[Editor update: Entire Sally Pachlock B12 film embedded on 21 May 2018.]They tell us that Australia has an 'aging population problem' and an associated ‘dementia epidemic’, with Alzheimers Disease the leading diagnosis. But everything that looks like Alzheimers is not Alzheimers. Vitamin B12 deficiency causes an easily treatable and reversible form of dementia which has been increasingly overlooked since the 1980s, although it was discovered in 1900 and the cure found in 1926, earning Minot and Murphy a Nobel Prize. Previously it was core medical practitioner knowledge that the ability to absorb Vitamin B12 via the gut diminishes with age and may cause dementia. [See appendix at end of article: “Useful reference documents on age, Vitamin B12 and dementia.”] This failure to absorb Vitamin B12 orally can be compensated by B12 injections and or by megadose lozenges or drops absorbed under the tongue. It used to be wide practice to give B12 injections to people over 60 monthly in Australia and many other countries, but for a variety of reasons this went out of fashion.[1] The problem is not confined to the elderly. Children breastfeeding from mothers low in B12 have a high risk of neurological damage.[2] Vitamin B12 cannot be supplied from vegan diets. [2a] There is also quite a large group of people of all ages, including children, who develop auto-immune pernicious anaemia (due to loss of the 'intrinsic factor') [3], which can and will cause brain injury, psychiatric problems, dementia, paralysis and death if untreated. However Australian, British and United States medical teaching, diagnostic and treatment guidelines are very problematic with regard to B12 deficiencies. So problematic that there is now a huge international movement where sufferers of pernicious anaemia teach each other about diagnosis and treatment, and where to access different forms of the vitamin, while they try to inform the medical profession.

As well as pernicious anaemia, many other events can affect Vitamin 12 absorption:

”Gastrointestinal disorders such as Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, enteritis and any inflammatory process will interfere with B12 absorption, even if it is correctly broken down by the body. Toxins such as mercury will interfere with the ability of B12 to cross the blood-brain barrier. Alcohol and the anesthetic nitrous oxide (often used in dental surgery) will inactivate B12; birth control pills deplete the vitamin in the body. A variety of inborn metabolic errors can also prevent normal absorption. The most well known aberration is pernicious anemia, although it is not the most common problem. Numerous medications inhibit the absorption of B12, including the many commonly prescribed drugs for heartburn, GERD and ulcers, as well as medications for diabetes, gout, some antibiotics and diuretics, the cholesterol drug Questran, and others. These drugs are commonly prescribed to the aging population, along with fistfuls of other medications that can mask the signs of B12 deficiency while worsening its effects, such as anti-depressants, drugs for insomnia, fatigue, numbness and tingling in extremities, incontinence, and tremors. Especially because of these drug interactions the aging population is at great risk for B12 deficiency. Most medical practitioners, however, will ascribe their deteriorating conditions to the ravages of age, or the complications and “natural progression” of their wrongly diagnosed diseases.” Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/could-it-be-b12-by-sally-pacholok-and-jeffrey-stuart/

A book by Sally M. Pacholok and Jeffrey J. Stuart called, Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (2007) (2011) records a nurse’s heroic efforts to get negligent hospitals to recognise and treat severe cases of B12 deficiency. For her careful and intelligent work she was shamefully persecuted. Nonetheless many doctors began to support what she was doing and continue to do so (as you can hear in the youtube clip at the top of this article.) This story is now the subject of an upcoming feature film about the cost of forgetting about B12. See the complete film below:

The forgetting of B12 is attributed in part to the streaming by US insurers of diseases into treatment categories that classified B12 deficiency as a red blood cell deformity rather than for the neurologic and other damage it does before it gets to that stage. A further complication is that compulsory addition of folic acid to many cereals [4] in the 1990s has had the effect of reducing the red blood cell deformity that doctors often rely on to diagnose the deficiency, without reducing the psychiatric symptoms including dementia and weaknesses and paralysis, which are then attributed to other or unknown causes, such as Alzheimers Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. The folic acid was added to reduce cases of spina bifida, which it did, but lack of B12 also causes spina bifida and unfortunately this problem has grown. “Birth defects linked to low B12.”

Treatment

Sometimes B12 deficiency can be such an emergency that a blood transfusion is required to preserve life. In pernicious anaemia injections are usually preferred because the patient must take them for life and unfortunately people tend to cease taking oral supplements when they feel better, not realising or forgetting how important it is never to stop this vitamin.

"Vitamin B12 is not carcinogenic, teratogenic, or mutagenic. It is considered safe even at 1,000 times the RDA." Source: Baik and Russell, 1999, cited by the American Center for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/b12/patients.html

CDB Editor 29 October 2017: The above link is no longer viable. Here is another statement on dosage level from the US CDC:

"No adverse effects have been associated with excess vitamin B12 intake from food or supplements in healthy individuals, and no UL has been set."
Source: Institute of Medicine, 1998. Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, cited by Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary reference intakes for vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and carotenoids. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 2000, cited in 2nd National Report on Biochemical Indicators of Diet and Nutrition in the U.S. Population, p.16, https://www.cdc.gov/nutritionreport/pdf/Water.pdf.

More caution should be exercised about rapid initial dosage in relatively rare cases involving megaloblastic anaemia (big red cells) especially in the presence of heart disease.

The rate of injections depends on severity of neurological symptoms. The pharmaceutical advice accompanying Neo B12 injections suggests 1000mcg (1mg) of B12 intramuscularly every second day for one to two weeks. A lot of doctors are not aware of this.

After that the convention is weekly for 6-8 weeks. Then monthly. Some people need it more frequently and may even inject it daily with ‘pens’ like the ones that are used for insulin administration.

Unfortunately Neo B12 manufacturers and a few guides suggest that 3 monthly administration is sufficient after the initial intense treatment, however there are many warnings in the medical literature that this is usually not enough in pernicious anaemia or other mal-absorption syndromes. The patients cannot maintain levels for so long for various reasons. Patients in the UK find that the prescribing regimes there are so rigid and niggardly that many resort to buying B12 in injection form and self-injecting. The Pernicious Anaemia Society is circulating a petition to have the UK system more responsive to individual patient needs. See various forums for people with pernicious anaemia.

There is a Pernicious Anaemia Society which costs $80.00 to join, but there is a free self-help facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/653686738072599/.

Lozenges and drops are not fast enough in an emergency – i.e. where there are noticeable neurological symptoms. If you take about 5mg (5000 mcg) sublingually daily for a month, by the end of a month you may reach the same dose as you would reach within 48 hrs after a single 1mg (1000mcg) injection. You can import high dose lozenges from the United States via amazon.com and also from New South Wales, Australia.

Blood level norms vary widely between countries

The levels considered 'normal range' vary greatly between different countries. In Japan 450 picograms per milliliter(pg/mL) is considered the lowest safe level, but in Australia it is 150, although guidelines advise that anyone with lower count than 350 who has symptoms, should be investigated further. The problem here is that many doctors think that the only ‘symptoms’ are deformed (macrocytic) red blood cells and attribute any neurologic symptoms to other or unknown causes or just ignore them. The patient goes away but the disease progresses and they may finish up in psychiatric facilities, nursing homes or dead.

I have experienced this lackadaisical treatment for two members of my family, leaving both disabled by brain injury. In both cases blood tests had been done which were well below the danger level, but they were ignored, again in both cases, by neurologist and a range of GPs in a particular clinic. When, as a carer with power of medical attorney I finally twigged to the cause and requested records of tests and new tests, the responses by the practitioners were awfully predictable: “But they don’t have macrocytosis.” “Oh, does she have symptoms?” (In a patient who had developed profound dementia over three years). “Oh, but his symptoms were caused by an accident.” (But they preceded the accident.) It seems that with B12 deficiencies people cannot even trust neurologists, let alone GPs to do the right thing. We therefore need to arm ourselves with knowledge and re-educate GPS. What we can do with our anger and despair at the needless suffering, I am not too sure. I find it hard to write about, but I write about it because I want to warn people.

