Australian papers go black to protest against media restrictions

Source

http://www.aljazeera.com

Oct 21, 2019

Major newspapers run ‘heavily redacted’ front pages in protest against recent laws restricting freedom of information.

Australia’s biggest newspapers have run front pages designed to appear heavily redacted as part of a campaign against government secrecy and legislation that puts reporting and press freedom at risk.

National and regional mastheads including The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review hit newsstands on Monday with most of their front-page stories blacked out to give the impression it had been censored similar to how classified government documents are.

Advertisements have also been rolled out across the country’s television networks, asking viewers: “When the government hides the truth from you, what are they covering up?”

The protest is designed to put public pressure on the government to exempt journalists from laws restricting access to sensitive information, enact a properly functioning freedom of information system, and raise the benchmark for defamation lawsuits.

“It’s about defending the basic right of every Australian to be properly informed about the important decisions the government is making in their name,” Hugh Marks, chief executive of Nine said in a statement.

Nine News Australia

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National newspaper front pages have been printed blanked out in a united protest by the media industry against government secrecy and cover-up. #righttoknow #9Newshttps://www.9news.com.au/national/your-right-to-know-media-industry-calls-for-secrecy-reforms-australia-news/69922c4a-a083-4ad5-b1fd-c5c0190628d9?ocid=Social-9News …

Why secrecy must stop

National newspaper front pages have been printed blanked out in a united protest by the media industry agai…

9news.com.au

2:00 PM – Oct 20, 2019

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Australia has no constitutional safeguards for free speech. The government added a provision to protect whistleblowers when it strengthened counter-espionage laws in 2018, although media organisations say press freedoms remain restricted.

Australia’s Communications Minister Paul Fletcher was not immediately available for comment on Monday. The government has previously said press freedom was a “bedrock principle”.

News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said people “should always be suspicious of governments that want to restrict their right to know what’s going on”.

Newsroom raids

Global attention turned to media freedoms in Australia this year when a court order prevented media from reporting that the former Vatican treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, had been found guilty on child sex abuse charges.

Some Australian outlets reported that an unidentified person had been convicted but some foreign media companies identified Pell because they were outside Australia’s jurisdiction.

Prosecutors are now seeking fines and jail sentences for three dozen Australian journalists and publishers for their coverage of the trial. Pell is appealing against his convictions.

The subject came to a boil again in June when police raided the head office of the ABC in Sydney and the home of a News Corp editor on suspicion of receiving national secrets.

The raids, which involved police examination of about 9,000 computer files at the ABC and sifting through the female News Corp editor’s underwear drawer, drew international condemnation.

In the UK, the BBC called the raids “deeply troubling”.

The ABC said at the time that the raid on its office was in relation to 2017 stories about accusations of military misconduct in Afghanistan. News Corp has said the raid on its employee concerned an article about government plans to spy on Australians’ emails, text messages and bank accounts.

Under intense pressure, the government issued a directive to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions in September that will require permission from Attorney General Christian Porter to approve any charges against journalists.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

The Day Australian Freedom Died: David Icke Banned from Entering the Country

Source: The Day Australian Freedom Died: David Icke Banned from Entering the Country | Humans Are Free

humansarefree.com

By Eve Fisher

Feb 22, 2019

 

Media outlets won’t touch this piece. One major group said there wasn’t enough room to run it … online! Another said it was “too polemic”. I’ll take that thanks very much…

The day Australian freedom died

Ask yourself this simple question. It needs just a yay or nay, with no middle ground. Do you believe in freedom of speech? No shades of grey. You either believe in it. Or you don’t. No picking and choosing about who gets to employ it, and who doesn’t. One in, all in. Unless you’re in China of course.

And, so it would seem, Australia.

Like him or loathe him, David Icke deserves the right to speak

Freedom of speech is fundamental to … well, our freedom. Funny isn’t it. We take it for granted in these days of over-sharing until we say something inflammatory. Some keyboard warriors give us a lashing and send us to our corner. But we don’t have our tongues cut out.

We take it for granted that we can say what we like, as long as we are not encouraging people to hurt others, or, indeed, themselves. Inciting violence is not the same as enjoying freedom of speech. Being hateful is also not inciting violence; it’s being nasty.

There’s a difference and knowing this difference is the defining line between those who believe in the fundamental tenets of freedom of speech and those who believe in it as long as it suits their politically correct, pandering agenda.

This week, Immigration Minister David Coleman couldn’t have played a more honest hand if he tried. I’ll give him that. His cancellation of leading conspiracy researcher David Icke’s visa just hours before he was due to fly to Australia was as swift as it was malicious. There was no warning – despite the speaking-tour visa being approved in September – and its timing was obviously designed to cause maximum disruption to Icke.

Coleman’s letter was clear. “Open source” (i.e. the media) information detailing Icke’s views on Zionism, vaccinations and global warming meant he was no longer a suitable candidate to be espousing his views on our fair shores.

I don’t remember giving the government permission to decide what views I’m permitted to hear.

Icke has spent 30 years detailing through myriad books his views on everything from mass population microchipping to Big Pharma. His contemporary dot-connector videos provide weekly headlines showing how his predictions during the years have become reality.

He sounds like a good candidate for the government-funded Festival of Dangerous Ideas doesn’t he?

I couldn’t care less if Icke was trying to enter this country to say the sky was green and the grass blue, but I have every right – as an allegedly free citizen – to hear what I want to hear.

And even if he is a holocaust denier, which he isn’t, why isn’t he allowed to argue his point? So what if he says vaccinations are dangerous or that climate change is caused by government weather modification. It’s his view, and he’s entitled to it.

If people think he’s such a nutter then they can avoid his shows and bitch about him on Facebook.

But banning him because the government doesn’t like his views – as detailed plainly in the Minister’s letter – is a direct and unmitigated assault on my freedom.

I did not immigrate to this country from South Africa – so I know a thing or two about government censorship and oppression – to be told by a bunch of self-serving, corrupt and ignorant politicians to whom I can listen and who I can’t. It’s worth noting that Labor supported the ban. I’d be curious to know what the Greens think about this apparent guilty verdict of thoughtcrime.

Contrary to popular belief, Icke is neither a holocaust denier nor a Jew-hater. If ANY of the journalists doing little more than copying each other’s ideas actually took the time to read his books they’d understand Icke takes issue with Zionism as a political organisation, not Jews. Since when are people not allowed to diss politics?

I’m a Jew. And I know what’s happening to Palestinians is a crime. But you can’t say that for fear of being anti-semitic. Incidentally, the term semite is actually defined as “a member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs”. So being an “anti-semite” would be akin to saying a person is anti-languages of the middle-east.

You can’t even criticise a Jew without being called racist. I lost family in the holocaust and claims of holocaust denial levelled against Icke, who repeatedly says he sees all people as equal, are completely unfounded.

Not that journalists would know this, because they never read his stuff. They’re too busy rehashing his reptilian theories. So while 2.2 billion Christians are allowed to have their healer who walked on water, rose from the dead, and their saints who could perform miracles, Icke can’t have his otherworldly beliefs. The hypocrisy never ceases to astound. People kill for their religious beliefs. Icke just wants to talk about how our governments are controlling us.

I’m seeing a pattern here.

Icke coins it the totalitarian tiptoe: the slow erosion of our freedom in the name of so-called progressive protectionism that ultimately indulges the few at the expense of the many. One radio journalist actually said freedom of speech was important as long as the speaker was being sensible. Seriously? Let’s call Conditional Freedom of Speech then. Is that more like it?

Call it what you like but when a bunch of Zionists (I won’t even afford them the label of Jews because they sure as hell don’t represent me) think they can speak on behalf of the 99.6% of the Australian population who aren’t Jewish I call it fascism.

When some Melbourne Zionists can lobby a half-wit Labor candidate and find success because he knows it will help him secure votes in his Jewish electorate you know we’re screwed.

Josh Burns doesn’t gives a toss about our freedom, he just wants votes like so many other repugnant men and women who call themselves politicians in this nanny state of ours.

If you don’t like Icke’s views then ignore him. He’s been here 10 times before and never once has he preached hate or violence, nor has there been any incidents at, or in relation to, any of his events. He sees all people as equal and his only agenda is freedom from oppression. For everyone.

He said to me this week:

“Australians now have a choice between two parties who have utter contempt for the freedom of the people. If we’re going to sort this world out we need to put labels aside and treat everyone as an individual. I would challenge anyone to provide a clip of a politician in parliament standing up and saying the answer is for everyone to love each other. ”

Obviously that has never happened, but we can only wait.

In the meantime I keep hoping to wake up from this Orwellian nightmare.

