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>>24363854

Top Iranian diplomat defected, received asylum in secret escape

Brittany Busch and Matthew Knott - March 13, 2026

Iran’s second most senior diplomat in Australia defected from the hardline regime and received asylum in Australia three years ago in a remarkable development that has stayed secret until now.

News of the defection of Mohammad Pournajaf, the former charge d’affaires at Iran’s embassy in Canberra, came after a week dominated by the dramatic escape of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team delegation, one of whom later changed her mind and decided to return to Iran.

The London-based Iran International news service, which is not aligned with the regime in Tehran, reported on Friday that Pournajaf, a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Canberra had submitted an asylum request.

But government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said that Pournajaf applied for protection and was granted permanent residency in 2023, well before the latest conflict began.

His defection had not been previously reported.

Nader Ranjbar, a member of Canberra’s Iranian-Australian community, said Pournajaf was co-operating with anti-regime activists before seeking asylum in 2023.

“He decided to change his ways and help us. He decided to join the people and seek refuge,” Ranjbar said.

“No one knows where he is.”

Other active members of the Iranian diaspora in Australia said they were not aware of his defection.

As recently as February 2023, Pournajaf was hosting events in Canberra celebrating the Islamic revolution that brought the current theocratic regime to power.

According to reports from the time, Pournajaf told guests that the “Islamic Republic from the very beginning of its establishment faced extreme challenges that no other nation had to face”, and described it as “one of the very few nations in the region that has successfully conducted regular democratic elections since 1979”.

The federal government last year expelled Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, after domestic spy agency ASIO concluded that Iran had orchestrated the bombings of a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher restaurant in Sydney.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told parliament this week that 21-year-old player Mohaddeseh Zolfi had changed her mind less than an hour after he publicly announced her defection.

“Unfortunately, in making that decision, she’d been advised by her teammates and coach to contact the Iranian embassy to get collected,” he said. “As a result of that, it meant that the Iranian embassy now knew the location of where everybody was.”

The other members of the soccer team who defected had to be moved to a new secure location.

A senior Iranian diplomat based at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva, Alireza Jeyrani Hokmabad, reportedly left his post and applied for asylum in Switzerland last month, claiming he was concerned about political repercussions if he returned to Iran.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/top-iranian-diplomat-defected-received-asylum-in-secret-escape-20260313-p5oa58.html

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603122641

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>>24363919

Australia taps fuel stockpile in urgent bid to fill shortages and stem panic buying

Mike Foley - March 13, 2026

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Six days’ worth of fuel supply will be released from the national reserves in an unprecedented effort to stem panic buying amid fears of country-wide shortages as the oil crisis squeezes the global supply.

The hundreds of millions of litres of fuel Energy Minister Chris Bowen will pump into the nation’s supply is aimed at shoring up short-term confidence, but he resisted announcing further measures to ration fuel if the Iran war continued to affect shipping from the Middle East.

Labor faces questions over its ability to deal with a long-run squeeze on global oil supply, after successive federal governments ignored for decades the warnings of experts and public servants that Australia was not prepared for a major energy shock.

As the war between Iran and the US and Israel stretches into its second week, attacks on the Gulf states have closed the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 20 per cent of global oil supply.

Fuel prices have shot up to an average of around $2.20 in Sydney and Melbourne and analysts have forecast that unless ships start moving through the strait again soon, petrol prices could rise above $3 a litre.

Farmers and regional service stations are reporting that local distribution networks are breaking down, as demand from nervous customers drives a doubling of typical national fuel consumption.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Friday announced the release of 760 million litres of petrol and diesel into the local market. It will be drawn from the domestic holdings of fuel companies, representing 20 per cent of the national stockpile, over the coming days and weeks.

He also said the government was not currently contemplating a cut to fuel excise taxes, which would lower petrol prices, nor enacting rationing powers to control the volume of fuel motorists can buy.

Friday’s fuel release swiftly followed Thursday’s announcement that the Albanese government had struck an agreement with Ampol Australia to supply the domestic market with fuel containing higher sulphur content, which would otherwise be exported. Ampol will prioritise the fuel to regional suppliers.

US President Donald Trump’s initial predictions that the war would be over within days have given way to uncertainty as the regime in Tehran has fought back with greater ferocity than the White House anticipated, according to reports in The New York Times.

Bowen assured drivers that Australia’s fuel imports had not been disrupted, urged motorists to stop buying up extra petrol, but acknowledged people’s fears and conceded the future was unknowable.

“It’s understandable that Australians are concerned about the fuel supply in Australia,” he said.

“These international circumstances are uncertain. Let’s not kid ourselves that everyone knows exactly how the next few weeks are going to play out, because no one does. What governments can do is respond to the circumstances as they arrive.”

