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Category: Crime

  • Indonesian rights researcher slams kidnapping – efforts to free NZ pilot

    RNZ News

    An Indonesian human rights researcher has condemned the Papuan rebels who have taken a New Zealand pilot hostage and gone into hiding in a remote mountainous region.

    Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch urged the rebels to release the pilot, named as Captain Philip Mehrtens of the Indonesian airline Susi Air.

    “It is a crime to kidnap anyone,” he told RNZ Checkpoint.

    Diplomatic efforts were underway today to try to secure the release of Captain Mehrtens.

    He was the sole pilot when his Susi Air plane with five passengers was captured by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) rebels who torched the aircraft after it landed at Paro airstrip near Nduga yesterday.

    The rebels, fighting for independence in the Melanesian region of Papua, say that his life is at stake, and dependent on negotiations with Jakarta.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Assange Conviction Would Be Death Blow To Journalism

    Julian Assange is still facing extradition and charges of violating the Espionage Act for exposing the US military’s war crimes. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: Julian Assange is still facing extradition and charges of violating the Espionage Act for exposing […]

    The post Assange Conviction Would Be Death Blow To Journalism appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

  • Myanmar’s military has ‘turned whole country into a prison’

    Airstrikes ordered against civilian targets, destruction of thousands of buildings, millions displaced, nearly 3000 civilians murdered, more than 13,000 jailed, the country’s independent media banished, and the country locked in a deadly nationwide civil war. Myanmar civilians now ask what else must happen before they receive international support in line with Ukraine, writes Phil Thornton.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Phil Thornton

    In the two years since Myanmar’s military seized power from the country’s elected lawmakers it has waged a war of terror against its citizens — members of the Civil Disobedience Movement, artists, poets, actors, politicians, health workers, student leaders, public servants, workers, and journalists.

    The military-appointed State Administration Council amended laws to punish anyone critical of its illegal coup or the military. International standards of freedoms — speech, expression, assembly, and association were “criminalised”.

    The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), reported as of 30 January 2023, the military killed 2901 people and arrested another 17,492 (of which 282 were children), with 13,719 people still in detention.

    One hundred and forty three people have been sentenced to death and four have been executed since the military’s coup on 1 February 2021. Of those arrested, 176 were journalists and as many as 62 are still in jail or police detention.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Myanmar as the world’s second-highest jailers of journalists. Fear of attacks, harassment, intimidation, censorship, detainment, and threats of assassination for their reporting has driven journalists and media workers underground or to try to reach safety in neighbouring countries.

    Journalist Ye Htun Oo has been arrested, tortured, received death threats, and is now forced to seek safety outside of Myanmar. Ye Htun spoke to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) of his torture, jailing and why he felt he had no choice, but to leave Myanmar for the insecurity of a journalist in exile.

    They came for me in the morning
    “I started as a journalist in 2007 but quit after two years because of the difficulty of working under the military. I continued to work, writing stories and poetry. In 2009 I restarted work as a freelance video and documentary maker.”

    Ye Htu said making money from journalism in Myanmar had never been easy.

    “I was lucky if I made 300,000 kyat a month (about NZ$460) — it was a lot of work, writing, editing, interviewing and filming.”

    Ye Htun’s hands, fingers and thin frame twist and turn as he takes time to return to the darkness of the early morning when woken by police and military knocking on his front door.

    “It was 2 am, the morning of 9 October 2021. We were all asleep. The knocking on the door was firm but gentle. I opened the door. Men from the police and the military’s special media investigation unit stood there — no uniforms. They’d come to arrest me.”

    Ye Htun links the visit of the police and army to his friend’s arrest the day before.

    “He had my number on his phone and when questioned told them I was a journalist. I hadn’t written anything for a while. The only reason they arrested me was because I was identified as a journalist — it was enough for them. The military unit has a list of journalists who they want to control, arrest, jail or contain.”

    Ye Htun explains how easy it is for journalists to be arrested.

    “When they arrest people…if they find a reference to a journalist or a phone number it’s enough to put you on their list.”

    After the coup, Ye Htun continued to report.

    “I was not being paid, moving around, staying in different places, following the protests. I was taking photos. I took a photo of citizens arresting police and it was published. This causes problems for the people in the photo. It also caused some people to regard me and journalists as informers — we were now in a hard place, not knowing what or who we could photograph. I decided to stop reporting and made the decision to move home. That’s when they came and arrested me.”

    In the early morning before sunrise, the police and military removed Ye Htun from his home and family and took him to a detention cell inside a military barracks.

    “They took all my equipment — computer, cameras, phone, and hard disks. The men who arrested and took me to the barracks left and others took over. Their tone changed. I was accused of being a PDF (People’s Defence Force militia).

    “Ye Htun describes how the ‘politeness’ of his captors soon evaporated, and the danger soon became a brutal reality. They started to beat me with kicks, fists, sticks and rubber batons. They just kept beating me, no questions. I was put in foot chains — ankle braces.”

    The beating of Ye Htun would continue for 25 days and the uncertainty and hurt still shows in his eyes, as he drags up the details he’s now determined to share.

    “I was interrogated by an army captain who ordered me to show all my articles — there was little to show. They made me kneel on small stones and beat me on the body — never the head as they said, ‘they needed it intact for me to answer their questions’”.

    Ye Htun explained it wasn’t just his assigned interrogators who beat or tortured him.

    “Drunk soldiers came regularly to spit, insult or threaten me with their guns or knives.”

    Scared, feared for his life
    Ye Htun is quick to acknowledge he was scared and feared for his life.

    “I was terrified. No one knew where I was. I knew my family would be worried. Everyone knows of people being arrested and then their dead, broken bodies, missing vital organs, being returned to grieving families.”

    After 25 days of torture, Ye Htun was transferred to a police jail.

    “They accused me of sending messages they had ‘faked’ and placed on my phone. I was sentenced to two years jail on 3rd November — I had no lawyer, no representative.”

    Ye Htun spoke to political prisoners during his time in jail and concluded many were behind bars on false charges.

    “Most political prisoners are there because of fake accusations. There’s no proper rule of law — the military has turned the whole country into a prison.”

    Ye Htun served over a year and five months of his sentence and was one of six journalists released in an amnesty from Pyay Jail on 4 January 2023.

    Not finished torturing
    Any respite Ye Htun or his family received from his release was short-lived, as it became apparent the military was not yet finished torturing him. He was forced to sign a declaration that if he was rearrested he would be expected to serve his existing sentence plus any new ones, and he received death threats.

    Soon after his release, the threats to his family were made.

    “I was messaged on Facebook and on other social media apps. The messages said, ‘don’t go out alone…keep your family and wife away from us…’ their treats continued every two or three days.”

