Australia’s disguised deployment in the assistance of theft by Israel of the Syrian Golan Heights oil fields and media silence. Murdoch’s interest in Genie Oil a pay off for silence. (ODT)
What is the Israeli/US interest in the Golans that has prompted Israeli occupation and such strong support from the US (and Australia) in violation of UN resolutions? The answer is partly settlement opportunities for Israel, but the other is oil. According to the Israeli operated Afek Oil and Gas there is ‘billions of barrels of Israeli oil’ under the ground. Except it is Syrian ground.
But hey, the AFP were very busy in 2012 investigating allegations by whistleblower James Ashby about Peter Slipper’s misuse of cab charges. Despite Slipper being exonerated of the heinous charge of using $900 to visit a winery – which he offered to repay but wasn’t allowed because the AFP were already ‘investigating’ – his career and personal life were destroyed.
Investigations by the AFP into the illegal copying and distribution of Mr Slipper’s diary to the media were dropped.
It’s important we don’t switch off, but rather refocus our attention on effective, loud and colourful resistance.
There’s plenty of inspiring action going on right now in Spain, Chile, Lebanon, Hong Kong and other places. Extinction Rebellion is not going away. It’s time to get off the couch and join in.
Excessive government secrecy and repression of whistleblowers and journalists is on the rise. This is a government which persecutes its citizens for doing the right thing. This oped, written befittingly by Name Withheld for Security Reasons, identifies another target whose name is also withheld for security reasons.
Right to Know Coalition is run out of News Corp’s Sydney headquarters at 2 Holt Street, Surry Hills, and all its material is authorised by News Corp’s corporate affairs, policy and government relations supremo, infamous former Daily Telegraph editor Campbell “Dead Fish” Reid (note the below).
News Corp only began to express concerns about “press freedom” under the Coalition Government when one of its journalists, Annika Smethurst, had her house raided by the Australian Federal Police in June, shortly after the last Federal election. Now, the “Right to Know Coalition” has sprung into action.
Independent Australia strongly supports press freedom. But it does not support a campaign led by a self-serving, amoral and deeply corrupt organisation. An organisation tightly in the grip of a foreign billionaire, Rupert Murdoch, who has so many unanswered questions about his own opaque behaviour.
Victoria has signed a fresh deal with the Chinese government and its global ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure project with Premier Daniel Andrew urging other Australian governments to follow suit.
The agreement, signed in Beijing on Wednesday evening, will deepen cooperation between the state and the Communist-ruled country in the key areas of infrastructure, innovation, ageing and trade development.
Wednesday’s deal was signed only a few hours after federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton questioned whether the Premier’s trade efforts in China were in the “national interest”.
Some Islamic State inmates have already escaped
One doctor says prisoners are dying at a rate of about one each day
There are at least seven Australian IS suspects in Kurdish prisons
LNP have been slashing the ABC funding for the past 6 years never promised at an election and always called something other than what it is. Death of the ABC will be the death of Democracy in Australia and the growth of Murdoch media whose profits are heavily entrenched supporting those that will have the money to pay at elections. $90 million vs $18 million tells the tale of modern politics and the media. A David and Goliath tale where Goliath has had his achillies cut and tongue cut out. (ODT)
Key points:
Mr Anderson did not say how many staff or from where in the ABC the jobs would be cut He told Senate Estimates consideration would be given to keeping regional and remote jobs The Government has frozen the ABC’s budget for three years, at a cost of $83.7 million
cost savings to bringing the troops home, but he put up spending on the Department of Defense $130 billion a year. The 2015 Defense budget was $586 billion and that in 2019 was $716 billion.
Sure, Trump is being impeached, Brexit is a mess, and the far right in Austria and Italy have suffered recent setbacks. Still, looking at the bigger picture, it’s hard not to conclude that such extremists have acquired the sort of mainstream legitimacy across the planet that they haven’t enjoyed in nearly a century.
Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal has applied for a mining lease and environmental assessment to build a coalmine four times the size of Adani’s Carmichael mine in the Queensland Galilee Basin, reports Guardian Australia. If burned, coal in the west Queensland seam alone could shift the earth’s climate a third of the way to 2 degrees of warming. Palmer, who spent upwards of $60m in political advertising in the run up to the federal election, is also planning to build a coal-fired power station in the state. The news comes as Senator Malcolm Roberts accuses the Bureau of Meteorology of removing a graph that “goes against the narrative of the climate extremists” in a Senate estimates hearing. In the hearing Greens Senator Hanson-Young asked if the Morrison government had been briefed regarding “the climate emergency”. Climate Change and Energy Innovation deputy secretary Jo Evans replied that she does not use such terminology, preferring to “stick to a factual description”.
A gaunt, hesitant and apparently confused Julian Assange has told a London judge he is in an inequitable fight against a superpower which has been spying on his “interior life” and on confidential meetings with his legal team.
The WikiLeaks founder is trying to avoid extradition to the US to face 17 espionage charges and one computer hacking charge.
His legal team revealed on Monday they want to deal a knockout blow to the case against him, by establishing that the charges are a “political offence” for which extradition cannot be granted.
Trump, meanwhile, said it was a foregone conclusion that the Democratic-led US House of Representatives will vote to impeach him over his request that Ukraine investigate a political rival as he exhorted his fellow Republicans to rally to his defense.
Donald Trump Jr. attempted to put pressure on Republicans who haven’t signed onto an effort to censure Schiff.
The president’s eldest son retweeted a list of 23 House Republicans who are not backing the resolution as co-sponsors. The Twitter thread urged Trump supporters to “Check if your Representative is on this list and call them NOW!”
“I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the Pre-sident of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. … The President’ s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General Barr appears to be involved as well.”“I am also concerned that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. Government’s efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections.”“[S]enior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call… the trans-cript was loaded into a separate electronic system… used to store and handle clas-sified information of an especially sensitive nature.” “One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic systembecause the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”#
Whether it be Qantas, or any large company that employs Australians, anger at growing executive wages seems to be met with a standard response – you need to pay these rates to attract the best people. But are they worth it? A review of the performance of Qantas over time may break down some of the misconceptions shared by those defending their own salary packages.
I am proud of her willingness to be active in highlighting the failure of governments to accept the fact of the climate emergency and take action – for a start in Australia by setting a carbon price! – to ensure that our grandchildren have a viable world to enjoy.
Conservatism puts a brake on progress and, at this point in history, the only brake we need is on global warming.
One of Joe Hockey’s first acts as Treasurer in 2013 was to gift the RBA $8.8 billion. The main reason for this was to make Labor’s deficit look bigger. As a side bonus, it allowed the RBA to invest in the forex market, banking on the Australian dollar losing value as the mining boom subsided.
And that is exactly what happened allowing the government to draw…wait for it…$8.8 billion in dividends over the last six years. That’s all very well (if we ignore how the Coalition screamed like stuck pigs when Labor took a one-off dividend of $500 million in 2013) except Hockey borrowed the $8.8 billion so we are still paying interest on it.
Michaela Cash started it and then his behind the White Board. The problem is Privatised Media fails to deliver or even begin to sell this product. Tha ABC is the only media organisation constantly under attack (ODT)
With a media blitz running for weeks, the campaign is unusual in its scale as well as its broad support across the industry from Nine, the ABC, The Guardian, News Corp Australia, Prime Media, Seven West Media, Sky News, SBS, Ten, the WIN Network and others. (Nine owns this masthead.)
Jim Savage, a former state branch president, said party members felt Pauline Hanson should not be both senator and party president
Mr Savage said charging members to attend the meeting was a violation of One Nation’s constitution
Another member, Vivian Schnell, said she could not afford to buy tickets and was unhappy Senator Hanson was running the party
olddogthoughts 
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