Bowen’s assurances were challenged by opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan, who said the energy minister should have moved sooner to address fuel security fears.

“There is nothing that has reassured me and reassured the Australian people, because it’s clear [Bowen] doesn’t have a plan,” Tehan said.

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The National Farmers Federation on Thursday wanted the government to consider more drastic measures, such as taking over regional fuel supply chains under the powers of the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act.

The government’s last fuel security inquiry, the 2020 Liquid Fuel Security Review, warned that Australia was more reliant on imported fuel than many of its peers and must boost its holdings.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said his organisation and many others had campaigned for years to boost Australia’s fuel reserves as a defence against shocks such as the current oil crisis – despite the significant cost to the public purse.

“The NRMA has long held the view that we need to increase our strategic reserve, acknowledging it means an investment in infrastructure, but I think the last two weeks have shown why,” Khoury said.

Bowen said this week it could cost $20 billion over four years to build the infrastructure needed to hold enough fuel to comply with the International Energy Agency’s requirement of 90 days’ fuel.

In the 10 years up to 2020, Australia’s holdings of petrol, diesel and jet fuel ranged between 14 and 25 days’ worth of consumption.

Japan holds up to 250 days, the UK stores 51 days’ worth of liquid fuel – with greater domestic oil production capacity – and the US, which is a net exporter, holds around 400 million barrels of oil in reserve – or enough combined public and private holdings for over 115 days.

The Albanese government created a minimum stock obligation in 2023, soon after it took office, increasing holdings to 36 days’ supply of petrol, 34 days of diesel and 32 days of jet fuel stashed at facilities across the country.

Independent fuel suppliers, who play an outsized role in regional Australia, have reported difficulty in filling orders as major companies restrict distribution.

Australia has lost around 70 per cent of its fuel refining capacity in the past 15 years, and now imports 90 per cent of its supplies. The Commonwealth financial support for the two remaining oil refineries, Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery in Victoria and Ampol’s Lytton plant in Brisbane, runs out in June 2027.

When Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was energy minister in 2020, the Morrison government spent $94 million to establish a stockpile of 1.7 million barrels of oil, stored in the US.

In 2022, reserves were released from this stockpile when the government sold the fuel for around $230 million as part of a global effort to calm the world’s oil markets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered the last energy crisis.

Analysts have predicted the global benchmark Brent oil price could reach US$200 a barrel, double the current price.

A rule of thumb states that for every US$10 rise in the Brent price, petrol prices rise 10¢ at the bowser in Australia. A doubling of oil prices would add a dollar to local petrol prices.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/australia-taps-fuel-stockpile-for-first-time-in-urgent-bid-to-fill-regional-shortages-20260313-p5oa5r.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97toKn7srSo

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Australia to turn WWII site on ‘valuable’ Indonesian island into training base

Zach Hope and Karuni Rompies - March 12, 2026

Singapore/Jakarta: Australia and Indonesia, drawing ever closer on matters of security, plan to redevelop World War II-era defence facilities on the small island of Morotai into a joint training base.

Defence Minister Richard Marles also announced in Jakarta on Thursday that an Indonesian with the rank of colonel would embed with Australian troops from early next year as a deputy commander of 1st Brigade in Darwin.

Of Australia’s three infantry brigades, 1st Brigade interacted most closely with the annual rotation of US Marines, he said.

The initiatives were flagged by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in February when he signed the Treaty on Common Security with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, but details were scant.

The strategically located island of Morotai lies at the northernmost point of Indonesia’s North Maluku province and is just south of the Philippines. In World War II, it was captured from the Japanese by Allied forces, including Australians, and used as a base to liberate the Philippines.

Indonesia’s Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said the facilities would also be open to Singapore and the Philippines, the latter of which faces ongoing tensions with China in the South China Sea.

In a day of announcements, Indonesia and Australia also now plan to expand their joint security cooperation to include Japan and Papua New Guinea, Australia’s new security ally.

Australia has always sought closer ties with Indonesia. The moves detailed on Thursday, however, highlight Prabowo’s eagerness to cement stronger friendships in the region amid the rise of China and an unpredictable US under the stewardship of Donald Trump.

The former general is also keen to play a bigger role in global affairs, signing up Indonesia to Trump’s Board of Peace and becoming the first leader to promise troops for any peacekeeping force in war-ravaged Gaza.

Indonesia also maintains good relations with China, and Prabowo has met several times with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, but it too has friction points with the superpower in the South China Sea.

“Indonesia wouldn’t sign up to [developing a training base with Australia] if it were going to be overtly provocative towards China,” said Dr Natalie Sambhi, executive director of Verve Research, an independent think tank.