By Eve Fisher — Writer, editor and producer, having worked in the media for more than 20 years, including eight years at Fairfax for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. English and journalism teacher with experience at both high school and university level. Former Surf Coast Shire Greens councillor and current member of Deakin University Masters of Politics and Policy Advisory Board.

Australia’s African Gangs (25 min)

101 East gets to the truth of the so-called ‘African gang crime-wave’ in Australia’s southern city of Melbourne.

Source: Australia’s African Gangs | Gang violence | Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com

GO HERE:

https://players.brightcove.net/665003303001/SJg0bzqkZ_default/index.html?videoId=5987449144001&usrPersonaAds=false

Overrun by African criminal gangs, its streets filled with violence, terror and menace – that’s how some local media and politicians are depicting the Australian city of Melbourne.

For more than two years, there have been reports that Melbourne is in the grip of a crime wave, with the finger of blame pointed directly at African street gangs.

“We need to call it for what it is. Of course, this is African gang violence … people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night-time because they’re followed home by these gangs,” said Peter Dutton, Federal Home Affairs Minister.

Images of brawling Sudanese teens and hooded armed robbers have spread terror and stoked a growing anger towards those “of African appearance”.

“They do all these criminal acts and you see on the news that they get away with it. Why do they get away with it?” says one resident.

It’s generating heated debate and social tensions – police are being accused of political correctness and inaction while the Sudanese community feels under siege.

“You get stared at. Imagine someone’s looking through you or looking … someone’s eyes are just burning into the side of your head. That’s what it feels like,” says a young Sudanese man.

But how accurate is the so-called “threat”?

101 East investigates the claims and counterclaims to unearth the truth behind the headlines of Australia‘s African crime wave.

Source: Al Jazeera

Hedges: Assange Has Done More To Expose American Crimes Than Any Other News Organization

“…he stated that because of the political costs of expelling Julian from their embassy was too high, the plan was to break him down mentally.”

Source: Hedges: Assange Has Done More To Expose American Crimes Than Any Other News Organization | Zero Hedge

http://www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Chris Hedges via TruthDig.com,

by Tyler Durden

11/12/2018

 

Julian Assange’s sanctuary in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London has been transformed into a little shop of horrors. He has been largely cut off from communicating with the outside world for the last seven months. His Ecuadorian citizenship, granted to him as an asylum seeker, is in the process of being revoked. His health is failing. He is being denied medical care. His efforts for legal redress have been crippled by the gag rules, including Ecuadorian orders that he cannot make public his conditions inside the embassy in fighting revocation of his Ecuadorian citizenship.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to intercede on behalf of Assange, an Australian citizen, even though the new government in Ecuador, led by Lenín Moreno – who calls Assange an “inherited problem” and an impediment to better relations with Washington – is making the WikiLeaks founder’s life in the embassy unbearable. Almost daily, the embassy is imposing harsher conditions for Assange, including making him pay his medical bills, imposing arcane rules about how he must care for his cat and demanding that he perform a variety of demeaning housekeeping chores.

The Ecuadorians, reluctant to expel Assange after granting him political asylum and granting him citizenship, intend to make his existence so unpleasant he will agree to leave the embassy to be arrested by the British and extradited to the United States. The former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, whose government granted the publisher political asylum, describes Assange’s current living conditions as “torture.”

His mother, Christine Assange, said in a recent video appeal,

“Despite Julian being a multi-award-winning journalist, much loved and respected for courageously exposing serious, high-level crimes and corruption in the public interest, he is right now alone, sick, in pain—silenced in solitary confinement, cut off from all contact and being tortured in the heart of London. The modern-day cage of political prisoners is no longer the Tower of London. It’s the Ecuadorian Embassy.”

“Here are the facts,” she went on. “Julian has been detained nearly eight years without charge. That’s right. Without charge. For the past six years, the U.K. government has refused his request for access to basic health needs, fresh air, exercise, sunshine for vitamin D and access to proper dental and medical care. As a result, his health has seriously deteriorated. His examining doctors warned his detention conditions are life-threatening. A slow and cruel assassination is taking place before our very eyes in the embassy in London.”

“In 2016, after an in-depth investigation, the United Nations ruled that Julian’s legal and human rights have been violated on multiple occasions,” she said. “He’d been illegally detained since 2010. And they ordered his immediate release, safe passage and compensation. The U.K. government refused to abide by the U.N.’s decision. The U.S. government has made Julian’s arrest a priority. They want to get around a U.S. journalist’s protection under the First Amendment by charging him with espionage. They will stop at nothing to do it.”

“As a result of the U.S. bearing down on Ecuador, his asylum is now under immediate threat,” she said. “The U.S. pressure on Ecuador’s new president resulted in Julian being placed in a strict and severe solitary confinement for the last seven months, deprived of any contact with his family and friends. Only his lawyers could see him. Two weeks ago, things became substantially worse. The former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who rightfully gave Julian political asylum from U.S. threats against his life and liberty, publicly warned when U.S. Vice President Mike Pence recently visited Ecuador a deal was done to hand Julian over to the U.S. He stated that because of the political costs of expelling Julian from their embassy was too high, the plan was to break him down mentally. A new, impossible, inhumane protocol was implemented at the embassy to torture him to such a point that he would break and be forced to leave.”

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Assange was once feted and courted by some of the largest media organizations in the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian, for the information he possessed. But once his trove of material documenting U.S. war crimes, much of it provided by Chelsea Manning, was published by these media outlets he was pushed aside and demonized. A leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branchdated March 8, 2008, exposed a black propaganda campaign to discredit WikiLeaks and Assange.

The document said the smear campaign should seek to destroy the “feeling of trust” that is WikiLeaks’ “center of gravity” and blacken Assange’s reputation. It largely has worked. Assange is especially vilified for publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials. The Democrats and former FBI Director James Comey say the emails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, by Russian government hackers. Comey has said the messages were probably delivered to WikiLeaks by an intermediary. Assange has said the emails were not provided by “state actors.”

The Democratic Party – seeking to blame its election defeat on Russian “interference” rather than the grotesque income inequality, the betrayal of the working class, the loss of civil liberties, the deindustrialization and the corporate coup d’état that the party helped orchestrate – attacks Assange as a traitor, although he is not a U.S. citizen. Nor is he a spy. He is not bound by any law I am aware of to keep U.S. government secrets. He has not committed a crime. Now, stories in newspapers that once published material from WikiLeaks focus on his allegedly slovenly behavior—not evident during my visits with him—and how he is, in the words of The Guardian, “an unwelcome guest” in the embassy. The vital issue of the rights of a publisher and a free press is ignored in favor of snarky character assassination.

Assange was granted asylum in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sexual offense charges that were eventually dropped. Assange feared that once he was in Swedish custody he would be extradited to the United States. The British government has said that, although he is no longer wanted for questioning in Sweden, Assange will be arrested and jailed for breaching his bail conditions if he leaves the embassy.

WikiLeaks and Assange have done more to expose the dark machinations and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. Assange, in addition to exposing atrocities and crimes committed by the United States military in our endless wars and revealing the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency, their surveillance programs and their interference in foreign elections, including in the French elections. He disclosed the conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of Parliament. And WikiLeaks worked swiftly to save Edward Snowden, who exposed the wholesale surveillance of the American public by the government, from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow. The Snowden leaks also revealed, ominously, that Assange was on a U.S. “manhunt target list.”

What is happening to Assange should terrify the press. And yet his plight is met with indifference and  sneering contempt. Once he is pushed out of the embassy, he will be put on trial in the United States for what he published. This will set a new and dangerous legal precedent that the Trump administration and future administrations will employ against other publishers, including those who are part of the mob trying to lynch Assange. The silence about the treatment of Assange is not only a betrayal of him but a betrayal of the freedom of the press itself. We will pay dearly for this complicity.

Even if the Russians provided the Podesta emails to Assange, he should have published them. I would have. They exposed practices of the Clinton political machine that she and the Democratic leadership sought to hide. In the two decades I worked overseas as a foreign correspondent I was routinely leaked stolen documents by organizations and governments. My only concern was whether the documents were forged or genuine. If they were genuine, I published them. Those who leaked material to me included the rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN); the Salvadoran army, which once gave me blood-smeared FMLN documents found after an ambush; the Sandinista government of Nicaragua; the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Central Intelligence Agency; the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebel group; the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); the French intelligence service, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE; and the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosovic, who was later tried as a war criminal.

