http://www.smh.com.au/comment/refugee-deal-triggers-awkward-moment-for-scott-morrison-in-cambodia-20140926-10mux0.html posted:

Refugee deal triggers awkward moment for Scott Morrison in Cambodia
An awkward toast: Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng.

Phnom Penh: The behaviour of Australia's Immigration Minister Scott Morrison in the Cambodian capital late on Friday was a diplomatic embarrassment.

Mr Morrison walked 20 minutes late into a ceremony to sign an agreement for Australia to send its unwanted refugees to one of the world's poorest and most corrupt nations.


Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng sign the agreement.

The proceedings started when aides crashed a tray of champagne glasses and went downhill from there.

After inking the agreement that has provoked a storm of criticism, Mr Morrison stood and clinked champagne glasses with Cambodia's Interior Minister Sar Kheng, as it became clear to journalists corralled behind rope barriers that neither intended to explain anything about the agreement or to answer questions.

"What about the $40 million pay-off (to Cambodia)," a journalist shouted.

Mr Morrison ignored growing heckling while pretending to toast a line of generals and unidentified VIPs on stage whose share of the bubbly had crashed to the floor.

Neither Mr Morrison nor Mr Sar Kheng said a word during their five minute appearance.

They walked out together, leaving Cambodian journalists gobsmacked.

Cambodian officials admitted when Mr Morrison's convoy had returned to the luxurious Raffles Hotel Le Royal that Mr Sar Kheng had intended to hold a press conference to inform Cambodians about the agreement but called it off at the last moment, apparently at Australia's request.

For months the Abbott government has refused to publicly reveal any detail about the agreement.

Mr Morrison's office only confirmed he was travelling to Cambodia on Friday after his visit was announced by Cambodia's Foreign Ministry.

Cambodian and foreign journalists alike left the ceremony with their questions unanswered.

Petrol posted:

He better make use of the political capital quickly cause it sure as fuck won't last

Petrol posted:

I was calm on the outside, but thinking all the time. So now it was to be Georgie the general, saying what we should do and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless greeding bulldog. But suddenly I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones and that the oomny ones use, like, inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was a window open with the stereo on and I viddied right at once what to do.

\

Petrol posted:

Yeah, I don't know. Things were already looking pretty terrible before all this ISIS bullshit came to a head. Sure, Abbott's popularity rating was in the toilet because of an unspinnably unfair budget, but there was no serious, sustained pressure coming from the media or the opposition. The opposition actually worries me more than the govt in a way. I don't think anyone on the left has expected much of Labor since the Hawke/Keating neoliberal reforms but Bill Shorten is so laughably, robotically awful that it's hard not to believe it's deliberate. Abbott, Brandis, Pyne, Morrison... all genuine nazis, hardly top shelf nazis, but good solid nazis nonetheless. You know exactly where you stand with them even if it's nothing they'll admit to (publicly).

I guess the hopeful thing for me is that the libs haven't been able to pass any of the budget measures despite overwhelming support from the mainstream press. they just can't muster any support for virtually anything - rightwing commentators have even been asking them to "let it go" and stop being so "ideological". If legit nazis can't even do simple things like abolish collective unemployment insurance or charge interest on student loans then what chance does the labour clown car have of carrying out this agenda?

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sword-removed-in-counterterrorism-raids-a-common-plastic-decoration-owner-reveals-20141007-10r7nj.html posted:

Sword removed in counter-terrorism raids a common plastic decoration, owner reveals

It was one of the most frightening, powerful images to emerge from counter-terrorism raids across Sydney last month.

As one man was charged with conspiring to behead a random person in Sydney's CBD, police removed a sword in an evidence bag from a Marsfield home.

But the owner of the menacing item has revealed that it is actually a plastic decoration common in almost every Shiite Muslim household.

Mustafa Dirani, a 21-year-old part-time painter, was detained and his parents' Marsfield home raided at dawn on September 18 (...) and later released without charge.