“Given the location, it makes sense that the Philippines would be able to use it. It’s advantageous for the Indonesian armed forces to work together with the Philippines and Singapore, especially in light of the latter’s professionalism and capability.

“That said, there are questions worth raising, such as, would Indonesia be allowed to invite China or other partners to use the facility, and to what extent might it impact Indonesian sovereignty.”

Marles said the announcements were about focusing on the bilateral relationship “on our own terms”.

“This is not about any other third country,” he said. “This is about building the shared capability between Indonesia and Australia.”

In April last year, respected military website Janes caused a flap in Australia with a report that Russia had asked to base warplanes in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua. Indonesia rejected the story.

If Russia did make the request, Indonesia appeared to have said no. The country is staunchly non-aligned with military power blocs. Prabowo, however, has been perceived at home as pushing the doctrine’s limits, particularly in relation to the Board of Peace.

Sjafrie said the Morotai island development opportunity, which would be used for land and sea training, was previously put to Singapore, which declined. A separate training facility with that nation would go ahead in North Kalimantan, he said.

Echoing previous statements, Marles said the Australia-Indonesia relationship was at a high watermark, “characterised by the deepest of friendships at the highest of levels”.

“I think what is different today is … there is a clear understanding about the strategic value which each of us brings to the other,” Marles said.

“For Australia, we understand that our national security lies in the collective security of the ASEAN region, of South-East Asia – and of course Indonesia is at the heart of that. And for Indonesia, Australia provides strategic depth.”

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/australia-indonesia-deepen-security-ties-with-joint-training-base-20260312-p5o9yk.html

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Abuse survivor wins public apology from Anglican Church for decades of failure

JAMIE WALKER - March 13, 2026

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Beth Heinrich had to wait more than 70 long years for this reckoning with the Anglican Church and how fitting that it’s been engineered by a man who not only understands her pain as a survivor of sexual abuse, but shares it.

On Sunday week, the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Jeremy Greaves, will formally apologise to Ms Heinrich in St John’s Cathedral for being failed by both the church and one of his predecessors, Peter Hollingworth.

The former governor-general is unlikely to attend the special service but Ms Heinrich, 86, will be there to savour the moment. She has fought a bitter and bruising battle to secure redress for the wrongs inflicted by her abuser, defrocked bishop Donald Shearman, and then by Dr Hollingworth when he suggested she was at fault.

As she sees it, the apology from Archbishop Greaves is not the end of the story – rather, the start of something positive for sexual abuse survivors who are afraid or reluctant to come forward. “I just want it to be an inspiration to others who’ve never done anything, for whatever reason,” she told The Australian.

“I’m hoping it might give them the idea to do something about their own abuse.”

Archbishop Greaves’ mea culpa is the culmination of months of talks with Ms Heinrich, who lives in regional Victoria. When he was elevated two years ago to one of the highest posts in the Anglican ministry, succeeding Phillip Aspinall, the prelate who stepped into Dr Hollingworth’s shoes as leader of the big Brisbane diocese, the 56-year-old clergyman promised to do better by the victims of predatory priests and church workers.

He has an intensely personal stake in this. He too is a survivor of sexual abuse, having been assaulted by a Scouts leader when he was a teenager in Adelaide during the early 1980s.

As Archbishop Greaves explained ahead of his installation in December 2023: “While my story is not anyone else’s story, hopefully it brings me a bit of understanding or a bit of sensitivity or compassion.”

Asked this week whether personal experience had influenced his dealings with Ms Heinrich, he said: “Victim-survivors so often carry shame and guilt that belongs to the perpetrators and others who have failed them.

“They are also at the mercy of legal and other processes that move incredibly slowly and can retraumatise people again and again as they have to re-tell the story of their abuse. I know from experience how exhausting this can be.

“If a public apology and admission of the church’s failures can help Ms Heinrich, in even a small way, move one more step on her journey of healing, then it’s a good thing. There are many parts of these processes over which I have no control, but I can do this one thing.”

Dr Hollingworth, 90, is said to be in poor health and did not respond to an interview request or written questions. He was forced to resign as governor-general in 2003, barely 18 months after trading in his clerical vestments, when the outcry over his self-interested handling of sexual abuse cases while archbishop of Brisbane made his position at Yarralumla untenable.

His behaviour towards Ms Heinrich was particularly egregious, culminating in a notorious appearance on the ABC’s Australian Story program in 2002 at the height of the crisis engulfing Government House and John Howard’s government. There, he implied she had instigated the abusive relationship with Shearman.