    Ye Htun and his family have good cause to be concerned about the threats made against them. Several pro-military militias have openly declared on social media their intention against those opposed to the military’s control of the country.

    A pro-military militia, Thwe Thauk Apwe (Blood Brothers), specialise in violent killings designed to terrorise.

    Frontier Magazine reported in May 2022 that Thwe Thauk Apwe had murdered 14 members of the National League of Democracy political party in two weeks. The militia uses social media to boast of its gruesome killings and to threaten its targets — those opposed to military rule — PDF units, members of political parties, CDM members, independent media outlets and journalists.

    Ye Htun said fears for his wife and children’s safety forced him to leave Myanmar.

    “I couldn’t keep putting them at risk because I’m a journalist. I will continue to work, but I know I can’t do it in Myanmar until this military regime is removed.”

    Air strikes target civilians – where’s the UN?
    Award-winning documentary maker and artist, Sai Kyaw Khaing, dismayed at the lack of coverage by international and regional media on the impacts of Myanmar’s military aerial strikes on civilian targets, decided to make the arduous trip to the country’s northwest to find out.

    In the two years since the military regime took illegal control of the country’s political infrastructure, Myanmar is now engaged in a brutal, countrywide civil war.

    Civilian and political opposition to the military coup saw the formation of People Defence Force units under the banner of the National Unity Government established in April 2021 by members of Parliament elected at the 2020 elections and outlawed by the military after its coup.

    Thousands of young people took up arms and joined PDF units, trained by Ethnic Armed Organisations, to defend villages and civilians and fight the military regime. The regime vastly outnumbered and outmuscled the PDFs and EAOs with its military hardware — tanks, heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.

    Sai Kyaw contacted a number of international media outlets with his plans to travel deep inside the conflict zone to document how displaced people were coping with the airstrikes and burning of their villages and crops.

    Sai Kyaw said it was telling that he has yet to receive a single response of interest from any of the media he approached.

    “What’s happening in Myanmar is being ignored, unlike the conflict in Ukraine. Most of the international media, if they do report on Myanmar, want an ‘expert’ to front their stories, even better if it’s one of their own, a Westerner.”

    Deadly strike impact
    Sai Kyaw explains why what is happening on the ground needs to be explained — the impacts of the deadly airstrikes on the lives of unarmed villagers.

    “My objective is to talk to local people. How can they plant or harvest their crops during the intense fighting? How can they educate their kids or get medical help?

    “Thousands of houses, schools, hospitals, churches, temples, and mosques have been targeted and destroyed — how are the people managing to live?”

    Sai Kyaw put up his own money to finance his trip to a neighbouring country where he then made contact with people prepared to help him get to northwestern Myanmar, which was under intense attacks from the military regime.

    “It took four days by motorbike on unlit mountain dirt tracks that turned to deep mud when it rained. We also had to avoid numerous military checkpoints, military informers, and spies.”

    Sai Kyaw said that after reaching his destination, meeting with villagers, and witnessing their response to the constant artillery and aerial bombardments, their resilience astounded him.

    “These people rely on each other, when they’re bombed from their homes, people who still have a house rally around and offer shelter. They don’t have weapons to fight back, but they organise checkpoints managed by men and women.”

    Sai Kyaw said being unable to predict when an airstrike would happen took its toll on villagers.

    Clinics, schools bombed
    “You don’t know when they’re going to attack — day or night — clinics, schools, places of worship — are bombed. These are not military targets — they don’t care who they kill.”

    Sai Kyaw witnessed an aerial bombing and has the before and after film footage that shows the destruction. Rows of neat houses, complete with walls intact before the air strike are left after the attack with holes a car could drive through.

    “The unpredictable and indiscriminate attacks mean villagers are unable to harvest their crops or plant next season’s rice paddies.”

    Sai Kyaw is concerned that the lack of aid getting to the people in need of shelter, clothing, food, and medicine will cause a large-scale humanitarian crisis.

    “There’s no sign of international aid getting to the people. If there’s a genuine desire to help the people, international aid groups can do it by making contact with local community groups. It seems some of these big international aid donors are reluctant to move from their city bases in case they upset the military’s SAC [State Administration Council].”

    At the time of writing Sai Kyaw Khaing has yet to receive a reply from any of the international media he contacted.

    It’s the economy stupid
    A veteran Myanmar journalist, Kyaw Kyaw*, covered a wide range of stories for more than 15 years, including business, investment, and trade. He told IFJ he was concerned the ban on independent media, arrests of journalists, gags and access restrictions on sources meant many important stories went unreported.

    “The military banning of independent media is a serious threat to our freedom of speech. The military-controlled state media can’t be relied on. It’s well documented, it’s mainly no news or fake news overseen by the military’s Department of Propaganda.”

    Kyaw lists the stories that he explains are in critical need of being reported — the cost of consumer goods, the collapse of the local currency, impact on wages, lack of education and health care, brain drain as people flee the country, crops destroyed and unharvested and impact on next year’s yield.

    Kyaw is quick to add details to his list.

    “People can’t leave the country fast enough. There are more sellers than buyers of cars and houses. Crime is on the rise as workers’ real wages fall below the poverty line. Garment workers earned 4800 kyat, the minimum daily rate before the military’s coup. The kyat was around 1200 to the US dollar — about four dollars. Two years after the coup the kyat is around 2800 — workers’ daily wage has dropped to half, about US$2 a day.”

    Kyaw Kyaw’s critique is compelling as he explains the cost of everyday consumer goods and the impact on households.

    “Before the coup in 2021, rice cost a household, 32,000 kyat for around 45kg. It is now selling at 65,000 kyat and rising. Cooking oil sold at 3,000 kyat for 1.6kg now sells for over double, 8,000kyat.

    “It’s the same with fish, chicken, fuel, and medicine – family planning implants have almost doubled in cost from 25,000 kyat to now selling at 45,000 kyat.”

    Humanitarian crisis potential
    Kyaw is dismayed that the media outside the country are not covering stories that have a huge impact on people’s daily struggle to feed and care for their families and have the real potential for a massive humanitarian crisis in the near future.

    “The focus is on the revolution, tallies of dead soldiers, politics — all important, but journalists and local and international media need to report on the hidden costs of the military’s coup. Local media outlets need to find solutions to better cover these issues.”

    Kyaw stresses international governments and institutions — ASEAN, UK, US, China, and India — need to stop talking and take real steps to remove and curb the military’s destruction of the country.

    “In two years, they displaced over a million people, destroyed thousands of houses and religious buildings, attacked schools and hospitals — killing students and civilians — what is the UNSC waiting for?”