We learned from the emails published by WikiLeaks that the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the major funders of Islamic State.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton paid her donors back by approving $80 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, enabling the kingdom to carry out a devastating war in Yemen that has triggered a humanitarian crisis, including widespread food shortages and a cholera epidemic, and left close to 60,000 dead. We learned Clinton was paid $675,000 for speaking at Goldman Sachs, a sum so massive it can only be described as a bribe. We learned Clinton told the financial elites in her lucrative talks that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best-positioned to manage the economy, a statement that directly contradicted her campaign promises. We learned the Clinton campaign worked to influence the Republican primaries to ensure that Donald Trump was the Republican nominee. We learned Clinton obtained advance information on primary-debate questions. We learned, because 1,700 of the 33,000 emails came from Hillary Clinton, she was the primary architect of the war in Libya. We learned she believed that the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. The war she sought has left Libya in chaos, seen the rise to power of radical jihadists in what is now a failed state, triggered a massive exodus of migrants to Europe, seen Libyan weapon stockpiles seized by rogue militias and Islamic radicals throughout the region, and resulted in 40,000 dead. Should this information have remained hidden from the American public? You can argue yes, but you can’t then call yourself a journalist.

“They are setting my son up to give them an excuse to hand him over to the U.S., where he would face a show trial,” Christine Assange warned.

“Over the past eight years, he has had no proper legal process. It has been unfair at every single turn with much perversion of justice. There is no reason to consider that this would change in the future. The U.S. WikiLeaks grand jury, producing the extradition warrant, was held in secret by four prosecutors but no defense and no judge. The U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty allows for the U.K. to extradite Julian to the U.S. without a proper basic case. Once in the U.S., the National Defense Authorization Act allows for indefinite detention without trial. Julian could very well be held in Guantanamo Bay and tortured, sentenced to 45 years in a maximum-security prison, or face the death penalty. My son is in critical danger because of a brutal, political persecution by the bullies in power whose crimes and corruption he had courageously exposed when he was editor in chief of WikiLeaks.”

Assange is on his own. Each day is more difficult for him. This is by design. It is up to us to protest. We are his last hope, and the last hope, I fear, for a free press.

“We need to make our protest against this brutality deafening,” his mother said.

“I call on all you journalists to stand up now because he’s your colleague and you are next. I call on all you politicians who say you entered politics to serve the people to stand up now. I call on all you activists who support human rights, refugees, the environment, and are against war, to stand up now because WikiLeaks has served the causes that you spoke for and Julian is now suffering for it alongside of you. I call on all citizens who value freedom, democracy and a fair legal process to put aside your political differences and unite, stand up now. Most of us don’t have the courage of our whistleblowers or journalists like Julian Assange who publish them, so that we may be informed and warned about the abuses of power.”

Australian TV Exposes Britain’s Westminster Paedophile Scandal

Source link

humansarefree.com

Oct 25, 2018

Australia broadcast an explosive 60 minute report on the Westminster paedophile network on Sunday evening, that has sent shockwaves around the world.

‘Spies, Lords and Predators’ looked at what the host described as Britain’s ‘biggest ever scandal’ that is likely to ‘rock the British establishment’.

[SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO]

Exaronews.com reports:

The programme features an interview with Richard Kerr, who lived as a boy at Kincora boys’ home in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Earlier today, Exaro uploaded its own video interview with Richard Kerr, in which he says that child sex abuse at Kincora was all about political leverage.

The programme also filmed an interview with Esther Baker, who alleges that she was sexually abused by two politicians.

And a man identified by Exaro only as “Darren” is interviewed anonymously in the programme. Darren became the third witness to give an account to us of how prominent people carried out child sex abuse at Dolphin Square, the apartment complex favoured by MPs.

In addition, Kevin Allen, brother of Martin, who disappeared as a 15-year-old in 1979, is interviewed for the programme. Kevin believes that Martin was abducted and murdered by a member of the ‘Westminster paedophile network’.

When he raised his suspicions with police many years ago, he says that a senior officer told him: “You keep saying things like that, you could get hurt.”

Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative MP who was part of the initial cross-party group of seven who last year called for an overarching inquiry into child sex abuse, agrees with the programme’s reporter that the ‘Westminster paedophile network’ is the “biggest political scandal in British history”.

Goldsmith tells 60 Minutes: “There is very compelling evidence that very senior people engaged in terrible acts and were then protected by the establishment. I have no doubt at all about that.”

“But I think the genie is out of the bottle.”

‘Spies, Lords and Predators’ – full 60-minute report: 
[If you want to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes, please follow this link].

Sources: Your News Wire; YouTube.com; The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska 

World’s most shocking food scandals: From Tylenol murders to poisoned baby food

Source link

http://www.rt.com

18 Sep, 2018

Various food tampering scandals have caused widespread panic for decades © REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel

The Australian public is currently dealing with a spate of nationwide food-tampering incidents involving needles being surreptitiously inserted into fruit. However, this is far from the first ‘food panic’ to grip a nation.

Throughout the 20th century, ever since the industrialization of food production and distribution, various individuals and groups have targeted the public food supply chain to create widespread panic. Here, RT.com examines several of the most infamous cases.

READ MORE: Strawberries laced with needles land Australian man in hospital; mass recall from shops

2017 – German baby food extortion

© REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

In September 2017, police in the southwestern German city of Konstanz used CCTV footage to locate a 55-year-old extortionist who laced baby food with ethylene glycol, a key ingredient in antifreeze which can cause potentially fatal renal failure.

The man was caught on camera placing poisoned products in several German supermarkets. He threatened to widen the scope of his nefarious scheme if he did not receive a €10 million ($12 million) ransom. He was ultimately arrested and confessed to tampering with the food.

2012/2013 – European Horse meat scandal

© REUTERS/Darren Staples

In 2012, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) discovered horse DNA in over one-third of beef burger and ready meal samples taken from supermarkets. Some samples contained up to 85 percent pig DNA.

The potential scale of the contamination was so huge that the FSAI spent an additional two months retesting the samples to be absolutely sure before releasing the information to the public in January 2013.

The blame game went from Irish and British supermarkets to their continental suppliers in the Netherlands and Spain and, later, Poland. Additional investigations were launched Europe-wide leading to further scandals in France. While there was no clear risk to public health, the controversy sparked outrage across the continent and led to reputational damage for several supermarkets and food suppliers.

2008 – Children’s milk in China

© REUTERS/Nicky Loh

In 2008, roughly 300,000 babies were sickened by contaminated milk powder across China. At least six children died as a result while 54,000 infants in total were hospitalised.

The chemical melamine was added to allow substandard milk to pass nutrition tests and be marked for public consumption. Melamine can cause renal failure and kidney stones.

The firm at the heart of the scandal, Sanlu, proceeded to anger the public further when it neglected to inform the authorities for months. A dairy farmer and a milk salesman were executed for endangering public safety and for the production and sale of toxic food, while 19 others were jailed for their role in the milk contamination scandal.

The Chinese government also carried out a complete overhaul of their dairy industry as a result of the scandal.

1982 – Chicago Tylenol murders

© REUTERS/Gary Cameron

In 1982, seven people, including a 12-year-old girl, died after ingesting tablets laced with potassium cyanide that were labelled as popular pain medication Tylenol. The whole episode led to the introduction of tamper-proofing mechanisms like plastic seals, pop-up caps, cotton wool wadding and foil coverings.

“We concluded we were never going to be judged by what caused the problem,” Alan Hilburg, a member of the public relations team enlisted by Johnson & Johnson to handle the crisis said, as cited by the New York Times. “We were always going to be judged on how we responded to it.”

James W. Lewis, a tax consultant who told Johnson & Johnson he would “stop the killing” if paid a million dollars was arrested and convicted of extortion but was never prosecuted for the deaths of the seven victims. Copycat incidents were also reported across the US in the immediate aftermath.

1920 – 1933 ‘Denatured’ alcohol during US prohibition

© REUTERS/U.S. Information Agency/NARAE

The 18th Amendment to the US constitution introduced alcohol prohibition between 1920 and 1933, banning the consumption, production or transportation of the substance outside of industrial uses.

Governmental regulatory agencies encouraged making industrial alcohol undrinkable via the addition of toxic chemicals like methyl alcohol (‘wood alcohol’) to the grain alcohol (a process known as ‘denaturing’) to dissuade unscrupulous black marketeers from attempting to circumvent the law. Despite online claims to the contrary, the government didn’t expressly aim to poison alcohol meant for human consumption. Good intentions did not prevent unnecessary deaths, however.

During just the holiday season in New York City, 1926 alone, 31 people died and a further 60 were hospitalized after consuming tainted alcohol. Up to 10,000 may have died throughout the prohibition era from drinking toxic alcohol but definitive figures are elusive.

Australia Forms a New Government

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journal-neo.org

Author: Vladimir Terehov

Sept 8, 2018

A number of different events are contributing to the political puzzle in the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions. Not the least significant of these are the recent changes of government in several of the region’s countries. This journal has already looked at the possible consequences for the region of the coming to power of new governments in countries such as Pakistan and Malaysia.