Ignoring the fact that Ms Heinrich was barely 15 when the married priest took her to bed, Dr Hollingworth said: “My belief is that this was not sex abuse. There was no suggestion of rape or anything like that. Quite the contrary. My information is that it was rather the other way around.”

He went on to apologise to Ms Heinrich, though in terms she considered hollow. They spoke in 2002, about 10 days after his trainwreck TV appearance. “He tried to say sorry to me by starting off with a lie,” she said.

“Every journalist in Australia was ringing me and there was the governor-general telling me that he had taken so long to call because they couldn’t find my number. It was a deliberate lie and I was not prepared to listen to someone who did that.”

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While Dr Hollingworth accepted on multiple occasions that he had failed to protect children and others from sexual abuse, expressing remorse for doing so, Ms Heinrich remained sceptical. To her ears, the apologies were heavily qualified.

Take Dr Hollingworth’s 2023 statement responding to an Anglican Church professional standards inquiry that found he had committed misconduct by allowing two priests he knew had sexually abused children to remain working during the 1990s.

“I made mistakes and I cannot undo them,” he said. “But I committed no crimes. There is no evidence that there was any abuse because of any decisions I made, or did not make.”

The tribunal stopped short of revoking Dr Hollingworth’s holy orders, allowing him to retain the status and authority of a bishop, to the dismay of Ms Heinrich and other aggrieved survivors.

Shearman, who was semi-retired in 2004 when he became the first Australian bishop to be defrocked over his improper relationship with Ms Heinrich, compounded the harm to her early on when he had her expelled from school, ending her hopes of becoming a teacher. He would drift in and out of her life for years to come.

She fled a violent marriage into his arms. The man who groomed her as a vulnerable child continued to exploit her as a vulnerable adult. Shearman professed to love her and they lived together briefly in 1984 before, at the urging of another bishop, he returned to his wife. Eventually, Ms Heinrich complained to the church.

In 1995, Dr Hollingworth in his capacity as archbishop of Brisbane, oversaw a mediation between Shearman and Ms Heinrich. The talks failed after Shearman admitted seducing her when she was under-age, but refused to sign a letter of apology. The disgraced cleric died in 2019. By that time, he had also been stripped of an OBE awarded in 1978 for “outstanding services to the church”.

A 2003 Anglican board of inquiry commissioned by then archbishop Aspinall deemed Dr Hollingworth’s handling of Ms Heinrich’s complaints against Shearman as “inappropriate and unfair”.

Archbishop Greaves knows all too well the long-term anguish unleashed by sexual abuse. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about his own trauma for decades, opening up to his wife only 10 years ago when he finally went to the South Australian police. Recounting the harrowing experience for the first time publicly to this masthead in 2023, he said a combination of “shame, embarrassment and bewilderment” had silenced him.

He was determined to help Ms Heinrich when she approached him about an apology, which she wanted out in the open, in the cathedral. They agreed on the wording. “It is not unusual for victim-survivors to ask for and receive an apology as part of redress and claims processes,” Archbishop Greaves said.

“Most often these are written apologies from me, on behalf of the church. Sometimes people ask for an in-person apology, and there are those who have asked for a public apology such as the one I will make on 22 March.”

Asked if he would apologise to other claimants dissatisfied by Dr Hollingworth’s handling of their historic cases, he said: “I want all victim-survivors to know that we take their experiences seriously, that we will listen and they will be believed. Where we have failed people, we must take responsibility for that. An apology is about recognising our failures and committing to a better future.”

Child safety expert Chris Goddard, an adjunct research professor at the University of Adelaide and visiting professor in social work at the University of Hertfordshire in Britain, will be by Ms Heinrich’s side on Sunday week. A longtime supporter, he helped her prepare a detailed submission to the 2013-17 royal commission into institutional child abuse.

“It’s the most extraordinary case of ongoing abuse I’ve seen in my career,” Professor Goddard said. “It started something like 70 years ago when a married priest sexually abused a teenage girl and used his power to intimidate her … never really allowing her to get on with her life.

“The emotional abuse continued when the Anglican Church, through senior figures like Peter Hollingworth, tried to silence her. When they finally agreed to make a small financial payment to Beth she even had to keep that secret.”

Ms Heinrich said she had spent enough time thinking and talking about what Shearman and Dr Hollingworth did to her. Her focus now was on other victim-survivors, “just demonstrating that something can be done if you stick to it, that’s all”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/abuse-survivor-wins-public-apology-from-anglican-church-for-decades-of-failure/news-story/50803ce62a27d4f45f160584ed89e3fd

https://qresear.ch/?q=Beth+Heinrich

https://qresear.ch/?q=Peter+Hollingworth