    An independent think tank, the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, and the UN agency for refugees confirm Kyaws Kyaw’s claims.The Institute for Strategy and Policy reports “at least 28,419 homes and buildings were torched or destroyed…in the aftermath of the coup between 1 February 2021, and 15 July 2022.”

    The UN agency responsible for refugees, the UNHCR, estimates the number of displaced people in Myanmar is a staggering 1,574,400. Since the military coup and up to January 23, the number was 1,244,000 people displaced.

    While the world’s media and governments focus their attention and military aid on Ukraine, Myanmar’s people continue to ask why their plight continues to be ignored.

    Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in Southeast Asia. This article was first published by the IFJ Asia-Pacific blog and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

    *Name has been changed as requested for security concerns.

  • The U.S. Dictatorship

    Only by means of intense deceit does the U.S. Government allege that it and its allies are ‘democratic’ and that the countries that they impose sanctions against and overthrow (or try to overthrow) in coups and invasions are not. Irrespective of whether some of the countries that the U.S. Government targets for overthrow are or are not dictatorships, America itself certainly is, and it has the world’s highest percentage of its population living in prison — which might suffice alone to qualify America as being a police-state — and perhaps the worst one.

    Some of America’s allies are among the world’s best-known dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain; and such cases as those, alone, demonstrate without any doubt, that America’s many sanctions and coups and invasions have nothing to do with democracy versus dictatorship, but are pure PR in order to fool the gullible throughout the world to believe the U.S. Government’s lies to the effect that these aggressions against so many countries (such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Guatemala, Chile, Iran, Libya, Indonesia and so many others) are decent or even nobly intentioned, when the fact is that America is simply the world’s worst police-state, and is lying in order to deceive the global public to believe that it’s instead the global champion of democracy and of freedom. All of America’s foreign policies are justified wholly or partly on the basis of lies. Is it not by now clear that the time is long-since past when anyone should continue to accept that intensely deceitful regime’s lies and its constant aggressions?

    What kind of international leadership is it that the world’s most powerful country — a country such as this — is any longer allowed to lie and claim that it represents democracy and freedom while the countries that it sanctions and coups and invades represent the opposite? When will a profoundly corrupt Government such as this, become condemned by a majority of the nations in the U.N. General Assembly — instead of for the UNGA members to continue to cower in fear of it and so to refrain from saying what is by now manifestly the case: that “This Emperor has no clothes”?

    If hypocrisy is the worst sin, then can there any longer remain doubt as to which of the world’s Governments is the the world’s worst sinner? Would the world be better off to continue allowing such a Government to continue touting itself to be ‘the leader of the free world’ which is actually leading the world into what keeps getting closer to a World War Three against Russia and against China and against Iran; or, instead, for the countries of the world to state clearly and openly, that this fraud must now end, and that all of the global bully’s honors and privileges are founded on fraud, and must now cease?

    After WW II, the U.S. regime perpetrated at least 130+ U.S. invasions (out of 161 foreign military deployments of U.S. troops during 1945-2021, not even including The U.S. Government’s usage of proxy-forces instead of U.S. troops, such as is now the U.S. regime’s standard way of invading).

    After World War II ended, the U.S. regime slaughtered or assisted in slaughtering, between 1945 and 2007 (and not even counting more recently, such as in Syria and Yemen), “between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world”. (This count also doesn’t include the numbers, such as in Iraq after the 1990 war, which died as a result of U.S.-initiated sanctions against countries that America’s billionaires wanted to bring under their control that weren’t yet under their control.)

    As a consequence of the reality of post-1944 America’s being fascist-imperialist (and its consequent record of doing far more invasions and coups, and sanctions, than any other country does), overwhelmingly the highest percentage of people polled throughout the world on questions of which country poses the greatest or biggest threat to peace in the world say that that country is the United States. No other country comes even close.

    When will the world speak out against the global bully? Has not the time yet come to do so?

    The post The U.S. Dictatorship first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Activists hail life jail sentence for army major over brutal Papuan killings

    RNZ Pacific

    The Indonesian military says a tribunal has sentenced an army major to life in prison for his involvement in the brutal murder of four Papuan civilians in the Mimika district.

    Their mutilated bodies were found in August 2022.

    Benar News reports that human rights activists and victims’ relatives welcomed the conviction of Major Helmanto Fransiskus Dakhi as progress in holding members of security forces accountable for abuses in West Papua.

    “The defendant … was found guilty of premeditated murder,” Herman Taryaman, a spokesman for the Indonesian military command in Papua, told journalists.

    The tribunal also dismissed Dakhi from the military.

    Taryaman said four other soldiers charged in connection with the killings were being tried by a tribunal in the provincial capital of Jayapura.

    A sixth military suspect died in December after falling ill, while police say four civilians were also facing trial in a civilian court.

    Headless bodies
    Asia Pacific Report reported on 31 August 2021 that residents of Iwaka village in Mimika district had been shocked by the discovery of four sacks, each containing a headless and legless torso, in the village river.

    Two other sacks were found separately, one containing four heads and the other eight legs. The sacks were weighted with stones.

    A spokesman for the victims’ families, Aptoro Lokbere, said he was “satisfied” with the conviction and sentence.

    Gustaf Kawer, an attorney for the victims’ families, said the life sentence for the major was a “brave” decision that should be emulated by military and civilian courts in similar cases.

    Activists had said the violence degraded the dignity of indigenous Papuans amid allegations of ongoing rights abuses by government security forces in West Papua.

    Dakhi is the third Indonesian Armed Forces member to be sentenced to life by a military court in a murder case since June.

    Anger as MSG recruits Indonesians
    Meanwhile, the Melanesian Spearhead Group’s secretariat in Vanuatu has confirmed it has recruited two Indonesians.

    The statement from the group came during a protest against the move in front of the secretariat by the Vanuatu Free West Papua Association.

    The group’s director-general, Leonard Louma, said the agency was aiming to strengthen its capacity and this would include the recruitment of two Indonesian nationals, filling the roles of the private sector development officer and the manager of arts, culture and youth programme.

    Louma said the secretariat had been directed to “re-prioritise” its activities and was now positioning itself to meet the demands and expectations of the leaders.

    The Free West Papua Association said hiring the Indonesians made a mockery of the support Vanuatu had given West Papua for many years.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • 6-Year-Old Student Arrested After Intentionally Shooting Teacher

    A six-year old was arrested last week after shooting his teacher during class. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

    The post 6-Year-Old Student Arrested After Intentionally Shooting Teacher appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Air India case: Shankar Mishra takes U-turn in court, says he didnt urinate on woman

    The counsel for the accused made the submission before additional sessions judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla

    This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.

