Repost from Q Research General #14240

>>11135516 (pb)

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS INTERVIEW YET, YOU MUST

STUNNING INTERVIEW WITH STEVE BANNON (on Australian TV) ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP AND THE INFORMATION IT DISCLOSES. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED! PLEASE WATCH!

Biden campaign has not sued to prevent disclosure of emails, they know they would be counter-sued and the info would come out in discovery. Hunter Biden's lawyer phoned Rudy Giuliani / Steve Bannon's team in a panic to try to retrieve the laptop hard drive. These two facts basically validate that the laptop/hdd is really Hunter's and the info on it has them in an absolute panic.

>Bannon saying he learned from Breitbart - drop some info, let them lie about it, drop some more bam!!!

>MORE 'HORRIBLE' INFO TO COME!

>Excoriating Wray

>Full attack mode reached

>Wow!!!

>(can listen on 1.25x speed without loss of comprehension)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zhWHsfEa0U

---

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden's son emailed shop owner about hard drive to 'get it back': Former Trump chief

Sky News Australia

Published on 18 Oct 2020

Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, has revealed Joe Biden's son emailed a shop owner who had his hard drive in an effort to get it back.

The revelations come as the New York Post this week released an expose detailing links between Joe Biden and his son who was paid at least $50,000 a month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian energy company who allegedly set up a meeting with the then-Vice President.

Information regarding Hunter Biden’s relationship with the Ukranian energy company was sourced from a collection of emails recovered from a laptop that was allegedly dropped off at a repair shop in 2019 and later given to the FBI.

It was a water-damaged MacBook Pro and the person who dropped it off never paid for the service and didn't retrieve it or a hard drive on which its contents were stored - according to the shop owner who said he repeatedly tried to contact the customer.

Sky News host Sharri Markson said the owner of the repair shop in Biden's home state of Delaware says when he did not hear back from the FBI, he made a copy of the hard drive and gave it to Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Emails on the laptop revealed that Hunter Biden had planned to introduce his father – the then-Vice President – to an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, a company where Hunter served on the board of directors.

Publicly, Biden has said he's never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings. These emails seem to indicate otherwise.

In one message sent by Vadym Pozharsky in April 2015, he wrote: "Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent (sic) some time together. It's realty (sic) an honour and pleasure."

In response to this news, Facebook and Twitter both censored the article from the New York Post, advising they were "limiting the distribution" of the story on their platforms until a third-party contractor can "fact check" the article.

Mr Bannon told Ms Markson, “Hunter Biden’s lawyer has come to us both with phone calls and with emails saying, ‘hey, I’ve got to get the hard drive back’.”

“This is not some Russian intelligence operation; they admit it’s their hard drive,” Mr Bannon said.

“We have the emails from the Lawyer, if we need to release them, we’ll release them.”

George Pell holds public mass in Rome for 10th anniversary of Mother Mary MacKillop’s canonisation

George Pell has conducted a public mass in Rome celebrating the 10th anniversary of the canonisation of Mother Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first saint.

Cardinal Pell held the service over the weekend in the chapel of Domus Australia, near Porta Pia, in the presence of former prime minister Tony Abbott and dignitaries including the US ambassador to the Holy See, Callista Gingrich, and her husband, the US Republican politician and former speaker of the US House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich.

It was the Cardinal’s first mass in Rome since leaving the Vatican in July 2017 to face a sexual abuse trial in Australia and comes days after being received by Pope Francis in the library of the Vatican’s apostolic palace.

During the Mass, a prayer was said for Tim Fischer, the former deputy prime minister and leader of the National Party who oversaw the canonisation of Mother Mary MacKillop when he was Australia’s representative to the Holy See.

Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne in 1842 and was canonised in 2010. She had founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and established schools for the poor throughout Australia.

America’s Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell reported that Cardinal Pell made no reference to his trial, conviction or subsequent acquittal by the High Court in April during the Mass. He said there is speculation Cardinal Pell may remain in Italy until after his 80th birthday next June.

