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Category: Australia

  • Centurion Group Simplifies APAC Operations, Introduces Business Lines in Place of Brands

    Centurion Group (“Centurion” or “the Group”), a global leader in the supply of specialist rental equipment and services to critical industries is pleased to announce the simplification of our Asia Pacific region with the introduction of five business lines replacing legacy brands. The following five business lines have been rolled out in the region: Centurion […]

    The post Centurion Group Simplifies APAC Operations, Introduces Business Lines in Place of Brands appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • PNG’s PM Marape to ‘give hand to his bro’ Albanese on Kokoda Trail

    By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived at Kokoda Station, Northern province, at the start of his state visit to Papua New Guinea.

    Both Albanese and Prime Minister James Marape will meet with the locals and the Northern Provincial government before they begin their walk along the historic 96km Kokoda Trail.

    Both men were “excited” with Marape saying “he was there to lend a hand to his brother PM”.

    Meanwhile, the heroism of Australian soldier Private Bruce Steel Kingsbury is being remembered in advance of ANZAC Day.

    Knowing his platoon would not last long with the continuous attack by the Japanese and suffering severe losses during World War Two, Private Kingsbury made the heroic decision to move against the continuous firing and attacked the enemy which cost his life on 29 August 1942.

    The battle took place at Isurava, Kokoda. Where Private Kingsbury fell is a memorial which is known as “Kingsbury Rock” beside the Isurava Memorial which Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will visit for the ANZAC Dawn service.

    Private Kingsbury’s sacrifice earned him a Victoria Cross. He is buried at the Bomana War Cemetery outside Port Moresby and is one of 625 Australians who were killed in action along the Kokoda track, another 1055 were wounded.

    Battle for PNG
    The battle to protect Papua and New Guinea, as it was known back then, took about 9000 lives and the remnants of war still remain in the jungles of PNG with more men still missing in action.

    Private Bruce Kingsbury
    Private Bruce Kingsbury . . . a memorial known as “Kingsbury Rock” stands where he fell in battle against the Japanese in 1942. Image: PNG Post-Courier

    Prime ministers Marape and Albanese will walk a section of the Kokoda track to honour the shared history and enduring bond between the two nations.

    “The visit of Prime Minister Albanese underscores the close relationships between our countries,” said Prime Minister Marape.

    “I’ll be joining him for a walk along the Kokoda Trail.”

    Albanese is set to be the first sitting prime minister to walk part of the famous 96km track.

    Kevin Rudd walked the Kokoda Track in 2006 while he was opposition leader while former prime minister Scott Morrison also hiked the track in 2009 during his time as a backbench MP.

    Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Censorship Wars: Elon Musk, Safety Commissioners and Violent Content

    The attitudes down under towards social media have turned barmy.  While there is much to take Elon Musk to task for his wrecking ball antics at the platform formerly known as Twitter, not to mention his highly developed sense of sociopathy, the hysteria regarding the refusal to remove images of a man in holy orders being attacked by his assailant in Sydney suggests a lengthy couch session is in order.  But more than that, it suggests that the censoring types are trying, more than ever, to tell users what to see and under what conditions for fear that we will all reach for a weapon and go on the rampage.

    It all stems from the April 15 incident that took place at an Assyrian Orthodox service conducted by Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and the Rev. Isaac Royel at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, Sydney.  A 16-year-old youth, captured on the livestream of the surface, is shown heading to the bishop before feverishly stabbing him, speaking Arabic about insults to the Prophet Muhammed as he does so.  Rev. Royel also received injuries.

    Up to 600 people subsequently gathered around the church.  A number demanded that police surrender the boy.  In the hours of rioting that followed, 51 police officers were injured.  Various Sydney mosques received death threats.

    The matter – dramatic, violent, raging – rattled the authorities.  For the sake of appearance, the heavies, including counter-terrorism personnel, New South Wales police and members of the Australian domestic spy agency, ASIO, were brought in.  The pudding was ready for a severe overegging.  On April 16, the NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb deemed the stabbing a “terrorist incident”.  NSW Premier Chris Minns stated that the incident was being investigated as a “terrorist incident” given the “religiously motivated” language used during the alleged attack.

    After conducting interviews with the boy while still in his hospital bed on April 18, the decision was made to charge him with the commission of an alleged act of terrorism.  This, despite a behavioural history consistent with, as The Guardian reports, “mental illness or intellectual disability.”  For their part, the boy’s family noted “anger management and behavioural issues” along with his “short fuse”, none of which lent themselves to a conclusion that he had been radicalised.  He did, however, have a past with knife crime.

    Assuming the general public to be a hive of incipient terrorism easily stimulated by images of violence, networks and media outlets across the country chose to crop the video stream.  The youth is merely shown approaching the bishop, at which point he raises his hand and is editorially frozen in suspended time.

    Taking this approach implied a certain mystification that arises from tampering and redacting material in the name of decency and inoffensiveness; to refuse to reveal such details and edit others, the authorities and information guardians were making their moralistic mark.  They were also, ironically enough, lending themselves to accusations of the very problems they seek to combat: misinformation and its more sinister sibling, disinformation.

    Another telling point was the broader omission in most press reporting to detail the general background of the bishop in question.  Emmanuel is an almost comically conservative churchman, a figure excommunicated for his theological differences with orthodoxy.  He has also adopted fire and brimstone views against homosexuality, seeing it as a “crime in the eyes of God”, attacked other religions of the book, including Judaism and Islam, and sees global conspiracies behind the transmission of COVID-19.  Hardly, it would seem, the paragon of mild tolerance and calm acceptance in a cosmopolitan society.

    On April 16, Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, got busy, announcing that X Corp and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, had been issued with legal notices to remove material within 24 hours depicting “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact and detail”.  The material in question featured the attack at the Good Shepherd Church.

    Under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth), the commissioner is granted various powers to make sure the sheep do not stray.  Internet service providers can be requested or required to block access to material that promotes abhorrent violent conduct, incites such conduct, instructs in abhorrent violent conduct or depicts abhorrent violent conduct.  Removal of material promoting, instructing, or depicting such “abhorrent violent conduct”, including “terrorist acts” can be ordered for removal if it risks going “viral” and causing “significant harm to the Australian community”.

    X took a different route, preferring to “geoblock” the content.  Those in Australia, in other words, would not be able to access the content except via such alternative means as a virtual private network (VPN).  The measure was regarded as insufficient by the commissioner.  In response, a shirty Musk dubbed Grant Australia’s “censorship commissar” who was “demanding *global* content bans”.  On April 21, a spokesperson for X stated that the commissioner lacked “the authority to dictate what content X’s users can see globally.  We will robustly challenge this unlawful and dangerous approach in court.”

    In court, the commissioner argued that X’s interim measure not to delete the material but “geoblock” it failed to comply with the Online Safety Act.  Siding with her at first instance, the court’s interim injunction requires X to hide the posts in question from all users globally.  A warning notice is to cover them. The two-day injunction gives X the opportunity to respond.

    There is something risible in all of this.  From the side of the authorities, Grant berates and intrudes, treating the common citizenry as malleable, immature and easily led.  Spare them the graphic images – she and members of her office decide what is “abhorrent” and “offensive” to general sensibilities.

    Platforms such as Meta and X engage in their own forms of censorship and information curation, their agenda algorithmically driven towards noise, shock and indignation.  All the time, they continue to indulge in surveillance capitalism, a corporate phenomenon the Australian government shows little interest in battling.  On both sides of this coin, from the bratty, petulant Musk, to the teacherly manners of the eSafety Commissioner, the great public is being mocked and infantilised.

    The post Censorship Wars: Elon Musk, Safety Commissioners and Violent Content first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Universities for AUKUS: The Social License Confidence Trick

    “Can we still see universities as places to learn and produce knowledge that, at the risk of sounding naïve, is for the greater good of humanity, independently transient of geopolitical skirmishes?” Wanning Sun from the University of Technology, Sydney, asks in hope.  “The history of universities during the Cold War era tells us that it is precisely at such times that our government and our universities need to fight tooth and nail to preserve the precarious civil society that has taken millennia to construct.”

    History can be a useful, if imperfect guide, but as its teary muse, Clio, will tell you, its lessons are almost always ignored. A recent investigative report published in Declassified Australia gives us every reason to be pessimistic about Sun’s green pastured hopes for universities untethered from compromise and corruption.  Far from preserving civil society, the Australian university sector is going the way of the US model of linking university research and innovation directly to a gluttonous military industrial complex.  More importantly, these developments are very much on the terms of the US imperium, in whose toxic embrace Australia finds itself.

    Over 17 years, the authors of the report found, US defence funding to Australian universities had risen from (A)$1.7 million in 2007 to (A)$60 million annually by 2022”.  The funds in question “are backing research in fields of science that enhance US military development and the US national interest.”

    To justify this effort, deskbound think tankers and money chasing propagandists have been enlisted to sanitise what is, at heart, a debauching enterprise.  Take, for example, the views of the United States Studies Centre (USSC), based at the University of Sydney, where university-military collaboration under the shoddy cover of learning and teaching are being pursued in reverie.  For those lovely types, universities are “drivers of change within society.”

    The trilateral security pact of AUKUS, an anti-China enterprise comprising Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, has added succour to the venture, drawing in wide-eyed university administrators, military toffs and consultancy seeking politicians keen to rake in the defence scented cash.

    With salivating enthusiasm, a report by members of the USSC and the University of Nottingham from March 2024, noting the findings of a joint University of Sydney and Times Higher Education World Academic Summit, opens with a frank enlisting of the education and research sector “as enablers of operationalising the strategic intent around AUKUS.”  No less than a propagandising effort, this will entail “building social license for AUKUS” through “two primary inputs: (1) educating the workforce; and (2) Pillar II advanced capability research.”

    This open embrace of overt militarisation entails the agreement of universities “across the three countries” to “add value to government through strategic messaging and building social license for AUKUS.”  This is no less an attempt to inculcate and normalise what is, at heart, a warring facility in the making.

