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The demonstrators were marking Land Day, which stems from March 30, 1976, when 2,000 hectares of land was confiscated from Palestinian citizens of Israel. Back then, six people died in subsequent protests.
via What’s behind the protests in the Gaza Strip? | Gaza | Al Jazeera
In her suicide note she wrote: “Wherever I go, there are men everywhere. I am tired. They won’t let me live.”
By removing herself, she wrote, her parents would no longer have to face eviction.
via India’s #MeToo moment is still about the struggle to survive
One of the most refreshing comments made by newly appointed Senator Tim Storer was that he would judge each piece of legislation on its merits and would not be horse-trading.
That, of course, would require him taking the time to read the legislation and having the capacity to understand it, unlike Pauline Hanson who can be fooled into supporting anything if you throw her a bone.
In order to gain Pauline’s support for weakening media ownership laws, Turnbull agreed to have a review into the competitive neutrality of the ABC and SBS – yes, another one.
via Hanson’s horse-trading – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Definitions of fascism tend to sound like neoliberalism’s mission statement, listing elements critical to the business model of … call them what you will: the wealthy elites, the one percent, the military/industrial complex, the economic rationalists, the political hard right, the corporate predators of neoliberalism … in other words, those who profit from chaos.
Socialism to fascists is what Kryptonite is to Superman. Fascists hate socialism, communism, even conservatism, which can appear too moderate in the eyes of these far-right bully boys. To fascists, concepts such as “human rights” and “social justice” are irrelevant.
Aspiring fascists prowl the corridors and back alleys of our federal parliament and public service.
Home Affairs, Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton presides over a vast portfolio which, it could be argued, places too much power over others in the hands of one man.
via Fascism: History Repeats, Again – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Ridd says he stands for ‘truth and honesty’ and has spent his ‘whole life fighting for scientific truth’.
The problem is that the version of the “truth” he has been standing alongside, including his own arguments, have been repeatedly shot down by the world’s leading scientific institutions.
Despite this, and despite the howls of his supporters, Ridd remains free to voice his “truth”.
US press is reporting that those killed died in “clashes,” they appear all to have been on the Gaza side of the line of control and never actually to have encountered any Israelis. There was no “clash.” Shooting down innocent unarmed people on their own land is typically termed “murder.”
Netanyahu Praises this and the work of his 100 snipers & 17 dead over 1,400 wounded
Several videos circulating on social media purport to show unarmed Palestinian protesters being shot in the back or while praying by Israeli snipers.
In one of the videos, a demonstrator – identified by relatives as 19-year-old Abdelfattah Abdelnabi – is shot in the back while running away from the border separating the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Professor Hamilton’s book has been flippantly dismissed as nonsense by those he named as agents of influence for China, but none of them have produced any proof that what he has said is untrue. The proof that Professor Hamilton has provided, however, is quite overwhelming, and other western countries have now begun to follow Australia’s lead in resisting Chinese subversion of our political and social systems.
What a load of alarmist rubbish. Demographically China has an aging problem where some 25% of it’s youth and energy will be devoted to the singular purpose of supporting a non-productive population. Australia in fact most of the world is faced with this problem other than India which is not only moving towards a productive youth-age but is being brain drained by the global corporate world to run the world’s biggest corporations. India is positioned to be the productive power house and management on the planet via simple demographics and a necessary revolution in it’s Education systems. It’s easier today for Indians to get fully paid scholarships to Harvard than to get into its own ITTs Indian Technical Teaching Services . 50% of India’s population was under 25 five years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcW4ABcY3zI
Is China really out to rule the world? The Greentown ‘Ruling Class’
On March 28, Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted a link to a Daily Wire article pointing out that Parkland survivor David Hogg was rejected by several colleges and accused him of whining about it. Ingraham’s attack on the teenage mass-shooting survivor is far from a shocking development given her and her Fox News colleagues’ repeated slandering of the shooting victims.
For all those conservatives who scream the injustice of Socialism. 2% of our population are Indigenous but
- 27.3%
- Percentage of Aboriginal prisoners in Australia in 2016 [46].
- 34.3%
- Percentage of all incarcerated women in Australia who were Aboriginal in 2016; of incarcerated men: 26.7% [46].
- 48%
- Percentage of juveniles in custody who are Aboriginal [32].