  • DeSantis Is The Democrats Nightmare

    A new study has found that constant social media use might be harming brain development in children – we’ll tell you what researchers have discovered. Multiple attacks on power stations have taken place in the past two months, and the media is strangely silent about what’s happening. And a FIRST GRADER was arrested last week […]

    The post DeSantis Is The Democrats Nightmare appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Police Investigate Social Media’s Role In Teen Girls’ Group Homicide

    A group of 8 teenage girls have been arrested for murdering a homeless man in Canada, and authorities think social media may have played a role in the killing. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: A group of 8 teenage girls […]

    The post Police Investigate Social Media’s Role In Teen Girls’ Group Homicide appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Papua governor Enembe arrested on ‘lavish’ bribery charges

    RNZ Pacific

    Indonesian anti-curruption authorities have arrested Papua Governor Lukas Enembe on allegations of bribery.

    The Jakarta Globe called the arrest by the Corruption Eradication Commission in a restaurant in the provincial capital Jayapura yesterday as “dramatic” saying it came four months after he had been named a suspect.

    The arrest led to his supporters attacking a police Mobile Brigade Unit where he was being held prior to being flown to Jakarta on a chartered flight.

    Governor Lukas Enembe
    Governor Lukas Enembe … his arrest led to his supporters attacking a police Mobile Brigade Unit. Image: West Papua Today

    The newspaper said the two-term governor is accused of taking billions of rupiah in bribes from businessmen but has resisted arrest since the commission named him a suspect in September.

    Indonesia’s Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre alleged Enembe made payments, amounting to US$39 million dollars, to overseas casinos.

    Indonesia’s Chief Security Minister Mohammad Mahfud said in October that the central government had channelled billions of dollars in what was dubbed “autonomy funding” to Papua since 2001, with about half of that amount disbursed during Enembe’s term.

    He claimed “nothing happened: the people remain poor and the officials continue their lavish lifestyle”.

    • Pacific Media Watch reports that Papua province is at the heart of the indigenous self-determination struggle in West Papua.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    Fate of Papua’s Governor Enembe – the ‘son of Koteka’ – lies in balance amid allegations

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • High Profile Family Of Crypto Founder Linked To FTX Fraud

    The family of the recently-arrested FTX founder is now under scrutiny for their roles in the business. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: The family of the recently arrested FTX founder is now under scrutiny for their roles in the business. […]

    The post High Profile Family Of Crypto Founder Linked To FTX Fraud appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Corporations Are Enabling Human Traffickers – A New Lawsuit Hopes To End That

     A popular budget hotel chain is being sued for allowing sex trafficking to take place right under their noses and for failing to do anything about it, even as the warning signs were all over. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins talks with attorney Carissa Phelps about the lawsuit. Click here to find out more about the Red Roof Inn […]

    The post Corporations Are Enabling Human Traffickers – A New Lawsuit Hopes To End That appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Paris court overturns statute of limitation in Tahiti corruption case

    RNZ Pacific

    France’s highest court has revived French Polynesia’s largest corruption case, which had been closed almost more than three years ago.

    Eight people, including former president Gaston Flosse, were given jail sentences by Tahiti’s criminal court in 2013 for their roles in a kickback scheme to secure public sector contracts from the OPT telecommunications company.

    On appeal in 2015, the case was thrown out over a technicality. In 2019, judicial authorities in Tahiti dismissed efforts to revisit the matter, saying the statute of limitations applied in the affair.

    However, the court in Paris has now annulled their decision, saying that the relevant texts had been misunderstood.

    The alleged misuse of public funds centred on French businessman Hubert Haddad paying US$2 million in kickbacks over 12 years to Flosse and his party to get the OPT contracts.

    During the investigations and trial, it was established that Flosse’s secretary Melba Ortas used to collect the money as regular cash payments from Haddad’s local company, and Flosse admitted disbursing the money for private expenses.

    While investigations were underway in 2009, Flosse was jailed for three weeks.

    Imprisoned for three months
    Haddad, who had been arrested in France, was also imprisoned for three months in Tahiti as part of the investigations, but on paying a US$800,000 bail, he secured his release.

    The former head of the OPT and Air Tahiti, Nui Geffry Salmon, spent six months in preventive detention until he was freed on US$120,000 bail.

    At their trial in 2013, Flosse and Haddad were given five-year prison sentences and fined US$110,000, but they appealed.

    Flosse’s lawyers failed, however, in their bid to get France’s highest court to move the appeal case away from Tahiti after claiming they wouldn’t get a fair trial.

    The criminal court also ordered that the OPT be reimbursed US$5.6 million.

    Four months after the verdict, Flosse was elected president and within months, the lawyer acting for the OPT, James Lau, was dismissed.

    Lau noted that those convicted had taken over key aspects of the impending appeal trial, likening the case to a “mafia-style affair”.

    Procedural errors
    In the appeal court in 2015, the case was thrown out because of procedural errors by the prosecution.

    Attempts by the prosecution to revisit the case were quashed in 2019 when the case was closed.

    The lawyer acting for Flosse, Francois Quinquis, said the latest decision in Paris to allow the affair to be retested is no surprise as the court tried to save the case.

    He told Tahiti-infos he wished the prosecution good luck as the decisions reached so far had made the affair inextricable.

    Haddad’s lawyer said the case would end once there were no protagonists left.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

  • HC grants bail to Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar in loan fraud case

    A division bench held that the arrest of Kochhars was in violation of Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure

    This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.

  • Indonesian ex-graft convicts active again in political parties ‘nothing new’

    By Agus Rahmat in Jakarta

    Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has condemned the phenomena of former corruption convicts becoming active again in political parties after serving their sentences.

    However, it says this is not a new phenomenon in the world of politics.

    ICW coordinator Agus Sunaryanto revealed several names of people who were caught up in corruption cases and who were now active again in political parties.

    He cited names such as Andi Mallarangeng from the Democrat Party, who was indicted in the Hambalang sports complex case and released from prison in 2017.

    Nazaruddin, also from the Democrat Party, was indicted in two cases — the 4.6 billion rupiah (NZ$4.65 million) bribery case involving the Wisma Atlet (Athletes Village), as well as graft and money laundering.

    The latest is former United Development Party (PPP) chairperson Muhammad Romahurmuziy (Romy) who was indicted over receiving bribes for selling posts in the Ministry of Religious Affairs in 2019.

    After being released from prison, Romahurmuziy was appointed as chairperson of the PPP’s Advisory Board.

    “So (the phenomena of ex-corruptors becoming active again in political parties) is not just happening in the PPP. The Democrats are also like that, Nazaruddin and Andi Mallarangeng for example,” Sunaryanto told journalists.