    The authors admit their soiling task is a challenging one.  “Stakeholders agree the challenge of building social license for AUKUS is particularly acute in the Australian context, where government discourse has been constrained by the need to reestablish diplomatic relations with China.”  Diplomacy is such a trying business for those in the business of conflict.

    The raw note here is that the Australian populace is ignorant of the merits of the belligerent, anti-Beijing bacchanal between Canberra, Washington and London.  They are ignorant of “the nature of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific and its place in Australian regional strategy for AUKUS”.  Concern is expressed about that most sensible of attitudes: a decline of popularity for the proposed and obscenely expensive acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, costing A$368 billion.  “USSC’s own polling, released in late 2023, finds that support for Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines has fallen below majority (49 per cent).”

    Such terrifying findings – at least from the USSC’s barking mad perspective – had also been “corroborated by other major Australian polls, including the Lowy Institute and The Guardian, which find that support has weakened, rather than firmed since the optimal pathway announcement.”  The Australian public, it would seem, know something these wonks don’t.

    When the warmongers worry that their wares are failing to sell, peacemakers should cheer.  It then falls on the warmongers to think up a strategy to reverse the trend.  An imperfect, though tried method is to focus on the use of that most hideous of terms, “social license”, to bribe the naysayers and sceptics.

    The notion of “social license”, framed in fictional, social contract terms, should propel those with a scintilla of integrity and wisdom to take arms and rage.  The official literature and pamphleteering on the subject points to its benign foundations.  The Ethics Centre, for instance, describes it as an informal arrangement whereby an informal license is “granted to a company by various stakeholders who may be affected by the company’s activities.”  Three requirements must be accordingly satisfied in this weasel-worded effort: legitimacy, by which the organisation “plays by the ‘rules of the game’”; credibility, by which the company furnishes “true and clear information to the community”; and trust, where the entity shows “the willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of another.”  These terrible fictions, as they come together, enable the veil to be placed over the unspeakable.

    When the flimsy faeces encasing such a formulation is scraped away, the term becomes more sinister.  Social licensing is nothing less than a tool of deceit and hoodwinking, a way for the bad to claim they are doing good, for the corrupt to claim they are clean.  Polluting entities excuse what they do by suggesting that the returns for society are, more broadly speaking, weightier than the costs.  Mining industries, even as they continue to pillage the earth’s innards, claim legitimacy for their operations as they add an ecologically friendly wash to them.  We all benefit in the harm and harming, so why fuss?

    To reverse this trend, a few measures should be enacted with urgent and acceptable zeal.  Purging university vice chancellors and their simpering toadies is a healthy start.  Trimming the universities of the spreadsheeting grafters and the racketeers, percolating through departments, schools and colleges, would be another welcome measure.  All are accomplices in this project to destroy the humane mission of universities, preferring, in their place, brands, diluted syllabi, compliant staff, and morons for students.  All in all, a clear wall of separation between the civic goals of learning and knowledge should be built to shield students and staff from the rapacious, murderous goals of the military industrial complex that continues to draw sustenance from deception, delusion and fear.

    The post Universities for AUKUS: The Social License Confidence Trick first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australian author leads silent protest over ‘blood debt’ owed to Papuans

    Asia Pacific Report

    An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces.

    “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in his open letter marking the debt protest — “unless that promise is made by the Australian government.”

    After the successes of Australian and US troops against the Japanese in New Guinea, the Allies continued the advance through what was then Dutch New Guinea then on to the Philippines.

    The first landing was at Hollandia (now Jayapura) in April 1944, which involved the Australian navy and air force.

    Aubrey said in his letter:

    “The Australian government’s WWII remembrance oath to Papuan and Timorese allies by the RAAF in flyers dropped over East Timor and the island of New Guinea — ‘FRIENDS, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!’ — is in reality one of history’s most heinous bastard acts in war
    and diplomacy.

    “Betrayal is the reality of this blood debt and includes consecutive Australian governments’ treachery and culpability as a criminal accomplice and accessory to six decades of the Indonesian government’s crimes against humanity.

    “Barbarity that shames us! Genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and relentless ethnic cleansing.

    Aubrey, spokesperson for Genocide Rebellion and the Free West Papua International Coalition, said that he and supporters were commemorating the Second World War “Papuan sacrifice for us” — Australian and American servicemen and women — four days before ANZAC Day without inviting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or any government minister [and] without inviting US President Biden.

    “To have them with us on this special solemn occasion, while honouring the fact that many of us — children and grandchildren – would not be here if it were not for Papuan courage, loyalty, and sacrifice so steadfastly given to our forebears, would be dishonourable.

    ‘Heartless complicity’
    “We condemn outright their heartless complicity and premeditated exploitation of Papuans in their time of peril. A blood debt not honoured by a single Australian government or US administration!

    Author Jim Aubrey
    Author Jim Aubrey salutes the Morning Star flag of West Papuan independence earlier today . . . “A blood debt not honoured by a single Australian government or US administration.” Image: Genocide Rebellion

    “Lest We Forget . . .  six decades of providing the Republic of Indonesia with an environment of impunity for crimes against humanity — 500,000 victims in Western New Guinea, 250,000 in East Timor [now Timor-Leste after the 1999 liberation].

    “Future historians will teach their undergraduates that Australian governments did forget! That Australian governments also contravened Commonwealth and State criminal codes by helping the Indonesian government prevent the legal decolonisation of Western New Guinea and achieve their subsequent unlawful annexation; and by concealing and destroying evidence of the 1998 Biak Island Massacre.

    “It is not only a matter of honour and truth, it’s personal. I have only just discovered that my father and my uncle were Australian servicemen in the Pacific Theatre campaigns across New Guinea.

    “Honourable Australians and Americans, however, only need to know our duty of care and our international obligations cannot be compromised for political and economic plunder. The victims of crimes against humanity deserve the support and the protection they are by law, by right, and decency entitled to.

    “Pacific Island nations look to the East for a relationship of integrity in their international affairs. Who can blame them with Australian governments track record of treachery, dishonour, and their demeaning elitism and history in the genocide of indigenous peoples.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Australia’s social cohesion under strain, challenges and solutions

    Pacific Media Watch

    Australians are being urged to stay united following the horrific events in Sydney last week, reports the ABC’s Saturday Extra programme.

    Five women and one man were killed in a mass stabbing at Bondi Junction last Saturday by a man with a history of mental illness, and a nine-month-old baby baby was among the eight people wounded.

    The attacker was shot by a police officer and died at the scene.

    Two days later at a church in Wakeley, a suburb in Western Sydney, controversial Assyrian Orthodox preacher Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel suffered lacerations to his head when he was attacked during a sermon that was being live-streamed. Nobody was killed.

    Three other unrelated knife attacks took place in Sydney this week. Only the Wakely church attack was officially described as a “terror” attack although there had been widespread media speculation.

    Those attacks coupled with anger and division caused by the war on Gaza as well as the polarising impact of the Voice referendum last year and Australians are seeing their sense of community and social cohesion challenged.

    The ABC has spoken to a panel of analysts about the solutions to staying united and their comments were broadcast yesterday.

    The panel included Khairiah A Rahman, an intercultural communications commentator from Auckland University of Technology who is also secretary of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and a member of Muslim Media Watch.

    The programme highlighted New Zealand’s experience in March 2019 when an Australian gunman entered two mosques in Christchurch and killed 51 people while they were praying.

    Asked what her message had been to the New Zealand government through the Royal Commission established to look into the mass killing, Rahman replied:

    “Overall, social cohesion when we think about it has got to do with the responsibility of all people and groups at all levels of society. So we can’t actually leave it to the government or the leaders, the Muslim leaders.

    “At the end of the day, the media also had a hand in all of this and my research had to do with media representation of Islam and Muslims prior to the attack. One of the things I found was unfair reporting, so pretty much what you have experienced in your media reporting of Bondi.

    “The route that extremists take from hate to mass murder is a proven one, and you need to report fairly and stay calm in a society.”

    Interviewees:

    Dr Jamal Rifi, Lebanese Muslim Community leader, Sydney

    Tim Southphommasane, Australia’s former race discrimination officer

    Khairiah A Rahman, intercultural communications researcher, Auckland University of Technology

    Producer: Linda LoPresti

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Have New Zealanders really been ‘misled’ about AUKUS, or is involvement now a foregone conclusion?

    ANALYSIS: By Marco de Jong, Auckland University of Technology and Robert G. Patman, University of Otago

    When former prime minister Helen Clark spoke out against New Zealand potentially compromising its independent foreign policy by joining pillar two of the AUKUS security pact, Foreign Minister Winston Peters responded bluntly:

    On what could she have possibly based that statement? […] And I’m saying to people, including Helen Clark, please don’t mislead New Zealanders with your suspicions without any facts – let us find out what we’re talking about.

    Pillar one of AUKUS involves the delivery of nuclear submarines to Australia, making New Zealand membership impossible under its nuclear-free policy.

    But pillar two envisages the development of advanced military technology in areas such as artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles and cyber warfare. By some reckonings, New Zealand could benefit from joining at that level.

    Peters denies the National-led coalition government has committed to joining pillar two. He says exploratory talks with AUKUS members are “to find out all the facts, all the aspects of what we’re talking about and then as a country to make a decision.”

    But while the previous Labour government expressed a willingness to explore pillar two membership, the current government appears to view it as integral to its broader foreign policy objective of aligning New Zealand more closely with “traditional partners”.

    Official enthusiasm
    During his visit to Washington earlier this month, Peters said New Zealand and the Biden administration had pledged “to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests” in a strategic environment “considerably more challenging now than even a decade ago”.

    In particular, he and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed there were “powerful reasons” for New Zealand to engage practically with arrangements like AUKUS “as and when all parties deem it appropriate”.

    Declassified documents reveal the official enthusiasm behind such statements and the tightly-curated public messaging it has produced.