His parents' Marsfield home was searched for about eight hours and several items taken including computers, mobile phones and the sword.

The sword has an Arabic inscription on it that reads:لا فتى إلا علي لا سيف إلا ذو الفقار

It roughly translates to: " no hero but Ali; no sword but Zulfiqar".

The sword - a Zulfiqar or Dhu al-Fiqar - is one of the major symbols of Shiite Islam that one leader said "wouldn't be able to cut a cucumber".
...
The Australian Federal Police refused to explain why the sword was seized or to confirm that it was plastic.

"The AFP does not comment on ongoing investigations," a spokeswoman said.
...
Dirani said he had been living in fear since the September 18 raids and was too scared to go to the shops.

When Fairfax Media visited him at his Marsfield home, he was wearing tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, playing X-box with another person detained during the raids, Maywand Osman.

"Do we look like terrorists?" he asked. "It's ridiculous. I have never talked about carrying out a terrorist attack, I've never thought about it, it has never even crossed my mind."
...
In the wake of the raids, it was widely reported that AFP officers had confiscated a sword for forensic testing, with some stories picturing the ceremonial sword sealed inside a federal police evidence bag. In the context of an alleged plot to "behead" a random victim, ordered by one of the most senior Australians serving with Islamic State forces, Mohammad Ali Baryalei, the sword appeared to be a weapon.

The Daily Mail Australia linked it directly to the beheading plot under the headline: "Was this the lethal sword terror cell planned to use to behead an innocent victim on a Sydney street?"

The Daily Telegraph set the beheading plot claim beside the discovery of the sword.

Many articles by Fairfax Media described the sword as large and curved with a gold handle and engraved with Arabic writing. Police did not explain to the media at the time that the sword was plastic.

In the article "Sword taken from duplex", News Corp's Courier-Mail directly linked the object with the threat of beheadings:
"More than 1m long, the sword was carried from the home in a federal police evidence bag (right). Police believe its owner was one of at least 15 men plotting to kidnap an Australian from the streets and decapitate them."

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/family-targeted-in-sydneys-antiterrorism-raids-launches-legal-action-20141006-10qrsd.html posted:

Family targeted in Sydney's anti-terrorism raids launches legal action

Mohamed woke to the sound of his mother screaming.

Men in balaclavas with bright flashlights had bashed the door in at 4.30am and dragged Amatuallah out of bed without giving her a chance to cover herself.
Mohamed, 15, and his brother Omar, 14, were handcuffed while police searched their south-west Sydney home for 12 hours.

"They bought in dogs to smell the place, they bought in metal detectors, they scratched the doors, they dug up the backyard, they looked through all the books and they found nothing," Mohamed said. "Even if they found one thing, they would have charged us."

The family of three will launch a civil suit in the NSW Supreme Court this week claiming they were brutally and unfairly targeted during counter-terrorism raids in Sydney last month.

Their home was one of 16 raided by state and federal police before dawn on September 18 but they were not detained or charged and they still have not been told why they were targeted.

The family's claim of heavy-handedness is one of several arising from the largest-ever counter-terrorism raids, which netted just one suspect.

Mohamed said he wants a police officer who punched his mother to be charged. He claimed his mother tried to stop an officer from ripping her bed sheets off and was assaulted in the process.

"What really burns me from inside was hearing my mum screaming and seeing her in pain and not being able to do anything. I will remember that forever," he said.

"My mum has covered herself all her life and all of a sudden someone punches her because she didn't want to expose her body."

The family have used aliases and concealed their identities to protect themselves from further backlash.

Mohamed said their neighbours have stopped talking to them and he and his brother are scared to return to school this week because they do not know how students will react.

He is even worried the unwanted attention might affect his job prospects.

Police took away the family's laptops and mobile phones and Mohamed has not been able to complete holiday assignments before school returns.