This is a disease of frequently subtle onset:

"...because the liver is a very efficient storage organ for vitamin B12, even completely deficient diets in healthy adults might not result in low serum vitamin B12 levels for several years. Conversely, apparently healthy adults, especially the elderly, consuming diets rich in naturally occurring vitamin B12 can still develop a significant deficiency because of undetected malabsorption. It is possible for vitamin B12 deficiency to develop in a much shorter period of time (months) in some people." (Source: American Center for Disease Control, "Detection and Diagnosis.")

The disease runs in families as well as occurring with no family history.

Getting the norms changed, sensitizing clinics to neuro and psyche symptoms, diagnosing and treating the vitamin deficiency is very difficult because formal recognition of so far ignored cases could open up retrospective opportunities for legal suits. If the phenomena is as widespread as it seems to be, then we would be looking at huge class actions. Maybe we still are, since the evidence is so abundant, you wonder how long the medical and pathology definitions can resist this.

Pernicious Anaemia and Macrocytosis

"The accepted normal range, created many decades ago, is based on hematologic (blood) changes and not neurologic changes, and thus contributes significantly to late diagnosis." Source: Pacholok, Sally M.; Stuart, Jeffrey J. (2011-01-01). Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (p. 14). Linden Publishing. Kindle Edition. "

As I have already alluded, many doctors have been taught that pernicious anaemia is largely a blood disorder where the red cells that carry oxygen become visibly deformed (under the microscope). They have been taught that until this happens, the disease is not very serious. In reality, brain injury can occur well before the blood cell deformity occurs, and the blood cell deformity may never occur, especially now that most people are exposed to compulsory Folic Acid supplements in cereals. As well as classic brain injury, spinal lesions occur, crippling people with low B12 and mimicking Multiple Sclerosis.

"We believe that the “normal” serum B12 threshold needs to be raised from 200 pg/ml to at least 450 pg/ml because deficiencies begin to appear in the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) below 550 pg/ml.10, 11, 12 At this time, we believe normal serum B12 levels should be greater than 550pg/ml. For brain and nervous system health and prevention of disease in older adults, serum B12 levels should be maintained near or above 1,000 pg/ml." Source: Pacholok, Sally M.; Stuart, Jeffrey J. (2011-01-01). Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (p. 11). Linden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

It is over a century since medical scientists discovered the link between B12 and mental illness, but in the early 21st century, “very few mentally ill patients are being evaluated for underlying B12 deficiency, and only a minute percentage receive the adjunctive urinary MMA test that can also assist in diagnosis.” Source: Pacholok, Sally M.; Stuart, Jeffrey J. (2011-01-01). Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses (pp. 87-88). Linden Publishing. Kindle Edition. "

NOTES

[1] I visited my mother’s 90 year old friend, who is a retired pharmacist a few days ago and raised the subject of B12 with her. She immediately said, “The minute someone turned 60 the doctors used to give them monthly Vitamin B12 injections. It was a very good earner for our pharmacy! And then it kind of went out of fashion.” She would have begun dispensing from her father’s pharmacy around 1942 or so.

[2] Severe vitamin B12 deficiency in infants breastfed by vegans; ” Vegan Infants & Toddlers with B12 Deficiency.”

[2a] https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-health/vitamins-minerals-and-more/vitamin-b12-your-key-facts/what-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12

[3] The intrinsic factor is a substance secreted by the stomach which enables the body to absorb vitamin B12. It is a glycoprotein. It can be destroyed by alcohol, various drugs, including antacids, beta blockers, some antibiotics and some illnesses. Discussed above as factors affecting Vitamin B12 absorption.

[4] Regulations for mandatory fortification of wheat flour with folic acid are currently in place in 53 countries although in many cases these regulations have not been implemented [23]. In 2006, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations published guidelines to help countries to set the Target Fortification Level, the Minimum Fortification Level, the Maximum Fortification Level and the Legal Minimum Level of folic acid to be used to fortify flour with folic acid]. In the United States, mandatory fortification of enriched cereal grain products with folic acid was authorized in 1996 and fully implemented in 1998. Source: #B23-nutrients-03-00370">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257747/#B23-nutrients-03-00370

APPENDIX: Useful reference documents on age, Vitamin B12 and dementia

Vitamin B12 deficiency common among elderly people

MOLNLYCKE, SWEDEN. Swedish researchers have discovered that many older people are deficient in
vitamin B-12. Their study involved 368 men and women aged 75 years or older. Analysis of blood serum
showed that 11 per cent of the participants were deficient in cobalamin (vitamin B-12). The researchers
point out that a vitamin B-12 deficiency has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorders such as memory
loss and dementia. The researchers discovered several cases of gastritis (inflammation of the lining of
the stomach) and two cases of celiac disease among patients with low serum values of cobalamin. They
conclude that routine screening for a vitamin B-12 deficiency is justified in the case of older people.

In a separate letter to the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society doctors from the Union
Memorial Hospital in Baltimore report on a case of vitamin B-12 deficiency. The patient, an 85-year-old
man, had developed progressive memory loss and lethargy over a two-year period. Although his serum
level of vitamin B-12 was within the currently accepted range, the doctors decided to proceed with vitamin
B-12 therapy. The patient received an intramuscular injection of 1000 micrograms of vitamin B-12 for
three consecutive days, then 1000 micrograms weekly for a month, and then one injection every month.
By the fifth injection his mental status had vastly improved and his lethargy had completely vanished. The
doctors conclude that the levels of serum vitamin B-12 concentrations currently considered normal in the
United States may be too low and should be reassessed. The lower limit of 200 pg/mL is based on the
level that causes abnormalities in the blood (pernicious anaemia). In contrast the lower limit in Japan and
some European countries is 500-550 pg/mL and is based on the level that causes mental manifestations
such as dementia and memory loss. The doctors suggest that a trial of vitamin B-12 therapy is warranted
in patients with borderline cobalamin serum levels as it is effective and inexpensive.

Eggersten, Robert, et al. Prevalence and diagnosis of cobalamin deficiency in older people. Journal of
the American Geriatrics Society , Vol. 44, No. 10, October 1996, pp. 1273-74
Goodman, Mark, et al. Are U.S. lower normal B-12 limits too low? Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society, Vol. 44, No. 10, October 1996, pp. 1274-75

NEW YORK, NY. Researchers at Columbia University have confirmed that elderly people often suffer
from a lack of vitamin B12 (cobalamin). The deficiency is usually only discovered when patients develop
megaloblastic anaemia. However, before this stage is reached, cobalamin-deficient individuals may
develop neuropsychiatric damage and show signs of disorientation and confusion. The researchers
evaluated 548 men and women aged 67 to 96 years and compared their cobalamin and folate status to
that of 117 healthy, younger control subjects. They found that 40.5 per cent of the elderly people suffered
from a vitamin B12 deficiency versus only 17.9 per cent in the younger group. There was no significant
difference in folate status between the two groups. The researchers also found that people who took oral
supplements containing vitamin B12 and folate (6 micrograms and 400 micrograms per day respectively)
were much less likely to suffer from a deficiency than were people who did not supplement. They point
out that as people age they become less and less able to absorb vitamin B12 from food and therefore are
likely to develop a deficiency. As gastric atrophy progresses vitamin B12 status can only be maintained
by taking high oral doses of cobalamin (500-1000 micrograms daily) or by routine intramuscular injections
providing 1 mg per month. The researchers also point out that a vitamin B12 deficiency leads to an
accumulation of homocysteine in the blood. An increased serum concentration of homocysteine and its
derivatives is now recognized as a major risk factor in heart disease and stroke.

