned his nation will seek Chinese support if Australia and Woodside Energy - an Australian petroleum exploration and production company - fail to back a gas pipeline between the resource-rich Timor Sea and his country's southern shore, rather than Darwin, Australia, the Guardian reported.

Michael Leach, a professor in politics and international relations at Swinburne University of Technology and founder of the Timor-Leste Studies Association, was quoted by the Guardian as saying that "…China certainly provides smaller nations in our region with negotiating power and leverage with traditional partners they didn't previously have."

Chen predicted that this issue would be a major topic during Wong's visit to Timor-Leste as Australia worries that if Timor-Leste looks to Chinese investment to secure the island nation's "national strategic goal" of piping gas, not only the Australian petroleum company would suffer a loss in business benefits but also China would get closer with the island nation, which Australia is reluctant to see.

Chen warned the possible coercion by Canberra during Wong's trip over the issue.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1274247.shtml

Malcolm Turnbull almost sacked Alexander Downer for sparking FBI inquiry

JACQUELIN MAGNAY - AUGUST 31, 2022

1/2

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was so incensed that Alexander Downer, Australia’s top diplomat in London, had “blundered” into the US embassy, “blurting out political gossip of the most intense political sensitivity”, and sparking the FBI inquiry into Russian meddling in the US ­election, that he considered sacking him.

Mr Turnbull had only found out that Mr Downer had unilaterally informed the US embassy in London of a meeting he had with presidential nominee Donald Trump’s adviser George Papadopoulos when the FBI then sought to interview Downer, the Australian high commissioner to the UK, in early August 2016.

The explosive circumstances surrounding one of the most intriguing diplomatic faux pas in recent times has been revealed in a book by investigative journalist Richard Kerbaj, The Secret History of The Five Eyes.

Mr Turnbull told Kerbaj: “What he did would have got any other ambassador sacked, It was reckless and self-indulgent and put the Australian government in a very awkward position.”

But when asked why Mr Downer wasn’t relieved of his position, Mr Turnbull said: “Alexander was a good friend of mine and the foreign minister, Julie Bishop.

“He is our longest-serving foreign minister, a former leader of the Liberal Party. And at the time we learned of his foolish behaviour we had every interest in keeping it confidential.”

Mr Downer had initiated a meeting at the Kensington Wine Rooms in London with Mr Papadopoulos in early May 2016 after the adviser had publicly castigated British prime minister David Cameron for making negative remarks about Mr Trump.

In the hour-long meeting with Mr Downer, Mr Papadopoulos claimed the Russian government had material on Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump’s main rival in the Democratic camp.

“It sounded bad, but my attitude at the time was who would know whether this was even true,” Mr Downer says in the book, confirming he had sent a report of the discussion in a cable to Canberra.

But when Mr Trump had been confirmed as the Republican Party’s nominee some six weeks later in July, he very soon encouraged Russia to hack into the email accounts of Ms Clinton, prompting Mr Downer to head straight for the US embassy headquarters in central London.

(continued)

>>17475424

2/2

Mr Downer met US deputy ambassador Elizabeth Dibble on July 28 and within hours a missive arrived at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, with details of the Papadopoulos remarks.

Kerbaj says Peter Strzok, deputy director of the organisation’s counterintelligence division, was immediately intrigued by the timing of the meeting that had taken place between Mr Downer and Mr Papadopoulos.

“The fact it had been in May 2016 suggested that Trump’s adviser had been aware of Russia’s planned election interference one month before the issue had become publicly known,’’ he wrote.

Mr Turnbull, meanwhile, considered Mr Downer’s “act without any authority” in giving the information to Washington was reckless. “Downer’s information, which he had reported to Canberra and our Washington Embassy in May, should only have been passed on to the Americans via the most discreet intelligence community channels,” Mr Turnbull says in the book.

“Blundering into the American Embassy in London, blurting out political gossip of the most intense political sensitivity was the worst possible way to do it.”

Mr Turnbull added: “The first we knew about it was when the FBI arrived in London and asked to interview him.

“At that point, he did have the common sense to tell Canberra what had happened. In the circumstances we could hardly refuse to allow him to speak to the FBI but great care was taken to ensure that his evidence would be kept confidential.”

Mr Turnbull said Mr Downer’s actions had brought into “question the discipline and professionalism of our foreign service” and had given Mr Trump “every reason to believe” the FBI investigation “was instigated by the Australian government”.

Kerbaj writes how Mr Turnbull was forced to intervene to preserve Australia’s relationship with the Trump administration.

“We had to explain that Downer had acted on his own, without authority,” Mr Turnbull says.

Kerbaj suggests that there is no way to properly determine the extent to which Mr Downer’s tip-off to the FBI influenced Mr Trump’s impression of Australia.

But he documented how six months later, in January 2017, Mr Trump initially opposed an immigration deal struck between Barack Obama and Mr Turnbull.

Mr Trump even told Mr Turnbull that a phone call earlier that day with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been “more pleasant” than the one with the Australian prime minister.

The Secret History of The Five Eyes is published today in Britain and released in Australia on October 5

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/malcolm-turnbull-almost-sacked-alexander-downer-for-sparking-fbi-inquiry/news-story/6b79d5317f9bff033e33e09225f03ef4

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

https://qanon.pub/?q=remain%20in%20the%20light

>>17469889

AUKUS allies sign off on nuclear subs training for Australians

JACQUELIN MAGNAY - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

In a deepening of Australian-British military ties under the AUKUS arrangement, Royal Australian Navy submariners will begin training on the nuclear propelled British submarine, the Astute class HMS Anson, having been cleared to access some of Britain’s top secret nuclear military secrets.

The Australian has also learned there are discussions to include the United States in the training mix, with a possible future submarine being staffed by a mix of Australian, British and American navy personnel.

Politicians and defence staff in the three countries are looking at an extensive three-way collaboration under AUKUS, not just confined to developing Australia’s submarines to replace the Collins class, but in upskilling Australia’s crews to deal with a nuclear submarine.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, in Barrow-in-Furness to watch the commissioning of the HMS Anson, Britain’s latest Astute class submarine, said on Thursday that “significant’ numbers of Royal Australian Navy personnel would be now trained by the Royal Navy.

He added that “significant numbers” of boat builders would also be trained up to deliver the Royal Australian Navy frigate program, as well as those required for future submarine building skills.

“We are growing a crew of submariners for our future, we need to be doing this with a significant number,’’ Mr Marles said, adding that the training being announced was “a really important statement of principle’’.

The UK and US have already welcomed Royal Australian Navy personnel on specialised nuclear training courses, with more to follow next year before the Australian submariners will go to sea.

HMS Anson, which is 97m long, will be armed with up to 38 Spearfish Heavyweight Torpedoe, and Block V Tomahawk land attack missiles, and able to tackle targets at a range of up to 1,500 kilometres.

Outgoing British prime minister Boris Johnson, who was at the commissioning of the submarine, said: “From the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea, our submarine service is protecting the UK and our allies 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the deployment of Australian submariners alongside our British crews epitomises the strength of the AUKUS partnership.”

Mr Marles said around 80 Australian workers were currently in Govan, Scotland, helping work on the Type 26 frigate program who will then return to Adelaide to use their skills in building the Australian version of the frigate, the Hunter class.

“It is important to build a critical mass (of experts) who will go back to Adelaide and use their skills in building the Hunter class,’’ he said.

“We need to be doing a version of that in respect of the submarines as well and it needs to end up being a significant number (of people) at the end of the day. We are able to have not just a transfer of technology in respect of the hardware, but a transfer of skills in respect of the people.’’

British defence secretary Ben Wallace remarked that Australia’s future nuclear powered submarine, under the AUKUS agreement was “not an either, or type question” between the British or American designs but stressed it could be a collaborative program between three nations.

He said Australia’s submarine “may look like something none of us have in our stocks” with the latest post-Astute class submarine designs fully shared among Australia, Britain and the United States.

Mr Wallace said:“The question is how do we get to 2035 and 2040 in our deliveries (of building submarines) which we all need? We need to be truly collaborative as we can be, we might have a bit of all three of us on it, and in the meantime we’ve helped contribute to building a skills base and a workforce and an operating navy to deliver that.”

Mr Marles also revealed that the Australian government was “actively considering’’ whether to provide military training assistance to help train Ukrainian fighters as well as providing 60 Bushmaster vehicles.

The British government has headed a European coalition of trainers for Ukrainians, including Denmark, Sweden, Canada and The Netherlands and Mr Wallace said ‘we would like Australia to join us… it could make a difference”.

Mr Wallace also said that Britain was planning future joint activities with France in the Pacific, with patrols or joint deployments.

“It is absolutely key to send a message into the Pacific that is there is the US voice, but also the European voice. Britain and France, when we are together, we are quite formidable allies.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/aukus-allies-sign-off-on-nuclear-subs-training-for-australians/news-story/de8cff476e16ea67d5f72c00a899cf02

>>17469889

US admiral issues blunt warning on building Australian submarines in overstretched shipyards

Andrew Greene - 1 September 2022

A senior US Navy official has warned helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines could be too big a burden for America's already overstretched shipyards.

During an online forum, the US program executive officer for strategic submarines was questioned on America's shipbuilding workforce and the implications of the AUKUS partnership with Australia.

Rear Admiral Scott Pappano said the ambitious plan could hamper his nation's own nuclear submarine program, as well as the United Kingdom's, in comments made to the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

"If you are asking my opinion, if we were going to add additional submarine construction to our industrial base, that would be detrimental to us right now," Admiral Pappano said.

The rear admiral added that significant investment would be needed to provide "additional capacity, capability to go do that"

"I won't speak for the UK, but I think that exists for both the US and the UK where we're looking right now," he said.

The Defence Department is currently conducting an 18-month study on the best option for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarine capability, with a report due to hand down official recommendations in March.

Earlier this year former defence minister, now Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton claimed he was confident Australia could secure two American-built Virginia-class nuclear submarines by 2030.

Mr Dutton insisted that if the Coalition had remained in office, it could have been "in a position to make an announcement around July-August" on acquiring US-built nuclear submarines.

Private reservations

US naval figures have long held private reservations about allowing Australia to join an American production line for nuclear-powered submarines, but Admiral Pappano's comments are the strongest public intervention so far.

In his appearance at the Mitchell Institute, Admiral Pappano predicted America's submarine production in the financial year 2025 was expected to be five times what it was two years ago.

The increased workload includes doubling the construction of the newest Virginia-class submarines to two boats a year, and introducing a new version of the Virginia-class known as Block V, which allows for more Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Later this decade, production of the next generation Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, is also scheduled to come into effect.

Admiral Pappano said the US Navy was working with local shipbuilders to receive the Columbia-class boats six months earlier than planned, cutting the delivery schedule from 84 to 78 months.

UK says submarines a 'collaborative program'

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace remarked that Australia's future nuclear-powered submarines, under the AUKUS agreement was "not an either, or type question" between British or American designs, but could be a collaborative program between the three nations.

He said Australia's submarine "may look like something none of us have in our stocks", with the latest post-Astute class submarine designs fully shared among Australia, Britain and the US.

"The question is how do we get to 2035 and 2040 in our deliveries (of building submarines) which we all need?" Mr Wallace said.

"We need to be truly collaborative as we can be, we might have a bit of all three of us on it, and in the meantime we've helped contribute to building a skills base and a workforce and an operating navy to deliver that."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-01/us-admiral-issues-blunt-warning-on-building-aus-subs/101394250

UN human-rights agency issues report on Xinjiang over China’s protest

CHUN HAN WONG and JAMES T. AREDDY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

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The United Nations human-rights agency on Wednesday alleged “serious human-rights violations” in the Chinese region of Xinjiang that often targeted ethnic Uyghurs and other members of Islamic groups, in a report that broadly supports critical findings by Western governments, human-rights groups and media.

The findings were contained in a long-awaited report by the U.N. agency that quoted what it described as former detainees of internment camps in Xinjiang with “credible” accounts of torture and other forms of inhuman treatment between 2017 and 2019, including some instances of sexual violence. The UN body said detainees had no form of redress.

The UN agency said what it termed arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang stemmed from a system of antiterrorism laws in China “that is deeply problematic from the perspective of international human-rights norms and standards.” It also alleged people are detained for religious practices.

It said the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

The report cited descriptions of possible forced labor associated with the camps, including labor and employment schemes for the purported purposes of poverty alleviation and the prevention of “extremism.”

The UN body urged Chinese authorities to take “prompt steps to release all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” in Xinjiang and to undertake “a full review of the legal framework governing national security, counterterrorism and minority rights,” as well comply with international conventions on forced labor.

The findings largely support allegations in recent years from Western governments, human-rights groups and media organizations that have triggered widespread condemnation of Beijing and support for the Uyghur cause.

The US has alleged genocide in Xinjiang—the 48-page U.N. report doesn’t contain the word—and sanctioned Chinese officials it blames for the alleged human rights abuses. The US has also banned imports of most products produced in Xinijang, such as cotton.