"I'm an Australian boy, I was bred here, I've lived in this house for 11 years, I don't know any other country," he said. "Every time I go to bed I'm afraid that I will wake up at 4.30am with police over my head and handcuffs on my hands."

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/panel-beater-had-about-60-bongs-40-stubbies-before-shooting-intruder-dead-court-told-20141007-10r9xk.html posted:

Panel beater had about 60 bongs, 40 stubbies before shooting intruder dead, court told

A panel beater who shot dead an intruder after smoking up to 68 bongs and drinking about 40 stubbies had no right to be "judge, jury and executioner," a court has heard.
...
D'Angelo, 39, was found not guilty in August of murdering Mr Vandenberg, 26, who died from a single .22 bullet wound to the head in the early hours of March 28, 2013, when he and two other men were trying to gain entry to D'Angelo's Thomastown factory.

D'Angelo pleaded guilty to the alternative lesser charge of manslaughter, claiming Mr Vandenberg's death was an accident.

He said he had heard a noise just after 2.15am, took a gun with a telescopic sight from a safe and fired one shot from an upstairs window.

Defence barrister Peter Faris, QC, told the court D'Angelo had panicked and was in no condition to deal with the situation because of the large amount of alcohol and marijuana he had consumed.

"He is terribly sorry for what happened and that his carelessness caused this terrible tragedy," Mr Faris said.

Justice Lasry said the worst part was that D'Angelo went for the gun instead of picking up the phone and calling triple-0 when he saw the three men trying to break into his factory.

During the trial, Mr Faris provided the jury with a chart detailing Mr D'Angelo's drinking and drug-taking habits during the day in the lead-up to the shooting.

D'Angelo claimed he got up at about 7.45am on March 27, 2013, and worked at his panel beating shop throughout the day until about 11.30pm.

He had been living in an upstairs area at the time and the first thing he did after waking was to smoke a "brekkie bong".

Between 8am and 3pm, he claimed he drank 22 stubbies of Carlton Cold. He had another six beers between 3pm and 7pm.

At 7pm, he went to get his car from his brother's place before returning to the factory.

From 7.45pm to 11.30pm he had another three to four beers.

D'Angelo claimed he drank another eight to 10 beers in a one-hour session from 11.30am to 12.30am.

So in a period of less than 12 hours, D'Angelo had had 39 to 42 stubbies, he told the jury.

He agreed he had been a chronic alcoholic at the time.

And when it came to marijuana, D'Angelo said that from 7.30am to 8am he would have had five to eight bongs and another 20 to 25 from 8am to 3pm.

After coming back from his brother's place at 7.45pm, he smoked eight
to 10 bongs until 11pm.

D'Angelo then had three to four bongs until 12.30am when he went to bed.

At about 1.30am he was finding it hard to sleep and had another seven to eight bongs before going back to bed.

D'Angelo woke up again at 2.15am and smoked another four bongs before the shooting.

He told the jury he could easily smoke four bongs in six minutes.

He will be sentenced on October 16.

ASIO teamed with potential Nazi war criminals in hunt for Communists says official historian

At a time of heightened national security, the country's premier spy agency has shone a light on its origins.

ASIO's first official history has been published, revealing new details of its early struggles against those considered to be enemies of the nation.

Authored by Professor David Horner, The Spy Catchers details ASIO's first 14 years and documents its Cold War struggles against Soviet spies and the Communist Party of Australia.

It reveals the organisation's head in the 1950s, Brigadier Charles Spry, fed political advice to then prime minister Robert Menzies during the 1951 referendum on whether to ban the Communist Party.

"ASIO becomes captive of this chasing Communists and looking for Communists in every possible area and ultimately a great waste of resources in that respect," Professor Horner told the ABC.

The organisation was so focused on fighting Communism it recruited potential Nazi war criminals, he said.

"The people that ASIO was hoping to recruit against the Communists, there could have been evidence that they were perhaps war criminals, and ASIO did not pursue that because they were blinded in their focus on dealing with the Communists," Professor Horner said.