Lindenbaum, John, et al. Prevalence of cobalamin deficiency in the Framingham elderly population.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 60, July 1994, pp. 2-11
Allen, Lindsay H. and Casterline, Jennifer. Vitamin B-12 deficiency in elderly individuals: diagnosis and
requirements. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 60, July 1994, pp. 12-14

LEUVEN, BELGIUM. An international team of researchers have confirmed that elderly people often
suffer from a deficiency of vitamins B-6, B-12 and folic acid. Their investigation involved 99 healthy young
people (aged 19-55), 64 healthy elderly subjects (aged 65-88), and 286 elderly hospitalized patients
(aged 61-97). The researchers measured the blood concentrations of the vitamins in all subjects as well
as the concentration of certain metabolic products that tend to build up if a vitamin deficiency is present.
They found that 9% of the healthy elderly subjects had a low vitamin B-6 level as compared to more than
51% for the hospitalized patients. Corresponding numbers for vitamin B-12 and folic acid were 6% and
5%, and 5% and 19% respectively. Of perhaps greater significance was the finding that in 63% of the
healthy elderly subjects and in 83% of the elderly patients the researchers observed an increased serum
concentration of one or more of the metabolic products that indicate a deficiency in vitamin B-6, B-12 or
folate. Thus an elevated level of the metabolite (methylmalonic acid), which indicates a B-12 deficiency,
was found in 23% of the healthy elderly people and in 39% of the elderly hospitalized patients. Recent
experiments have shown that weekly injections of vitamin B-12, B-6, and folate are highly effective in
normalizing the elevated metabolite concentrations in elderly people.

Joosten, Etienne, et al. Metabolic evidence that deficiencies of vitamin B-12 (cobalamin), folate, and
vitamin B-6 occur commonly in elderly people. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 58, No. 3,
September 1993, pp. 468-76

See also the following peer reviewed statement in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, in response to a letter from Dr Soloman, who speaks in the film at the top of this article, ""Diagnosing and Treating Vitamin B12 Deficiency .:

Response Letter to Lawrence Solomon

Previously published on the PressTV YouTube channel Dozens of locals followed the unlikely pet walk to the beach where they gathered round to take photos with the felines. The owner had purchased the two infant lions from a run-down zoo in Gaza at the start of the year. The cat-loving family has been raising the cubs in a three-room apartment with their four children. But what will happen when the cubs grow up? Your comments invited.

 

Editor's comment: The following three comments were posted YouTube in reponse to the above video:

"Liked" for others to view. Let's hope someone acts and rescues these poor creatures.- offwithtefairies

Your own opinions about the content of this video are welcome. Please post your own views in the comment form below. - Ed

Your own opinions about the content of this video are welcome. Please your own views in the comment form below.

Pope Francis needs to be praised for calling for an "ecological conversion" for the faithful in his sweeping new encyclical on the environment. "Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever," he writes.

In a draft of his encyclical on the environment , Pope Francis says that the world could see the destruction of entire ecosystems this century without urgent action on climate change. He makes direct connections between our "throw-away culture" that pollutes and degrades the environment with how our society discards those "excluded" from the global economy, exploits workers, harvests human organs, and traffics in people.

The release of the Pope's 184-page teaching letter on the environment is being seen as the moment when the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics threw the Church's support behind the climate movement. 2

The Pope backs scientists who say global warming is mostly man-made and that developed countries have a particular responsibility to stem a trend that will hurt the poor the most. However, the Pope is being intellectually dishonest and evasive by rejecting suggestions that population control would solve the environmental crisis, saying instead the problem is one of “extreme consumerism”.

But, contradictorily, he also claims that: "In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life." And, "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion." 1

Population "control", or less harshly, family planning, is far removed than a "culture of death" but of spacing pregnancies and avoiding unwanted ones. It doesn't have to mean abortion, but the use of contraceptives! He's equating "population control" with "abortion"?

Overpopulation is often the cause of poverty,and environmental degradation.

The Pope does not acknowledge that the Catholic Church has contributed to these environmental and social justice problems by its irrational and adamant opposition to responsible family planning.

So, if we will all switch off excessive lights, reduce the use of paper, plastic and water, separate trash, practice car-sharing then global population can keep overshooting natural limits with impunity? While we may individually reduce our impact on natural resources and waste, in absolute terms anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions will still keep rising due to exponential population growth!

Pope Francis still defends the Church's opposition to contraception. He's being enlightened, but at the same time directing the blame for over-consumption on the "wealthy" nations. Disingenuously, he's ignoring the impoverishing and destructive impacts of overpopulation.

Pope Francis goes on to acknowledge that “attention needs to be paid to imbalances in population density, on both national and global levels” . Apparently, then, it is not a surplus of babies that is the real problem, but where they are born.

Overpopulation is certainly not the sole cause of our environmental crisis, but there’s no question it is a significant contributing cause, and a rapidly expanding population will only exacerbate our environmental problems. 2

Improved access to contraception must be an integral part--albeit an essential one--of a larger effort to improve health and well-being in the developing world. 4

References:
1 http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/10-key-excerpts-from-pope-francis-encyclical-on-the-environment-20150618-ghru2s.html

2 http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4257987.htm

3 http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2015/06/18/popes-green-cred-marred-by-family-planning-remarks

4 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-walker/the-papal-encyclical-taki_b_7612890.html

"Why can't we all just get along?" asked Rodney King back in 1991, after he had been savagely beaten by four Los Angeles cops. That's a really good question, Rodney. But an even better question might be, "Why wasn't Rodney King thrown in jail forever with no hope of parole -- like what happened to Mumia Abu-Jamal?"

Quick question, quick answer -- someone had a videotape recorder up and running on the day that King was being beaten so badly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb1WywIpUtY No one had a videotape recorder up and running back in Mumia's day.

So now let's go forward in our time machine, from 1991 to the present. Now everyone has a video camera on their iPhone, and not just some clunky old video camera that is impossible to haul around in your back pocket or purse. And now a whole big bunch of police malfeasance is being caught on tape -- daily. Everyone who witnesses police brutality can now post it on YouTube. Police all across the nation now have nowhere to hide.

But now let's go backwards in our time machine again -- and this time let's take our iPhones with us. What would we see? What else could we videotape and upload on YouTube from back in the day?

Would we catch the FBI unlawfully attacking innocent Native Americans in their home and then forcing witnesses to give false testimony against Leonard Peltier, J. Edgar Hoover style? http://www.freeleonard.org/case/

Would we see Mumia Abu-Jamal being framed for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer even though evidence points to Kenneth Freeman having done the shooting and that Freeman was later found naked, handcuffed, beaten and dead? What do you want to bet that we would? http://www.freemumia.com/who-is-mumia-abu-jamal/

Or what if bystanders had all gleefully pulled out their iPhones and taped the real killer in the murder of Caroline Olsen? Then Geronimo Pratt, who had been falsely charged by COINTELPRO, wouldn't have had to spend 27 years of his life in jail before his conviction was overturned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/geronimo-pratt-dead-at-63_n_870910.html

And what if.... "Don't go there, Jane!" Sorry, guys, I just gotta go there. What if everyone had iPhones on the Grassy Knoll back in 1963 and also took videos of what Abraham Zapruder's home camera has shown us -- only in more detail? Would Lee Harvey Oswald still be the lone patsy? I bet not. My best bet would be that heads in the CIA would have rolled.

But, alas for Wall Street and War Street and Fox News (but lucky for us), there are now over 700 million iPhones loose on the world -- and, all over the world, they are telling us what is really happening instead of what corporate propaganda sorely wishes that we would believe.

Police in America can no longer get away with carte blanche brutality.

We now know that Flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine by the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.

ISIS and Al Qaeda are now in possession of over 2,300 American Humvees -- especially after American satellites just happened to fail to notice that thousands of ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters were crossing open deserts in Toyota trucks after having been thrown out of Syria by President Assad, who is currently hated by Turkey, the Saudis, Israel and the US for taking his courageous stand against ISIS and Al Qaeda, War Street's new BFFs. Plus a lot of this American-backed craziness in the Middle East has actually been captured by teams of ISIS bad guys on their iPhones and uploaded to FaceBook -- which is completely and totally weird!