Cardinal Pell’s return to the church comes as one of his foes, Cardinal Giovanni Becciu, issued a statement through his lawyer Fabio Viglione, threatening legal action for reporting of “an alleged, albeit non-existent activity to taint the evidence of Cardinal Pell’s trial”.

The statement said Cardinal Becciu had “never interfered with it (Cardinal Pell’s trial in Australia) in any way whatsoever”.

Italian newspapers have reported in recent weeks that an investigation into Cardinal Becciu’s handling of Vatican finances included allegations from Alberto Perlasca, a former deputy of Cardinal Becciu. Monsignor Perlasca has reportedly claimed money may have been wired to Australia to encourage allegations against Cardinal Pell, who at the time was facing sexual abuse charges of two boys while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

During his time as the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal Pell clashed with Cardinal Becciu over the oversight of Vatican finances, with Cardinal Becciu even cancelling Cardinal Pell’s external audit of Vatican moneys.

Last week an associate of Cardinal Becciu, Cecilia Marogna, who said she was a security consultant and strategist, was arrested in Milan on an Interpol arrest warrant for aggravated fraud.

Ms Marogna received €500,000 from the Vatican and told Italian media she purchased luxury items including designer handbags that were used for diplomatic reasons to foster “cooperative relationships”.

She has denied any wrongdoing. Cardinal Becciu, who has resigned from the Vatican, is also being investigated for providing money to his family members and a Vatican investment in prime London real estate.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/george-pell-holds-public-mass-in-rome-for-10th-anniversary-of-mother-mary-mackillops-canonisation/news-story/8dd101c6cefd9cecd10547b475cf81e8

Becciu 'vigorously' denies interference in Cardinal Pell trial

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu again denied having interfered in any way with the trial of Cardinal George Pell, after Italian media reported an allegation that Becciu might have wired money to Australia as a bribe during Pell’s trial.

An Oct. 17 statement from Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, said the cardinal, “regarding the everlasting attention of some journalists to Cardinal Pell’s trial, is compelled to reiterate vigorously that he has never interfered with it in any way whatsoever.”

The lawyer also said “to protect and defend his honor, so gravely damaged,” Becciu may seek legal recourse against some news organizations for their continued reporting of “an alleged, albeit non existent activity to taint the evidence of Cardinal Pell’s trial.”

Becciu’s latest denial comes after speculative reports in Italian newspapers earlier this month indicated he had been accused of wiring money from an undisclosed Vatican account to Australia while Pell was facing a 2018 criminal trial, on charges that he sexually abused two boys while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

Pell was convicted of that charge, after a first trial ended in a hung jury, and in 2019 sentenced to prison. He was freed on April 7, 2020, after Australia’s High Court concluded the jury in Pell’s trial did not act rationally when it found no possibility of doubt in the charges the cardinal faced.

Reports that Becciu may have transferred money to Australia to set up Pell have attracted international attention.

The allegation, which CNA has not independently corroborated, is reportedly tied to Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, a former Becciu deputy who is said to be cooperating with investigators. But while the supposed allegations have made headlines in Italy, Australia, the U.K, and the U.S., they have not been independently confirmed and remain attributed only to anonymous sources.

Until 2017, Pell led an effort called for by Pope Francis to bring order and accountability to the Vatican’s finances, which have long lacked centralized procedures, controls, or oversight. Pell clashed in that role with Becciu, who as sostituto of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State served effectively as the pope’s chief of staff. Becciu at one point acted to cancel a contract Pell had made for an external audit of Vatican finances.

Since at least 2018, criminal investigators have been reviewing a web of investments and transactions at the Secretariat of State that are connected to Becciu; last month the cardinal was fired from his position at the Vatican and resigned “the rights proper to cardinals,” while formally remaining a member of the College of Cardinals.

It is believed Becciu may soon face criminal charges for his role in several Vatican investment and financial schemes of questionable integrity and legality that amount to hundreds of millions of euros.

A woman at the center of the most recent Vatican financial scandal, who is alleged to be closely connected with Becciu, is currently being held in an Italian jail pending extradition to the Vatican.

