Scott Morrison to join 'historic' Quad talks with Joe Biden, Yoshihide Suga and Narendra Modi

Stephen Dziedzic - 10 March 2021

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will soon hold virtual talks with US President Joe Biden and the prime ministers of both India and Japan in the first-ever leaders' meeting of the Quad.

It is a significant development for the informal coalition, which has coalesced partly to balance China's growing economic and military clout.

The meeting early on Saturday morning (AEDT) is likely to focus heavily on joint efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Reuters has reported that the leaders will announce a plan for new financing agreements to support an increase in manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 vaccines in India.

The news agency quoted a US official saying the plan would "reduce manufacturing backlogs, speed vaccination and defeat some coronavirus mutations".

The official also said some of the additional vaccines would be offered to South-East Asian countries.

An Australian Government source did not deny that report but did not provide any further information.

Beijing regards the Quad grouping with suspicion

The race to vaccinate against COVID-19 has created a new arena for strategic competition across the globe.

China's government has intensified its vaccine diplomacy in the region, offering its locally made Sinopharm jab to several South-East Asian nations including Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Australia has also pledged money to help provide some vaccines to South-East Asia, although the bulk of the government's efforts have been focussed on the rollout in Pacific Island countries.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the four leaders would also discuss "economic cooperation and … the climate crisis".

All four Quad countries have repeatedly emphasised that the group is not a formal security alliance but a gathering of like-minded countries which want to preserve common rules in the region.

But it has been driven by China's dramatic rise, and the realisation in all four capitals that they need to intensify efforts to confront strategic challenges posed by Beijing, as well as shaping governance and behaviour across the Indo-Pacific.

Beijing still regards the Quad with suspicion, accusing the United States of orchestrating the group to contain its rise.

Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra that the meeting with Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga would be "historic".

"It was one of the first things, the first thing I should say, I discussed with President Biden and I was so pleased the new administration were also so enthusiastic about this program, and that President Biden is taking this to another level and seeing the Quad as his first engagement in this way, and to elevate it in this way," he said.

"It is another key step forward in how Australia has sought to keep Australians safe, by ensuring that we're working with our partners, with our allies in particular."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-10/scott-morrison-to-join-quad-talks-with-joe-biden-and-indian,/13233738

https://twitter.com/WHNSC/status/1369382968058339329

>>13183787

Quad members hype ‘China threat’ theory to bolster their boldness

Mu Lu - Mar 10, 2021

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also known as Quad, between the US, Japan, India, and Australia has been seen as a group to counter China. But the four-country group hasn't formed a cohesive force from within. Instead, the four have been busy with their own calculations.

The US will hold the first leaders-level meeting of the Quad on Friday. Various topics involving China will be discussed. Days before the meeting, Japan, India, and Australia couldn't help but again hype the "China threat."

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga spoke with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the telephone on Tuesday, when they shared "serious concerns regarding unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China seas, China's Coast Guard Law and the situation in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region."

On the same day, Japan's ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit that Australia "is not walking alone" in dealing with China as Japan had similar experiences "about 10 years ago."

These interactions before the Quad summit have reiterated the cliché over China, trying to create an image that the group is united. The three countries aim to strengthen deterrence against China by bolstering each other's boldness. They were also aiding the US strategy to step up pressure on China.

The current framework of the Quad was built during Trump's presidency to serve US strategic competition with China. The US is fond of forming an alliance against a certain country, because it believes it can stack the odds in its favor and economize the consumption of its diplomatic and financial resources. Prompted by the intent to contain China, the Biden administration has continued this aggressive and confrontational posture.

But today, as the interests of countries are diversified, it is impossible for them to blindly follow the US' steps just because of Washington's claims. There is not much the US can give to its allies in exchange. Not to mention that the US' selfish nature has become increasingly known to the world.

Against this backdrop, US allies who have a complex relationship with China apparently cannot count on the US to compensate for their losses when they follow Washington to confront China. Hence, it is not in line with their pursuits to judge what they should do from only the dimension of US geopolitical struggles against China.

Even though Canberra is a resolute follower of Washington, people in Australia are struggling with the deterioration in China-Australia relations. For example, on the same occasion when Yamagami tried to show sympathy to Australia, Jane Golley, director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University, called for an end to the megaphone diplomacy on China and for trying to work behind the scenes.

Japan and India's attitudes toward China are more complicated. It is obviously not in their interests to make them stand one-sidedly against China. Particularly India. New Delhi's move to reopen the door to Chinese investment after border disengagement has clearly shown that India needs cooperation with China rather than long-standing confrontation.

The Quad is not an alliance of like-minded countries as the US claims. The three countries other than the US would probably take a tactic of coordinating with the US in narratives while sticking to their own approaches on China, so as to deal with the embarrassment of being between the pressure from the US and their own interests with China.

Before they can assure that they will not be brought into another pit by the US, perhaps they have no other choice but to find relief in bolstering each other's boldness.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1218012.shtml

Scott Morrison says he will act as health minister but Greg Hunt will return to work next week

abc.net.au - 10 March 2021

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Health Minister Greg Hunt will be back at work when Parliament sits next week, after a brief hospital stint for a bacterial infection.

Mr Hunt was admitted to hospital yesterday with a suspected infection.

In a statement today his office said testing overnight had led to a diagnosis of Cellulitis, a bacterial infection in his leg.

It said the Minister was improving and was expected to be discharged from hospital "in the coming days".

"He'll be fine by next week, he'll be back up on his feet," Mr Morrison said.

"Minister Hunt and I have worked hand in glove over this last year and until he returns I will be personally addressing the ministerial responsibilities on health and aged care."

The Prime Minister said he had total confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine. Mr Hunt's office said his condition "is not considered to be related to the vaccine".

He is expected to make a full recovery.

Fellow Cabinet minister Dan Tehan said he spoke to the Health Minister yesterday and that Mr Hunt was confident he would be out of hospital "sooner rather than later".

"I don't think there is a fitter or more active member than Greg," Mr Tehan said.

"So if there's anyone who can bounce back it will be Greg, but when I spoke to him yesterday he was going well."

Mr Hunt is the third senior Cabinet minister now on sick leave, with Attorney-General Christian Porter and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds also currently on leave.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne is acting Defence Minister and Employment Minister Michaelia Cash is filling in for Mr Porter.

The next Parliament fortnight kicks off next week.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-10/greg-hunt-sick-leave-hospital-infection-prime-minister/13233056

>>13183855

Greg Hunt has been hospitalised with cellulitis. So what is it? And how serious is it?

abc.net.au - 11 March 2021

As Health Minister, Greg Hunt is no stranger to hospitals. But this week, he's found himself playing an unfamiliar role — patient.

Mr Hunt was diagnosed with cellulitis on Wednesday, a day after being admitted to hospital with a suspected infection.

In a statement, his office said he was on the mend and is expected to be discharged "in the coming days".

"He'll be fine by next week, he'll be back up on his feet," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

So what is cellulitis? And how serious is it? Here are a few fast facts.

What is it?

Cellulitis is a spreading inflammation of the skin, usually caused by a bacterial infection — and if you've got it, there's a pretty good chance you'll know about it.

Those suffering from the infection may experience red, painful and swollen skin that is warm to touch, but more severe cases can also lead to fever, blisters, chills and nausea.

It can occur anywhere on the body, including the face, but is most often encountered on the lower legs and in areas where the skin is damaged or inflamed.

While no-one is immune to developing cellulitis, those who smoke, have diabetes or poor circulation are at a higher risk.

Cellulitis accounted for almost 60,000 hospitalisations and 11 per cent of all potentially preventable hospitalisations in Australia in 2013–14.

How do you get it?

The infection occurs when bacteria, such as staph, enters through the skin.

It could be as simple as a cut, scratch or insect bite, or a pre-existing skin condition like eczema or psoriasis.

However, cellulitis can also occur in areas without any visible skin damage.

While the bacterial infection can't always be prevented, a common cause of infection is via the fingernails.

"Handwashing is very important as well as keeping good care of your nails by trimming and cleaning them," noted healthdirect.

"Generally, maintaining good hygiene such as daily showering and wearing clean clothes may help reduce the skin's contact with bacteria."

How serious is it?

While cellulitis is treatable with a course of oral antibiotics, in more serious cases, antibiotics may need to be administered intravenously in hospital.

And without any medical attention, the condition can prove dangerous.

When bacteria from cellulitis spreads into the bloodstream, it can lead to sepsis — a serious blood infection capable of causing organ failure and death.

"People with cellulitis can quickly become very unwell and a small number of people may develop serious complications," advised healthdirect.

However, it should be noted that in most cases, patients respond to antibiotics in "two to three days and begin to show improvement".

So how do I avoid it?

It's not known how or where Mr Hunt may have developed the bacterial infection.

But while cellulitis is "not generally contagious", there are ways to reduce your risk.

In addition to handwashing and paying attention to hygiene, it's recommended that those more susceptible to the condition should:

• Wear appropriate footwear, gloves and long pants during situations where it is easy to get scratched or bitten (such as bushwalking or gardening)

• Look after your skin by regularly checking your feet for signs of injury

• Moisturise the skin and trim fingernails and toenails regularly

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/greg-hunt-cellulitis-what-is-it-how-do-you-contract-it/13235598

Julian Assange's father, John Shipton, in Katoomba and Hazelbrook

B.C Lewis - MARCH 10 2021

Sixty Blue Mountains residents gathered in Katoomba on Tuesday [March 9] to meet the father of the imprisoned founder of WikiLeaks - Julian Assange and hear from his campaign.

Julian Assange's father, John Shipton, spoke in Carrington Place as part of a regional tour. Assange is in Belmarsh prison in London. He has been accused of hacking and conspiracy charges in the United States.

John Shipton says his whistleblower son's matter will only be solved with Australia's involvement.

"Right around the world there's increasing momentum to releasing Julian Assange."

He spoke of several cross Parliament party groups around the world supporting the move.

"Twenty four of the world's human rights NGO's signed a letter which was on the front page of The New York Times three weeks back for the extradition [from Britain to America] to be stopped."

He said his son had been "held in detention for 10 years … under a deluge of ceaseless malice".

"This is our power rising up and our resistance to the implication that journalists and Australians ought to be intimidated to the point where they're held in arbitrary detention for 10 years under a deluge of malice, ceaseless malice.

"Due process again and again is abandoned."

Assange and WikiLeaks drew fury from the US Government after publishing thousands of pages of once-secret reports and documents in 2010, generated by American military and intelligence agencies, including detailed descriptions of CIA hacking capabilities.

But a London court ruled in January against the U.S extradition because of fears for Assange's mental health.

"We have 24 parliamentarians in Australia, the first cross parliamentarian group. They take those concerns … it's very positive … plus you and me. It's authority rising up."

Mr Shipton, an architect and former Leura resident who designed and built the Leura amphitheatre in the mid 1980's, also spoke at the WikiLeaks Cafe in Hazelbrook on Wednesday (March 10).

He thanked Mountains residents for listening and suggested they use the site his son founded - "use the facilities that WikiLeaks has created".

Political activist, Graeme Dunstan, who is travelling alongside Mr Shipton as "peace bus captain" said "we sense we are on a home run now". The group heard local MP Susan Templeman was supporting moves to bring Assange home.

Jacob Grech, who is also travelling with the tour and acted as MC, gathered the audience for a group picture at the end of the event to "send love and support for our boy in Belmarsh".

Blue Mountains for Assange organiser Warren Ross said, "There was a great turn out from our community at short notice. The takeaway for us all is that our actions do matter; contacting MPs, getting onto the Wikileaks site and sharing the information, speaking up, occupying public space, that is how we are going to free Julian Assange".

Ward 1 Cr Kerry Brown added: "We need to save Julian Assange because his human rights are also our human rights. We are all in this together to call out secret, ruthless and lawless government behaviour."

https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7160688/wikileaks-dad-in-town-to-send-love-and-support-for-our-boy-in-belmarsh/

https://wikileaks.org/

Former Hong Kong lawmaker moves to Australia

Kirsty Needham - 9 March 2021

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Ted Hui has arrived in Australia where his family will settle after the Australian government provided an exemption to its closed border policy and assistance with flights, he says.

A former Democratic party lawmaker, Hui left Hong Kong late last year after facing criminal charges over the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

His arrival in Australia comes as 47 pro-democracy activists have been charged in Hong Kong with conspiracy to commit subversion under a new national security law, because they participated in an unofficial primary last July to select the strongest candidates for a legislative council election.

Hui, a member of the legislative council since 2016, was preselected to represent Hong Kong island for the election.

He said it had been painful to watch in the past week as his close colleagues were jailed after being denied bail in marathon hearings in the subversion case.

"As a participant in the primary election and a winner, I see it as a ridiculous act and unreasonable for the regime to put any accusation on us when it was totally peaceful," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

He is undergoing a 14-day mandatory quarantine after arriving in Australia on Monday.

"It is only because it is against Beijing's will that people are thrown into jail."

Hui said he had decided to move to Australia from Britain, where he has spent the past three months, to spread the international reach of the pro-democracy activists.

"I feel more responsible now as an exile to tell the world how ridiculous it is," he said.

Hui said during the interview that the coronavirus pandemic was stable in Australia, and he would be able to undertake face-to-face lobbying work.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday announcing his move, Hui said that Australia and New Zealand are important members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group that also includes the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, which have endorsed the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

"I hope that my lobbying work will make the two countries tougher against China, have stronger support and actions towards the freedom of Hong Kong," he said in the post.

As part of his lobbying, Hui told Reuters he would also seek more flexible visas for Hong Kong people seeking to come to Australia.

Hui said he was grateful to the Australian government for granting a visa and a place on a repatriation flight from London. He said he did not intend to apply for political asylum.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/former-hk-lawmaker-moves-to-australia-ng-s-2052695

AFP pushes for sweeping powers lashed as ‘dangerous overreach’

The nation’s top cop asked for police to be given sweeping new powers in an effort to stamp out serious crimes we “cannot see”.

Finn McHugh - March 10, 2021

The nation’s top police officer has warned law enforcement “cannot see” some forms of serious crime, as he pushed for sweeping surveillance powers human rights groups call a “dangerous overreach”.

Representatives of the Australian Federal Police and Home Affairs Department fronted a senate inquiry on Wednesday into a bill to drastically expand law enforcement’s online surveillance powers.

A federal government proposal aimed at tackling serious online crime would allow police to apply for three new warrants, giving them the power take over a suspect’s accounts and delete or modify data.

AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw said police powers had failed to adapt to the advent of the dark web and anonymising technology, saying law enforcement had “one hand tied behind our back” online.

“Criminals should not be able to conduct serious crimes online and get away with it just because our laws have not kept pace with changes in technology,” he said.

Mr Kershaw warned young people were being drawn to extremist ideology online, often using encrypted platforms.

“We are observing their behaviour escalate unpredictably and sometimes quickly. That makes us very concerned about the behaviour we cannot see,” he said.

But the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) lashed the proposal as a “dangerous overreach”, arguing it could be used to target journalists and whistleblowers.

“Surveillance powers intrude on people’s privacy and have a chilling effect on the exercise of political rights,” HRLC senior lawyer Kieran Pender said.

Any crime punishable by a sentence of three years or more could be targeted under the bill, which Mr Pender said could include a range of less serious offences.

“(Home Affairs Minister Peter) Dutton has said the powers granted by the bill are intended only to be used in cases of the most severe wrongdoing,” he said.

“But the bill is drafted so broadly it overreaches far beyond what could be considered legitimate.”

The committee heard offences punishable by a three-year sentence included capturing a dolphin, not complying with health orders, and social security fraud.

The Law Council of Australia’s Jacoba Brasch said it was “difficult to reconcile” those offences with the bill’s stated aim of targeting the most serious crimes, including terrorism and child exploitation.

But Mr Kershaw defended the bill, arguing organised crime gangs could be dismantled by “attacking their outer perimeter”, including less serious crimes.

AFP deputy commissioner Ian McCartney said crime gangs were often “not focused on one particular form” of crime.

“The syndicates that we investigate are involved in a range of criminality, and we need the flexibility in the legislation to apply to those types of groups,” he said.

Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally raised concerns the bill could be weaponised in the future.

“What safeguards can you point me to, other than the good intentions of government, that would assure this committee that these warrants would not be used for other types of crime … considered by the community to be lower-level offences?” she asked.

Mr McCartney said the AFP would necessarily target the most serious of crimes given budgetary constraints.

WHAT THE LAWS DO

The bill would give law enforcement the power to seek three new warrants. They include:

• Account takeover warrants, including the power take control of a suspects’ online accounts. This would require a magistrate’s approval

• Data disruption warrants, empowering law enforcement to delete, modify or disrupt data

• Network activity warrants, enabling intelligence on serious online criminal networks to be collected.

An Administrative Appeals Tribunal judge or member would be required to sign off on the latter two.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/online/afp-pushes-for-sweeping-powers-lashed-as-dangerous-overreach/news-story/21561ff1fd773d56ef0d8584c4f5a85e

Top spy ‘knows’ culprit behind ANU cyber attack, but won’t say

Australia’s top spy says he knows who was a behind a major attack on Australia in 2018, but won’t reveal the culprit publicly.

Finn McHugh - March 11, 2021

The nation’s top spy says he knows who was behind a major cyber attack on an Australian university, but is remaining tight-lipped.

Australian Security and Intelligence Agency (ASIO) director-general Mike Burgess fronted a senate inquiry on Thursday into national security threats to the university sector, where he warned foreign interference was at a level “not seen since the height of the Cold War”.

The Australian National University suffered a serious cyber attack in 2018 by a culprit the federal government labelled a “state actor”.

Reporting suggested intelligence agencies believed China was behind the attack, but Mr Burgess would not confirm those reports.

“I do know who was behind it, but I will not say so publicly because I don’t believe it’s my role to do so,” he said.

He said “way more than one but less than 10” countries posed a cyber threat to Australia, but one in particular was “highly active”.

“Again, I don’t believe it’s my role (to identify that country publicly). My role, my organisation’s role is to identify that threat and help reduce the harm,” he said.

“There are many other factors that the government must take into account when they decide on how they deal with that particular problem.”

Melbourne’s RMIT University was also forced to suspend classes temporarily after being struck by a significant cyber attack last month.

The attack was under investigation, and Mr Burgess said he “genuinely did not know” who was behind it.

“It has not reached my level, (but) that’s not to say someone in my organisation is not working that problem,” he said.

The comments came after the Home Affairs Department’s Marc Ablong was pressed by Liberal senator James Paterson over the attack.

“Is it the case that we do know that it is China, but we just don’t want to say that publicly?” Mr Paterson asked.

But Mr Ablong warned naming cyber attackers was a “very complicated and complex exercise”.

“Just because it’s reported in the paper as it is believed doesn’t necessarily mean that we can prove anything,” he said.

“You need to be more than certain that you know who the actor is before you name them, because there are consequences not just for the actor involved, but for the country that does the naming.

“We as the intelligence agencies haven’t made a judgment about that yet, and nor will we.”

He said at least five state actors and other criminal groups had “the capability and the intent” to carry out strikes against Australian universities, which were not prepared to withstand cyber threats.

“The sophistication in the ability of either states or criminal organisations to undertake cyber hacks is very real, and it is only going to get worse,” he said.

“(The threat) is evolving constantly and hackers are constantly adapting their attacks to newly identified vulnerabilities.

“The entirety of the global information and communication technology environment is not as well prepared as it could be, and that includes the higher education sector.”

Mr Burgess revealed Australian universities engaged with ASIO 60 times in 2020, saying the threat of espionage had grown to a level unseen “since the height of the Cold War”.

“(Foreign interference at universities) is a significant security risk that does need to be managed effectively by this country and the research and university sectors. It’s the scale that concerns me,” he said.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/unis-unprepared-for-cyber-attacks-inquiry/news-story/71daa6a06b203f8ec26ade9479cca8fc

SNEAK PEEK: QAnon mind games

60 Minutes Australia

11 Mar 2021

The doomsday cult tearing Aussie families apart. Sunday on Channel 9, 60 Minutes expose the dangerous mind games of QAnon.

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

Ghislaine Maxwell’s family shares ‘facts’ on Twitter as feds fight third bail bid

STEPHEN REX BROWN - MAR 10, 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell’s family launched a “GMaxFacts” Twitter account Wednesday as the fight over her third bid for bail heats up.

“We know Ghislaine better than anyone, we are her family. It is our mission to shine light on the real Ghislaine, not the figure of fiction caricatured by the media. #GMaxFACTS #FactsMATTER” the family said in its first tweet.

The rare public statement from the British socialite’s associates came shortly after Manhattan federal prosecutors urged Judge Alison Nathan to reject Maxwell’s third request for release from Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center into home confinement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote that Maxwell’s offer to renounce her British and French citizenship did not address concerns she could flee the country.

“The defendant is wrong. That she is ‘willing’ to renounce her foreign citizenship would do nothing to prevent the defendant from fleeing and then fighting extradition once abroad, and it does nothing to diminish the risk that the defendant could choose to flee to another jurisdiction altogether, including one with which the United States does not have an extradition treaty and from which extradition is impossible,” Comey wrote.

Maxwell, 59, is scheduled to face trial in July for grooming underage victims of Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-1990s. She allegedly served as Epstein’s chief recruiter of sex trafficking victims and at times joined in the sex offender’s serial abuse.

The Maxwell family’s new Twitter account hints at a change in public relations strategy. Previously, her legal team and family have spoken only through court filings while arguing she’s been smeared so badly in the press that she has no hope of a fair trial.

The GMaxFacts account retweeted an op-ed in the Daily News by a family spokesman likening the conditions of her confinement at the Brooklyn lockup to torture.

“No objective person could honestly defend the conditions of her confinement,” family spokesman David Oscar Marcus wrote.

Maxwell has said correctional officers shine a light into her cell every 15 minutes overnight, preventing her from getting a good night’s sleep. Last month, her attorneys wrote that she was “physically abused” during a routine patdown — a claim that has not been addressed in public filings by prosecutors or the judge.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-ghislaine-maxwell-bail-twitter-20210310-oqrpbl54uzb3pcsqttdus354yq-story.html

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.165.0_1.pdf

—

GMaxFacts Tweets

We know Ghislaine better than anyone, we are her family. It is our mission to shine light on the real Ghislaine, not the figure of fiction caricatured by the media. #GMaxFACTS #FactsMATTER

https://twitter.com/GMaxFacts/status/1369659782886481921

—

As a pre-trial detainee Ghislaine is innocent and entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process which are fundamental to America’s system of justice.#GMaxFACTS

https://twitter.com/GMaxFacts/status/1369698313709223943

—

#DYK our sister is a kind & compassionate person. Dozens of letters of support affirming her kindness and generosity, honesty & integrity have been sent to the court. She has never been charged with any crime before. #GMaxFacts #FactsMATTER

https://twitter.com/GMaxFacts/status/1369751161570537474

End nears for Victoria’s Belt and Road deal under foreign veto laws

Anthony Galloway and Michael Fowler - March 10, 2021

Victoria’s controversial Belt and Road agreement with the Chinese government faces being torn up within months after the state government included it in a list of documents submitted to the Commonwealth under its new foreign veto laws.

State governments had until close of business on Wednesday to provide a list of all of their agreements with foreign governments.

Victorian government sources confirmed its Belt and Road agreement with China – which ties the state to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature initiative to bankroll infrastructure projects around the world – was included in the documentation sent to the Commonwealth.

If Victoria had not declared the deal by the end of Wednesday, it would have automatically been torn up under the new laws passed late last year.

The new scheme requires Foreign Minister Marise Payne to cancel agreements that states, territories, local governments and universities enter into with an overseas government if they contradict Australia’s national interest.

The Victorian government’s documentation prepared for the Commonwealth included a justification for why the BRI agreement should not be scrapped, sources confirmed.

A Victorian government spokeswoman said it had provided documentation to the federal government but did not answer whether that included the BRI agreement.

The spokeswoman also did not answer what its justification was for why the deal should not be torn up.

“The Victorian government will provide information to the Commonwealth in line with the legislative requirements,” she said.

Victoria’s BRI agreement with China is one of the state government deals that has raised the most concern within national security agencies and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Commonwealth officials already began scrutinising the agreement last year after the new laws came into force.

The federal government has been concerned with the deal as they believe it may have harmed Australia’s efforts to counter China’s use of the BRI to grow its influence throughout the region and handed Beijing a propaganda win.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed last year that Victoria did not consult DFAT before signing a key “framework agreement” with the Chinese government for the BRI on October 23, 2019.

While Victoria briefly consulted DFAT on an earlier memorandum of understanding with Beijing in 2018, and made some changes based on its advice, the Andrews government decided not to show the draft version of the more substantial framework agreement to the Commonwealth a year later before signing it.

Premier Daniel Andrews has defended the deal, saying last year that it was all about Victorian employment and that Australia’s relationship with China might improve if the Commonwealth focused on jobs.

“The agreement, like all agreements that Victoria enters into, and I expect the Commonwealth and other states are no different. It’s all about making sure that more Victorian product is sent to our biggest and smallest customers,” the Premier said in December.

“Whether it’s to China or any other part of the world, it’s all about jobs.

“We would be probably better off in our relationship if all of us focused on the fact, and I think the Prime Minister and all of us … are all about having the best economic partnerships with customers, large and small, in every part of the world because that means jobs and prosperity and profitability for families back home.”

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/end-nears-for-victoria-s-belt-and-road-deal-under-foreign-veto-laws-20210310-p579lf.html

>>13184203

Q: Into the Storm (2021) | Official Trailer

HBO

11 Mar 2021

Q: Into the Storm.

From Director Cullen Hoback and Executive Producer Adam McKay, the six-part #HBO original documentary series explores the origins of QAnon. #QIntotheStorm premieres March 21 at 9PM on HBO Max.

Spanning three years in the making and traversing the globe, the series follows filmmaker Cullen Hoback on a labyrinthine journey to uncover the forces behind QAnon, a movement fueled by conspiracy theories that has grown in scope and political significance, chronicling its evolution in real-time and revealing how “Q” uses information warfare to game the internet, hijack politics and manipulate people’s thinking. #HBODocs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK_Gf9H2CWI

>>13168673

Linda Reynolds to pay damages to Brittany Higgins over ‘lying cow’ comment

SHARRI MARKSON - MARCH 12, 2021

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will pay damages to alleged sexual assault survivor Brittany Higgins as part of a defamation settlement for calling her a “lying cow,” The Australian can reveal.

In a statement this afternoon, Ms Reynolds, who is on medical leave, publicly retracted the comments she made in her Parliamentary office and unreservedly apologised to Ms Higgins for the hurt and distress her remarks caused.

The senior cabinet minister has also had to pay a sizeable damages to Ms Higgins, out of her own pocket, under the terms of the settlement brokered by her lawyers.

Ms Higgins said she plans to donate the money to a charity that assists victims of sexual assault and abuse.

The legal action comes after revelations in The Australian that Senator Reynolds called Ms Higgins a “lying cow” in an open-plan area of her parliamentary office on the day Higgins’ revelations she was sexually assaulted in Parliament House went public.

“On Friday 5 March I publicly apologised to Ms Brittany Higgins about the comment about her to my staff on 15 February 2021,” Senator Reynolds said in a statement today.

“I wish to further address that comment that I made. I did not mean it in the sense it may have been understood.

“Given that the comment was made public, which I never intended, I also want to retract it and unreservedly apologise to Brittany Higgins and acknowledge the hurt and distress it caused to her.”

In her own statement, Ms Higgins said she accepted the Minister’s apology for the comment which is understood to have devastated her.

“Today Minister Reynolds issued a public statement in relation to her comments about me made to her staff on 15 February 2021,” Ms Higgins said.

“I am pleased that the minister has now withdrawn her comments and I accept her apology to me.

“This has been an immensely challenging period to me and I wish to reiterate that the only reason I have chosen to come forward is to help others.

“Finally, any monies I have received from the Minister, as part of this settlement of my claim against her over and above my legal costs will be paid in full to an organisation that provides counselling and support for survivors of sexual assault and abuse in the Canberra area.

“These funds will assist them in this important work.”

Ms Higgins came forward to News Corp with allegations that she was raped at Parliament House by a former Liberal Party adviser in 2019.

She was critical of Senator Reynolds’ handling of the alleged assault in the immediate aftermath.

Higgins hired lawyer Rebekah Giles of reputational risk firm Company Giles, who also represented Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in her defamation action against former Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm.

When The Australian published the remarks Senator Reynolds had made about Ms Higgins, Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the comments as “offensive and wrong”.

He is under pressure to replace Senator Reynolds in the defence portfolio with Peter Dutton, should Reynolds not be well enough to return this parliamentary term.

The Defence Minister took medical leave on advice of her cardiologist following the Brittany Higgins scandal and has extended her leave until April 2.

But there are concerns she may not be well enough to return after that and potentially not even before the next election.

If this turns out to be the case, there are discussions underway about Mr Dutton moving to the role of defence minister – a shift that was canvassed before the last reshuffle.

The speculation is that Stuart Roberts would become the home affairs minister.

Ahead of the last reshuffle, there was a push to oust Senator Reynolds but Treasurer Josh Frydenberg fought to keep her in the defence portfolio.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/linda-reynolds-to-pay-damages-to-brittany-higgins-over-lying-cow-comment/news-story/675f8356a79830d73a0e41b5acbd4fb4

https://twitter.com/lindareynoldswa/status/1370200482086461442

https://twitter.com/BrittHiggins_/status/1370213290022895621

Fears alleged sex offender principal Malka Leifer could dodge justice

Shannon Deery - March 12, 2021

Fugitive principal Malka Leifer could avoid justice amid fears she will be unable to get a fair trial.

Concerns have been flagged among top government and legal circles about the potential for Leifer to succeed in arguing years of publicity about her case now makes it impossible for her case to be determined by an unbiased jury.

Senior sources say the alleged child sex offender, who was extradited to Melbourne in January after 13 years on the run, could have a “very strong case” to have her matter thrown out of court.

Provisions to criminal trials determined by a judge alone, without a jury, were introduced last year in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But the temporary measure will end next month, with the government ruling out any extension.

Legal sources say extending the provision would ensure Ms Leifer would be unable to avoid justice.

But a government spokesperson said Victorian courts had a range of mechanisms at their disposal to ensure that a jury trial could proceed fairly.

“Temporary changes to allow courts to order judge alone trials were a necessary and effective response to the challenges presented by the pandemic, but trials by jury will remain a cornerstone of our criminal justice system as things go back to normal,” she said.

“The continuation of judge alone trials now that jury trials have resumed would require extensive consultation with the community, the legal profession and key stakeholders.”

Manny Waks, chief of victims advocacy group VoiCSA, said he hoped justice would prevail.

“I have no doubt that Leifer and her defence will try every trick in the book - and then even more - to try to prevent facing justice,” he said.

“We have seen the prolonged charade Leifer successfully played in Israel but we expect that she will no longer get away with it. There is absolutely no reason that Leifer can’t get a fair hearing in Australia. Others, more prominent, have been held to account for their crimes and we expect the same to happen in this case.

“We’re all looking forward to Leifer’s day in court, so finally, some semblance of belated justice may prevail.”

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts/fears-alleged-sex-offender-principal-malka-leifer-could-dodge-justice/news-story/4012e67fb2e773a9a568a00ad05cd7c5

Two women face court over alleged planned female genital mutilation of two-week-old baby in WA

Keane Bourke - 12 March 2021

Two women have faced court over allegedly planning the female genital mutilation of a two-week-old baby.

WA Police have charged the women, aged 23 and 50, after they allegedly approached a doctor in January for the procedure.

Police said the doctor refused and reported the matter to authorities, sparking an investigation by Child Abuse Squad detectives.

Today the women appeared in the Armadale Magistrates Court, charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and are due to reappear on April 20.

Magistrate Steven Malley described the matter as a serious offence and dismissed a request made by the pair to regain custody, saying it would be like "putting [the baby] back into the lion's den".

The baby girl is now in the hands of Child Protection authorities.

If found guilty, the women could each face up to 10 years in prison.

Police did not confirm where the women live but said it was within their Cannington District, which includes Bentley, Queens Park, Rossmoyne, Shelley and Willetton.

Cultural beliefs the alleged motive

In a statement, WA Police said they believed the circumcision was planned as part of cultural beliefs.

"The WA Police Force embraces the diversity provided by the many cultural and ethnic groups that form our community," a police spokesperson said.

"Practices which may be acceptable by some cultures and in some countries may constitute criminal offences in Western Australia.

"It is an offence to commit female genital mutilation in Western Australia."