The changes in the make-up of the Australian government, including the appointment of a new prime minister, is equally deserving of attention. On 23 August the previous prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was replaced by his colleague from the Liberal Party, Scott Morrison. Readers will remember that in September 2015 Malcolm Turnbull himself succeeded Tony Abbot, also from the Liberal Party, as prime minister.

There have thus been three prime ministers in the six years that the Liberal Party (which won parliamentary election victories in 2013 and 2016 and rules in coalition with the National Party) has been in power.

Two points should be noted in connection with Australia’s change of prime minister. Firstly, unlike the changes of government in Pakistan and Malaysia, in Australia the change was related to the personal qualities of the two men, and took place against a background of political intrigue within the government party. The change did not have any real effect on the “political essence” of Australia’s ruling elite.

The change in leadership may turn out to have an effect on that “political essence” in just under a year, following the next elections for members of the House of Representatives, Australia’s lower chamber of parliament. It is, of course, still too early to make any kind of predictions, but it is worth pointing out that Australia’s second most important political party, the Labour Party, was in power relatively recently, from 2007-2013, i.e. for two consecutive terms of office.

We shall not go into detail about the differences on matters of internal politics between the Labour and Liberal parties, but rather focus on some important aspects of various foreign policies favoured by rival politicians within the current coalition.  These policies depend on the strength of the political ties that Australia has developed with the two major world powers, the USA and China.

Although Australia has been a member of a military and political union with the USA (ANSUS, formed of Australia, New Zealand and the USA) since 1951, it is now extremely interested in developing trade and economic links with China. China is Australia’s most important trade partner, and its share of Australia’s total foreign trade is 5 or 6 times that of the USA.

No other country could replace China as Australia’s main market for such key exports as iron ore, coal and, increasingly, liquified natural gas. For both main parties, that situation serves to dampen what we could refer to as Australia’s “zeal” – real or feigned – for its fulfilment of its obligations as a US ally.

Nevertheless such “zeal” is clearly at a lower level within the Labour Party than among the Liberals. To give just one example, at the end of the last decade, when the Labour Party, headed by the pro-China Kevin Rudd, were in power,  the USA’s failed in its first attempt to persuade India, Japan and Australia to join it in an anti-Chinese military and political alliance of four. Incidentally, the USA’s second attempt, launched at the beginning of 2016, may also now be off the agenda.

This important foreign policy issue explains why next year’s Australian parliamentary elections are so important for the situation in the region. As yet, it is hard to say how the latest change of prime minister and reshuffle of the Liberal Party government will affect the results of the elections.

But one thing is certain: when the ruling party’s MPs voted Scott Morrison in as prime minister and party leader, the upcoming elections were at the front of their minds.

Equally significant is the fact that Scott Morrison was a member of the high-profile Australian government delegation, headed by Michael Turnbull, which visited China in April 2016. During that visit, the discussions focussed on developing economic ties between China and Australia. Scott Morrison, who was Treasurer at the time, made a highly complimentary speech in which he called China “our number one trading partner, and developing our relations with it will be crucial to our future economic prosperity”.

It is highly unlikely that, in the few months remaining until the elections, he will decide to stage a display of military strength similar to that of his predecessor in November 2017. Back then, a group of six Australian Navy warships, rather sarcastically referred to by journalists as a “small armada”, entered the South China Sea, 80-90% of which China considers to be its own territorial waters.

The event met with a restrained, and ironic, reaction from Beijing, which rarely misses an opportunity to call for a step back from confrontation, and, instead, an increase in bilateral cooperation in a wide range of areas.

For example, China is in favour of collaboration to provide all-round support to island nations in the Pacific Ocean. This initiative is clearly aimed at countering the attempts to give an anti-Chinese character to the so-called Pacific Islands Forum, which was held between 16 countries in the region, including Australia.

Observers also note a readiness in Beijing to increase its level of investment in the Australian economy, in which it still trails a long way behind the USA, Japan, and the EU. However, as yet the Australian government has not demonstrated any willingness to increase the opportunities for the flow of Chinese capital into its economy. This is particularly true for facilities which are considered to be important for Australia’s national security, or for the protection of its competitive advantages in international markets. That fits in with the general strategy of imposing limits on China’s “economic expansionism” , which has, in recent years, been followed by all western nations, including in Europe.

Foe example, in August 2016 a request by the Chinese state electricity distribution network for approval to buy 50.4% of the shares in its Australian equivalent, Ausgrid, for the huge sum of 7.7 billion dollars.

This August, the well-known Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei, among the world’s leading manufacturers of contemporary communications systems (Huawei, has an annual turnover of almost 80 billion dollars), both met with a unceremonious rejection. They had offered to set up the joint manufacture of 5th-generation mobile phone equipment in Australia.

In general, the current Australian government’s refusal to enter into a highly promising collaboration with China, in various aspects of international relations, so far seems rather artificial. And it is unlikely that the “reshuffled” Liberal government will decide to make any radical changes in its policy towards China in the run-up to the 2019 parliamentary elections.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Dead cows found in paddock with udders, ears and tongues removed

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ABC Tropical North

By Tara Cassidy

Sept 5, 2018

A north Queensland couple has been left baffled by a bizarre finding on their property, which seems like something straight from a horror film.

Graziers Mick and Judy Cook were working on their property in Cloverly, north-west of Mackay, when Mr Cook noticed a dead cow carcass which appeared to have had its body mutilated, with its entire udder, ears and tongue removed.

Warning: This story contains images and content that some readers may find disturbing.

“It was like it had been surgically removed, I certainly couldn’t do as neat a job with a very sharp knife, and it definitely wasn’t an animal,” Mr Cook said.

“I thought at first it might have been poisoned, but then I got closer … I saw the body parts missing, there was no blood, even where the parts had been removed, no sign of struggle, just dead.

“There was just no reason or rhyme for it to be done the way it was done, people don’t use those parts, it’s just not something you would wish on your worst enemy.”

On the same trip, Mr Cook said he traveled down a little further on his property, about an hour’s drive from his house on rough terrain, when he found another dead cow.

The second one looked like it had been there for some time.

“By that point we are probably two hours from your nearest neighbour, it’s very mountainous country … there’s no way anyone can get there unless they come straight past our house.

“When I got down there I noticed another carcass, this one was a bit more deteriorated, looked like it had been rotting there for a bit.

“We don’t know how it happened, but we got onto the neighbours just to let them know.”

Local veterinarian David Lemmon said in his 40 years working in the industry, often with livestock, he had never heard of or seen anything like it.

“I deal with everything, you know — all creatures great and small. And I can’t think of any explanation for it, that’s not normal human behaviour is it? That’s something quite bizarre and ill, I would say the person that has done that is not mentally stable.

“We’re talking eyes, we’re talking ears, we’re talking udders. No, I’ve never heard of anything like that ever, that’s something or someone very ill who’s done that.”

Photo: A dead cow found at Eungella near Mackay with its udder, ears and tongue removed. (ABC Tropical North: Supplied)

In a statement, Queensland Police said it had not been notified about the cow mutilations, however, Mr and Mrs Cook said they had attempted to contact local police unsuccessfully.

Continue:

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In This One State, 1.08 Million Animals Were Experimented On, Dogs Included

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By True Activist

By: Markab Algedi / The Mind Unleashed 

Posted on June 15, 2018

Over 1.08 million animals were used for scientific “experiments” in total, and now that number is rising for the first time in supposedly three years in this state.

  Over 1.08 million animals were used for scientific “experiments” in total, and now that number is rising for the first time in supposedly three years in this state.

Think that it’s not that inhumane to experiment on mice or rodents? Well, these animals being experimented upon include koalas, pound dogs, rabbits, horses, monkeys and sheep.

This is happening in the Australian state of Victoria.

The official justification is that most of these animals were “simply observed” (does that mean a control group? Probably not), but other animals suffered through horrific, violent “tests” in the name of science, as phrased by an article from the Herald Sun.

This isn’t in the name of science, it’s in the name of scientism and money.

One weird fact about this statistic is that the animals undergoing genetic modifications in particular rose tremendously, with 133,852 animals being used for 259 separate projects.

These are the official records.

Animals used in experiments during 2016 in Victoria

Lab Mice — 398,277

Fish — 294,950

Sheep — 85,677

Guinea pigs — 3962

Pounds dogs — 2945

Lab Rabbits — 1464

Horses — 704

Pound cats — 597

Marmosets — 95

Macaques — 86

Reptiles — 52

Some animals were subject to being implanted with who knows what, for long-term monitoring. Other animals were afflicted with longterm, major physical impediments and deformities as animal experimentation always causes, and some of the animals passed away.