You don't believe that American, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli neo-colonialists are backing, financing and supporting ISIS? Here are just a handful of the many, many links that prove my case -- and I'm sure you will find some iPhone snapshots in this mix as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/iraq-isis-humvees_n_7487254.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html?tid=sm_tw

http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/09/logistics-101-where-does-isis-get-its-guns/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/world/middleeast/isis-is-winning-message-war-us-concludes.html?_r=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r68ANObt818&feature=youtu.be

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/10/did-the-war-in-syria-just-become-a-regional-war/

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/06/the-guardian-joins-the-moderate-al-qaeda-public-relation-campaign-.html

Damn those traitorous American bastards to hell who are funding and supplying ISIS with weapons! ISIS just attacked a school in Aleppo. Ambulances were heard carrying suffering children away to hospitals for over four hours. And we can now watch this carnage close up -- taken on the iPhones of the families and doctors of these children. Why aren't Americans stopping this! https://www.facebook.com/ForMotherSyria/posts/662030840564771?notif_t=notify_me

And as for Monsanto, Scalia, Obama, Congress and the Koch brothers, we also know what you did last summer -- thanks to Apple and Steve Jobs.

But why stop here now that we've got our time machine out? Let's take this analogy even further. Holy sheep dookie! Just imagine!

What if.... What if there had been iPhones back in the days of Jesus, Moses and Mohammed? And we could all actually listen in on what these three amazing men actually said? Then all of those phony Christians, Jews and Muslims in Washington, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia today would be immediately exposed for what they really are: Just sleazy neo-colonialist hypocrites in disguise. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/yemen-historic-houses-unesco-world-heritage-sana-old-city-reduced-rubble-by-saudi-strikes-1505760

Originally published on Jane Stillwater's blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/06/leonard-mumia-if-only-theyd-had-iphones.html

The policy and position of Australian government with respect to population issues is the most influential factor likely to impact on Australia’s future sustainability and hence the prosperity of current and future citizens. Because of the bipartisan government position on population/immigration numbers it is all but impossible to engender an effective public debate on these issues. I therefore welcome this opportunity created by the Productivity Commission to have this debate in a manner that is untarnished by vested interests and scaremongering about perceived xenophobia.

The current fertility rate for Australian women is hovering at around replacement levels.[1] This level decreased significantly in the decades leading up to 2000 and has substantially stabilised since then. I believe this choice by Australian families at once represents a level of confidence in future prosperity of the nation as well as a desire to ensure quality parenting that can be better delivered through smaller family sizes. Given a continuance of this statistic our population would stabilise at around 28 million. This is more than 20% higher than the level recommended by the Australian Academy of Science as a sustainable level while maintaining the current standard of living that all Australians expect to pass on to our descendants. The corollary to this statement is that our population growth levels are already such that they are compromising the prosperity of future Australians. Nevertheless, at this level the nation would be able to respond effectively to both positive and negative externalities that may impact on our future prosperity.

The major impediment in the way of us achieving this flexible and optimum outcome is our level of immigration. Immigration has been by far the most significant driver for Australia’s rapid population increase over the last two decades.

Population increase as a result of immigration impacts the country in a number of ways:
- Upfront impacts to infrastructure congestion and costs
- Increased impact on the environment
- Dilution of wealth creating resources over an increased distribution
- Increased disparity of wealth
- Erosion of amenity and culture.

Having a local market is now irrelevant

Whilst there is some truth to the idea of innovation being enhanced by diversity the concept that increasing population of itself somehow makes us all more wealthy is simply unsubstantiated spin, put out by vested interests. In the past, Australia has benefited from growth to our critical mass of population. This has facilitated domestic industries to develop where a smaller population could not have sustained these industries. Those days are gone. With global capital, communications and distribution networks industries will develop and flourish where they incur the lowest costs. Through the internet, individual consumers now, and increasingly so in the future, will purchase directly from the lowest cost supplier and the lowest cost distributer in the world. Whether we agree with it or not, governments are actively ensuring that no legal or commercial barriers can be used protect local industries. Having a local market is now irrelevant. As such, any petition that argues that increases to our population will enhance local market strength should be dismissed.

Infrastructure Costs

Wealth and wealth generation and our standard of living in Australia is supported by an array of public infrastructure, much of which is owned and controlled by government. A review of the value of the government portion of public assets across the three levels of government indicates a total current value of approximately $1.9 – $2.0 trillion.

It is reasonable to argue that any increase in population resulting from immigration will need to be supported by a commensurate increase in this public infrastructure. This equates to a value in excess of $83,000 per immigrant.

Note that the previous number represents a depreciated value of assets and not the current replacement value. It can be argued that migration necessitates the building of new infrastructure and so should be costed at the current value but I will ignore this argument for the sake of presenting a conservative position.

There are three major factors that impact on this argument:
- Higher population density will result in more efficiency in the utilisation of some assets.
- The cost of provision of supplementary infrastructure to provide additional capacity in an already built environment is significantly higher than the cost of the original assets ie. a tunnel costs far more than the above ground road it supplements.
- Provision of major infrastructure is almost always incremental. For a continually increasing demand, this results in an infrastructure complement that is always operating at either below or above optimum capacity. The more rapid the population change, the more severe the impact of this derogation in efficiency.
I believe in an Australia at the current time and with our current growth rates the last two of these negative factors will far outweigh the benefits of the first.

Environmental Costs

Australians currently are responsible for one of the highest GHG emissions of any country. On average we emit around 16T of GHG per person per year. The bulk of immigrants arriving here originate from countries with GHG emissions at a fraction of the Australian numbers. From a world perspective this flow of people therefore represents a huge negative impact on the effort to limit climate change.

Putting the world perspective aside and looking purely at the financial impact to Australia the immigration numbers will result in a significant increase in the costs this country will incur in order to meet our international obligations. Although GHG emissions are currently trading for around $20 per tonne it is expected that this value will rise to over $60 per tonne in order to meet the 2050 target of a 50% reduction. The price will continue to climb beyond this point.

Running an NPV analysis for a 30 year old on the basis of a GHG price of $40 per tonne will yield an upfront cost of approximately $16,000.

Note that this figure represents a small fraction of the total environmental cost of population increase but it is that portion that can be readily quantified and has a high degree of certainty in terms of our national cost obligation.

Dilution of Wealth Resources

A number of studies have been done in other countries to assess the net benefits of migration. Invariably these studies have determined that there was no net benefit to the existing population derived from immigration. The most definitive of the studies was conducted by the UK government that came to this same conclusion.

The most significant aspect where the Australian situation differs from the UK case is in the basis of the two economies. The UK derives most of its wealth through the leverage of labour whereas most of our core wealth is derived from exploitation of both renewable and non-renewable resources. The income that Australia earns from these sources represents around 80% of the amount we use to pay our way in the world.

The sources of this income are finite. The thinner we spread these income sources over our population the less there is for each of us to enjoy.

Assessment of the per capita value of national resources is quite a difficult exercise and subject to a range of assumptions regarding public and private returns from these resources. The diminution of per capita wealth through the dilution of resources cannot be ignored and should be the subject of a public enquiry by the Productivity Commission.

Total Financial Impact

Given the above factors each new immigrant costs the Australian public well in excess of $100,000 per person in public infrastructure, environmental and dilution of public wealth. If the government’s objective is to provide a net wealth benefit to its citizens through immigration, then this is the minimum that we should expect new migrants to return to Australian society.

Often there is an argument that new immigrants will pay back their upfront infrastructure costs through the taxes they pay during the course of their working lives. The trouble with this argument is, that the bulk of taxes simply go towards the costs of recurrent government expenditure. New infrastructure spending represents only around 4% of total government expenditure. Using this proportion and an NPV analysis on the tax payable by a 30 year old immigrant, in order to pay off the upfront infrastructure cost, they would need to pay over $95,000 (present value) per year in tax over the entire course of their working lives. This level of tax is unlikely to be recovered from even the top 1% of new immigrants.