    ‘Internal problem’
    Sunaryanto said he suspected there was an “internal problem” in the political parties so that in the end they accepted former corruption convicts rejoining the party.

    He also gave a flashback over the actions by the political parties when their members were indicted in corruption cases.

    Sunaryanto said that the parties “fall over themselves publicly” in taking stern measures against corrupt members, such as dismissing them.

    But these dismissals were just a political gimmick because party members could easily rejoin after they had served their sentences.

    “I think there is a problem in the political parties. The political parties actually take good steps when [members] are declared suspects. Before, the Democrats immediately dismissed them [Nazaruddin and Mallarangeng], but then after they’re released, they come back in again. This is simply a political gimmick,” he added.

    Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “ICW Sindir Eks Koruptor Masuk Partai Lagi: Seperti Gimmick Politik”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Scientology Cult Leader “Disappears” In Attempt To Hide From Trafficking Lawsuit

    A leader at the Church of Scientology has disappeared after authorities tried to serve him with a child trafficking lawsuit. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: A leader at the Church of Scientology has disappeared after authorities tried to serve him […]

    The post Scientology Cult Leader “Disappears” In Attempt To Hide From Trafficking Lawsuit appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Man who peed on woman onboard Air India flight arrested from Bengaluru

    Delhi police on Friday issued summons to six-eight crew members, including the pilot of the Air India flight in the urination incident

    This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.

  • Harry’s Great Afghan Shooting Party

    What to make of it? History is filled with the deeds of blood-thirsty princes bold in ambition and feeble of mind. Massacres make the man, though there is often little to merit the person behind it. The Duke of Sussex seemingly wishes to add his name to that list. In what can only be described as one of his “Nazi uniform” moments, Prince Harry has revealed in his memoir Spare that he killed a number of Taliban fighters. (In the same memoir, the weak-willed royal blames his brother for the uniform idea, though not for organising the Afghan shooting party.)

    The prince, wishing to show that he was no toy soldier or ceremonial ornament of the British Army, puts the number of deaths at 25. “It wasn’t a statistic that filled me with pride but nor did it make me ashamed.” He recalls being “plunged into the heat and confusion of battle”, and how he “didn’t think about those 25 people. You can’t kill people if you see them as people.” Doing so from the security of a murderous Apache helicopter certainly helps.

    The prince continues to show that he is nothing if not unworldly. “In truth, you can’t hurt people if you see them as people. They were chess pieces off the board, bad guys eliminated before they kill good guys.” Then comes a bit of cod social theory. “They trained me to ‘other’ them and they trained me well.” A dash of Meghan; a smidgen of postcolonial theory.

    There it is: the killer aware about his Instagram moment, the social media miasma, the influence of cheap Hollywood tat via Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. He killed but was merely performing his duty as conditioned by the Establishment or, to put it another way, the army of his late grandmother.

    The response from the Establishment was not one of praise. Adam Holloway MP, writing in The Spectator, did not find the statistic distasteful or troubling, but the fact that Prince Harry had mentioned it at all. Good soldiers did not publicise kills. “It’s not about macho codes. It’s about decency and respect for the lives you have taken.”

    Retired British Army Colonel Tim Collins also seethed. “This is not how we behave in the Army,” he tut-tutted to Forces News, “it’s not how we think.” That’s Prince Harry’s point: more a doer than a thinker.

    That doing involved, as Collins put it, “a tragic money-making scam to fund the lifestyle he can’t afford and someone else has chosen.” Harry had “badly let the side down. We don’t do notches on the rifle butt. We never did.”

    Collins became something of a poster boy for revived wars of adventurism in the Middle East with his speech to the 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment (1 R IRISH) battle group in March 2003. It was the eve of an international crime: the invasion of a sovereign country by colonial powers old and new. As with any such crimes, notably of vast scale, it was justified in the name of principle and duty, otherwise known as the civilisational imperative. “We go to liberate,” declared Collins with evangelical purpose, “not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own.”

    In the Middle East, and elsewhere, such gifts of imposed freedom by armed missionaries tend to go off. In July last year, the BBC news program Panorama reported that, “SAS operatives in Afghanistan repeatedly killed detainees and unarmed men.” The report disturbed the amnesiac effect of two investigations by military police that saw no reason to pursue prosecutions. But the allegations were sufficiently publicised to prompt the launching of an independent statutory inquiry by the Ministry of Defence last December. “This will take into account the progress that has already been made across defence in holding our Armed Forces personnel to account for their actions, and the handling of allegations that were later found to have insufficient evidence for any prosecutions.”

    Collins must also be aware that commencing a prosecution against British army personnel operating overseas for war crimes, let alone succeeding in one, is nigh impossible. It’s all marvellous to claim that the armed forces play by the book and operate to the sweet chords of justice, but it is rather easier to do so behind sheets of protective glass and exemptions.

    Australia, as one of Britain’s partners in military adventurism, has also done its bit to bloat the war crimes files in its tours of Afghanistan. The four-year long investigation culminating in the Brereton Report identified at least 39 alleged murders of captured Afghan troops and civilians, and cruel mistreatment of two more locals by SAS personnel. To date, however, the Office of the Special Investigator has made no referrals to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, a tardiness that is likely to be repeated by British counterparts.

    The war criminality theme was bound to be picked up by Afghanistan’s Taliban officials. Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban figure, suggested to the prince via Twitter that those he had slain “were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return.” But astute enough to sense a public relations moment for his government, Haqqani heaped mock praise. “Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes.”

    In this whole affair, Prince Harry did perform one useful function. He removed the façade of decent soldiery, the mask of the supposedly noble liberator. On this occasion, it took a prince to tell the emperor he had no clothes. “The truth is what you’ve said,” continued Haqqani, “[o]ur innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders. Still, you were defeated in that ‘game’ of white & black ‘square’.”

    We can certainly agree with Haqqani on one point: no tribunal will be chasing up the royal. “I don’t expect that the ICC [International Criminal Court] will summon you or the human rights activists will condemn you, because they are deaf and blind for you.” Some of that deafness and blindness might have been ameliorated.

    The post Harry’s Great Afghan Shooting Party first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What to Expect from the Government in 2023? More of the Same

    For those wondering what to expect from the government in 2023, it looks like we’re going to be in for more of the same in terms of the government’s brand of madness, mayhem, corruption and brutality.

    Digital prisons. Unceasingly, the government and its corporate partners are pushing for a national digital ID system. Local police agencies have already been given access to facial recognition software and databases containing 20 billion images, the precursor to a digital ID. Eventually, a digital ID will be required to gain access to all aspects of life: government, work, travel, healthcare, financial services, shopping, etc. Before long, biometrics (iris scans, face print, voice, DNA, etc.), will become the de facto digital ID.