The U.N. report contained an annex published by China’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. that said China firmly opposed the release of the report and said it was based on disinformation by anti-China forces. China argues that it has undertaken vocational training efforts in Xinjiang to diffuse risks of terrorism and to alleviate poverty, and that critics ignore improvements in living standards delivered by the government.

The report was delivered hours before the end of a four-year term by the agency’s high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, and emerged despite strong objection by Beijing.

Since taking office in September 2018, Ms Bachelet, the former president of Chile, has led an effort by the UN rights agency to assess claims of rampant abuses in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, where researchers have documented a withering Communist Party campaign to forcibly assimilate ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

Ms Bachelet’s office pledged to issue its findings in a report, which became the subject of contention as US officials and rights watchdogs accused the UN of delaying its release, while Beijing lobbied against its publication.

Human-rights groups applauded the report’s release, expressing hope it will generate a strong response from UN member states and international corporations.

“The High Commissioner’s damning findings explain why the Chinese government fought tooth and nail to prevent the publication of her Xinjiang report, which lays bare China’s sweeping rights abuses,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement after the report’s release.

“This is a game-changer for the international response to the Uyghur crisis,” Uyghur Human Rights Project Executive Director Omer Kanat said in a statement.

Among those held in Xinjiang is Uyghur intellectual Ilham Tohti who in 2014 was jailed for life on charges of separatism; on Wednesday, his U.S.-based daughter Jewher Ilham said she welcomed the UN report but that it brings her “little comfort” because she believes her father was jailed on charges he didn’t deserve and that she has had no contact with him for nine years.

Ms Bachelet said in September 2021 that her office was “finalizing” its assessment of alleged rights violations in Xinjiang. The U.N. rights agency continued working on the report as it arranged a China visit for Ms Bachelet, who traveled to Xinjiang and the southern city of Guangzhou in late May—the first China visit by a UN high commissioner for human rights since 2005.

(continued)

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In accordance with standard practice, whereby the UN rights agency provides copies of country-specific reports to the government in question before publication, Ms Bachelet’s office shared its Xinjiang assessment with the Chinese government to seek comment. Last week, she told reporters that she has received “substantial input” from Beijing that her office must “carefully review.”

Xinjiang, a swath of desert and mountains abutting Central Asia, is home to roughly 14 million Turkic-speaking Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. Rights activists and scholars estimate that Chinese authorities in the region have funnelled more than a million people through internment camps, while implementing political indoctrination, forced labor, family separations, strict birth controls and restrictions on religious practices that target Uyghur and other Muslim communities.

The US State Department and lawmakers in Canada, the UK, and France have argued that China’s actions in Xinjiang amount to a form of genocide. An independent, UK.-based panel of lawyers, academics and activists came to the same conclusion in December following a yearlong investigation.

Agricultural and industrial supply chains involving Xinjiang are under new scrutiny because the region is a major producer of cotton, tomatoes and chemicals used in high-technology applications like solar cells. Concerns about Xinjiang were a basis for the Biden administration and some other Western governments to diplomatically boycott this year’s winter Olympics in Beijing.

Beijing has denied committing rights violations in Xinjiang, calling genocide allegations “the lie of the century.”

“We firmly oppose the release of a so-called Xinjiang-related report,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters on Wednesday ahead of the report’s publication. “The report is a pure stunt orchestrated by the U.S. and a handful of other Western countries.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said that the party’s policies in Xinjiang are “completely correct” and that they helped restore stability to a region once racked by ethnic violence and deadly attacks against symbols of Beijing’s authority. He visited the region in July.

Critical findings of China from the UN contrast with Beijing’s growing rhetorical and financial support for the world body, which Mr Xi has said better represents world opinion than organizations like the Group of Seven that it says are controlled by Washington.

The report didn’t estimate how many people were held in Xinjiang but referred to a separate 2018 UN agency estimate that detainees numbered in the tens of thousands to over a million. It said Beijing responded to those estimates at the time by saying detainees, which it says are undergoing “re-education,” come and go so total figures aren’t available.

Ms Bachelet had pledged to release the report before her four-year term as high commissioner expired. The former Chilean president, who turns 71 in September, made the commitment while announcing that she wouldn’t seek a second term, citing personal reasons, amid criticism from Western officials and activists that her China visit had played into Beijing’s narratives about its rights record.

The UN has yet to announce Ms. Bachelet’s successor.

In July, Beijing said nearly 1,000 nongovernmental organizations in China and elsewhere signed a letter urging Ms Bachelet not to release the Xinjiang report, saying its publication would be used as “an excuse to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” while undermining the U.N. rights agency’s reputation.

Ms Bachelet said last week that she also received a letter signed by about 40 or so countries urging her not to issue the report. “I have been under tremendous pressure, to publish or not to publish, but I will not publish or withhold publication due to any such pressure. I can assure you of that,” Ms Bachelet told reporters. “Our work is guided by human-rights methodology and the facts on the ground, and objective legal analysis.”

The assessment issued by Ms Bachelet’s office came on the heels of a separate set of findings from a UN Special rapporteur on contemporary slavery, who wrote a report—dated July—saying that he found it “reasonable to conclude” that forced labor was taking place in Xinjiang.

The rapporteur, legal scholar Tomoya Obokata, cited an independent assessment of information that included academic research, victims’ testimonies and government accounts. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman rejected Mr Obokata’s claims and accused him of trying to “malignly smear and denigrate China”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/bombshell-un-xinjiang-report-lists-litany-of-rights-abuses/news-story/755df26a730a9378a61a2a5ab9b67e87

>>17475500

UN Human Rights Office issues assessment of human rights concerns in Xinjiang, China

31 August 2022

GENEVA (31 August 2022) – The UN Human Rights Office today issued an assessment of human rights concerns in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The assessment was initiated following serious allegations of human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim communities brought to the attention of the UN Human Rights Office and UN human rights mechanisms since late 2017, particularly in the context of the Chinese Government’s policies and measures to combat terrorism and “extremism”.

The assessment is based on a rigorous review of documentary material currently available to the Office, with its credibility assessed in accordance with standard human rights methodology. Particular attention was given to the Government’s own laws, policies, data and statements. The Office also requested information and engaged in dialogue and technical exchanges with China throughout the process.

The information was assessed against applicable international human rights law, and builds on the work of a number of UN human rights mechanisms.

The UN Human Rights Office stands ready to support China in addressing the issues and recommendations articulated in the assessment.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/un-human-rights-office-issues-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ohchr-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf

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United Nations report on Xinjiang backs fears felt by Australia's Uyghur community

Joshua Boscaini and Erin Handley - 1 September 2022

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Adelaide woman Marhaba Salay feels a sharp pain in her chest when she speaks of her beloved older sister, Mayila Yakufu.

Ms Yakufu, 45, a single mother of three teenagers, is one of more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims the UN says have been detained in China's "re-education" facilities in Xinjiang.

"I have so much pain in my heart and I am mentally suffering a lot," Ms Salay told the ABC.

Ms Salay said her sister sent money to her and her parents in Australia back in 2013 to help them buy a house — a transaction she said the Chinese government was using as evidence of "financing terrorism".

While Ms Salay and her parents are Australian citizens, her sister is not.

"I lost hope," Ms Salay said.

"She was innocent, and what she has done is just send money to us to help us to buy a house in Australia, but it became her crime."

Ms Salay said the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs had confirmed her sister was facing terrorism charges. Ms Salay found out from relatives in Xinjiang that her sister was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

More than three years of her sentence remain.

"My sister's case is just one of the millions of living examples of the crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese communist regime," Ms Salay said.

Outgoing United Nations human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet has released a report detailing serious allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China's Xinjiang region.

The report concluded there were "patterns of torture" in what China calls "vocational education and training centres".

Former detainees told the human rights office they were subjected to beatings, rape, and solitary confinement and were forcibly administered injections or pills without informed consent.

Some, mostly female, former detainees told the office they were raped by guards and were subjected to sexual humiliation and forced nudity.

Other former detainees said lights were switched on in dormitories or cells during the night, depriving them of sleep.

They reported not being allowed to speak their native language or practise their religion and were instead forced to "sing patriotic song after patriotic song every day, as loud as possible and until it hurts, until our faces become red and our veins appeared on our face", one interviewee said.

Uyghurs hope the report triggers 'tangible action'

The report concluded China's arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other minorities, and the deprivation of fundamental human rights might constitute "crimes against humanity".

Ramila Chanisheff, president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women's Association, told the ABC the report's release had been a long time coming and she hoped "tangible action" would be taken.

But Ms Chanisheff said she was disappointed to learn the evidence collected and detailed in the report was not defined as genocide.

"It just hasn't taken it to that next step, but it is something that we can work with and is another [piece of] credible evidence on top of mountains of evidence that have come out in the last years," she said.

"We just hope something will come out of it."

She said the Uyghur diaspora had been living with anxiety ever since revelations emerged in 2017 that Chinese authorities were detaining Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.

"They've lost connections and communication with their family members," she said.

"Anxiety is always there, and of course it will renew that anxiety with the release of the report.

"Every member … in Australia have got a close family member and/or relatives, extended family members who have disappeared so all of us are worried [about] what is happening to these people."

Ms Chanisheff's sentiments were echoed by Ms Salay.

"Now the report has finally come out, but my sister is still in the prison," she said.

"Millions of Uyghurs are still suffering.

"I hope that it doesn't remain on the paper, [but] rather actions are taken to the stop the genocide.

"If that report doesn't change anything in the future, what's the benefit? What's the point?"

(continued)

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China labels report a 'farce'

Justine Nolan, director of the Australian Human Rights Institute at the University of New South Wales, told the ABC the allegations in the report were in the category of the most significant and serious human rights violations.

Professor Nolan said that to action change, there needed to be international support within the UN Human Rights Council to push for an investigation.

"It makes the evidence really hard to deny," she said.

"There's just no plausible deniability of what's going on in the region."

She said while the report itself did not give rise to specific legal actions, the International Criminal Court could investigate allegations of crimes against humanity against a specific individual, or a state could launch action against China in the International Court of Justice.

"What this report does is it gives you the evidence to substantiate one of those potential actions," she said.

"This is in the category of the most significant and serious human rights violations that exist … It's basically acknowledging that there's a systematic approach to really doing away with a certain part of a population."

Human Rights Watch has called for the report to be formally presented to the Human Rights Council "as a matter of priority" so states can discuss its findings and take steps to implement its recommendations.

China has called the UN report a "farce" and accused it of being plotted by "Western and anti-China forces".

Liu Yuyin, the spokesperson for China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, said the report smeared and slandered China and interfered in its internal affairs.

"The so-called 'assessment', based on presumption of guilt, uses disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces as its main sources, deliberately ignores authoritative information and objective materials provided by the Chinese government," Mr Liu said.

Mr Liu defended China's human rights record in Xinjiang and said the region enjoyed social stability, economic development, cultural prosperity and religious harmony.

"People of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are living a fulfilling life in peace," she said.

"It is the best human rights practice and the greatest human rights achievement."

The ABC has contacted Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for comment.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-01/united-nations-xinjiang-report-confirms-uyghur-community-pain/101394760

>>17465759

Solomon Islands’ docking rights suspension angers US congress

ADAM CREIGHTON - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Solomon Islands’ suspension of docking rights for US and allied navy ships has angered members of Congress and raised questions about US plans to build a promised embassy on the small Pacific Island, which has come under growing influence from Beijing.

Democrat Congressman Joe Courtney, co-chairman of the Friends of Australia Caucus in Congress, said the small Pacific Island nation, which signed a security pact with Beijing that Canberra and Washington fear could foreshadow a Chinese troop presence, had “every right” to revise its policies, but the move was “perplexing”.

“Solomon Islands’ tacit denial of a benign Coast Guard vessel on mission to protect legal fishing in the region smacks of foreign influence by the People’s Republic of China,” he told The Australian, referring to the surprise rejection of an application by the Oliver Henry to visit Solomon Islands last week.

“Should the Solomon Islands’ policy review — aimed at better policing its exclusive economic zone — take on a PRC flavour, we could see further challenges to pillars of maritime law”.

The US and Australia are vying with Beijing for influence in the small island of around 700,000 people, strategically located around 3,000 kilometres to the northeast of Australia.

Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher, also a co-chairman of the Friends of Australia group, urged the AUKUS partners to “prioritise reversing the current disastrous trend in the Solomons before it’s too late”. “A foreign aggressor seems bent on conquering the islands from within without even firing a shot,” he told The Australian.

The state department, which in February announced plans for an embassy in Honiara to help counter growing Chinese influence, stopped short of condemning Honiara in a statement on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), expressing only “disappointment” with prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s moratorium.

The Chinese government, which has used loans and other development assistance to draw developing nations into its orbit, has repeatedly claimed ownership to the South China Sea, contrary to international law.

Michael Walsh, a researcher in Australia studies at Georgetown University, said the Solomons’ move would elicit “calls on the Biden administration to do more to disrupt and subvert the security partnerships being constructed by the Xi Jing Ping administration”.