It therefore makes sense to recover the upfront costs from new migrants upon entry thus allowing market forces to dictate those immigrants that will be in a position to make a positive financial contribution to Australia’s net wealth.

Increased Disparity of Wealth

The effect of population increase on labour prices can be analysed using the most well established economic tool, the cost demand curve. The greater the availability of labour in the economy the lower the price will be for that labour. Although we may want to pretend otherwise, the bulk of immigrants to Australia commence on the bottom end of the labour market. Even skilled migration applicants generally bring with them family members who will be taking entry level positions in the jobs market. It is undeniable that this will push down the price of the bottom end of the labour market.

At the same time there are substantial corporate benefits associated with increasing the population. Land development, banking, retail of consumer and whitegoods all derive the bulk of their profit growth from the growth in population. While in itself this is not bad. On a balanced playing field these profits would circulate into the economy therefore growing Australia’s overall net wealth. The trouble is, there is not a balanced playing field. There is a disproportionate ownership of most Australian corporations by foreign owners. The extra profits generated are not recycled back into the Australian economy but instead are siphoned off to overseas investors. There are some Australian owners of corporations that have derived substantial wealth from population growth, but as a general rule, the greater the rate we stimulate the economy through population growth, the greater the rate that profits generated are siphoned off overseas.

The use of 457 visas only exacerbates the above effect. I know for a fact that the 457 visa scheme is being rorted in the computer programming industry. Indian programmers are being brought in on 457 visas at a salary of around $25,000 per year. They have been used to replace Australian programmers who previously held these positions and earned around $60,000 per year.

The major companies involved in this rort are following the government procedural process to the letter. They are advertising the positions in the Australian market making the low salary offered for the position very clear. Naturally they receive no applications at these low rates. They then use this information to justify that they cannot acquire employees in the local market and hence the need to import labour through the 457 scheme. Virtually all of the salaries earned by these 457 workers is being repatriated back to India. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of experienced Australian programmers either working as unskilled labour or collecting unemployment benefits.

So an industry that was entirely self-contained, training and employing local people to generate wealth has been replaced by one that has a net effect of draining wealth out of the economy.

If this is the known case in this one field then it is very reasonable to expect that this same practice is being utilised across all industries. How is this scheme beneficial to the Australian economy?

Both the importation of low skilled labour and the 457 visa scheme is eroding the earning capacity of the less well off in Australia. At the same time these arrangements are benefiting corporate owners. This practice has already diminished the egalitarian nature of Australian society and will cause further deterioration if allowed to continue.

Erosion of Amenity and Culture

It is very difficult to put measures on amenity, and even more difficult to quantify loss of culture.

The argument for the correlation of higher population and the erosion of amenity is obvious. Congestion on roads and public transport, the need to live further from places of work, lack of provision of government services once taken for granted, the overcrowding of beaches, parks and recreation areas are all the direct result of population growth. The counter argument is that much of this loss of amenity is due to low infrastructure spending. Higher relative spending will certainly fix some of the problems, but not all. And, as indicated above in the economic analysis, this higher spending is simply not financially feasible without governments going into higher debt or a higher tax regime.

While I am sure the advantages of a diverse culture will be put forward by proponents of high immigration numbers, it is worth considering one negative aspect that is rarely discussed.

In the first half of the 20th century, Australia had by most standards a very homogeneous culture. Because of this homogeneity the various governments of the day were able to make bold plans for the future that were generally supported by a voting public that spoke with a single consistent voice. Over the last twenty years this capacity to make strong long term plans has completely disappeared from all tiers of Australian government. Politics is completely consumed by the need to satisfy small special interest groups rather than the focus on the general common wealth. Diversity of culture is not solely driven by immigration but immigration is the major contributing factor to it. Thus the capacity of governments to make consistent long term plans for the future has been significantly hampered by our growth in cultural diversity. The detrimental economic effects of this while indeterminate should not be ignored.

It is difficult to justify in a submission to the Productivity Commission the true value to the community of the freedoms we used to enjoy in this country. Freedoms that have been curtailed either directly due to the density of population or have come about as a result of necessary government rules and regulations to control society that has become both larger and more complex. It is these past freedoms that formed the core of what used to be Australian culture. Unfortunately, most such justification will be viewed simply as nostalgia.

I retaining an abiding wish to ensure that my grandchildren (as yet unborn) will enjoy the feeling of being Australian and proudly different from the rest of the world. These differences however, are being profoundly diluted as a direct result of the combined effects of immigration levels and the adoption of multi-culturalism. Through these policies we are consigning future children of our nation to be simply amorphous world citizens rather than uniquely Australian. That fact is deeply concerning.

John Roles

Queensland.

NOTES

Candobetter.net Editor's note: Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the previous one in a given area. In developed countries sub-replacement fertility is any rate below approximately 2.1 children born per woman, but the threshold can be as high as 3.4 in some developing countries because of higher mortality rates.[1] Taken globally, the total fertility rate at replacement was 2.33 children per woman in 2003.[1] This can be "translated" as 2 children per woman to replace the parents, plus a "third of a child" to make up for the higher probability of boys being born, and early mortality prior to the end of their fertile life.[2]

Replacement level fertility in terms of the net reproduction rate (NRR) is exactly one, because the NRR takes both mortality rates and sex ratios at birth into account. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#cite_ref-2

According to the RSPCA, since ESCAS was introduced, Israel's live export market has been the subject of numerous complaints regarding the treatment of Australian animals. Apart from inhumane loading and handling, abattoirs in Israel continue to use barbaric inversion slaughter boxes which rotate cattle upside-down to have their throats cut without stunning.

Hidden cameras set up by Animals Australia investigators have captured harrowing vision of routine abuse inside one of Israel’s biggest abattoirs. Just like Bakar Tnuva, (exposed in 2012), the Deir Al Asad slaughterhouse passed audits and was given the ‘tick of approval’ by live exporters and the Australian Government.

This must be incredibly painful, and terrorizing for the animals, but now, footage from the Dabaah abattoir has revealed even more appalling treatment at the point of slaughter.

Australian cattle that have just been attacked in what's crudely called "slaughter" are staggering onto the kill-room floor with their throats gaping open, to be eventually hoisted while still conscious. Workers are seen twisting and breaking their tails to make it easier for them to attach the hoisting shackles.

This abattoir is deemed compliant with every single requirement of ESCAS by the exporter-appointed auditor. Australia is compliant to this torture by supplying the animals!

When Animals Australia investigator visited Vietnamese abattoirs last month, he witnessed what Australian cattle who commonly fall ‘outside the system’ are subjected to. It is the same fate suffered by local cattle as well as those imported from other countries when they are slaughtered in the ‘traditional method’: A frightened bull is marched onto a blood soaked kill floor. He is restrained tightly by a rope around his neck. A slaughterman stands before him wielding a sledgehammer!

In 2013, the first video evidence showing Australian cattle being hit with sledgehammers was provided to the Department of Agriculture by a concerned member of the public. But instead of halting live cattle exports at that time, the industry chose to rapidly expand the trade and increase market share in Vietnam.

It's unconscious-able that our government fully supports this evil trade. We've had sledgehammer attacks, sheep buried alive, and every atrocity imaginable, but the live export trade continues.

While profits benefits producers, and Australia's economy, any industry built on such horrendous animal abuse and abandonment of ethnics is completely unacceptable, and must end.

PETITION: Ban live exports
banliveexport.com

Some recent comments reproduced here. Please contribute more. Joe Hockey seems like a nice guy, an intelligent guy, but he's just too rich to be really useful to anyone who isn't. He reminds me of Marie-Antoinette, a foreign princess who didn't want to try to understand the problems of the people and her husband. People look back and say, "How could she be so silly? Couldn't she see that the people were angry and desperate?" But, you know, she had other priorities.