    A series of joint-agency briefings provided to the New Zealand government characterise AUKUS pillar two as a “non-nuclear” technology-sharing partnership that would elevate New Zealand’s longstanding cooperation with traditional partners and bring opportunities for the aerospace and tech sectors.

    But any assessment of New Zealand’s strategic interests must be clear-eyed and not clouded by partial truths or wishful thinking.

    NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
    Traditional allies . . . NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks in Washington on April 11. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Beyond great power rivalry
    First, the current government inherited strong bilateral relations with traditional security partners Australia, the US and UK, as well as a consistent and cooperative relationship with China.

    Second, while the contemporary global security environment poses threats to New Zealand’s interests, these challenges extend beyond great power rivalry between the US and China.

    The multilateral system, on which New Zealand relies, is paralysed by the weakening of institutions such as the UN Security Council, Russian expansionism in Ukraine and a growing array of problems which do not respect borders.

    Those include climate change, pandemics and wealth inequality — problems that cannot be fixed unilaterally by great powers.

    Third, it is evident New Zealand sometimes disagrees with its traditional partners over respect for international law.

    In 2003, for example, New Zealand broke ranks with the US (and the UK and Australia) over the invasion of Iraq. More recently, it was the only member of the Five Eyes network to vote in the UN General Assembly for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza.

    Role of the US
    In a robust speech to the UN General Assembly on April 7, Peters said the world must halt the “utter catastrophe” in Gaza.

    He said the use of the veto — which New Zealand had always opposed — prevented the Security Council from fulfilling its primary function of maintaining global peace and security.

    However, the government has been unwilling to publicly admit a crucial point: it was a traditional ally — the US — whose Security Council veto and unconditional support of Israel have led to systematic and plausibly genocidal violations of international law in Gaza, and a strategic windfall for rival states China, Russia and Iran.

    Rather than being a consistent voice for justice and de-escalation, the New Zealand government has joined the US in countering Houthi rebels, which have been targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

    A done deal?
    The world has become a more complex and conflicted place for New Zealand. But it would be naive to believe the US has played no part in this and that salvation lies in aligning with AUKUS, which lacks a coherent strategy for addressing multifaceted challenges.

    There are alternatives to pillar two of AUKUS more consistent with a principled, independent foreign policy, centred in the Pacific, and which deserve to be seriously considered.

    On balance, New Zealand involvement in pillar two of AUKUS would represent a seismic shift in the country’s geopolitical stance. The current government seems bullish about this prospect, which has fuelled concerns membership may be almost a done deal.

    If true, it would be the government facing questions about transparency.The Conversation

    Marco de Jong, lecturer, Law School, Auckland University of Technology and Robert G. Patman, professor of international relations, University of Otago. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • $22m global green industry program opens

    A new $22 million grant program for Australian and Austrian companies developing technologies that decarbonise hard-to-abate industries has opened to applicants. The Australia – Austria Industrial Decarbonisation Demonstration Partnerships Program is targeting industries like iron and steel, chemicals manufacturing, lime and cement manufacturing, or alumina and aluminium. The industries use massive amounts of energy and…

    The post $22m global green industry program opens appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.

  • The Australian Defence Formula: Spend! Spend! Spend!

    The skin toasted Australian Minister of Defence, Richard Marles, who resembles, with each day, the product of an overly worked solarium, was adamant.  Not only will Australians be paying a bill up to and above A$368 billion for nuclear powered submarines it does not need; it will also be throwing A$100 billion into the coffers of the military industrial complex over the next decade to combat a needlessly inflated enemy.  Forget diplomacy and funding the cause (and course) of peace – it’s all about the weapons and the Yellow Peril, baby.

    On April 18, Marles and Defence Industry Pat Conroy barraged the press with announcements that the defence budget would be bulked by A$50.3 billion by 2034, with a A$330 billion plan for weapons and equipment known as the Integrated Investment Program.  The measures were intended to satisfy the findings of the Defence Strategic Review.  “This is a significant lift compared to the $270 billion allocated for the 10-year period to 2029-30 as part of the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and 2020 Force Structure Plan,” crowed a statement from the Defence Department.

    Such statements are often weighed down by jargon and buoyed by delusion.  The press were not left disappointed by the insufferable fluff.  Australia will gain “an enhanced lethality surface fleet and conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines”, an army with “littoral manoeuvre” capabilities “with a long-range land and maritime strike capability”, an air force capable of delivering “long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” with “an enhanced maritime, land and air-strike capability” and “a strengthened and integrated space and cyber capability”.  The glaring omission here is the proviso that all such policies are being essentially steered by Washington’s defence interests, with Canberra very  much the obedient servant.

    The defence minister was firmly of the view that all this was taking place with some speed.  “We are acting very quickly in relation to [challenges],” Marles insists.  “I mean, the acquiring of a general-purpose frigate going forward, for example, will be the most rapid acquisition of a platform that size that we’ve seen in decades.”  Anyone who uses the term “rapid” in a sentence on military acquisition is clearly a certified novice.

    The ministers, along with the department interests they represent, are certainly fond of their expensive toys.  They are seeking a fourth squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters as replacements for the F/A-18 Super Hornets.  The EA-18G Growler jets are also being replaced.  (That said, both sets of current fighters will see aging service till 2040.)  Three vessels will be purchased to advance undersea war capabilities, including the undersea drone prototype, the Ghost Shark.

    The latter hopes to equip the Royal Australian Navy “with a stealthy, long-range autonomous undersea warfare capability that can conduct persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike.”  Importantly, such acquisitions and developments are always qualified by how well they will work in tandem with the imperial power in question.  The media release from the Department of Defence prefers a more weasel-worded formula.  The Ghost Shark, for instance, “will also enhance Navy’s ability to operate with allies and partners.”

    The new militarisation strategy is also designed to improve levels of recruitment.  Personnel have been putting down their weapons in favour of other forms of employment, while recruitment numbers are falling, much to the consternation of the pro-war lobby.  A suggested answer: recruit non-Australian nationals.  This far from brilliant notion will, Marles suggests, take some years.  But a good place to start would be the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders resident in Australia.  Sheer genius.

    The announcement was also meant to offer budget trimmers a barely visible olive branch, promising “to divest, delay or re-scope projects that do not meet our strategic circumstances.” (They could start with the submarines.)  A$5 billion, for instance, will be saved from terminating naval transport and replenishment ships intended to refuel and resupply war vessels at sea.

    Hardly appropriate, opined some military pundits keen to keep plucking the money tree.  Jennifer Parker of the National Security College suggested that, “The removal of the Joint Support ship means there is no future plan to expand Australia’s limited replenishment capability of two ships – which will in turn limit the force projection capability and reach of the expanded surface combatant fleet if the issue is not addressed.”

    The focus, as ever, is on Wicked Oriental Authoritarianism which is very much in keeping with the traditional Australian fear of slanty-eyed devils moving in on the spoils and playground of the Anglosphere.  Former RAAF officer and executive director of the Air Power Institute, Chris McInnes, barks in aeronautical terms that Australia’s air power capability risks being “put in a holding pattern for the next 10 years.”  Despotic China, however, was facing no such prospects.  “There is a risk of putting everything on hold.  The People’s Liberal Army is not on hold.  They are going to keep progressing their aircraft.”  (The air force seems to do wonders for one’s grammar.)

    China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian was cool in his response to the latest promises of indulgent military spending Down Under.  “We hope Australia will correctly view China’s development and strategic intentions, abandon the Cold War mentality, do more things to keep the region peaceful and stable and stop buzzing about China.”  No harm in hoping.

    The post The Australian Defence Formula: Spend! Spend! Spend! first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Australia’s TWPG delivers two tactical watercraft to US Marine Corps

    Australian tactical watercraft manufacturer The Whiskey Project Group (TWPG) has successfully delivered the first two 11-metre Whiskey Bravo Multi-Mission Reconnaissance Craft (MMRC) to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) at the Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton in Southern California, the company announced on 16 April. TWPG noted that the two Whiskey Bravo MMRCs have […]

    The post Australia’s TWPG delivers two tactical watercraft to US Marine Corps appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • America’s Now Evident Plan to Use AUKUS to Spark War With China

    There was much concern, in international circles, about the the U.S. Government’s recent efforts to open a NATO office in Tokyo so as to extend its military alliance against Russia to become also a military alliance against China. When that initiative scared some other NATO members, it was stopped, and the fear temporarily subsided. But then suddenly, on April 8, it was announced that (despite some hurdles that would first need to be overcome) America’s new (2021) anti-China military alliance, AUKUS, is “considering” (meaning here intending) to, in effect, bring into that alliance Japan (which has 79 U.S. military bases). On April 10, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at the White House to plan how this would be done. The next day, Defense News bannered “AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact”. So, the U.S., which has 900 foreign military bases and actually spends around half of the entire planet’s military expenses, and therefore has no actual need for any military ‘allies’, but instead brings them in to serve as proxies for itself and to be able to say (for propaganda-purposes) “we” when referring to itself, so as to ‘justify’ its numerous invasions and to prevent any of its ‘allied’ (or colonial) countries from criticizing it, is now effectively displaying the reality to anyone who worries about such matters. This reality is: Yes, the U.S. Government is demanding to, and will, control China, too. The U.S. already has military bases against China in Australia, Guam, Japan, South Korea, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands, Palau, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, and Thailand; so, it can invade China almost instantly from plenty of bases to China’s south and east.

    Even some Australians (though hardly yet any Brits to my knowledge) are raising alarms at this accession of Japan into AUKUS. For example, the Australian commentator John Menadue, a former Cabinet Minister, published at his blog on April 16th, “Lest We Forget: Japan joining AUKUS a stark reminder of China’s Century of Humiliation”, by  Robert Macklin, which opened:

    With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    It was Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles who first suggested that the inclusion of Japan in the AUKUS group was a natural ‘evolution’ of the pact. As such it was risible, if understandable; Marles is not the sharpest knife in the Cabinet drawer.