Cecilia Marogna, a self-described geopolitical analyst, was arrested Oct. 13 by Italian financial authorities after a warrant was issued by Vatican prosecutors through Interpol.

Marogna has said she worked for the Holy See’s Secretariat of State as a security consultant and strategist. Vatican authorities reportedly issued the warrant on charges of aggravated embezzlement. She has acknowledged receiving hundreds of thousands of euros from the Vatican via her company registered in Slovenia, and confirmed use of the funds for the purchase of luxury items, including designer label handbags.

She has stated that the money all went to her Vatican consultancy work and her salary; expensive gifts, such as trips or purses, she said, “were used to create cooperative relationships.”

Although a Milan court of appeal has upheld the execution of the warrant, lawyers for Marogna have appealed her extradition to Vatican City, a process that is expected to take as long as a month to complete. Pending the outcome of the appeal, Marogna is being held in a local jail after the Milan court deemed her a flight risk.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-finances-cardinal-angelo-becciu-vigorously-denies-interference-in-cardinal-george-pell-trial-42514

TikTok Tightens Crackdown On QAnon, Will Ban Accounts That Promote Disinformation

Bobby Allyn - October 18, 2020

TikTok is toughening its stance against the QAnon conspiracy theory, expanding its ban to all content or accounts that promote videos advancing baseless ideas from the far-right online movement.

The action hardens the video-sharing app's previous enforcement against QAnon that targeted specific hashtags on the app that QAnon supporters have used to spread unfounded theories. Now, users that share QAnon-related content on TikTok will have their accounts deleted from the app.

"Content and accounts that promote QAnon violate our disinformation policy and we remove them from our platform," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to NPR. "We've also taken significant steps to make this content harder to find across search and hashtags by redirecting associated terms to our Community Guidelines."

TikTok's sweeping action against QAnon comes just as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other technology giants have announced bans on content from the Trump-supporting conspiracy theory. QAnon started in October 2017 and has amassed an enormous following online thanks largely to social media companies.

"There should be recognition of a thing that is good and significant, even if it's long overdue," said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America. "TikTok is recognizing that by the nature of the QAnon movement, you can't just get rid of their communities, the content itself is the problem."

Earlier this month, Media Matters identified more than a dozen hashtags TikTokkers used to spread QAnon conspiracy theories about President Trump's positive coronavirus test, false beliefs about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and videos questioning the reality of the pandemic.

"We're talking about hundreds of millions of video views just for a limited segment of QAnon communities that we identified," Carusone said.

TikTok, which has 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., made its expanded ban against QAnon quietly in a statement to Media Matters, where it garnered little attention. A TikTok spokesperson confirmed the policy to NPR on Saturday.

Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley computer science professor who is a member of TikTok's committee of outside content moderation experts, said there is tension within social networks over how to respond to misinformation without also amplifying the underlying theories.

"When you ban it, you give it credibility. You give it attention," Farid told NPR.

"But the movement got big enough and dangerous enough that people were looking at the landscape and saying, 'Yeah, this is completely out of control,' " he said. "Were they slow to do it? Probably. But platforms get criticized when they act too quickly. So there is a dilemma there."

TikTok uses a mix of artificial intelligence and thousands of human content moderators to try to curb troubling content. The Chinese-owned app is best-known for viral dance challenges and comedic performances.

According to TikTok's Community Guidelines, misinformation that "causes harm to individuals, our community or the larger public" is prohibited on the site, including medical misinformation, which QAnon has engaged in by pushing false notions about the deadly coronavirus.

Carusone of Media Matters said misinformation accounts on TikTok have been clever about avoiding detection by hijacking otherwise-benign hashtags, or creating new hashtags that are written slightly in code, among other strategies to evade efforts to curb the content.

"The test of this policy will be how much it affects the creation and germination of new QAnon content on TikTok," Carusone said. "If you know your video is going to be eliminated before it has a chance to spread, you're less likely to spend time polluting the TikTok pool."