“It will be interesting to see whether the moratorium will decrease support for the establishment of an embassy in the Solomon Islands among Congress, or inspires more engagement in the Pacific,” Mr Walsh told The Australian.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill last month to establish embassies in Kiribati, Tonga, and Vanuatu, currently served by the US ambassadors in Fiji in Papua New Guinea.

One of the sponsors, Republican Senator Marcia Blackburn, who visited the islands last month and urged the White House to expedite establishment of a new embassy in Honiara, said the Solomon Islands’ move was “extremely concerning” via her spokesman.

“Refuelling stops are part of the longstanding relationship between Washington and Honiara …. The United States, along with our British and Australian partners, must aggressively assert and increase our footprint in the region to fend off China’s growing influence,” her spokesman told The Australian.

The fallout in the Pacific comes amid a tense standoff between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan, after a series of high-level visits to the island by US Congressional leaders in August, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that enraged Beijing and prompted a round of provocative Chinese military drills.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/solomon-islands-docking-rights-suspension-angers-us-congress/news-story/f9dafd721052dd07e9bb2a9c7418bd1a

>>17465759

Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare accepts US medical ship while banning other vessels

BEN PACKHAM - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has hosted an official welcome for a US navy hospital ship just days after his government refused diplomatic clearance for a US Coast Guard vessel to dock in Honiara.

Mr Sogavare thanked the USNS Mercy for visiting the country, where it is conducting free medical consultations, saying it would be “wonderful to make this visit an annual event”.

The ship arrived in Honiara on August 29 – the same day the Sogavare government declared a moratorium on foreign naval visits, and six days after it turned away the US Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Henry.

The ban has angered US Congress members, with Democrat Congressman Joe Courtney declaring it “smacks of foreign influence by the People’s Republic of China”.

Mr Sogavare asked at the official welcome for USNS Mercy whether the ship could return in November and December next year, when the country hosts the Pacific Games with financial support from China.

He said such a visit would provide support to all of the Pacific nations competing in the games.

“Such a visit at that time will also provide immense relief to the Ministry of Health and Medical services who will assume the primary responsibility of looking after the health of almost 5000 athletes and officials from 24 sporting nations in the Pacific over the two weeks of the 2023 Pacific Games,” Mr Sogavare said.

In a statement this week, the Prime Minister's office clarified what it described as “misinformation” over the aborted visit by the US Coast Guard ship, which was conducting operations against illegal fishing in the region

The statement said the government’s refusal to provide clearance for the ship was “due primarily to the appropriate information not sent to the Office of Prime Minister on time”.

“Unfortunately, by the time the approval was communicated on the evening of 20th August 2022, the ship’s captain had decided to leave our waters,” Mr Sogavare said.

Another planned visit, by British offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey, was also aborted after its approval was delayed.

The statement said the government needed “to review and refine its approval requirements and procedures for visiting military vessels to Solomon Islands”.

“To this end we have requested our partners to give us time to review and put in place our new processes before sending further requests for military vessels to enter the country,” Mr Sogavare said.

“Once the new mechanism is in place, we will inform you all. We anticipate the new process to be smoother and timelier.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/solomon-islands-pm-manasseh-sogavare-accepts-us-medical-ship-while-banning-other-vessels/news-story/65f2d09eade9f64d5de5e4fbffc8641f

>>17475500

After disappearing Uighurs, Beijing tries to vanish UN report

WILL GLASGOW - SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

Beijing has tried to “disappear” a damning United Nations report into human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which has triggered international condemnation of brutal policies overseen by China’s leader Xi Jinping.

The silencing comes after Beijing failed to stop the report’s lead author Michelle Bachelet, the former President of Chile, from releasing the UN’s 48-page documentation of systematic violations of Uighur and other minorities in China’s west.

Beijing’s internationally facing mouthpieces have denounced the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“This so-called assessment is orchestrated and produced by the US and some Western forces and is completely illegal, null and void,” fumed China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

“It is a patchwork of disinformation that serves as a political tool for the US and some Western forces to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China.”

China’s English-language state media, the China Daily and Global Times, each carried a single new story, repeating Chinese foreign ministry spokesman’s comments.

But there has been almost no coverage by Beijing’s Chinese language media. A search by The Australian on Baidu – the biggest search engine for China’s censored internet – turned up a single mention of the report.

The top results for a search on Xinjiang were stories about 34 new Covid cases and tech park development. A search on the United Nations produced news stories on human rights abuses in America and China’s good work in Africa.

Underlining the extreme sensitivity of the UN’s criticism, the only mention of the published report came in a search of Ms Bachelet’s name in Chinese. The single mention was a social media post by a junior international relations academic at Hubei’s Central China Normal University, who wrote that the two-time Chilean president – and long time human rights champion – had been manipulated by “Western countries with bad intentions”.

Ms Bachelet, whose dramatic four-year term in the UN’s top human rights post ended this week, 13 minutes before she released the report, visited China for six days in May.

That trip included a meeting with President Xi over video, which was widely promoted in China.

China’s leader told Ms Bachelet about his theory of human rights.

“Deviating from reality and copying wholesale the institutional model of other countries will not only fit badly with the local conditions, but also bring disastrous consequences,” Mr Xi said.

The tour that Ms Bachelet and her team later took to Xinjiang was highly constrictive, with every minute supervised.

Courtney Fung, a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute, said China had gone to great lengths to manage Ms Bachelet’s UN report: downgrading the scope of her visit to China, curating opportunities for Ms Bachelet to endorse the Chinese government’s human rights narratives, and delaying the report by a year before trying to suppress it.

“China has turned out to be a formidable player in this regard, indicating its sensitivities to escalation in criticism or international pressure on human rights conditions in Xinjiang,” said Ms Fung, an expert on China in the UN at Macquarie University.

The report was released during a politically sensitive time for Beijing. In less than seven weeks, Mr Xi is scheduled to get an unprecedented third, five-year term as leader at a Communist Party conclave.

An international chorus has called on Beijing to follow Ms Bachelet’s recommendations, which include releasing all people arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang, clarifying the whereabouts of family members reported missing and co-operating with the UN’s International Labour Organisation to make sure there is no forced labour.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the report authoritatively described China‘s “appalling treatment” of ethnic and religious minority groups.

“This report deepens and reaffirms our grave concern regarding the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity that PRC (People’s Republic of China) government authorities are perpetrating against Uyghurs, who are predominantly Muslim, and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” Mr Blinken said.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the European Union, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Taiwan also called on China to address the concerns raised in the report.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/after-disappearing-uighurs-beijing-tries-to-vanish-un-report/news-story/a29ae4879d050ca614c1a2c529b95e88

>>17475500

Penny Wong urges Beijing to act on UN’s damning Xinjiang report

WILL GLASGOW - SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has called for Beijing to address the damning findings in an authoritative UN investigation into China’s widespread human rights atrocities in Xinjiang.

The UN report – informed by years of research and first-hand testimonies by Uighurs and other minorities – found serious human rights violations had been committed in China’s far west, including torture, rape and other violations that may constitute “crimes against humanity”.

Senator Wong said the Albanese government was “deeply concerned” about the findings in the report, which amounted to one of the sharpest international rebukes of Beijing since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

“Australia expects all countries to adhere to their international human rights obligations, and we join with others in the international community in calling on the Chinese government to address the concerns raised in this report,” Senator Wong said.

Experts cited in the UN report estimate more than a million ­Uighurs and other minorities have passed through internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.

Chinese President Xi Jinping defended his approach as “completely correct”, while a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said the UN had behaved as an “accomplice of the US and the West”.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the Albanese government should consider using Australia’s new Magnitsky-style legislation to impose “targeted sanctions” on senior Chinese officials involved in the documented abuses.

“The Coalition would give bipartisan support to any appropriately targeted sanctions, including any reflective of sanctions already applied by the European Union, Canada, US or UK,” Senator Birmingham said.

He also called for Beijing to end its “intimidation and reprisals” against Uighur and other minorities in Australia and elsewhere who have advocated for their family members in Xinjiang.

One of those in Australia’s harassed Uighur community is Adam Turan, whose 79-year-old father was tortured in a detention camp in Xinjiang. His father died just weeks after he was released in 2018.

Mr Turan, who lives in Adelaide, said he was disappointed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet did not call Beijing’s atrocities a “genocide” in her report.

“People, including my father, and my brothers and sister, they all were detained only based on their ethnicity,” Mr Turan told The Australian. “There’s no due process, there’s no trial … I don’t know what else to call it,” he said.

Ms Bachelet was condemned by Uighur activists and human rights groups for delaying her report, which was released 13 minutes before her four-year term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights came to an end on Wednesday evening.

China went to extreme lengths to try to stop its publication, enlisting countries to lobby on its behalf and warning Ms Bachelet to not be influenced by “anti-China forces”.

Australia’s former ambassador to the UN, Gary Quinlan, said much of the criticism of Ms Bachelet failed to understand the realities of international politics.

“She’s produced what is clearly a pretty forceful report. She’s put a premium on its credibility,” Mr Quinlan said.

The UN report cited research by Canberra’s Australian Strategic Policy Institute on China’s detention network in Xinjiang. Beijing was so enraged with ASPI’s influential research that it accused it of “spreading untrue reports” and “peddling lies” in the list of 14 grievances Chinese diplomats gave Canberra in 2020.

China’s diplomats in Geneva continued those attacks in a rambling, propaganda-laden 131-page document published after the UN report. They cited the Australian affiliate of the LaRouche movement – a fringe conspiracy group – in China’s attempt to smear ASPI’s groundbreaking research on Xinjiang’s detention network.

“They’re on the wrong side of history,” said Vicky Xu, the lead researcher on an ASPI report on forced labour in Xinjiang.

“When they don’t have reason on their side, I guess the only people left to corroborate with the propaganda department in Beijing are conspiracy theorists,” she said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/beijing-urged-to-act-on-xinjiang-report/news-story/1b27fe3668d64ece79fbc06d6b649d2e

Gathering of cardinals ‘silent’ on fate of fellow prelate Joseph Zen

TESS LIVINGSTONE - SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

A senior German cardinal has slammed Pope Francis and this week’s consistory of cardinals at the Vatican for remaining silent about the plight of Hong Kong cardinal Joseph Zen.

In an interview with Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and editor of former pope Benedict XVI’s collective works, said Cardinal Zen was facing an “unfair trial’’ in Hong Kong under Chinese law.

But the consistory, on Monday and Tuesday this week, had produced “no document of solidarity, no prayer initiative for him’’, he said. The issue had not been raised at the consistory, Cardinal Mueller said, “not by the Dean, Cardinal Re, nor by the Secretary of State, Parolin, nor by the Pope’’.

Cardinal Mueller said the fear of intervening on behalf of Cardinal Zen was connected with the Vatican’s secret pact with China on the appointment of bishops.

The underground church in China, he said, “is currently persecuted in many areas and is faced with patriotic bishops who are more obedient to the atheistic state of Beijing than to the Pope’’. But he said he would not like to see the silence of the Vatican and the consistory “as indicative of this senior cardinal being consecrated, sacrificed on the altar of reason of state, in order to defend and advance the diplomatic agreement with Beijing. I see this risk and I feel pain”.

Cardinal Zen faces a five-day trial in a fortnight under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, charged with failing to properly register a relief fund set up in 2019 to assist pro-democracy, anti-government protests in 2019.

“I hope he will not be abandoned, Cardinal Mueller said.

“The extraordinary consistory would have been an opportunity to declare full solidarity with Zen on behalf of all the Cardinals of the College. The truth in the face of persecution should always be emphasised.’’

Asked why cardinals at the consistory did not come together to speak out in support of Cardinal Zen, Cardinal Mueller said they had not had an opportunity.

“It is as if we were being treated like first semester students, as if we needed to be indoctrinated, but I don’t want to make controversy,’’ he said.

That matches what another cardinal told The Australian.

Participants were divided into small groups to discuss the Vatican’s new Apostolic Constitution, already in force, with one spokesman from each group reporting back to the whole.

Individual cardinals had minimal opportunity to address the gathering. “It wasn’t really a consistory, just a two-day meeting,’’ the other cardinal said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/gathering-of-cardinals-silent-on-fate-of-fellow-prelate-joseph-zen/news-story/621d42a770222c97dec8f7a1abb39132

>>17458412

PNG flags scaling up of Manus Island naval base

BEN PACKHAM - AUGUST 31, 2022

Papua New Guinea has flagged expansion of the joint Manus Island naval base under a renewed Australia-PNG security partnership, and warned Solomon Islands to “really think carefully” about putting its China relationship ahead of its ties with Australia and the US.

PNG’s new Foreign Minister, Justin Tkatchenko, said the country’s Marape government was prepared for a Chinese backlash over a renegotiated security pact with Australia, but Beijing needed to realise its relationship with PNG was purely economic.