    But when it was adopted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – and then the American president Joe Biden – there is cause for concern. With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Japan’s membership could hardly be more provocative to a country that suffered the indignity of Japanese control of its Taiwan province for 50 years from 1895 and its invasion of the mainland throughout the second world war.

    The notorious Massacre of Nanking – where the atrocities included 200,000 murders and 20,000 rapes of the civilian population – was but one of hundreds of outrages visited upon the Chinese people. …

    When he referred there to America’s having created AUKUS as “a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future,” he was referring to the shady excuses that it gave at the time for creating AUKUS, and which entailed an open affront to France — including coercion forcing France to cancel a lucrative contract France had with Australia’s Government, which affront France promised to (but never did) retaliate against the U.S. for. But, now, this bringing of the first non-Anglo member into America’s (initially pure-Anglo) military alliance against China, proves that its real target, and the real aim of AUKUS, is to conquer China — nothing less than that (just as NATO demands to win its war against Russia in the battlefield of Ukraine on Russia’s border).

    On April 15, Lin Congyi, of China’s Defense Ministry, headlined “AUKUS makes more mistakes by roping in Japan”, and he commented:

    Recently, the US, the UK, and Australia announced that Japan would join AUKUS, causing great concern among the international community. This is the first time that the three countries have announced a partner since the organization was established in September 2021. Japanese officials responded by saying that Japan “recognizes” the importance of AUKUS. Many Japanese citizens criticized AUKUS for promoting membership expansion regardless of concerns from all walks of life, which will intensify camp confrontation and the risks of nuclear proliferation, and undermine peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

    AUKUS is short for the Trilateral Security Partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, which has two main pillars. Pillar I focuses on the deployment of nuclear submarines in Australia and the joint research, development and construction of the next-generation nuclear submarines by the three countries. Cooperation in this area is “limited to the US, UK and Australia”. Pillar II focuses on the joint development and deployment of new technologies to enhance advanced combat capabilities.

    Why did they choose Japan in the first place? Analysts believe that there are two reasons. From a technical perspective, the US, the UK and Australia have their respective shortcomings in the field of high technology, while Japan, with advantages in the fields of hypersonic weapons, quantum technology, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence, can play a greater role in defense technology. On the part of Japan, it hopes to improve its defense capabilities and increase its military influence in the Asia-Pacific region by sharing sensitive military technologies with the US, the UK, Australia, and other countries.

    Strategically, these countries also have their own calculations. The US sees AUKUS as a key part of the implementation of the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and wants to attract more allies to join in order to achieve the goal of containing China. The UK is pushing ahead with the “Global Britain” strategy, and its security cooperation with Japan is becoming deeper. It hopes, in a bid to become more involved in Asia-Pacific affairs with the aid of Japan and expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

    Australia, on the other hand, put high expectations on Pillar II due to the sluggish progress of Pillar I and thus supported the inclusion of Japan. As for Japan, it wants to use AUKUS as a new tool to carry out its military agenda in the Asia-Pacific region and contain China. …

    The U.S. Government, and its UK partner, are going for broke, in order to win an all-inclusive U.S.-UK empire — a U.S./UK global dictatorship that includes all of the world’s nations as its colonies (INCLUDING Russia and China). The idea here is nothing less than to terminate national sovereignty and replace it with an international global dictatorship by the U.S./UK partnership: all sovereignty being based in Washington and London, no longer under the internal control of any other individual nation. This is the contemporary U.S./UK vision for their Brave New World. Never has that vision been more clear than it now is: indisputable. (The links here document it.) If this effort to bring Japan into AUKUS succeeds, it will be a virtual declaration of war against China.

    As regards China’s alleged imperial ambitions, an April 16 article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post headlined “China was never an imperialist state” and pointed out that “it could be highly problematic to map directly the Western experience of empire, such as when we talk about the Spanish, Portuguese, British, or even the American empires” because “The Chinese empire, through different dynasties, often functioned more like the opposite of an empire, and the oft-cited tribute system frequently worked in reverse,” meaning that what some Westerners have alleged to be or to have been ‘imperialism’ by China was actually dynastic feuds within China. China’s invasions were internal — as contrasted to the Western experience, which explored, exploited, and invaded, far away from the homeland, in order to conquer, control, and extract from, a distant culture. What America is now trying to do to China (make it become yet another U.S. colony), has no parallel to anything that China has ever done. It is pure foreign aggression — which since 1945 has been the U.S. specialty.

    The post America’s Now Evident Plan to Use AUKUS to Spark War With China first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Success in Australia: Production Contract signed for 123 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier Vehicles from Australia to Germany

    The Commonwealth of Australia has signed the production contract for 123 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles with more than 100 of those vehicles to be exported from Australia for use by the German Army; making it Australia’s largest foreign military export to Germany. The procurement of the Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles is based on a […]

    The post Success in Australia: Production Contract signed for 123 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier Vehicles from Australia to Germany appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Myles Thomas: Newshub, TVNZ job cuts: We now have the worst TV in the Western world

    COMMENTARY: By Myles Thomas

    The announced closure of Television New Zealand’s last primetime current affairs programme seems to be the final nail in the coffin for New Zealand’s television credibility. Coming a day after the announcement of the closure of Newshub, it shows that Kiwis have the worst television and video media in the Western world.

    Let’s compare ourselves with our mates across the ditch. Australia’s ABC TV features a nightly current affairs show called 7.30. The blurb for it reads:

    “Sarah Ferguson presents Australia’s premier daily current affairs program, delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism and interviews that hold the powerful to account. Plus political analysis from Laura Tingle.”

    Clearly 7.30 is far more serious than our Seven Sharp with its fluffy stories and advertorials. The ABC also screens six weekly current affairs shows and documentaries this week. Shows like Australian Story, Four Corners and Media Watch.

    But Australia has five times as many people as we do so that’s why they can afford it, right?

    Ireland has five million people, like NZ, but they still have primetime current affairs. In fact, the Irish enjoy quite a lot of it. The Irish version of TVNZ is RTÉ and features a nightly current affairs show called Nationwide and three weekly current affairs programmes on serious topics.

    There are several other human interest factual programmes too, on subjects like history, gardening, dance and more. It’s the same in other countries with similar populations such as Norway, Denmark, Finland and so on.

    It’s true that in New Zealand, there’s still the off-peak studio politics programmes like Q+A, and current affairs in te ao Māori are well examined on Whakaata Māori. But what about the rest of NZ?

    Some people might say television is dead, and everything is online now. But nearly all online current affairs videos start out as television programmes. The only exceptions are Newsroom’s video investigations with Melanie Reid, and Stuff Circuit which is now disbanded. And for younger audiences there is Re: which TVNZ is also making cuts to.

    Death of current affairs TV
    The death of New Zealand’s prime-time current affairs television has been a long time coming. At first it was documentaries that dwindled and then disappeared off our screens.

    Other genres that are expensive to produce have also become extinct or rarer than a fairy tern — drama, science programmes, kidult, arts programmes, wildlife documentaries, chat shows. Now we can add consumer affairs and prime-time current affairs to the list.

    But it doesn’t have to be this way. If other countries can do it, why not NZ?

    On Wednesday, the Minister for Media and Communications, Melissa Lee, said “I don’t think I can actually save anything. I’m trying to be who I am, the Minister for Media and Communications.”

    This suggests either a lack of understanding of her role or a lack of ambition. She also let slip that there was no way she could save Newshub.

    The only substantive solution to come from the minister is her promise to review the Broadcasting Act. But that review process was initiated by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage years ago and started under the Labour government.

    Moreover, the Broadcasting Act does little more than lay out the rules for broadcasting complaints, election broadcasting, and establish NZ On Air, the BSA and Te Māngai Pāho.

    Minister just tweaking
    The minister says she is reviewing the Broadcasting Act to create a “more level playing field” and allow media businesses to “innovate”. That doesn’t sound like it will do much for television and video current affairs, which will take much more than just tweaking how NZ On Air and the BSA work.

    Perhaps she intends something much more comprehensive, such as a new funding stream for public media, perhaps through a levy, a compulsory subscription, or even a licence fee.

    Despite her protestations, there are several options available to the minister. To save TVNZ’s Fair Go and Sunday, she could provide TVNZ with an interim cash injection (which is actually what governments often do in disasters) until the comprehensive long-term funding is sorted out.

    To save Newshub she could promise to remove advertising from TVNZ, or partially on weekends only. This would throw Warner Bros Discovery a lifeline in the form of advertisers looking for a television station to advertise on. She does not have to stand by and watch while our media burns.

    Sunday is only with us for a few more weeks. Enjoy it while it lasts.

    Myles Thomas is a trustee for Better Public Media Trust. This article was first published by The New Zealand Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • From Florida to Australia, Global Coral Bleaching Could Soon Be Worst on Record

    After a year of ocean heat waves and unprecedented temperatures off the coast of Florida that alarmed conservationists last summer, the world is currently experiencing a “global coral reef bleaching event,” the fourth ever recorded and the second in the past decade, according to climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Coral reef bleaching occurs as warming…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Terra nullius 2.0 – what AUKUS means for First Nations peoples

    This post was originally published on IndigenousX.

  • Riley and Hartley-Brewer’s knee-jerk Islamophobia shows what a sewer corporate media is

    Rachel Riley and Julia Hartley-Brewer’s responses to the massacre in Australia were filled with compassion and tolerance.

    We’re only joking – of course they weren’t. They were filled with rampant hate and Islamophobia.

    Hartley-Brewer: maintaining her reputation

    On 13 April, a man wielding a knife stabbed and killed six people, injuring several more. Police shot and killed the attacker who was later named as Joel Cauchi. The BBC reported:

    Authorities said the attack was most likely “related to the mental health” of Mr Cauchi.

    Asked whether she believes he was targeting women, New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb told reporters on Sunday it would be “an obvious line of inquiry”.