Please beware of the disturbing photos you are about to see. They are not necessarily of animals in Victoria, but animals being experimented on in general.

What is the Australian mainstream media saying about these animals? They’re trying to look on the bright side and support the practice, insisting that the total number of animals being killed “in the name of science” is decreasing.

“Only 6897 animals” have died in tests where death was the “proposed end point,” laments the Australian mainstream media. That’s so much better than zero animals dying in a study that basically intended for them to die.

A lot of these animals were subject to euthanasia after the tests: a whopping 79,858 were discarded and euthanized.

These numbers for just the state of Victoria alone were revealed in what they simply call annual data. The mainstream reported that it was simply the “sad cost of scientific advancement.”

People who aren’t insane can probably recognize that this isn’t “scientific advancement,” and there is no quantifiable evidence that this advanced anything for anybody, except the advanced depth of the pockets of entities funding this research.

While the original article was a little vague on whether or not these figures were for one year or in total, it wouldn’t be surprising if this was for just one year because for some reason the Australian state of Victoria is really bad about this.

According to the Herald Sun:

“The state government records every live specimen used to help tackle numerous human diseases, products and breeding practices.”

It is believed that Australia is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to animal experimentation. For some reason Victoria in particular is a place where a lot of “research” is done, and a lot of animals have to suffer.

Make no mistake, these animals do not suffer for some kind of vague notion of “the advancement of science,” for the betterment of mankind.

No, research grants are provided to academics, researchers, and scientists because the people with money want something to be generated from that money. Money is not given out for free, or for some vague altruistic purpose to these researchers, just as scholarships are not given to people to go to college for no reason: they want money.

Apparently a department of government in Victoria, Agriculture Victoria is supposed to ensure that all tests were approved and overseen by them, to “ensure ethical treatment.”

But if their standard of “ethical treatment” is to euthanize and discard tens of thousands of animals who may not even be that affected by what they did. Their standard of “ethical treatment” is to do things that result in permanent, strange deformations and injuries, so they have a really messed up sense of “ethics.”

To justify all this, a spokesman for the department said:

“The use of animals in research and teaching is, at this moment, an unfortunate necessity for the purposes of promoting the health of humans, animals and the environment.

Victorian legislation ensures that unnecessary animal use is not permitted and mandates the considerate and respectful treatment of research animals.”

So why would this horrific animal experimentation be performed in Australia, and not elsewhere?

Take it from population control advocate and ruthless “kill the poor”-type-person Paul Ehrlich. This is an extensive video about him worth watching on its own, but at one point in that video, he said something interesting.

Paul Ehrlich said that Australia, not America would tolerate a conversation about placing sterilization-inducing chemicals in the public water supply, sterilizing people en-mass to ensure that they don’t have any more children, only giving out antidotes to this sterilizing agent if the government deemed a family worthy of reproducing.

Unfortunately as a person who has lived in both Australia and America, I can confirm this is correct. Australia is more open to having a conversation about everybody being sterilized, forced to only reproduce if the government allows it, than America.

It’s not the people of Australia inherently, it’s a culture that exists there that really came from Britain: a culture where people are made really safe, really docile and willing to accept whatever the government does to sum it up.

Well, this is the state’s sense of ethics. Millions of animals are nothing but test subjects.

When will we have enough technology? Do we really need more “scientific advancement,” or do we need to just be at peace with the plants, animals, and people of this planet?

(Image credit: windwildhorse, planetware, science.howstuffworks, animalexperimentspictures, urchinmovemen, theguardian, forcechange, keywordsuggest, commons.wikimedia)

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This article In This One State, 1.08 Million Animals Were Experimented On, Dogs Included by Markab Algedi originally appeared on The Mind Unleashed.

US to bolster its Marines presence in Australia to tackle ‘China threat’

Yeah, them pesky Chinese have been invading and destabilizing country after country. Oh the inhumanity! Here’s the list of countries China has invaded during the last 100 years: 0. 

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http://www.rt.com

25 Jul, 2018

U.S. Marines arrive on deployment at Darwin, 2017. © Reuters/Tom Westbrook

The US continues to ramp up its military footprint in Australia, aimed at countering a perceived threat presented from China. With plans to station 2,500 Marines in Darwin, US military presence in the Pacific continues to expand.

Marine Corps presence in Australia has ballooned since the first rotation of 250 troops arrived in the country in 2012. There are currently 1,500 members of the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin stationed in Australia’s Northern Territory along with an array of US weapons and aircraft. That number is to swell to 2,500 “as soon as practicable,” the Department of Defense said following a meeting between the US and Australia this week.

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US ‘disinvites’ China from Pacific Rim 2018 naval exercises over ‘militarization’

The ever-increasing US military footprint extends across the Pacific region, with some 22,000 Marines stationed in Okinawa, Japan, 7,000 in Guam and 28,500 in South Korea.

US forces will also integrate in Australia’s upcoming Indo-Pacific Endeavour exercise and will carry out a series of exercises in Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The US sees China’s influence in the Pacific as a grave threat to its global influence. Allies Australia and New Zealand have taken steps to counter this threat, with Australia recently funding underwater telecommunications cable from the Solomon Islands to Australia and Papua New Guinea in a bid to quash Chinese Huawei from doing so. Both China and Australia provide billions in aid to countries in the region, and Australia has plans to invest in US surveillance drones to increase its security in the South China Sea.

Read more

China redeploys missile systems on disputed South China Sea island (SATELLITE PHOTOS)

Speaking after a meeting with Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and Defense Minister Marise Payne at Stanford University on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the two nations would “walk the walk in the Indo-Pacific,” adding it was up to Australia to decide whether it would embark on freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea.

These exercises see the US flex its military might by sending warships and aircraft through waters and airspace that China claims sovereignty over in contest with some other nations of the region. The US, which has no claims in the many territorial disputes, insists on calling those areas neutral and thus open to free navigation.

Pompeo expressed confidence that other countries would follow in Australia’s footsteps. “I think the South Pacific, like most places in the world, understands the enormity of having an American ally,” he said.

The 2,500 figure was outlined by Barack Obama as early as 2011 when the US and Australia entered an agreement as part of an “Asia rebalance.”

Why Bringing Assange Home Would Be the Best Possible Thing for Australia

“…as an Australian it makes me tear up just thinking about it. It has been absolutely humiliating watching my beloved country being degraded and exploited by the sociopathic agendas of America’s ruling elites…”

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theantimedia.com

Written by Caitlin Johnstone

June 9, 2018

(CJ Opinion) — Well I’ll be damned, it’s about time.

According to a new report by the Sydney Morning Herald, officials from Australia’s High Commission have just been spotted leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London, accompanied by Julian Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson. Robinson confirmed that a meeting had taken place, but declined to say what it was about “given the delicate diplomatic situation.”

So, forgive me if I squee a bit. I am aware how subservient Australia has historically been to US interests, I am aware that those US interests entail the arrest of Assange and the destruction of WikiLeaks, and I am aware that things don’t often work out against the interests of the US-centralized empire. But there is a glimmer of hope now, coming from a direction we’ve never seen before. A certain southerly direction.

If the Australian government stepped in to protect one of its own journalists from being persecuted by the powerful empire that has dragged us into war after war and turned us into an asset of the US war/intelligence machine… well, as an Australian it makes me tear up just thinking about it. It has been absolutely humiliating watching my beloved country being degraded and exploited by the sociopathic agendas of America’s ruling elites, up to and including the imprisonment and isolation of one of our own, all because he helped share authentic, truthful documents exposing the depraved behaviors of those same ruling elites. I have had very few reasons to feel anything remotely resembling patriotism lately. If Australia brought Assange home, this would change.

We Australians do not have a very clear sense of ourselves; if we did we would never have stood for Assange’s persecution in the first place. We tend to form our national identity in terms of negatives, by the fact that we are not British and are not American, without any clear image about what we are. A bunch of white prisoners got thrown onto a gigantic island rich with ancient indigenous culture, we killed most of the continent’s inhabitants and degraded and exploited the survivors, and now we’re just kind of standing around drinking tea as the dust settles saying, “Hmm… well, we’re not stuck-up like the Brits, and we’re not entitled like the Yanks.”

That’s pretty much our entire nation right now. A beautiful continent where the Aboriginal Dreamtime has been paved over with suburbs and shopping centers. We are a warm and charitable people, we value family and community, but we’ve got no sense of who we are and what it means to be Australian.

We try sometimes; there are attempts to uplift Australian art and culture which we call Australiana. I remember going to “bush dances” as a kid where old-timey settler music was played and everyone pretended to have some kind of connection with it. We like meat pies. The footy’s great. But our sense of ourselves has never really taken root.