Mr Tkatchenko said PNG’s primary security relationships were with Australia, the US and New Zealand, and the country’s Prime Minister, James Marape, had made clear “we are not dealing with China at a military, defence or security level”.

The Lombrum Naval Base is already being upgraded under a $175m Australian government contract to accommodate PNG’s Guardian-class patrol boats.

Mr Tkatchenko said if the base were expanded further, “it would bring long-term security to that area and the region”, and “be economically good for the people of Manus”.

“I‘m sure China will be very interested to hear what’s going on there, and will probably not be happy,” he said. “But it’s our sovereignty. It’s in our region. And Australia, New Zealand and America have always been a part of PNG’s security issues and supporting our defence force. They are strategic partners.”

He said China was “a big economic partner”, buying PNG’s gas and other resources, but “that‘s where it stops”.

“With Australia, they are not only an economic partner, with trade and other things, they’re also a key ally in defence and security in the region,” he said.

His comments will be widely welcomed by the Albanese government and are in stark contrast to those of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who recently signed a security deal with Beijing and this week slapped a temporary moratorium on visits by US navy ships.

Mr Tkatchenko, a former Australian citizen who was sworn into his position less than a month ago, said Mr Sogavare was exercising his sovereign rights but should remember “decisions today affect decisions in the ­future and relationships in the ­future”.

“I think for Solomon Islands, they need to really think carefully. I can’t judge them and I don’t know the background of … why they won’t allow the US to fuel up there,” he said. “It just seems that it’s unnecessary and these small things might end up to be big things later on.”

Mr Tkatchenko met Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Port Moresby on Tuesday, discussing how the Australia-PNG security agreement could be renewed “seeing as how the situation has changed in the region in the last few years”. His comments follow those of Defence Minister Richard Marles, who said the deep­water Manus port was a “huge strategic asset”, and Australia’s defence ties with PNG were “one of the most significant military relationships that we have”.

Mr Marles, who spoke to Mr Marape in recent days about stepping up the nations’ defence partnership, said the Lombrum Naval Base would be at the core of an ­expanded Australia-PNG defence relationship.

The Sogavare government imposed a temporary ban on naval visits by US ships this week, refusing diplomatic clearance for a US Coast Guard cutter to dock in Honiara to refuel and take on provisions. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration was dis­appointed at the moratorium but expected future clearances would be provided to US ships.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/png-flags-scaling-up-of-manus-island-naval-base/news-story/3baedebd368297c481be460520e00f5b

Analysis: Unpredictable Solomon Islands fuels U.S. concern as China's influence grows

Kirsty Needham - September 2, 2022

SYDNEY, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Months after the Solomon Islands struck a security pact with China, its leader has repeatedly appeared to snub the United States, heightening Washington's concern but not deterring it from trying to keep the Pacific nation out of Beijing's orbit.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare's unpredictable diplomacy will make it hard for the United States to make up lost ground with the pivotal island nation as China seeks to expand its security presence, former diplomats and other analysts say.

As part of a push to boost engagement and counter China's growing influence, the administration of President Joe Biden plans to open an embassy for the first time in three decades in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago that switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019 and in April sealed the security agreement with China.

Washington has since faced a series of rebuffs from Sogavare, who continues to keep dialogue open on U.S. aid.

Last month he skipped a planned appearance with a senior U.S. official at a World War Two commemoration. His government did not respond to a U.S. Coast Guard vessel's request to refuel, a move Washington called "regrettable". Sogavare then announced he was barring all foreign navy ships from port - while he was welcoming a U.S. Navy hospital ship on a humanitarian mission. read more

China's state-owned Global Times newspaper said in an editorial that the prime minister was "counteracting" against Washington.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment. A spokesperson for Senator Marsha Blackburn, who last week visited Sogavare, said it was "extremely concerning that Solomon Islands are blocking military vessels from their waters".

Sogavare has a history of erratic behaviour, which contributed to him previously losing office as prime minister, said Australian National University Pacific expert Graeme Smith.

Michael Green, a former senior U.S. national security official, said the halt to navy visits is a "net loss" for the United States, which had access before the deal with China, but it does not mean "the game is over".

"We also don't know whether Prime Minister Sogavare is paralysed with indecision given the tough geopolitics - or in the pocket of Beijing - or both," said Green, who heads the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. "Either way, the U.S. and Australia have to keep at engagement and prove we are trusted partners."

Sogavare's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'PRESSURED FROM ALL SIDES'

Sogavare is pushing back against pro-democracy messaging from Washington to avoid being a pawn in a superpower contest, said Mihai Sora, an Australian former diplomat in the Solomon Islands. "Particularly to Sogavare, it is antagonising."

His abrupt absence from the 80th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Guadalcanal played into China's goals of keeping U.S. influence at bay, said Sora, a research fellow at Australia's Lowy Institute think tank.

"Of all the Pacific islands leaders, Sogavare is the one that is most accommodating to China's strategic intent," he said.

Washington had little engagement with the Solomon Islands before Honiara sealed the pact with China and has a lot of diplomatic ground to make up, Sora said.

Catherine Egbert-Gray, who frequently met Sogavare when she was U.S. ambassador to the Solomon Islands, said China's assertive diplomacy only reinforces the U.S. decision to increase development assistance and reopen its embassy in Honiara.

Around the time Sogavare recognised Beijing, "he appeared confident he could maintain good and strong relations with all diplomatic partners," she said. "I hope he remains committed to this goal and does not allow unsavoury influences to break down long-held friendships to the long-term detriment of the nation."

James Batley, who from 2004 to 2006 led the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, an international security response to violent clashes there, said Honiara's foreign navy moratorium likely also applies to Chinese vessels.

"It is a way of buying them breathing space," he said. "I do think they feel pressured from all sides".

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/unpredictable-solomon-islands-fuels-us-concern-chinas-influence-grows-2022-09-02/

>>17481731

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare fast-tracks bill to amend constitution and delay elections

Stephen Dziedzic and Annika Burgess - 2 September 2022

The Solomon Islands opposition has accused Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of trying to "bulldoze" his contentious bill to delay next year's elections through parliament.

Mr Sogavare wants to amend the country's constitution to extend parliament until after it hosts the Pacific Games in November 2023, arguing that Solomon Islands cannot afford to hold both major events in the same year.

But the move has angered the opposition, which says the move is profoundly anti-democratic and risks stoking fresh instability in the Pacific Island country.

Now Mr Sogavare has announced the constitutional amendment will be debated in parliament next week, effectively allowing him to dodge a parliamentary committee hearing where opposition MPs and civil society groups could weigh in on the bill.

Opposition Leader Matthew Wale responded angrily to the manoeuvre, calling it an "abuse of process".

"Obviously the Prime Minister is not interested in parliamentary practice or good governance, but he wants to shortcut the process," he said.

"It sets a bad precedent for the future. No prime minister or government should see it necessary to shortcut or undermine parliamentary process, especially on a matter of gravity."

Prominent opposition MP Peter Kenilorea Jr also criticised the move, calling it "a massive blow to participatory democracy in our nation" and a "sad day for democracy".

In a statement, the Prime Minister's Office rejected Mr Wale's comments, saying the bill had been "on notice" for four weeks during which the the Bills and Legislation Committee (BLC) could have reviewed it.

"It is the BLC that has NOT carried out its mandate and now trying to blame the Government, because the Government has exposed the failure of the BLC," the statement said.

"It is a sad day indeed for our democracy when a Parliamentary Standing Committee such as the BLC is not functioning."

'We are very suspicious'

National elections are held every four years, and parliament is due to be dissolved in May 2023.

Ruth Liloqula, the chief executive of Transparency Solomon Islands, said the Prime Minister had dropped a "bombshell" on the people of Solomon Islands.

"This is something that they do not want to see happen," she said.

Ms Liloqula said while the move was not illegal, the Pacific Games was not a valid reason to amend the constitution.

"We are very suspicious about the moves that he's making and also all the reasons that he's given," she said.

"The provision that they're using in the constitution is not meant for a games event. It is meant for a matter of life and death and for unforeseen crisis beyond our control."

Ms Liloqula is calling on the country's development partners to step in and help fund the elections so they can take place at the same time as the Pacific Games.

The Australian government has been watching the debate closely but has been wary of wading into the fray, partly because it does not want to anger Mr Sogavare or be accused of meddling in Solomon Islands' domestic politics.

The Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, has repeatedly stressed that the timing of the election is an internal question for Solomon Islands.

But he has also stressed the importance of the bill going through the democratic checks and balances, telling the ABC last month: "We obviously make the point that there's a long way to go in this process and it's important that the proposed change goes through the Solomon Islands Parliamentary process."

The government has not yet commented on Mr Sogavare's most recent announcement.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-02/solomon-islands-election-delay-bid-manasseh-sogavare/101401662

>>17458335

U.S. Coast Guard Arrives for Planned Port Visit in Cairns, Australia

Chief Warrant Officer Sara Muir, U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia / Sector Guam - Sept. 1, 2022

CAIRNS, Australia - The Sentinel-class fast response cutter USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC 1140) crew arrived in Cairns on Aug. 31, for engagements with Australian Defence and Home Affairs partners and local representatives.

"A cutter arrival to Australia is another first, not only for U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia but also our fast response cutter fleet and is a reminder of our Service's commitment to our partners and our enduring presence in the region," said Capt. Nick Simmons, commander U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia/Sector Guam. "The ship driver in me was envious when Lt. Hofschneider reported 'OH transiting southbound along Inner Great Barrier Reef Passage enroute to Cairns. No issues or concerns.' Not the kind of thing many Coast Guard members have ever written or said."

Before arrival in port, Oliver Henry's crew operated at sea with aerial support from the Australian Border Forces in the Torres Strait. While in port, the two nations will continue to build on the relationship forged at sea. Upon arrival, the crew was greeted by representatives from the Royal Australian Navy HMAS Cairns and the U.S. embassy. They were also guests of the Cairns Regional Council.

“It is an honor for Oliver Henry and her crew to visit and host our Australian friends,” said Lt. Freddy Hofschneider, Oliver Henry's commanding officer. “The U.S. and Australia have been standing side-by-side for more than 100 years. This is more than a partnership, it is mateship. The U.S. Coast Guard looks forward to more opportunities to with the Australian Border Force, Royal Australian Navy, and other Australian partners to advance the rule of law at sea.”

During their stop in Cairns, members of Oliver Henry anticipate engagements with local officials and the community while also experiencing local culture.

The U.S. Coast Guard is conducting a routine deployment in Oceania as part of Operation Blue Pacific, working alongside Allies, building maritime domain awareness, and sharing best practices with partner nation navies and coast guards. Op Blue Pacific is an overarching multi-mission U.S. Coast Guard endeavor promoting security, safety, sovereignty, and economic prosperity in Oceania while strengthening relationships with our regional partners.

The Oliver Henry is the 40th Sentinel-class fast response cutter. The ship was commissioned along with its sister ships, Myrtle Hazard and Frederick Hatch, in Guam in July 2021. In the time since, the crew has participated in several search and rescue cases, completed a counternarcotics patrol off Guam with the Japan Coast Guard, and conducted sovereignty and fisheries patrols in the Forces Micronesia/Sector Guam area of responsibility.

https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3147606/us-coast-guard-arrives-for-planned-port-visit-in-cairns-australia/

>>17475424

UK tried to use our ban on Huawei as leverage

JACQUELIN MAGNAY - SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Britain tried to use Australia’s unilateral decision to exclude Huawei from its next generation 5G network as a prime reason for why it should be able to make up its own mind about security risks and use the Chinese company.

In top-level meetings between the US and Britain, the Americans pointed out that the risk of using Huawei would undermine the entire security network of all Five Eyes partners: the intelligence network of Australia, Britain, the US, Canada and New Zealand.

Talks between the White House and the British cabinet became so heated over the issue that they erupted into a slanging match, a new book has revealed.

Top spies referred to Australia’s decision as to why Britain should be able to do the same and not come under pressure from other Five Eyes countries.

At the time, Britain didn’t want to drop Huawei from its networks, believing it could manage the risk and use Huawei, which was a much cheaper option than European competitors.

The Secret History of The Five Eyes by Richard Kerbaj has examined the negotiations around the back-pedalling of the British to finally ban Huawei.

ASIO chief Mike Burgess, who had been head of Australia’s signals directorate, told Kerbaj Australia had been “pursuing the defence of our national interest” when it banned Huawei.

“Australia recognised this problem early because we recognised that mature 5G would be about much more than faster phones for your kids to watch cat videos on,” Mr Burgess said.

“We knew that mature 5G would be like a nervous system for the economy – it would enable and connect critical functions in a way that made it a critical function, too. We also understood threats faced by our region where we’d seen China change over the last 10 years.”

But in May 2019, Britain was still intending on using Huawei for its 5G network.

Kerbaj writes: “Within minutes of the White House delegation’s arrival at the Cabinet Office in May 2019, (head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, Ciaran) Martin and other senior British officials, including the deputy national security Adviser Madeleine Alessandri, were effectively shouted at by one of their guests for around five hours. That guest was Matthew Pottinger, a former US Marines intelligence officer parachuted into the White House in early 2017 to become the National Security Council’s senior director for Asia. He was known for his distrust of China’s authoritarian regime.”