    But she added she would not describe the stabbings as an “act of terror”, reiterating that police believed there was “no ideological motivation”.

    Usually, professional practice on social media is to refrain from speculating on the motive of an ongoing attack as it’s unfolding. In the UK, however, you don’t need to act professionally to be employed by the corporate media

    Enter Julia Hartley-Brewer of the Rupert-Murdoch-founded Talk TV:

    Big mouth strikes again

    As can be seen above, Brewer’s response received a community note highlighting her poor journalistic practice. She later apologised:

    Her point about it not being “consolation to the families” betrays how she views politics. Events happen, and then you scrabble around trying to demonstrate how it backs up your world view. She lost the game this time, but she reassures herself it won’t console anyone else.

    If you think that’s reading into it too much, this is what she tweeted next:

    People with emotions like empathy or humility don’t usually tweet ‘suck it, haters’ as part of their public apologies.

    Brewer received a good deal of criticism for both the original tweet and her later back-peddling:

    Rachel Riley: hold my beer, Julia

    However, eternal source of hate dressed up as sweet and innocent genius, Countdown co-presenter Rachel Riley, managed to go one further than Hartley-Brewer:

    Why did she go one further? Because when the truth – not right-wing racist conspiracy – came out about the alleged murderer in Sydney, she did the only thing she knows how to do: double down:

    People on X were rightly calling her out:

    Countless people were calling on Channel 4 to take action against Riley – as well as Talk TV over Hartley-Brewer:

    While it’s unlikely Channel 4 will do anything about their favourite Evil Princess – it’s even less likely that any of Hartley-Brewer’s employers will act.

    Julia Hartley-Sewer

    According to her blurb on the Telegraph website – an outlet she’s written several pieces for:

    Julia Hartley-Brewer is a journalist, broadcaster and talkRADIO presenter. A former political editor and LBC Radio presenter, she is a regular on TV shows such as Question Time and Have I Got News For You, and on Radio 4’s Any Questions and the News Quiz

    That’s a lot of gigs and media appearances for someone who has:

    Rivers of sewage

    If you have a job, you might not understand how Riley and Hartley-Brewer keep getting work. In proper industries, you can’t fuck-up day-in, day-out and carry on earning a paycheck. In most jobs, you can’t get away with it once.

    The context you need to put things into place is that the British corporate media and broadcasting is an open sewer. As such, the stink of bad journalism and even worse opinions is impossible to detect.

    The other thing to understand is that whether it’s Talk TV, the Telegraph, Channel 4, or the BBC, it doesn’t matter how incompetent an employee is, just so long as they’re incompetent in a fashion which benefits the establishment.

    Featured image via Wikipedia/TalkTV

    By John Shafthauer

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Secret Agreements: The Australian-Israel Defence Memorandum of Understanding

    While the Australian government continues to pirouette with shallow constancy on the issue of Israel’s war in Gaza, making vacuous utterances on Palestinian statehood even as it denies supplying the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with weapons (spare parts, it would seem, are a different, footnoted matter), efforts made to unearth details of the defence relationship between the countries have so far come to naught.

    The brief on Australian-Israel relations published by the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs is deplorably skimpy, noting that both countries have, since 2017, “expanded cooperation on national security, defence and cyber security.”  Since 2018, we are told that annual talks have been conducted between defence officials, while Australia appointed, in early 2018, a resident Defence Attaché to the embassy in Tel Aviv.  What is conspicuously absent are details of the Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation both countries signed in 2017.

    A little bit of scrapping around reveals that 2017 was something of a critical year, a true bumper return.  The Australia-Israel Defence Industry Cooperation Joint Working Group was created that October.  A following Australian Defence media release notes the group’s intention: “to strengthen ties between Australia and Israel, explore defence industry and innovation opportunities, identify export opportunities, and support our industries to cooperate in the development of innovative technologies for shared capability challenges.”

    The intentions of the group were well borne out.  Defence contracts followed with sweet indulgence:  the February 2018 contract between Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with Australia’s Bisalloy Steels worth A$900,000; an August 2018 joint venture between the Australian defence engineering company Varley Group and Rafael, behind such “leading weapons systems” as “the Spike LR2 anti-tank guided missile”; and the Electro Optic Systems-Elbit Systems agreement from 2019 responsible for developing “a modular medium-calibre turret that can be configured for a range of platforms, including lightweight reconnaissance and heavy fighting vehicles.”

    In February this year, Elbit Systems, Israel’s notorious drone manufacturer and creator of the Hermes 450 aerial device responsible for this month’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers including the Australian national, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, was rewarded with a A$917 million contract.  Business, even over bodies, exerts a corrupting force.

    In a heartbeat after the outbreak of the latest Gaza War last October, the Australian Greens filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request seeking a copy of the barely mentioned MOU.  After a period of three months, the Australian Defence Department reached the boring conclusion that the application should be rejected.  It fell, the argument went, within the category of exemptions so treasured by secretive bureaucrats keen to make sure the “freedom” in FOI is kept spare and bare.

    What follows is repulsive to intellect and denigrating to morality.  “The document within the scope of this request,” went the letter from the Defence Department, “contains information which, if released, could reasonably be expected to damage the international relations of the Commonwealth.” The MOU “contains information communicated to Australia by a foreign government and its officials under the expectation that it would not be disclosed.”  Releasing “such information could harm Australia’s international standing and reputation.”

    A telling, and troubling role was played by Israel in the process.  With characteristic, jellied spinelessness, Australian defence officials notified Israel of the FOI request in December 2023.  In February, the Netanyahu government responded with its views, of which we can only speculate.  The Greens were duly informed by the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) that the relevant decision maker in Defence “will consider the foreign government’s consultation response to make an informed and robust decision.”  With such words, a negative response was nigh predictable.

    Greens Senator David Shoebridge, in responding to the decision, was adamant that, “There is no place for secret arms treaties and secret arms deals between countries.”  Furthermore, there was “no place for giving other countries veto power over what the Australian government tells the public about our government defence and arms deals.”  The case is even more pressing given allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide taking place in the Gaza strip.

    This regrettable episode retains a certain familiar repulsiveness.  Unfortunately for devotees of open government, a fraught term if ever there was one, Australia’s FOI regime remains stringently archaic and pathologically secretive.

    Decision makers are given directions to frustrate, not aid, applications to reveal information, notably on sensitive topics such as security, defence and international relations.  Spurious notions about damage to international relations are advanced to ensure secrecy and the muzzling of debate.  The OAIC has also shown itself to be lamentably weak, tardy and inefficient in reviewing applications.  In March 2023, it was revealed that almost 600 unresolved FOI cases had bottled up over the course of three years.

    The latest refusal from the Defence Department to disclose the Israel-Australian MOU to members of Parliament, a decision reached after discussions with a foreign power (that fact is staggering and disheartening in of itself), betrays much doubletalk regarding defence ties between Canberra, the IDF, and the Israeli government.  More than that, it confirms that those in Canberra are being steered by other interests, longing for the approval of foreign eyes and foreign interests.

    The post Secret Agreements: The Australian-Israel Defence Memorandum of Understanding first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange

    Walking stiffly, largely distracted, and struggling to focus on the bare essentials, US President Joe Biden was keeping company with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, when asked the question.  It concerned what he was doing regarding Australia’s request that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be returned to Australia.

    Assange, who has spent five tormenting years in Belmarsh Prison in London, is battling extradition to the US on 18 charges, 17 tenuously and dangerously based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.

    The words that followed from the near mummified defender of the Free World were short, yet bright enough for the publisher’s supporters.  “We’re considering it.”  No details were supplied.

    To these barest of crumbs came this reaction from from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on ABC’s News Breakfast: “We have raised on behalf of Mr Assange, Australia’s national interest, that enough is enough, that this needs to be brought to a conclusion, and we’ve raised it at each level of government in every possible way.”  When pressed on whether this was merely an afterthought from the president, Albanese responded with the usual acknowledgments: the case was complex, and responsibility lay with the US Department of Justice.

    One of Assange’s lawyers, the relentless Jennifer Robinson, told Sky News Australia of her encouragement at Biden’s “response, this is what we have been asking for over five years.  Since 2010 we’ve been saying this is a dangerous precedent that’s being set.  So, we certainly hope it was a serious remark and the US will act on it.”  Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, also told Sky News that the statement was significant while WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson thought the utterance “extraordinary”, cautiously hoping “to see in the coming days” whether “clarification of what this means” would be offered by “those in power” and the press corps.

    The campaign to free Assange has burgeoned with admirable ferocity.  The transformation of the WikiLeaks founder from eccentric, renegade cyber thief deserving punishment to prosecuted and persecuted scribbler and political prisoner has been astonishing.

    The boggling legal process has also been shown up as woefully inadequate and scandalous, a form of long-term torture via judicial torment and deprivation.  The current ludicrous pitstop entails waiting for a UK Court of Appeal decision as to whether Assange will be granted leave for a full reconsideration of his case, including the merits of the extradition order itself.

    The March 26 Court of Appeal decision refused to entertain the glaringly obvious features of the case: that Assange is being prosecuted for his political views, that due process is bound to be denied in a country whose authorities have contemplated his abduction and murder, and that he risks being sentenced for conduct he is not charged with “based on evidence he will not see and which may have been unlawfully obtained.”  The refusal to entertain such material as the Yahoo News article from September 2021 outlining the views of intelligence officials on kidnapping and assassination options again cast the entire affair in a poor light.

    Even if Assange is granted a full hearing, it is not clear whether the court will go so far as to accept the arguments.  The judges have already nobbled the case by offering US prosecutors the chance to offer undertakings, none of which would or could be binding on the DOJ or any US judge hearing the case.  Extradition, in other words, is likely to be approved if Assange is “permitted to rely on the First Amendment”, “is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality” and that he “is afforded the same First Amendment protection as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty not be imposed”.  These conditions, on the face of it, look absurd in their naïve presumption.