Joe Hockey's insulting response to unaffordable housing

He declared that "If you've got a good job and it pays good money and you have security in relation to that job, then you can go to the bank and you can borrow money and that's readily affordable". The fact that wages are not keeping up with house prices is being ignored by this buffoon, and shows just how callous and out of touch our arrogant politicians really are!

Mr Hockey made the comment at media conference in Sydney where he was being asked about rising housing prices across the country, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. He denied that housing in Sydney had become unaffordable, particularly for new entrants into the property market. Just wonder how the normal people are actually able to communicate with our leaders, in their ivory towers of affluence. How many houses must our politicians have? They just watch their profits increasing, while the masses are struggling to meet mortgage payments, or are thrown onto the streets. Older people now are in danger of homelessness, due to pension cuts and soaring housing and costs of living.

The Treasurer said rising house prices were a good thing because they enabled owners to borrow against the equity to fund new spending. After decades of paying off a house, or even part of it, how are they to see it eaten away with reverse mortgages? Houses can't be used to pay water, Council rates, electricity and everyday expenses!

Joe Hockey's advice to first homebuyers - get a good job that pays good money (9/6/15) | SMH/the Age
Other stories : Joe Hockey pilloried for 'get a good job' remarks

(9/6/15) | SMH, [Joe Hockey's claimed] property crackdown 'won't hurt Australia' (9/6/15) | SBS

"Skating on thin ice"

Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott are skating on thin ice with their defence of stratospheric house prices especially in Sydney. Another Liberal politician, Craig Laundy has defended Joe Hockey's recent remarks on the subject and advised the public that now is a good time to get into the property market. What happens if someone takes on a mortgage which he can just afford and then interest rates rise and he can no longer cover the repayments? Does the government bear any of the responsibility? Abbott said that he wanted prices in Sydney to rise because he has a property there (mortgaged). He is far from disinterested. Hockey says housing is not unaffordable because people are buying but that the answer to the problem that apparently is not a problem is to "build, build, build". He must know that the problem is shortage of land , land land in relation to the huge numbers of people, people, people needing housing in the areas where people want to live. He knows that the average person can only buy where land is cheap or buy in more expensive areas but have little or no land. Members of the government are skating on thin ice because they appear to be interfering in the housing market. Isn't their dictum to let markets be free? They also appear to be giving advice and to have their own interests in the asset case in which they are giving advice to the public. What they need to do is take on the responsibility of a housing safety net. This means "public housing, public housing, public housing!"

Candobetter.net Editor: This article is about the US contribution to the radicalisation of the Middle East. In reality there is no dividing wall between the 'extremists' and 'America's supposedly moderate opposition allies'. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government.

Recent Rebel Gains a Result of US Support to Extremists

The rebel opposition in Syria has in recent months made a series of gains against the Syrian army, most notably in Idlib, Palmyra, and Ramadi in Iraq. However, given that from the very beginning the opposition had taken “a clear sectarian direction” and has been dominated by “ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra… in addition to other extreme jihadi groups”, itself consisting of “no moderate middle”, and the fact that “in reality there is no dividing wall between them [extremists] and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies”, it is no wonder why all of the recent gains have been made by hard-line Islamists.(1) The radicalization of the opposition was the result of a covert US/CIA-led program in collusion with regional allies to expand the dissent base in Syria and strengthen Islamist rebels against the Syrian government.(2)

These recent Islamist advances are the result of an increase in support from the US-led coalition to their proxies inside Syria. Recently both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who operate out of US-led command centers in Turkey and Jordan, signed a pact in early March to coordinate support to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in order to further attack the Syrian government. Huffington Post quotes Usama Abu Zeid, a legal advisor to the Free Syrian Army, as confirming that this new coordination had facilitated recent rebel advances.(3) The pact subsequently lead to the al-Qaeda takeover of Idlib in late March, where the two countries have since set up a joint command center to further coordinate and command their extremist proxies from the captured province. Syrian government sources thus accurately blame Turkish intervention as the key factor in the fall of Idlib. The city’s fall however is only the 2nd provincial capital that has been captured by the opposition during the entire 4-year war, the other being Raqqa, which is now the de facto capital of the fake Islamic State “Caliphate.”(4)

In addition to Turkish and Saudi support to al-Qaeda extremists, so too has the US increased its support to Islamists.

In early May Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute Doha Center confirmed that “US-led operations rooms in southern Turkey and Jordan” have specifically “encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations”, and while doing so have “dramatically increased [their] level of assistance and provisions of intelligence” to this Islamist-led opposition, all of which has led to the al-Qaeda victory in Idlib.(5) So not only has the entire support to the opposition from the beginning been coordinated and commanded by the US, so too has the US spearheaded recent support to al-Qaeda along with its Turkish, Saudi, and Qatari allies.

These Western-backed advances were facilitated by the delivery of “gamechanging” new advanced weaponry to the extremists, including TOW anti-tank missiles. The Guardian reports that the results of this “were shocking. The regional capital of Idlib fell within days. Several weeks later, the nearby town of Jisr al-Shughour also fell to an amalgam of jihadist.”(6) All of this being “the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey,” which was “blessed by Washington after long hesitation.”(7)
The US recently encourages support to Islamists while it’s Saudi and Turkish allies openly support al-Qaeda linked militants, all of whom have been provided with new shipments of advanced weaponry and support which has been instrumental in their recent advances.

Qatar has made recent efforts to convince al-Nusra’s leader to detach itself from al-Qaeda and portray Nusra as though it is not planning to attack the West in an attempt to justify this increased aid. However it is important to note that “if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change,” while it’s leaders would remain “close to al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri [sic].” In a recent interview with the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, al-Nusra’s leader al-Golani was given a platform to say that Nusra does not plan to attack the West, yet he still reaffirmed full allegiance to al-Qaeda’s leader al-Zawahiri against the wishes of Qatar.(8) Despite the failure of re-branding al-Qaeda’s Syria faction the group still received a substantial increase in aid and support from its backers in the Gulf, Turkey, and the United States.

Given this, both the US and Turkey have in addition recently agreed “in principle” to establish a no-fly zone to further aid the forces on the ground they are supporting.(9) This is illegal, against international law, and would be de-facto support to terrorist organizations in the form of US aerial attacks against the Syrian state. It would be devastating to the region as well, only benefiting supporters of reactionary Islamic rule and Western imperial hegemony.

However, the al-Qaeda linked factions unfortunately are not the only groups that owe their recent battlefield successes to their Western patrons, so too does the Islamic State.

When the Islamic State recently took Ramadi in Iraq, they travelled a full 553km across open desert to the city from their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.

Despite the fact that destroying the militants along this route would have been like shooting fish in a barrel, the US “anti-ISIS” coalition did not expend a single airstrike against them, even though the US “had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the US military, it was an open secret at the time.” The US intelligence community “had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive in Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements,” which were coming from Raqqa, “through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders.” Furthermore, “It surprised no one,” US intelligence officials said. (10)

Speaking on these developments, former British MI6 agent Alastair Crooke comments that “the speculation about a coming fractured Iraq has gained big momentum from ISIS's virtually unopposed walk-in to Ramadi. The images of long columns of ISIS Toyota Land Cruisers, black pennants waving in the wind, making their way from Syria all the way -- along empty desert main roads -- to Ramadi with not an American aircraft in evidence, certainly needs some explaining. There cannot be an easier target imagined than an identified column of vehicles, driving an arterial road, in the middle of a desert.”(11)

As ISIS arrived in Ramadi, the US-coalition launched a paltry 7 airstrikes against them, a number so low as to be entirely insignificant. To alleviate concerns that the US openly allowed ISIS to take Ramadi, the US military blamed a great and powerful “sandstorm” for their lack of airstrikes. However, just days later they retracted these false statements. ABC reports that “Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters today that last weekend's sandstorm had not affected the coalition’s ability to launch airstrikes in Ramadi, though “weather was a factor on the ground early on.””(12) Further dispelling these excuses, the day after Ramadi’s fall rows of Islamic State militants were pictured celebrated openly in the streets below crystal clear skies.