Procedures that remove part or all of the external female genitalia or cause injury to female genital organs for non-medical reasons are illegal across Australia.

It is believed around 53,000 women live with female genital mutilation across Australia.

Clinical practice guidelines from WA's Women and Newborn Health Service explain that the procedure is usually carried out between the ages of 4 and 10 years old, but may be conducted as late or "just before marriage, during pregnancy or post-birth".

"The motivation for communities to practice [female genital mutilation] varies wildly but includes psychosexual and sociological reasons, hygiene and aesthetic reasons and myths," it reads.

"It is a practice that is deeply entrenched in cultural heritage and traditions."

Australia's first prosecution for female genital mutilation was recorded in November 2015.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-12/women-allegedly-planned-genital-mutilation-of-baby-girl-in-perth/13242794

OECD top post: And the winner is … Australia’s Mathias Cormann

SIMON BENSON, GEOFF CHAMBERS and JOE KELLY - MARCH 12, 2021

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Australia has pulled off a stunning diplomatic coup with Mathias Cormann set to be announced as secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, delivering the Asia-Pacific region’s first head of the Paris-based body.

In a major vindication of Scott Morrison’s push to win the influential economic post, sources close to the OECD process confirmed Mr Cormann’s appointment, which will be announced as early as Saturday morning.

Mr Cormann, who served in federal parliament from 2007 until his retirement late last year, won the tightly contested contest following an exhaustive process pitting him against the preferred European candidate, Sweden’s Cecilia Malmstrom.

Australia’s longest-serving ­finance minister steps into the OECD role despite a campaign questioning his climate change credentials and a push to select the first female secretary-general.

The Weekend Australian understands the Prime Minister played a central role in Mr Cormann’s successful OECD bid, calling more than 50 world leaders over the course of the last few months. Mr Cormann, regarded as one of Australia’s most accomplished finance ministers, also ran a tireless international lobbying effort to secure the posting, having faced resistance from some European countries.

US support was considered critical to his success. He will replace Angel Gurria of Mexico, with his five-year term commencing on June 1.

As secretary-general, Mr Cormann will lead the OECD Secretariat and Council, which is the organisation’s overarching decision-making body composed of ambassadors from 37 member countries and the European Commission.

Mr Cormann described it as “a privilege and an honour to take on the leadership of the OECD.”

“It brings together like-minded countries from around the world committed to developing and delivering better policies for better lives,” he said, describing himself as “ambitious” for the OECD. “It provides a great platform for international cooperation and best practice policy development, from the foundation of a shared commitment to democracy, human rights, the rule of law, market-based economic principles and a rules-based international order.”

Mr Cormann won the job after the initial field of 10 candidates was narrowed to two. Nominated by Sweden, Dr Malmstrom served as European trade commissioner and European home ­affairs commissioner, as well as minister for EU affairs in the Swedish government between 2006 and 2010. She was also a member of the European parliament between 1999 and 2006.

The last European to hold the job was Jean-Claude Paye in 1996. Mr Cormann’s pathway to success was understood to be contingent on winning support from Asia-Pacific and Latin American nations, with help from eastern Europe members.

The last time an Australian headed a major international economic organisation was Sydney-born Sir James Wolfensohn, who was appointed by the US as World Bank group president from 1995 to 2005.

(continued)

>>13195850

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The Prime Minister, who provided government support to ­assist Mr Cormann’s candidacy during the COVID-19 pandemic, on Friday confirmed the OECD selection process had “gone into extra time”. “It’s into golden point. And while Mathias Cormann may not have been an NRL fan but an AFL fan, I’m sure he is getting all the support that is necessary,” Mr Morrison said.

“And I really want to thank him and the whole team and all of those around the world that I’ve engaged with over these many months.

“The OECD brings together like-minded countries from all around the world, like minded-liberal democracies from the Americas, from Asia-Pacific, from Europe and the United Kingdom.”

Mr Morrison said Australia had been an OECD member since its foundation and “we’re very pleased for the first time to be putting ourselves forward for such a unique international role”.

In November, Mr Morrison defended the use of a taxpayer-funded RAAF jet to support Mr Cormann’s campaign, warning there was an “extremely high” risk he could have contracted COVID-19 if he had flown on commercial flights.

Climate and environmental groups had written to the OECD voicing their concerns about Mr Cormann’s candidacy in a March 4 letter arguing “the public record of Mathias Cormann should preclude him from being selected”.

The letter cited his role as ­finance minister in the Abbott government which, in July 2014, “abolished the country’s carbon pricing scheme”. It was signed by Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation; Matt Brennan, chief executive of the Wilderness Society Australia; Julie-Anne Richards, the executive director of the Climate Action Network Australia and David Ritter, the chief executive of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, among others.

The letter claimed Mr Cormann was not a “suitable candidate” and singled him out for describing Australia’s emissions trading scheme as “an act of economic self-harm which does nothing to help reduce global emissions”. Greens leader Adam Bandt was also opposed to Mr Cormann taking the OECD top job, writing to member nations urging them to support alternative candidates.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/oecd-top-post-and-the-winner-is-australias-mathias-cormann/news-story/5c2fdf4151b2686e31df4ba46780eb6b

China tells UN Australia's offshore detention centres violate human rights, don't have adequate conditions

ABC/Reuters - 13 March 2021

China says it is "deeply concerned" by the Australian government's operation of offshore detention centres, and called for the sites to be closed immediately.

Ties between the two countries soured in 2018 when Australia became the first nation to publicly ban China's Huawei from its 5G network and worsened when Australia last year called for an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus.

In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, China alleged the detention centres "fall short of adequate medical conditions where a large number of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers have been detained over a long period of time or even indefinitely, and their human rights have been violated".

It did not specify any locations, describing them as "third countries".

Asylum seekers intercepted at sea en route to Australia are sent for processing to Papua New Guinea or to the South Pacific island of Nauru.

"We urge Australia to immediately close down all offshore detention centres and take concrete steps to protect the rights of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, especially children," China said in its statement, which it submitted on behalf of a group of unnamed countries.

It also called on Australia to carry out "comprehensive and fair investigations" into reported cases of "serious war crimes" committed by Australian troops overseas.

An Australian inquiry published in November said Australian special forces were suspected of killing 39 unarmed prisoners and civilians in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016, drawing criticism from China's foreign ministry.

China itself has long faced accusations that it operates detention centres, with UN experts and rights groups estimating it has detained more than a million people in its Xinjiang region, mostly Uyghur and other Muslim minorities, in a vast system of camps.

China breaching genocide convention with 'intent to destroy' Uyghurs

China has described the camps as vocational centres designed to combat extremism.

According to a major new report by a US-based think tank Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, China has breached every provision of the UN Genocide Convention, with "intent to destroy" the Uyghurs as a group in the country's north-western Xinjiang region.

The United Nations has said there are credible reports that at least 1 million Uyghurs are detained in Xinjiang's "re-education" camps.

Beijing has repeatedly stressed that its policies in Xinjiang are necessary to counter extremism and terrorism.

It has repeatedly denied its ethnic policies amount to genocide, but the report maintained the Chinese Communist Party had violated "each and every act" prohibited in Article II of the Genocide Convention.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the allegations "ridiculously absurd" and "a complete lie".

"The so-called 'genocide' in Xinjiang is ridiculously absurd. It is a rumour with ulterior motives and a complete lie," he said.

A number of nations, including the United States and Canada, have labelled the persecution of the Uyghur people genocide in light of growing evidence of abuses at "re-education camps" in Xinjiang.

But Australia has not.

It has previously expressed criticism of China's treatment of Uyghurs, and joined other countries at the UN Human Rights Council, including the UK, Canada and Germany, in calling upon China to end its detention of the ethnic minority.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-13/china-urges-australia-to-close-offshore-detention-centres/13245174

>>13195850

Prime Minister Scott Morrison Facebook Post

Great honour for Australia

A huge honour and recognition for Australia. Well done to Mathias Cormann on being elected as the next Secretary-General of the OECD, one of the world’s most important international economic organisations.

This is the most senior appointment of an Australian candidate to an international body for decades.

Mathias will make an outstanding contribution as leader of the OECD and I thank all the member nations of the OECD for their support.

https://www.facebook.com/scottmorrison4cook/videos/449513359699025/

>>13183787

Prime Minister Scott Morrison Facebook Post

An historic meeting for India, the United States, Japan and Australia - the first ever leaders’ meeting of the Quad.

For us, this meeting is about how we keep Australia and the Indo-Pacific region we live in safe, stable and secure.

https://www.facebook.com/scottmorrison4cook/posts/4058847384159634

>>13196051

First ever Quad Leaders' Meeting

Scott Morrison MP

13 Mar 2021

My opening remarks to the historic first Quad Meeting involving the leaders of India, the United States, Japan and Australia.

For us, this meeting is about how we keep Australia and the Indo-Pacific region we live in safe, stable and secure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQ1pJuXwFQ

>>13183787

President Joe Biden Tweet

This morning, I met virtually with the Quad in the first multilateral summit I’ve hosted as president. The United States, Japan, India, and Australia are committed to working together to tackle the shared challenges we face and to secure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1370497665155354624

>>13183787

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga Tweets

先ほど、初めてとなる日米豪印首脳会議を行いました。

新型コロナウィルス対策をはじめ、重要課題について、議論を重ねて、協力をしていくことで一致をしました。

新型コロナ対策については、4カ国でインド太平洋地域の途上国などへのワクチン支援など、様々な局面で協力していきます。

(Google translation)

Earlier, we held the first Japan-US-Australia-India Summit. We agreed to continue discussions and cooperate on important issues, including measures against the new coronavirus. Regarding measures against the new corona, we will cooperate in various aspects such as vaccine support to developing countries in the Indo-Pacific region in the four countries.

https://twitter.com/sugawitter/status/1370406317953720321

—

自由で開かれたインド太平洋の実現に向けて、私からアセアンなどの諸国と連携していくことを提案し、賛同を得ました。

また、ミャンマー情勢についての重大な懸念、そして、中国による一方的な現状変更の試みに強く反対する旨、訴えました。

拉致問題の即時解決が重要であることも訴えました。

I proposed and agreed with countries such as ASEAN toward the realization of a free and open Indo-Pacific. He also expressed serious concern about the situation in Myanmar and strongly opposed China's unilateral attempts to change the status quo. He also emphasized the importance of immediate resolution of the abduction issue.

https://twitter.com/sugawitter/status/1370406414955339782

—

今回の会議は、日米豪印の4カ国を、新たなステージに引き上げることができた会合だったと思います。年内に対面での首脳会談を行うことでも一致しました。

これから4カ国を中心に、野心的な、そして具体的な成果を出せるよう協力してまいります。

I think this meeting was a meeting that was able to take the four countries of Japan, the United States, Australia and India to a new stage. We also agreed to hold a face-to-face summit meeting within the year. From now on, we will cooperate to produce ambitious and concrete results, mainly in the four countries.

https://twitter.com/sugawitter/status/1370406571612598277

>>13183787

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tweets

Had fruitful discussions with @POTUS @JoeBiden, PM @ScottMorrisonMP and PM @sugawitter at the 1st Quad Summit.

Reiterated India’s commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific in line with our vision of SAGAR - Security and Growth for All in the Region.

https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1370416531679576075

—

United in our fight against COVID-19, we launched a landmark Quad partnership to ensure accessibility of safe COVID-19 vaccines. India’s formidable vaccine production capacity will be expanded with support from Japan, US & Australia to assist countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1370416533441187841

—

Our discussions today on vaccines, climate change, and emerging technologies make the Quad a positive force for global good and for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.

https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1370416535240548353

—

Speaking at the First Quad Leaders’ Virtual Summit.

https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1370368686402330627

>>13183787

U.S. Department of State Tweet

The United States, Japan, India, and Australia are united in our vision for a free and open, inclusive and healthy Indo-Pacific region. Learn more about the outcomes from today's historic Quad Summit here: go.usa.gov/xsvKn. #FreeandOpenIndoPacific

https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1370509937252708361

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/12/fact-sheet-quad-summit/

>>13195888

Elise Thomas Tweet

They're right. This is something we should be ashamed of and something we need to fix. Whataboutism is a cop-out and we should lead by example on human rights issues #auspol

https://twitter.com/elisethoma5/status/1370651423755567110

>>13184085

Julian Assange’s father brings his fight to free his son to Canberra

Hannah Sparks - 13 March 2021

John Shipton, the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently in custody in London pending a High Court appeal, will protest outside Parliament House with supporters from 8:00 am on Monday, 15 March.

Mr Shipton is also due to speak at the Australian National University on Sunday night with former Deputy Chief Minister and lawyer Bernard Collaery. Mr Collaery is on trial for allegedly unlawfully sharing protected information about an Australian spy operation that bugged allies in the Timor-Leste Government in 2004 when Australia was negotiating for oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.

The whistleblower, David McBride, will also speak on Sunday night.

Mr Shipton is calling on the Australian Government to bring Mr Assange, 49, back to Australia.

Mr Assange is currently awaiting the result of an appeal to the High Court in England, which will decide whether he will be extradited to the US where he has been accused of conspiring to leak classified material in 2010.

Mr Shipton claimed there was strong support for Mr Assange’s freedom in Australia and that it had grown during his “Home Run for Julian Assange” tour, which started on 28 February and has passed through Melbourne, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Albury, Wagga Wagga, Goulburn, Bathurst, Katoomba and Parramatta.

Mr Shipton has been campaigning to clear his son’s name ever since the US Government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks in 2010.

Mr Assange grew up with his mother Christine Hawkins and step-father Brett Assange but reconnected with his father later in life. Mr Shipton visited his son in London every year and spent every Christmas with him while he was under the protection of the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

However, COVID-19 put a stop to the visits, with the pandemic also cancelling organised rallies and placing Mr Assange’s prison into lockdown.

For the past three years, Mr Shipton has been campaigning in the UK and across Europe, America, South America and Australia.

While in America in January, Mr Shipton tried to meet with President Joe Biden to ask for the charges against Mr Assange to be dropped but said his plans were stifled when the riots broke out in Washington.

Mr Shipton said Mr Assange’s mental health wasn’t “the best” and had been affected by the 11 years he’s spent in confinement.

Mr Assange used his IT skills to hack into the databases of many high profile organisations and, in 2006, began work on WikiLeaks, which shared confidential information, including footage of US soldiers killing 18 Iraqi civilians.

Later that year, Sweden issued a warrant for his arrest over allegations of sexual assault, but Mr Assange avoided extradition by seeking asylum in London’s Ecuadorean Embassy.

After almost seven years inside the embassy, Mr Assange was arrested by British police. He has been in custody ever since.

Mr Shipton said his son had appealed for bail and would find out if his appeal could be taken to the US Supreme Court after submissions were made on 29 March.

For more information about the events on Sunday, 14 March and Monday, 15 March, visit Assange Freedom.

https://assangefreedom.network/events/

https://the-riotact.com/julian-assanges-father-brings-his-fight-to-free-his-son-to-canberra/446111

Man travels from Mt Isa to Brisbane to meet ‘girl’ who was undercover cop

A Mount Isa man who travelled all the way to Brisbane allegedly to meet an “underage girl” for sex has had a rude awakening upon his arrival.

Kate Kyriacou - March 12, 2021

Detectives have arrested a Mount Isa man who allegedly travelled from North West Queensland to Brisbane to meet a child for sex - only to discover he’d been talking to undercover police.

The 20-year-old man was arrested this morning at a Hungry Jack’s in Brisbane’s west where he thought he was meeting a 15-year-old girl.

Detectives from Task Force Argos and the Ferny Grove Child Protection and Investigation Unit began investigating the 20-year-old man in January following a tip from police in Western Australia.

Police will allege the man made contact with an undercover officer from Argos via a social media app and began engaging in “inappropriate behaviour” with what he believed was an underage girl.

He is then alleged to have travelled from Mount Isa to Brisbane to “engage in sexual acts” with the girl.

The man has been charged with using the internet to procure a child under 16 years of age with a circumstance of aggravation that the offender went to a place with the intention of meeting the child and four counts of grooming a child under 16 years.

He was released on bail and is due to appear at the Brisbane Magistrates Court on March 16.

Argos Detective Inspector Glen Donaldson of Argos warned predators that undercover police were posing as children online every day to catch them out.

“Every day Argos has undercover officers working in a range of online platforms to detect and apprehend people who seek to exploit children in our community,” he said.

“To those that seek to engage in this predatory behaviour, just remember that the next `child’ that you engage may be a member of Argos.”

He warned parents to be vigilant about their children’s online activity.

“Supervision is key to prevention, as is ongoing communication with children about how to stay safe online and the dangers of having online ‘friends’ they have never met face-to-face,” Det Insp Donaldson said.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts/man-travels-from-mt-isa-to-brisbane-to-meet-girl-who-was-undercover-cop/news-story/f2cb36c57c9df24f953c939e960ca061

https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/news/2021/03/12/argos-arrest-brisbane-3/

‘My sister Ghislaine is not a monstrous pimp’

Ian Maxwell says Jeffrey Epstein ruined his youngest sibling’s life and she is paying for the US authorities’ failure to prosecute him.

ROSIE KINCHEN / The Times - March 14, 2021

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Family reunions aren’t easy to arrange when there are seven siblings scattered across two continents. So when the Maxwell children got together two summers ago, the mood was celebratory. It was the first time they had all been in a room together in almost a decade, and it felt as though there was another figure present as well. They met on June 10, 2019, which would have been Robert Maxwell’s 96th birthday had he not slipped into the Atlantic nearly 30 years earlier.

One person stands out in the photograph they took that day in London. Most of the Maxwell children – Anne, now 73, Philip, 71, twins Christine and Isabel, 70, Ian, 64, and Kevin, 62 have aged, the gloss of their childhood at Headington Hill Hall, near Oxford, faded long ago. Only Ghislaine, 59, suntanned and sophisticated, retains an aura of the world created by their father, Cap’n Bob. What none of them realised then was that the family were about to plunge once more into a scandal. A month after that gathering, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking underage girls, after a sweetheart deal he negotiated 12 years earlier fell apart. A month after that, Epstein was found dead in his cell. Immediately the spotlight shifted onto Ghislaine, his former partner.

“That was when her world exploded,” Ian Maxwell says. His youngest sister is in a prison cell in Brooklyn, New York, charged with crimes including grooming underage girls and perjury. Once more the Maxwells face opprobrium and once more the family are locking arms to defend their own. Since Ghislaine’s arrest in July her siblings have been working behind the scenes to try to have her released on bail. Now, with less than four months until her trial, and two rejected bail applications – a third is under consideration – they are speaking out. Their sister has been in solitary confinement in a 6ft by 9ft cell for six months, she is considered a suicide risk (unduly, they claim) and she is woken up every 15 minutes.

“She is not able to properly prepare the defence,” her brother says. The family fear that the presumption of her innocence has been lost in a tide of rumour.

“The Ghislaine that we know has been buried in this caricature, this monstrous creature that has been invented as an abuser and a pimp,” Ian says. It is true that in all the coverage of this story, Ghislaine herself remains an enigma. Her black book of contacts contains celebrities, politicians and journalists, but not one has defended her. Ian is trying to correct this, but the more he talks about “Spratt”, the nickname Maxwell gave his youngest child, the more bewildering a figure she becomes.

To understand his sister, Ian says, you have to realise that she was born into a tragedy. Maxwell’s sixth child, Karine, died from leukaemia at the age of three, devastating the parents and disrupting the family’s balance of four boys and four girls. “So when my parents had another little girl, it was really magic – it allowed the four boys and four girls to be recreated,” Ian says. Ghislaine was born on Christmas Day 1961, but 48 hours later Maxwell’s eldest child, Michael, who was 15, was involved in a car accident that put him in a coma until his death eight years later.

“Ghislaine had to establish herself very early on,” Ian says. His mother, Betty, would recount how, at three years old, Ghislaine stood in front of her and said: “Mummy, I exist.”

(continued)

>>13200276

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Maxwell was a bully and none of the children escaped his rage. “You didn’t want to be too close to home because it was quite tense,” Ian says. “Mealtimes were always pretty tough. We had to stand up and account for what we’d done that day, that week, that year.”

The most outlandish suggestion about Maxwell’s relationship with Ghislaine comes from Eleanor Berry, the youngest daughter of Lord Hartwell, former owner of The Daily Telegraph. Berry, an eccentric family friend, said Maxwell doted on his daughter but took a sadistic pleasure in beating her, allowing Ghislaine to choose what implement he used. Ian finds this story “utterly implausible … We were all physically punished, girls and boys; the girls were smacked and the boys belted, mostly for poor grades, laziness and lack of application at school.”

His sister had a talent for managing their father’s moods and became increasingly useful to him as she got older.

“Ghislaine is very charming,” Ian says. “She has a very good sense of humour and that was important because Dad responded well to humour. It was my own way of dealing with him: I would make a fool of myself and that would disarm him reasonably quickly.”

She became a useful companion in Maxwell’s later years. There are photographs of them together at football matches, or of Ghislaine perching on his knee at charity fundraisers, which have fuelled rumours of a special bond. That, and the Lady Ghislaine.

“It was all a big mystery,” Ian says of the day their father took them to a boatyard near Amsterdam. “Ghislaine was given this bottle, she crashed it against the side, the wrap fell off and there it was: the Lady Ghislaine. She was stunned. We all were stunned.”

Maxwell’s death in 1991, after he fell from the Lady Ghislaine near the Canary Islands, was a turning point for all of them. Ian recalls the conflicting emotions he felt when he heard the news: the “dichotomy of feeling free of this dramatic alpha male in my life and terribly scared of what might happen without his protective presence in my life”.

Ghislaine and Philip flew to the Canaries with their mother to identify the body. Kevin Lomax, a Daily Mirror photographer who was with them, has told how devastated Ghislaine was. “I have never sat down, to this day, and said to any of my brothers and sisters, ‘Let’s think back to those times – how did you feel about it?’” Ian says. By way of explanation he tells me a story about the time he took an afternoon off work to go to a funeral. His father was furious. “He said, ‘Let the dead bury the dead, for God’s sake.’ At the time I was terribly shocked by the callousness, but it is a way of cauterising immediate feelings,” Ian says. “We have all just got on and coped.”

While Kevin and Ian remained in London dealing with bankruptcy and court cases, Ghislaine resumed her life in New York. The Maxwell children have differing views on their father’s legacy. "I’m nearer the positive than the negative end of that scale,” Ian says. How does Ghislaine feel? “I think she would be with me.” Nor does she believe that his death was accidental. “Ghislaine is very clear that she believes that he was murdered. She is the only member of the family to my knowledge who holds that position.”

It didn’t take long for her to find Epstein. The first picture of the two together was taken three weeks after Maxwell’s funeral. Ian says a romantic relationship between them began “some time in the early 1990s” and it was “effectively over by the turn of the century”. He met Epstein only once, in New York around 1996. “Ghislaine would probably have introduced me,” he says. “He was cold.”

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Ian cannot talk about the case directly but it is clear that the family believe that Ghislaine was manipulated by Epstein. “One important point is that they never lived together. He had his place; she had her place. If she was going to see him, she had to ask. This enabled him to lead his life, the life he wanted. This was a man who was highly compartmentalised.”

Did the family have concerns about the relationship? “At the time? No,” he says.

Didn’t he worry about her later on? “I was entirely satisfied that the man who she then went on to spend time with really provided her with love and affection she needed after Epstein,” Ian says.

He is referring to a seven-year relationship that Ghislaine went on to have with Ted Waitt, an American billionaire and philanthropist.

How does Ghislaine feel about Epstein now? “I know she wishes that she had never met him. He has ruined her life.”

Ian talks about his sister’s love of the sea, her ocean charity, Terramar, and her dog, a Hungarian vizsla called Nemo that she showed in competitions.

Her 2016 marriage to the tech chief Scott Borgerson, 43, became public knowledge only during a bail application last year. When did the family first find out about Scott? “At the same time you did: when it was in the papers,” he says.

My jaw drops. At that family reunion no one knew that their sister was in a relationship, let alone married. “I think Ghislaine has just determined with him, obviously, that they want to keep a very low level of public knowledge about their lives,” Ian replies. Borgerson has supported her bail application but has not spoken publicly. Then there is her apparent disappearance in the year after Epstein’s death. Ian says the idea that she was hiding from police “is simply a lie”. It was the press she was hiding from, he insists.

Did he know where she was? “Of course,” he replies. Only this turns out not to be quite true. For seven months she had been in the New Hampshire house where she was arrested, but her family had no idea, passing messages back and forth to her through lawyers instead.

The prosecution has benefited from the illusion that Maxwell is a flight risk, Ian says, when the authorities never tried to find her. Whatever the truth, there is reason to believe that building a case against Maxwell was not straightforward. Not only did it take a year to charge her, but the most well-known claims- including from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who says Maxwell recruited her – do not form part of the criminal case. She is charged instead with helping to transport and groom three unnamed women for exploitation when they were under age between 1994 and 1997 as well as two charges of perjury.

The last time Ian spoke to Ghislaine was about a month before she was arrested, having passed a message through lawyers. “I said, ‘It’s a pity that I can’t call you’, and she said, ‘Ian, I don’t want you to be in a situation where someone is going to put pressure on you. I am going to take the pressure so that none of you have to. Not Scott, not Kev – I am going to deal with it.’”

Self-sufficiency was a lesson that was drummed into all the Maxwell children. “Father has said it to me on many, many occasions: there’s nothing you can do that can bring me back – get on with your life. And that is a driver of Ghislaine’s life too: get on with your life. Dad has gone,” Ian says, as though he spoke to the old man just a moment ago.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/my-sister-ghislaine-is-not-a-monstrous-pimp-ian-maxwell/news-story/8698f9da6f5aec33ad348688b058b0e1

>>13173275

On the mend: Daniel Andrews leaves ICU to settle into ‘new digs’

Michael Fowler - March 13, 2021

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was moved from intensive care into a new ward on Saturday while revealing he was expecting a “very long journey” to recover from a fractured vertebra and several broken ribs.

Mr Andrews does not require surgery on his injured spine “for now”. Sources close to the Premier had said on Thursday there was a 50 per cent chance surgery would be needed over the weekend.

As he left ICU, the Premier tweeted a picture from his hospital bed and thanked staff for the care he was given.

He has been in the intensive care unit of The Alfred hospital since Tuesday evening following a fall on “wet and slippery stairs” in the early hours of that morning.

In a post on Facebook on Saturday, the Premier said: “The good news is no surgery for now, but the doctors tell me recovery and rehab is still going to be a very long journey.”

Orthopaedic surgeons this week said the standard recovery period for Mr Andrews’ injury – a fractured T7 vertebra in the middle of the back – was between six and 12 weeks.

Associate Professor Steve McGloughlin, the intensive care unit director at The Alfred, said in a statement that Mr Andrews was “in good spirits and remained in a stable condition”.

“Mr Andrews is comfortable and doing well. There is no plan for surgery at this stage,” he said.

The Premier was at a home in the Mornington Peninsula when he fell early on Tuesday morning, the same day he was due to attend a press conference announcing a state inquiry into Indigenous inequality. The exact circumstances around the fall remain unclear.

He was initially taken to Peninsula Private Hospital before being moved to The Alfred trauma centre in the evening. X-rays revealed he broke ribs on his left and right sides but suffered no head injuries.

Health Minister Martin Foley said on Friday that he was told the Premier was “up and about”, moving and walking.

“That’s a positive sign … it’s a very nasty injury,” he said.

Acting Premier James Merlino is set for an extended period of time deputising for Mr Andrews. The Deputy Premier, who is also the minister for education and for mental health, will take charge for this week’s sitting of State Parliament.

Senior ministers, including Mr Merlino, insisted this week that the government would proceed with business as usual despite its leader’s physical absence.

“I’m sure that I’ll be speaking to him pretty regularly over the course of the next few weeks,” Mr Merlino said.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/daniel-andrews-to-leave-intensive-care-but-expecting-very-long-recovery-path-20210313-p57afh.html

https://twitter.com/DanielAndrewsMP/status/1370669779590074371

https://www.facebook.com/DanielAndrewsMP/posts/3921051664626007

>>13183787

Australia joins US, India and Japan in 'unprecedented' deal for coronavirus vaccines after historic Quad meeting

Greg Jennett - 13 March 2021

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Scott Morrison has joined the first leaders' summit of Joe Biden's US presidency, forging a new strategic partnership and vaccination alliance with four of the Indo-Pacific region's most-powerful democracies.

The US President hosted the video link-up from the State Dining Room of the White House with the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan.

It was the first time the four-member regional grouping known as the Quad had ever convened with heads of government at the table.

The partnership has had a faltering history and is usually viewed as a bloc to counter China.

But in its latest incarnation, Quad members have given it a new, broader purpose to cooperate on what Mr Biden calls "practical solutions and concrete results" to global problems, including COVID-19, climate change and cyber security.

As an early indication of its intent, the group has outlined plans to harness its enormous medical and manufacturing capacities to lift coronavirus vaccine production and distribution, mostly for the benefit of other Asian and Pacific island countries together with members of the COVAX group of nations.

The vaccine project will at first involve funding by the US, manufacturing of the Johnson & Johnson shot by India and Japan and help with logistics by Australia.

Australia's contribution is valued at about $100 million, mainly concentrated around "last mile" distribution in South-East Asia.

"Last mile" activities generally include the steps needed to get shots in arms, from health workforce training to awareness campaigns and helping procure the disposable medical items needed to administer injections.

The goal is to crank up production of up to 1 billion doses by 2022.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who sat in on the summit, declared "these four leaders made a massive joint commitment today".

"We have taken the Quad to a new level," Mr Sullivan said from the White House.

"Make no mistake, today is a big day for American diplomacy. This summit is a big deal for the President and the country."

As it drives a plan to immunise its population, the US will not be sharing any shots produced in American pharmaceutical plants until domestic needs have been fully met.

After the leaders' summit, a working group of bureaucrats will be charged with negotiating further details, financing and commercial terms of the deal.

Those who brokered talks behind the scenes say discussions had been held "around the clock" to give the US President and the three prime ministers a "historic, deliverable" announcement for their Summit.

"It's unprecedented, it's complex, it's deeply strategically significant and it is timely", a senior administration official told the media.

'Pillar of stability'

In its re-emergence in 2021, the Quad is placing a heavy emphasis on practical actions the four countries can take, rather than narrowly defining itself as a bulwark against Beijing's conduct as an expanding economic, military and strategic power.

As a measure of the shift, the word "security", once considered the unifying threat that bound the group together, rated a mention only twice in the summit's final joint statement, titled The Spirit of the Quad.

Even so, its members have each been confronted by China's power and the leaders did not hide their angst or their purpose.

"The four leaders did discuss the challenge posed by China and they made clear that none of them has any illusions about China", Mr Sullivan later reported.

During the brief section of the summit open to the media, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga spoke of feeling "emotional" about its re-emergence and the group's dedication to realising a "free and open Indo-Pacific".

His Indian counterpart, Narendra Modhi, told colleagues: "The Quad has come of age. It will now remain an important pillar of stability in the region."

Without naming China, Mr Morrison stressed the need for countries of the region to respect and support the "sovereignty, independence and security" of others.

Mr Biden laid down his additional aspiration that nations be "free of coercion", a feature of Chinese government behaviour that each Quad member is aggrieved by, whether economic, territorial or through forms of foreign interference in their own jurisdictions.

All four leaders have agreed to meet in person at their next Summit before the end of the year.

"The ambition of these engagements is fit to the moment; we are committed to leveraging our partnership to help the world's most dynamic region respond to historic crisis, so that it may be the free, open, accessible, diverse, and thriving Indo-Pacific we all seek", the Quad members said in their official written statement after the inaugural talks.

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Huawei or the highway

In their private talks, the leaders also addressed China's dominance in, and their growing dependence on, hi-tech information systems.

India, Japan and the US have considerable clout as competitors in those industries, but have struggled to compete against cheaper, mass scale production by state-owned enterprises under the CCP's command.

Large cyber attacks, a global shortage of microchips and the race to build fast 5G mobile networks have exacerbated those rivalries.

In a likely nod to the cyber security threats posed by Chinese behemoth Huawei, the Quad has pledged to "encourage cooperation on telecommunications deployment, diversification of equipment suppliers and future telecommunications".

Biden dives into climate diplomacy

At his first international summit since moving into the White House, Mr Biden offered a hint to the tactics his administration would use to herd major economies towards greater effort on climate change.

It is a personal policy preoccupation of the President.