    Precrime. Under the pretext of helping overwhelmed government agencies work more efficiently, AI predictive and surveillance technologies are being used to classify, segregate and flag the populace with little concern for privacy rights or due process. All of this sorting, sifting and calculating is being done swiftly, secretly and incessantly with the help of AI technology and a surveillance state that monitors your every move. AI predictive tools are being deployed in almost every area of life.

    Mandatory quarantines. Building on precedents established during the COVID-19 pandemic, government agents may be empowered to indefinitely detain anyone they suspect of posing a medical risk to others without providing an explanation, subject them to medical tests without their consent, and carry out such detentions and quarantines without any kind of due process or judicial review.

    Mental health assessments by non-medical personnel. As a result of a nationwide push to train a broad spectrum of so-called gatekeepers in mental health first-aid training, more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported by non-medical personnel and detained for having mental health issues.

    Tracking chips for citizens. Momentum is building for corporations and the government alike to be able to track the populace, whether through the use of RFID chips embedded in a national ID card, microscopic chips embedded in one’s skin, or tags in retail products.

    Military involvement domestically. The future, according to a Pentagon training video, will be militaristic, dystopian and far from friendly to freedom. Indeed, all signs point to the battlefield of the future being the American home front. Anticipating this, the government plans to have the military work in conjunction with local police to quell civil unrest domestically.

    Government censorship of anything it classifies as disinformation. In the government’s ongoing assault on those who criticize the government—whether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thought—government and corporate censors claiming to protect us from dangerous, disinformation campaigns are, in fact, laying the groundwork now to preempt any “dangerous” ideas that might challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

    Threat assessments. The government has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state. Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score. It’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.

    War on cash. The government and its corporate partners are engaged in a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient. This push for a digital currency dovetails with the government’s war on cash, which it has been subtly waging for some time now. In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal.

    Expansive surveillance. AI surveillance harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and widespread surveillance technology to do what the police state lacks the manpower and resources to do efficiently or effectively: be everywhere, watch everyone and everything, monitor, identify, catalogue, cross-check, cross-reference, and collude. Everything that was once private is now up for grabs to the right buyer. With every new AI surveillance technology that is adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry are being marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.

    Militarized police. Having transformed local law enforcement into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are moving into the next phase of the transformation, turning the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone extraction software, Stingray devices and so much more.

    Police shootings of unarmed citizens. Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Police brutality and the use of excessive force continues unabated.

    False flags and terrorist attacks. Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government. This has become the shadow government’s modus operandi regardless of which party is in power: the government creates a menace—knowing full well the ramifications such a danger might pose to the public—then without ever owning up to the part it played in unleashing that particular menace on an unsuspecting populace, it demands additional powers in order to protect “we the people” from the threat.

    Endless wars to keep America’s military’s empire employed. The military and security industrial complexes that have advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, are the very entities that will continue to profit the most from America’s expanding military empire abroad and here at home.

    Erosions of private property. Private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

    Overcriminalization. The government has increasingly adopted the authoritarian notion that it knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives. Overregulation and overcriminalization have been pushed to such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair.

    Strip searches and the denigration of bodily integrity. Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, forcibly take our DNA, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Individuals—men and women alike—continue to be subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic stops.

    Censorship. First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

    Taxation Without Any Real Representation. As a Princeton University survey indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. We are no longer a representative republic. With Big Business and Big Government having fused into a corporate state, the president and his state counterparts—the governors—have become little more than CEOs of the Corporate State, which day by day is assuming more government control over our lives. Never before have average Americans had so little say in the workings of their government and even less access to their so-called representatives.

    Year after year, the government remains the greatest threat to our freedoms, and yet year after year, “we the people” allow ourselves to be suckered into believing that politics will fix what’s wrong with the country.

    Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the very definition of insanity.

    The post What to Expect from the Government in 2023? More of the Same first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Child killed, 4 injured in explosion in J-K’s Rajouri

    On Sunday evening, suspected terrorists opened fire on three houses in the area in Rajouri district killing four civilians and injuring six

    This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.

  • Haryana Sports Minister Sandeep Singh booked for sexual harassment

    The minister, however, has dismissed the charge as baseless and has called for an independent probe

    This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.

  • Zelensky’s Road to Washington


    Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Larry Fink are preparing to turn a profit on the destruction of Ukraine.
    “Blackrock to Take Zelenskyy’s Panhandling Act to the Next Level.”

    The post Zelensky’s Road to Washington first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Remember All Those Female Rockers Who Turned out to be Sexual Predators? (Yeah, Me Neither)

    Remember that time, in 1980, when paramedics were summoned to the home of a major female rock star? Once there, the medical professionals found two young girls with the rock star. A 15-year-old was arrested on a drug-related charge and a 16-year-old was charged with prostitution.

    The rock star in question was not a woman, of course. It was Don Henley of The Eagles (net worth: $200 million) and he was fined a mere $2,500 and only given probation for these transgressions.

    How about the hard-rockin’ chick who pulled strings to become the legal guardian of a 17-year-old girl in Hawaii rather than face kidnapping charges?

    Or the once-iconic female pop star who invited a Norwegian “escort” to her home under the guise of doing a nude photoshoot but ended up handcuffing him to a wall fixture and beating him with a chain?

    Surely you’re familiar with that pantheon four-piece girl band who once gave a press interview in the backroom of a music club — all the while being serviced by underaged “baby groupies” under the table?

    Those would actually be Ted Nugent (net worth: $30 million), Boy George (net worth: $50 million), and Led Zeppelin (collective net worth: $900 million).

    Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page with Lori Maddox, a 14-year-old “groupie” he had kidnapped and locked in a hotel room for himself.

     
    Okay, one more try. Have you read about the female hip-hop hero who was accused of participating in a gang rape, was subsequently convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, and did a mere nine months? The victim is still labeled “accuser” while the rapper is posthumously worshipped to the point of hologram status. Remember that?

    Yeah, me neither.

    Because it was Tupac Shakur (net worth of estate: $40 million).

    This is not to say a female pop star would never engage in any kind of criminal abuse. It is to say that the default setting for male musicians is “creep” (at best) and more likely: sexual predator.

    But their talent — coupled with deeply embedded societal misogyny — excuses us for “not knowing” about their crimes and/or giving them a pass when we do find out.

    Consider Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Legendary rocker. Hall of Fame member. Net worth: $160 million. Career revived multiple times — including on television:

    In 1975, Tyler met 15-year-old Julia Holcomb and decided he wanted to bring her on the road with him. To do so, the 27-year-old singer coerced the girl’s mother to sign over guardianship of her daughter to him so he could travel across state lines with her without fear of being arrested.