(Source of picture: MailOnline, May 19, 2015)

If the US-coalition had been serious about stopping ISIS they could have easily destroyed whole factions of the group at this time.  Instead, desperate for another excuse to explain their inaction, they changed their reasons and blamed concern for civilian deaths for the lack of strikes.  However this excuse is so patently absurd as to be laughable, and therefore can be completely disregarded; one need only look at the grave human death tolls inflicted during the invasion of Iraq, the US support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza last summer, the US-facilitated devastation of eastern Ukraine, the global drone campaign, the US’ own “anti-ISIS” airstrikes, and the current crazed US-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen to see that Western officials lose exactly zero sleep over the civilian blood that is on their hands.(13) 

Dr Mehdi Frauqi's NSW Legislative Council speech opposed to privatisation (2/6/15)

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI [6.41 p.m.]: On behalf of The Greens I contribute to debate on the Electricity Network Assets (Authorised Transactions) Bill 2015 and the cognate Electricity Retained Interest Corporations Bill 2015. I thank The Greens members and activists; Dr John Kaye, who has led the fight on The Greens' side; and all the hardworking "Stop the Sell Off" campaigners and union members who have been leading a strong campaign against the sell-off of our public electricity network. It is a disgrace that the arrogance of this Government means it is not willing to listen to sense or public opinion on this issue. This legislation will enable the lease of 49 per cent of the State's electricity network. The word "lease" is misleading; it is de facto privatisation. It is telling that the lease is so long–99 years, in fact–that no-one voting on the bill today will be alive to see this asset revert to public hands, if it ever does. The decision made today robs our children and our grandchildren of public assets. It is a very bad strategy to get rid of these assets and forfeit the resulting revenue that would otherwise flow into the State budget to be used to benefit the people of New South Wales.

Not many in this Chamber will be surprised to hear me describe this move for what it is: completely backward policy. Privatisation of public assets and services fails the community and the "public good" test. Public assets must remain in public hands for the good of us all and for the good of our State. These are assets that generations of Australians have paid for. Once they are sold off, they will not be able to be brought back into public ownership. Handing over our electricity assets to private operators will effectively rule out any large-scale move towards compatibility with innovative energy systems–systems that are green, clean and renewable. Dr Kaye wrote in the Guardian this week that the Baird Government ignores the recent "sea change of technology" in the energy distribution area at its peril. The release of Tesla's battery units is a game changer for everyone. The profit model of the corporate owners of the grid leases will simply not be compatible with supporting a shift towards the local trading of electricity. There is an incentive not to make our grid more efficient and more sustainable.

Members in both Houses have described as a sham the inquiry into this issue that has taken place over the past few weeks. It was an investigation with a predetermined outcome, with narrow terms of reference and no real expectation that it would produce anything other than a positive story for the Government. Indeed, why would the Government have agreed to such a process if there was any serious risk of it jeopardising its privatisation agenda? The issue at the heart of this matter is that this is short-term thinking by a Government that sees benefit in flogging off public assets and getting some short-term cash in advance. That leads me to the issue of expenditure. Perhaps just as worthy as criticism of the lease itself is what the Government is putting on the table as potential investments in order to justify the sell-off. I am concerned that much of the proceeds of the sale will go towards projects that are ill suited to the needs of our State. Particularly close to my heart is the expenditure on roads and transport.

The Government intends to spend almost half of the $20 billion raised by the sell-off of poles and wires on transport infrastructure that will not work for Sydney and will not work for New South Wales. It will not work and it is not in the interests of the long-term future of New South Wales because it effectively locks down a future of road congestion and pollution for the State, and locks us all into a privately operated, unintegrated rail network along the way. Like the electricity sell-off itself, these plans are not in the public interest; they are in the private interest. They are in the interest of the Liberals and The Nationals and their mates. A massive $7 billion will be directed to the Sydney Rapid Transit line. This line is possibly the biggest rail con job in the history of the State. Sydney Rapid Transit involves the extension of the private North West Rail Link shuttle through North Sydney and the city and onto the Bankstown line, with entirely single-deck trains, privately operated and separated from the current Sydney Trains network.

It seems very recently that the Government had us all scratching our heads over its plans to rip up the recently opened Epping to Chatswood line for its private metro service and incorporate the line into the North West Rail Link. The Epping to Chatswood line was only opened in 2009–as many in this Chamber would remember–for $2.4 billion, under the previous Labor Government. Despite the bloated price tag and the failed ambition of extending the line all the way to Parramatta, this is a good service. It works for people, especially those in the North Ryde and Macquarie Park industrial areas and students attending Macquarie University. It is well patronised and efficient, but the Government wants to rip it up to make way for the privately operated shuttle.

With Sydney Rapid Transit on the table, thanks to the sell-off, we know that the Government's ambitions do not stop there. It also wants to rip up the Bankstown line completely and put the privately operated network through there too. This will cause unnecessary and painful disruptions for people on many parts of the network. But the "short-term pain for long-term gain" argument does not hold much weight here either. Unfortunately, there is going to be short-term pain for more long-term pain. There is no doubt that we will need a second harbour rail crossing in the future. We need to look at new services and new capacity._{#fn3" id="txt3"> 3}  This can be achieved in some part through technology, such as automated signalling, and in some part by expanding the current public transport system, not cannibalising it. The single-deck, low-capacity Sydney Rapid Transit is probably the worst way possible of achieving what we want. It puts in train the wholesale privatisation of the rail system in Sydney, from Rouse Hill to Epping, to St Leonards, to the central business district, to Sydenham, to Marrickville, and all the way through to Bankstown. What is worse, the single-deck service does not even make sense capacity-wise for much of that journey.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Trevor Khan): Order! I note that, while wide latitude is extended to members speaking during the second reading debate, Dr Mehreen Faruqi should ensure her comments are within the leave of the long titles of the bills. I have allowed the member to continue for some time, but I now invite her to consider the legislation that is before the House rather than rail lines.

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI: Thank you, Mr Deputy-President. Of the constituents the Government spoke to regarding the sell-off of the poles and wires, I doubt many knew about the second harbour rail crossing being a private line and cannibalising their current train line. Moving on to the wasteful expenditure of the money acquired from the privatisation of poles and wires, $1.1 billion will go to the WestConnex extensions and a new western harbour tunnel, which will spew further traffic into more of Sydney. It is not enough that billions of dollars are being totally wasted on toll roads that are not solving Sydney's transport problems but more money from the sell-off of a public asset will be thrown into producing more congestion in the city and destroying our environment.

In essence, the community loses profits from a public asset and these will be spent on private motorways for the benefit of private companies. The Transurban Group, which owns roads in all the eastern seaboard capital cities, made a profit of $282 million in the last financial year. This is a textbook example of corporate greed–the transfer of wealth from the public to benefit only a few. Fortunately, there is another way. During the 2015 election campaign The Greens outlined our own way of financing $20 billion through a range of measures, including reinstating the vendor duty, restoring marginal poker machine tax rates and maintaining stamp duties on certain business transactions. This money would be invested in schools, hospitals, energy, housing and transport of the twenty-first century. The Greens showed that through smarter spending we can divert $4.5 billion being wasted on the NorthConnex and WestConnex projects to public and active transport that expands access for the people of New South Wales. We do not have to sell the electricity network. We can get the infrastructure that New South Wales wants and needs by keeping its electricity network in public hands. The Greens strongly oppose the legislation.