The issue has been identified as a "priority" for the Quad, beginning with the formation of a working group to "strengthen and enhance actions globally" and keep a "Paris-aligned temperature limit within reach".

The language used in the joint statement is measured, non-binding and non-specific, but Biden administration officials have said US Climate Envoy John Kerry will engage with countries on their individual commitments to emissions reduction, mitigation, climate finance and more.

To Asia, with haste

Having elevated America's bonds with like-minded democracies of the Indo-Pacific, the Biden administration is about to embark on a diplomatic blitz of the region in a further statement of its intention to strengthen partnerships and alliances as counter-balances to China's influence.

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, will visit Japan and South Korea, before Mr Austin ventures on to India.

All three countries have long managed fragile relations with Beijing.

But even as it marshals friends and support, the Biden brand of diplomacy is not to isolate or ignore China.

On return to the US, Mr Blinken and Mr Sullivan will land in Anchorage, Alaska, for the administration's first face-to-face meeting with senior Chinese officials; Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the overseer of the Chinese Communist Party's foreign policy settings, Yang Jiechi.

State Department spokesman Ned Price has acknowledged there is a "long litany of disagreements" with China, including "Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, pressure on Taiwan, broader human rights abuses, the South China Sea, the Mekong, economic pressure, arbitrary detentions, the origins of COVID-19, other issues".

"We will certainly not pull any punches," Mr Price added.

Washington's aim in rebuilding the Quad and in the Seoul, Tokyo and Delhi talks is to enable it to "engage Beijing from a position of strength," the State Department says.

By expanding from a narrow maritime security focus, the Quad has deliberately made a play for even greater clout with smaller, like-minded nations.

Highlighting its "practical" vaccine initiative, the senior US administration official involved in steering pre-Summit negotiations said meeting basic needs of the people within the region is integral to the survival of the grouping.

"If the Quad cannot do that, if it can't address constructively these issues, we will quickly lose relevance and will be strategically insignificant", the senior official said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-13/quad-australia-us-india-japan-in-massive-covid-vaccine-deal/13245198

>>13183787

Propelling 'Asian NATO' beyond US capacity: Global Times editorial

Global Times - Mar 13, 2021

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The leaders of the Quad countries, the US, Japan, India and Australia, issued a joint statement after their first online meeting on Friday. The statement did not mention China, but it contained a number of phrases that were specifically directed at China. For example, it mentioned that the Quad countries "will strive for an Indo-Pacific region unconstrained by coercion." Other issues, such as helping India expand vaccine production, had already been tagged toward China in advance of the meeting. Media outlets had commonly interpreted it as an effort to counter China in "vaccine diplomacy." Some media outlets even suggested that "China looms large at this meeting."

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Friday's press briefing that "the four leaders did discuss the challenge posed by China, and they made clear that none of them have any illusions about China." He reiterated that "the Quad is not a new NATO," and also stressed that "it is an opportunity for these four democracies to work as a group." His expression is a little confused and contradictory.

The so-called Indo-Pacific strategy is a legacy of the Trump administration, and no one in the strategic community doubts that the Biden administration has inherited it and plans to advance it with the long-term goal to include more elements in containing China. The Asian version of NATO is how the Quad is portrayed in the press, and it is widely believed to fit well with Washington's ambitions.

Sullivan's denial of the appellation is also a kind of realism. He must know it's as difficult for Washington to build an Asian NATO as it is to turn all Asian countries into US states.

The statement of the four countries did not mention China at all, but the very fact reflects the different positions of the four countries on China. Their national interests require different strategies toward China. In fact, no country in Asia is willing to compete with China on the strategic front. They are all tempted or coerced by the US, and they are trying to decide on whether the benefits of following the US outweighs disadvantages of damaging their relations with China.

The Quad mechanism is still in its infancy and the US is determined to make it work by picking up any possible topic. It talked about climate change and COVID-19 vaccines, pinning the direction of the competition with China on these issues, with the intention of weakening China's influence in the whole region and pushing more Asia-Pacific countries to "decouple" from China.

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The Indo-Pacific vision of the US was likely to come true if the US economy was booming while China's development was collapsing and was militarizing itself like Japan did 80 years ago. However, Washington misread both the global trend and the nature of its strategic competition with China.

China is the largest trading partner for Japan, Australia and India, as is the number one trading partner of most other Asia-Pacific countries. None of them has any real fear of being invaded by China. Japan and India have historical territorial disputes with China, and they obviously know it is better in their national interests to manage such disputes than to fight with China while relying on the US' support. The four Quad countries will have long-term differences and confusion over what the fundamentals of the Quad mechanism should be.

Those who dare not say but think of an Asian version of NATO in their minds are extremely poor in strategic thinking. George Frost Kennan, whose "Long Telegram" propelled the Cold War, seems to have become the "Jesus" of US' strategy. That "Long Telegram" can also be used as a trans-century "Bible." But the Asia-Pacific region is booming, and China is marching forward. China has just drawn up a new five-year plan, a plan to develop the country even further. The US has lost its way and the only sense of its strategic direction is how to undermine China.

The Quad, a cooperating group with an undeclared goal of confronting China, provides a scenario in which leaders of these four countries pretend to have done something important. It gives the lost countries a comfort of seeming to have found their way, and it creates a psychological massage that doesn't bring the will to solve the real problems they face but helps them to escape reality.

China will strengthen normal relations with Japan and India. Strategic confrontation with China is a bad gamble for Japan and India. China will not dwell on the disputes with the two countries in its relations with them. This will have a long-term disruptive effect on US' containment of China in what it refers to as the Indo-Pacific region. China will also strengthen its overall cooperation with ASEAN and other Asian countries, which will put more pressure on forces that adopt a hard line toward China in Japan, India and Australia.

The US has been swayed by a consideration of gain and loss between confrontation and cooperation with China. This basic reality tells people that whoever wants to isolate China throughout the region is destined to be isolated itself.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1218230.shtml

>>13184203

The dangerous Qanon cult tearing families apart with conspiracies

60 Minutes Australia

14 Mar 2021

This story presented a serious dilemma for Sarah Abo because for the most part it is pure fantasy, and 60 MINUTES reporters prefer to deal in facts. But pure fantasy is how to best sum up QAnon, an ever-shifting mega-conspiracy theory that’s bizarre and nonsensical. As whacky as it is though, millions of people appear to be caught up in the internet-based cult, including more and more Australians. The dangerous real-world consequences of QAnon, where families are being torn apart, now demand that the rest of us stop scratching our heads in disbelief and start to take much more notice of this strange group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbmMwMQEK9Y

Christian Porter launches defamation action against ABC and journalist Louise Milligan

SHARRI MARKSON - MARCH 15, 2021

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Attorney-General Christian Porter has commenced defamation action in the Federal Court against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan in a bid to clear his name and save his political career.

Mr Porter is suing the ABC for publishing “false allegations against him” in an online story that claimed he was the subject of historical rape allegations and, in a statement of claim, has also cited a Four Corners report in November last year.

A powerhouse legal team of Bret Walker SC, Sue Chrysanthou SC and Rebekah Giles commenced proceedings in the Federal Court today against the ABC, accusing the public broadcaster of “trial by media” and Milligan of acting with “malice” and engaging in a campaign against Porter in order to harm his reputation and have him removed as Attorney-General.

Chrysanthou and Giles together represented Brittany Higgins in her settlement against Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.

“Over the last few weeks, the Attorney-General has been subjected to trial by media without regard to the presumption of innocence or the rules of evidence and without any proper disclosure of the material said to support the untrue allegations,” Giles of reputational risk firm, Company Giles, said in a statement.

With Labor and the friends of the woman who made the allegations campaigning for a public inquiry, Ms Giles said the claims made by the ABC will be “determined in a court in a procedurally fair process”.

“The trial by media should now end with the commencement of these proceedings,” she said.

“Mr Porter will have and will exercise the opportunity to give evidence denying these false allegations on oath.

“The ABC and Ms Milligan having published these allegations have damaged the reputation of the Attorney-General. This Court process will allow them to present any relevant evidence and make any submissions they believe justifies their conduct in damaging Mr Porter’s reputation.’’

It was open to the ABC and Milligan to “argue the truth of the allegations”, Ms Giles said, and under the Defamation Act they can plead truth in their defence to this action and prove the allegations to the lower civil standard.

The statement of claim accuses the ABC and Milligan of selecting portions of the woman’s dossier that made the “allegations appear as credible as possible when there were other significant portions of the Dossier which demonstrated that the allegations were not credible.”

This along with the ABC and Milligan’s failure to contact Mr Porter prior to publishing the article, giving him no warning or opportunity to respond, despite being aware of the allegations for months, forms part of the claim for aggravated damages.

Milligan is also accused of failing to disclose in the course of her reporting “her close personal friendship” with a friend of the woman who claimed Mr Porter raped her.

“Milligan acted with malice knowing of the impossibility of any finding of guilt or civil liability in the circumstances and believing that a public campaign designed to damage his reputation would be a more effective substitute against Porter in replacement of the process of the justice system,” the statement of claim states.

(continued)

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Judge appointed for defamation case

Federal Court judge Jayne Jagot has been allocated to preside over Mr Porter’s defamation action against Ms Milligan.

Justice Jagot was appointed by the Rudd government to the Federal Court in 2008 and is one of the court’s most highly-regarded judges.

She was a contender to be appointed to the High Court, but was passed over for promotion by the Morrison government late last year in favour of High Court judges Simon Steward and Jacqueline Gleeson.

Justice Jagot recently presided over a high-profile defamation case against ABC journalist Steve Cannane and publisher HarperCollins brought by two doctors involved in “deep sleep” therapy at Sydney’s notorious Chelmsford psychiatric hospital.

Justice Jagot ruled in favour of Cannane and Harper Collins, branding the doctors’ claim an attempt to “rewrite history”.

She dismissed the case and ordered the men to pay the legal costs of Cannane and HarperCollins, finding the publisher and journalist had established a defence of truth and qualified privilege relating to matters of public interest.

Barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC and lawyer Rebekah Giles, who are part of Mr Porter’s powerhouse legal team, acted for the doctors in that case.

Porter assembles crack legal team

Mr Walker is one of Australia’s most eminent barristers and also represented Cardinal George Pell when he was successfully acquitted of child sex abuses.

Chrysanthou and Giles also represented Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in her action against David Leyonhjelm and they both act for Phoebe Burgess.

Some of Chrysanthou’s famous legal wins include Geoffrey Rush against The Daily Telegraph, Elaine Stead against the Australian Financial Review and Joe Hockey against The Sydney Morning Herald.

The ABC’s February 26 article revealed a Cabinet Minister was the subject of historic rape allegations.

It did not name Mr Porter but his lawyers argue he was “easily identifiable to many Australians as the subject of the allegations.”

“The ABC and Milligan knew that Porter would be readily identifiable as the subject of the Article and that he would ultimately be compelled to publicly respond,” the statement of claim says.

It notes former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull made the same point in a media interview when he said “everybody knows” who the Cabinet Minister was and called on him to identify himself.

It also draws on a Media Watch episode on Monday March 9 to outline how easily identifiable Porter was from the ABC report.

In that Media Watch episode, Paul Barry said it was widely known in Canberra that Mr Porter was the subject of the ABC’s online article and that he had been identified on the internet. Barry also made the point that Mr Porter’s name was trending on Twitter, with his Twitter mentions increasing by 500 per cent on Saturday, then doubling from Sunday to Monday and doubling again on Tuesday and that by Tuesday, March 2 a tweet was published every six seconds naming Porter.

The statement of claim outlines how the ABC article stated the alleged assaults were said to have taken place in Sydney in 1988 “long before the accused man entered politics.”

It states that out of 21 members of Cabinet, excluding the Prime Minister, 16 were male, 6 were about the same age as the victim in 1988 and only three were senior Cabinet Ministers, including Mr Porter.

(continued)

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On the day of and shortly after the publication of the article, the visits to Porter’s Facebook page, website and Australian Parliament House profile “increased significantly.”

Soon after, he was identified on social media and elsewhere on the internet as being the subject of the historical rape allegations, with his name trending prominently on Twitter for a number of days leading up to March 3, 2021.

The Australian public easily made the connection between the November Four Corners report and the cabinet minister who was now the subject of the article.

“On the day of, and shortly after publication of the article, Porter was named as the Cabinet Minister the subject of the Article in tweets that tagged Milligan or used the hashtag for the Four Corners program,” the statement of claim states.

“Media outlets and prominent figures called for a response from Porter as the Attorney-General in respect of the allegations and questioned why he did not make any public comment about the process or the allegations.”

There were also “a large number of attempts” to alter Porter’s Wikipedia entry including an attempt to add that he was in Sydney in 1988.

Another way the ABC identified to the public that Porter was the subject of the rape allegations was by publishing an online article on 1st March 2021 where one of the friends quoted had also appeared in the November Four Corners report making allegations about Porter.

This article was later deleted from the ABC website, but still exists on Milligan’s Twitter feed.

The ABC also broadcast a 7.30 report on March 2, 2021 where a friend of the alleged victim gave an interview and referred to her participation in the State Debating Team. That same friend had appeared in the November Four Corners report on Porter.

“By reason of the publication and republication by the ABC and Milligan of the Article, and the grapevine effect of those publications and republications, Porter has been gravely injured in his character and reputation, and has suffered substantial hurt, distress and embarrassment and has and will continue to suffer loss and damage,” the statement of claim says.

There is also a claim of aggravated damages, relating to how the ABC’s conduct exacerbated the damage to Mr Porter’s reputation.

This includes Milligan’s republishing on Twitter comments from Mr Turnbull calling on the Cabinet Minister to identify himself.

It also includes the claim that the ABC and Milligan knew that the allegations could never be proved in any criminal or civil proceeding and despite that published the article to cause Mr Porter harm.

“The ABC and Milligan were frustrated that they were unable to broadcast (the woman’s) allegations in the November Four Corners as they intended (because they were indefensible) and thus disingenuously published the article without naming Porter, in order to give effect to their intention to harm him,” it states.

“Milligan engaged in a campaign against Porter in order to harm his reputation and have him removed as Attorney-General by her continued publications about him.

“She has further continued to defame him including on social media by republishing assertions to the effect that (the woman) … should be believed, deserves justice for the brutal rape perpetrated upon her by Porter … (and that) Porter has committed criminal offences in other jurisdictions.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/christian-porter-launches-defamation-action-against-abc-and-journalist-louise-milligan/news-story/d33c2be73aa81f8161ed288b169aa524

The rise of conspiracy mentality in the US

'We live in dangerous times. Judeophobia (or antisemitism) is rising. The rise of the conspiracy mentality is something that Jews need to watch with special care'.

SOLOMON D. STEVENS - March 15, 2021

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JEWS around the world know how much Donald Trump has meant to Israel. He moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, promoted a new peace plan, and supported the efforts by Israel to establish diplomatic relations with new Arab nations. This is all very important and should not be minimised.

But there is a disturbing side to Trump that also needs to be acknowledged by Jews, an aspect of his presidency that continues to be important even though he failed to win reelection: his aggressive and persistent promotion of a new conspiracy mentality. In spite of his support of Israel, this other side of Trump was, in the end, a significant threat to Jews everywhere.

I use the term “conspiracy mentality” rather than “conspiracy theory”, because the word “theory” is not appropriate when talking about those who believe in conspiracies. Theories are constructs grounded in research, facts and logic. For example, evolution is a theory, but it is not just something that some people “believe”.

Trump’s encouragement of the conspiracy mentality hardly needs to be documented here. Everyone can think of examples without trouble, because they are woven into the fabric of his presidency and to the legacy he leaves behind him. But the scope and depth of the conspiracies he has either initiated or encouraged include QAnon, the belief that a secret group of Democrats are attempting to take over the US, that they are Satan-worshippers that run a worldwide child sex-trafficking operation, and that only Donald Trump could save us from them. And they include the notion that the COVID-19 pandemic was either completely fake (a “plandemic”) or that it was at least exaggerated systematically by evil forces who had as their goal removing Trump from office. And they include – most dramatically – the unfounded accusation that the 2020 election was stolen by a cabal of Democrats and that votes for Joe Biden were manufactured illegally to achieve this goal. And this has been coupled by his assault on the very idea of facts and all mainstream sources of information.

We have to ask two questions: 1) who believes things like this?; and 2) what does this mean for Jews? First of all, these conspiracy notions are not “theories” that have any legitimacy. It makes no sense to argue with someone who believes these things; fact-checking does not convince them, logic makes no difference. Those to whom these notions appeal have a psychological need for them. They cling to them with a ferocity that is unsettling.

(continued)

>>13216784

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An article by Karen Douglas, Robbie Sutton, and Aleksandra Cichocka in Current Directions in Psychological Science pulls together recent research in the field and suggests three main sources of this need for conspiracies: epistemic, existential and social.

Epistemic needs are needs for finding satisfactory causal explanations for events and protecting cherished beliefs. It is helpful for some to believe that those who challenge their beliefs are involved in a conspiracy against them. This allows them to ignore challenges to cherished feelings and beliefs.

Existential needs are for safety and the illusion of being in control when so much seems overwhelming in life. This is why more people turn to conspiracies when they are feeling uncertain or threatened.

And finally, the article by Douglas, Sutton and Cichocka points out that people who have a deep need to maintain a positive image of themselves turn to conspiracies. They can attribute negative outcomes in their own lives and in the lives of their chosen groups to others; they are not to blame.

So the conspiracy mentality is, more than anything else, an expression of psychological needs by those who embrace them. But what does this mean for Jews? The danger I see is that what is usually called “antisemitism” (I prefer Pinsker’s term “Judeophobia”) is the deepest and most destructive conspiracy mentality in history. Judeophobia is more than a belief that Jews are bad; it is the belief that Jews secretly control society and are at the root of all the bad things that happen in society. Both Bari Weiss in How to Fight Anti-Semitism and Deborah Lipstadt in Antisemitism Here and Now explain that this animus toward Jews is fundamentally about seeing them as conspirators.

And herein lies the danger for Jews today. When the conspiracy mentality flourishes, Jews suffer, because sooner or later, Jews are identified as the source of the conspiracy. This has been true since Jews were accused of conspiring to kill Jesus, continued into the Middle Ages when the blood libel spread through the world, and has been sustained through the rise of Nazism, when Jews were accused of conspiring to keep Germany from becoming great again. And while conspiracies have been around in the US for a long time, belief in them was until recently relegated to fringe groups. Donald Trump has made them mainstream. His encouragement of the conspiracy mentality will end up hurting Jews, regardless of his support for Israel, because – in the end – Jews are always blamed.

We live in dangerous times. Judeophobia (or antisemitism) is rising. The rise of the conspiracy mentality is something that Jews need to watch with special care.

Solomon Dennis Stevens has a PhD in political science and has published two books and a number of scholarly articles.

https://ajn.timesofisrael.com/the-rise-of-conspiracy-mentality-in-the-us/

>>13183787

Opinion: Our four nations are committed to a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region

Opinion by Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga - March 14, 2021

Joe Biden is president of the United States. Narendra Modi is prime minister of India. Scott Morrison is prime minister of Australia. Yoshihide Suga is prime minister of Japan.

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In December 2004, the continental shelf off the coast of Indonesia shifted two meters, creating one of the largest tidal waves in modern history and a nearly unprecedented humanitarian crisis around the Indian Ocean. With millions displaced and hundreds of thousands killed, the Indo-Pacific region sounded a clarion call for help. Together, our four countries answered it.

Australia, India, Japan and the United States — a group of democratic nations dedicated to delivering results through practical cooperation — coordinated rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to people in need. Our cooperation, known as “the Quad,” was born in crisis. It became a diplomatic dialogue in 2007 and was reborn in 2017.

Now, in this new age of interconnection and opportunity throughout the Indo-Pacific, we are again summoned to act together in support of a region in need.

Since the tsunami, climate change has grown more perilous, new technologies have revolutionized our daily lives, geopolitics have become ever more complex, and a pandemic has devastated the world. Against this backdrop, we are recommitting to a shared vision for an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, resilient and inclusive. We are striving to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is accessible and dynamic, governed by international law and bedrock principles such as freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes, and that all countries are able to make their own political choices, free from coercion. In recent years, that vision has increasingly been tested. Those trials have only strengthened our resolve to reckon with the most urgent of global challenges together.

Our governments have worked closely for years, and Friday, for the first time in “Quad” history, we convened as leaders to advance meaningful cooperation at the highest level. To strengthen our quest for a region that is open and free, we have agreed to partner to address the challenges presented by new technologies and collaborate to set the norms and standards that govern the innovations of the future. It is clear that climate change is both a strategic priority and an urgent global challenge, including for the Indo-Pacific region. That’s why we will work together and with others to strengthen the Paris agreement, and enhance the climate actions of all nations. And with an unwavering commitment to the health and safety of our people, we are determined to end the covid-19 pandemic because no country will be safe so long as the pandemic continues.

(continued)

>>13228570

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The pandemic is among the greatest risks to health and economic stability in recent history, and we must work in partnership to stop it in its tracks. Now, we are launching an ambitious effort to help end covid-19. Together, we pledge to expand and accelerate production in India of safe, accessible and effective vaccines. We will partner at each stage to ensure that vaccines are administered throughout the Indo-Pacific region into 2022. We will combine our scientific ingenuity, financing, formidable productive capacity and long history of global-health partnership to surge the supply of life-saving vaccines, in close collaboration with multilateral organizations including the World Health Organization and Covax Facility. Our vaccine initiative will be guided by a Quad Vaccine Experts Working Group that brings together the sharpest scientific leaders from Australia, India, Japan and the United States to meet the region’s pressing needs. And though the pandemic prevents us from meeting in person, we will do so before the end of 2021. The promises we make today must translate into a healthier and more prosperous Indo-Pacific tomorrow.

We are proud to announce these bold steps — and eager to begin the work our countries must undertake to achieve them. Ending and recovering from the pandemic, standing up to climate change, and advancing our shared regional vision will not be easy. We know we cannot and will not succeed without coordination and cooperation. We will renew and strengthen our partnerships in Southeast Asia, starting with the Association for Southeast Asian Nations, work with the Pacific Islands, and engage the Indian Ocean region to meet this moment. The Quad is a flexible group of like-minded partners dedicated to advancing a common vision and to ensuring peace and prosperity. We welcome and will seek opportunities to work with all of those who share in those goals.

Over the course of these past months, each of us has grieved the suffering that our people and the world have endured. But in this dark hour, our partnership offers a spark of hope to light the path ahead. Our foundations of democracy and a commitment to engagement unite us. We know we can provide for the safety and prosperity of our people at home by confronting global crises together, with purpose and resolve. We summon from tragedy the strength and resilience to unify and overcome. And we recommit ourselves, once again, to an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, secure and prosperous.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/13/biden-modi-morrison-suga-quad-nations-indo-pacific/

>>13190664

Escaping a sex cult: How Australian women were enslaved in plain sight | Four Corners

ABC News In-depth

15 Mar 2021

Warning: This story contains descriptions of extreme violence and sexual abuse that may disturb some readers.

On an isolated property in regional Australia, a sex slave cult has been operating in plain sight.

A five-month long investigation by Four Corners has found the man running it has a long history of physically and sexually abusing women.

James Davis was living with six women he called his slaves until he was arrested and charged with slavery offences by the Australian Federal Police last week.

Now, women are speaking out in a bid to help them and encourage others to come forward.

Sexual assault support services:

1800 Respect national helpline: 1800 737 732

Lifeline (24-hour crisis line): 131 114

Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636

https://www.1800respect.org.au

https://www.lifeline.org.au

https://www.beyondblue.org.au

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFn3YRQ-puI

>>13190664

>>13228625

Former 'slave' speaks out about abusive sex cult being run from a rural property

Elise Worthington and Kyle Taylor - 15 March 2021

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By the time Felicity Bourke found herself locked in a metal cage wearing a stainless-steel slave collar, she felt she had no way to escape the control of James Davis, the man she had been trained to call "master".

Warning: This story contains descriptions of extreme violence and sexual abuse that may disturb some readers.

It came after months of psychological manipulation, coercive control and repeated physical and sexual violence perpetrated by Davis, a 40-year-old former Australian Army soldier.

Last week, Davis was arrested by Australian Federal Police officers and charged with slavery and servitude offences.

It can now be revealed that the AFP moved in on Davis after Four Corners and ABC Investigations provided information gathered during a five-month-long investigation.

Hundreds of photographs, videos and documents, along with information from more than two dozen women, paint a disturbing and dark picture of his violent behaviour.

Davis has a history of physically and sexually abusing women, particularly young, vulnerable teenagers who he has targeted through social media.

Until his arrest, Davis had been living with six women he calls his "slaves" on an isolated rural property in regional New South Wales. The women have previously said they chose to be with him of their own free will.

His former partner Felicity told those around her the same thing, even while she suffered years of extreme physical violence and sexual abuse at his hands.

"I've hidden it and been ashamed of it for so long," she told Four Corners.

"He's taken away all my rights as a person and my ability to live on my own. I was afraid he was going to kill me."

She believes sharing her story could encourage others to come forward.

"I always have thought about how those other girls feel and when you're in that position, all your power is taken away from you. It's really hard to get out," Felicity said.

"There is no other description, I think, that you could come up with that describes what he's got now [other than] as a cult."

Davis regularly told his followers on social media he was simply living an alternative lifestyle with multiple partners.

The women who have escaped his orbit tell a very different story.

Many described a cult-like environment controlled by Davis and a group of followers, who held drug and alcohol-fuelled sex parties around New South Wales where young women were pressured into sexual activity and subjected to physical violence.

Felicity explained it took her years to realise she was a victim because of the extent of the psychological manipulation she was subjected to.

Despite multiple complaints about Davis to state and federal authorities, he continued to act with impunity for years, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

Felicity now wants him to face justice.

"I know what he truly is. And he's a dangerous, dangerous man."

A template for abuse

Felicity Bourke was 21 when she moved from regional New South Wales to Sydney in 2012.

She was studying to become a police officer when she met Davis.

A decade older than Felicity, Davis was tall, heavily tattooed and physically intimidating. Her parents remember he was openly controlling, misogynistic and fixated on men's rights.

"When I actually met him I found him to be incredibly condescending, he was rude, he was attention-seeking," Felicity's mother Dianne Bourke recalled.

She said Davis wasn't hiding that he was controlling and in charge of Felicity.

"I remember saying to my husband, 'We're in really big trouble here. This guy is really dangerous.'"

(continued)

>>13235103

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Davis quickly moved to sever ties between Felicity and her family. He also began physically assaulting her.

"We were probably together about four months when I remember him punching me in the face in a street," Felicity said.

"And he was like, 'If I can do this here, where everyone can see, imagine what I can do to you at home.'

"It used to escalate quite quickly … when I had an opinion."

The physical violence was also accompanied by psychological manipulation.

Davis presented her with a contract to sign which pledged "submission and servitude" to him.

The abuse was explained to her by Davis as being part of a BDSM master/slave relationship.

BDSM is sexual activity that involves bondage, discipline or domination, sadism or submission.

She was told her beatings were "punishment" for "dropping out of slave headspace" or failing to follow his increasing list of demands which included cooking, cleaning and sex.

"My whole life with him was about controlling. It was about completely having a power over me," Felicity said.

"His whole goal, I think, was to have me as a slave.

"It's sickening."

Six months into the relationship, Davis began forcing Felicity to keep detailed daily journal entries for him.

The hundreds of pages handwritten between 2012 and 2015 outline the shocking extent of his abuse and coercive control.

"He could get into my head, he'd know everything about me," Felicity explained.

Diary entries show Felicity was repeatedly caned until she passed out from pain, was hit in the head multiple times, slapped and choked.

She was also physically restrained on several occasions.

"I've been chained to the dining room table, around my ankle. And he used to have a cage which used to be used as punishment."

Felicity said she thought the longest she was kept in the cage was three days.

Tattooed with a slave number

As well as abusing Felicity in private, Davis wanted visible symbols of his control and ownership of her for others to see.

She was told to wear a stainless-steel collar, and Davis arranged for her to get a tattoo of a "slave number" that had been assigned to her.

"He booked it in and took me in and chose the spot and got it on big, dark, thick, black letters down my inner thigh, kind of on my undie line."

"Very hard to cover up, very thick, very black, very noticeable, and it's eight or nine numbers."

She has since had it tattooed over.

Davis sought to control every aspect of Felicity's life. He told her what to wear, when she could eat and when she could use the bathroom. He monitored who she spoke to and controlled all the finances in the house.

He also instructed her to become a sex worker.

"I remember just being dressed up and walking in with him and him dropping me off. And then I was a sex worker. That was it. He just took me in and told me where I'd be working."

She said she gave Davis the money she earned.

Felicity's parents had no idea of the extent of the abuse she was enduring, but became so worried at one point that they discussed kidnapping her.

"I was begging for help," her mother Dianne said.

"It was very difficult because she was an adult, and she wasn't asking for help either."

After several attempts to leave the relationship, Felicity left Davis in 2015 after she found sexual photos of women and girls she believed to be 15 or 16 years old on his iPad.

"When I confronted him … he beat the living hell out of me. He locked me in a room for about 12 hours," Felicity said.

She was homeless for eight months after that.

"I felt like he was around every corner. I knew that in his eyes, at that point, I felt like his little prized possession, that he'd put so much and invested so much into me, that he was going to kill me," she said.

(continued)

>>13235106

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A trail of destruction

Before Felicity managed to escape his control, Davis had already been actively seeking out multiple new partners.

He built a following online, promoting himself as a BDSM "master" and a fetish photographer. He offered to help young women with modelling careers. He was also attending BDSM parties in Sydney.

Women in the BDSM scene warned newcomers to stay away from him. He was ultimately banned from events after multiple women complained he randomly physically assaulted them in front of other people.

One of the women told Four Corners Davis targeted teenagers.

"He would lure them in straight away at these gatherings," she said, but explained, "the problem is we never found out what happened. A lot of the time they just disappeared".

In 2015, Davis met a year 10 student from Sydney through a fetish website.

In a video posted online, she said their relationship started after Davis offered to take naked photos of her when she was 16.

Before her 17th birthday, she was also assigned a "slave number" like Felicity had been. She too started wearing a collar as a sign of his ownership over her.

Davis later boasted of attending the girl's high school speech night, and posted photos of her going to her school formal.

By that time, she was being advertised as a sex worker, available to be booked with other "slaves" who lived with Davis. Her escort profile highlighted she was a "teenage girl" still studying her HSC.

Davis was a prolific online writer, publishing dozens of lengthy posts on fetish websites describing his philosophy on "psychologically conditioning" his slaves "to be 100% dependant [sic]".

He wrote about finding women willing to be "subjected to the abuses and traumas of the Stockholm syndrome like [sic] effects of enslavement" and described a "death protocol" which involved passing the "ownership" of his slaves to other men if he should die.

Rick Ross has spent decades assisting survivors of brainwashing, as a cult expert and deprogrammer, and believes Davis is running an authoritarian, destructive cult.

"I think for him to say that this is just some kind of mutually consensual arrangement is negating the facts," he said.

Mr Ross told Four Corners destructive cults had three main characteristics.

"One is an all-powerful leader who becomes an object of worship, who is a virtual dictator over the members of the group," he said.

"The second characteristic is that there is an indoctrination process … that is used to gain undue influence over the members of the group.

"And then, finally, the third characteristic is that the leader uses undue influence to exploit and do harm to the members of the group or even to society at large."

He said it was rare for people in a cult to understand the level of control they were under.

"It's a terrible thing, but for the women that are caught up in that bubble that he controls, it's very hard for them to determine what the kind of reality is that they're living in," he said.

Davis sets up 'slave' house

By 2018, Davis had four women living with him whom he treated like slaves. He moved them from Sydney to a suburban house in the regional New South Wales city of Armidale.

Hundreds of kilometres from family and friends, he demanded control over almost every aspect of the women's lives.

Davis revealed on social media that the women were required to submit to him by calling him master, make journal entries daily, and ask for permission to eat and go to the bathroom.

"Cult leaders use such tactics as social isolation, control of communication, cutting people off from their family, their old friends, controlling their time, hour by hour, day by day. In a way they create a bubble," Mr Ross explained.

Each of the women participated in a number of elaborate ceremonies that were professionally photographed and shared online by Davis and his followers.

The women signed contracts of enslavement and had steel collars locked to their necks.

Most became engaged to Davis and were "married" to him in fake wedding ceremonies.

"What Davis is doing through all of these rituals and these events is constantly instilling in his targeted women the feeling that they must subordinate everything to him, to his system," Mr Ross said.

(continued)

>>13235109

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In late 2018, Davis recruited another teenage girl to join the so-called family.