Martin recalled of those meetings: “The problem was: on our side we didn’t think Huawei’s limited involvement in UK 5G was the most important thing in a much wider strategic challenge. Whereas the US were only interested in that part of the problem, for reasons we couldn’t fathom.”

He added: “The whole thing about Britain breaking the Five Eyes unity was ridiculous, because Australia had made its own decision on Huawei unilaterally”.

In 2018 Australia had told the Five Eyes partners that there were technical problems with Huawei’s kit after the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull assessed there was no way to counter the Chinese risk.

“It was obvious that they [Huawei] had both a legal and a political obligation to comply with the wishes of the Chinese Communist Party,” Turnbull said in the book, which has been released in the UK, and will be available in Australia from October 5.

“We were identifying a loaded gun, not a smoking one.” He added: ‘The old techniques of restricting high-risk vendors to the edge of the network and away from the core was no longer viable. I had raised this issue with the Americans, including President Trump, from 2017. The provider of a nation’s 5G network, or much of it, had considerable capability for disruption, interference and espionage.”

In January 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson approved Huawei to build the 5G network, excluding it from any access to military and nuclear sites and national infrastructure.

But US president Donald Trump then forced Britain’s hand, introducing sanctions in May 2020 that banned Huawei from using semiconductors reliant on US technology.

Mr Johnson was forced finally to ban Huawei because Britain’s spies couldn’t guarantee the security of Huawei products.

Martin says in the book: “In reality, anyone can have a go at hacking anything. We in the UK, thanks to the US sanctions, are now entirely dependent on Nokia and Ericsson. For sure, we trust their boards of directors. But are we seriously saying that just because they’re not Chinese, they can’t be hacked? By neighbouring Russia, for example? Or China?

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/uk-tried-to-use-our-ban-on-huawei-as-leverage/news-story/f7abf61884694dd3f1dcff953b5fecc8

>>17469889

AUKUS nuclear powered submarines to be built in Australia

Nuclear-powered submarines are set to be built in Australia as the AUKUS alliance demands we pull our weight in military manufacturing.

Charles Miranda - September 2, 2022

Nuclear-powered submarines will be built locally, as Australia moves to shore up its defences ahead of any potential global conflict.

News Corp Australia has learned allies the United States and UK are counting on Australia to boost sovereign manufacturing capability, so they have more industrial bases to call upon.

High-level AUKUS security pact discussions, held this week in the UK, have concluded the likelihood of increased Allied use of our military bases, ports and air fields.

But critically it has been made clear Australia needed to rapidly increase its capability for maintenance and manufacture of their military hardware as well as our own.

The push for Australia to join their war kit production lines and global supply chain includes nuclear-powered submarines, at some point in the future.

On his trip to the UK, Defence Minister Richard Marles agreed, with the commitment welcomed by defence contractors, notably in South Australia whose skilled work force was decimated after the cancelling of the French submarine build contract last year.

Mr Marles told News Corp the previous government was good at spruiking defence industry but never articulated the strategic rationale for why.

“It is critical, fundamentally defence industry plays a really important part in Australia being taken seriously in the world and when we are developing IP in the defence space in this country and working with other countries to provide capability, we are right there in the heart of their interests and that’s a huge impact on building Australia’s strategic (security),” he said.

After meeting with US and UK counterparts, Mr Marles said the 2040 date for Australia’s first nuclear-powered submarine had to be brought forward.

“When we’re talking about the next generation of submarines, what’s really clear is that Australia is going to need to play its part in increasing the industrial base of the three countries,” he said.

“In other words we will need to develop the capacity to build a nuclear-powered submarine in Australia, we’re going to have to add to the combined industrial capacity of the three countries if we want to see a timely supply of the class of submarines in the future.”

He said Australia could also in future contribute to the supply chain of the UK and Canada for its new frigate, which were commensurate with Australia’s Hunter class warship currently being developed.

“We will see supply chains be more global, is really the point I’m making. But we definitely need to develop increased industrial capacity in Australia to add to the net capability of the three AUKUS countries.”

Tim Stoddard, mechanical engineer and Queensland state manager for Headland Machinery which had a contract in the previous submarine project, said the cancellation of the French designed submarine set sovereign capability in Australia back at least five years.

He said even if the first AUKUS submarines had to be purchased overseas for expediency, it was essential manufacturing assembly and sustainment be here.

“My message on behalf of Australian manufacturing is to really support the Australia industry content contribute to any defence program in terms of enabling local businesses a chance to be part of the program for local jobs and economies … and strategic and security interests,” he said.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/aukus-nuclear-powered-submarines-to-be-built-in-australia/news-story/5568d7ea887a330e383e014fc36d3511

>>17463297

Australia training preps F-35 pilots for long-range battles that could end in dogfight

SETH ROBSON, STARS AND STRIPES - September 2, 2022

RAAF TINDAL, Australia – Precision-guided missiles mean today’s fighter pilots can engage targets long before they’re close enough to see.

During Pitch Black drills in Australia’s Northern Territory, U.S. and Australian pilots are honing the skills they need to carry out long-range missile strikes. The 21-day exercise involving 17 nations and hundreds of airmen ends Thursday.

But they’re also using the opportunity to sharpen their ship-to-ship air combat abilities, otherwise known as dogfighting.

That means performing in real life the kind of aerobatic maneuvers filmed for “Top Gun: Maverick,” now playing at the theater on Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal.

Training for dogfights means the aircraft are relatively close, Capt. Brandon Howard, an F-35B Lightning II pilot with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, told Stars and Stripes on a dusty road near Tindal’s runway Thursday.

“Any air-to-air engagement in the modern arena runs the risk of collapsing down into a visual engagement,” said Howard, who has been flying from Tindall for the past month.

Australia’s F-35As can fly 1.6 times the speed of sound and pull 9 Gs in a turn, which makes the pilot feel like they weigh nine times their normal weight, according to David, a 28-year-old RAAF flight lieutenant from Brisbane, Australia.

Australian F-35A pilots are only authorized to provide first names to the media, he said by phone Friday from RAAF Darwin.

“The F-35A has a long-range stealth game plan but we still train dogfighting,” he said. “That’s some of my favorite training.”

The stealth jets carry only four missiles, but their cockpits have much larger display screens in the cockpit than older fighters, giving their pilots a wider view and allow them to pinpoint their adversaries more easily, David said.

“Yesterday we flew a mission where the Australians were flying with (South) Korean F-16s,” he said. “The F-35s would stay at the back and allocate targets to the F-16s.”

The Marine Corps deployed 12 F-35Bs – capable of short landings and vertical takeoffs – to Pitch Black from Marine Fighter Attack Squadrons 242 and 121, both based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

They spent two weeks training with Australian F-35As from the Tindal-based No. 75 Squadron ahead of Pitch Black, Howard said.

The Australian jets are operating out of RAAF Darwin during the exercise, he said.

It’s the first time Howard, whose been flying F-35Bs for four years, has been to Australia.

Since he reported to MCAS Iwakuni in 2020, he has mostly trained in Japan, sometimes with F-35As from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at Misawa Air Base in northeast Japan, he said.

There’s more space to fly in Australia than there is in Japan, Howard said.

“It’s nice to be able to take off and make a left or right turn and be in the (training) airspace,” he said. “In Japan, there is more civilian air traffic and we have to transit to airspace where we train.”

The F-35Bs can operate from amphibious ships with shorter decks than conventional aircraft carriers, unlike the Australians’ F-35As, which can operate only from conventional airfields.

However, the Australian jets can go farther and faster and “pull more Gs” when they turn, Howard said.

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2022-09-02/australia-pitch-black-f35-dogfights-7186528.html

Darwin nightclub bouncer Hayden Summers found guilty of causing serious harm to US marine

Felicity James - 2 September 2022

A Darwin security guard has been found guilty of unlawfully causing serious harm to a US marine by striking him outside a nightclub.

The jury took just over four hours to reach a unanimous verdict in the Northern Territory Supreme Court.

Hayden Summers, 34, had pleaded not guilty to one charge of unlawfully causing serious harm, along with an alternative charge of negligently causing serious harm, relying on arguments of self-defence.

The incident happened in the early hours of April 11 last year after US marine Glen Thomason was ejected from Monsoons nightclub in the city's bar district.

During the trial, the court heard Mr Thomason's injuries led to him spending a "significant amount of time" in hospital and then rehabilitation after having part of his skull removed.

The jury members examined CCTV footage of the interaction between the two men, which had no recorded audio.

They also heard evidence from nearby witnesses about what was said.

"Unusually in this case we have most of the witnesses — who were bouncers — who were sober," Justice Jenny Blokland said in her summing-up of the case for the jury on Thursday afternoon.

"I have to tell you that's very unusual in a Darwin case emanating from Mitchell Street."

During her summary of the evidence, Justice Blokland said "clearly Mr Thomason was disgruntled at his rejection" and he had not been told why he was removed from the nightclub.

According to some witnesses, Mr Thomason was heard saying, "I could kill you, I'm a marine," or words to that effect, she said.

Mr Summers gave evidence that Mr Thomason's hand gestures were threatening, while the Crown argued he was just trying to explain how he had been "manhandled" by another security guard.

Justice Blokland told the jury it was unclear if it was the strike to Mr Thomason's head or hitting the road that knocked him unconscious and caused the injuries, and by what degree.

Jury members were asked to consider if there was a reasonable possibility Mr Summers had acted in self-defence.

Justice Blokland reminded the jury of arguments from Crown prosecutor Ian Rowbottom that the strike to the side of Mr Thomason's head was not a reasonable response.

He argued Mr Summers failed to explore options other than "knocking someone out", including moving backwards, asking colleagues for help or just pushing Mr Thomason away.

Mr Rowbottom described evidence about threatening gestures as "a lie" that did not match the CCTV footage and he told the jury Mr Thomason "did not deserve a blow like that", Justice Blokland said.

The jury was reminded of Mr Summers's evidence that he was "an experienced crowd controller" who had worked for 15 years in the industry and was the head of security at Monsoons nightclub.

Mr Summers gave evidence that he was trying to de-escalate the situation and had told Mr Thomason to "calm down".

Justice Blokland said his evidence was that the strength of his hit was about "a six out of 10" and he did not mean to hurt Mr Thomason.

His evidence was that he feared Mr Thomason was about to punch him because of his hand gestures and a "death stare", Justice Blokland said.

Mr Summer's barrister Peter Maley had argued: "The slap was not unreasonable, it's not as though he used a knife or a kick in the head."

Outside court, Mr Summers's father said he was "disappointed" with the verdict.

A sentencing hearing will begin on September 8.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-02/darwin-bouncer-guilty-of-us-marine-serious-harm-nt-trial/101400804

‘Severely jeopardises peace’: US angers China with billion dollar arms sale to Taiwan

Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina - September 3, 2022

Washington: The US State Department has approved a potential $US1.1 billion ($1.61 billion) sale of military equipment to Taiwan, including 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, with China threatening to take countermeasures.

The Pentagon announced the package on Saturday AEST after China’s aggressive military drills around Taiwan following a visit to the island last month by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to travel to Taipei in years.

News of the potential sale came as it was also announced that US President Joe Biden would host leaders of Pacific Island nations at a September 28-29 gathering in Washington in the latest US effort to step up ties with the region increasingly courted by China.

An administration official said the White House had invited 12 Pacific Islands countries, including the Solomon Islands, which in April struck a security pact with China, heightening Washington’s concern about Beijing’s growing influence.

The military equipment includes Sidewinder missiles, which can be used for air-to-air and surface-attack missions, at a cost of some $85.6 million, Harpoon anti-ship missiles at an estimated $355 million cost and support for Taiwan’s surveillance radar program for an estimated $665.4 million, the Pentagon’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency said.

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement the possible arms sale “severely jeopardises China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

“China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures in light of the development of the situation,” he said.

Biden’s administration said the package has been under consideration for some time and was developed in consultation with Taiwan and US lawmakers.

“As the PRC continues to increase pressure on Taiwan – including through heightened military air and maritime presence around Taiwan – and engages in attempts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, we’re providing Taiwan with what it needs to maintain its self-defense capabilities,” Laura Rosenberger, White House senior director for China and Taiwan, said in a statement.

It was reported last month that the Biden administration was planning new equipment for Taiwan but that the equipment would sustain Taiwan’s current military systems and fulfil existing orders, not offer new capabilities, despite the heightened tensions that followed Pelosi’s visit.

The Pentagon said the equipment and support announced would not alter the basic military balance in the region. US officials said they did not reflect any change in policy toward Taiwan.

“These proposed sales are routine cases to support Taiwan’s continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said, requesting anonymity.

Taiwan’s defence ministry expressed its thanks, adding that China’s recent “provocative” activities represented a serious threat and the arms sale would help it face China’s military pressure.