    Whether Biden’s latest casual spray lends any credibility to a change of heart remains to be seen.  In December 2010, when Vice President in the Obama administration, Biden described Assange as a “high-tech terrorist” for disclosing State Department cables.  He failed to identify any parallels with previous cases of disclosures such as the Pentagon papers.

    Craig Murray, former British diplomat and Assange confidant, adds a note of cautious sobriety to the recent offering from the president: “I’m not going to get too hopeful immediately on a few words out of the mouth of Biden, because there has been no previous indication, nothing from the Justice Department so far to indicate any easing up.”

    For all that, it may well be that the current administration, facing a relentless publicity campaign from human rights organisations, newspapers, legal and medical professionals, not to mention pressure from both his own party in Congress and Republicans, is finally yielding.  Caution, however, is the order of the day, and nothing should be read or considered in earnest till signatures are inked and dried.  We are quite a way off from that.

    The post Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australia awards production contract for German Boxers

    The Australian government announced that it has signed a production contract with Rheinmetall Defence Australia to manufacture 8×8 made Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles for Germany. The signing of the production contract fulfils the intent of the bilateral agreement signed by the Australian and German Governments in March to export more than 100 Boxer vehicles […]

    The post Australia awards production contract for German Boxers appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Enga ‘isn’t that bad’, says Australian diplomat on troubled area visit

    PNG Post-Courier

    The Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, John Feakes, has become the first foreign diplomat to visit the “valley of tears” in Wapenamanda, Enga, province.

    Feakes braved fears of tribal warfare when he visited Australian government-funded projects at a tribal fighting zone on Wednesday.

    The battlefields of Middle Lai, where more than 60 men lost their lives, fell silent after the signing of the landmark Hilton Peace Agreement last month in Port Moresby between the warring alliances.

    The purpose of the Feakes tour was to visit Australian government-funded projects and one of those is the multimillion kina Huli Open Polytechnical Institute which is still under construction and is situated in the deserted fighting zone.

    A few metres away from the perimeter fence, a pile of dead bodies had been loaded on police trucks that caught world news media headlines.

    Feakes walked on the soil and chose Enga as his first to visit out of Port Moresby into the volatile Upper Highlands region.

    His visit in this part of the region gives confidence to the international community and the general public that the Enga province still exists despite negative reports on tribal conflicts.

    Education funding
    The Australian diplomat’s government has invested substantial funding in the province, essentially in education.

    The Feakes tour to the project sites is to strengthen that Australian and Papua New Guinea relationship and to remain as a strong partner in promoting development aspirations in the country.

    “My visit is to give confidence to the international community that the [Enga] province is not as bad as they may think when seeing reports in the media,” he said.

    “Every community has its share of problems and Enga province is no different.”

    Feakes and his first secretary, Tom Battams, visited more than five Australian government-funded projects after they were received by local traditional dancers, Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas, Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka, provincial assembly members, senior public servants and the general public at the Kumul Boomgate near the provincial border of Western Highlands and Enga provinces.

    The projects visited were: Kumul Lodge, Mukuramanda Jail, Hela-Opena Technical College at Akom, Innovative University of Enga-Education Faculty Irelya campus and Wabag market.

    A lot of bull exchanges and alleged killing of people took place recently near Hela Open-Technical College during the tribal conflict between Palinau and Yopo alliances but nothing happened on Wednesday as Feakes and the delegation drove through to visit the institution.

    Convoy waved
    Instead, villagers stood peacefully along the roadsides starting from Kuimanda to Akom (areas treated as trouble zones) waving at the convoy of vehicles escorting the high commissioner.

    Such gestures was described by many, including Tsak Local Level Government Council President Thomas Lawai and Provincial Law and Order director Nelson Leia, as a sign that the people were preparing to restore lasting peace in the affected areas.

    Feakes also had the opportunity to talk to students at IUE campus where he told them to study hard to become meaningful contributors to growth of the country

    Feakes was also visiting the new Enga Provincial Hospital, Enga College of Nursing, Enga Cultural Centre, Wabag Amphitheatre and Ipatas centre yesterday before returning to Port Moresby.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China

    The occasional burst of candour from US diplomats provides a striking, air clearing difference to their Australian and British counterparts.  Official statements about the AUKUS security pact between Washington, London and Canberra, rarely mention the target in so many words, except on the gossiping fringes.  Commentators and think tankers are essentially given free rein to speculate, masticating over such streaky and light terms as “new strategic environment”, “great power competition”, “rules-based order”.

    On the occasion of his April 3 visit to Washington’s Center for a New American Security (CNAS), US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was refreshingly frank.  His presence as an emissary of US power in the Pacific has been notable since the AUKUS announcement in September 2021.

    In March last year, Campbell, as Deputy Assistant to the US President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific National Security Council, was unfurling the US flag before various Pacific states, adamant that US policy was being reoriented from one of neglect to one of greater attentiveness.  The Solomon Islands, given its newly minted security pact with Beijing, was of special concern.  “We realise that we have to overcome in certain areas some amounts of distrust and uncertainty about follow through,” he explained to reporters in Wellington, New Zealand.  “We’re seeking to gain that trust and confidence as we go forward.”

    In Honiara, Campbell conceded that the US had not done “enough before” and had to be “big enough to admit that we need to do more, and we need to do better.”  This entailed, in no small part, cornering the Solomon Islands Premier Manasseh Sogavare into affirming that Beijing would not be permitted to establish a military facility capable of supporting “power projection capabilities”.

    In his discussion with the CNAS Chief Executive Officer, Richard Fontaine, Campbell did the usual runup, doffing the cap to the stock principles.  Banal generalities were discussed, for instance, as to whether the US should be the sole show in projecting power or seek support from like-minded sorts.  “I would argue that as the United States and other nations confront a challenging security environment, that the best way to maintain peace and security is to work constructively and deeply with allies and partners.”  A less than stealthy rebuke was reserved for those who think “that the best that the United States can do is to act alone and to husband its resources and think about unilateral, individual steps it might take.”

    The latter view has always been scorned by those calling themselves multilateralists, a cloaking term for waging war arm-in-arm with satellite states and vassals while ascribing to it peace keeping purposes in the name of stability.  Campbell is unsurprising in arguing “that working closely with other nations, not just diplomatically, but in defensive avenues [emphasis added], has the consequence of strengthening peace and stability more generally.”  The virtue with the unilateralists is the possibility that war should be resorted to sparingly.  If one is taking up arms alone, a sense of caution can moderate the bloodlust.

    Campbell revealingly envisages “a number of areas of conflict and in a number of scenarios that countries acting together” in the Indo-Pacific, including Japan, Australia, South Korea and India.  “I think that balance, the additional capacity will help strengthen deterrence more general [sic].”  The candid admission on the role played by the AUKUS submarines follows, with the boats having “the potential to have submarines from a number of countries operating in close coordination that could deliver conventional ordinance from long distances.  Those have enormous implications in a variety of scenarios, including in cross-strait circumstances”.  And so, we have the prospect of submarines associated with the AUKUS compact being engaged in a potential war with China over Taiwan.

    When asked on what to do about the slow production rate of submarines on the part of the US Navy necessary to keep AUKUS afloat, Campbell acknowledged the constraints – the Covid pandemic, supply chain issues, the number of submarines in dry dock requiring or requiring servicing.  But like Don Quixote taking the reins of Rosinante to charge the windmills, he is undeterred in his optimism, insisting that “the urgent security demands in Europe and the Indo-Pacific require much more rapid ability to deliver both ordinance and other capabilities.”

    To do so, the military industrial complex needs to be broadened (good news for the defence industry, terrible for the peacemakers).  “I think probably there is going to be a need over time for a larger number of vendors, both in the United States in Australia and Great Britain, involved in both AUKUS and other endeavours.”

    There was also little by way of peace talk in Campbell’s confidence about the April 11 trilateral Washington summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines, following a bilateral summit to be held between President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.  When terms such as “modernize” and “update” are bandied about in the context of an alliance, notably with an eye towards a rival power’s ambitions, the warring instincts must surely be stirred.  In the language of true encirclement, Campbell envisages a cooperative framework that will “help link the Indo-Pacific more effectively to Europe” while underscoring “our commitment to the region as a whole.”

    A remarkably perverse reality is in the offing regarding AUKUS.  In terms of submarines, it will lag, possibly even sink, leaving the US and, to a lesser extent the UK, operating their fleets as Australians foot the bill and provide the refreshments.  Campbell may well mention Australia and the UK in the context of nuclear-powered submarines, but it remains clear where his focus is: the US program “which I would regard as the jewel in the crown of our defense industrial capacity.”  Not only is Australia effectively promising to finance and service that particular capacity, it will also do so in the service of a potentially catastrophic conflict which will see its automatic commitment.  A truly high price to pay for an abdication of sovereignty for the fiction of regional stability.

    The post Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Airspeed enters Australia’s Hunter frigate programme

    Airspeed has been awarded a contract to produce and deliver supply Replenishment At Sea (RAS) Stump Masts for the first batch of three Hunter class frigates, shipbuilder and lead integrator BAE Systems announced on 2 April. The RAS Stump Masts are used for underway ship-to-ship transfer of fuel, munitions, and stores. BAE Systems highlighted that […]

    The post Airspeed enters Australia’s Hunter frigate programme appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Australian Army trials UGV live firing with EOS

    The Australian Army’s Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation & Coordination Office (RICO) and Electro Optic Systems (EOS) have teamed up to demonstrate the long-range firing capabilities and precision of the latter’s R400 remote weapon system (RWS), the company announced on 3 April. The live-fire demonstration was conducted from EOS’ facility in Canberra, where a team […]

    The post Australian Army trials UGV live firing with EOS appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Killing Aid Workers: Australia’s Muddled Policy on Israel

    The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was distraught and testy.  It seemed that, on this occasion, Israel had gone too far.  Not too far in killing over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a staggering percentage of them being children.  Not too far in terms of using starvation as a weapon of war.  Not too far in bringing attention to the International Court of Justice that its actions are potentially genocidal.