    “I was subordinate to him as in a parent relationship and felt I had little control over my life,” Julia Holcomb later explained. “I remember my surprise when Steven told me, and trying to take this in mentally. A sense of vulnerability came over me, knowing that I was his ward, but we were not married. He had not expressed his intentions of a long-term relationship with me.”

    Holcomb eventually became pregnant and when Tyler’s apartment caught on fire, she ended up in the hospital where the singer forced her to get an abortion. Soon after, they split.

    “When I returned home to my mother, I was a broken spirit,” Holcomb remembers. “I could not sleep at night without nightmares of the abortion and the fire. The world seemed like a dark place.”

    Julia Holcomb & Steven Tyler

     
    Tyler still refers to the whole thing as an “affair” — describing the teen as “a skinny young mall chick who had more legs than a bucket of chicken.” In his memoir, Tyler calls Holcomb “my Little Oral Annie,” adding: “She lost her childhood. I lost my mind.”

    But the Rock God™ clearly did not lose his reputation, his money, or his enduring legacy. I mean, he somehow still gets invited to sing at Nobel Peace Prize concerts and is glowingly interviewed by Oprah (net worth $2.5 billion).

    As “Sir” Paul McCartney (net worth: $1.2 billion) gushes: “Steven Tyler is one of the giants of American music, who’s been influential for a whole generation of Rock ’n’ Roll fans around the world. Long May He Rock!”

    Reminder: None of this will change until we collectively choose to identify and address the root problems.

    The post Remember All Those Female Rockers Who Turned out to be Sexual Predators? (Yeah, Me Neither) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Red Roof Inn Hotels Hit With Human Trafficking Lawsuit

    A human trafficking survivor is suing budget hotel chain Red Roof Inn for allowing trafficking to happen at their properties. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: A human trafficking survivor is suing budget hotel chain, Red Roof Inn, for allowing trafficking […]

    The post Red Roof Inn Hotels Hit With Human Trafficking Lawsuit appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Private Militarized Police Post Up At Philadelphia Gas Station

    A gas station owner has made headlines after hiring private security armed to the teeth as crime ravages Philadelphia. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

    The post Private Militarized Police Post Up At Philadelphia Gas Station appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • The Wieambilla Killings

    The contradiction behind the messages is clear. This was a “sophisticated” operation involving surveillance. It was planned. Those unfortunate police officers were lured to an isolated Queensland property where they were “executed”. The details were initially sketchy, but that did not prevent the general sentiment from simmering away: this was, in the words of a statement by the Queensland Police Union, a “senseless murder of colleagues”. That account has been trotted out with unanimity.

    It began as an inquiry about a missing person, involving four officers from Tara sent to a Wieambilla property in the Western Downs region, some 270km west of the Queensland capital, Brisbane. According to Ian Leavers, President of the Queensland Police Union, two officers, constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, were shot on arrival around 4:45pm in “a ruthless, calculated and targeted execution of our colleagues”. Of the two remaining officers, one was wounded, while the other escaped. A neighbour, Alan Dare, in going to assist, was also killed.

    The three individuals accused of perpetrating the shootings were brothers Nathaniel and Gareth Train, and Gareth’s wife Stacey Train. They were subsequently killed by specialist police forces at the site.

    Murder, in many instances, is filled with sense and planning. As disturbing it may well be, an intention to kill can conform to a set of presumptions that make sense within a particular world view. That view is often alloyed by a number of disturbing influences, the contaminant that sets the fuse.

    To that end, it would be appropriate to investigate what the motivations of these figures are. But efforts to do so have been uneven. Media outlets have not held back in portraying the individuals as members of the mad, the deranged, the delusional. These cloddish efforts do little to illuminate and much to obfuscate.

    The quest to not understand has been aided by the conspiracy label attached to the three individuals. Gareth Train, for one, believed that the 1996 Port Arthur massacre had been a false-flag operation; tactical police had set out to target “conspiracy talkers” and “truthers”. He also had a YouTube channel, since deleted, replete with posts covering conspiracies on COVID, anti-vaccination and the sovereign citizen movement. That same channel featured footage from Gareth and Stacey Train showing the prelude to the attack, including coverage of the shootings.

    An ABC investigative report into the background of the trio noted, among other things, the conduct of Gareth and Tracey on their move in 2011 to the small town of Camooweal, about 13km from the Northern Territory border in far west Queensland. “We were invited to tea at their house,” noted a resident, who noticed “their pig dogs inside the house in cages” and Gareth’s “big collection of hunting knives and he then told us he was a social worker.”

    Gareth, the accounts note, had a certain lusting for blood. “Sometimes we would see Gareth with his knives running around with dogs chasing the pigs,” another resident stated. Given the ecstasy shown by many an Australian in massacring “feral” invasive species, not to mention the occasional native one, this crude behaviour is hardly eyebrow raising. But this is Gareth, the cop killer, so all must be exceptional and unusual in his universe.

    A closer reading of such accounts suggests that what the Trains did was less a case of being remarkable than the fact it was done so openly. Slaughtering animals is all good, but do not do it in front of children. Paul (not his real name) recalled how Gareth would “butcher” the pigs and hang the carcasses facing the local school. “There would be a smell of offal and blood running onto the footy field.”

    Using the analytical template for the standard nutter and the unhinged lunatic, interest focused on Gareth Train’s views expressed on fora dedicated to conspiracies and survivalism. “I currently live on my rural property in western Queensland were [sic] I have been building an ‘ark’[,] homesteading for the last five years preparing to survive tomorrow. I am not interested in indoctrinating or convincing anyone of anything.”

    The last line is worth recalling but has gotten lost in the speculative literature warning about rampaging conspiracy theorists willing to tear their way through the security and law enforcement establishment. It’s easy to forget that the survivalist, conspiracy tribe seeking arks and sanctuaries from impending cataclysm is a large one. It includes a good number of terrified billionaires, among them the libertarian Peter Thiel, who hopes to set up shop in New Zealand when calamity strikes.

    Nicholas Evans, an academic in policing and emergency management, illustrates the fear of his colleagues: “[t]he killings are the clearest example of what security, policing researchers, and law enforcement have warned of – conspiracy beliefs can be motivators for actual or attempted violence against specific people, places and organisations.”

    In the saturation of grief, the police have been less than forthcoming about why they sent junior officers to this particular property in the first place. Queensland Police Service commissioner Katarina Carroll conceded she did not have the “full extent of information” about the Trains.