She was a 17-year-old high school student from Sydney with a history of mental illness.

On the day after she got out of hospital, Davis moved her straight to Armidale against the wishes of her family, according to a former cult member who spoke to Four Corners.

Davis spoke about the young woman moving in with him on social media in 2019, describing it as a "try before you buy" situation.

By the time she turned 18, the teenager was also being advertised as a sex worker along with other women living with Davis. They travelled to Sydney and interstate on sex-work tours.

She later appeared in incest-themed sexual videos sold online by Davis.

Professor Felicity Gerry QC, a criminal barrister who specialises in sexual abuse and human trafficking, said modern slavery was not well understood and encompassed many forms of exploitation, including servitude.

"Where you might have women who enter into a relationship within a house that is subject to a contract that then very quickly go on to carry out some form of sex work, there may be a pattern of behaviour that is sufficient to support an accusation of slavery, servitude, trafficking, all types of coercion," she said.

"It's not a defence to consent to modern slavery or human trafficking. You can't agree to be a slave. You can't agree to be trafficked.

"Human trafficking, modern slavery can be very complex. You can have people who have no concept that they're being trafficked, they've been deceived into being trafficked. And they live in those circumstances for a very long time."

Davis used social media to promote his profile on a subscription pornography site where he posted videos of degrading sex acts and extreme violence involving the women who lived with him and others.

Sex worker advocate Lucy Price was shown some of the videos, as well as even more graphic content that wasn't shared publicly.

"I have been in the industry for a long time. I've seen a lot. I have never seen actually anything like this. It was actually so horrific that I still to this day, if I get a flashback of that, it's horrific," she said with a shudder.

"I've never even seen a grown man, even in a movie, punch someone with that severity, yet alone a young girl that he was having sex with. It was actually that extreme."

Ms Price was so worried she messaged one of the women living at the Armidale house.

She explained she had seen a disturbing video of Davis repeatedly punching a woman in the face.

One of the women living with Davis responded that everything he did was consensual.

"We ensure that each person has autonomous, enthusiastic and informed consent," she replied.

Ms Price was shocked at the response.

"Absolutely there's no way, no-one would consent to being smashed in the head that violently, to the point where your head is like jolted. I don't even know if she was even completely responsive," she said.

Davis was 'franchising' his abuse system to other men

Four Corners can also reveal Davis had a group of like-minded men who he was training to subjugate women.

The group used social media to recruit more female followers.

Cult expert Mr Ross said Davis appeared to be trying to "franchise" his sex cult.

"It seems to me that what Davis is doing is he's trying to organise and structure a group that you could see as a kind of pyramid scheme of authority, with him at the top," he said.

"So these men, I suspect, that he would train, would see him as a mentor and a leader. And it could be seen as a kind of franchising of his way of manipulating women, with him as the key leader at the top."

(continued)

>>13235111

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Davis's closest confidant and right-hand man was Joshua Clinch. He posted on social media about Davis's mentorship and boasted of his plans to set up his own slave house.

"Jimmy informed me the last time I saw him that my mentorship is coming to an end, which I take with a great deal of pride that he thinks I'm ready to branch out on my own, that he believes his mentorship with me is finished," he said.

"We're looking at expanding to a new house within Sydney, definitely not the inner west or anywhere like that. It's going to be somewhere a little bit cheaper."

Four Corners spoke to one woman Clinch tried to recruit to join a "chateau of submissive women in western Sydney" in late 2019.

Another young woman, 18-year-old Tiffany* from Sydney, was contacted by Clinch on social media.

Like many of those that Davis and his followers targeted, Tiffany was extremely vulnerable, struggling with a history of trauma and mental health issues.

"They followed me on Instagram, so I followed them back and I'm watching their posts. And they said they were in Sydney, so I said I'd go and meet up with them. I went to a bar… I kind of got sucked in."

Tiffany was quickly indoctrinated into the group's murky world of BDSM sex parties, drugs, alcohol and violence. She signed a contract to become Joshua Clinch's "submissive".

"The contract states that you… don't get a say in anything," she said.

"You're not allowed to do anything without asking permission first, even if you're at work, you have to ask, 'Oh, can I go to the bathroom?'

"I was just stuck and there was nothing I could do because I thought that, you know, if I left, there'd be consequences and they knew my family, so they could blackmail me."

She said she felt pressured into withstanding increasing levels of sexual violence.

Tiffany described being injured at one sex party held at Davis's Armidale house.

"There were some girls that, it was their first time as well. James [Davis] would force them to have oral sex with him. They were … hitting people," she said.

"Everyone was really, really drunk. I got hit really hard, right where my kidneys are. So it caused me to pee blood for a couple of days.

"You couldn't really say 'no' or 'stop' because the men were just adamant that, "No, no, we're OK.' Even as they do that."

Another woman told Four Corners at a different sex party that Davis repeatedly hit her so hard in the face during oral sex that she thought she was going to lose consciousness and had a black eye for over a week.

Tiffany worked as "staff" at other sex parties. At one, she was chained by the neck to one of Davis's slaves and was required to help blindfolded women who she said were shocked and distressed.

At the event, women were numbered with a thick black marker, blindfolded and led out to a room full of men.

"They would get a bunch of women … like 10 women … then they'd get about 20 guys that were all James's friends," Tiffany said.

"The women, were called by numbers. They didn't have names.

"They obviously didn't know who anyone was, they didn't know if protection was being used … they were told to just take it."

Like many of the women in the group, Tiffany was told to quit her job and become a sex worker.

Tiffany said Clinch would keep the money she earned from sex work in a safe, and she would have to ask to access it.

(continued)

>>13235114

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Cult moved to more isolated rural location

Earlier this year, Davis moved with his six partners to a more isolated rural location outside of Armidale.

He has spoken openly about his plans to have children with all of the women.

In recent weeks, he shared photos of the women on a property with farm animals and a photo of the youngest woman aiming a rifle.

"When a leader begins to lean towards gathering weapons and stockpiling weapons, there is this sense of 'well, what is he planning?' Is he planning to weaponise his followers to do whatever he wants to retaliate against whoever he targets? That's the concern," said Mr Ross.

"The trajectory of a situation like this is ominous. I mean, he has the power virtually of life and death over these women. He has broken them down to where they have no will of their own, and where they've subordinated everything to him. And so whatever madness consumes him will ultimately affect them."

Davis appeared confident he had nothing to fear from the law.

In a video posted to social media, he said: "We don't break the law. A lot of people may not like things that we do. People might think that things we do are wrong or immoral towards their own moral code. But we don't break the law. We try and stay on the right side of the law. Therefore, go to the police, what do you want?"

Mr Ross said in many cases it took a survivor to go public before cults could be stopped.

"By going public, you may bring the authorities into the picture where they say, 'Look, he has committed some crimes that we could investigate and we will investigate because this has become a public concern,'" he said.

Four Corners prompted AFP investigation into Davis

Four Corners has learned numerous reports about Davis have been made to state and federal authorities over several years.

When the program approached NSW Police and the AFP last month, both said they were not investigating Davis.

The AFP's human trafficking unit has since launched an investigation based on information provided to it by Four Corners.

AFP Detective Superintendent Paula Hudson said one of the key challenges for police when investigating and prosecuting human trafficking and slavery offences was that often the victims did not recognise at the time that they were under those conditions.

"Without having the victim, we are unable to most often than not have a prosecution take place," she said.

"We are appealing for members of the Australian community to come forward. Potential victims, witnesses, anybody that is impacted by human trafficking and slavery, and in particular with this matter, please come forward to the AFP.

"We are here to help. There is a way out of these terrible situations. The AFP has dedicated investigators in this unit, who are specialised, they are compassionate, and they will deal with your matter with your wellbeing first and foremost."

Felicity is still struggling from the years of violent abuse she suffered at Davis's hands.

She wants to see him brought to justice.

"He is not the ultimate, he's not a god, he cannot walk through this life doing as he pleases to women and getting away with it," she said.

"I think having the opportunity to be able to talk about my experiences could potentially help other girls in that situation to be able to escape."

Police arrested Davis last week after he left his rural property to go to a hardware store with the youngest woman who lived with him.

Davis has been charged with slavery and servitude offences that police allege occurred between 2013 and 2015.

He did not apply for bail.

Superintendent Hudson has issued a plea to the broader public.

"Look a little deeper, look in your communities, your neighbourhoods, your backyards, for the signs of human trafficking, and slavery. It is very much an unseen crime, or hidden in plain sight."

If you are a victim of trafficking or know someone who is contact the AFP on 131AFP (131237) or email NOSSC-Client-Liaison@afp.gov.au

https://forms.afp.gov.au/online_forms/human_trafficking_form

You can also contact the Red Cross Support for Trafficked People Program on 03 9345 1800

https://www.redcross.org.au/get-help/help-for-migrants-in-transition/trafficked-people

Watch the full investigation on Four Corners on ABC iview.

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners

https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2103H007S00

*Name changed for privacy

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-15/four-corners-felicity-bourke-speaks-out-about-cult-master/13230546

https://qanon.pub/#925

>>13190664

AFP calls for more people to come forward after James Davis charged with slavery offences

Tim Swanston - 16 March 2021

Australian Federal Police (AFP) hope more complainants come forward after a NSW man was charged with slavery and sexual servitude offences.

James Robert Davis, 40, is facing three charges — reducing a person to slavery, possessing a slave and causing a person to enter into or remain in servitude.

He was arrested on Thursday, March 11 outside a hardware store in the NSW city of Armidale.

The AFP will allege Mr Davis manipulated a woman between 2012 to 2015 for a "cult" like purpose.

She was then allegedly subjected to ongoing physical, sexual and psychological abuse and degradation.

Police will also allege the woman engaged in prostitution under Mr Davis's coercive control and she was not paid for her involvement.

The AFP's Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough said the woman was "coerced, manipulated and threatened to be involved in a bondage lifestyle".

"She was in slave-like conditions," she said.

"There were aspects of possession, a slavery contract and there were aspects of a slave collar and a slave tattoo.

"She was threatened with physical abuse and threats of death if she left that circumstance."

Investigators said that Mr Davis refers to himself as the patriarch of a group known as the "House of Cadifor".

More than 50 AFP investigators and specialists searched his property last week, about 30 kilometres from Armidale, for 15 hours.

Police said he was living there with six women, who had signed "slavery contracts".

"During the search a number of documents, phones, camera, computers and other material was seized and that material is undergoing forensic analysis," Assistant Commissioner Gough said.

Mr Davis is due in Armidale Local Court tomorrow.

"For those people who do know something about this particular case, whether they are victims, witnesses or have information, we encourage members of the community to report to the AFP," Assistant Commissioner Gough said.

"I do hope that more complainants do come forward in relation to this matter.

"There is concern that these are offences that do take place in plain sight."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-16/afp-call-out-nsw-james-davis-alleged-sex-slave-charges/100013332

https://www.9news.com.au/videos/national/james-davis-ex-soldier-allegedly-forced-sex-slave-into-prostitution/ckmb9g2f900010qk9ilcehmpg

>>13190664

Cops ‘warned about alleged sex-slave ring’

STEVE JACKSON - MARCH 17, 2021

A former member of an allegedly abusive “sex-slave” ring says she warned police two years ago that the group’s leader was grooming teenage girls and coercing them to engage in sex acts with each other as he recorded the encounters for his own gratification.

The woman claimed the leader, James Robert Davis, was obsessed with “curating” perfect women; subjecting the group’s female members to rigorous exercise sessions to keep them in shape; and instructing them to address him as “Master, Daddy or Sir”.

The woman, whom The Australian has agreed not to identify given her young age at the time of her involvement, said she met with officers at Blacktown Police Station in 2019 and outlined several serious allegations regarding Mr Davis but broke down before she was able to give a full statement.

She said she had suffered from post-traumatic stress since leaving the group but said other members seemed content to let the 40-year-old leader control their lives — and revealed one of his “slaves” had last week celebrated sharing the news she was expecting a baby with him in September.

The pregnancy announcement came one day before Australian Federal Police arrested Mr Davis outside a hardware store in Armidale, six hours’ north of Sydney, and charged him with reducing a person to slavery, possessing a slave and causing a person to enter into or remain in servitude.

AFP Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough said the alleged offences related to a woman who had endured “very, very severe physical, sexual and psychological abuse on a daily basis” while living with Mr Davis in Sydney between 2012 and 2015.

She alleged the woman was “coerced, manipulated and threatened to be involved in a bondage lifestyle” and forced to work as a prostitute after she agreed to sign a “slavery contract”.

“There were aspects of possession, a slavery contract and there were aspects of a slave collar and a slave tattoo,” she alleged. “She was forced into prostitution with no pay; she was threatened with physical abuse and threats of death if she left.”

It is alleged Mr Davis had been living with six women on a property at Yarrowyck, 30km west of Armidale, at the time of his arrest.

AFP agents waited until the former Australian Army soldier went into town last Thursday before swooping on him. More than 50 AFP investigators have since combed the property for evidence.

Phones, a camera, computers and other material seized during the operation were undergoing forensic analysis, while Ms Gough called for anyone with further information about the alleged sex ring to come forward.

The woman who spoke to The Australian said she would be willing to give evidence regarding her time in the group if required and make herself available to the AFP to assist with their inquiries.

She said she was 16 and at her most vulnerable when she met Mr Davis — two decades her senior — at a house party in suburban Sydney and fell under his sway.

“I met James in 2015 and he asked to take photos of me which started off innocent enough — me fully clothed and posing at the party — just like a party photographer,” the now 22-year-old said. “We live in a world where we are taught to trust the military and that they’ll protect us and perhaps it’s naive but I thought that meant he was someone I should trust.

“Then he introduced me to one of his partners and asked if he could take some photos of us together. We all exchanged contact details and then he was inviting me over to his house for ‘photoshoots’.

“Next thing I know I’m at his house and he is asking if he can tie me up and take photos. He took photos of me while (one member performed a sex act with me) and then he has sex with me while he gets his girlfriends to take photos.

“I was 16, he was 35 and I consented to sex but I didn’t consent to the photos. He would have me in vulnerable sexual positions and have his girlfriends take photos against my wishes.”

She said she remained an extended member of the group for just over a year, and claimed that female “slaves” were forced to obey Mr Davis’s every whim.

“He forces them to do labour as well,” she alleged. “The slaves built the cabins on his property. He even controls their diet and exercise … and the slaves have enforced gym routines.

“He believes he is pushing them all to be the best a woman can be … but he’s really just moulding women to his ideals.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/cops-warned-about-alleged-sexslave-ring/news-story/8d5b299a48e0f6ec10434bd75827a1d0

>>13190540

Australian media launches false spy accusations against Chinese business man; expatriates from the mainland at risk in the country: analysts

Global Times - Mar 15, 2021

Under the frenzied anti-China atmosphere in Australia, expatriates from the Chinese mainland have become targets of Australian media and intelligent agencies and have suffered from repeated defamation, discrimination and accusation. Recently, an average businessman from the mainland working in Australia was accused of being a spy engaged in interference activities based on groundless speculations and distorted facts.

Analysts pointed out that the case is a warning that any expatriate from the Chinese mainland is likely at risk in Australia, especially those who hope to keep a good relationship with China and joined activities organized by Chinese consulates. Such people could be targeted by the Australian government and intelligence agency with malicious accusations, analysts warned.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday reiterated accusations against Liu Huifeng, a businessman and president of the Australian Emergency Assistance Association (AEAAI), a non-governmental voluntary association that provides safety assistance and protection to local Chinese in Australia, "had engaged, and was at risk of engaging, in activities which constituted 'acts of foreign interference'."

ABC also reported that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) claimed the AEAAI is an official consular protection assistance agency of China's Melbourne Consulate.

Oddly, the ABC had lambasted Liu's case as early as January this year. On January 4, the ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald published stories regarding Liu's visa refusal in September 2020.

China's Consulate-General in Melbourne refuted the media reports on January 4.

The Australian media have made distorted reports on the regular cooperation between the consulate and non-government volunteer organizations, claiming that the consulate provided financial support to some organizations, and hinting that the consulate interfered in Australian internal affairs. "Such reports are seriously inconsistent with the facts," said the Chinese consulate general.

In recent years, with the increasing number of Chinese nationals visiting Australia, the cases of missing, telephone scams, injured and death also increased, as well as rising racial attacks since COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The consulate, according to international practice and Australian laws and regulations, carried out cooperation with local volunteer organizations registered in accordance with the law, to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese nationals, the consulate general noted.

"We did not, do not and will not interfere in the internal affairs of any country, nor do we accept any groundless accusations against China," it said.

The Chinese consulate general urged the Australian media to respect the truth and stop deliberately smearing the consulate general and the Chinese government.

Liu said on AEAAI's WeChat account on January 8 that the stories, which implied that his visa refusal was caused by Australia and China tensions and that Liu and the association behaved as pawns of the Chinese Consulate General in Melbourne, are not true. Liu said he and the association never had any links with political parties, nor did they receive any funds or financial support from the consulate.

According to Liu's statement, his lawyers have sent a complaint note to the ABC legal department and other media outlets regarding the way the news was portrayed, saying the comments reported in the stories were not verified by him. ABC has rectified some issues with an editor's note but other imputations are still under negotiation, Liu noted.

Liu said he donated 20,000 Australian dollars through public channels to attend a public dinner event organized by officials of the Australian government and attended another public event organized by the Governor of New South Wales, with a cost of 1,125 Australian dollars per seat.

The donation allowed him to obtain a seat at events to promote his products, Liu said.

He was extremely shocked to see the story from ABC news indicating these were from foreign political power intending to influence Australian political party.

Analysts warned that, as Australia's crazy anti-china policy escalated in recent years, Chinese expatriates from the mainland have become targets of the Australian media and intelligent agencies.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1218360.shtml

>>13183787

‘Just not going to happen’: US warns China over Australian trade stoush

Peter Hartcher - March 16, 2021

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The US will not grant China any improvement in relations until Beijing stops its economic coercion of Australia, a senior White House official said.

The administration of President Joe Biden has told the Chinese government that “we are not going to leave Australia alone on the field”, according to the President’s Indo-Pacific co-ordinator, Kurt Campbell.

“We have made clear that the US is not prepared to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in the first interview a senior Biden official has given to any Australian media.

Dr Campbell is often described as Mr Biden’s “Asia tsar”. His appointment was hailed as super-charging the US effort to gather allies to confront an increasingly aggressive China. He served as the top Asia official for Hillary Clinton when she was Barack Obama’s secretary of state. He crafted the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia and served in the Pentagon under president Bill Clinton.

He said Mr Biden had given his commitment personally to Australia’s leader, Scott Morrison, during the video-link summit of the Quad countries last Saturday (AEDT).

“President Biden was very direct with Prime Minister Morrison that we stood together on this,” said Dr Campbell, the architect of the summit, who was in the room with Mr Biden during the meeting.

“So we’ve indicated both to Australia and China at the highest levels that we are fully aware of what’s going on and we are not prepared to take substantial steps to improve relations until those policies are addressed and a more normal interplay between Canberra and Beijing is established.”

It is the first known intervention of any nation to take substantive steps in support of Australia in its confrontation with Beijing.

The regime of President Xi Jinping has applied trade bans and tariffs on at least $20 billion worth of Australian exports to China.

As recently as last week, China’s embassy in Canberra threatened that “China-Australia relations will only sustain further damage” after Australia granted a visa to a Hong Kong pro-democracy politician, Ted Hui Chi-fung.

“It’s almost an obvious statement of the role of allies and the importance of Australia that we are not going to leave Australia alone on the field,” said Dr Campbell.

“It’s just not going to happen. I want to underscore this – that reality should not come as a surprise. This matter has been raised in every meeting [with Chinese officials] and it will be underscored in interactions in Anchorage later this week,” when the US secretaries of state and defence are scheduled to meet their Chinese counterparts in the first major face-to-face contact between the Biden administration and Beijing.

“That, in and of itself, is a substantial step,” Dr Campbell said. He added that US economic officials would be discussing further options with Australian and other counterparts.

(continued)

>>13241520

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“I think there are other steps that economic officials will explore. It’s not simply Australia that has been the target of these undeclared kind of steps – we’ve seen it in the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and others. This is a shared concern and one that I think is worthy of further dialogue.”

Mr Biden has kept in place all the punitive tariffs and other sanctions that his predecessor Donald Trump applied to China. He said in December that he would consult with US allies in Asia and Europe before making any decision on the China sanctions “so we can develop a coherent strategy”.

The Biden administration’s approach is fundamentally different to the Trump administration’s. The US under Mr Trump did not take account of its allies’ priorities in its trade and other dealings with the Chinese government.

Mr Biden has a “much closer focus on working with allies, not alienating them or threatening them or extorting host nation support [for US troops] or suggesting we’re going to pull forces out of the region, much more seeing allies as force multipliers,” Dr Campbell said.

The executive director of the Lowy Institute, Michael Fullilove, has described Dr Campbell as “Mr Australia” in Washington, noting he had been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia and was a friend to recent prime ministers, including Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull. He also described him as Washington DC’s pre-eminent Asian policy specialist.

The inaugural summit of the Quad leaders – Mr Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr Morrison – agreed to finance, manufacture and distribute an extra 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to needy nations of south-east Asia by the end of 2022.

“The grouping is meant to send a signal about our system of government” – all four Quad nations are democracies – “and our ultimate optimism to be able to deal with challenges”, Dr Campbell explained. The leaders also set up working groups on other areas and agreed to meet in person by the end of the year.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/just-not-going-to-happen-us-warns-china-over-australian-trade-stoush-20210316-p57b4l.html

>>13241520

Campbell’s remarks push Australia further to the anti-China frontline

Chen Hong - Mar 17, 2021

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In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, US Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell made the outright extortive threat that the US would not agree to improve its relations with China until Beijing stops its "economic coercion" of Australia.

Campbell's remarks are ridiculously detached from the reality of the diplomatic relationship among China, the US and Australia. No one can deny the fact that it is because of the Canberra government's incessant recklessness to senselessly agitate an all-round attack on China at the bid from Washington that has ceaselessly poisoned its comprehensive strategic partnership with China. What Australia has been espousing is the US strategy to contain, deter and crush China, rather than acting in the best interest of its own. Campbell apparently misplaced the horse before the cart, ignoring Washington's role which has goaded Canberra to plummet its relations with China into the present abyss.

China never uses economic means as a leverage for any political purposes. No condition had been attached when China imposed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on some of the exports from Australia, or suspended imports of certain Australian products due to bio-safety or environmental concerns. No responsible and self respecting sovereign government would succumb to outside intimidations to forsake its legitimate right to protect its economy and the well being of its citizens.

On the other hand, Australia has been priding itself to serve as Washington's deputy sheriff, acting as a fervent vanguard on the US anti-China chariot. Indeed, Australia had followed Trump and his team to launch a series of ferocious attacks on China. It has been fabricating the groundless conspiracy theory to frame China as threatening Australia's national security by influencing Australia's politics. The imposition of a blanket ban on Huawei serves the US strategy to curb China's technological leap forward. And what is more insidious is the Morrison government's proposal, in echo of Trump's blame-shifting tactics, of a so-called "independent inquiry" into the origin and spread the coronavirus, camouflaged as an innocuous scientific investigation but in essence connived to malevolently inflict responsibility for the pandemic on China.

It is the US ploy to manipulate Canberra, exploiting its reliance on the US alliance to lure it to act as a panda-bashing bludgeon. Australia has sacrificed its own national interest and dignity to serve the Trump administration's "America First" doctrine. Quite a number of unsuspecting Australians have been inveigled to believe that China poses as a menace, and the United States is bound to salvage them. That is why Australia from time to time defies common sense to enthusiastically play an active role in the US' anti-China strategy, bizarrely believing that China, its biggest trade partner, is a risk to its security domestically and in the Asia-Pacific region.

What Joe Biden inherited from the Trump administration is not only a messy US-China relations, but an even worse scenario in the Pacific that Australia's relations with China is undergoing an unprecedented freefall. Biden opts for an "allies first" policy, claiming that "America is back". As the US is still embroiled in a mesh of domestic political, economic and social difficulties, the new government relies more than ever before on the contributions and engagement of its allies on the international arena. No wonder Campbell cajoled the Australian news outlet that the US is not going to "leave Australia alone on the field."

(continued)

>>13241531

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There is a seemingly re-emphasis on the strong and tight alliance between the US and Australia, but underneath the sweet-talk, anyone could make out Campbell's genuine purpose, which is to keep Australia within the US' anti-China circle and act with more dedication.

In fact Campbell's remarks are shoving Australia further onto the very frontline of the US anti-China campaign.

Apart from reassuring one of the most loyal US allies in the Indo-Pacific region, the timing of this statement also seems interesting. This Thursday, China's top diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Alaska. It seems the US side is playing the "Australia card" to compel for more bargaining space. Australia is being propelled onto a path of no return, as a pathetic pawn in Washington's power game, while China is being accused of "economically coercive." There is a quintessential wickedness in this ruse to allegorically "strike two birds with one piece of stone"

The Sydney Morning Herald says Campbell's remark "is the first known intervention of any nation to take substantive steps in support of Australia in its confrontation with Beijing." Statesmen in Canberra must be either tone deaf or very gullible if they should really believe this rhetoric. There is no substance in Campbell's empty promises; he was merely paying lip service without any substantive measures at all.

Or in fact Canberra might not be so thoughtless, unable to understand the real intent of Campbell as it appears. The politicians of Down Under might simply be pretending to have taken Washington's bait, and play along with the US to try to appeal to the anti-China sentiments that is being stoked up by the China hawks. The ultimate goal is not to serve Australia's national interest, but to reap in partisan profits, in particular with the prospect of an imminent election later this year.

It is to our regret that Australia has not sensibly appraised the gains and losses of its current aggressive policies towards China over the past four years. Former foreign minister Julie Bishop, for example, made tough statements about China during her tenure, but she has instead become more clearheaded after leaving her post. On Monday, during a webinar organized by the Australian National University, Bishop called on the Australian government not to engage in unnecessary tit-for-tat exchanges with the Chinese officials. At the same time, former prime minister Kevin Rudd said that the deterioration in the China-Australia relationship was at least partly due to Australia being one of the US' closest allies, which receives bipartisan support in Canberra. Unfortunately, to date, such lucid and judicious voices still cannot override the anti-China cacophony in Australia.

The author is a professor and director of the Australian Studies Centre, East China Normal University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1218610.shtml

>>13241520

Britain aligns with Australia against China

GREG SHERIDAN - MARCH 17, 2021

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pivoting his government towards the Indo-Pacific, which he is due to call “the geo­political centre of the world” in a major policy speech in London overnight.

It comes as the British government has recognised the threat that Chinese international assertiveness and militarisation pose to the UK’s national interests.

A British pivot to the Indo-­Pacific means London will put more emphasis on Asia in trade and security. It may well seek to join the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, and it will seek greater investment — both inward and outward — from Asia.

After COVID, Asian economies have a much higher growth rate than European economies. And now, having left the EU, Britain will want to tie itself to that higher growth.

Canberra will regard this as good news because the two Five Eyes partners have very closely aligned world views. Of all the European nations, Britain has the most global outlook and the widest global interests. Pivoting to Asia is a key part of Mr Johnson’s post-Brexit vision for Britain.

His government will act to ­restrict foreign investment that could compromise national security in critical infrastructure. It will also act to make sure that sensitive sites, such as military and communications bases, are safeguarded from espionage or technical penetration.

Like Australia, Britain will take increased measures to ensure the security of its critical domestic infrastructure such as energy and transport networks.

Mr Johnson is launching the report of a wide-ranging inte­grated review of security, defence, ­development and foreign policy, entitled Global Britain in a Competitive Age

He will announce the establishment of a White House-style Situation Centre — mimicking the Americans’ famed Situation Room — in the Cabinet Office to co-ordinate all tools of government in an emergency, as well as a new Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre.

The review predicts that a terrorist attack involving a “dirty bomb” is likely before 2030.

The review specifically recognises China as “the biggest state-based threat” to Britain’s economic security.

It labels Beijing “a systemic challenge” to British prosperity and values, echoing similarly strong language in a recent European Union document.

It also says that China’s increased militarisation and assertiveness in the Pacific will pose “increasing risks to UK interests”.

In his speech, Mr Johnson is not expected to call out China by name. But, according to British press reports, he talks of new ­powers that are “using all the tools at their disposal to redefine the international order, and in some cases undermine the open and liberal international system”.

He will specifically commit his government to a “tilt to the Indo-Pacific” and offer as evidence of his commitment the voyage of the new Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to the ­Pacific this year, where it will exercise with US and Japanese ships, as well as his planned visit to India in April, his first overseas trip since Britain left the EU.

(continued)

>>13241570

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Mr Johnson’s speech, and his government’s integrated review, demonstrate a growing alignment of views on China between Canberra and London.

Britain banned Chinese telco giant Huawei from participation in its 5G network, following pressure from Washington, and after consultations with Canberra. Mr Johnson’s government has also criticised China over the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and human rights abuses against the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

A further sign of a growing Five Eyes closeness on China came in comments from Kurt Campbell, the senior Asia director at the National Security Council in President Joe Biden’s administration, who said Washington would not allow any improvement in its bilateral relationship with China until Beijing ended its trade bullying of Australia.

Dr Campbell is reported to have said that Mr Biden had told Scott Morrison, during their four way Quadrilateral Dialogue at the weekend: “We are not prepared to take substantial steps to improve relations (with Beijing) … until a more normal interplay between Canberra and Beijing is established.”

Dr Campbell stressed that the US would not leave Australia alone on the field.

Nonetheless, Mr Johnson’s integrated review illustrates the difficulty facing allied governments in working out a coherent policy towards China. While it recognises Beijing’s growing militarisation and assertiveness as the biggest threat to British interests, at the same time it says Britain will seek an enhanced commercial relationship and greater two-way investment with Beijing.

Formerly, this was a dilemma mainly faced by other Asian ­nations. Now, with the size of China’s economy — about 70 per cent the size of the US — and its growing global reach, European nations and others in diverse parts of the world face the same dichotomy: security threat versus economic opportunity.

This dilemma is even more acute when the urgency of tackling global issues is added.

The British review also notes that “China is an increasingly important partner in tackling global challenges like pandemic preparedness, biodiversity and climate change”.

Mr Johnson identifies the Indo-Pacific as “increasingly the geopolitical centre of the world”.

His review will also see the British increase their Trident nuclear warheads from 180 to 260.

Mr Johnson’s opinions are closely allied with the Prime Minister’s, and they share a similar view on many issues.

However, the British Prime Minister is also committed to ensuring that “tackling climate change and preserving biodiversity is the UK’s No 1 priority in the decade ahead”. That could be troublesome for Mr Morrison.

This will be a big year for British foreign policy leadership. In June, Mr Johnson hosts the G7 summit and has invited Mr Morrison to attend as a guest, along with the Prime Minister of India and the President of South Korea.

And then in November, in Glasgow, he will host the UN’s COP 26 climate change summit.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/uk-aligns-with-australia-against-china/news-story/ab6269ccec5f65fb0cbe8a0f34306c0c

>>13184887

Is this Q? Documentary claims Ron Watkins could be QAnon leader

Lucy Quaggin - 17 March 2021

While right-wing conspiracy group QAnon is certainly a hot topic of the modern-day discourse, little is known about who is pulling the strings.

The influential - but often discredited - internet underbelly has made headlines for their often bizarre theories.

So, who exactly is at the helm of it all?

A new six-part HBO documentary called ‘Q: Into the Storm’ is setting out to identify who the group’s leader Q actually is.

In the trailer, they tease that Q could be a man named Ron Watkins, who isn’t exactly an unknown government official.

If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because his dad is 8chan owner Jim Watkins.

Ron himself was the former administrator of 8chan.

Both appear to be flagged as potential leaders of the group, despite their previous denial of being Q, according to The Independent.

“You’re going through a possible list of who Q might be,” Ron said in the trailer.

“That’s right. You’re on the list,” filmmaker Cullen Hoback responds.

“Well let’s continue then,” Ron says.

“Spanning three years in the making and traversing the globe, the series follows filmmaker Cullen Hoback on a labyrinthine journey to uncover the forces behind QAnon,” HBO said.

It explores the “movement fueled by conspiracy theories that has grown in scope and political significance, chronicling its evolution in real-time and revealing how “Q” uses information warfare to game the internet, hijack politics and manipulate people’s thinking”.

What is QAnon?

For those who don’t know who QAnon is, they are responsible for a lot of the wild conspiracies you see on the internet.