    Israel had overstepped in doing something it has done previously to other nationals: kill humanitarian workers in targeted strikes.  The difference for Albanese on this occasion was that one of the individuals among the seven World Central Kitchen charity workers killed during the midnight between April 1 and 2 was Australian national Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom.

    Frankcom and her colleagues had unloaded humanitarian food supplies from Cyprus that had been sent via a maritime route before leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse.  The convoy, despite driving in a designated “deconflicted” zone, was subsequently attacked by three missiles fired from a Hermes 450 drone.  All vehicles had the WCK logo prominently displayed.  WCK had been closely coordinating the movements of their personnel with the IDF.

    In a press conference on April 3, Albanese described the actions as “completely unacceptable.”  He noted that the Israeli government had accepted responsibility for the strikes, while Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu had conveyed his condolences to Frankcom’s family, with assurances that he would be “committed to full transparency”.

    The next day, the Australian PM called the slaying of Frankcom a “catastrophic event”, reiterating Netanyahu’s promises from the previous day that he was “committed to a full and proper investigation.”  Albanese also wished that these findings be made public, and that accountability be shown for Israel’s actions, including for those directly responsible.  “What we know is that there have been too many innocent lives lost in Gaza.”

    Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, restated the need for “full accountability and transparency” and Australian cooperation with Israel “on the detail of this investigation.”  She further acknowledged the deaths of over 30,000 civilians, with some “half a million Palestinians” starving.

    Beyond an investigation, mounted and therefore controlled by the Israeli forces themselves, nothing much else can be hoped for.  The Albanese approach has been one of copybook warnings and concerns to an ally it clearly fears affronting.  What would a ground invasion of Rafah do to the civilian population?  What of the continuing hardships in Gaza?  Push for a humanitarian ceasefire, but what else?

    Australian anger at the government level must therefore be severely qualified.  Support roles, thereby rendering Australian companies complicit in Israeli’s military efforts, and in ancillary fashion the Australian government, continue to be an important feature. The F-35, a mainstay US-made fighter for the Israeli Air Force, is not manufactured or built in Australia, but is sustained through the supply of spare parts stored in a number of allied countries. According to the Australian Department of Defence, “more than 70 Australian companies have directly shared more than $4.13 billion in global F-35 production and sustainment contracts.”

    The Australian government has previously stated that all export permit decisions “must assess any relevant human rights risks and Australia’s compliance with its international obligations”.  The refusal of a permit would be assured in cases where an exported product “might be used to facilitate human rights abuses”.  On paper, this seems solidly reasoned and consistent with international humanitarian law.  But Canberra has been a glutton for the Israeli military industry, approving 322 defence exports over the past six years. In 2022, it approved 49 export permits of a military nature bound for Israel; in the first three months of 2023, the number was 23.

    The drone used in the strike that killed Frankcom is the pride and joy of Elbit Systems, which boasts a far from negligible presence in Australia.  In February, Elbit Systems received a A$917 million contract from the Australian Defence Department, despite previous national security concerns among Australian military personnel regarding its Battle Management System (BMS).

    When confronted with the suggestion advanced by the Australian Greens that Australia end arms sales to Israel, given the presence of Australian spare parts in weaponry used by the IDF, Wong displayed her true plumage.  The Australian Greens, she sneered, were “trying to make this a partisan political issue”.  With weasel-minded persistence, Wong again quibbled that “we are not exporting arms to Israel” and claiming Australian complicity in Israeli actions was “detrimental to the fabric of Australian society.”

    The Australian position on supplying Israel remains much like that of the United States, with one fundamental exception.  The White House, the Pentagon and the US Congress, despite increasing concerns about the arrangement, continue to bankroll and supply the Israeli war machine even as issue is taken about how that machine works.  That much is admitted.  The Australian line on this is even weaker.

    The feeble argument made by such watery types as Foreign Minister Wong focus on matters of degree and semantics.  Israel is not being furnished with weapons; they are merely being furnished with weapon components.

    Aside from ending arms sales, there is precedent for Australia taking the bull by the horns and charging into the mist of legal accountability regarding the killing of civilians in war.  It proved an enthusiastic participant in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), charged with combing through the events leading to the downing of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014 by a Buk missile, killing all 298 on board.

    Any such equivalent investigation into the IDF personnel responsible for the killing of Frankcom and her colleagues is unlikely.  When the IDF talks of comprehensive reviews, we know exactly how comprehensively slanted they will be.

    The post Killing Aid Workers: Australia’s Muddled Policy on Israel first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • US committed to Australia nuclear subs deal, diplomat says

    The United States will find a way to provide the nuclear-powered submarines promised to Australia as part of the AUKUS security pact despite the massive backlogs plaguing American shipbuilding yards, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Wednesday.

    Campbell, who recently departed a role as President Joe Biden’s “Asia czar” to become the second-most senior U.S. diplomat, said it was “fair to say” American submarine production is hampered, but added that there was already a “substantial focus” on the issue at the Pentagon.

    Supply-chain issues have hamstrung production at American shipyards, but the billions of dollars of investments made by Canberra in the shipbuilding industry was helping fix that, he explained.

    “As is always the case, more money helps,” Campbell said at an event at the Center for a New American Security held to mark a year since the AUKUS submarine deal was unveiled. “AUKUS, in many respects, is a game changer. It is basically finding the way forward.” 

    ENG_CHN_AUKUS_04032024.2.JPG
    National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell listens during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to examine his nomination to be Deputy Secretary of State on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)

    Campbell acknowledged the injection of Australian funds – though “very generous” – would not be enough on its own, and that “new investments” and “new capabilities” would be needed “to increase our ability both to service and also produce submarines.”

    “Backlogs and bottlenecks have plagued a number of programs,” he said. “There is a very serious endeavor underway to see what steps can be taken to not only to assist a program like AUKUS but, frankly, certain munitions which are central to American military purpose.”

    Australia has earmarked a total of AU$368 billion, or about US$245 billion, over the next 30 years as part of the AUKUS pact, which is aimed at countering China’s expansionism in the Indo-Pacific.

    AUKUS pact

    Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States unveiled the deal in March last year for the latter two nations to arm Australia with nuclear submarines over the coming decades under AUKUS.

    As part of that, the United States committed to selling between three and five Virginia-class nuclear submarines, which use conventional weapons, to Canberra over the next decade in exchange for some US$3 billion of Australian investment in American shipyards.

    But concerns have emerged in Australia that the United States may not be able to provide the submarines due to backlogs. Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers, such as Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, have pondered if the United States has submarines to spare.

    ENG_CHN_AUKUS_04032024.3.JPG
    Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, meets with US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese, left, at Point Loma naval base in San Diego, March 13, 2023, as part of Aukus, a trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK, and the US. (Stefan Rousseau/AP)

    A U.S. defense spending bill signed last month also cut funding for production of a Virginia-class sub, with Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut who co-chairs the AUKUS Working Group, saying the move could undercut plans to provide submarines to Australia.

    “One of the big questions with AUKUS was: Will it provide enough submarines to keep the US fleet at an adequate level and will it produce enough submarines to satisfy the three boats that we agreed to sell?” the lawmaker told Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald.

    Australian and U.S. officials, though, have maintained the submarines will be provided by the early 2030s, by which time Australia expects to begin producing its own submarines with British help.

    Multilateralism

    During Wednesday’s event, Campbell also flagged the possibility of Japan and the Philippines joining AUKUS in some capacity, with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. visiting the White House on April 11.

    “It is true that there are other countries that have expressed an interest to participate, under the right circumstances,” he said. “I think you’ll hear that we have something to say about that next week.”

    The No. 2 American diplomat said it was all part of a push by the United States to shift its Indo-Pacific alliances in a more multilateral direction, and away from a series of bilateral relationships.

    “It used to be that we had this ‘hub and spoke’ set of relationships between the United States and allies and partners,” Campbell said. “Now we’re creating … a ‘lattice-fence’ arrangement, with lots of intertwined overlapping interlocking engagements.”

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Open letter: AWPA calls on Wong to protest to Jakarta over brutal torture

    OPEN LETTER: To Australia’s Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong

    Dear Foreign Minister,

    I am writing to you on behalf of the Australia West Papua Association in Sydney concerning the brutal torture of a West Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya by Indonesian troops in West Papua in early February.

    Anybody watching the video footage of the Papuan man being tortured by the Indonesian security forces cannot help but be horrified and outraged at the brutality of those involved in the torture.

    A video of the torture is circulating on social media and in numerous articles in the main stream media.

    Flashback to Asia Pacific Report's report on the Indonesian torture on 23 March 2024
    Flashback to Asia Pacific Report’s report on the Indonesian torture on 23 March 2024 . . . global condemnation and protests quickly followed. Image: APR screenshot

    The video shows the man placed in a drum filled with water, with both his hands tied. The victim is repeatedly punched and kicked by several soldiers.

    His back is also slashed with a knife. One can only imagine the fear and terror the Papuan man must feel at this brutal torture being inflicted on him.

    At first the military denied the claim. However, they eventually admitted it was true and arrested 13 soldiers involved in the incident.

    I’m sure we will hear statements from Jakarta that this was an isolated incident, that they were “rogue” soldiers and that 13 soldiers have been arrested over the torture. However, if the video had not gone viral would anybody have been held to account?

    Tragically this is not an isolated incident. We will not go into all the details of the human rights abuses committed against West Papuans by the Indonesian security forces as we are sure you are aware of the numerous reports documenting these incidents.

    However, there are regular clashes between the Indonesian security forces and the TPNPB (Free Papua Movement) who are fighting for their independence. As a result of these clashes the military respond with what they call sweeps of the area.

    It’s not unusual for houses and food gardens to be destroyed during these operations, including the arrest and torture of Papuans. Local people usually flee in fear from the military to the forest or other regions creating internally displaced people (IDP).

    Human rights reports indicate there are more than 60,000 IDP in West Papua. Many suffer from malnutrition and their children are missing out on their education.