The future of TikTok in the U.S. remains uncertain. A federal judge last month temporarily halted a Trump administration attempt to shut down the app. But a separate order from the White House for TikTok to divest from its Beijing owner or cease operations remains in place, with a deadline of Nov. 12 for TikTok to find an American buyer or close down its U.S. operations.

Trump officials cite national security concerns with TikTok's China-based corporate owner, ByteDance, but TikTok has long dismissed the effort as an crusade to score political points. The company says U.S. user data is controlled by an American-led team and that the Chinese government has never requested access to the data.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/18/925144034/tiktok-tightens-crackdown-on-qanon-will-ban-accounts-that-promote-disinformation

Facebook, Google are ‘likely’ to ban news stories in Australia, study finds, with dangerous fallout

Australians should consider alternatives to Facebook and Google, a new study warns, as the tech giants were ‘likely’ to remove news in Australia and could become swamped with more disinformation.

Disinformation would “run rampant” in Australia and “worsen an already questionable information environment” if Facebook followed through with its threat to ban all news from its social network, new research warned today (Monday).

But the “Tech-xit” report from the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology also predicted Facebook and Google were “likely” to remove news stories from their platforms in Australia if they didn’t get the outcomes they wanted from the upcoming news bargaining code, which was designed to make the tech giants reimburse local publishers for the news they used.

The report comes shortly before the Federal Government is expected to release a final version of the code, developed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, that could set a worldwide precedent.

The study, subtitled “Can Australia survive without Google and Facebook,” was based on analysis of similar attempts to make tech firms pay for news overseas, and consultation with a group of industry experts, including business leaders, strategists, tech employees and academics.

It found Facebook was likely to follow through with threats to remove all news stories from its social network in Australia, with the impact proving “very significant”.

“The biggest concern with removing news on Facebook is that it would worsen an already questionable information environment,” the report read.

“Mis/disinformation would run rampant and wouldn’t have the balance of accurate news to counter it.”

The report also found that small publishers and digital-only publications would be “negatively impacted” by Facebook’s move, and it was “unclear” whether the 30 per cent of Australians who currently used Facebook as their main source of news would find a reputable outlet to replace it.

Facebook revealed plans to remove all news stories from its Australian arm in September, with managing director Will Easton spelling out a plan it said was “not our first choice” but its last.

“Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram,” he said.

The new report also found Google was “likely” to withdraw or curtail news on its platform after the news code was introduced, but predicted while it would cause “some disruption at first,” news audiences would eventually seek out publishers directly, as they had done when faced with a similar challenge in Spain.

Google has not directly threatened to remove news stories from its platform in Australia, but managing director Mel Silva told users the proposed laws “would put the free services you use at risk in Australia”.

Neither Google nor Facebook were expected to pull advertising or products out of the Australian market, the study found, though the move would be “very disruptive” to small business.

The report recommended the Federal Government “accelerate” a stronger consumer data privacy act, limit the government’s reliance on a single technology firm, and even consider using the ABC to host “a national social platform”.

Centre for Responsible Technology director Peter Lewis said Australians should prepare themselves to live without the multibillion-dollar firms.

“This analysis shows that two global corporations that play a dominant role in our civic and commercial institutions are prepared to threaten to withdraw those services to protect their own commercial self-interest,” Mr Lewis said.

“Whether or not they make good on their threats, it is incumbent on all Australians to ensure we are not in a position where we are held hostage to their commercial interests.”

Swinburne University social media senior lecturer Dr Belinda Barnet said Australians should also consider the sources of their news, as both platforms could become more unreliable without verified, fact-checked content.

“We could be finding ourselves in a situation where your average Australian can find a conspiracy theory from something like QAnon easier than a current, factual news source,” she said.

“That’s not just a threat to our democracy, it’s arguably a threat to our health.”