- That stigma stays with them for lif
Source: https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/aboriginal-prison-rates#ixzz5BKBExIr0
China’s Social Credit system’s + or – could blacklist 10 million people represents 0.0007% of the total population and not all are in jail hardly something Australia should crow over. When our Indigenous pop is the most systemically incarcerated in the worldLike the other 7 million citizens deemed to be “dishonest” and mired in the blacklist, Mr Liu has also been banned from staying in a star-rated hotel, buying a house, taking a holiday, and even sending his nine-year-old daughter to a private school.
And just last Monday, Chinese authorities announced they would also seek to freeze the assets of those deemed “dishonest people”.
These days, there’s a significant consensus here that the Iraq invasion was a “terrible mistake,” a “tragic error,” or even the “single worst foreign policy decision in American history.” Fewer voices are saying what it really was: a war crime. In fact, that invasion fell into the very category that led the list of crimes at the Nuremberg tribunal, where high Nazi officials were tried for their actions during World War II. During the negotiations establishing that tribunal and its rules, it was (ironically, in view of later events) the United States that insisted on including the crime of “waging a war of aggression” and on placing it at the head of the list. The U.S. position was that all the rest of Germany’s war crimes sprang from this first “crime against peace.”
via Trump’s Fascination with appointing War Criminals to High Office
The online home goods store Wayfair, food company Nestle, travel website TripAdvisor and Rachel Ray’s dog food Nutrish all said they are removing their support from Ingraham.
Wayfair said in a statement that it supports “open dialogue and debate on issues. However, the decision of an adult to personally criticize a high school student who has lost his classmates in an unspeakable tragedy is not consistent with our values. We do not plan to continue advertising on this particular program.”
via Advertisers rush to ditch Fox News personality after jibe at Florida school shooting survivor
“I’ll organise it with the banker,” Arico was recorded telling his mate. “You come in the Commonwealth Bank, we see Hasan* the bank f—ing guy, give your details, sign the documents, to go for the loan and let me worry about it.”
“Even better … We go and see Peter*… [he] is a hundred percent. This guy is the best … and whatever he’ll need to do, he’ll do.”
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via Bankers for a gangster: Commonwealth lenders help mafia boss do laundry
The Liberal Party has no compelling alternative to Turnbull. If it did, he’d be long gone. But it has three aspiring alternatives. The most obvious is the least plausible, Tony Abbott, who, in the Easter spirit of resurrection, this week offered as a political rule that “you’re always better the second time around”. The voters don’t intend to give him the chance and neither do his colleagues.
The most plausible is Julie Bishop. Of the Liberal leadership contenders, she is the only one who could credibly improve the Coalition’s vote and win an election. She is the champion of Liberal moderates and demonstrates her star power every time she visits a colleague’s electorate to campaign for them, which she does tirelessly.
Turnbull had his chance to be a moral force when he first took the prime ministership. But when he abandoned every big cause he’d ever championed during his three decades in the public eye – the republic, climate change and gay marriage – and accepted the Abbott policy settings as a condition of taking the job, he lost every skerrick of moral authority with the people.
via Turnbull had his chance to be a moral force – now he’s just a spent one
![A Palestinian protester wounded by Israeli sniper fire during Land Day protests east of Gaza City [Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/3/30/19050f970ef144139acdd1865927ad39_18.jpg "Israeli army kills 15 Palestinians in Gaza protests")
How Israel is predetermining a violent outcome for Gaza return march
Key points:and the Result
- Tens of thousands of Gazans, including families with children, gather along the border as clashes unfold
- Israeli troops fire live bullets and tear gas at Palestinians on the other side of the fence
- Protesters are demanding that Palestinian refugees be allowed the right of return to towns and villages from which their families fled in 1948
Sixteen Palestinians killed, hundreds injured as ‘Land Day’ protest begins along Israeli border – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Photos: Tens of thousands march on Gaza border, Israeli troops open fire
Cricket isn’t punishing these players it’s the Business of Cricket that is and according to business lost they brought to pay. Like Banks however the executives remain unscathed. Do the payin public have a class action suit of fraud available against the ACB? (Old Dog)
Magellan Financial Group has terminated its naming rights sponsorship of domestic Test matches involving the Australian men’s cricket team just one summer into the three-year deal.