Which is ultimately why attempts to assert our sovereignty, to leave the British commonwealth and stop having that ugly old woman’s face on our money have fallen short. It is also why we had no problem subjugating ourselves as a functional vassal state of the US as it emerged as a dominant superpower following the world wars. If we’d had a clear image of ourselves, what we stand for, and what our best interests are, this never would have happened. But because of our background we’ve been like the home schooled teenager going to high school for the first time and instantly being absorbed into a bad crowd because she didn’t understand the social dynamics.

I went to a community theater with my family the other day to see Spring Awakening, an English-language musical set in Germany. For no apparent reason, the actors on the stage spoke in American accents. They were Australians playing Germans, not Americans; there was no reason whatsoever for that to happen. But that sort of thing is so commonplace here the only person who pointed it out was my American husband. It seemed perfectly normal to me.

But it isn’t normal. It isn’t normal for a nation of people to be so neurotic and ashamed of their own nationality that they put on a foreign accent rather than their own for no reason. It isn’t normal that we have such a head-down, subservient society that most of our homegrown talent leaves Australia forever because we’ve got a weird slave-culture habit of cutting down the “tall poppies” whenever anyone is perceived to have risen above their station. It isn’t normal that we feel so ashamed of standing tall and shining bright in the world.

Nowadays the closest non-Aboriginal thing you ever see to a display of Australian identity typically involves Southern Cross tattoos, thuggishness, Islamophobia, and a desire to continue the cruel warehousing of human beings on Manus Island. That is plainly gross, and the Aboriginal people now hold their culture secret and close to their chests for completely understandable reasons, so what else is there? What else could there be that could begin to unite us as a people so we can begin to develop a little collective pride and cease allowing ourselves to be used as a tool of sociopathic imperialists?

Well, there’s Julian Assange. He’s something positive that we can all fight for, a clear force of good in the world that we can unify around as we begin a slow, sloppy, completely necessary divorce from the cancer of empire.

Assange confuses Americans in the same way Mountain Dew confuses me. Americans don’t have any cultural hook-ups for the kind of creature he is. In the same way that Mountain Dew looks, tastes, smells and feels like poison to me, they can’t tell if he’s right wing or left, if he’s a hero or a villain, or what motivates him. They don’t trust him because they don’t know what they’re looking at. As someone who grew up around the same time, in the same area, and in similar social circles to him, it seems very obvious to me what he is. And what he is is very Australian.

Traditionally Australians have lionized anti-establishment heroes such as Australian bushranger Ned Kelly, the son of an Irish convict who was hanged for killing a British cop.

Every country has its flavor. In my country, we grew up valuing innovation. Most people my age can reel off a list of Australian inventions, from the Hills Hoist to the postage stamp to the bionic ear to wifi. I did not even have to go and google that just now, that’s how much a part of our national conversation and our education is our pride in our use of insight for practical problem-solving.

There are some fundamental values that we grew up with as seventies children in Australia. There was the value of “do the right thing,” the value of “giving everyone a fair go”, and the value of “keeping the bastards honest.” These were key and oft-repeated phrases in my childhood during the seventies and eighties. Remember, we were small when there was a CIA/MI6 coup in our country and our parents were implored by the ousted Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to “maintain the rage” at the unforgivable attack on our democratic sovereignty. That’s in my living memory. When Julian and I were small, anti-establishment sentiment was at its loudest.

The badge from Gough Whitlam’s successful 1972 election as Prime Minister. Hugely popular and establishment-smashing, he was ousted by the Queen of England’s Governor General in a CIA/MI6 backed coup only three years later.

We have an inbuilt distrust of authority and a deep hatred of empire which probably stems from our convict roots, and then from the ongoing waves of refugees who were running from famine, wars and despotism. Aside from the indigenous population, we are a country full of people who were forced by empire to come here in one way or another. So we don’t like authority much and we instinctively cut people down before they get too powerful. This is why the unions are still strong and social programs are such a natural fit for us. We like things to be fair. We like everyone to have a say.

Julian Assange’s work is an embodiment of all those values. The initial innovative use of technology to create WikiLeaks, the belief in openness and transparency, the desire to democratize information for the good of the whole, and the joy in keeping the bastards honest — all of that is very Australian. Very child of a strong Mum and brought up in Melbourne. Very me. My seed took root in similar soil. He seems obvious to me.

His work is extraordinary. Never has a single innovation brought power to its knees in such a short amount of time. In an inverted totalitarian system where the ability to suck resources from the people is hidden under a veil of propaganda, the ability to rip through the veil of spin and government opacity is a powerful tool indeed. In just a little over a decade he has managed to make himself the most wanted man alive by the most powerful people on earth. That’s how effective WikiLeaks has been in bringing truth to power.

And those in power don’t like him, and of course they use their propaganda machine to obfuscate who he is and what he is doing, but his actions tell his story even through the fog of the spin machine. His relentless drive to publish the truth no matter which side of the aisle it’s about, whichever powerful faction it is going to piss off, and how that’s going to impact his own living situation says everything you need to know about Julian Assange. He keeps publishing even when it’s clearly to his own personal detriment. He cares less about himself than he does about the truth getting out there. That tells me everything I need to know.

And every day of his detention proves his theory correct. He is keeping the bastards honest and because they aren’t honest, they don’t like it one bit.

Bringing Julian Assange home could be the first step to giving ourselves a bright, shining image of who we are and what we stand for. At the moment, Australia is a lifeless vassal state hooked up to the US power establishment with our every orifice and resource being used to feed the corporatist empire. Anesthetized to the eyeballs and in a state of total submission, the return of Julian might just be the little spark we need to get the old ticker pumping for itself again. Finally standing up for ourselves, for what’s right, and for the things that Julian stands for might just be the very thing we need as a nation to discover who we really are.

Bring him home. It’s time.

I’ll be at the solidarity vigil for Julian Assange in Melbourne on June 19th. Please come join me if you are able. Click here for more info.

Support Caitlin’s work on Patreon or Paypal.

Republished with permission

Why Bringing Assange Home Would Be the Best Possible Thing for Australia

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theantimedia.com

Written by Caitlin Johnstone

June 9, 2018

(CJ Opinion) — Well I’ll be damned, it’s about time.

According to a new report by the Sydney Morning Herald, officials from Australia’s High Commission have just been spotted leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London, accompanied by Julian Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson. Robinson confirmed that a meeting had taken place, but declined to say what it was about “given the delicate diplomatic situation.”

So, forgive me if I squee a bit. I am aware how subservient Australia has historically been to US interests, I am aware that those US interests entail the arrest of Assange and the destruction of WikiLeaks, and I am aware that things don’t often work out against the interests of the US-centralized empire. But there is a glimmer of hope now, coming from a direction we’ve never seen before. A certain southerly direction.

If the Australian government stepped in to protect one of its own journalists from being persecuted by the powerful empire that has dragged us into war after war and turned us into an asset of the US war/intelligence machine… well, as an Australian it makes me tear up just thinking about it. It has been absolutely humiliating watching my beloved country being degraded and exploited by the sociopathic agendas of America’s ruling elites, up to and including the imprisonment and isolation of one of our own, all because he helped share authentic, truthful documents exposing the depraved behaviors of those same ruling elites. I have had very few reasons to feel anything remotely resembling patriotism lately. If Australia brought Assange home, this would change.

We Australians do not have a very clear sense of ourselves; if we did we would never have stood for Assange’s persecution in the first place. We tend to form our national identity in terms of negatives, by the fact that we are not British and are not American, without any clear image about what we are. A bunch of white prisoners got thrown onto a gigantic island rich with ancient indigenous culture, we killed most of the continent’s inhabitants and degraded and exploited the survivors, and now we’re just kind of standing around drinking tea as the dust settles saying, “Hmm… well, we’re not stuck-up like the Brits, and we’re not entitled like the Yanks.”

That’s pretty much our entire nation right now. A beautiful continent where the Aboriginal Dreamtime has been paved over with suburbs and shopping centers. We are a warm and charitable people, we value family and community, but we’ve got no sense of who we are and what it means to be Australian.

We try sometimes; there are attempts to uplift Australian art and culture which we call Australiana. I remember going to “bush dances” as a kid where old-timey settler music was played and everyone pretended to have some kind of connection with it. We like meat pies. The footy’s great. But our sense of ourselves has never really taken root.

Which is ultimately why attempts to assert our sovereignty, to leave the British commonwealth and stop having that ugly old woman’s face on our money have fallen short. It is also why we had no problem subjugating ourselves as a functional vassal state of the US as it emerged as a dominant superpower following the world wars. If we’d had a clear image of ourselves, what we stand for, and what our best interests are, this never would have happened. But because of our background we’ve been like the home schooled teenager going to high school for the first time and instantly being absorbed into a bad crowd because she didn’t understand the social dynamics.