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/facebook-google-are-likely-to-ban-news-stories-in-australia-study-finds-with-dangerous-fallout/news-story/5012d04b7dc00948713bb604f7a2a33b

https://www.centreforresponsibletechnology.org.au/life_wo_google_facebook

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/theausinstitute/pages/3386/attachments/original/1603049830/P986_Techxit_Issues_Paper_2.1__Web_.pdf

US election 2020: Cult of Trump is not going away

JOE HOCKEY - OCTOBER 18, 2020

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Donald Trump had a brief moment of reflection last week. “Could you imagine if I lose?” he told a large crowd in Georgia, “maybe I’ll have to leave the country.” His critics will be cheering but they won’t be alone.

If he wins in two weeks we will all need to strap in for the wildest of rides. If he loses he will continue to be a massive influence on US politics. He will be the leader of a political cult movement that has tens of millions of members. He will still be a disruptive force on the centre right. Over time, even his current allies and colleagues will be encouraging him to make a move to Christmas Island.

No single figure in modern American history has had more unwavering support from such a large proportion of the country. Both Trump the candidate and Trump the President have managed to harness that energy behind the patriotic grab, “Make America Great”. People have forgotten that it was used by many leaders including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Only Trump has weaponised it successfully against fellow Americans who don’t support his agenda. Trump owns the American flag, the anthem and patriotism. His rallies are all red, white and blue.

Even so, Trump has not won a single significant poll that would indicate he could win on November 3. Despite this, he can still rely on a hard vote of at least 35 per cent of the voting population.

They are believers in their man no matter what the critics throw at him. Why? Because Donald Trump has consistently advocated for those voters, even at the cost of ceding the middle ground to a centrist like Joe Biden. It’s a political theory that’s unusual and risky.

As part of that “protect the base” strategy, Trump has advocated policies like closing the borders, lower taxes, less red tape and the abandonment of international trade and climate agreements. In fact, many middle-ground voters support those policies. But when it comes to moral leadership Trump is headstrong and inflexible.

When new rounds of police brutality emerged this year, Trump had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a mild criticism of the “bad apples” working across the 16,000 law enforcement agencies in America.

When white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 to defend white nationalism and protect the statues of Confederate figures, Trump said there were “good people on all sides”. Three people died and the President’s remark was used as an endorsement of sorts by white supremacists. More recently he has refused to criticise other white supremacist group like Proud Boys (“Stand back and stand by”) or the proponents of QAnon who are advocating a conspiracy theory that high-level Democrats like Biden, Hillary Clinton and the Obamas are running pedophile protection racquets.

(continued)

>>11148648

2/2

That’s not stubborn, it’s crazy. His defiance is more important to him than winning the middle ground. That’s why for four years he has focused on feeding his base through rallies and social media. He would be in a much stronger position if he made more of his social justice successes, like his war on opioid addiction or his criminal justice reforms that went some way to addressing the horrible small-crime incarceration of thousands of African-Americans.

Don’t believe him when he says he may leave if he loses. Trump will monetise the disruption he has started. He will continue to tweet, hold rallies and embrace as many of his supporters as possible.

It’s widely expected that one way he will utilise his brand is by setting up a Trump media network. There were whispers of that in 2016. Some people said to me his run for president was only a bid to revive his brand post-The Apprentice. I never fully bought that.

But if TNN, or Trump News Network, comes to fruition, it would be competing directly with Fox News and would work in sync with smaller right-wing media outlets like Breitbart and the Daily Caller. It would likely cover cable television and talkback radio. And it will probably work because it will continue to advocate for Trump’s policies. He will have 24-hour news and endorsements without the restrictions of the White House. It will also have daily cannon fodder from a new Biden administration.

In order to keep the political narrative fresh Trump will feed speculation that he will run for the presidency again in 2024. All this has the capacity to tear the Republican Party further apart. It would be the equivalent of the DLP split from the Labor Party in Australia in 1955 that kept the party out of office for nearly 20 years.

A new Axios analysis of elected Republicans in congress found more than 85 per cent of members and senators have largely stood by Trump over the past four years. If elected officials defied the President, they have either been defeated in ballots or resigned from elected office. This is very unusual in the US system. Somewhere, somehow, most elected officials like to qualify their support for the leader. Especially when the leader engages in some non-mainstream behaviour. But today’s Republicans know Trump is going to hang around.