A source's value in undermining Communism was more important to ASIO at the time than their personal history, he said.

" would say if a person had been a war criminal that was actually not against the security of Australia," Professor Horner said.

"They would say 'that’s not a matter of national security in Australia, whereas the Communists are'."

But Professor Horner believes history has been unkind to the organisation's long serving director-general Spry, who he credits for "building ASIO into a professional organisation".

The 700-page official history also reveals a letter to Menzies in which Spry warns the prime minister against moves to shift the organisation's headquarters from Melbourne to a new building in Canberra.

It reveals the spy master was concerned that it would be hard for ASIO staff to retain anonymity in such a small city and that a new building would be "notorious before its erection could be completed".

Professor Horner enjoyed unprecedented access to ASIO's records to write the official account and insists there was no censorship applied to the project.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/dozens-of-antimuslim-attacks-as-islamic-leaders-warn-of-community-fear-20141009-113tmk.html posted:

There have been at least 30 attacks on Muslims – mainly against women wearing the hijab – in the three weeks since the police anti-terror raids and threats by Islamic State put relations between the Islamic community and mainstream Australia on edge.

Muslim community leaders are compiling a register of religiously motivated incidents, which includes reports of physical and verbal assaults, threats of violence against senior clerics and damage to mosques.

They claim "mistrust" with police had led to the real rate of anti-Islamic episodes going unreported and the threat of segregation for women wearing the niqab into Parliament had licensed a new wave of people willing to vent against Muslim women in public in recent days.

Muslim groups have begun arranging escorts for women to go shopping.

While national security agencies have been boosted with almost $650 million in new funding, Muslim leaders are critical of the level of police resources put into stopping hate crimes at street level.

Among recorded incidents, a woman was threatened with having her hijab torn from her head and set alight, a cup of coffee was thrown through the car window of a woman driving in a hijab, and a pig's head and cross were thrown into the grounds of a Brisbane mosque.

A mother in western Sydney was spat on and had the pram carrying her baby kicked, according to the list of incidents compiled by the western Sydney-based Muslim Legal Network and the recently launched Islamophobia Register

A list of verbal attacks includes a Muslim mother in Melbourne who was warned to remove her child from playing with group of non-Muslim children at a play park.

At least four mosques have been targeted with written threats, graffiti and thrown objects. Queensland has the highest rate of personal assaults and threats to mosques, according to the list.

Solicitor Lydia Shelly, of the Muslim Legal Network, said: "We have noticed an increase in attacks against Muslim women in public places, of those who wear a scarf or a hijab.

"As a Muslim woman, I am very concerned that this is impacting on the rights or perhaps the freedom of movement for Muslim women, because they simply do not feel safe any more. We have had property defaced. We have had death threats issued to our spiritual leaders and threats to bomb the mosques and things like that."

Ahmed Kilani, who edits the online Muslim Village publication, said it was "pathetic" that NSW Police had a single officer, Sergeant Geoffrey Steer, dedicated to "bias-motivated crimes", the category that anti-Islamic attacks fit into.

A police spokesman disputed that, saying each local area command took responsibility for bias crimes. He said NSW Police "has met with senior Muslim community leaders on a regular basis since Operation Appleby".

Ertunc Ozen, chief executive of the Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance, said the focus on the attire worn by Muslim women was doing the work of the Islamic State by "telling our youth that they do not belong in this country and they never will"

It was also being used by "the more extreme elements in the broader Australian community who actually feel that Muslim people and Muslim thought are totally incompatible with the Australian way of life", he said.