“Since its origin three years ago, QAnon has festered in the darker corners of the internet,” CNN said in 2020.

“QAnon began as a single conspiracy theory.

“But its followers now act more like a virtual cult, largely adoring and believing whatever disinformation the conspiracy community spins up.

“Its main conspiracy theories claim dozens of politicians and A-list celebrities work in tandem with governments around the globe to engage in child sex abuse.”

They also falsely claimed that 5G spread coronavirus and there was a “deep state” effort to annihilate then US President Donald Trump.

Supporters were amongst those that stormed Washington during the January 6 Capitol riots.

Q is thought to have started the group, posting the initial conspiracy theory and subsequent other posts, that followers call ‘Q Drops’.

These are posted to 8chan whose original creator Frederik Brennan, who also features in the documentary, accuses the Watkins family of having links to Q.

Brennan left 8chan after it was revealed mass shooters were continuing to use the message board, The Independent reports.

The platform has now rebranded and goes by the name 8kun.

Previously believers have claimed Q is knowledgeable because of allegations they had security clearance within US Government.

https://7news.com.au/technology/is-this-q-documentary-claims-ron-watkins-could-be-qanon-leader-c-2371337

>>13184887

>>13241592

Leader of QAnon conspiracy group unmasked, new documentary claims

‘Q’ – the mysterious leader of the bizarre QAnon conspiracy movement – has been unmasked, a new documentary claims.

Natalie Brown - MARCH 17, 2021

“Q”, the mysterious leader of the bizarre QAnon conspiracy movement, has been unmasked, a new six-part documentary series has claimed.

A haven for conservative conspiracy theorists, the fringe movement originated in October 2017 on internet chat forum, 4Chan, when an anonymous poster, under the pseudonym of ‘Q’, began sharing what appeared to be highly-classified information about the US government.

In the years since, the group has embraced everything from baseless associations linking 5G to health risks to the central belief that the world is controlled by a group of anti-Trump elites.

Accusation of a child sex-trafficking ring has also been thrown into the mix, as has inferences of cannibalism.

QAnon supporters were also among those who stormed the nation’s Capitol on January 6.

Now, the makers of HBO’s Q: Into the Storm have concluded that the man in control is not a high-ranking government official of the former Trump administration, but Ron Watkins – the longtime administrator of the group’s online home, 8kun.

The online message board is where Q was believed to post “QDrops” with coded warnings and premonitions about the coming “storm” that would unmask the Deep State and lead to the arrest, trial and execution of alleged liberal criminals.

In the trailer of the series, Watkins – whose father, Jim Watkins, owns and operates the website – asks filmmaker Cullen Hoback, “You’re going through a possible list of who Q might be?”

“That’s right. You’re on the list,” Hoback responds.

“Well, let’s continue then,” Watkins says.

Watkins, seen by experts as being instrumental in the perpetuation of QAnon’s many conspiracies, has previously denied being behind the movement, announcing on the same day as the US election last year that he would step down as administrator of the site.

Now living in Japan, he told VICE News last December he was stepping away because he “fell in love with woodworking and plan on focusing all my efforts into mastering it. Also want to finish a book I’m writing about constitutional law.”

In the same article, VICE pointed out that “since Watkins announced his departure from 8kun, Q has virtually disappeared, posting just four relatively generic updates since the Election Day post” – another nod to the fact he could be behind the entire movement.

QAnon activity “exploded” during the COVID-19 pandemic, when posts on Facebook and Twitter tripled, according to reports.

Writing for The Conversation last year, Marc-André Argentino said the group believed the pandemic to be a “cover for the Trump administration’s secret plan to arrest Deep State agents”.

And while the shocking attack on the US Capitol earlier this year and the inauguration of Joe Biden “did cause a minority of QAnon followers to simply walk away or drop off and realise they’d been duped”, researcher of extremism and longtime observer of QAnon, Travis View told the ABC that the “majority … still continue to double down”.

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/leader-of-qanon-conspiracy-group-unmasked-new-documentary-claims/news-story/6eb7c3908595313fce6e070692f7eb5e

>>13241520

Beijing blames Australia’s ‘wrong words and deeds’ for trade war after US rebuke

Eryk Bagshaw - March 17, 2021

China has laid the blame back on Australia for the deteriorating relationship between the two countries, dismissing the concerns of the US Indo-Pacific chief ahead of the first meeting between the two superpowers in Alaska.

Responding to comments by President Joe Biden’s top aide in the region, Kurt Campbell, China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry on Monday said that it was not responsible for the breakdown in communication between the two countries after more than a year of trade strikes on $20 billion worth of exports.

“The root cause of the current difficulties in bilateral relations is Australia’s wrong words and deeds on issues concerning China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, which have undermined the foundation of mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries,” said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

“The Australian side knows the ins and outs better than anyone else.”

The comments from China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday night are an early sign that Beijing will attempt to separate the dispute with Australia from the foreign affairs and national security dialogue with the United States in Anchorage on Thursday.

Campbell on Tuesday told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the US was “not going to leave Australia alone on the field”. He said the Biden administration would make it clear to Beijing that the US was not prepared to improve bilateral relations with China “at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion”.

In a significant change in tone in how Beijing views the evolving relationship with Washington after President Biden’s election win, Zhao said he hoped “the two sides can have candid talks on issues of common concern”.

“The two sides should respect and treat each other as equals, enhance mutual understanding through dialogue, manage and dissolve differences and bring China-US relations back to the right track,” he said.

The world’s two largest economies have faced their own period of heightened geopolitical turbulence after the Trump administration accused China of intellectual property theft, imposed tariffs on more than $US360 billion in Chinese goods, made unsubstantiated claims of China spreading the coronavirus from a Wuhan lab and condemned human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Australia’s relationship with Beijing has spiralled since 2018 after the Turnbull government blocked telecommunications provider Huawei from the 5G network over national security concerns. That decision along with foreign interference legislation, restrictions on multi-billion dollar business deals, independent media criticism of China’s policies and funding for think-tank research features prominently on a list of 14 grievances delivered by the Chinese embassy to the media in November.

The list followed trade restrictions on Australian seafood, coal, wine and half-a-dozen other exports throughout 2020.

Campbell’s comments came three days after the first Quad leader-level discussions between the US, India, Japan and Australia and as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Minister Lloyd Austin make their first overseas trip to the region.

Austin on Tuesday night labelled China a “pacing threat” for the United States as its military and economy grows in tandem.

“For the last two decades…while we were focused on issues in the Middle East, China has modernised its military,” he said in Tokyo.

“In addition to that, it has engaged in aggressive and in some cases coercive behaviour, and some of that behaviour has been directed against our allies in the region. Our goal is to make sure that we maintain a competitive edge over China or anyone else that would want to threaten us or our alliance.”

Foreign Minister Marise Payne was contacted for comment.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/after-us-pledge-on-china-coercion-beijing-lays-blame-back-on-australian-government-20210317-p57be1.html

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Transcript - Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press Conference on March 16, 2021

Bloomberg: A Biden aid has said that China-US ties will not improve until Beijing stops economic coercion of Australia. Does the foreign ministry have a comment on it?

Zhao Lijian: China and the United States will hold a high-level strategic dialogue in the coming days. The two sides are still in discussion on the specific agenda. We hope that building on the spirit of the phone conversation of the two heads of state on the eve of the Chinese lunar new year, the two sides can have candid talks on issues of common concern. China will make its position clear on relevant issues during the dialogue. The two sides should respect and treat each other as equals, enhance mutual understanding through dialogue, manage and dissolve differences and bring China-US relations back to the right track.

The Chinese side has stated on many occasions its views on China-Australia relations. The root cause of the current difficulties in bilateral relations is Australia's wrong words and deeds on issues concerning China's sovereignty, security and development interests, which have undermined the foundation of mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries. The Australian side knows the ins and outs better than anyone else.

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1861570.shtml

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Scott Morrison’s soft-power diplomacy triumphs

PAUL KELLY - MARCH 17, 2021

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In recent days Australia’s head of government diplomacy has been on vivid display — former finance minister Mathias Cormann becomes the next OECD Secretary-General and the Quad, the new Indo-Pacific leaders forum, long advocated by Australia, held its first meeting.

Both are significant diplomatic triumphs for Australia and Scott Morrison in a complex global environment where rapid shifts in geo-strategy, technology, economics, climate change and COVID politics are driving new alignments in a post-Trump era.

These are wins for Australian agency and activism. They shoot down progressive media mythology that Australia was becoming an isolated, almost pariah nation, over climate change. They contradict the progressive dogmatism about Morrison as a limited marketing man, an inexperienced amateur and out of his depth in foreign policy. And they expose the obsession at elite levels that our Asian diplomacy had fallen into second-best disrepair.

The reality is far different. Morrison has his own foreign policy style geared to building personal ties at the leaders level, always transactional and focused on results. He has waged a relentless soft-power diplomacy for much of the past year, building upon Australia’s success in managing the pandemic and the sharp economic recovery from recession.

For Morrison, the OECD win and the Quad leaders meeting highlights a series of common themes — a brand of intense Australian diplomatic activism, an elevated profile for Australia as a liberal democracy working in tandem with other like-minded nations to check the lure of autocratic regimes spearheaded by China’s performances and what Morrison calls the “Australian way” — an Australian record of success in meeting contemporary challenges from the pandemic to economic recovery to managing big tech.

These events tell you how myopic is much of our public debate. For many opinion makers the idea Australia could secure leadership of a prestigious multilateral institution, located in the heart of Europe, was simply inconceivable. A different theme was prominent in elite debate about the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue — involving the US, Japan, Australia and India — notably that the construct was too artificial, too devoid of common purpose and unlikely to gain critical momentum.

On both counts Morrison disagreed and was proved right. He threw the resources of his government behind the Cormann bid to head the 38-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He worked systematically with the Trump administration, notably former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, to elevate the Quad and continued that effort from his first discussion with new President Joe Biden.

Morrison believed Donald Trump would have committed to the Quad as a leaders forum. But having Biden seal the deal means the new administration will bring a sense of personal ownership and Biden consistency to the task.

Over the past year, with most heads of government confined to home and office and not travelling, Morrison engaged in what is one of the most intense rounds of head-of-government dialogue in Australian history from bilateral to multilateral dimensions, a process that began when leaders were anxious to compare notes on the COVID crisis.

From start to finish Morrison lobbied for Cormann’s candidature in discussions involving 55 heads of government. But the key to his tight win was his credibility as an experienced finance minister versed in the OECD agenda, fluent in European languages, focused on COVID lessons, promoting inclusive growth and market-based policies, meeting digital economy challenges including the search for a global consensus on digital tax, achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and gearing the OECD more to the Asia-Pacific.

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The significance of the Paris-based OECD, an organisation of rich and middle-income democracies, is that of a catalyst shaping the rules for the global economic order. Cormann is the first Secretary-General from the Asia-Pacific. He faced an initial field of 10 and in the final “best of two” prevailed over Sweden’s Cecilia Malmstrom, formerly EU trade commissioner, who would have been the first female S-G.

The climate change lobby, determined to stop him, launched a failed bid with a letter to leaders and diplomats to kill his prospects. Signatures included Matt Brennan, chief executive, The Wilderness Society Australia; Sharan Burrow, head of the International Trade Union Confederation; Lyn Morgain, chief executive, Oxfam Australia; Jennifer Morgan, executive director, Greenpeace International; Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive, Australian Conservation Foundation; Julie-Anne Richards, Climate Action Network Australia; and David Ritter, chief executive, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, among many others. While Greens leader Adam Bandt denounced Cormann as a “climate change wrecker”, ALP leader Anthony Albanese endorsed his candidature.

Cormann thanked both WA Premier Mark McGowan and Governor Kim Beazley for their support. The mistake the climate change lobby makes is to assume climate change must be the overarching determinant in any contest. The world doesn’t work like that.

While the Quad has met at foreign ministers level Morrison said its elevation to leaders level constitutes a “historic” step and “a whole new level of co-operation”. His public rhetoric on the Quad is about what it will create, not just what it will deny.

At stake is both the strategic future of the Indo-Pacific and a struggle over governance models. The Quad’s purpose is to find strength in numbers against China both in strategic balance and regional support, hence the initiative to produce and rollout an extra one billion doses of vaccine across the region, an arena where China has stolen the march.

The statement from the four leaders — Biden, Japan’s Yoshihide Suga, Morrison and India’s Narendra Modi — said the Quad seeks a region “free, open, resilient and inclusive”, contrary to Beijing’s model, a region where nations are “free from coercion”.

The Quad aims to deliver public policy goods and services to the region — in rivalry with China. That constitutes a huge task. It seeks to shape the norms and governance values to buttress liberal democracy. Just as Biden seeks democratic promotion, Morrison sings from a similar song sheet.

The elevation of the Quad to leaders level will invest Australian policy with deeper saliency. This is one element in Morrison’s method of integrating our US alliance with our Asian engagement. It will deepen ties with Japan and India, aspire to give ASEAN more confidence and evolve with ongoing military and naval exercises.

Morrison wants the Quad to develop as a practical forum that delivers benefits for the region while proving the superiority of liberal democracy. Make no mistake, his foreign policy will evolve with a greater emphasis on values.

But the risk is obvious — that he oversells the Quad as an achievement and as a forum that can make an impact. Its progress will be hostage to India’s ability to commit. The leaders have authorised the Quad but the limits on its four-nation capability cannot be disguised.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/scott-morrisons-softpower-diplomacy-triumphs/news-story/383b4ecac1396670306503e464c781dc

‘Very serious criminal conduct’: Ben Roberts-Smith faces allegations of two more crimes

Adam Cooper - March 17, 2021

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The news outlets being sued for defamation by Ben Roberts-Smith argue they have evidence of two more incidents of “very serious criminal conduct” on top of his alleged involvement in six unlawful killings as an Australian soldier in Afghanistan.

And Mr Roberts-Smith’s former wife is to give evidence for the media and against her ex-husband at this year’s trial, the Federal Court heard on Wednesday.

Mr Roberts-Smith, a highly decorated former Australian soldier, is suing The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald over reports he allegedly committed murder on deployments to Afghanistan and that he also punched his mistress in the face in Canberra in 2018.

The Victoria Cross recipient denies the allegations and says the reports are defamatory.

The media will defend the claim using a truth defence at a trial in June.

Lawyers for the news outlets have applied to amend their defence and strengthen it with evidence of more allegations of crimes against Mr Roberts-Smith.

Nicholas Owens, SC, acting for the media, told the court on Wednesday the news outlets wanted to amend their defence to include “two new allegations of very serious criminal conduct against Mr Roberts-Smith”.

Mr Owens did not outline the specific details of the additional allegations, due to restrictions about what national security information can be said in open court, but The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have already included as part of their case that Mr Roberts-Smith was involved in six unlawful deaths in Afghanistan.

They include allegations Mr Roberts-Smith kicked handcuffed farmer Ali Jan off a cliff in Darwan in 2012, and that the soldier then agreed with a colleague, referred to as Person 11, that Mr Jan would be shot dead.

The Australian Federal Police is investigating Mr Jan’s death and, the court has heard, considers Mr Roberts-Smith a suspect. No charges have been laid.

The news outlets also allege Mr Roberts-Smith ordered a junior colleague, Person 66, to shoot and kill a detained man in Syachow in 2012. After Person 66 did so, the outlets allege, Mr Roberts-Smith said his colleague had been “blooded” because he had never killed before.

The outlets’ application to amend their defence will be heard in Sydney on April 7, when lawyers appear before Justice Anthony Besanko in person.

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Bruce McClintock, SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith, said on Wednesday his client would oppose the news oulets’ application.

Mr Owens said the outlets planned to call as witnesses more serving and former soldiers to support their allegations, and would also call Mr Roberts-Smith’s former wife, Emma Roberts-Smith.

“We wish to call her for our case,” he said.

“She has sworn an affidavit saying that Mr Roberts-Smith told her to lie about matters centrally relevant in these proceedings.”

A friend of Ms Roberts-Smith would also be called as a corroborating witness, Mr Owens said.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have alleged Mr Roberts-Smith punched a woman, Person 17, in the face after they left a function at Canberra’s Parliament House in March 2018.

The court heard last year Mr Roberts-Smith asked his wife to lie that they were separated at the time of his affair with Person 17.

Lawyers for seven former or serving soldiers watched Wednesday’s hearing and three of them – Persons 5, 11 and 35 – are opposing the release of documents to the media related to their conduct overseas.

The three are to be called as witnesses for Mr Roberts-Smith and are believed to have had adverse findings made against them stemming from the military inquiry into the conduct of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.

The four-year inquiry, conducted by NSW Court Of Appeal Justice Paul Brereton, last year found there was credible evidence that Australian special forces soldiers allegedly committed up to 39 murders in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. The inquiry recommended 19 current or former soldiers face criminal investigation.

Mr Owens said the media wanted the documents because Persons 5, 11 and 35 were “right at the heart of the allegations we make against Mr Roberts Smith”.

Mr Owens alleged Person 5 ordered an Afghan person to be shot in Mr Roberts-Smith’s presence, alleged Person 11 was involved in a “joint criminal enterprise” with the Victoria Cross recipient over Mr Jan’s death, and alleged Person 35 was “intimately involved” in other crimes.

A lawyer for Persons 5, 11 and 35 will argue against the release of documents before another judge, to ensure any evidence that is ruled inadmissible is kept away from Justice Besanko, who will be the trial judge.

Lawyers for other soldiers could also join that argument.

If you are a current or former ADF member, or a relative, and need counselling or support, contact the Defence All-Hours Support Line on 1800 628 036 or Open Arms on 1800 011 046.

https://www1.defence.gov.au/adf-members-families/health-well-being/services-support-fighting-fit/need-help-now/all-hours-support-line

https://www.openarms.gov.au

https://www.smh.com.au/national/very-serious-criminal-conduct-ben-roberts-smith-faces-allegations-of-two-more-crimes-20210317-p57bfl.html

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Former prison guard James Davis denied bail over slavery offences

Amelia Bernasconi - 17 March 2021

A man charged with historical Sydney slavery offences has been denied bail in Armidale Local Court.

James Davis is charged with reducing a person to slavery, possessing a slave and causing a person to enter into or remain in servitude.

Police will allege a woman was enslaved in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra between 2013 and 2015.

The 40-year-old's defence barrister, Ian Lloyd QC, told the court the former ADF soldier and prison guard has "done nothing wrong" and posed no flight risk.

Mr Davis's five partners were in court to support him.

Ian Lloyd QC told the court that his client's partners were "living with him in a consensual polyamorous relationship" that "may include BDSM" and that one of the women was 17 weeks pregnant.

"As strange as this case may be, it is very defendable," Mr Lloyd said.

"He's done nothing wrong.

"He has no history of violence."

The court heard Mr Davis worked as a prison guard with Corrective Services between 2008 and 2014 and was being "kept in strict protection" 24 hours a day in Tamworth Correctional Centre.

"It may well be my client serves three years in strict protection before trial," Mr Lloyd said.

The Crown argued that if Mr Davis was granted bail there could be a risk of interference in the case that could endanger the complainant's safety.

The court was told that the complainant received threats "at one time" when she tried to take diaries police say she kept during the years of the alleged offences.

The Crown said there was a "risk of revenge, if not physical acts, by virtue of social media".

"I've taken into account the difficulties that Mr Davis will face," Magistrate Vivien Swain said.

She acknowledged that Mr Davis's "loved ones" wanted to support him in Armidale but ordered the case be moved to Sydney Central Court when it next appears in May.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-17/slavery-accused-james-davis-denied-bail-in-armidale-court/13256848

ASIO boss Mike Burgess says agency is ditching 'Islamic' and 'right-wing' tags, will now refer to 'religious' or 'ideological' violence

Andrew Greene - 17 March 2021

Australia's domestic intelligence agency will avoid referring to "Islamic extremism" and "right wing extremism" and has revealed it last year disrupted a foreign "nest of spies" who were seeking access to sensitive defence secrets.

Delivering his Annual Threat Assessment, director-general of security Mike Burgess declared ASIO will follow its Five-Eyes intelligence partners in changing the language it uses towards violent extremist threats.

Instead ASIO will now use the umbrella terms of "religiously motivated violent extremism" and "ideologically motivated violent extremism" to describe those seeking to do harm.

"We don't investigate people because of their religious views — it's violence that is relevant to our powers — but that's not always clear when we use the term 'Islamic extremism'," he said.

"Understandably, some Muslim groups — and others — see this term as damaging and misrepresentative of Islam, and consider that it stigmatises them by encouraging stereotyping and stoking division.

"Our language needs to evolve to match the evolving threat environment."

He said describing "left" or "right" extremism was also no longer relevant or applicable in many circumstances.

"We are seeing a growing number of individuals and groups that don't fit on the left-right spectrum at all," he said.

"Instead, they're motivated by a fear of societal collapse or a specific social or economic grievance or conspiracy.

"For example, the violent misogynists who adhere to the involuntary celibate or 'incel' ideology fit into this category."

The director-general said ASIO's language needed to accommodate those groups that fall outside "traditional" categories.

Mr Burgess acknowledged that trust in democracy was falling worldwide and since speaking about the rising threat of far-right extremists last year, ideological extremism investigations had grown from 30 to 40 per cent of the agency's counter-terrorism caseload.

"This reflects a growing international trend," he said.

"People often think we're talking about skinheads with swastika tattoos and jackboots roaming the backstreets like extras from Romper Stomper, but it's no longer that obvious.

"Today's ideological extremist is more likely to be motivated by a social or economic grievance than national socialism."

ASIO cracks 'Nest of Spies' seeking access to Australia's Defence secrets

He said the average age of the people they are investigating is 25 and are "overwhelmingly" male.

Mr Burgess also revealed the organisation removed a "nest of spies" from Australia, with the total number of foreign operatives kicked out of the country reaching "double figures" in the past year.

Speaking inside ASIO's highly secure Canberra headquarters, he offered some details of a major operation last year that disrupted a foreign intelligence service operating in Australia.

"One of ASIO's investigations focused on a nest of spies, from a particular foreign intelligence service, that was operating in Australia," he said.

"The spies developed targeted relationships with current and former politicians, a foreign embassy and a state police service."

In front of an audience of military chiefs, security bosses and diplomats, including Japan's ambassador, Mr Burgess described how the foreign operatives monitored their diaspora community in Australia.

The ABC has confirmed the country behind the foreign spy ring was not China.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-17/asio-director-intelligence-language-change-islamic-extremism/13256828

—

Director-General’s Annual Threat Assessment

https://www.asio.gov.au/publications/speeches-and-statements/director-generals-annual-threat-assessment-2021.html

>>13247553

ASIO to censor term 'Islamic extremism' from espionage vocabulary

Sky News Australia

18 Mar 2021

The head of ASIO has announced the terms 'Islamic extremism' and 'right wing extremism' are outdated and the language employed by Australia’s intelligence agency needs to “evolve” to match the current environment.

Threats will now be referred to as 'religiously motivated violent extremism' or 'ideologically motivated violent extremism'.

Delivering his annual threat assessment Director-General Mike Burgess described Australia's security outlook as complex, challenging and changing, revealing the new face of terrorism has become more difficult to identify and monitor.

"We don't investigate people because of their religious views. Again, it's the violence that's relevant to our powers and that's not always clear when we use terms like 'Islamic extremism’,” he said.

Mr Burgess revealed the average age of subjects under investigation was 25 and noted he was particularly concerned about an increase in radicalised teenagers aged between 15 and 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r_N46dQfbE

Buyer of Jeffrey Epstein’s NYC mansion is former Goldman exec

Jennifer Gould - March 16, 2021

This place is gonna need a really good cleaning.

The mystery buyer who snapped up Jeffrey Epstein’s posh Upper East Side mansion for a bargain $51 million is a former Goldman Sachs executive who is moving to New York from London and plans to live in the house with his wife.

Michael D. Daffey bought the seven-story, 40-room property at 9 E. 71st St. at far below its original $88 million asking price — and is determined to make sure not a trace of its twisted former owner remains.

“They are planning a complete makeover, physically and spiritually,” a source said.

The Australia native recently retired from the major financial firm after spending the past year as Goldman’s global markets chairman in charge of remodeling trade in Europe after Brexit — and also after making a killing in bitcoin.

“Mr. Daffey had never previously been in the home nor ever met its owner, but he is a big believer in New York’s future and will take the other side of all the people who say the city’s best days may be in the past,” said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Daffey.

Top brokers tell The Post the price is a steal, considering that any similar Manhattan property that did not have a connection to one of America’s most twisted sex criminals could have easily fetched $100 million.

“I think it is half off,” said top broker Dolly Lenz, who had been among those trying to sell the property. “It is 28,000 square feet. That’s less than $4,000 a foot for the most magnificent mansion on the best block, just off Fifth Avenue. It’s the very best in New York.”

Even such a deal didn’t tempt many who could afford that price range.

“We offered it to a lot of people who said, ‘We don’t want to go near that place,'” Lenz said. “Fancy international people who are always in for a deal said, ‘No way.'”

Sources say none of Epstein’s old possessions are in the house.

“The house was totally empty,” a source said. “There was no creepy weird stuff in it at all.”

Another source said Daffey bought it with cash and a bridge loan.

Adam Modlin, of the Modlin Group, repped both Daffey and the Epstein estate as broker.

Lenz thought Daffey made a good property decision to buy.

“I think he made a smart move, however, it will be a long time before people forget it was a place were children were abused,” she said. “But he’s betting on it long-term. That’s what some people do.”

The money is going straight to a Jeffrey Epstein victims restitution fund, which is controlled by Epstein’s estate.

In 2019, Epstein was found dead in his prison cell awaiting trial for sex crimes in the abuse of girls as young as 14. Epstein pleaded not guilty. During an FBI raid, federal agents found child sex abuse images in the mansion’s safe. The 40-room home is one of the city’s biggest.

Epstein and his alleged partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, infamously entertained the rich, royal and powerful at the home, which was wired to secretly record its guests.

Some who stayed overnight included Britain’s Prince Andrew. The mansion was previously owned by an Epstein client, Victoria’s Secret owner Les Wexner.

The sale was halted by an asset freeze request made last month in the US Virgin Islands by more than two dozen alleged victims and Denise George, the attorney general of the US Virgin Islands, after the Epstein victims compensation program said it would halt compensation offers over funding concerns.

A judge overruled the request. The fund has so far received more than 150 applications from alleged victims since it launched last June, paying out $55 million so far to an undisclosed number of victims, according to reports.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/16/buyer-of-jeffery-epsteins-nyc-mansion-is-former-goldman-exec/

Don’t expect a breakthrough in U.S.-China talks, former Australian prime minister says

Saheli Roy Choudhury - MAR 17 2021

The meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials this week in Alaska is unlikely to produce any major breakthroughs, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security advisor Jake Sullivan will hold high-level, in-person talks on Thursday with China’s Yang Jiechi, a member of the Communist Party’s top decision-making body, and Wang Yi, the foreign minister. It will be the Biden administration’s first high-level meeting with Chinese officials.

“It’s more likely to be a dialogue about dialogue rather than substantive problem-solving,” said Rudd, who is now president and CEO of Asia Society.

Blinken, who is visiting Japan and South Korea — Washington’s two biggest military allies in Asia — ahead of Thursday’s meeting fired a salvo against Beijing over Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, the South China Sea and Tibet.

Those issues are likely to be big topics of conversation when the two groups meet in Alaska, according to experts.

Redefining the U.S.-China relation

The U.S.-China relationship frayed over the past four years as the Trump administration blamed Beijing for a wide range of grievances, including: intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices as well as the coronavirus pandemic, which was first reported in China.

The two countries are searching for a new strategic narrative to govern their bilateral relationship, which structurally has become “more problematic” due to the shifting balance of power between Washington and Beijing, according to Rudd. He explained that China’s rising influence has made the two superpowers fierce rivals in areas of trade, investment, technology, capital markets, influence as well as ideology.

“It’s competitive, whether we like it or not,” Rudd said. “However, at the same time, there are domains in each country which warrant cooperation, like climate change, like pandemics and like, frankly, global debt management.”

Going forward, the two countries could identify those avenues for cooperation, while also taking note of areas of competition and the other party’s red lines, the former prime minister said. That could potentially prevent the competitive relationship from escalating into open conflict.

Asia is a priority

President Joe Biden has said that his approach to China would be different from his predecessor, Donald Trump, and that his administration would work closely with allies to push back against Beijing. Last Friday, Biden virtually met with leaders of India, Japan and Australia as part of an informal strategic alliance known as the Quad.

The U.S. is off to a good start in terms of mending some of those alliances in Asia, according to Victor Cha, senior advisor and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

“Quite frankly, for allies, Japan and South Korea, the United States was speaking a language over the last four years that they really did not understand,” Cha told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.

“All these alliance relationships during those four years had been boiled down to how much money allies are willing to pay for U.S. security and that was it. Aside from that, these allies were seen as economic enemies and as liabilities in terms of U.S. power. They were not seen, traditionally, as they are — as assets of U.S. power,” he said.

Rudd explained that the thinking in Beijing is that it will take the U.S. a long time to rebuild alliances after effectively walking away from them under the previous administration. But if the Biden administration “succeeds in entrenching America’s position again in the region and with other allies, then the Chinese may have a more formidable challenge than at present they necessarily assume.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/17/former-australian-pm-kevin-rudd-on-us-china-talks.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn0_GbYAYQY

CFSCC Spotlight: Australian exchange officer exemplifies excellence in space career

Lt. Col. Mae-Li Allison, Combined Force Space Component Command Public Affairs - 18 March 2021

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VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE – When Royal Australian Air Force Squadron Leader Jaimee Maika found out she was selected to attend the U.S. Air Force’s elite School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., later this summer, one of the first things she did was consult with her three daughters, ages nine, seven and four.

“I wanted to first make sure they were on board with moving to a new school for just a year and felt comfortable with this next step,” said Maika, an exchange officer from Australia who has worked at the Combined Space Operations Center (CSpoC) for about two years. “My youngest agreed instantly, but I knew it would take time for the other two to process this, knowing they’d have to make new friends and get to know a new area.”

This type of conversation is a common occurrence in military life, spanning countries and cultures. But what might be a little different from others is that Maika was willing to turn down this once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunity if her daughters and husband were not comfortable with another U.S. move.

“My daughters love it here [in California], but it was already a big adjustment for them moving here from Australia,” she said. “Also, my husband is an officer in the Australian Army and had to transition to part-time active-duty status in order to move here with us while I completed this assignment. They’ve all been incredibly supportive of my career, and I believe they should have the final say in our next step.”

Maika’s journey to be the only female assigned to the CSpOC’s team of 11 international exchange officers—not to mention one of Australia’s first space operators—did not necessarily follow a plan or any initial long-term vision she had for herself.

However, she credits a long line of military members in her immediate family—her mom, dad, grandmother and both grandfathers all served in the New Zealand Defence Force—with planting the seed early on that a career in the military was even an option for her.

“Both my parents spoke of the pride they had in serving their country and the bonds they developed with those they served with,” said Maika. “Although as a woman in the military, it saddens me to think that my grandmother was forced to leave the navy because she wanted to get married and my mother had to leave the army because she wanted to have children. I am fortunate to be the beneficiary of the changes that have occurred because of the women that went before me.”

It was only after a few detours in her own educational and professional journeys that Maika decided she wanted to fully commit her energy and talents toward being a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) officer.

“When I moved from New Zealand to Australia in high school, there was a clerical error that meant I was not enrolled in science subjects,” she explained. “I stumbled my way through mathematics and decided that I was probably better suited to liberal arts subjects, which I eventually pursued in graduate and postgraduate degrees.”

“I was still trying to fit in to a new culture in Australia, and perhaps feeling a bit lost,” she added. “I didn’t apply myself in high school or university so I took a year off and worked at various jobs. Later, I saw a flyer about being an air defense officer in the RAAF, and it inspired me to walk into a recruiting office and enquire about my suitability.”

When asked what she thought the admissions board saw in her to offer a spot at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Maika said she thought that they saw her drive to succeed and her potential to be a good officer and leader.

“I was open and honest to the selection board that I had learned a great deal both from my shortcomings in school and from being in the civilian workforce already for three years,” said Maika. “I told them that I saw this as my opportunity to prove myself and, combined with performing well on the aptitude test, perhaps this helped them choose me for admission.”

(continued)

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Maika’s professional achievements have steadily climbed in her 16 years since graduating the academy. Her first job fell in line with what initially interested her, an air defense officer, which is now known as an air battle manager. In this role, she gained tactical and air operations center experience, and saw first-hand how command and control for air operations worked.