I went to a community theater with my family the other day to see Spring Awakening, an English-language musical set in Germany. For no apparent reason, the actors on the stage spoke in American accents. They were Australians playing Germans, not Americans; there was no reason whatsoever for that to happen. But that sort of thing is so commonplace here the only person who pointed it out was my American husband. It seemed perfectly normal to me.

But it isn’t normal. It isn’t normal for a nation of people to be so neurotic and ashamed of their own nationality that they put on a foreign accent rather than their own for no reason. It isn’t normal that we have such a head-down, subservient society that most of our homegrown talent leaves Australia forever because we’ve got a weird slave-culture habit of cutting down the “tall poppies” whenever anyone is perceived to have risen above their station. It isn’t normal that we feel so ashamed of standing tall and shining bright in the world.

Nowadays the closest non-Aboriginal thing you ever see to a display of Australian identity typically involves Southern Cross tattoos, thuggishness, Islamophobia, and a desire to continue the cruel warehousing of human beings on Manus Island. That is plainly gross, and the Aboriginal people now hold their culture secret and close to their chests for completely understandable reasons, so what else is there? What else could there be that could begin to unite us as a people so we can begin to develop a little collective pride and cease allowing ourselves to be used as a tool of sociopathic imperialists?

Well, there’s Julian Assange. He’s something positive that we can all fight for, a clear force of good in the world that we can unify around as we begin a slow, sloppy, completely necessary divorce from the cancer of empire.

Assange confuses Americans in the same way Mountain Dew confuses me. Americans don’t have any cultural hook-ups for the kind of creature he is. In the same way that Mountain Dew looks, tastes, smells and feels like poison to me, they can’t tell if he’s right wing or left, if he’s a hero or a villain, or what motivates him. They don’t trust him because they don’t know what they’re looking at. As someone who grew up around the same time, in the same area, and in similar social circles to him, it seems very obvious to me what he is. And what he is is very Australian.

Traditionally Australians have lionized anti-establishment heroes such as Australian bushranger Ned Kelly, the son of an Irish convict who was hanged for killing a British cop.

Every country has its flavor. In my country, we grew up valuing innovation. Most people my age can reel off a list of Australian inventions, from the Hills Hoist to the postage stamp to the bionic ear to wifi. I did not even have to go and google that just now, that’s how much a part of our national conversation and our education is our pride in our use of insight for practical problem-solving.

There are some fundamental values that we grew up with as seventies children in Australia. There was the value of “do the right thing,” the value of “giving everyone a fair go”, and the value of “keeping the bastards honest.” These were key and oft-repeated phrases in my childhood during the seventies and eighties. Remember, we were small when there was a CIA/MI6 coup in our country and our parents were implored by the ousted Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to “maintain the rage” at the unforgivable attack on our democratic sovereignty. That’s in my living memory. When Julian and I were small, anti-establishment sentiment was at its loudest.

The badge from Gough Whitlam’s successful 1972 election as Prime Minister. Hugely popular and establishment-smashing, he was ousted by the Queen of England’s Governor General in a CIA/MI6 backed coup only three years later.

We have an inbuilt distrust of authority and a deep hatred of empire which probably stems from our convict roots, and then from the ongoing waves of refugees who were running from famine, wars and despotism. Aside from the indigenous population, we are a country full of people who were forced by empire to come here in one way or another. So we don’t like authority much and we instinctively cut people down before they get too powerful. This is why the unions are still strong and social programs are such a natural fit for us. We like things to be fair. We like everyone to have a say.

Julian Assange’s work is an embodiment of all those values. The initial innovative use of technology to create WikiLeaks, the belief in openness and transparency, the desire to democratize information for the good of the whole, and the joy in keeping the bastards honest — all of that is very Australian. Very child of a strong Mum and brought up in Melbourne. Very me. My seed took root in similar soil. He seems obvious to me.

His work is extraordinary. Never has a single innovation brought power to its knees in such a short amount of time. In an inverted totalitarian system where the ability to suck resources from the people is hidden under a veil of propaganda, the ability to rip through the veil of spin and government opacity is a powerful tool indeed. In just a little over a decade he has managed to make himself the most wanted man alive by the most powerful people on earth. That’s how effective WikiLeaks has been in bringing truth to power.

And those in power don’t like him, and of course they use their propaganda machine to obfuscate who he is and what he is doing, but his actions tell his story even through the fog of the spin machine. His relentless drive to publish the truth no matter which side of the aisle it’s about, whichever powerful faction it is going to piss off, and how that’s going to impact his own living situation says everything you need to know about Julian Assange. He keeps publishing even when it’s clearly to his own personal detriment. He cares less about himself than he does about the truth getting out there. That tells me everything I need to know.

And every day of his detention proves his theory correct. He is keeping the bastards honest and because they aren’t honest, they don’t like it one bit.

Bringing Julian Assange home could be the first step to giving ourselves a bright, shining image of who we are and what we stand for. At the moment, Australia is a lifeless vassal state hooked up to the US power establishment with our every orifice and resource being used to feed the corporatist empire. Anesthetized to the eyeballs and in a state of total submission, the return of Julian might just be the little spark we need to get the old ticker pumping for itself again. Finally standing up for ourselves, for what’s right, and for the things that Julian stands for might just be the very thing we need as a nation to discover who we really are.

Bring him home. It’s time.

I’ll be at the solidarity vigil for Julian Assange in Melbourne on June 19th. Please come join me if you are able. Click here for more info.

Support Caitlin’s work on Patreon or Paypal.

Opinion by Caitlin Johnstone / Republished with permission

Underground Booms: Now It’s Happening In Australia…(10 min)

OUTBREAK Alert: Flesh-Eating Bacterial Infection Spreads RAPIDLY In Australia

SHTFplan.com

Mac Slavo
April 17th, 2018

An infectious flesh-eating ulcer caused by a bacteria is spreading so quickly through Australia that scientists in the state of Victoria are declaring this outbreak an epidemic.  Normally abundant in West and central Africa and, the buruli ulcer is now taking hold in the “land down under.”

In a study published Monday in the Medical Journal of Australia, the authors caution that the outbreak of the ulcers, described as an “epidemic” in the study, requires an “urgent scientific response.” They report that Victoria is facing a worsening epidemic “defined by cases rapidly increasing in number, becoming more severe in nature, and occurring in new geographic areas.”

Buruli ulcer is caused by infection with the organism Mycobacterium ulcerans. It often affects the skin by deteriorating the tissue, but can go so deep it affects the bone structure. The organism belongs to the family of bacteria that causes tuberculosis and leprosy. However, M. ulcerans is an environmental bacterium and the mode of transmission to humans remains unknown. The organism produces a unique toxin – mycolactone – which causes tissue damage and inhibits the immune response.

According to numbers reported by CNN, in 2016, there were 182 new cases reported, a spike of 72%. But even this number was dwarfed by a further increase of 51% from November 2016 to the same month a year later. In November 2016, there were 156, which rose to 236 cases.

“In Australia, it seems more to be a terrestrial transmission whereas in Africa, for example, the strain is very different and is mostly transmitted through aquatic ecosystems,” said Andres Garchitorena, a researcher at the Institute of Research and Development in France and an expert on Buruli ulcers, who was not involved in the most recent report.

But the cases in Australia are becoming more severe and doctors also do not know the reason.  “One possibility is maybe there’s some resistance to the antibiotics that they are using,” Garchitorena said. “It is difficult to prevent a disease when it is not known how infection is acquired,” wrote the lead author and associate professor Daniel O’Brien, an infectious diseases consultant.

Although some deaths from the infection have been reported, most cases are not life-threatening, according to Garchitorena. “There are cases where people have died, but the most common outcome when it’s not treated is a handicap: People may need an amputation or surgery with functional limitations for life,” he said. WHO also reports management of the buruli ulcer becomes more difficult when the patient is dealing with a coinfection of HIV, perhaps lending to the increased severity of the infections in Africa, although that’s largely speculation as still more in-depth studies of this disease are warranted.

The majority of cases are still being reported in West and Central Africa, including Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ghana. There are no predictable trends in the number of cases reported yearly either.

Political Spin, The Australian Way

Chappy Chapman

April 4, 2018

SPIN, THE AUSTRALIAN WAY

No matter what side of the political fence you’re on, THIS is FUNNY and VERY telling! It just all depends on how you look at the same things.

Judy Rudd, an amateur genealogy researcher in south east Queensland , was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s great-great uncle, Remus Rudd, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Melbourne in 1889.