Assaults or attacks on persons, including verbal abuse or hate speech

NSW

• A woman in hijab is physically attacked and her car subsequently vandalised with profanities spray painted on it in western Sydney
  
• A heavily pregnant woman verbally abused and intimidated in Sydney
  
• A mother and her baby verbally abused, spat on and their pram kicked in Sydney
  
• A mother and daughter verbally abused and a passer-by physically assaulted for intervening in Newcastle
  

Victoria

• A mother and her child verbally abused and told to take her child away from the other children at a playground in Melbourne
  

Queensland

• A woman in hijab has a cup of coffee hurled through the window of her car in Brisbane
  
• A mother and her baby approached by three men, has her hijab ripped off, is spat on and pushed to the ground in Brisbane
  
• A woman is approached by a man and told to take her hijab off so he can burn it in Brisbane
  
• A woman is verbally abused by a man who threatens to burn her house down
  

Western Australia

• A woman is approached by men in a Perth shopping centre who try to rip her hijab from her head
  

ACT

• Young woman takes off her hijab out of fear for her safety
  

Threats and/or attacks on property or institutions

NSW

• Lakemba Mosque and Auburn Gallopoli Mosque directly threatened in letters sent by the Australian Defence League
  
• Two cars belonging to a Muslim family has the words 'Muslim Dog' spray painted on them in Wentworthville
  
• Direct threats against the Grand Mufti of Australia issued by anonymous members of the Australian Defence League via a letter saying "Muslims…Australia will fight you 'terror for terror' 'blood for blood' 'bomb for bomb' "
  
• Maronite School - Catholic nun threatened by a group waving an IS flag reportedly yelling they would 'slaughter the Christians'
  Minto Mosque receives a threatening letter from an anonymous source
  

Queensland

• Mareeba mosque vandalised with the word 'evil' spray-painted across the front
  
• Logan Mosque subjected to hate attack with anti-Muslim pamphlets dumped on its grounds, saying 'Terrorists born in Australia are not Australians – they are Muslims' and 'Muslims are not welcome in Australia, go back to where you came from'
  
• Holland Park Mosque has a pig's head embedded with a cross dumped on its grounds
  

Straya.

tpaine posted:

there was tremendous collusion between the west and the former nazi elements because they rightly saw communism as a bigger threat to their way of life than nazism

also: before the war

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/12-10-2014/128776-tony_abbott-0/ posted:

I would advise Russia's President Vladimir Putin to wash his hands carefully and sterilize them after shaking the paw offered to him by Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the forthcoming G20 Summit in Brisbane. It is not about Ebola Virus Disease, it is about the disease called insolence and Australia's colonial chip on its shoulder.

Thank God no Australian can be Head of State, that privilege belongs to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, because judging by the arrogance displayed recently by its Prime Minister Tony Abbott, it appears the political class doesn't have what it takes. Talking about the fact that, according to ABC news agency, many Australians would feel upset at the Prime Minister shaking hands with President Putin, stating "I absolutely take that point", Tony Abbott displays a degree of insolence, arrogance and incompetence which mirrors the intrusiveness, belligerence and chauvinism inherent in other members of the Anglo Saxon alliance in NATO. You know, that global terrorist organization whose budget is a staggering one point two trillion USD a year, each and every year.

When Australia isn't busy crawling around the legs of its colonial master, England or trying to crawl up the anatomy of London's master, Washington, participating in their wars to pick up a few crumbs thrown Canberra's way, its politicians are busy kowtowing to Europe and the USA making stupid and unfounded remarks about Russia.

And apart from the hand-shaking insult (I seriously hope President Putin washes his hands and sterilizes them after touching the grubby paw of Abbott), we have another example of sheer crass stupidity, namely the statement that "Russia needs to fully cooperate in the investigation into the MH17 atrocity".

The answer to that bullshit is that the atrocity happened on Ukrainian soil and it is not yet clear whether the aircraft was downed by a missile possibly fired from a position behind rebel lines, possibly not, possibly fired by rebels, possibly fired by Ukrainian Government or paramilitary forces or else downed by a military aircraft flown by the Ukrainian Air Force. In fact, why has it taken the UK so long to come clean about what happened? Does it take that long to doctor the black boxes, eh whatty what?