The fund manager’s response to the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa is a costly blow to Cricket Australia, with the deal estimated at about $20 million when it was signed in August last year.
It comes after sporting goods manufacturer Asics terminated its sponsorship of suspended players David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, and health food company Sanitarium ended its relationship with former captain Steve Smith.
Smith, suspended by the ICC for the final Test of the series starting in Johannesburg on Friday, won’t be seen in a Test for Australia until October at the earliest – and it is unclear in what capacity. He did not exactly get a friendly send-off.
Smith has received many a standing ovation in his spectacular ascendance to the summit of the Test arena. At Newlands on Sunday, the reception was of a very different kind.
Deposed as Australian captain less than six hours before, the 28-year-old walked to the middle of the ground at 4.12pm local time. He was booed from the moment he emerged at the top of the stairs beneath the players’ balcony until he arrived to take strike.When, a mere 29 minutes and seven runs later, he made the same journey back, there was more of the same.
via Steve Smith booed as Australia’s humiliation capped with heavy defeat
In this case which came first the media or the politicians? In this case the politicians came from behind and were just media puppets pulled by the strings of Murdoch Media. It’s a case when neither the politicians or the media represent us. They merely try to service us in a prick of a way (ODT)
The communications minister Mitch Fifield and Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi both complained about a segment in which a candidate for Bernardi’s party Kevin Bailey was called a “cunt”.
“I would say the majority of people are not offended by the word, they are more offended by the C at the end of the AB than they are about the C-bomb that was used in the sketch,” Anderson, a Triple M Hot Breakfast co-host, told Guardian Australia.
“The majority of people who are offended by these jokes are not really offended by these jokes. They are, by their very nature, offended by the very idea of the ABC and they want to prosecute an agenda against the ABC. This is just an example of something they can use to prosecute an agenda.”
The yet-to-be published review warns financial penalties for tax evaders are so low that some people could be better off taking the risk of being caught.
Ahed Tamimi was sentenced to eight months in prison for slapping a soldier. Col. Israel Shomer, who shot a Palestinian teenager in the back three times didn’t sit a single day behind bars.
via What justice looks like for those who kill Palestinians | +972 Magazine
It’s true there’s a historical correlation between security, prosperity and growth. Those were the days when “trickle-down” worked. It worked because the trickling down occurred through higher wages and better social services at the insistence of a strong labour movement when our media weren’t just corporate mouthpieces. That’s all changed.
But isn’t GDP still growing? Sure. GDP can grow along with population, even while living standards stagnate. In that case, growth doesn’t help us. In fact, right now, poverty is also increasing in Australia. Shouldn’t that cancel out the boost to GDP from population growth? Something else must be increasing too. What could that be?
Once we adjust for population growth, much of our meagre GDP growth goes with it. If this affected the entire population equally, nobody’s wealth would be increasing. But, in fact, it’s the poor who are bearing the brunt, while the rich get richer. In simple terms, existing wealth is being redistributed upwards. So poverty and inequality are rising.
via Why the return of economic growth is a neoliberal illusion
Media by Protest is better than Government by Media, (OD)
via Sunrise rushes in Indigenous panel after train wreck show leads to protests | NITV
So let us consider some of Turnbull’s other friends. First, let’s take the case of Myanmar. Turnbull has dismissed accusations of human rights abuses in Cambodia and Myanmar as “sweeping generalisations”. Unlike Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), who said he would confront Myanmar about its treatment of the Rohingyans. Turnbull notably refused to use the term Rohingya, the minority the Myanmar government persecutes (whilst also denying that they exist as a group).
via With Friends Like These, Australia Doesn’t Need Enemies – New Matilda
Watch John Pilger in this commentary on Russia Tonight on the British Government’s accusations against Russia over the poisoning of the double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.
via VIDEO: John Pilger On The ‘Carefully Constructed Drama’ Of Skripal Nerve Agent Attack – New Matilda
Responding to Hope Hicks’ departure and, perhaps subliminally, the rumored future exile of son-in-law Jared Kushner, the president typically half-lamented and half-quipped, “So many people have been leaving the White House. It’s invigorating, since you want turnover. I like chaos. It really is good. Who’s going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?”
Hannity On Fox And Friends For Trump
Australia just scraped in the top ten list, at number 10.