If Trump is badly defeated, it will not be business as usual in the Republican Party. The biggest challenge for moderate conservatives is that they have no leader. Paul Ryan has left and state governors such as Greg Abbott in Texas, Charlie Baker in Massachusetts or Larry Hogan in Maryland are happy blazing their own state trails. Some others, like Vice-President Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley will definitely be running for the 2024 nomination and will need to find ways to fill the vacuum.

In the meantime Trump is doing very little to win over the undecided voters. His rallies have energy but there is just no policy cut-through that will help him win swing voters.

I do believe there is a large group of shy Trump voters in the community. But there aren’t enough to close the current gap with Biden. Moreover, the fact that more people watched Joe Biden in a virtual town hall at the same time as Trump was holding his town hall suggests that Trump fatigue is real despite his loyal base.

I still haven’t written off Donald Trump. The current US news cycle is moving at 16x what it was in 2016. Trump certainly has the capacity to fill that monstrous demand for content. He has a mountain to climb and he won’t be giving up.

Joe Hockey is a former federal treasurer and ambassador to the US. He is president of advisory firm Bondi Partners.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/us-election-2020-cult-of-trump-is-not-going-away/news-story/182064fa530bd75fead2f5c7c38f2023

QAnon is more than a conspiracy

Naomi Levin - Oct 19, 2020

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This week, in a move described as a “hammer blow” to the QAnon movement by one commentator, Facebook removed hundreds of QAnon pages and groups from its social media platforms.

It was a significant – and overdue – move by the social media giant over a movement that is gaining dangerous traction in Australia.

While it is easy to dismiss QAnon’s nonsensical ramblings about children apparently being trafficked through sewer tunnels, it is less easy to dismiss QAnon supporters’ forays into racist commentary. This commentary is being pushed by Australian politicians, perhaps unaware of the rabbit hole they are leading their constituents down.

QAnon is an online movement that surfaced in the United States in 2017, but has infiltrated other countries, including Australia. It is based on cryptic messages distributed via social media by an anonymous source known as Q – who is apparently a senior US official. It is ostensibly a far-right movement, but attracts anti-establishment types on the far-left too. It is highly pro-Donald Trump. It also has a strong vein of antisemitism.

The coronavirus pandemic has enhanced the popularity of QAnon in Australia. Australians are gathering on social media to lament lockdown measures. There they discover a treasure trove of theories about the “real reasons” behind the lockdown and eventually, many are introduced to Q. Facebook, which has taken strong action this week, was a gateway for many into the world of QAnon.

QAnon is not a membership movement so it is impossible to know how many followers it has. Academic Marc-Andre Argentino estimates Australia is in the top-5 countries for QAnon activity. But how has QAnon – a movement ostensibly embedded in the US – got traction in Australia?

Researcher Dr Kaz Ross, from the University of Tasmania, has suggested that One Nation politicians have raised conspiracy theories that may have led Australians down the QAnon rabbit hole. There is no suggestion, however, that One Nation senators are themselves involved in or supporters of QAnon.

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts’ Parliamentary speeches in support of the baseless Agenda 21 conspiracy theory are one potential opening.

Agenda 21 was a non-binding sustainability plan adopted by UN members in 1992, but Dr Ross explains: “The belief that ‘Agenda 21’ is a blueprint for corrupt global governance has become a core tenet of QAnon in Australia.”

(continued)

>>11148943

2/2

One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, in attempting to move an “All Lives Matter” motion in the Senate in June, may also have led Australians toward QAnon.

The “All Lives Matter” slogan – used in opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement – has been adopted as a rallying cry of far-right movements and as a mantra of racists.

“It sickened me to see people holding up signs saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ in memory of this American criminal [George Floyd]. I’m sorry but all lives matter,” Senator Hanson told the Senate.

She went on to proclaim that more white people die in police custody in Australia than black people, while neglecting to mention that only 3.3% of Australia’s population is Aboriginal, and that the Aboriginal population is significantly over-represented in deaths in custody figures.