With more than 10 years of experience under her belt as an air battle manager, another series of fortunate occurrences led her to her position now working in the space field.

“After having my third child I was feeling my career beginning to stall and I could see that I was falling behind my peers in terms of career progression,” she said. “I knew I had to make a change, and I had a lightbulb moment of reinvigoration when I received a message that there was a job opportunity potentially for me in space capability. I consulted with several mentors and friends in space-related jobs and knew I had to be a part of that.”

Maika says that when she joined the RAAF there were nearly no jobs related to space. Any that existed were so few and specialized that she did not seriously consider them as a career option for her. However, four years ago she was posted to RAAF headquarters supporting space awareness capability projects, and she has not looked back since.

“I had to quickly learn about space and why it is relevant, not only to the military, but to our modern global society,” she said. “This job led to my position at the CSpOC at a time when the U.S. and Australia are reorganizing to better ensure that the space domain continues to be peaceful, secure, stable, and accessible to all.”

The CSpOC reports to the Combined Force Space Component Command (CFSCC), and executes the operational command and control of space forces 24 hours a day to achieve theater and global objectives. As chief of strategy at the CSpOC, Maika and her team engage with theater, allied and commercial partners to ensure delivery of resilient, timely and focused space capabilities to the joint force and coalition partners.

“During my two years here, I have been part of historic change,” she commented. “I witnessed the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command and the CFSCC. And as an exchange officer during this time of great change, I’ve been able to use my unique perspective to support the U.S. Defense Strategy’s objective to strengthen partnerships with allies.”

It is clear that Maika greatly appreciates the opportunities afforded to her and wants to do her part to lift others up. Similar to the U.S. Air Force, women comprise about 23 percent of the RAAF, so she recognizes that she is part of a group of trailblazers, especially when it comes to women working in the space field. Maika considers it her charge to “pay it forward” to others, whether it be through mentoring or sharing her story and words of advice, such as this recent opinion piece she wrote about finding one’s own version of success in a military career.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with incredible women of all ranks, many of whom I seek informal mentorship and guidance from,” she said. “I’m also inspired by the number of women represented in leadership positions across this organization, to include the director of CSpOC and Space Delta 5 commander Col. Monique DeLauter, as well as the CFSCC commander, Maj. Gen. DeAnna Burt.”

One conclusion Maika has made as the CSpOC assignment draws to a close and she prepares to embark on a year immersed in strategic air and space studies is that being assigned to space operations has allowed her to be a similar inspiration to her daughters as Maika’s parents and grandparents were to her.

“After seeing me working in the space community, and now living in ‘space country’ and having witnessed a couple of rocket launches in person, my daughters now know that they can work in the space field, too,” she said. “In fact, my youngest daughter says she wants to be an astronaut-veterinarian when she grows up.”

https://lompocrecord.com/news/local/military/vandenberg/cfscc-spotlight-australian-exchange-officer-exemplifies-excellence-in-space-career/article_0fdadda4-d8d9-5a76-9b1e-531fdff8610f.html

>>13247553

>>13247561

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Twitter Thread

Director-General of Security @MikePBurgess will deliver his second annual threat assessment this evening, at #ASIO headquarters. We’ll share some highlights here from the speech throughout the night.

—

Agility and ingenuity are at the core of ASIO’s operations. We go up against sophisticated foreign adversaries that are effectively unconstrained by law, ethics and resources; we need to be able to out-imagine and out-manoeuvre them.

—

We go up against extremists who are security aware and tech-savvy; we need to be able to know what they are plotting and see what they are doing—always lawfully, of course.

—

I’m determined to ensure ASIO reflects the community we serve. ASIO is your security service.

—

…as we emerge from the COVID crisis, some of our adversaries are seeking to undermine and exploit Australia’s recovery.

—

We have already seen extremists trying to stoke social divisions, and foreign intelligence services wanting intelligence about Australia’s key export, technology and research industries.

—

ASIO stands ready to detect and disrupt these threats. Australia’s security underpins Australia’s recovery.

—

ASIO’s mission is to identify where espionage is happening in Australia, and to rout it out.

—

In the last twelve months, a significant number of foreign spies and their proxies have either been removed from Australia or rendered inoperative. I can’t give you exact details for obvious reasons, but I’m talking about a number in double figures.

—

I’ve said before, it’s the way that ASIO does business that sets us apart. We act ethically and within the law. We are proportionate. And we work with our partners.

—

Spying is a race to innovate: between the spies and the spy catchers, and between those intent on inflicting violence on our citizens and those who seek to prevent it.

—

ASIO is particularly skilful at this. We know our success depends on our ability to fuse new technologies, opportunities and advantages into our existing skillsets, and to imagine new ways of doing things.

—

Spies and terrorists should know this: we are looking for you. And for the rest of the Australian community: we are looking out for you. ASIO is your security service.

https://twitter.com/ASIOGovAu/status/1372078123127169025

Resignations in the news

Hockeyroos coach in shock resignation amid 'distressing' allegations

Sam Goodwin - 18 March 2021

The Hockeyroos have been rocked by the resignation of coach Paul Gaudoin just four months out from the Tokyo Olympics.

Hockey Australia made the shock announcement on Wednesday night, saying Gaudoin had tendered his resignation following the internal release of findings and recommendations of an independent review.

The review was launched last year in the wake of explosive allegations of bullying, body-shaming and homophobic behaviour within the Hockeyroos' set-up.

The shocking claims threw the elite women's hockey program into chaos and have now seen Gaudoin quit his post.

"Whilst I am disappointed to not see out the Olympic program to Tokyo, I am proud to have helped get the Hockeyroos to be ranked second in the world," Gaudoin said in a statement.

"I wish both teams every success in Tokyo.

"It is time to focus on my family and begin a new chapter of my life. I love our game and hope it stays relevant in a competitive sporting environment."

Hockey Australia has decided against releasing the report publicly, instead distributing a statement detailing its response to the review, as well as the 29 recommendations from Sport Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport.

Paul Gaudoin latest Hockeyroos figure to exit

Assistant coach Katie Allen will assume the interim head coach role, with HA intending to announce a replacement shortly.

Gaudoin's exit follows that of high performance manager Toni Cumpston, who quit in January after stating she had lost the support of the HA board.

Current and former players didn't like Cumpston's abrasive approach and her exit immediately saw the blowtorch shift to Gaudoin.

Assistant coach Steph Andrews and selector Sharon Buchanan were the next out the door.

Gaudoin took over as coach at the end of 2016, but he was criticised last year for missing a series of meetings with players.

His decision to axe stars Rachael Lynch and Georgia Morgan from the 2021 contract list caused a huge storm, with a chunk of the player group even threatening to strike over the shock omissions.

Fractures within the player group also emerged in the fallout, with the Hockeyroos now left with little time to mend relationships ahead of the Tokyo Games.

Players within the Hockeyroos set-up had been fearful of speaking up publicly in recent years in the fear they will be cut from the side.

In response to this, HA set up a system where disgruntled players could vent their grievances to Sports Integrity Australia.

HA said the independent review had been "confronting and distressing".

"Broadly the review found a dysfunctional culture within the National Women's High Performance Program that is not conducive to athlete wellbeing or sustained on-field success, and identified numerous areas for improvement," HA said.

"While we have made a considerable investment over the last three years, including efforts to implement changes since the Rio cycle, this has not been enough to prevent rupturing of the squad's cohesion, particularly with the uncertainty rendered by COVID-19 and the delay of the Tokyo Olympics.

"The process of this review has seen us all reflect seriously over the past months about what we could do better.

"The findings have been shared with the players and we will work with them to make changes to design and implement a cultural transformation program."

Some of the review panel's recommendations

• The need to ensure an effective leadership model is implemented across all aspects of the high-performance program, including coaching, support staff and across the playing group.

• Striking an improved balance with the demands of the high-performance program and life outside of hockey.

• Ensuring engagement at every level from the board, senior management, coaches, support staff and players is safe and respectful.

• Improvements in a range of governance areas to ensure greater oversight and the tracking of culture of both men's and women's programs.

• Embedding a culture of mutual respect and trust between all participants in the delivery of the high performance program.

https://au.sports.yahoo.com/hockeyroos-paul-gaudoin-resignation-months-from-olympics-203256088.html

https://www.hockey.org.au/news/statement-regarding-womens-high-performance-program/

https://cdn.revolutionise.com.au/cups/hockeyaus/files/akpza3ieiydwp8xw.pdf

Judge Rules Some Ghislaine Maxwell Details Are Too ‘Sensational and Impure’ to Be Revealed to the Public

JERRY LAMBE - Mar 18th, 2021

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A federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday ruled on a series of redactions proposed by Ghislaine Maxwell and prosecutors regarding a compilation of transcripts submitted under seal by the government last month.

After reviewing arguments from both sides, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan allowed most of the government’s redactions to remain in place over Maxwell’s objections while also adding several additional redactions at her request.

Maxwell’s legal team in January filed 12 motions requesting that the court, among other things, dismiss all of the charges relating to her alleged role as a recruiter of young girls for infamous and since-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The government responded in February with an “omnibus memorandum of law” opposing Maxwell’s motions, all of which were filed under seal pending rulings on the redactions.

The government argued that its redactions were required in order to “protect the integrity” of its ongoing criminal investigation into Maxwell and to protect the privacy interests of third parties. Judge Nathan granted most of the government’s requests, reasoning that the redactions were based on legitimate interests to overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents.

“Exhibit 1 contains a single redaction—the name of a third party—and the Court concludes that that individual’s personal privacy interests outweigh the presumption of access that exists as to that limited portion of the exhibit,” Judge Nathan wrote. “The proposed redactions to Exhibit 7 are similar in that they seek to protect from public access only the names and contact information of third parties. Here, too, the interest in protecting the safety and privacy of those individuals outweighs the presumption of access that attaches to those documents.”

Nathan rejected Maxwell’s objection to redactions containing information “that has been made public by other means” where such information still relates to the privacy interests of third parties.

“At least some of the redactions to which the Defendant objects relate to private ‘family affairs’ of a third party, a factor that ‘weigh[s] more heavily against access than conduct affecting a substantial portion of the public.’ Nathan wrote, citing to controlling precedent from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. “And though the Defendant contends that some of the information contained in the redactions is public, she furnishes no evidence to that effect. As a result, the Court concludes that the significant privacy interests at stake justify the limited and narrowly tailored redactions contained in Exhibit 5.”

(continued)

>>13254394

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Judge Nathan, citing privacy interests, did side with Maxwell on several additional redactions proposed to transcripts submitted as part of the government’s filing, finding that to make those details public would only tend to cater to an appetite for the “sensational and impure.”

“Those portions of the transcript, which were redacted in the civil matter, concern privacy interests and their disclosure would merely serve to cater to a ‘craving for that which is sensational and impure,’” she wrote. “The Court thus concludes that such redactions are justified.”

It’s unclear what Judge Nathan has redacted, but Judge Loretta Preska — the federal judge in the civil case — ruled on Jan. 19 that details Maxwell provided about her consensual sexual relationships with adults would remain redacted in publicly released versions of deposition transcripts.

“Although the prurient interest of some may be left un-satiated as a result, Ms. Maxwell’s interest in keeping private the details of her sexual relationships with consenting adults warrants the sealing of those portions of her testimony,” said Preska, emphasizing privacy interests.

Several other redactions proposed by the government were rejected at Maxwell’s request after Judge Nathan found that prosecutors failed to provide a reasonable basis “as to why its investigation at this stage of the matter would be imperiled by the disclosure of the information regarding how it obtained the information in question, and the requested redactions are far from narrowly tailored.”

“As a result, the Court denies the Government’s redaction requests in pages 1–128 and denies its request to file Exhibits 8 and 9 under seal, since those documents relate to this very issue and the same reasoning applies to them,” Nathan wrote.

The court will allow the government to seek more tailored redactions before the redactions are removed on the public docket.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/judge-rules-some-ghislaine-maxwell-details-are-too-sensational-and-impure-to-be-revealed-to-the-public/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-v-maxwell/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612/gov.uscourts.nysd.539612.168.0_1.pdf

Shaun Dregmans faces child abuse charges after Operation Arkstone raid

A dawn raid has led to the arrest of the 20th man allegedly linked to the country’s biggest child sex abuse network.

Janet Fife-Yeomans and Joanna Panagopoulos - March 18, 2021

A dawn raid on the north shore home of a hospitality worker has led to the arrest of the 20th man allegedly linked to the country’s biggest child sex abuse network.

Shaun Dregmans, 31, was on Wednesday charged with possessing child abuse material as junior soccer coach Grant Harden, 29, faces a further 152 charges in court on Thursday as intelligence from the Australian Federal Police has led to four overseas arrests.

The 20 men face a total of 1026 charges related to child sexual abuse and in some cases bestiality.

A total of 53 children have now been removed from further harm in Australia as a result of Operation Arkstone, AFP Commander Hilda Sirec revealed on Wednesday.

She said that COVID-19 had made the prevalence of child exploitation even worse.

“As a society we still find it too confrontational to talk about child sexual abuse and exploitation,” Commander Sirec said.

“So we must have more conversations with the community and inform them that this crime is more pervasive and widespread than realised.

“Australia has stood shoulder to shoulder to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We also need the country to use the same sense of purpose and urgency to help fight the exploitation of children.”

Operation Arkstone, which has spread to Europe, Asia, the US, Canada and New Zealand, was sparked over a year ago after the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified the online network of alleged child sex offenders distributing and receiving child abuse material using social media including Snapchat, Dropbox and Mega accounts

They alerted the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation which has so far made 146 international referrals to law enforcement agencies around the world.

In the latest arrest, AFP investigators executed a search warrant at Dregmans’ Willoughby home before he was charged with one count of possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service. He was granted police bail to appeal at Downing Centre Court on April 15.

Harden, of St Clair, has been remanded in custody since his arrest in May last year on 44 child sexual abuse charges, including multiple counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 years, and bestiality.

He faced a further 152 charges at Sydney’s Central Local Court on Thursday for allegedly sexually abusing young children and filming the abuse to share online.

Harden did not appear on screen when his case was heard.

In the brief hearing it was determined the case would be back in the same court on May 13 for committal.

He will be required to appear on screen at the next appearance. He did not apply for bail and it was formally refused.

Fourteen men have now been charged in NSW, three in Queensland, three in Western Australia, three in the US in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Connecticut and one in Canada as overseas police forces join with the AFP, NSW Police and other state and territory forces.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-new-south-wales/shaun-dregmans-faces-child-abuse-charges-after-operation-arkstone-raid/news-story/3b8d262c79666c448274a109a954eec0

Shaun Dregmans faces child abuse charges after Operation Arkstone raid

A dawn raid has led to the arrest of the 20th man allegedly linked to the country’s biggest child sex abuse network.

Janet Fife-Yeomans and Joanna Panagopoulos - March 18, 2021

A dawn raid on the north shore home of a hospitality worker has led to the arrest of the 20th man allegedly linked to the country’s biggest child sex abuse network.

Shaun Dregmans, 31, was on Wednesday charged with possessing child abuse material as junior soccer coach Grant Harden, 29, faces a further 152 charges in court on Thursday as intelligence from the Australian Federal Police has led to four overseas arrests.

The 20 men face a total of 1026 charges related to child sexual abuse and in some cases bestiality.

A total of 53 children have now been removed from further harm in Australia as a result of Operation Arkstone, AFP Commander Hilda Sirec revealed on Wednesday.

She said that COVID-19 had made the prevalence of child exploitation even worse.

“As a society we still find it too confrontational to talk about child sexual abuse and exploitation,” Commander Sirec said.

“So we must have more conversations with the community and inform them that this crime is more pervasive and widespread than realised.

“Australia has stood shoulder to shoulder to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We also need the country to use the same sense of purpose and urgency to help fight the exploitation of children.”

Operation Arkstone, which has spread to Europe, Asia, the US, Canada and New Zealand, was sparked over a year ago after the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified the online network of alleged child sex offenders distributing and receiving child abuse material using social media including Snapchat, Dropbox and Mega accounts

They alerted the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation which has so far made 146 international referrals to law enforcement agencies around the world.

In the latest arrest, AFP investigators executed a search warrant at Dregmans’ Willoughby home before he was charged with one count of possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service. He was granted police bail to appeal at Downing Centre Court on April 15.

Harden, of St Clair, has been remanded in custody since his arrest in May last year on 44 child sexual abuse charges, including multiple counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 years, and bestiality.

He faced a further 152 charges at Sydney’s Central Local Court on Thursday for allegedly sexually abusing young children and filming the abuse to share online.

Harden did not appear on screen when his case was heard.

In the brief hearing it was determined the case would be back in the same court on May 13 for committal.

He will be required to appear on screen at the next appearance. He did not apply for bail and it was formally refused.

Fourteen men have now been charged in NSW, three in Queensland, three in Western Australia, three in the US in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Connecticut and one in Canada as overseas police forces join with the AFP, NSW Police and other state and territory forces.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-new-south-wales/shaun-dregmans-faces-child-abuse-charges-after-operation-arkstone-raid/news-story/3b8d262c79666c448274a109a954eec0

>>13254486

Operation Arkstone Update: Additional 152 charges laid against Sydney man

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A 31-year-old Sydney man will face a further 152 charges at Sydney Central Local Court today for allegedly sexually abusing young children and filming the abuse to share online.

The man from St Clair was initially arrested in May 2020 under Operation Arkstone, a large-scale investigation into a global online network of alleged child sex offenders.

He was charged with 44 child sexual abuse offences, including multiple counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 years. He is now facing a total of 196 charges relating to child sexual abuse and bestiality offences.

Operation Arkstone began in February 2020 following a report to the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) from the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) about an online user allegedly distributing and receiving child abuse material online.

AFP investigators uncovered the online network of alleged child sex offenders when examining the mobile phone seized during the arrest of a Wyong man for alleged child sexual abuse offences, marking the first arrest for Operation Arkstone.

A 31-year-old North Sydney man has become the 20th man arrested as part of Operation Arkstone. AFP investigators executed a search warrant at his residence in Willoughby yesterday (17 March 2021).

The man was arrested and subsequently charged with one count of possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service, contrary to section 474.22A of the Criminal Code 1995 (Cth). He is expected to appear in Downing Centre Court on Thurs. 15 April 2021.

The investigation has now led to 20 men arrested in Australia with 14 men charged in NSW, three in Queensland and three in Western Australia.

The 20 men face a total of 1026 charges related to child sexual abuse and in some cases bestiality offences.

Since Operation Arkstone began in early 2020, there have been 53 children removed from further harm in Australia.

As a result of evidence gathered during Operation Arkstone, the AFP made 146 international referrals to law enforcement agencies around the world.

AFP investigators have been sharing intelligence and working with their counterparts in Europe, Asia, United States and Canada, and New Zealand to identify child sex offenders and children in need of rescuing from further abuse.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has been integral in identifying the online network of alleged child sex offenders, which has now resulted in three arrests in the United States with inquiries continuing.

The Kelowna Royal Canadian Mounted Police identified two young victims and charged one man with alleged sexual assault, sexual interference and possessing child abuse material.

(continued)

>>13254494

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AFP Commander Hilda Sirec said for every day that police could not identify a child being harmed is another day of potential abuse.

"We need to remove these children from harm and importantly, with law enforcement in Australia and across the globe, we must arrest those who carry out these heinous crimes,'' Commander Sirec said.

"As a society we still find it too confrontational to talk about child sexual abuse and exploitation. So we must have more conversations with the community and inform them that this crime is more pervasive and wide-spread than realised.

"And during COVID-19, the prevalence of child exploitation has gotten worse.

"Australia has stood shoulder to shoulder to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We also need the country to use the same sense of purpose and urgency to help fight the exploitation of children.

"No one nation is immune to the threat of child sexual abuse and no one nation can tackle it alone. Sadly, there are victims and child sex offenders throughout the world.''

"AFP investigators are sharing intelligence and working together with their domestic and international counterparts to stop child sex offenders from harming children.

"Our officers are continuing to identify alleged offenders through Operation Arkstone and like today's additional charges, will ensure every offence is accounted for, whether that person has three or 188 charges laid against them. No offence is too small when dealing with child sexual abuse."

Commander of the State Crime Command's Child Abuse and Sex Crime Squad, Detective Superintendent Stacey Maloney said NSW Police are committed to working with fellow law enforcement agencies here and abroad to protect the most vulnerable members of our community.

"We are proud to work with our Commonwealth and international partners to ensure that those responsible for causing children harm are held accountable for their actions," Det. Supt Maloney said.

"Through collaboration and a shared mission to keep kids safe, we will continue to see investigators put individuals responsible for the most heinous of acts before the courts and importantly off the street."

Members of the public who have any information about this network or people involved in child abuse and exploitation are urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

https://crimestoppers.com.au

You can also make a report online by alerting the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation via the Report Abuse button.

https://www.accce.gov.au/report

Note to media:

Use of term 'CHILD ABUSE' MATERIAL NOT 'CHILD PORNOGRAPHY'

The correct legal term is Child Abuse Material – the move to this wording was among amendments to Commonwealth legislation in 2019 to more accurately reflect the gravity of the crimes and the harm inflicted on victims.

Use of the phrase "child pornography" is inaccurate and benefits child sex abusers because it:

• indicates legitimacy and compliance on the part of the victim and therefore legality on the part of the abuser; and

• conjures images of children posing in 'provocative' positions, rather than suffering horrific abuse.

Every photograph or video captures an actual situation where a child has been abused.

Editor's note: Vision of the arrests are available via hightail - https://spaces.hightail.com/space/5jDywOnhtz

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/operation-arkstone-results-828-charges-laid-46-child-victims-identified

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/operation-arkstone-update-additional-152-charges-laid-against-sydney-man

Consider reclaiming Darwin Port from Chinese company Landbridge, committee advises federal government

Jano Gibson - 18 March 2021

The federal government should consider reclaiming Australian ownership of Darwin Port if the facility's long-term lease to a foreign corporation is found to be against the national interest, a federal parliamentary committee has recommended.

The Northern Territory government, under the previous CLP administration, leased the strategically important infrastructure to Chinese firm Landbridge in 2015.

The 99-year deal triggered immediate concerns among some defence and diplomatic analysts because it gave operational control of the port to a foreign company at a time when tensions between the two nations were escalating.

The United States, which in 2012 began deploying hundreds of US Marines to Darwin each year, felt so blindsided by the port deal that then-president Barack Obama conveyed his concerns directly to then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth on Wednesday released a report examining Australia's trade and investment reliance on certain countries and the need to diversify its strategies.

Among its 21 recommendations, the committee suggested the federal government provide a report on whether the Darwin Port lease is subject to Australia's new Foreign Relations Act.

The legislation gives the Commonwealth the power to veto foreign agreements struck by states and territories, as well as local governments and universities.

The committee stated: "[If the port deal is subject to the act], consider taking measures to have the Port of Darwin brought back under Australian ownership if current arrangements are not deemed to be in the national interest."

It also recommended other Australian ports and strategic infrastructure owned or leased by foreign corporations be reviewed under the act.

The committee's chairman, LNP MP George Christensen, said the recommendations were aimed at protecting Australia's national interest and security in sensitive and critical areas.

"Notably, there are recommendations that go to serious concerns regarding state-owned enterprises and state-linked enterprises funding our universities and owning or leasing our strategic infrastructure, including the Port of Darwin," Mr Christensen said.

"Given the ongoing tensions with China, it is an unacceptable national security risk to have Chinese state-owned and state-linked enterprises involved in our universities … and our strategic infrastructure."

The four Labor members of the 10-person parliamentary committee provided additional comments to the report.

They accused the NT's former CLP government and the federal Liberal-National coalition government of a "catalogue of failures" in allowing the Darwin Port lease to go ahead.

"Their poor decision-making, incompetent governance and pursuit of short-term monetary gain has compromised Australia's long-term strategic security," the Labor members said.

"The government must explain what action the Foreign Minister may or may not take under the act in relation to the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company."

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner has previously said his government, which is mired in debt, would not contemplate buying back the port from Landbridge.

"My advice for the Prime Minister, if he's going to go down that path is, don't buy back the port," he was quoted as saying last year.

"[Instead] invest in things that will grow jobs for the Territory."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-17/government-urged-consider-reclaiming-ownership-darwin-port/13256968

—

Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth

Inquiry Into Diversifying Australia's Trade And Investment Profile

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Joint_Standing_Committee_on_Trade_and_Investment_Growth/DiversifyingTrade/Report

>>13254571

Andrew Robb quits China-linked firm before foreign interference law kicks in

Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker - February 19, 2019

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Former trade minister Andrew Robb has quietly ceased his controversial $880,000 per annum consultancy with a company closely linked to the Chinese government, as the deadline looms for lobbyists for overseas state interests to sign up to Australia’s new foreign influence register.

Mr Robb’s consultancy with the leaseholder of the Darwin Port, Landbridge, was trumpeted by the Chinese-government aligned company in 2016, but became intensely controversial when an investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Four Corners revealed his fee, and that he had joined the company straight after quitting parliament.

It’s estimated that Mr Robb pocketed more than $2 million plus expenses from Landbridge. A company document revealed that Mr Robb’s consulting contract was so vague and ill-defined he would be paid even if he did nothing.

Mr Robb has confirmed that he has left Landbridge for the time being because, "at this stage, Landbridge has no other projects relevant for me to assist".

"I had been commissioned by Landbridge for well over a year to prepare a comprehensive report on ways that Australia's world class health industry could assist with a major improvement of China's public health system," Mr Robb wrote in answer to questions.

"Just before Landbridge had an opportunity to formally present my report to Chinese authorities, they were advised not to bother because the relationship between the Australian and Chinese governments 'had become so toxic' that the report would be binned."

He described the situation as "reviewable," suggesting he may begin working for the company again in future.

Mr Robb joins former foreign minister Bob Carr and former Victorian premier John Brumby in leaving lucrative roles with companies or, in Mr Carr’s case, a think tank, founded by businessmen with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr Carr recently announced he was stepping down as director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, which was founded by controversial billionaire political donor Huang Xiangmo. Mr Huang has been blocked from entering Australia and has had his permanent residency cancelled by the Department of Home Affairs after advice from ASIO that he may engage in foreign interference activities on behalf of the Chinese government.

Mr Brumby announced in February he was quitting the Australian board of Huawei, the Chinese telco accused by security agencies of posing a security risk to western communications infrastructure.

Mr Brumby, Mr Carr and Mr Robb have previously insisted that the Chinese government has no tangible influence in the organisations they worked for, despite evidence the organisations’ founders were aligned with the Chinese Communist Party willingly, or because of the way the party-state controls seemingly private companies.

(continued)

>>13254635

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Billionaire Ye Cheng is the owner of Landbridge, which controversially acquired the 99-year lease for the Port of Darwin in 2015. He is also a member of the national Chinese People's Consultative Committee, an advisory body that President Xi Jinping has directed to "uphold the CPC [Chinese Communist Party] leadership without wavering".

Mr Ye frames much of his business activity, including the acquisition of the Port of Darwin lease, in terms of advancing Beijing's ambitious global trade and infrastructure policy "One Belt, One Road".

Mr Robb continues to advocate for Australia to back the policy although has previously insisted this is unconnected to his Landbridge consultancy.

Late last year, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme became active with the launch of a public register for people who seek to influence the Australian political process on behalf of foreign interests. The new register is designed to ensure that, if a person is advocating on behalf of a foreign power, it is declared.

The scheme was largely prompted due to concerns about undeclared Chinese government efforts to influence Australian institutions, but applies to any lobbyist or consultant working for a company or think tank controlled by a foreign nation and involved in influencing the political process.

Lobbyists have until March 1 to register, although government sources have acknowledged that enforcing the scheme may be difficult given the lack of legal precedent surrounding its operation and the likelihood that some potential registrants will argue it does not apply to them.

Mr Robb, who quit as a minister in Malcolm Turnbull's government before the last election, previously denied working on behalf of Beijing, and defended his contract with Landbridge, saying he was not doing business in Australia, so could not be captured by the new scheme.

In December 2017, then Attorney-General George Brandis suggested that Mr Robb would have to sign up to the new register.

Landbridge confirmed Mr Robb’s departure. The company has previously denied its operations are influenced by the Communist Party and stated that Mr Robb was not engaged in political representation on its behalf in Australia.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/andrew-robb-quits-china-linked-firm-before-foreign-interference-law-kicks-in-20190219-p50yv0.html

‘Fortress China’ invite a hospital pass for SA Premier Steven Marshall

DAVID PENBERTHY - MARCH 17, 2021

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall will formally open the controversial Adelaide Chinese Consulate, even as the state’s industries reel from Beijing’s trade sanctions and many of his con­stituents remain angered about living next door to the vast diplomatic compound.

In a politically awkward invitation, Mr Marshall has accepted the request from the Chinese government to be a keynote speaker at the March 30 opening.

His decision to speak is made all the more delicate by the fact that, as the member for the eastern suburbs seat of Dunstan, many of Mr Marshall’s constituents in the suburb of Joslin have serious concerns about the conduct of the consulate.

The Premier will share a stage with Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye, who Simon Birmingham, the then trade minister, last year accused of making “threats of ­coercion” after leaking a list of grievances against Australia.

Asked about the event, Mr Marshall’s office confirmed his ­attendance. “Mr Marshall in his capacity as Premier meets with consular officials from a variety of countries on a regular basis,” a spokesman said.

Labor leader Peter Malinauskas said he had also been invited but could not attend due to a schedule clash. But Rex Patrick, an independent federal senator who has accused the consulate of spying on South Australia’s defence industry, said it was a mistake for Mr Marshall to attend.

“It’s unnecessary and inappropriate for a democratic leader such as Premier Marshall to attend and endorse a function organised by the representatives of an authoritarian communist regime that is engaged in a destructive campaign of trade coercion against our country,” he said.

“The Premier should be calling for a curtailment of Chinese Communist Party’s subversive activities in our state, not rolling out the red carpet for them.”

The consulate has embarked on what some regard as a belated charm offensive to win back their trust after dozens of complaints were made about construction work at the sprawling site and the obtrusive nature of security.

The Australian reported last month that several residents had their neighbouring fences destroyed or ripped out without permission by consulate contractors.

One household had its entire back fence removed without warning and replaced with a 3m tall concrete wall with a camera peering into its backyard.

More than 20 residents said they had major concerns with the imposing nature of security at the compound and the fact that cameras and motion detectors face private homes and run the full length of the laneway leading to the local playground.

To smooth things over with the neighbours, the consulate has decided to hold an open day for some residents on Saturday.

Lisa Medlyn, a local resident, on Tuesday said that her fellow residents were bemused by the ­invitations going out now after all the disruption the consulate had caused. “They did that all around the wrong way if you ask me,” Ms Medlyn said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/fortress-china-invite-a-hospital-pass-for-sa-premier-steven-marshall/news-story/747c3265c4a83c67be1645371da4c6b8

>>13247553

>>13247561

>>13248019

Spy threat to overtake terrorism, says ASIO

SIMON BENSON - MARCH 19, 2021

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Australia’s domestic spy agency has warned the federal government the threat of nation-state espionage and foreign interference due to escalating regional tensions is set to supplant terrorism as the greatest threat to Australian security by 2025.

In a stark assessment of global strategic conflict, primarily competition between the US and China, ASIO has informed the government it believes “pre-placement” of sleeper software to sabotage Australia’s critical commercial, industrial and military ­infrastructure is emerging as a major threat to our “way of life”.

“We think, as you look out to 2025, espionage and foreign interference will supplant terrorism as this country’s principal security concern,” ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said in an interview with The Weekend Australian.

“That is something that has not yet been reported publicly … it’s got to be put in context.

“Threat to life is a priority. And the current ‘probable’ threat level of terrorism means people would lose their lives. Despite that, we think espionage and foreign interference will supplant terrorism … the level of activity coming at us and against us will be relentless.”

The interview came after the intelligence boss revealed this week that ASIO had cracked a major spy network operating in Australia, which had recruited a government official with security access to classified defence technology, in what the agency ­described as a “nest of spies”.

Mr Burgess said the bust had made a “significant” impact on the foreign power’s espionage activity and involved the quiet expulsion of dozens of spies operating in Australia.

Security sources had confirmed the country behind the spy ring was not China, but senior operatives in the intelligence community strongly speculated that Russia, which has long seen Australia as a backdoor to gathering intelligence on the US, was the nation state in question.

The spy ring had also groomed current and former politicians, as well as ­officials of an unnamed state police service, and had sought access to sensitive security protocols for a major airport. The revelations were disclosed in an annual threat assessment.