Following Finland are Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden.
via Finland is the happiest country on Earth, according to the UN’s World Happiness Report
The Fox and Sinclair campaigns are telling their audience something very different. They are telling their viewers that they stand with the president of the United States, in opposition to his foes in the rest of the press. They are stating — implicitly in the case of Fox, explicitly in the case of Sinclair — that while other media outlets are producing “fake news,” they are not. It’s a declaration that the networks are a safe space for conservatives: If you are worried about turning on the television and hearing criticism of the president, you can tune in to these networks and instead hear praise of his many successes.
The Post’s Margaret Sullivan wrote last year that the central media divide was between what she termed the “reality-based press,” which tries to discover what the powerful are doing and hold them to account, and “propaganda” outlets that seek to obscure the truth and protect those in power. Both Fox and Sinclair have made it as clear as possible which side of that divide they fall on.
via New ad campaigns from Fox News and Sinclair reflect their role as Trump propagandists
Tessa Sullivan said she felt “very pleased” after an investigation into Mr Doyle on Tuesday upheld four allegations against him, including that he grasped her breast.
But she says she won’t run for public office again, despite the findings, and has criticised former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett for jumping to Mr Doyle’s defence.
‘‘It is a huge vindication after 11 weeks of waiting,’’ she told ABC Radio on Wednesday.‘‘Four findings of gross misconduct really display the vulgarity and the disgusting actions by Robert Doyle towards us.’’
via ‘Vindicated’: Robert Doyle accuser ‘very pleased’ with probe findings
A freshly published report from the EU drugs agency EMCDDA has used this inventive method to determine the patterns of drug use in 56 cities in 19 European countries, namely looking for concentrations of amphetamine, cocaine, MDMA (ecstasy), and methamphetamine in a city’s wasteway. This data, combined with the area’s population and the flow of water, can provide researchers with some clues about a population’s drugs habits.
via Sewer Water Reveals Which Cities In Europe Take The Most Drugs | IFLScience
AUSTRALIAN MUSIC PRIZE
The Birds and the BEE9 has an openness to the future. It’s not turn-up music, it goes super deep. We’ll still be playing this 50 years in the future, you and your kids will be, too.”
via ‘Change is coming’: Sampa the Great wins the Australian Music Prize
The White House has made a mysterious claim that Donald Trump won a case “in arbitration” against a pornographic film actor who alleges that she had sex with him a decade ago.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders’ surprise assertion appears to confirm that a contract existed between Trump and Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Stormy Daniels on Trump: pajamas, unprotected sex and … scary sharks
Read more“This case has already been won in arbitration and anything beyond that, I would refer you to the president’s outside counsel,” said Sanders, who insisted that Trump denies Daniels’ allegations.
MICHAELIA CASH’S SLUT SHAMING threat of young women in Bill Shorten’s office was well out of order.
In yet another of the almost hourly unedifying exhibitions of perverted “metooism” by politicians, the Minister for Jobs and Innovation clearly needs to attend a careers night to find a job for which she is more suitable, where she can be truly innovative. Cleaning sewers, perhaps. Those of her own making.
Parliament is fast becoming a cesspit.
Her performance before yesterday’s Senate Estimates hea
via Michaelia Cash slut shames young women: Jobs minister bully — go now!
“The only way to stop us is to end the occupation,” said the group being targeted, Breaking the Silence.
The Israeli Knesset approved the first reading of a bill that would prohibit organizations from being critical of the Israeli Army Monday.
The bill, which passed by 35-23 votes, was proposed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Bennett is the chairman of the right-wing Jewish Home party, a party seeking to criminalize any criticisms of the Israeli occupation.
via Israel takes steps to Criminalize Criticisms of Israeli Military | Informed Comment
Lauded in the 2009 Commonwealth budget as the single largest nation building infrastructure project in Australian history, the NBN is at risk of becoming an expensive white elephant in our cities. Years of political interference, poor technology decisions and a monopoly business attitude have damaged the brand.
Rather than meeting its objective of connecting 90 per cent of homes and workplaces with broadband speeds of up to 100 Mbps, the NBN is looking more like a giant sponge. It soaks up public infrastructure dollars and returns high prices, long delays, unacceptably slow data speeds and service standards that are now the subject of an ACCC investigation.
As a result, a growing number of competitors are bypassing the NBN by undercutting prices and beating performance standards.
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