The ideas raised by the One Nation senators – Agenda 21 and All Lives Matter – are not only fringe, but they both play on racism; in the case of Agenda 21, antisemitism explicitly.

As Dr Ross wrote of Senator Roberts’ Agenda 21 Senate speech: “Any talk of ‘global bankers and cabals’ directly taps into longstanding antisemitic conspiracies about supposed Jewish world domination often centred on the figure of billionaire George Soros. The pandemic and QAnon have also proven to be fertile ground for neo-Nazis in Australia.”

Argentino has also observed a “fair amount of antisemitism” on Australian QAnon notice boards.

In the US, QAnon’s supporters have left death threats for Jewish Democratic political candidate Scott Wiener.

While the clues dropped by Q do not espouse violence, the FBI has identified QAnon as “very likely” to “motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity.”

Australia’s own ASIO explained in a recent statement that the risk of violence associated with Islamist terrorism remains a larger threat in Australia, however “extreme right-wing groups and individuals represent a serious, increasing and evolving threat to security.”

A number of prominent US terrorism incidents have already been linked to extreme-right movements like QAnon, including a deadly shooting at a Californian synagogue in 2018.

QAnon should not be dismissed as fringe quackery; it is a dangerous movement that is gaining support locally and could have real life consequences for those who are targeted by its supporters.

https://aijac.org.au/featured/more-than-a-conspiracy/

Daily Telegraph, October 19 2020, p.19

Australia: Most of 1,100 refugees in US deal have resettled

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The United States is expected to have resettled more than 1,100 refugees by early next year under a deal President Donald Trump reluctantly honored with Australia, an Australian official said on Monday.

President Barack Obama’s administration struck a deal in 2016 to accept up to 1,250 refugees from Iran, Bangladesh, Somalia and Myanmar whom Australia had banished to Pacific island camps.

Trump condemned the deal as “dumb” but agreed to honor the U.S. commitment, subject to “extreme vetting” of the refugees.

The United States has resettled 870 refugees since October 2017 and around 250 more have received provisional approval to make new homes in the United States, Home Affairs Department deputy secretary Marc Ablong told an Australian Senate committee.

While resettlement had been disrupted in recent months by the pandemic, Ablong said Australia expected the last of the refugees accepted by the United States to be resettled by March or April.

The resettlement deal “is operating very effectively to date,” Ablong said.

The end of the U.S. agreement was expected to leave around 80 asylum seekers on the poor island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Australia deterred asylum seekers from coming by boat in 2013 by banning those who have arrived by sea from ever being allowed to settle on the Australian mainland.

Australia pays Papua New Guinea and Nauru to house such asylum seekers under deals that have been condemned by human rights groups.

Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Australian advocacy group Refugee Action Coalition, said the fate of asylum seekers left on Nauru and in the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby was unclear.

“The government’s got no solution for the people that will be left behind,” Rintoul said.

New Zealand’s offer to take 150 refugees a year has been refused while the United States continues to accept them.

The government’s policy of denying resettlement to those who try to arrive by boat includes those who received medical treatment in Australia then got court injunctions preventing their return to Nauru and Papua New Guinea. There were currently 1,226 such asylum seekers in Australia, Ablong said.

Some see the U.S. resettlement deal as repayment for Australia agreeing to accept Honduran and Salvadoran refugees under a U.S.-led resettlement program from a camp in Costa Rica.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-australia-barack-obama-immigration-united-states-6c1cc40c7c7362fbcade3a52f0e50b57

—

President Donald Trump Tweet

Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/827002559122567168

'I don't tend to have communications with Donald Trump' says Jacinda Ardern

Guardian News

Published on 18 Oct 2020

After securing a historic election victory, the New Zealand prime minister was asked about the world leaders who sent her congratulations. 'I have had a few lovely messages. Scott Morrison … I've had the prime minister of Denmark, Pedro Sánchez from Spain. Of course, Boris Johnson reached out as well.' When asked about whether Donald Trump had been in touch, she replied: ' I don't tend to have those direct communications with the president of the United States'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kpGeTHrFWw