    The Queensland Police have resolutely refused to answer questions about whether officers had made a prior visit to the property, or the extent of knowledge about the shooters. The now deleted YouTube channel features videos suggesting a history with authorities, expressed through paranoid language. And as with much in the way of paranoia, kernels of veracity might be picked. “You attempt to abduct us using contractors,” goes one caption. “You attempt to intimidate and target us with your Raytheon Learjets and planes. You sent ‘covert’ assets out here to my place in the bush. So what is your play here? To have me and my wife murdered during a state police ‘welfare check’? You already tried that one.”

    Gareth’s brother Nathaniel was also one who came across the police radar, having driven a 4WD packed with loaded guns and military knives through a New South Wales border gate into Queensland last December. This was in breach of COVID-19 regulations. Nathaniel was subsequently found disposing of some of the items in a creek near the Queensland town of Talwood, an incident reported to police. The fact that these included three loaded firearms might have struck law enforcement as odd.

    On Radio National on December 21, the Queensland Police Union again reiterated the view that there was no credence to claims that police had made a previous visit to the property. Instead of discussing such details, Leavers has something else in mind: purchasing the property of the shooters in Wieambilla, rendering the profane sacred.

    This macabre object has a broader purpose: “The last thing we want to see is the anti-vaxxers, pro-gun, conspiracy theorists to get this land and use it for their own warped and dangerous views.” Comprehending or even seeking to understand such individuals was simply intolerable. “They are absolutely un-Australian and I don’t want it to be used for them to promote themselves.” Let ignorance reign so that others may live happily.

    The post The Wieambilla Killings first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Charges Against Flint Water Crisis Criminals Officially Thrown Out

    Criminal charges have been officially thrown out against former Michigan governor Rick Snyder for his role in covering up the Flint water crisis. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

    The post Charges Against Flint Water Crisis Criminals Officially Thrown Out appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Rights group says security forces unlawfully killed 72 Papuans in past year

    RNZ Pacific

    A West Papua rights group claims Indonesian police and soldiers have carried out at least 72 extrajudicial killings over the past year.

    The report by the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) said the police were responsible for 50 of the unlawful killings, with the remainder committed by military personnel.

    The latest report situated the unlawful killings in the context of a “narrowing of democratic space” and “massive violations of rights related to the basic principles of democracy” by President Joko Widodo’s administration.

    “The widespread practice of extrajudicial killings throughout 2022 by security personnel shows that they are like wolves in sheep’s clothing who are ready to pounce when there’s an opportunity,” KontraS researcher Rozy Brilian told reporters, according to a report by Benar News.

    The article quoted Rozy as saying that most of those allegedly killed by police were under criminal investigation and at least 12 of the cases involved torture.

    While six Indonesian soldiers were arrested recently for their involvement in the deaths of four Papuans in Mimika regency in the unsettled Papua region, the report claims the security forces still enjoy a high degree of impunity for illegal behavior.

    “This is a reminder of the considerable degree of continuity between Suharto’s military-backed New Order, in which the security forces enjoyed political prominence and vast power, and the democratic system that was established after the regime’s fall in 1998,” the authors said.

    KontraS said far from investigating or prosecuting those responsible for past rights outrages, the Indonesian government has often promoted them to key positions in government.

    In particular, KontraS pointed to the appointment of Major-General Untung Budiharto, the alleged perpetrator of enforced disappearances during the terminal crisis of the Suharto government in 1997 and 1998, as commander of the Greater Jakarta Command Area.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG police warn of crackdown on lawbreakers during festive period

    By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea lawbreakers who disrupt public order and ruin other people’s festive season will be arrested, charged and be placed in police cells across the country, says Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr.

    As the festive weekend commences this Friday, provincial police commands across the country are already implementing their operations.

    Supported by the police hierarchy and now backed by the Internal Security Ministry, the zero tolerance for lawbreakers during the festive season will see an immediate lock up of all men and women who disrupt the festive season for others.

    Police Commissioner David Manning said he had issued a directive for all provincial police commanders to “not show leniency to those who wish to be involved in disruptive behaviour”.

    “Public safety measures will be in place to ensure everyone enjoys this festive period without any issues,” he said.

    “Offenders will go direct to Bomana from Port Moresby, or the nearest lockup in Lae, Kimbe, Hagen and Goroka and every other part of the country for whatever time it takes for them to make bail.

    Christmas is a time for embracing our faith and spending enjoyable time with family and friends,” Minister Tsiamalili said.

    ‘We are Christian’
    “We are a Christian nation, with Christian values, and anyone who disturbs our peace at this very important time of the year is showing great disrespect to our country.

    “Our people should not have to put up with people who are full of drink and bad attitude.

    “So I issue a very clear warning to people who loiter in public places with intent to steal or fight, or who think they can drink and get behind the wheel of a car.

    “Police are on high alert and they will catch lawbreakers and lock them up for their actions.”

    In Morobe, acting provincial police commander Superintendent John Daviaga said that police would ensure all drunkards and those who disturbed the peace would be locked up until they either sobered up, or if they were arrested and charged they would pay bail.

    In the National Capital District (NCD), police operational orders will also see intoxicated people “dealt with”.

    Both commands said that due to the limited police cell space it will be the prerogative of the police commands to decide on how they will deal with people caught drinking and driving, fighting, disturbing the peace and ruining the festivity for others.

    NCD Metropolitan Commander Silva Sika said: “Police operations will be done with the support of all those within the command.”

    Manus build-up
    In Manus, 40 police personnel are on the ground to carry out the Christmas operations. They will have assistance from the Correctional Service and 10 mobile squad personnel who will be flown into the province.

    Manus police commander Chief inspector Kiweri Kesambi said that the team’s focus would be on people consuming marijuana and homebrew.

    According to PPC Kesambi, operations would cover mainly Lorengau which was the central location for everyone coming in and going out to the villages, areas in the highway and the coastline.

    The minister said the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) crackdown on violent crimes over recent months was continuing into 2023, with police on high alert during the Christmas and New Year period when there was often an upsurge in violence and other criminal activities

    “Consistent with government policy, Commissioner Manning has issued orders through his chain of command that police will not be showing leniency to people involved in disruptive behaviour,” the minister said after being briefed by the commissioner on the RPNGC’s intent to strengthen public safety measures during the holiday period.

    “I have every confidence in the leadership of the RPNGC, and police will use every legal means and the appropriate use of force to take disruptive people off the street.

    ‘Carrying weapons’
    “This includes people who get into fights and confrontations, carry weapons of any kind, or are drunk in public, and particularly anyone who commits violence against women.”

    He further thanked the personnel from the RPNGC and Correctional Service for their dedication to their jobs at what could be a stressful time of the year for all who worked in the law and order.

    “Our men and women in uniform do an outstanding job,” he said.

    “They place their lives on the line for our communities and our nation, and I thank them for their service.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

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