In the interview, Mr Burgess hit back at ­criticism of ASIO’s move to ­rebadge the key terrorism threats under two umbrellas of ­“religiously motivated violent ­extremism and ideologically ­motivated extremism”.

Critics on both side of the political spectrum have rounded on what they claimed was a political decision to drop references to ­Islamic extremism and right-wing extremism when referring to ­terror threats.

Mr Burgess said they had missed the point and the agency would still be calling out Islamic terrorism and right-wing extremism when appropriate, but the ­nature of the threats had broadened to a point where they could no longer be so narrowly defined.

(continued)

>>13256977

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Mr Burgess said the emerging threat to Australia now involved the pre-planting of undetected malicious software into critical ­infrastructure, including military technology, which could be activated at a later date to cripple power grids, phone networks, water supplies and other vital economic foundations, as well as defence assets.

“If tensions don’t reduce — and it is a competitive world out there, so that competition is heating up — we do have to turn our mind to it, and we are concerned about the pre-placement of sabotage,” Mr Burgess said.

“I’m not talking about physical sabotage, people walking up to a substation and blowing something up. It’s possible but not as likely as someone laying down some software on a network that allows them to disrupt critical ­infrastructure. In a world of ­increased tension, it would be easier for a nation state — and there is a difference between a criminal gang and a nation state — and their ability to disrupt, if a nation state goes after you and lays down malicious software that allows them to turn off the power grid, shut down the financial system, stop sewage pumps from working. You can see the impact to society.

“The world has seen examples of that. I’m not saying we have seen cyber-enabled disruptions by a nation state in this country, but we see plenty of laying down of malicious software. Its intent sometimes is hard to figure out.

“We’ve reported that and the government has responded. You can see already the response of the government through actions such as the security of critical ­infrastructure legislation.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Burgess said the espionage and sabotage threats against Australia were increasing at a “rate of knots.”

Growing activity in the commerce and research sectors showed a “rapacious” appetite for intelligence on Australia’s trade relationships and export sector.

Mr Burgess also said he would resist attempts to politicise ASIO. “Whenever I’m talking to politicians on either side or anywhere on the spectrum, I frequently find myself making the point: do not make ASIO the issue, do not politicise us, don’t make us the target,” he said.

He argued the move to use broader definitions of terrorism — ideological and religious — had no impact on the operational work of identifying threats.

“(But) it is important for when we are writing about that in … classified circles, taking about it or writing about it publicly, words do matter and it does frame how people think about issues,” Mr Burgess said.

“These are umbrella terms … when we know there is an (Islamic State) inspired or radicalised terrorist, I will say that. When it’s a neo Nazi-group or anti-Semitic group I will say that. When it’s a fascist or white supremacist I will continue to use those words.”

Mr Burgess said some groups were hard to characterise, such as an organisation called “the Order of the Nine Angles” which he noted displayed “some Satanism (and) paedophilia traits”. “It’s just evil,” he said. “Are you going to assign that to a political spectrum? It makes no sense.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/spy-threat-to-overtake-terrorism-says-asio/news-story/ba235c4effbcca814fb53caba1930d31

>>13256981

Order of Nine Angles: What is this obscure Nazi Satanist group?

Daniel De Simone - 23 June 2020

A US soldier has been accused of plotting an attack on his own unit by sending information to an obscure Nazi Satanist organisation called the Order of Nine Angles (ONA). But who are they?

Founded in the UK in the 1970s, the ONA is an increasing focus for law enforcement and has appeared as an influence in several recent UK terrorism prosecutions relating to the extreme right-wing.

The group lionises the Nazi era and dates its calendar from the birth of Adolf Hitler, but its supernatural belief system goes beyond anything normally associated with right-wing extremism.

What does the group believe in?

Its short-term goal is to undermine what it caricatures as a decadent Judeo-Christian society, with an emphasis placed on real-world acts, the aim being a new imperial civilization based a cruel mixture of Social Darwinism, Satanism, and Fascism.

Adherents are encouraged to secretly infiltrate organisations such as the military or Christian churches in order to destabilise them from within.

Those who progress through the ONA's hierarchical ranks are required to undertake various tasks, including forming their own small groups to prove their leadership abilities, with the result that a decentralised network of associated bodies exists throughout various countries.

There is a total rejection of ethics and some key texts even discuss ritual sacrifice, both symbolic and actual.

Figures such as the British murderer Ian Brady are celebrated, being viewed as people who have operated outside normal moral boundaries - the transgression of which is a constant theme for the group.

One small US-based associate body - which has its own publishing house - was banned from mainstream social media last year. Its members had posed at the sites of various notorious rapes and murders, celebrating the perpetrators in the process.

Some followers also express enthusiasm for Islamist jihadist violence.

All this real-world activity is supposed to have a supernatural effect, opening up a gateway into the world for evil energies.

How influential is it?

The ONA has acted as an influence on several neo-Nazi extremist groups, including the US-based Atomwaffen Division - linked to five murders - and the Sonnenkrieg Division, which was banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK earlier this year.

Such groups reject attempts at gaining popular support for the extreme right - whether through demonstrations or campaigns - and are instead committed to an ideology of so-called accelerationism, which predicts societal collapse and racial warfare, seeking to speed the process up through acts of violence.

The ideology is promoted in several online spaces and that is where it has blended with the ideas promoted by ONA, giving the latter an increased influence on the furthest edges of the extreme right.

Last year a 16-year-old British boy became the youngest person convicted of planning a terror attack in the UK.

The prosecution's case was that he was partly influenced by the ONA, seeking to alter himself in line with their literature.

He had drawn a symbol for the group alongside an instruction for himself to "shed empathy".

In court, prosecutors described the organisation as "self-consciously, explicitly malevolent" and the "most prominent and recognisable link between Satanism and the extreme right".

The Sonnenkrieg Division, with its glorification of sexual violence, highlights another disturbing theme relating to the ONA - sexual offending as a way of undermining social norms.

The US soldier charged in the terrorism case is alleged to have been part of an online movement whose channels constantly encourage the rape of women and children.

The authorities are concerned by the number of paedophiles associated with the ONA, taking the group into a different area of law enforcement activity.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53141759

Foreign Minister Marise Payne Tweet

Ahead of the 70th anniversary of ANZUS, the (Australia - U.S.) Alliance remains central to a secure & resilient Indo-Pacific. I had a warm & productive discussion with @SecDef Austin today focused on progressing outcomes from #AUSMIN 2020 & strengthening cooperation with regional partners.

https://twitter.com/MarisePayne/status/1372754376436031490

—

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Tweet

Productive call with Australia’s Acting Minister for Defence @MarisePayne to discuss my ongoing trip to the Indo-Pacific region. The Unbreakable Alliance remains strong. We stand with our Australian allies as we look forward to the next 100 years of mateship.

https://twitter.com/SecDef/status/1372884560095088645

>>13256977

Annual Threat Assessment 2021 - Director-General of Security

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

19 Mar 2021

The Director-General of Security, Mr Mike Burgess, delivered his second annual threat assessment on 17 March 2021, from ASIO headquarters in the Ben Chifley Building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXTxZ0TE654

Peter Dutton’s defamation warning over comment by Greens Senator Larissa Waters

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has threatened defamation action against Greens Senator Larissa Waters over a rape slur.

Matthew Killoran - March 19, 2021

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has sent a legal letter threatening defamation action against Greens Senator Larissa Waters for calling him a “rape apologist”.

Senator Waters’ comments were made on Twitter in February in reaction to a news article in which Mr Dutton referred to not knowing the “he said, she said” in the Brittany Higgins rape allegations which have rocked parliament.

The legal action comes as the Morrison Government faces criticism over its handling of explosive sexual assault and harassment allegations, while Attorney-General Christian Porter has begun defamation action against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan for reports on a historical rape claim.

Senator Waters posted the comments in a tweet on February 25, while also repeated the claim in a press release in which she condemned a “culture of silence”.

“WOMEN DO NOT LIE ABOUT BEING RAPED (Peter Dutton) YOU INHUMANE, SEXIST RAPE APOLOGIST,” she posted.

Mr Dutton is understood to have sent the legal letter on Friday afternoon, threatening defamation proceedings against Senator Waters.

The letter said Mr Dutton argued the statements were “clearly false and defamatory” and is seeking a “unreserved public apology”, as well as removal of the statement online and payment of his legal costs. He demanded a response by March 23.

The post in question was still online as of last night.

Senator Waters has been outspoken on the issues regarding the rape, sexual assault and cultural issues which have engulfed parliament for the past month, also taking part in the March4Justice in Canberra on Monday.

On February 25 Mr Dutton told reporters that he had not told Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the alleged rape of Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins on parliament grounds before it went public because he wasn‘t provided with “the ‘she said, he said’ details of the allegations”, but he did pass “high level” details on to the PM’s office.

The following day Mr Dutton defended the comments saying the rule of law needed to apply and that sexual assault and harassment were among the “most abhorrent acts that a man could ever perform”.

Senator Waters had criticised Mr Dutton for being “the fifth government member who knew about the allegation, but apparently didn’t bother to pick up the phone to the PM”.

Senator Waters and Mr Dutton declined to comment.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/peter-duttons-defamation-warning-over-comment-by-greens-senator-larissa-waters/news-story/4a2f052fe036ce3e32834b94a43ba9a3

>>13260735

Greens Senator Larissa Waters Tweet

WOMEN DO NOT LIE ABOUT BEING RAPED @PeterDutton_MP YOU INHUMANE, SEXIST RAPE APOLOGIST

https://twitter.com/larissawaters/status/1364733932583849993

—

Rape apologists and PM's arse-covering contribute to sexist and misogynistic culture in politics

LARISSA WATERS - 25 FEB 2021

“Peter Dutton has finally confirmed when he was told about Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations and outed himself as a rape apologist in the process. Mr Dutton is now the fifth government member who knew about the allegation, but apparently didn’t bother to pick up the phone to the PM", said Senator Larissa Waters, Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson on women.

“The AFP this morning has called out a culture of silence that makes it harder to hold perpetrators to account. Ministers need to report criminal allegations, or provide genuine support for their staff to do so.

“At the International Women’s Day event today, the PM spoke a lot about ‘protecting women’ and the rule of law. Yet he failed to acknowledge that it is men who are harming women, and continues to oversee a culture in which alleged crimes are covered up.

“The terms of the Gaetjens review released today make it clear that it is yet another narrow exercise in arse-covering. The government yesterday voted against making the terms public, and it’s no wonder.

“Rather than a comprehensive inquiry into government mishandling of a rape allegation, Mr Gaetjens will investigate only what the PM’s staff knew – not what the PM knew, not what other Ministers knew, and not whether the appalling allegations that his staff have been backgrounding journalists against Brittany Higgins are true.

“In other concerning news today, it appears that the alleged rapist visited Parliament House for a private event after he was dismissed in 2019. I will be asking the President of the Senate to confirm who invited him to that event, who signed him in, and which MPs and/or Ministers were in attendance at the event.

“If the PM was serious about protecting and respecting women, he would ask himself how a man fired following rape allegations could be allowed back into the building, and why so many people in his government did so little in response to an alleged rape of a staff member just metres from his office."

https://larissa-waters.greensmps.org.au/articles/rape-apologists-and-pms-arse-covering-contribute-sexist-and-misogynistic-culture-politics

>>13200276

>>13184365

Ghislaine Maxwell's brother insists she should be treated as 'presumed innocent': 'She is not Epstein'

"They're taking it out on my sister. Damn it, that's wrong."

James Hill, Kaitlyn Folmer, James Longman and Santina Leuci - 15 March 2021

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The brother of Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged co-conspirator of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said his sister is being subjected to what he claims is "monstrous" treatment in a federal detention center where she awaits trial on charges of aiding Epstein's abuse of underage girls.

"It's a really ghastly experience. She's lost 20 pounds, she's losing her hair, she can't concentrate," Ian Maxwell, 64, told "Good Morning America" in an exclusive television interview. "She has a flashlight shone in her cell every 15 minutes during the night. So, she has no sleep of any real quality," he said.

Ian Maxwell's comments come as his youngest sister awaits a federal judge's decision on her third attempt to be granted bail ahead of her July trial.

The previous two attempts were rejected after the court deemed Ghislaine Maxwell, 59, a flight risk because of the seriousness of the charges, her substantial wealth and international ties.

Her latest proposal for pre-trial release, which prosecutors and the alleged victims oppose, includes an offer to place her assets of more than $20 million under the control of a monitor and to renounce her citizenship in France, where she was born, and in England, where she was raised.

"Ghislaine is an American," her brother said. "She's never been a flight risk. In the year or so between when Epstein died and when she was arrested, she was in the United States all the time. She was not running away from law enforcement."

Upon Epstein's arrest in July 2019, prosecutors vowed to continue investigating his alleged co-conspirators. After his death in prison a month later, the attention of the authorities, alleged victims and the media quickly focused on Ghislaine Maxwell, who was once a fixture on the social scene in New York with a rolodex of the rich, powerful, and politically connected. She has also faced civil lawsuits, both before and after Epstein's arrest, from alleged victims of Epstein who accused her of facilitating their abuse – allegations she has long denied.

She retreated from public life after Epstein's death, in an effort, her brother said, to protect her family from what he called a "lynch mob" mentality in the media.

"The real problem is that the media frenzy about her, which had shifted from Epstein onto her, drove her absolutely mad," he said. "She's married, has a husband. And she has two stepchildren. And she couldn't allow the terrible frenzy of the media to be brought down on their heads."

Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested last July in an FBI raid of a secluded New Hampshire estate where she had been living for several months. An FBI agent said at a news conference announcing her arrest that the government had been "discreetly keeping tabs" on her whereabouts throughout their year-long investigation.

Ghislaine Maxwell is charged with facilitating and, in some cases, participating in Epstein's alleged sexual crimes against three unnamed minor girls in the mid-1990s.

Authorities allege that she groomed the victims, befriended them and put them at ease, knowing that Epstein intended to sexually abuse them.

She has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, which also include two counts of perjury.

At her initial court hearing last July, one of the three accusers, Annie Farmer, now 41, spoke publicly via video conference and implored the judge to keep Ghislaine Maxwell detained until trial.

"She has never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes, for the devastating, lasting effects her actions caused. Instead, she has lied under oath and tormented her survivors," Farmer said.

Since Ghislaine Maxwell's arrest last summer, her family has maintained a public silence.

Her attorneys have also consistently declined to address questions from reporters, confining the defense of their client to their submissions in court. They recently filed 12 separate pre-trial motions, seeking to suppress certain evidence, dismiss some charges or to toss out the entire case.

But with her bail application pending, and her trial just four months away, her siblings decided it was time to come forward. They've also hired a family attorney, David Oscar Markus, and started a Twitter account dubbed "@GMaxFacts."

"What's going on here is what I've referred to as the Epstein effect. She's being held because of her association with Epstein from all those years ago, which is absurd. You can't hold someone in detention based on guilt by association," said Markus, a criminal defense lawyer from Miami.

(continued)

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Ian Maxwell's TV interview with "GMA" is his first, he said, in 30 years.

"I'm not minimizing the seriousness of the allegations, but my sister's fighting for her life, and that's pretty serious too," he said. "Ghislaine wants to confront the accusers head-on and deal with this and get on with her life. She is as convinced as she can be that she will be exonerated. We as a family are behind her, solidly behind her."

Ian Maxwell said he knew little of his sister's life in New York, where she moved in 1991, after the death of the Maxwell family patriarch, British press baron Robert Maxwell. He said he was aware of Ghislaine's friendship with Epstein but met him only once.

"I have absolutely no memory of Epstein at all," he said. "I had no knowledge of their life or the life that Ghislaine was leading in any great detail."

The last time he saw his sister in person, Maxwell said, was at a rare reunion of the seven surviving Maxwell children in London on June 10, 2019, on what would have been their father's 96th birthday.

"It was just serendipitous that we all happened to be more or less in Europe and we got together and it was a very happy, genuinely happy occasion for all of us," he said.

Less than a month later, Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, as he returned to the U.S. from his home in Paris.

"Ghislaine is married with the step-children, getting on with her life. We're all getting on with our lives. And then bang! This extraordinary development out of left field," Ian Maxwell said.

Echoing the arguments of his sister's attorneys, Ian Maxwell insisted that the prosecutors only targeted her as a substitute for Epstein after the federal government failed to keep the alleged child sex trafficker alive to face the charges against him in 2019.

"They're taking it out on my sister. Damn it, that's wrong," he said. "She is not Epstein. Epstein was guilty. He did time. And he was gonna do a hell of a lot more time. But she is not him. And I don't know how many times I have to say it. She's deserves to be treated as Ghislaine, presumed innocent, get on with the defense, tell us what you've gotta tell us, put it up, and then let the jury decide."

The government contends that "at the heart" of its case against Maxwell "are brave women who are victims of serious crimes that demand justice," and who "deserve to see [Maxwell] brought to justice at a trial." Prosecutors allege in court filings that the "recollections of the victims bear striking resemblances that corroborate each other and provide compelling proof of [Maxwell's] active participation in a disturbing scheme to groom and sexually abuse minor girls."

Maxwell's attorneys have asserted in court filings that government's "sudden zeal" to charge her based on conduct that allegedly occurred roughly 25 years ago calls into question "the strength of the government's case" and violates Maxwell's due process rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan, who is overseeing Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal case, could rule on the third bail application at any time. In rejecting the second request in December, Nathan cited Ghislaine Maxwell's initial "lack of candor" about the identity of her spouse and information about the couple's assets as among the reasons she would not grant bail.

In opposition to the latest bail proposal, prosecutors argue the court "should hesitate before trusting the defendant to be transparent" about her finances and that she "continues to pose an extreme risk of flight, and the additional bail conditions proposed by the defendant do not justify reversal of the Court's prior findings that no combination of conditions could ensure her appearance."

The family's attorney claimed the government's arguments are a smokescreen.

"The real reason she's not being granted bail is not because of any real risk of flight. No one's afraid she's going to really run," Markus said. "The government wants to keep her in custody to torture her, to break her down."

The government has also disputed defense lawyers' contentions that Maxwell is being treated punitively as a result of Epstein's death in custody.

Prosecutors stated in court filings that she has more time than any other detainee in the facility to review documents from her case. The flashlight searches, the government said, are "required to confirm that the defendant is not in distress every fifteen minutes. To do so, staff point a flashlight to the ceiling of the defendant's cell to illuminate the cell sufficiently to confirm that the defendant is breathing," prosecutors wrote.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/ghislaine-maxwells-brother-insists-treated-presumed-innocent-epstein/story?id=76450296

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2_J5fiQwA4

https://qanon.pub/#4915

https://qanon.pub/#4921

>>13241520

>>13241638

The US has 'got our back' on Chinese diplomatic disputes, says Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan

Nour Haydar - 20 March 2021

Federal Trade Minister Dan Tehan says Australians should be comforted that the United States has "got our back" in the deteriorating relationship between Canberra and Beijing.

Top Chinese and American officials publicly clashed during the first face-to-face meeting between the rivals since US President Joe Biden took office.

During a tense exchange caught on camera, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rebuked China for using "economic coercion" against American allies.

Speaking to reporters in Canberra, Mr Tehan expressed his gratitude to the Biden administration and said Australia wanted to resolve trade disputes with China.

"I think all Australians should be reassured by the fact that the Americans have come out and said that they've got our back, and they won't leave us alone on the playing field," Mr Tehan told reporters in Canberra.

"We want all the help and support that we can get to fix these trade disputes that we've got with China.

"I thank the US government for their support."

China has imposed billions worth of bans and tariffs on Australian products including barley, wine, and coal over the last year, following the federal government's calls for an investigation into the COVID-19 virus.

Mr Biden's Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell told the Sydney Morning Herald last week that the US would not "leave Australia alone on the field" and is not prepared to improve its own bilateral relations with China "while a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion".

For months, calls and letters by federal government ministers to their Chinese counterparts have gone unanswered.

Mr Tehan, who took over the trade portfolio from senator Simon Birmingham in December last year, said his requests to discuss the deteriorating relationship have been ignored.

"I've written to my counterpart, I did that in January, set out very clearly the constructive ways that we can work together," he said.

"I'm yet to receive a reply to that letter."

"We've said all along that we want to have very constructive relations with China, the complementarity between our two economies is strong, people to people links are strong."

Last week, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Australia's "wrong words and actions on a series of issues related to China's sovereignty, security, and development interests" were the "root cause" of the waning bilateral relationship.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-20/us-has-our-back-says-trade-minister-dan-tehan-on-china-relations/100019392

An Australian celebrity lifestyle influencer is hosting some of the world's most notorious conspiracy theorists on his podcast

TOM PORTER - MAR 20, 2021

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In an edition of his podcast, “Evolve,” last November, Australian celebrity chef and lifestyle influencer Pete Evans introduced his latest guest, “biophysicist” and researcher Andreas Kalcker.

On the show, Kalcker claimed to possess a “100% effective solution” to the coronavirus, chlorine dioxide. He claimed that shadowy forces controlled by the International Monetary Fund were seeking to suppress the substance.

Their goal, he said, was to enrich themselves and perpetuate the “plandemic,” a term for the coronavirus pandemic popularized by conspiracy theorists.

Evans listened respectfully, not pushing back on any of Kalcker’s claims as they became increasingly outlandish.

He did not tell listeners that the substance his guest was promoting, chlorine dioxide, is a toxic bleach blamed for several deaths, that Kalcker has no medical credentials, or that the research he cited is at best disputed.

The episode was an example of how conspiracy theorists have found safe haven in podcasts even as other platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have forced them out.

His podcast is listed as one of Apple’s most popular on nutrition. It used to be available on Spotify but was removed in January.

Many listeners were likely drawn to Evans’ show because they knew him as judge of cooking show “My Kitchen Rules.”

Evans did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Insider, nor did Apple.

Acast, a podcast platform that hosts Evans’ show, said they would be removing it from the platform in April.

On podcasts, misinformation flourishes

The spread of misinformation on social media platforms received renewed attention as the pandemic swept the globe.

Public health authorities have battled to rebut misinformation about lockdown measures, the source of the virus, the effectiveness of masks, and the vaccines’ safety developed to suppress it. Sites like Facebook have banned content containing false claims about the vaccines.

Less remarked-on is the role of podcasts, where guests and hosts on hugely popular shows spread misinformation about the coronavirus unchallenged.

Sean Creevy is the director of Kinzen, a company that helps clients monitor and combat disinformation. He said that podcasts allow guests to establish a particularly close bond with followers.

“What makes podcasting so unique is that it’s incredibly intimate. That person’s voice comes right through into our earbud. And so it’s easy as listeners to let our guard down. Also, there isn’t as much research on the problem of misinformation in podcasts, and so as a citizenry, we are probably less aware of the threat compared with the big platforms,” he said.

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, used his Apple-hosted podcast, “War Room,” to spread false claims about the coronavirus and stir fears of election fraud.

Joe Rogan has hosted Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and Infowars frontman banned from social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook for inciting violence.

Insider reported in January that Rogan also hosted the owner of a clinic that sells stem cell treatments for conditions where there is no evidence it is effective.

It’s an area where little research has been done, so the problem’s extent is unknown.

The Associated Press found several popular podcasts on major platforms spreading misinformation about the presidential election in January.

The pandemic has seen strange connections between wellness influencers with established media profiles, like Evans, and right-wing movements. Hostility to scientific and medical elites is their common cause.

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Ariel Bogle, who monitors disinformation at Australia’s ASPI Cyber Policy think tank, said that several influencers like Evans had started to embrace more controversial forms of medical misinformation.

“Many of the accounts that sell forms of wellness necessarily have some level of skepticism or mistrust of the medical establishment (justified or not), as they must offer an alternative,” Bogle said.

“For some, there does seem to have been a veer into more clearly conspiratorial content during the pandemic, whether it be QAnon, conspiracies about vaccination etc.”

She said that, to an extent, podcasts are less of a problem than other types of information because they are less shareable.

“Audio can’t really spread or be amplified in quite the same way that visual media can be on a platform like Facebook, for example. It’s not quite so replicable and easily and quickly consumed,” she said.

Nonetheless, she added, being associated with prestigious brands like Apple or Spotify confers an air of legitimacy.

This can attract a mainstream audience that isn’t available to accounts on fringe platforms where conspiracy theorists congregate, such as Parler.

The challenge of moderation

While social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook use automated techniques to track problematic keywords and block networks of “bot” accounts, policing content on podcasts is harder.

“The biggest barrier is the cost of transcribing the audio from a podcast into text format, which can then be more easily searched,” he explained. “These costs are not insignificant, and when a platform has to consider transcribing millions of podcasts, those costs quickly become extraordinarily high.”

He suggested that one option is targeting podcasts that had been repeatedly flagged and monitoring those closely.

Another difficulty is drawing the line between content that contains dangerous falsehoods and that which is controversial and, to some, highly offensive but a legitimate expression of freedom of speech.

Evans continues to host conspiracy theorists

As Evans has embraced medical misinformation and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic, his mainstream reputation has been damaged. He was barred from Facebook in December, Instagram in January, and his podcast removed from Spotify the same month.

But despite losing his social media accounts, he continues to use his podcast to court a new audience among fans of conspiracy theories and supporters of populist political movements.

Among the guests in January was Gareth Icke, an anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown activist from the UK. Icke’s father is the notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke, who believes that a cabal of lizard-men control the world.

Evans has ambitions to take his political activity beyond his podcast. In February, he announced that he was considering a Senate run representing The Great Australian Party, led by the anti-vaccination MP Rod Culleton.

Bogle, the disinformation analyst, said of Evans: “He says outrageous things, gets covered for them, and his status grows – which he profits from.”

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/influencer-pete-evans-hosts-conspiracy-theorists-on-podcast-2021-3

https://peteevans.com/evolve-podcast/

>>13183787

Why the Quad’s a big strategic step forward for Australia

It achieves Australia’s two key goals: a regional architecture that balances China’s rise while engaging the US more firmly in the Indo-Pacific.

Alexander Downer - Mar 21, 2021

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Ever since I became the foreign minister in 1996, I’ve been convinced that the rise of China – while in many ways desirable – required a power balance in what we now call the Indo-Pacific region. Only then will that rise be peaceful and successful.

Let me explain what I mean. If China came to dominate the region and reduce other regional countries to nothing more than client states, that in time would create real tensions. These tensions could easily spill over into localised conflicts, or worse.

I thought – and still think – that the Indo-Pacific power balance requires two elements. First, there needs to be inclusive regional architecture. We have had APEC, of course, but it covers a huge geographic area and is limited to being a consensus-driven economic forum. It’s been an important driver of economic liberalisation throughout the Asia-Pacific region but it hasn’t made a major contribution to strategic or security issues.

That was why in the 1990s and early 2000s the region was looking for new architecture to bind it better together. I didn’t like Mahathir Mohamad’s idea of creating an East Asian Economic Caucus that would include the ASEAN countries and China, South Korea and Japan, but exclude Australia, New Zealand and India.

Quite apart from Australia being excluded from its own region, such a grouping over time would be dominated by China. The caucus would have facilitated Chinese dominance over the region, not balanced Chinese power.

The alternative, which became known as the East Asia Summit, has turned out to be much more inclusive. I fought tooth and nail to get Australia into the East Asia Summit right from the beginning; I succeeded, thanks to the help of the Japanese and Indonesians. John Howard attended the first leaders’ meeting in 2005.

Commentators never focus on this, but I regard our success in getting into the East Asia Summit as a founder member as one of the single most important achievements of Australia’s foreign policy in Asia.

It was good for Australia in terms of our regional engagement, but it was important that the EAS be inclusive of countries that were significant allies of the United States. That helped with the power balance.

And that’s my second point. The US must continue to be heavily engaged in the strategic and economic architecture of the Indo-Pacific region. That strategic engagement with the region is underwritten by two of America’s alliances: with Australia and Japan.

In the early 2000s, I told deputy US secretary of state Rich Armitage that Australia, Japan and the US should meet once a year at the ministerial level in what became known as the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue. We managed to persuade the Japanese – not without difficulty – that this was worth doing.

The first meeting was held in 2006 in Sydney. I hosted the meeting and it was attended by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Japan’s foreign minister Taro Aso.

Let’s be honest. Even back then the Chinese objected to the development of this dialogue on the grounds that they thought it was designed to weaken Chinese influence and power. Well, they were half right. It was about ensuring there was better architecture to lock the Americans into the region and guarantee Chinese power was balanced.

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In 2007, Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe proposed expanding the trilateral dialogue to include India. At first I was a little hesitant about this, because India is not an ally of the US. I wasn’t against including India, but I wondered if we did whether that would make frank, open discussion about regional security issues more constrained.

Nevertheless, as Abe saw it, it made sense to bring in that great power in order to consolidate the power balance of the region. And I acknowledge that was a more important issue than how smoothly the actual Quad meetings would go.

Initially, the Rudd government said it didn’t want India in. The then foreign minister, Stephen Smith, made that announcement in Beijing, of all places. Still, time passed, the Rudd government’s objection was dismissed and the Quad was born.

The meeting just over a week ago of the Quad leaders – President Joe Biden and prime ministers Narendra Modi, Yoshihide Suga and Scott Morrison – was quite a breakthrough. This was a major moment in Australian foreign policy. There we were at the top table, making a major contribution to the stability and prosperity of the whole of the Indo-Pacific region.

It is an extraordinary reflection of how some of the Australian media operates that there has been so relatively little interest in this historic moment.

For me, Australia has made a major contribution over the past 20 or so years to ensuring that the east Asian hemisphere doesn’t become a Chinese lake.

Engagement, not containment

Having said that, I’ve never favoured a policy of containment of China. We have to engage, but we have to be firm in our engagement. That seems to be the path the new Biden administration is taking.

I’m not sure it was the right decision to begin the Anchorage Sino-American talks between the two foreign ministers and the two national security advisers with a public slanging match. It might have been better to have begun the meeting privately. But it is the beginning of a process and we can expect both China and the US to continue a dialogue that may at times be difficult and fractious.

There is no doubt that over the past 20 years China has emerged as a strategic challenger to the US, and the sheer size and power of China has made the risk of east Asia becoming a collection of client states of China a reality. But the architecture we put in place over this period should ensure this doesn’t happen.

There’s one more piece of regional architecture that needs to be completed, though, and that is the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. Australia should work with Japan to try to persuade the Biden administration to join the CPTPP.

The decision by the Trump administration to withdraw was a major strategic error. It played the US out of a very significant regional initiative. What is more, opening up free trade between Australia and Japan, Mexico and Vietnam, among others, would help to make all of those countries less dependent on supply chains from China. That too, we contribute to our region’s security.

Alexander Downer was Australia's longest serving foreign minister, from 1996 to 2007, and most recently Australian High Commissioner to the UK.

https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/why-the-quad-s-a-big-strategic-step-forward-for-australia-20210321-p57cl3

‘He’s not a hero, he’s a paedophile’: new claims against spiritual chief

Harriet Alexander - March 21, 2021

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A woman who testified on behalf of a spiritual leader charged with sexually assaulting her best friend says she was forced to lie about what she knew and revealed she was also habitually abused by the same man.

Michelle Ring, 50, has broken her 35-year silence about what happened to her in Kenja Communications, after suffering a breakdown that was triggered by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Kenja is the only Australian organisation that has refused to join the National Redress Scheme that was set up after the royal commission to give compensation, counselling and a direct response to victims, despite having claims lodged against it. Its founder, Ken Dyers, was facing 22 counts of sexual assault when he died by suicide at the age of 85 in 2007.

Kenja’s continued denials that any abuse took place have also prompted Milana Milos, 41, to speak out for the first time since 1992, when she left Kenja at age 13 to escape sexual assaults by Dyers.

“After all these years they still put him on a pedestal,” Ms Milos said. “It’s time for Kenja to acknowledge and take responsibility for the lives of the young girls that Ken Dyers ruined when he sexually abused them repeatedly over many years during their time within the organisation. He’s not a hero, he’s a paedophile.”

The women independently described a similar pattern of behaviour by Dyers, which included coercion by verbal abuse and the involvement of another girl, a favourite of Dyers, in the sexual acts they were told to perform. They were both “triggered” by the ABC television drama Stateless, which fictionalised the experience of Australian resident Cornelia Rau, who ended up in immigration detention after being in Kenja.

Kenja describes itself as a spiritual training centre, which encompasses sporting competitions, musical Eisteddfods, classes and a social program. Members also participate in one-on-one “processing sessions”, designed to clear negative energy through meditation. Former members describe it as a cult.