“At the same time, it also demonstrates that it will help our country strengthen its overall defence capabilities and jointly maintain the security and peace of the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region,” the ministry said in a statement.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, said his organisation opposed what he termed a “limited approach” to arms sales to Taiwan.

“As the (China’s) People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently demonstrated in its mock blockade, the island faces a range of threats that require a range of capabilities. To deny the island the ability to mount a full defence will, over time, create new gaps in Taiwan’s defences that the PLA can exploit,” Hammond-Chambers said in a statement.

The order reflects continued US support for Taiwan as Taipei faces pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and has never ruled out using force to bring the democratically ruled island under its control.

The sales must be reviewed by Congress, but both Democratic and Republican congressional aides said they do not expect opposition. There have been at least two other visits to Taiwan by members of Congress from both parties since Pelosi’s visit, as well as by governors of U.S. states, all condemned by Beijing.

Taipei says that as the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island, it has no right to claim it.

https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/severely-jeopardises-peace-us-angers-china-with-billion-dollar-arms-sale-to-taiwan-20220903-p5bf4j.html

>>17481731

Beijing-backed autocracy in our backyard with ‘Cuba in the Pacific

DAVE SHARMA - SEPTEMBER 3, 2022

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Those who saw the images of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare greeting Anthony Albanese with a warm hug in Suva several weeks back could be forgiven for thinking Australia’s challenges with our Solomon Islands relationship were behind us.

It was only a few months prior, in April, that Sogavare had signed a five-year security agreement with China, paving the way for potential deployment of police and military forces from Beijing to the Pacific island state.

This agreement was met with consternation and alarm in Canberra and other Western capitals.

It was seen, correctly, as a further attempt by China to push its strategic interests in the southwest Pacific and establish security and military infrastructure beyond its Second Island Chain. And a move that would, unhelpfully, introduce the dynamics of great-power contest into this politically fragile region.

Senator Penny Wong, now Foreign Minister, declared the signing of this pact “the worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War II”. At the time, Albanese linked the pact with Australia’s climate change policies, claiming we had been relegated to the “naughty corner” in the Pacific because of inadequate emissions reductions.

So with Albanese now having got off to a warm start with Sogavare, and the government having increased Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target to 43 per cent, is Solomon Islands less of a worry for Australia? Far from it.

This week the Solomon Islands government declared all US Navy vessels will be prohibited from entering its ports, pending new approval procedures being put in place. This follows earlier incidents of US Coast Guard vessel the Oliver Henry and Royal Navy vessel HMS Spey being prevented from making routine port calls in Solomon Islands because the government did not respond to standard diplomatic clearance requests.

Last month, Sogavare’s government sought to push back elections due in mid-2023. A bill tabled in parliament seeks to amend the constitution and extend the term of the parliament and government by a year.

Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company banned from bidding for 5G contracts in Australia and a number of Western nations, has been awarded a contract to build 161 mobile phone towers across Solomon Islands. This is to be financed with a $100m loan from the Export Import Bank of China, in a deal being criticised for not stacking up economically and posing a substantial financial risk to Solomon Islands.

Meanwhile the Solomon Islands’ publicly funded national broadcaster, Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation, has been ordered to engage in self-censorship, only broadcasting content that portrays the nation’s government in a positive light.

And foreign journalists have been told they may be denied entry to Solomon Islands if they criticise its ties to China.

Extending the term of the Prime Minister. Postponing elections. Censoring the media. Switching security partners. Debt diplomacy.

All this is redolent of an autocratic leader during the time of the Cold War. But this is happening now. And not in Africa or the Middle East, but in Australia’s own neighbourhood.

Solomon Islands is on a deeply concerning trajectory under Sogavare.

(continued)

>>17487779

2/2

Australia and our allies have effectively operated a Monroe Doctrine in the southwest Pacific. We have ensured the region remains firmly within the Western security orbit, and deterred intervention and meddling by foreign powers.

China’s growing ambitions are now challenging this, and we must get to grips with the scale of the challenge. It’s not simply a matter of turning up at meetings, giving hugs and making the right noises on climate change. Australia needs a strategy to check these moves and provide alternatives.

When Huawei was planning to build the undersea cable to Papua New Guinea, the Coalition government stepped in and financed the Coral Sea Cable project, keeping this critical infrastructure in sovereign hands.

When Digicel Pacific, one of the major telecommunications providers in the Pacific, looked like it might be bought out by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, the Coalition government supported Telstra to buy it instead.

We established the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific, providing an alternative financing vehicle to China’s state-owned banks.

What is the Albanese government proposing to keep Solomon Islands in our camp?

Any such strategy must be more than just development and infrastructure. It also needs to be about institutions and governance.

The prospective establishment of a client-state autocracy in our neighbourhood – a Cuba in the Pacific – demands urgent action.

The Australian government should start by speaking out against these recent moves to curtail press freedom and postpone elections, topics on which it has been conspicuously silent.

It should also energise the Pacific Islands Forum – which is committed to upholding democracy through the Biketawa Declaration – to become involved.

This is what the future of strategic competition in our region looks like. Australia needs to step up our game. Patting ourselves on the back about higher emissions reduction targets and declaring “job done” will not cut it.

Dave Sharma is the former Liberal MP for Wentworth and ambassador to Israel from 2013-2017.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/beijingbacked-autocracy-in-our-backyard-with-cuba-in-the-pacific/news-story/85382be1f9b1038e058c0769e02a5230

>>17458432

MRF-D 22 Ground Combat Element Integrates into 1st Brigade to Enhance Combined Littoral Lethality

Capt. Joseph DiPietro - 08.27.2022

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA. – The Marine Rotational Force-Darwin (MRF-D) 22 ground combat element (GCE), led by 3d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (3/7), participated in exercise PREDATOR’S RUN, integrating into the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) 1st Brigade to enhance combined and littoral capabilities in a simulated combat environment from August 20-27.

“Our primary objective is to enhance combined arms integration with our Australian allies,” said GCE commander Lieutenant Colonel Tyler Holt, while preparing to lead his Marines and Sailors into the exercise. “PREDATOR’S RUN provides us that opportunity and our Marines and Sailors are excited to build even more proficiency with 1st Brigade.”

PREDATOR’S RUN offered a unique training opportunity to MRF-D in many ways. The exercise simulated a littoral combat scenario, similar to 1st Marine Division’s STEEL KNIGHT, where training areas represented key terrain in an archipelagic environment. PREDATOR’S RUN is an early step in 1st Brigade’s ongoing integration into littoral combat, a skillset the Marine Corps is excited to help with.

“Combined arms fighting is tough work, but incredibly rewarding, and training with MRF-D allows us to increase our capabilities,” said ADF Major Anthony Purdy, the operations officer for the Australian 1st Brigade, while briefing 1st Marine Division Commanding General, Major General Benjamin Watson during his recent visit. “This exercise represents a shift back to warfighting for us after a lot of support to domestic operations, so it is a great opportunity and we’re lucky to have our Marine teammates at our side.”

Another unique aspect for the MRF-D infantry was the chance to train alongside main battle tanks. The ADF supported PREDATOR’S RUN with elements of the 1st Armoured Regiment, including M1A1 Abrams, the tank Marines used to suppress and destroy enemy positions in the historic battle of Fallujah and across the Middle East in operations IRAQI FREEDOM and ENDURING FREEDOM.

“It was an exciting and interesting experience to train alongside the Australians during PREDATOR’S RUN, especially their tanks,” offered Sergeant Anfernee Richardson, a squad leader with 3/7 who stepped up as a platoon sergeant for the exercise. “The Australians brought their weapon systems to the fight, and we brought ours, and it was great to integrate those into the same team to increase our effectiveness and lethality.”

In addition to the Australians, PREDATOR’S RUN offered MRF-D the chance to train alongside Philippine and Malaysian soldiers, further increasing the international interaction of the deployment. Both the Philippines and Malaysia are supporting exercise PITCH BLACK alongside the MRF-D aviation combat element, but MRF-D greatly enjoyed getting into the details of combined maneuver alongside our regional allies and partners.

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/428289/mrf-d-22-ground-combat-element-integrates-into-1st-brigade-enhance-combined-littoral-lethality

>>17458335

>>17481780

‘It’s an honour’: US Coast Guard ship makes historic stopover

Fresh from Torres Strait operations a US Coast Guard cutter arrived in Cairns after being turned away from the Solomon Islands amid a new ban on warship visits. How Cairns welcomed the ship and crew.

Peter Carruthers - September 3, 2022

FRESH from operations in the Torres Strait the US Coast Guard cutter Oliver Henry has arrived in Cairns after being turned away from Honiara amid a Solomon Islands ban on warship visits.

The Sentinel-class fast response cutter can be seen in social media images steaming through the Cairns seaway before tying up at the HMAS Cairns naval base alongside HMAS Leeuwin last Thursday.

The arrival follows the joint US Navy and Australian Border Force training operation in the Torres Strait dubbed Exercise Fortune Guard.

US Coast Guard Micronesia and Guam sector commander captain Nick Simmons said it was the first time a Coast Guard vessel of its kind had visited Australia.

“(The) cutter arrival to Australia is another first, not only for US Coast Guard Forces Micronesia but also our fast response cutter fleet and is a reminder of our service’s commitment to our partners and our enduring presence in the region,” Capt Simmons said.

Oliver Henry’s commanding officer Lt. Freddy Hofschneider described what it meant to arrive on Australian shores.

“It’s an honour for Oliver Henry and her crew to visit and host our Australian friends,” he said.

The ship was met at HMAS Cairns by US embassy officials before a delegation from the ship visited chambers of the Cairns Regional Council hosted by Mayor Bob Manning and Deputy Mayor Terry James.

“I think we will see more naval ships from the US and New Zealand in the future,” Mayor Manning said.

On August 31 Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare formally banned foreign navy vessels from the country’s waters until further notice.

“A review on processes and procedures to permit naval vessels is current. This means no naval vessels will be permitted to enter the country,” a spokesman for Mr Sogavare said.

“It applies to all countries in the world intending to make naval visits to Solomon Islands.”

It’s understood the cutter Oliver Henry was caught up in the lockout and denied access to the country’s capital Honiara last week.

The Australian High Commission in Honiara was advised of the review on August 29, and received formal notification on August 31.

The US Coast Guard is conducting a routine deployment in Oceania as part of Operation Blue Pacific.

An Australian Department of Defence spokesman said the ship was in Cairns to take on provisions, water and fuel before departing port on Monday.

https://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/its-an-honour-us-coast-guard-ship-makes-historic-stopover/news-story/3e2b866bb0e848b221a0107cd046bd24

Chris Bowen Tweet

The Biden Administration and Albanese Government are working closely together on climate policy.

Always great to compare notes with the President’s Special Envoy on Climate, @JohnKerry @ClimateEnvoy

https://twitter.com/Bowenchris/status/1565834358245969920

—

Q Post #4196

May 10 2020 00:07:52 (EST)

THE SHADOW PRESIDENCY.

THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT.

Why did [Hussein] shadow POTUS re: [F] trips?

Why did [Kerry] shadow POTUS re: Iran?

Why did [Kerry] shadow POTUS re: [CLAS 1-99]?

Why did [McMaster] target and remove loyal intel operatives inside WH?

Why did [McMaster] prevent declas-disclose to Congress?

Why did [Coats] prevent declas-disclose to Congress?

Why did [Bolton] prevent decals-disclose to Congress?

Why did [Ryan] prevent subpoena power of (R) Congress?

Why did [Rosenstein] work to entrap and install blockade [SC]?

Why did [Rosenstein] install [Mueller] knowing zero evidence of Russia collusion?

Why did [Mueller] attempt to retake FBI DIR position?

Why did [Mueller][Rosenstein] drag out SC investigation if known no Russia collusion pre + start?

Why did select members of [NSC][Vindman] actively leak to MSM?

Why did select members of [NSC][Vindman] orchestrate fake whistleblower report w/ [Schiff][Atkinson][CLAS 1-9] to sabotage and initiate impeachment?

Why did [Pelosi] rush impeachment investigation?

Why did [Pelosi] then hold impeachment article(s) until Jan 15?

Why did [Schiff] push false 'Russia evidence' narrative post closed door interviews [no evidence of collusion]?

Why did [Schiff] coordinate w/ WH NSC [through proxy] to arrange for Ukraine whistleblower?

Why did [Schiff] actively leak knowingly false statements during-post classified sessions to MSM?

Why did [Schiff] illegally surveil [phone] members of WH legal team, media, and Congress?

What Pentagon officials [CLAS 1-99 _subject] tendered resignation within a 2 week period?

Why did [Omarosa Manigault Newman] attempt to entrap POTUS through secret and illegal recordings?

Why did [Soros] finance anti-POTUS events and organizations across US?

Why did [CLAS 1-99] organize and push propaganda [smear] campaign through use of MSM & Hollywood?