    Amnesty International Indonesia, church and civil society groups in West Papua and around the world have condemned the torture and are calling for a thorough investigation into the torture case.

    AWPA is urging you to also add your voice, condemning this brutal torture incident by the Indonesian military .

    The West Papuan people are calling on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory. We urge you to use you good offices with the Indonesian government, urging Jakarta to allow such a visit to take place.

    Yours sincerely

    Joe Collins
    Australia West Papua Association (    AWPA)
    Sydney

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Kategate: From Conspiracy to Contrition Extraction

    Cancer is a stomping bugger of a disease.  It seeks the worm-ridden end, a thief finding its way into your body unasked and willingly helping itself.  This cellular mass army will, in a most tribal way, make off with your remains chance permitting. So, it’s understandable that people speak about it.  Blog, discuss, worry, grieve and gather in the digital house square.  But not all grief and its content are ever the same.

    The recent obsession with Catherine, the Princess of Wales, who many still see as Kate Middleton, is a fitful reminder that no one’s business is seemingly everybody’s, especially when it comes to the royals.  When she had abdominal surgery in mid-January, her absence from public life prompted a feverish, fitful obsession, something described with a certain deliciousness by Helen Lewis as “QAnon for White Moms”.

    Social media wags and fanatics, evidently finding this royal retreat into silence infuriating, brainstormed their way to the most drearily absurd notions.  If true, virtually none would have made the slightest difference in the war ravaged, climate distempered world.  Had Catherine received a Brazilian butt lift?  Had Prince William made a dash from his marital vows to shack up with the Marchioness of Cholmondeley?

    Some of this was aided by an overly keen interest in the release of a photo on March 11 by Kensington Palace for Mother’s Day.  Featuring the princess and her three children, the photo seemed to show signs of tampering, evidenced by blurring and misalignment.  News outlets and wire services, including the Associated Press, retracted the image.  “At closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated the image,” came the grave advisory from AP.  “No replacement photo will be sent.”

    All this fuss, despite tech behemoths openly encouraging the mendacious sprucing up of family shots.  With a keen, digitally tampering eye, a child’s scowl and scorn can be airbrushed, leaving portraits of family bliss.  The manipulation became yet another opportunity for the fanning of online flames.  As for the princess, she conceded that, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.”

    At the Spectator, Brendan O’Neill stated the obvious point that both plot and proportion had been lost in the entire Kate Middleton saga.  “There’s a war in Europe and the Middle East, an energy crisis, a lame-duck government waddling to defeat and people waiting five days in A&E to see a nurse, and you’re still yapping about a princess slightly misaligning her daughter’s sleeve while editing a family photo?”

    With a purplish spike in conspiracy theories about what the princess was up to, British academics and wonks detected signs of foreign interference, with customary finger pointing at Russian groups.  Here was something everyone could earn their crust from, and Martin Inness of Cardiff University was not going to let it pass, claiming he and his team had identified no fewer than 45 accounts posting about the princess linked to a Russian disinformation operation called Doppelgänger.  “It’s about destabilisation. It’s about undermining trust in institutions: government, monarchy, media – everything.”

    With “Kategate” now a raging social media fire, feeding much lazy journalism and the attention-seeking blogosphere, it fell upon Catherine to seize the day and reorient the interest.  The silence, she revealed on March 22, had been occasioned not merely by convalescence but her cancer diagnosis and pursuing a course of “preventative chemotherapy”: “As you can imagine, it has taken me time to recover from major surgery in order to start my treatment.  But most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them.”

    The compass rapidly turned.  Naming, shaming and excessive contrition became the order of the day.  The Palace was blamed for its fumbles.  The princess was defended for having suffered silently while being forced into revealing her diagnosis.  “As someone who speculated on this without considering it could be a serious health condition,” political pundit and author Owen Jones effused, “I’m very ashamed to be honest, and all the very best to her.”

    There was precedent for such an attitudinal shift.  It resembled, at least in echo, the Diana phenomenon.  The death of the Princess of Wales in August 1997 in a car crash turned her into saintly untouchability, all prior blemishes erased.  Only a few days prior to her demise in Paris with the tawdry playboy Dodi, son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, she had been mocked for her fickleness and shallowness.  With her death, the lachrymose glands were heavily exercised.  Competitive grieving was the order of the day, and those not partaking were tarred and feathered.

    The difference now is that Catherine had been canny in democratising her condition – a mother, and a young one at that, suffering cancer.  Despite having access to medical care and resources the common citizenry could only dream of, many could relate.  She became the topic of serious, sometimes ludicrous discussion on such light end television programs as Channel 4’s The Last Leg, with all three hosts seeking to milk the tear ducts.  The anchor, Australian comedian Adam Hills, spoke of the day as having been “strange … for all of us” before reflecting on the dying days of his father.

    It would have been particularly strange for Hills, as only one week prior, he had begun the show sitting beside a book titled Photoshop for Dummies.  “I’ve never seen our office WhatsApp group get as excited this week by this story.”  He proceeded to bore his audience for a good quarter hour with the usual inanities about “the case of the missing princess”.

    In the wash up, Catherine, if not her advisors, should have recounted the words of the late novelist Hilary Mantel, whose “Royal Bodies” (2013) in the London Review of Books said with brutal honesty what royals, especially of a certain type, are good for.  From “a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore,” Kate Middleton had become “a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions.”  In time, she would be deemed radiant, the press finding “that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.”  To that can now be added another limb: a contrition extractor, farmer of sympathy and tears.

    The post Kategate: From Conspiracy to Contrition Extraction first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Green Left fights another Facebook ban without warning over Gaza

    EDITORIAL: By Pip Hinman and Susan Price

    Meta, the giant social media corporation, has “unpublished” Green Left’s longstanding Facebook page, which had tens of thousands of followers.

    We had been regularly posting stories, videos and photographs on the page from our consistent reporting of the news and views that seldom get into the mainstream media.

    But our recent interviews with veteran Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled have resulted in what appears to be a 10-year ban, imposed without warning, nor an avenue of appeal.

    Green Left's Facebook page today
    Green Left’s Facebook page today . . . https://www.facebook.com/GreenLeftOnline/. Image: FB screenshot APR

    Khaled, 79, is a member of the Palestinian Council (Palestine’s parliament) and a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. She lives in political exile in Jordan.

    She is recognised as the Che Guevara of Palestine; she has enormous respect from Palestinians and millions of progressive people around the world.

    The Facebook banning came shortly after Zionist organisations combined with right-wing media (SkyNews and the Murdoch media) to pressure Labor to say it would prevent Khaled from addressing Ecosocialism 2024 — a conference GL is co-hosting in Boorloo/Perth in June — by not only denying her a visa, but even banning her from speaking by video link.

    Multiple visits
    As GL reported, the excuse for such political censorship is, as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry alleged in its letter to Labor, that allowing Khaled to speak “would be likely to have the effect of inciting, promoting or advocating terrorism”.

    This is nonsense.

    Khaled has visited Britain on multiple occasions over the past few years. Israel issued her a visa to visit the West Bank in 1996.

    She has visited Sweden and South Africa and, on one of her multiple visits, met Nelson Mandela (once also labelled a “terrorist” by the West), who warmly welcomed her.

    A growing number of human rights activists, academics, journalists and community leaders have protested against this blatant political censorship. Their statements are here and we urge you to join in by sending us a short statement.

    Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled
    Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled . . . “Kurds have a national identity just as we have our identity as Palestinians.” Image: Green Left/ANF

    Khaled told GL the real reason for this censorship is to “make us shut up about what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank today”.

    Meta has been exposed for carrying out “systematic online censorship”, particularly of Palestinian voices.

    Suppression of content
    In December 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented “over 1050 takedowns and other suppression of content on Instagram and Facebook that had been posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including about human rights abuses”.

    Meta did not apply the same censorship to pro-Zionist posts that incited hate and violence against Palestinians.

    HRW noted that “of the 1050 cases reviewed for this report, 1049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was censored or otherwise unduly suppressed, while one case involved removal of content in support of Israel”.

    Other studies have described the systematic “shadow banning” of pro-Palestinian posts on Facebook and Instagram.

    AccessNow, which defends the “digital rights of people and communities at risk” reports that Meta is “systematically silencing the voices of both Palestinians and those advocating for Palestinians’ rights” through arbitrary content removals, suspension of prominent Palestinian and Palestine-related accounts, restrictions on pro-Palestinian users and content, shadow-banning, discriminatory content moderation policies, inconsistent and discriminatory rule enforcement.

    Social media corporations, such as Meta and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), exercise a lot of power to manipulate people’s social and political views. This power has grown exponentially as more people access their news, views and information online.

    Break this power
    The search for ways to break this power will go on.

    In the meantime there is one way readers can break the social media bans and restrictions on GL’s voice-for-the-resistance journalism: become a supporter and get GL delivered to you.

    It has always been a struggle to keep people-power media projects alive. But GL has been going since 1991 and, with your help, we will not let the giant social media corporations silence us.

    Republished with permission from Green Left.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Australian firm readies C-UAS laser prototype for ADF

    Melbourne-based technology company AIM Defence has secured a A$4.9 million contract from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to build a deployable directed energy system for counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) testing called Fractl:2, the company announced on 25 March. According to AIM Defence, Fractl:2 is expected to be delivered to the ADF by mid-2024 and will […]

    The post Australian firm readies C-UAS laser prototype for ADF appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Construction Begins on New Boeing MQ-28 Production Facility in Queensland

    Construction will begin on Boeing’s new production facility in Toowoomba, Queensland, to support the manufacture of Australia’s first military combat aircraft designed and developed in over 50 years – the MQ-28 Ghost Bat. The 9,000 square-metre facility at the Wellcamp Aerospace and Defence Precinct is expected to be operational in the next three years. The company’s […]

    The post Construction Begins on New Boeing MQ-28 Production Facility in Queensland appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.