Ms Ring joined Kenja in 1986 when she was 15 years old and moved into a townhouse owned by the organisation in Canberra’s Argyle Square the same year, along with another girl the same age and two senior Kenja members.

She said Dyers initially promised to heal her back, but soon progressed to psychic healing. This generally involved him badgering her to remember a negative sexual experience (which she made up because she was sexually inexperienced) and then re-enacting it with her in order to “clear” it, she said.

“I would cry as quickly as I could, because I was supposed to show emotion,” she said. “But then it was like, ‘OK that was one level we needed to clear you on. We have many levels.’ It was abundant.” On other occasions, he involved Grace (not her real name), who was a few years younger, in the sessions. Grace declined to comment.

“He would put Grace and I together and make us do things to each other, which we did so we could get out of there.”

Ms Ring said she escaped Kenja aged 21 and was working for a merchant bank in 1996 when she was asked give evidence for Dyers, who was on trial in Sydney for the sexual assault of her former Canberra flatmate and three other girls in the late 1980s.

She said she practised the evidence she was told to give with Kenja people, including that Dyers never processed children without a chaperone and his door was always open, neither of which were true. Then Dyers raped her in an adjoining room.

The next day she betrayed her friend.

“I remember her looking at me so evilly because she knew I was defending Ken,” Ms Ring said. “I was still under that spell and he’d just taken me right back to where he had me.”

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The jury returned verdicts of not guilty on three counts of sexual assault and was unable to agree on the other eight charges. In 1999 he was found guilty of indecent assault, but the conviction was quashed on appeal.

Ms Milos was also abused by Dyers under the guise of processing. She joined Kenja aged 11 with her single mother in 1989, and was soon manoeuvred into a friendship with Grace, who was a few years older. “She was Ken’s muse,” Ms Milos said. “He would parade her on stage as a person who does workshopping with him … and how those sessions were benefiting everyone else.”

One weekend, Ms Milos and Grace were invited to the house that Dyers shared with his wife, Jan Hamilton, on the clifftop at Bundeena. They spent the day repotting plants and helping in the garden, before Dyers asked the girls into his bedroom for a processing session. Grace and Dyers removed their clothes.

“He was telling me that what they were doing wasn’t sex. But I could see their body parts going into each other.”

The girls did not speak of what had happened on the train home. The next time Dyers invited them both into a processing session, Ms Milos was asked to remove her clothes as well, and soon she was asked to participate.

“I was told that I was helping everyone too now,” Ms Milos said. “I was put up on stage.” But it became confusing because often only Grace was brought up on stage. “I was thinking, ‘I’m doing all this work for everyone’. The games were too much for me.”

Ms Milos could not bear to tell her mother, but found it difficult to explain why she no longer wanted to be in Kenja and started to act out at school. In 1991 she refused to attend the funeral of two close family members who died in a house fire because Dyers said he would need to process her afterwards. Her family never understood. Ms Milos left Kenja in 1992 and a year later she left home.

Dyers’ widow Jan Hamilton, who runs Kenja, said she had never heard the women’s allegations before they were put to her by the Herald.

“We do not believe that these new allegations have any truth whatsoever,” Ms Hamilton said. “For that reason, we do not accept the proposition that we are furthering any hurt.”

Only Kenja and Fairbridge Restored, a British charity now under administration, have not agreed to join the National Redress Scheme, among hundreds of organisations that have had claims lodged against them.

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said organisations should take responsibility for past wrongs, but it was more important that survivors were able to access redress, and the government would now examine funder of last resort provisions.

“We have used all levers available to the Commonwealth to sanction institutions which shirk their moral obligations,” Ms Ruston said.

Ms Ring, who retrained as a teacher, meets regularly with a counsellor appointed by the royal commission. She said one of biggest regrets was not supporting her friend.

“I let her down,” Ms Ring said. “She had to go through a lot to talk to the police, she had to go through a lot to take [Dyers] on, and the very least I could have done was be her friend that day.”

Ms Milos reconciled with her mother, though she never told her about the sexual assaults. Seven years ago, her mother died.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/he-s-not-a-hero-he-s-a-paedophile-new-claims-against-spiritual-chief-20210317-p57bj2.html

>>13247553

Show and tell: the ‘not-so-secret’ mission of ASIO boss Mike Burgess

Anthony Galloway - MARCH 21, 2021

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Mike Burgess acknowledges he is different from his predecessors. The self-described geek from a working-class background was handpicked by the Morrison government to lead Australia’s domestic spy agency, ASIO, less than two years ago. An engineer by profession, Burgess has spent almost his entire career in the intelligence community.

There has long been a view within governments that a career intelligence operative was not the best person to head the agency; someone with a broader perspective was preferred. For at least three decades, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation had been an ex-diplomat.

The appointment of Burgess showed the government knew there was a unique set of threats facing the country, with defences against cyber attacks and the protection of critical infrastructure key priorities.

“I never ever thought I would be in a position like this,” the tall, softly-spoken Burgess says. “Of course being me helps me in my role, just as being a diplomat would help a former diplomat in this role, but we all come at things from a different point of view.

“Remember, we’re now at a time where this organisation relies on technology and driving data smartly … being an engineer actually helps me understand that more.”

Burgess is speaking to The Sunday Age and The Sun-Herald from ASIO’s Canberra headquarters, the Ben Chifley Building, a heavily fortified structure overlooking Lake Burley Griffin and the nation’s parliament.

After delivering his second annual threat assessment on Wednesday night, Burgess faces a number of challenges in leading the spy agency created by Prime Minister Ben Chifley in 1949. He has the continuing threat of religiously motivated terrorism, the rising threat of ideological extremists and the ever-present need to make good on his promise to bring the agency “out of the shadows”.

Tapping into technology

Burgess, 55, grew up in suburban Adelaide and says he was just a “simple teenage boy” who certainly never dreamed of becoming a spy. One of four children, his father worked as a storeman while his mother was a cleaner.

He remembers being introduced to a computer in Year 11 and becoming transfixed by its possibilities.

“I didn’t know why they were amazing, I just thought they were pretty cool,” Burgess says. “And I thought I wanted to be able to build those, I want to be able to write programs, it’s not just tapping on the keyboard… that was my motivation and what got me into engineering.

“But as I got into all that good geeky stuff, I kind of realised it was something else, you can do something with that technology.

“My dad didn’t want me to go to university. He grew up in London during the Second World War, left school at the age of 11…He worked at a university and saw all these students just bumming around, or so he thought.”

Burgess says he “thankfully” convinced his father he wouldn’t burden the family, and enrolled in electrical engineering at the South Australian Institute of Technology, the first person in his family to go to university.

In 1995, a few years after graduating, the young Burgess saw a “weird, geeky-sounding” advertisement in the newspaper. It was short on details about the recruiter, but Burgess thought he would give it a go. The agency he was applying for was the nation’s cyber spy agency - the Defence Signals Directorate (now the Australian Signals Directorate) - where he would spend most of the next 18 years scaling the ranks.

Looking back, the Canberra-based Burgess says he “stumbled into the intelligence world and I haven’t looked back”.

(continued)

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The agency he joined in 1995 was highly secretive; few Australians had ever heard of the directorate and his own family had little idea what he did.

He says he had a few key mentors, including the former head of directorate, Stephen Merchant, as well as former ASIO director-general David Irvine. Merchant taught him the “power of communication - the need to be a constant drumbeat, be very clear on your message, stick to it, and keep repeating it until people close to you will roll their eyes because they’ve heard it a thousand times”.

After five years as deputy director for cyber and information security, Burgess returned to the civilian world. He joined Telstra in 2013 as the company’s chief information security officer.

In 2017, Burgess was appointed inaugural director-general of the rebadged Australian Signals Directorate, vowed to bring the organisation “out of the shadows”. In moves that shook the intelligence community and surprised the media, he made a series of public speeches and statements about the evolving role of the directorate and the increased threat of cyber attacks.

Since taking over ASIO, he has made similar promises to be as open as possible. In a major change, he delivers “annual threat assessments” to the nation. In his second such speech on Wednesday night, Burgess revealed ASIO last year cracked a major foreign espionage network operating in Australia that successfully recruited a government official with access to sensitive defence technology, in what he described as a “nest of spies”.

He also announced ASIO would be scrapping the terms “right-wing extremism” and “Islamic extremism” as umbrella labels, arguing they are “no longer fit for purpose”.

The speeches are unprecedented in their detail on recent ASIO operations. Burgess describes figuring out how much he can say to the public as a “creative process”.

He says he knows he needs to “walk the talk” on being transparent, but “I think we’ve already demonstrated that”.

“Without telling what we do, [I want to explain] why we exist, how we’re governed, how we’re overseen, what the threat environment is,” Burgess says.

He says he wants to be transparent because he believes it is the right thing to do, noting the considerable powers given to his organisation come from parliament and the budgets from the government, which are democratically accountable.

While Burgess is a part of a new generation of leaders in the national security world - including Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw, Office of National Intelligence boss Andrew Shearer and ASD director-general Rachel Noble - he is easily the most high-profile. Part of this has to do with ASIO’s role as Australia’s domestic spy agency and Burgess’s desire to keep Australians informed as much as possible.

Professor of international security and intelligence studies at the Australian National University John Blaxland, who co-authored two volumes of ASIO's official history, says "Mike Burgess is presiding over an organisation going through a revolution".

"He has transformed the internal workings of ASIO. He has come to the job with an understanding of the cyber domain and its implication to domestic security intelligence like no one before him has," he says.

"The old-school analogue human-to-human intelligence of the past hasn't gone away, but relatively speaking has diminished in significance."

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Blaxland says Burgess is the most public director-general ASIO has ever had, but he is perfectly suited for the times.

"It's unprecedented. Most director-generals at some stage gave a public address, but none had an annual threat assessment, none had a Twitter profile, none went so far in building up the public profile of ASIO. But to be fair it does build on the work of his predecessors, who commissioned a three-volume history of ASIO," Blaxland says.

"It's a fine balance when you're facing a surge in security challenges without doing so that leaves you open to accusations you're being shrill and seeking to accumulate power for bureaucratic reasons. I don't get that's what Mike Burgess is doing, I get that he is articulating a level of detail because the threat is real and it's more diffuse than it's been the in past."

Explaining the threats

Australia’s security agencies have been asking for unprecedented powers from parliament in recent years, and ASIO is front-and-centre. These range from giving it additional authority to decode encrypted messages, to forcibly question foreign spies and to place tracking devices on vehicles without a warrant when deemed necessary.

“I respect this organisation for keeping its secrets, but if we don’t do a good job of explaining the threat and how we reduce harm, then people might not be as aware of the threats as they need to be,” he says. “Being a little bit more open is, I think, actually part of me anyway, and it helps us get the job done.”

Burgess says he also talks publicly out of a desire to “attract the best and brightest from the entire gene pool in Australia, because we need to represent the country that we serve”.

Burgess adds there is another audience for his speeches: Australia’s adversaries.

“I wasn’t just explaining it to the Australian public [on Wednesday night], I was actually explaining it to others - whether they’re extremist or foreign intelligence services,” he says.

“It doesn’t hurt to just reinforce the messages that they would see through our covert or other actions.”

He says it is important that Australia’s adversaries don’t know how their operations are foiled, and they have to believe that some of his agency’s capabilities are “impossible”. “I’m talking [in public] about the outcomes of our work…I’m not talking about how we do it,” Burgess says. “Of course [our adversaries] can reverse-engineer and guess without knowing all the facts, that’s the challenge.”

He says his two priorities are defending against “threat to life” and “threat to way of life”. By this he means, would-be terrorists and extremists are targeting people’s lives, while foreign spies are trying to target our very way of living in a democratic society.

And what about Burgess’s way of life?

Outside of work, he enjoys going home to watch his beloved Carlton play in the AFL (he barracked for Glenelg in the South Australian National Football League, and then followed Stephen Kernahan over to the Blues). While a good basketballer in his youth - which he puts down to height rather than skill - his sporting days are over.

Burgess says he also loves gardening and walking his dog.

After all, he is different - yet ordinary.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/show-and-tell-the-not-so-secret-mission-of-asio-boss-mike-burgess-20210319-p57cf6.html

Bipartisan delegation of Australian MPs meets with US embassy about Julian Assange

Rob Harris - March 22, 2021

A cross-party delegation of Australian MPs has met with Washington’s top envoy in Canberra in their continued attempts to encourage the United States to drop its extradition attempts against the WikiLeaks founder.

Nationals MP George Christensen, Independent Andrew Wilkie and Labor’s Julian Hill lobbied the US embassy’s charge d’affaires, Michael Goldman, on Monday morning, arguing the Australian citizen should be allowed to return home.

The US Justice Department has appealed a British judge’s ruling that prevents Mr Assange from being extradited from London to face espionage charges.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled last month that while the case against the Australian was sound, his fragile mental health put him at “substantial risk” of taking his own life in prison.

Supporters of Mr Assange had hoped that new US President Joe Biden’s administration would opt to drop the case, which the Obama administration had declined to charge over concerns that doing so would put press freedoms at risk.

He is accused of helping former army private Chelsea Manning obtain and leak classified information on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr Wilkie, a whistleblowing intelligence officer-turned-MP, said the delegation raised numerous issues with Mr Goldman, including the increasing cross-party and public support for the US extradition of Mr Assange from the UK to be dropped.

The trio argued the US was at risk of “reputational damage” over the inconsistency that WikiLeaks source, Chelsea Manning, had her sentence commuted while WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, was still being pursued.

Ms Manning, a former US soldier who worked with Mr Assange to acquire confidential diplomatic cables, had her sentence commuted by former president Barack Obama in January 2017.

Mr Wilkie said Mr Goldman gave the delegation a good hearing and promised to convey its concerns to Washington.

“It was heartening that Mr Goldman agreed to the meeting and gave us a fair hearing,” Mr Wilkie said. “Hopefully our representations this morning impressed upon him the broad concern in Australia, and indeed right around the world, at the shocking injustice being meted out to Julian Assange. The US’s pursuit of Mr Assange is obviously not in the public interest and must be dropped.”

The 49-year-old has been in Belmarsh Prison since April 2019 trying to avoid extradition to the US to face 17 espionage charges and one computer hacking charge.

In 2012 he sought asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on a rape allegation that he denied. An investigation into the 2010 rape allegation has since been dropped by Swedish prosecutors.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in January Mr Assange would be allowed to return to Australia if all charges were dropped.

He said consular support had consistently been offered to Mr Assange, but made clear the government were “not parties to those set of proceedings”.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese last month said while he had no sympathy for many of Mr Assange’s actions but could not see what was served by keeping him incarcerated.

The 10-member Bring Julian Assange Home parliamentary group includes Nationals backbencher Barnaby Joyce, crossbencher Zali Steggall, Labor MP Steve Georganas and Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson.

Mr Christensen, who last year met with Mr Assange in Britain, said the point of the meeting was to express the group’s support for Mr Assange, his right to publish without being pursued through courts and to encourage the US to cease its ongoing legal actions.

Mr Hill said Australians didn’t have to like or agree with Mr Assange, but he deserved fair treatment like any other Australian.

“The US should do the decent, humane thing and drop the prosecution, accepting the UK court’s decision that Mr Assange is unwell and should not be extradited,” he said.

An embassy spokesman said members regularly meet with Australian members of parliament on “a wide range of issues”.

“The United States government continues to seek the extradition of Julian Assange to face the criminal charges pending against him in the United States.”

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/bipartisan-delegation-of-australian-mps-meets-with-us-embassy-about-julian-assange-20210322-p57cul.html

>>13257003

Sonnenkrieg Division: Australia lists right-wing organisation as terrorist group for the first time

The federal government has for the first time listed a right-wing extremist group as a terrorist organisation under Australia's criminal code.

AAP / SBS - 22 March 2021

Australia has for the first time listed a right-wing extremist organisation as a terrorist group, paving the way for investigations and possible jailings of members.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is listing the Sonnenkrieg Division - also known as SKD - under the criminal code, joining the likes of Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Members of the group have been convicted for plotting to attack the British royal family, as well as disseminating terrorist material.

Mr Dutton said the listing reflected the government's commitment to stamping out violence and extremism of all kinds, regardless of ideology or motivation.

"SKD adheres to an abhorrent, violent ideology that encourages lone-wolf terrorist actors who would seek to cause significant harm to our way of life and our country," Mr Dutton said on Monday.

"Members of SKD have already been convicted of terrorist offences in the United Kingdom, including encouraging terrorism, preparing for a terrorist attack and possession and dissemination of terrorist material."

The listing enables all available terrorist offences and penalties to apply to the organisation, including up to 25 years in jail for some offences.

ASIO boss Mike Burgess said the domestic spy agency had proposed listing other groups but it was up to others to decide if the legal threshold was met.

"Here it's a very high bar because there are very high penalties," he told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra.

"Of course we will pay attention to any groups here in Australia and we look at them but our principal focus is actually on individuals and the group itself about whether they promote acts of violence or terrorism."

Mr Burgess declined to say how many ASIO analysts were assigned to right-wing groups.

He defended using the catch-all term ideological extremism to refer to terrorist organisations across the political spectrum during a speech last week.

"Some commentators suggested I had banned words and that's simply not true," Mr Burgess said.

"I will say extreme right-wing where it's relevant. I will call out Islamic State where it's relevant."

Labor has been urging the government to start listing right-wing extremist groups.

But the government has insisted it was waiting for advice from ASIO.

Until Monday, Australia was the only country inside the Five Eyes intelligence network - which includes the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand - not to have labelled any right-wing extremists as terrorists.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sonnenkrieg-division-australia-lists-right-wing-organisation-as-terrorist-group-for-the-first-time

https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Listedterroristorganisations/Pages/default.aspx

https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Listedterroristorganisations/Pages/sonnenkrieg-division.aspx

Vatican money transfers no crime: police

Matt Coughlan - 22 March 2021

Federal police have been unable to identify any crime linked to money transfers from the Vatican to Australia after the amount was dramatically reduced.

Financial watchdog AUSTRAC in January found $9.5 million was transferred between 2014 and 2020, a fraction of the $2.3 billion originally reported.

Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner Ian McCartney confirmed the financial investigator had provided updated reports.

"We've reviewed that financial information and our position at this stage is we can't identify any misconduct in relation to that," he told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Monday.

"Based on the information we've got, we've completed our inquiries."

AUSTRAC's error was attributed to a computer coding mistake after the Vatican contested the huge amount, which sparked speculation about potential money laundering.

Cardinal George Pell, who was the Vatican's treasurer from 2014 to 2017, said in January he was relieved to hear billions were not laundered while he was head of the Secretariat of the Economy.

https://thewest.com.au/politics/vatican-money-transfers-no-crime-police-ng-s-2054462

History repeats itself: From the New Testament to QAnon

Timothy Pettipiece - March 22, 2021

QAnon’s cryptic predictions read like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. In the science fiction author’s book, Valis, the protagonist experiences visions he interprets as revelations about alien intelligence, political scandal and secret wisdom. The book was inspired by Dick’s own experiences and contains imagery drawn from early Christian gnostic groups — loosely organized religious and philosophical movements — that claimed to possess special knowledge about the true nature of the universe.

For the followers of QAnon, an equally gnostic vision of reality is unveiled through obscure remarks from their online oracle.

Although debated by modern scholars, the basic premise of the gnostic worldview is that reality is not what it appears. Ancient gnostics believed that the world we perceive is, in fact, a prison constructed by demonic powers to enslave the soul and that only a small spiritual elite are blessed with special knowledge — or gnosis — that enables them to unmask this deception.

A revisionist reading of reality, in which social and political events are only understood by a chosen few, is the basis of the QAnon gospel. Yet, it is also a worldview driven by long-standing religious impulses clearly evident to historians of early Christianity.

QAnon followers today

QAnon followers — predominately Donald Trump supporters and conservative Christians — appear to believe that the real cause of this past year’s crisis was an underground religious war being waged by U.S. soldiers against legions of Illuminati demons.

They believe that these beings torture and abuse children in order to procure a highly addictive drug called adrenochrome used by liberal and Hollywood elites. Building on the Pizzagate conspiracy theory of 2016, this belief has now morphed into a more expansive “end of the world” narrative.

The QAnon story casts Trump as a kind of radical Christian ruler, deputized by God to wage war against the liberal infidels destroying a once great and holy nation. Followers believe that the former president’s tweets were not chaotic ramblings, but in fact the words of a Christian oracle, the meaning of which only true believers can decipher through online message boards.

QAnon is a curious mixture of sex scandal, anti-government protest, science fiction, biblical religion and military ethos. These ingredients make for a uniquely American religion and manifest the “cult” of Trump in its most extreme form. All of this seems incredible, even amusing, except for that fact that QAnon is tearing apart families and poisoning American politics.

A look at the history

Although very much a product of the current cultural environment, QAnon also reproduces trends and dynamics from the earliest history of Christianity.

Biblical scholars have long understood that this work is an encoded, first century C.E. attack against Roman imperial power, yet, John’s apocalypse has often been interpreted as a scriptural key to how the world will end.

The earliest Christian readers of the New Testament thought that the end of times was imminent and, ever since, Christian groups have periodically arisen to proclaim that the hour is at hand, only to be disappointed.

Usually, such millenarian sects appear in times of crisis and instability, and are often unpredictable. Millenarianism is a recurring belief in religious, social or political groups about the coming fundamental transformation of society, after which “all things will be changed.” In fact, the Apocalypse of John was not widely accepted into the emerging New Testament until well into the fourth century C.E. Many early Christian leaders thought the text encouraged extremist sectarian impulses that the institutional church found difficult to control.

Inevitable immolation

QAnon is not so much a “church” (in a sociological sense) but a loosely connected network of online commentators. Even though it was birthed in a matrix of evangelical fundamentalism and Republican extremism, QAnonners are under no recognizable institutional framework.

They themselves might assert that their so-called “White Hats” represent an organized military force carrying out complex operations in an underground war. It is important to recognize that QAnon is more than just a “conspiracy theory” or fringe political movement: it has all the hallmarks of a new religious movement, one that manifests deeply rooted tendencies in sectarian Christianities from the past.

Few religious sects successfully transition to stabilized religions. Most burn themselves out. Unfortunately, the nearly inevitable immolation that occurs often consumes more than just the believers themselves.

https://theconversation.com/history-repeats-itself-from-the-new-testament-to-qanon-156915

>>13184887

HBO's QAnon documentary 'Q: Into the Storm' searches for its origins but misses its meaning

The six-hour mini-series dives deep into the worst of the internet. But it never explains why QAnon took hold of so many minds, or where it goes from here.

Sam Thielman - March 22, 2021

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The new HBO documentary about the conspiracy theory QAnon, “Q: Into the Storm,” is a diffuse six-episode mini-series directed, written, shot and narrated by Cullen Hoback. Hoback has made interesting and technically literate films before, notably 2013’s improbably entertaining documentary about license agreements, “Terms and Conditions May Apply.”

As far as his QAnon series goes, I liked the animation over the opening credits.

The problem with “Into the Storm” is that rather than tightly focus on relationships within the conspiracy theory that essentially bookended the Trump presidency and contributed to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol (which is most of the final episode’s climax), it is instead a sort of unified theory of the contemporary internet. Its six one-hour episodes track the lineages and influences of meme culture from the Something Awful forums (where today’s popular comedy writers and activists rubbed elbows in the late 1990s) to the hacker collective Anonymous and from the web-based hate campaign Gamergate in 2014 to two of several explicitly political right-wing movements it sired, "pizzagate" and its amped-up successor, QAnon.

In that sense, "Into the Storm" wants to be a grand story about the way we live now. Instead — and despite the high stakes — too much of it plays out as sub-“Real Housewives” catty infighting between boring and self-involved dudebros living in relative isolation in various noncontiguous countries and devoting their lives to … well, to nothing.

That is why the show is such a tedious, frustrating slog, punctuated by moments of frankly inexcusable prurience — including what appear to be blurred-out images of child abuse and footage of the Christchurch shooting taken by the killer and uploaded to an image board called 8chan specifically to inflame race-based hatred.

All of this is not to say “Into the Storm” is worthless — just that it’s two hours of documentary in a six-hour bag. It's entirely possible that one need not understand the entirety of the modern internet to grasp QAnon; after all, most of its adherents don't.

At its core, QAnon is a cult of personality that occasionally lacks a person, dedicated (most of the time) to the pronouncements of a pseudonymous blogger calling himself (assuming it's a him at all) Q and spreading, in coded messages, what it or they claim is secret information about the nefarious activities of Democrats and movie stars (who eat babies to rejuvenate themselves) and the secret war by former President Donald Trump to bring them justice. Q's gnomic tidbits and ambiguous prophecies are usually vague; there is a cottage industry of Q interpreters dedicated to promoting and, likely not coincidentally, profiting from the conspiracy.

Q used to post on an internet message board called 4chan, then exclusively on its nominal successor 8chan and now does so on 8kun, encouraging "interpreters" to take the posts and their interpretation to more popular platforms like YouTube and Facebook where your older relatives can most easily get hooked. The original Q account stopped posting in December, but Q’s acolytes continue to grift even as they drift.

The conspiracy theory became popular enough among American conservatives during the Trump administration (which consistently egged QAnon adherents on) that two politicians who publicly courted its believers were elected to Congress in 2020 (Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.), and it inspired some of the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol during the right’s lethal crusade on Jan. 6.

The conspiracy theory, and its all-consuming allure to some people who truly believed that the problems in the world could be explained by the rich and powerful living off an adrenaline byproduct harvested from children's blood, has destroyed familial relationships, friendships, marriages and more. It’s a fundamentally lunatic series of ideas with incongruously vast appeal; great fodder for a deep dive into the psyches of the apparently reasonable people affected by it. Hoback, however, is more interested in the psyches of the people who he believes perpetrated it, and those people are mostly disappointing, contemptible jerks.

(continued)

>>13273818

2/2

Fredrick Brennan, the programmer who created 8chan and helped launch Gamergate, is Hoback's most sympathetic character — in no small part because he's repudiated his work and made awful sacrifices in pursuit of amends. He’s a fascinating, obviously intelligent and self-aware person who, at one point, tells a TV interviewer that he “might actually deserve” his inescapable association with the site he no longer runs.

Jim Watkins, to whom Brennan sold the site, is the villain of the piece, along with his bratty son, Ron. Ron is particularly interesting in contrast to Brennan. He’s nondisabled where Brennan is visibly disabled, impenetrably pompous where Brennan is often humble, and creepy in every possible way: disingenuous and deceitful and, Hoback suggests, possibly even dangerous.

“Maybe 25 percent of 8chan is paid for by pigs,” observes Jim Watkins, who owns an actual pig farm (among other businesses), at the beginning of the series. Hoback uses it as an apt metaphor — the site does seem to be populated by the most piggish people possible — and makes it a point to show copious amounts of the grossest and most antisocial posts from the site.

The Watkinses, various semi-recognizable right-wing media personalities and the nonrecognizable fifth-tier acolytes of Q are just some of the huge cast of malevolent dorks who populate “Into the Storm.” Is one of them Q? Maybe, but the question of who originally told people the obvious lie that Hillary Clinton eats babies is far less interesting than why anyone ever believed it.

Hoback’s own credibility would benefit from fewer scenes lengthily indulging the conspiracists: Their grasping at straws, which forms the basis of Q’s fandom, is uncomfortably recalled by Hoback’s own efforts in the film to identify Q. And there’s a continuum between Hoback’s own slick style — heavy on screenshots, ominous bleepy music and digital animation — and the overproduced YouTube videos parsing Q’s 8chan posts that QAnoners (“Q-tubers”) pore over. At some point in the six hours, it ceases to be clear where Hoback ends and the conspiracy theorists begin.

This is why, perhaps, some of the lessons learned by other journalists who have looked into this conspiracy — including several that he interviews — might have served Hoback well: Trust but verify, deplatform hate speech rather than give it more air and choose dry small-T truth over sexy hyperbole.

“Into the Storm” sets out in search of the truth, but it gets bogged down gawking at a world made up almost entirely of lies.

Sam Thielman is a reporter and critic based in New York. He is the creator, with film critic Alissa Wilkinson, of Young Adult Movie Ministry, a podcast about Christianity and movies, and his writing has been featured in The Columbia Journalism Review, The Guardian, Talking Points Memo and Variety. In 2017 he was political consultant for Comedy Central's "The President Show."

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/hbo-s-qanon-documentary-q-storm-searches-its-origins-misses-ncna1261661

China faces pressure from Australian parliament on treatment of Uighurs, religious minorities

DENNIS SHANAHAN - MARCH 22, 2021

Former Howard government cabinet minister and Liberal MP, Kevin Andrews, has called on the Morrison government to allow a full debate of a bipartisan MPs’ motion expressing abhorrence at China’s treatment of the Uighurs and other minorities.

In moving a private members’ bill in the House of Representatives on Monday Mr Andrews said the motion “is not a party-political issue, it is an issue of basic human rights.

Mr Andrew’s is the chair of the Parliamentary human rights sub-committee and the motion is seconded by the deputy chair of the committee and NSW Labor MP, Chris Hayes.

“Among other things, this motion calls for greater action to enforce laws against modern slavery and to identify supply chains that use forced labour,” Mr Andrews told Parliament.

“This is a time when the Parliament should speak with one voice. I cannot think of any Member or Senator who would vote against this Motion,” he said.

“I encourage the Parliament to uphold the rule of law and universal human rights, and not to accept the totalitarian practices of the Communist regime.”

Strong momentum is building for the motion among MPs and it was given an extended time for debate for a non-Government motion as MPs have oversubscribed for the time available.

Private members’ bills rarely attract such attention and even more rarely ended up being debated as a resolution for the House of Representatives.

The motion, which calls for the Chinese Government to respect rules on human rights abuses and urges the United Nations to investigate the plight of the minorities in China.

But, to ensure maximum Parliamentary support, the resolution does not claim that the actions against the Uighurs meet the formal definition of genocide.

The strongly-worded motion points to resolutions passed unanimously in the Canadian and Netherlands Parliaments which declare that Chinese Government policies to prevent births among Uighur people and other Turkic Muslims amounts to genocide.

The UK House of Lords has also passed a resolution urging the British Government to uphold all the United Nations’ resolutions on the prevention and punishment of genocide.

The Australian Government’s criticism of China over human rights abuses in Xianjing province, including detention camps and religious persecution, is one of the main complaints Beijing has nominated as rupturing Australia-Chinese relations.

At the first high-level talks between China and the administration of US President Joe Biden, the Chinese leaders complained of the criticism over the Uighurs.

Former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, issued a US determination that the Uighurs are being subjected to genocide.

The Australian motion records numerous international studies which have found that China is committing genocide against the Uighurs.

“A series of international reports, including by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Right and the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, have concluded that Uighurs in Xinjiang have and are being forcibly held in ‘re-education’ camps, subjected to torture, forced labour and coercive transfer to other regions,” the motion said.

Mr Andrews told Parliament on Monday: “The most egregious, systematic abuse of human rights in the world is occurring in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of western China. It has been occurring for several years. It involves the imprisonment, torture and enslavement of millions of ethnic Uighurs, who comprise some 90 % of the population in the southern region of Xinjiang”.

“In speeches and government orders, there are directions to “eradicate tumours”, “wipe them out completely … Destroy them root and branch,” to “show absolutely no mercy,” and to “eliminate risks within risks, hidden dangers in hidden dangers.”

“The result of this deliberate policy is the construction of more than 380 internment camps, described officially as “concentrated transformation-through-education” centres, the imprisonment of millions of Uighurs over the past few years, the mass video surveillance of the population, the widespread collection of biometric data, the killing, torture and rape of Uighurs, the forced sterilisation of the population and the widespread use of forced labour,” Mr Andrews said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/china-faces-pressure-from-australian-parliament-on-treatment-of-uighurs-religious-minorities/news-story/002741ec1da7dbd502a5663c3066f54f

The Aussie human rights lawyer who has stood by Julian Assange for 10 years | Australian story

ABC News In-depth

22 Mar 2021

From small town public schoolgirl to the International Court of Justice, Jennifer Robinson has had a meteoric rise to the top of her field.

In a "full on" few months last year, the human rights lawyer was involved in two of the most high-profile court cases in the world. She represented Amber Heard in Johnny Depp’s defamation action against The Sun newspaper in the UK and helped fight attempts to extradite long-term client Julian Assange to the US.

At just 40, Robinson has achieved more than most lawyers will in a lifetime. Now she is giving back to the public school system — a cause close to her heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE-sKgVsTFM

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-22/jennifer-robinson-mission-to-make-public-school-kids-shine/13215518