[CLAS 1-99][F]

[CLAS 1-99][F]

[CLAS 1-99][F]

[CLAS 1-99][F]

[CLAS 1-99]

[CLAS 1-99]

[CLAS 1-99]

[CLAS 1-99]

[CLAS 1-99] x 49

INSURGENCY.

IRREGULAR WARFARE.

THE GREATEST POLITICAL SCANDAL IN HISTORY.

What are they trying to prevent?

Who are they trying to protect?

Q

https://qanon.pub/#4196

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

Federal police fear hike in child forced marriage cases as overseas travel restrictions lift

Carla Hildebrandt - 4 September 2022

Kubra* was just 11 years old when she became engaged to her older cousin.

The Sydney girl tried to convince her family the relationship was "toxic", but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

At 16, she went on what was supposed to be an overseas holiday to visit family. Instead, she was handed an invitation to her wedding, which was organised without her consent.

"I refused to marry him but my fiance's family threatened to harm me and took away my passport," Kubra said.

"I was incredibly stressed and depressed because of the whole situation."

She reluctantly went through with the marriage, but managed to end it when she got back home, by agreeing to pay her in-laws $30,000.

Kubra's story is one of many serious cases of forced marriage reported to authorities, who fear a spike this year, as overseas travel picks up.

Police and government agencies are researching how to tackle the complex issue, which statistics show, is most prevalent in NSW and Victoria.

In the past year, there have been more than 80 reports from across the country to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), with almost half of them involving children under 18.

Ms Argy works at youth organisation Taldumande, which provides accommodation for teenagers who are being pressured to marry against their will.

"There is financial gain. Money is exchanged, properties perhaps, and girls are literally being sold off," Ms Argy said.

"They can be groomed from a very young age, as young as six or seven."

Forced marriage became a criminal offence in Australia in 2013.

Despite this, there has not been a single conviction.

The murder of Ruqia Haidari, 21, who was allegedly sold by her mother to a man for $15,000 in 2019, only to be murdered months later, sent shock waves across the nation.

Mohammad Ali Halimi killed the Victorian woman with a kitchen knife in their Perth home in January 2020, where she moved after marrying him.

In August last year, he was sentenced to 19 years behind bars.

Ms Haidari's mother, Sakina Muhammad Jan has pleaded not guilty to coercing her daughter into the forced marriage, with the matter currently before the courts.

Commander Hilda Sirec, from the AFP, leads a team that investigates child trafficking.

She said the unit struggled to prosecute offenders, with many victims not wanting to speak out against their families, who are often the perpetrators.

Commander Sirec is concerned cases will surge as COVID-19 border restrictions ease across the world.

"We're seeing more significant reports coming from places like NSW and Victoria," Commander Sirec said.

She said most reports came from "closer knit" communities, where arranged marriage was more common.

But University of Technology Anti-Slavery Australia director Jennifer Burn made it clear the two terms were not the same thing.

"An arranged marriage in Australia, is where both parties consent to the marriage," Ms Burn said.

"A forced marriage is where one or both parties don't have the chance to form full and free consent to the marriage because they've been coerced or threatened."

Ms Burn said the aim was to tackle the issue, before it reached a "crisis point".

"Many of those who force marriages onto others may genuinely want what's best for their children and come to later regret their actions when they see the consequences on their child's happiness," she said.

Authorities and community organisations are working together to tackle the complex issue by raising awareness within at-risk groups, in order to prevent the crime from happening in the first place.

*Not her real name

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-04/nsw-forced-marriage-police-fear-spike-as-travel-resumes-/101317834

—

If you, or someone you know, is at risk of a forced marriage please see:

My Blue Sky - Australia’s dedicated forced marriage portal providing information, support and legal advice to people in or at risk of forced marriages

https://mybluesky.org.au/

or contact the Australian Federal Police on 131 237 or email NOSSC-Client-Liaison@afp.gov.au (National Operations State Service Centre)

Australian Federal Police - Human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices (including forced marriage) information report form

https://forms.afp.gov.au/online_forms/human_trafficking_form

Primary school children filming and uploading sexualised content in worrying new trend

Erin Pearson - September 4, 2022

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An increasing number of primary school-aged children are creating and uploading their own sexually explicit material to the internet, prompting fears from child abuse investigators that they are putting themselves at risk of serious harm.

Investigators say they have discovered Australian children as young as 6 making their own content, with growing concerns that popular influencer-promoted websites such as OnlyFans are normalising making pornography for cash.

Detective Acting Inspector Carla McIntyre, the officer in charge of the Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team, said police were now having tough conversations with parents after knocking on doors thinking they’re preventing children from harm, only to find the child was authoring their own exploitation material.

“We’ve gone through the door with a search warrant and then identified actually there is no adult involved in this, it’s actually just the child,” McIntyre said.

She said young people were increasingly being influenced by those online who promote sexualised behaviour on popular platforms in the belief that this was normal, safe behaviour. One girl was aged 6, McIntyre said, and others were 7 and 8.

Her team, which is made up of both Victorian and federal police, had found no one had coerced or forced the children into making the content. Instead, the children believed it was normal behaviour.

“Then you think, what else have they been exposed to? This is something we can have an impact on, by having conversations with our kids. Kids can do this and they are doing this.”

In the 2021-22 financial year, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation received more than 36,000 reports of child sexual exploitation, each containing images and videos of children being sexually assaulted or exploited. During the same period, federal authorities charged 221 offenders with 1746 child exploitation related offences.

Last week, the eSafety Commissioner issued legal notices to some of the biggest tech companies in the world – including Apple, Meta and Microsoft – requiring them to disclose what measures they’re taking to tackle the proliferation of child sexual exploitation material on their platforms and services.

Jordan Foster, clinical child psychologist and managing director of cyber safety educators ySafe, said young people being desensitised to sexualised imagery and groomed to post online was a new phenomenon and generating serious concerns among experts.

She said social media users who post pornographic images or videos of themselves on the internet, were being celebrated, with content creators portraying it as an easy way to make money.

“What that does is create a sense that adult content and sexual imagery is something to aspire to,” Foster said. “It’s getting into the phones and bedrooms of young teenagers, who just see this very positive and very exciting lifestyle and that creates vulnerability as they start to think that’s an option for them.

“They’re innocent and naive and that’s where we’d like them to be. But they’re not aware of the implications.”

(continued)

>>17494489

2/2

Late last month police were forced to shut down a meet and greet with 23-year-old TikTok and OnlyFans star Anna Paul because so many people turned up. Paul has 5.2 million TikTok followers but is also Australia’s number one creator on OnlyFans, a subscription-based service which allows users to post their own sexually explicit content.

Paul was promoting her new activewear line when thousands of young people flooded into the city.

“We were told the last time police saw a huge crowd like this was for a Justin Bieber concert,” Paul told her followers.

Foster said parents she had spoken to had no idea why Paul was so renowned. “That lack of awareness from parents makes kids vulnerable,” she said. “Talk to your kids.”

In states including Victoria and Queensland, specialist victim identification teams work within police forces to help identify and locate children depicted in explicit material posted online. Undercover officers and tech experts search for clues to help to find out where an at-risk or abused child was being held.

Speaking ahead of National Child Protection Week which begins on September 4, Sergeant Simon Fogarty – who oversees Victoria’s victim identification team – said his office had seen a string of recent successes in helping rescue children from harm.

What authorities were fast learning though was that while some online activities such as livestreaming might start out as a bit of fun for children, that online fun could quickly escalate into serious offending.

“We’re not dealing with a stereotypical victim, someone walking around the streets at nighttime being beaten up and assaulted, we’re dealing with children in the privacy of their own homes being exposed to material and being accessed by people from all over the world,” he said.

“There is a perception with child abuse material that it’s this sort of soft porn focus, glossy with a bit of a bra strap off the shoulder, it’s not. It can be the most violent, degradation and torture that you can truly imagine.”

https://www.theage.com.au/national/primary-school-children-filming-and-uploading-sexualised-content-in-worrying-new-trend-20220826-p5bd15.html

—

Want to help victim identification teams locate at-risk or abused children? Images of objects such as blankets and toys found in abuse material can be found here at:

https://www.accce.gov.au/what-we-do/trace-an-object

Have you seen inappropriate behaviour towards children online? Report it here at:

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

>>17426603 (pb)

Home Affairs to review data harvesting by TikTok and WeChat

Anthony Galloway - September 4, 2022

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has ordered her department to investigate the harvesting of data by social media giant TikTok amid growing concern that staff in China can access the personal information of Australians.

In an exclusive interview with The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age, O’Neil confirmed she had asked the Department of Home Affairs to come back with a briefing by next year on a range of options to tackle social media companies with questionable data collection practices.

O’Neil also revealed she is looking at the “next phase” of work to combat foreign interference in Australia, in a sign that overseas influence operations from countries such as China have not let off.

The review -which will also include input from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, which sits within Defence - will look at TikTok, WeChat and other social media companies.

“It’s not just about TikTok,” she said. “We’ve got this basic problem here where we’ve got technology companies that are based in countries with a more authoritarian approach to the private sector, and this is a relatively new problem,”

“The fact that we’ve got millions of Australians accessing an app where the usage of their data is questionable is very much a modern security challenge for the country and no country in the world has found the easy solution for managing this.”

O’Neil, who is also the cyber security minister, said the review would look at a range of options but confirmed the government was not considering banning the popular video-sharing app.

“We are getting a brief about options for it, but there’s not a silver bullet here and it’s an issue we’re just going to have to continue to work through,” she said.

TikTok last year hit 1 billion monthly active users across the world, about 7 million of which are in Australia.

For years TikTok had responded to privacy concerns by promising that information gathered about users in countries such as Australia was not sent back to China where its parent company, ByteDance, is based. But last month it was leaked that the app had been sharing US user data .

O’Neil conceded that it was concerning that Australians “know their data is not being protected” by some companies but “they’re still used by millions of people”.

She said the government needed to better inform Australians about how their data was being used and why they should care about it.

“They might know something about the fact that the data usage is a bit unclear, but it doesn’t stop them from using the app,” she said. “We probably need to have a bit more of a discussion with people about why it is something they would be worried about.

“TikTok is not the beginning and end of this. [It’s about] very dominant technology companies and the role they are playing in our lives.”

Fergus Ryan, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who was among the first researchers in the world to begin raising concerns about the risks of TikTok three years ago, said it was positive to see the new government taking the issue seriously.

Ryan said it was important the government recognise risks are not just limited to the fact that TikTok user data can be and is being accessed in Beijing.

“Risks also extend to the very real possibility that the Chinese Communist Party will use its leverage over TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to manipulate political discourse on the app,” he said.

“We’ve already seen that take place on WeChat, another PRC-based social media app, when they first censored and then de-platformed then-prime minister Scott Morrison.

“But it could also occur in a less direct way. Chinese information operations take place on all social media apps. There is no reason to think that they would not also be taking place on TikTok.”

Ryan said it would also be worth countries banding together to take collective action through groups such as the Quad and the Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership.

US President Joe Biden is considering placing restrictions on TikTok, according to multiple American media outlets.

In 2018, Australia passed landmark foreign interference laws which made it a criminal offence to influence a political or government process in a way that is covert or involves deception.

O’Neil said that the government would look at the “next phase of work” that was needed to combat foreign interference in Australia.

“I think the foreign interference subject is very crucial,” she said. “And it’s getting more and more important, as tensions are rising around the world.”

https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/home-affairs-to-review-data-harvesting-by-tiktok-and-wechat-20220902-p5bf18.html

Ukraine’s pitch to Australia: Use our army as your guinea pig

Matthew Knott - September 5, 2022

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Ukraine has launched a bold bid for its army to be used as a “guinea pig” for cutting-edge Australian military technology as it seeks to gain a crucial battlefield advantage over Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces.

With the war raging past its sixth month, Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, is lobbying the Albanese government to send a fleet of 30 newly built protected mobility vehicles, known as Hawkeis, to the war zone.

The patrol vehicles – which owe their name to late prime minister Bob Hawke – have been designed and manufactured specially for the Australian Defence Force at defence contractor Thales’ facility in Bendigo, Victoria.

After experiencing technical problems during the construction phase, the four-wheel drive vehicles are not expected to reach full operational capability until next year.

Although they are untested on the battlefield, Myroshnychenko said a fleet of Hawkeis would make a valuable contribution to the war effort on top of the 60 Bushmaster troop carriers Australia has already committed to Ukraine.

“The Hawkeis are really impressive: they’re smaller, they’re faster, they’re nimble and they’re brand new,” Myroshnychenko told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age following a recent visit to the Thales manufacturing plant.

“They’re still in testing mode and are now being introduced into the Australian Defence Force.

“In my mind, we could make use of 30 of those to test them in the battlefield, see how they perform and we’ll provide invaluable feedback to the Australian defence forces for you to improve those vehicles.”

Myroshnychenko said he would present his proposal at an upcoming meeting with Defence Minister Richard Marles, describing the idea as a “win-win” for both countries.

“They help us [in the war] and we help you make them more adaptable to a wartime environment,” he said.

Marles declined to comment as the government and Defence Department await details of the proposal.