Both Judy and Kevin Rudd share this common ancestor.

The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows at the Melbourne Jail.

On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription:

‘Remus Rudd horse thief, sent to Melbourne Jail 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Melbourne-Geelong train six times.

Caught by Victoria Police Force, convicted and hanged in 1889.’

So Judy recently e-mailed ex-Prime Minister Rudd for information about their great-great uncle, Remus Rudd.

Believe it or not, Kevin Rudd’s staff sent back the following for her genealogy research:

“Remus Rudd was famous in Victoria during the mid to late 1800s.

His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Melbourne-Geelong Railroad…

Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad.

In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the Victoria Police Force.

In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honour when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

NOW That’s how it’s done, Folks!

That’s real POLITICAL SPIN.

1000s join rallies in UK, Australia to slam Israel atrocities on Palestine

Source link

http://www.presstv.com

Sat Apr 7, 2018

 

Protesters shout slogans and hold placards during a demonstration on Whitehall opposite Downing Street in central London on April 7, 2018 in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)

Thousands of people have taken part in a massive rally in Britain’s capital London to express solidarity with Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip and condemn persisting atrocities by the Israeli regime in the occupied territories as well as UK’s inaction toward such violence.

The protesters gathered Saturday outside of British prime minister’s residence on Downing Street and also voiced their anger at UK’s silence versus the abuses being inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli forces as the country’s Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn slammed Western inaction over the regime’s killing of over 30 Palestinians during anti-occupation protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish anti-Zionism protesters (front row) join a protest rally on Whitehall opposite Downing Street in central London on April 7, 2018 in solidarity with Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)

The London protesters carried signs and waved banners calling for an end to the Israeli regime’s brutal blockade on the tightly populated Gaza since 2007. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War coalition were among several organizations sponsoring the massive protest event.

Protesters with placards and Palestinian flags crowd the street during a protest march on Whitehall opposite Downing Street in central London on April 7, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

“The silence from international powers with the responsibility of bringing a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict must end,” said Corbyn at the Downing Street protest rally.

He further told the demonstrators that “the killing and wounding of yet more unarmed Palestinian protesters yesterday by Israeli forces in Gaza is an outrage,” underlining that “firing live ammunition into crowds of unarmed civilians is illegal and inhumane and cannot be tolerated.”

Protesters shout slogans and hold placards and Palestinian flags during a rally on Whitehall in central London on April 7, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The development came after Palestinian waged their annual protest march late last month towards the fence separating Gaza from the territories occupied by the Israeli regime to begin a six-week protest event dubbed “The Great March of Return,” demanding the right to return for Palestinians driven out of their homeland.

The demonstrations turned violent after Israeli forces used tear gas and live fire against crowds of protesters. So far, over 30 Palestinian have been killed and hundreds injured by the Israeli military and police forces.

Palestine solidarity and anti-Israeli protest rallies were also waged in major Canadian city of Vancouver, where hundreds of protesters marched for hours across the city center, waving signs and shouting slogans condemning Israeli atrocities against Palestinian protesters and calling for a free Palestine.

Hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators take part in protest rally in Melbourne to condemn Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. (File photo)

Also in Australia, nearly 1,000 demonstrators joined a protest rally in Melbourne dubbed ‘Free Palestine’ to censure Israeli regime’s brutal violence – including live fire — used against Palestinian protesters in occupied territories in recent days.

Australia and New Zealand UFOs (45 min)

UFO Files Unsealed in New Zealand

Australian anti-vaxxers provide new model for the world

This video from Mike Adams, Natural News, has been included by Tales:

With permission from

jonrappoport.wordpress.com

by Jon Rappoport

March 4, 2018

Out of the ashes of government tyranny comes a solution.

In the Australian state of Queensland, childcare facilities can refuse to allow unvaccinated children to attend, so…

Parents there have formed their own community, which has already grown to 800 members. As ABC (Australia) reports:

“Sunshine Coast vaccine refuser and leader of the Natural Immunity Community, Allona Lahn, said her anti-vaccine network had grown to 800 members and was becoming stronger since the regulations were introduced.”

“’Out of sheer necessity we’ve created a community base to support families — we’ve had no choice other than to start our own social services’.”

“Ms Lahn said the network with like-minded families included their own childcare, schools and health services away from the mainstream.”

“’We organise group childcare arrangements and we’re now devising our own combined homeschooling system,’ she said.”

“’We use health practitioners within the anti-vaccine networks around Australia and ‘anti-vaccination-friendly’ doctors in the community’.”

“Ms Lahn said network members were turning away from mainstream health services because they faced intimidation and coercion.”

This is decentralization par excellence.

If like-minded parents in other countries take notice and launch their own communities, who knows how strong this movement could become?

Islands of resistance—but more than that. New answers, new strategies, new victories. And ongoing proof that parents can raise healthy children without vaccinations.

That proof is the dagger to the incessant lies about vaccines being absolutely necessary. Mainstream media promote those lies day and night—but the truth is, parents can and do raise unvaccinated children with strong immune systems, which is the natural defense against harm from disease.

The medical establishment has done NO proper, long-term studies comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children’s health outcomes. And the real reason is: they don’t want to face the results of such studies. They rightly fear the facts that would emerge.

I’m sure Allona Lahn, the leader of the Queensland network, doesn’t think of herself as a hero. She’s just doing what she knows is right, and she and her compatriot parents are, above all, protecting their children from the well-established toxic effects of vaccines. But she is a hero.

Every aware parent should salute her.

---

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Intelligent Birds Are Deliberately Starting Fires and Feasting on Animals as They Flee

Intelligent Birds Are Deliberately Starting Fires and Feasting on Animals as They Flee

ANTIMEDIA

Written by Anti-Media Team

January 12, 2018

Australia — It appears human beings aren’t alone in their ability to control fire. A recently published study that compiled accounts from indigenous peoples of Australia’s Northern Territory reveals that at least three species of predatory bird actually start fires to aid in their hunts.

These accounts of so-called “firehawk” raptors — the black kite, the whistling kite, and the brown falcon — describe the birds using their beaks and talons to transport burning branches from existing brush fires to other locations. The fire and smoke from these newly-set fires cause prey to flee, exposing them to the predators.

What’s more, the raptors actually appear to work in coordination with one another, as study co-author Bob Gosford explained to the Washington Post back in 2016.

“It’s not gratuitous,” said Gosford, an ethnobiologist and ornithologist. “There’s a purpose. There’s an intent to say, okay, there are several hundred of us there, we can all get a meal.”

Gosford was first inspired to conduct the research after stumbling upon a passage from I, the Aboriginal, a 1964 autobiography of Waipuldanya Phillip Roberts compiled by an Australian journalist.

“I have seen a hawk pick up a smouldering stick in its claws and drop it in a fresh patch of dry grass half a mile away,” Roberts wrote, “then wait with its mates for the mad exodus of scorched and frightened rodents and reptiles.”

Indeed, lead study author Mark Bonta made it clear to National Geographic that his team hasn’t uncovered anything that wasn’t already known to Australia’s Aboriginals.

“We’re not discovering anything,” said Bonta, a geographer at Penn State University. “Most of the data that we’ve worked with is collaborative with Aboriginal peoples…They’ve known this for probably 40,000 years or more.” 

Bonta’s team notes in the study that the behavior of these firehawks is “often represented in sacred ceremonies” of Aboriginal peoples and “widely known” to those of the Northwest Territory.

In addition to shedding light on some truly interesting aspects of animal behavior, the research team also hopes their findings will offer new insights into wildfire management. After all, fire-starting birds aren’t typically considered alongside the two traditional culprits of lightning and human action.

Australia aiming high, wants to become world’s top pot exporter when trade opens in February

source link

RT.com

4 Jan, 2018

© Mark Blinch / Reuters

Australia hopes to become the world’s largest exporter of medical marijuana by helping domestic growers expand their business and allowing them to sell the herb overseas.

Australia agreed to allow exports of medicinal cannabis starting from February and immediately set the bar for local growers by aiming to become the world’s largest exporter.

“This is actually a very important step for our domestic patients and our domestic supply,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said Thursday, ABC Australia reports. “By knowing they have an Australian market and an international market, that improves the likelihood of growing and production in Australia.”

Australia, Hunt noted, wants to become “the world’s number one medicinal cannabis supplier,” as long as it does not jeopardize the quality of marijuana being supplied to the local patients.

When the Australian Parliament convenes in February, it will amend existing regulations to allow for cannabis exports abroad, the minister said. Apart from the raw herb, the new rules will enable manufacturers to also export cannabis oils, patches, sprays, lozenges, and tablets. On 24 February 2016, Australia legalized medicinal cannabis on a federal level, subject to state and territory regulations.