Myroshnychenko said he would also request Australia send another 30 Bushmasters to Ukraine on top of the 60 vehicles the government has already committed to provide.

In July, the government announced it would provide an additional $100 million in military assistance to Ukraine, taking Australia’s total contribution to the war effort to $385 million.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month thanked Australia for its “significant support”, but urged the government to provide more assistance as the war continues.

“It’s a struggle of tyranny against democracy, so you can’t stand aside if you support common principles with Ukraine,” he said in an address to the Australian National University.

(continued)

>>17499234

2/2

The Australian government is spending $1.3 billion on a fleet of 1100 Hawkeis to replace most of the army’s fleet of blast-protected Land Rovers. The last of the vehicles rolled off the production line at Bendigo last month.

The vehicles, which can carry up to six soldiers, have removable armour and optional mounts for weapons including automatic grenade launchers.

Importantly, they are light enough to be transported by helicopter, allowing them to be airlifted directly onto the battlefield.

Defence Force chief Angus Campbell has described the Hawkei as a “very versatile vehicle, at the leading edge globally of this kind of capability”. But the rollout of the technology was marred by technical difficulties and delays.

The Defence Department identified problems with the Hawkei’s braking system in 2020 and announced it would stop accepting vehicles from Thales while the issues were investigated.

Then-defence minister Peter Dutton announced in July last year that the braking problem had been resolved, allowing operating restrictions to be lifted and full-scale production to recommence.

In a brutal report released last year, the Australian National Audit Office found Defence had not demonstrated the Hawkei acquisition provided value for taxpayers’ money.

The government could have saved hundreds of millions of dollars by sticking with a previous United States contract for new light vehicles, the office found.

The vehicles are named after Acanthophis hawkei, a species of death adder named in honour of former prime minister Bob Hawke.

A Thales spokeswoman declined to comment on Myroshnychenko’s proposal, saying any decision on exporting the vehicles overseas would be a matter for the government.

Myroshnychenko said he was also urging Australia to “adopt” a particular region of Ukraine and focus its reconstruction assistance on that area.

He called for Australia and New Zealand to concentrate their support on the port city of Mykolaiv. Other countries such as Portugal, the United Kingdom and Greece have already adopted other regions in Ukraine.

“There will be a lot that you can do with the ports, shipyards and grain storage facilities but also regular infrastructure like schools and hospitals which have been destroyed in large numbers,” he said.

“This is the basic stuff you need to allow people to return to the cities. I want a piece of something left for Australia because it would be a shame if everyone else is involved and you’re not.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ukraine-s-pitch-to-australia-use-our-army-as-your-guinea-pig-20220904-p5bf7l.html

Hostage diplomacy in Xi’s China

Two years after she was detained, Australian journalist Cheng Lei is still in prison in Beijing with no family contact.

WILL GLASGOW - September 5, 2022

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The Chinese delegation was in high spirits. Glasses were clinking at a celebratory dinner in Canberra. They had flown from Beijing to toast a new consular agreement with Australia.

It outlined the rights for future Australians detained in China – people such as Cheng Lei, the television journalist, who was thrown into a Beijing prison cell two years ago without charge. She still hasn’t been sentenced.

The Agreement on Consular Relations between Australia and the People’s Republic of China came into force in 2000. Back then, Jiang Zemin was China’s president, charming Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, with Shakespeare recitations. The consular agreement was a product of those optimistic times.

“We all sat around a table at a restaurant in Civic in Canberra toasting each other,” says Ian Kemish, who was then running Australia’s consular service. “There was a spirit of engagement in the air.”

At the close of the first decade of the Xi Jinping era, senior Australian diplomats don’t talk that way about China any more. The consular agreement is in tatters, along with the 2015 China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which Beijing shredded with its no-holds-barred campaign of economic coercion against Canberra in 2020.

Australia’s China ambassador, Graham Fletcher – the foremost China expert in the Australian government – was frank in his address outside the Beijing court where Cheng, a University of Queensland graduate, was tried in secrecy on March 31.

‘See the difference’

“Our consular agreement says we ought to be able to attend trials of any kind,” Fletcher said after he was denied access to the barely three-hour-long closed trial.

Kemish, who was in charge of the agreement’s early implementation, agrees with his former Foreign Affairs colleague: “I’m with Graham … It’s certainly a breach of the spirit.”

Beijing used the same secretive tactics for the one-day, closed trial of fellow Australian Yang Hengjun, who was snatched in China’s south on January 19, 2019. Fletcher was denied entry to his one-day closed hearing in May 2021.

Yang had been trying to visit a sick family member. The Australian government knew the writer – known as the “democracy peddler” to his huge Chinese-language readership – was in huge trouble when it discovered 10 agents from his old employer had detained him at Guangzhou’s international airport. Before becoming an Australian citizen, Yang was a member of China’s secret service. This time, his political connections didn’t save him.

Cheng’s situation is more puzzling. She was an anchor on CGTN, China’s English-language state broadcaster. She even coined the network’s official slogan, “See the difference”.

Two years ago Fletcher’s team in Beijing learned she was missing from Nick Coyle, Cheng’s long-time partner. He had visited her apartment with Cheng’s close friend, Haze Fan, a Chinese national and Bloomberg journalist. They found Cheng’s computer and passport were gone. Months later, Fan also “disappeared”.

It wasn’t until August 27, 2020, almost a fortnight after the Australian journalist was taken into the shadowy Chinese prison network for torturous interrogation sessions, that Fletcher’s team in Beijing was able to speak to her over video.

By then it was clear this had not been a mix-up. There was no confusion about Cheng’s Australian citizenship – indeed, there were fears it had made her a target.

Months earlier, the Morrison government had enraged Beijing by calling for an inquiry into the origins of Covid. Ambassador Fletcher was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing for what may be the most epic dressing down in the nearly 50-year history of Australia’s official relations with the People’s Republic.

Then in June, Australian security agents searched the homes of four Chinese state media journalists in Sydney in relation to a foreign interference case. All four returned to China.

Chinese state media only revealed their experience after foreign minister Marise Payne went public with the dreadful news: “Ms Cheng Lei has been detained in China.”

That was on August 31, 2020. Cheng is now in her third year in a Beijing prison.

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Quiet release plan

It would be hard to overstate the damage Beijing has inflicted with its abuse of Yang and Cheng.

The Lowy Institute’s authoritative poll recently found only 12 per cent of Australians now trust China to act responsibly in the world. That’s a precipitous 40-point fall since 2018.

On the first anniversary of Cheng’s detention, The Australian revealed the television anchor’s Beijing colleagues found out she had “disappeared” when someone on the CGTN breaking news desk saw a report in international media.

Days earlier, management had made them sign a strange legal document, called a nondisclosure undertaking. Many quit in disgust.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr spoke for many Australians when he recently called Yang and Cheng “hostages”.

Carr also canvassed publicly some of the scenarios the Albanese government is privately discussing about how Canberra might get them out.

He suggested Trade Minister Don Farrell make a trip to Shanghai. There, Farrell could tell his Chinese counterpart that Canberra would review the anti-dumping actions that had upset Beijing and make it clear Australia would not block China’s entry into the sweeping CPTPP trade pact.

In return, Carr outlined in The Sydney Morning Herald, Beijing could lift the bans it had imposed on $20bn a year of Australian exports: barley, beef, copper, cotton, lobsters, timber, wine and coal.

Then the Australian cabinet minister could bring up the hostages, much as the Morrison government did to secure the release of Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert from the dungeons of Iran.

“Saying his farewells, Farrell can hand over a letter from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to President Xi Jinping proposing we follow this ‘win-win’ on trade with the quiet release of the two Australian hostages, Dr Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei,” Carr advised.

It is far from clear whether such a scheme would work, but these are the conversations that now take place in Australia about Xi’s China, which, like Iran, North Korea and Russia, is an unapologetic practitioner of hostage diplomacy.

“China’s narrative about being a benign and positive contributor to the international order is seriously undercut by behaviour like this,” says Kemish, who has written a book, The Consul, on Australians in trouble overseas.

Beijing started acting much more assertively in 2008. China’s leaders saw the US’s power as diminished after the global financial crisis, emboldening their behaviour.

Rio Tinto’s then Shanghai-based executive, Stern Hu, was the first Australian taken hostage by this increasingly confident China back in 2009. Secret police detained Hu weeks after the Anglo-Australian miner backflipped on a $19.5bn offer by Chinese state giant Chinalco to increase its stake in the strategically important iron ore supplier.

Beijing felt it had been tricked.

Hu spent nine years in prison in China. Many thought his punishment was a message to Canberra. He was released in 2018 and has never spoken about his ordeal.

China’s hostage-taking has become more brazen in the Xi era, which since 2016 has been characterised by a surging belief in the superiority of Beijing’s Leninist model.

It has made China an increasingly perilous place to visit for citizens of the growing number of countries in Beijing’s bad books.

For 1020 days, two Canadians – Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig – were the most high-profile hostages in Xi’s China. They were thrown into the brutal Chinese disciplinary system in December 2018, an undisguised response to the arrest in Canada days earlier of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Kemish’s book reveals just how different Beijing’s approach was less than 20 years ago when Australia’s high commissioner in Nepal launched an extraordinary operation to rescue a group of Australian mountaineers.

Using Nepalese defence assets – a Russian-built Mi-17 helicopter – the Australian government was able to rescue the mountaineers trapped in Tibet, in China’s far west, on the slopes of the world’s sixth-highest peak. That daring mission was only possible because of the consular agreement.

Beijing, then in the early, cautious years of Hu Jintao’s time as China’s leader, was keen to be helpful.

“The Chinese foreign minister rang the Australian acting foreign minister, Mark Vaile, to give him the good news that, yes, it could go ahead,” Kemish recalls. “Can you imagine that happening now?”

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‘Please come home’

It is now a much more fraught time to be Australian in China.

After more than 1300 days in prison – including torture sessions during his pre-trial interrogation – Yang, 57, still has not been given a sentence. His day before a Beijing court was in May last year, 16 months ago. Friends worry about his declining health. Three and a half years after his imprisonment, he has never been allowed to speak to his wife or children.

Cheng, 47, has now spent more than 700 days in prison. Not once has she been allowed to speak to her two children, who are both in Melbourne. They write letters to their mum to be read by Australian diplomats at monthly consular visits, which are all done over video.

“Dear Mum, I started year 7 today and think about you every day,” reads one letter. “I wish you were here.”

Another, first reported by The Daily Telegraph, asked her to come home: “Not a single day goes by without me missing the best mum in the whole world … I will be strong, just like you taught me, please come home soon.”

Cheng teaches English to her cellmates, which she says helps give her purpose. She reads books sent by her partner, Nick Coyle, who was the head of the China-Australia Chamber of Commerce. Coyle – who Cheng calls “my knight in shining flip-flops” – has since left the job and Beijing so he can freely advocate for her case.

The blue-chip members of the China-focused business lobby he used to run – including ANZ, KPMG, CBA, Telstra, Woodside and King & Wood Mallesons – have had to explain to their current staff and future hires what her horrendous experience might mean for them.

A month before Cheng was put in prison, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued new travel advice warning Australians may face “arbitrary detention” in China. Australian expats in China grumbled at the time. Many have since left the country.

Cheng’s eyesight is worsening. Dozens of friends and colleagues The Australian has spoken to speak of her toughness. But everyone has their limits.

‘Don’t worry about that’

Beijing’s appalling treatment of these two Australians continues as the Albanese government pursues the difficult work of stabilising relations with China.

Penny Wong’s second statement as Australia’s Foreign Minister marked the first anniversary of Yang’s closed trial. By her fifth week in the job, Wong was overseeing the passing on of birthday messages from Cheng’s children to their mum.

Canberra is united in its advocacy. Shadow foreign minister Simon Birmingham says reports of Cheng’s deteriorating health are deeply troubling.

“As trade minister, I was interviewed by Cheng Lei and found her to be nothing but a business journalist interested in trade and business affairs who asked challenging questions of me in the same way I would expect of any other insightful journalist,” Birmingham says.

He says her treatment raises questions about “the application of both the letter and spirit” of Australia and China’s agreement on consular relations.

When Cheng was put in prison, Birmingham was Australia’s trade minister, having his repeated requests to speak to his Chinese counterpart denied. Now it is Trade Minister Farrell, a fellow South Australian, who is having his meeting requests rejected.

China’s ambassador in Australia, Xiao Qian, recently told Canberra’s National Press Club the 50th anniversary of Australia’s recognition of China this December could contribute to an improvement in the poisoned bilateral relationship.

In the same address, Xi’s top Australian envoy said Cheng’s and Yang’s rights were being protected under Chinese law. He blamed Covid for a two-month cessation of consular access earlier in the year and dismissed concerns about their treatment.

“Their basic rights are protected, so don’t worry about that,” Xiao said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/from-banquets-to-cheng-lei-how-australians-became-hostage-to-xis-china/news-story/dfafbbb6d031541dd8ecc94e76d7805c