Footnote[s]

#fn1" id="fn1">1.#txt1"> ↑  In part, Baird's victory was also due to the whiteanting of Luke Foley's campaign by elements within the Labor Party, including former NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr and former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating. See
Former premier Bob Carr crashes in on the debate over privatisation of electricity networks (7/3/15) Daily Telegraph, The Debate: should NSW's poles and wires be privatised? (23/3/15) | SMH, Mike Baird's caution on privatisation may affect NSW voters (8/3/15) | AFR.

Bob Carr's undermining of NSW Labor in 2015 is reminiscent of his undermining of Federal Labor Party's election campaign in 2004 as described by former Labor Leader Mark Latham in The Latham Diaries (2005). See also Ex-Labor treasurer downplays NSW privatisation boost (19/5/15) Herald Sun.

#fn2" id="fn2">2.#txt2"> ↑  In some parts, the words in the transcript differ to a small degree from Dr Faruqi's actual spoken words, but meaning contained in those words is virtually identical.

#fn3" id="fn3">3.#txt3"> ↑  Dr Faruqi's claim that a second harbour rail crossing may be necessary could be taken as a presumption that Sydney's population will continue for some years to come to increase at its current rate of growth. In fact, if Sydney does not achieve population stability in the near future, no amount of government investment in the second harbour rail crossing or other infrastructure can prevent Sydney from from becoming a miserable urban slum for most of its inhabitants.

At first glance The Australian Greens’ announcement that they would abolish the negative gearing ₁  tax break, in a bid to increase government revenue through increased taxation and improve homelessness and housing affordability looks like the right move. I have, however a few questions about this.

Firstly it must be pointed out that the Australian Greens advocate that the new tax regime be “grandfathered” so that current negatively geared investors could continue to be so, but that no new investors would be entitled to this. Two sets of tax rules would apply side by side.

I wonder if borrowing to buy a property would be as attractive to a potential investor if s/he could not negatively gear. Presumably, The Greens do not advocate NO tax deduction on an income-generating investment but just to the point where it goes into the red.

I see from the policy document that their ruling would apply to all asset classes. At least here is some consistency.

Negative Gearing applies to non-property investments too

Negative gearing is usually only discussed in the context of property, but of course it applies to other investments too. At present one can borrow to buy shares, which will generate an income since they pay dividends. These dividends are subject to income taxation, in many cases offset by company tax already paid, in the form of imputation credits to the investor. Any shortfall in the income from the shares compared with the interest on the loan is tax deductible. With The Greens’ policy presumably this would only work up to the point that the investor is not going into the red.
One needs to look at why people borrow to invest in any asset. The sensible reason to do this is that the investor believes that the investment will rise in value, such that equity in the asset increases and the loan starts to look small by comparison. The investor can profit in two main ways:

1. With housing, as the value rises, the rent will also increase. Eventually the investor who was negatively geared could become “positively geared” and hence will pay tax to the government.

2. The investor who sees that s/he has made a paper profit can realise this gain, pay back the bank and pocket the profit minus Capital Gains Tax.

I cannot see that abolishing negative gearing will free up housing for non-investor home buyers nor that the tax gains for the government will be as significant as the Australian Greens believe. The abolishing of negative gearing would affect Australian investors, but it would not affect foreign investors who have borrowed from elsewhere. How would that be addressed?

Greens proposal fails to address land-costs – the biggest part of housing unaffordability

The Australian Greens advocate the use of prefabricated houses as a part solution to the terrible problem of homelessness in Australia. I don’t see anything in the document about the land required to put the prefab house on. Land-costs are the major component of housing in cities and these costs are more marked in areas which would be considered to be in a “good position.” The actual house is a relatively minor thing. If people had their own land, probably most would manage to erect some sort of shelter for themselves!

The Australian Greens, in deciding that “negative gearing” is to blame for Australia’s housing woes (and the complete evaporation of “the Australian dream”) fail to address the demand factor which is fundamental to the issue of unaffordable housing.

Where do the demands for Australia’s housing come from?

1. Australians as they reach adulthood tend to need housing apart from their parents . Only about half as many people die in Australia as are born here in any one year so there are roughly only half the number of houses available from that source as there are young Australian people looking for them. Thus there is a built-in shortfall because of our demography.

2. In addition to this, with high immigration, there are likely to be more migrants invited to Australia as business migrants, as skilled workers, students or for family reunion, than there are young Australians looking for their first home.

Penalised Australians would retreat and foreign investors advance

These two groups compete in the same housing market. If Australian would-be investors retreat from the housing investment market because the advantage of negative gearing is not there, I think as long as the total demand for housing does not slump then non-Australian investors will fill the gap left by locals and compete with local home-seekers. With large numbers of people needing housing and a short-fall in supply leading to very high purchase and rental prices, home-seekers and would-be renters will “fall through the cracks.”

Scott Ludlam says that 7,000 houses “for the homeless” will be supplied by 2020. That’s great, but people need housing now. There are 105,000 homeless people on any one night in Australia, according to Salvation Army figures and according to “Kids under cover”. Family breakdown is blamed for a lot of this but if housing were abundant, as it should be, a family breakdown would not result necessarily in homelessness.

Something needs to be done much more urgently about this problem, one which used to be practically unknown in Australia. We all, including The Greens, think we have a silver bullet for this problem but it seems clear that the demand side of the equation still needs to be lightened. This can be addressed easily and quickly at little or no cost. We should not be bringing in large numbers of skilled immigrants to compete against local young people for both housing and jobs. In maintaining very high immigration we are doing our young people a terrible disservice. Surely they deserve better than this?

NOTES

#fn1" id="fn1">1.#txt1"> ↑  "Negative gearing is a form of financial leverage where an investor borrows money to invest and the gross income generated by the investment is less than the cost of owning and managing the investment, including depreciation and interest charged on the loan (but excluding capital repayments)." Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_gearing

Even as an old man, my father was as strong as an ox and built a log cabin from scratch with his bare hands when he was 70 years old. But then he suffered a heart attack. And his doctor put him on all kinds of medications, at least ten pills a day. And a year later he had shrunk from standing over six feet tall to being only 5' 7" -- and from weighing 200 pounds to weighing only 125. And a month after that he was dead. Geez Louise! What the freak was in those pills anyway? Couldn't he have just eaten more bananas instead?

And, yes, I really am aware that modern medicine does save a whole bunch of lives. And, yes, I do watch Gray's Anatomy and know that modern medicine can and does perform miracles. But still. 106,000 Americans a year die from "adverse drug reactions". Side effects, side effects, side effects -- just like the ads on TV say.

And I used to really resent Big Pharma for that -- especially when my own father was one of those statistics.

And I also used to really hate the idea that American children are being overdosed on vaccines too. Our kids will be given 71 different batches of vaccinations before they reach age 17 -- and 26 of these vaccines will be given to babies under one and a half years of age. But it's not the vaccines themselves that I used to resent. Hell, bring them on -- in the hundreds if that's what it takes to save little kids' lives.

It is the fillers, additives and preservatives such as mercury, formaldehyde, MSG, detergents, aluminum and yellow dye #6 that make up approximately 99.99% of each shot that I used to hate. I used to really hate that Big Pharma would shoot all that junk into the bloodstreams of our very own little darlings -- just to save a buck on extending their drugs' shelf-life. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

Apparently there are now a few drug-company start-ups working on creating DNA-based vaccines that no longer need fillers. Others are working on vaccine-based "tattoos" that don't need fillers either. Hurray for them. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/tiny-tattoo-vaccines.html

But I still used to shudder with dread for my three-month-old granddaughter at the thought of her callously being used as fodder for Big Pharma profiteering. Because of baby Sofia, I used to study up and read everything I could lay my hands on with regard to the pros and cons of vaccines. With a tiny and vulnerable small baby in my family, I used to worry night and day about the fillers, additives and preservatives in her vaccines. http://www.ora.tv/offthegrid/grid-robert--kennedy-jr-takes-big-pharma--vaccine-industry-0_6ck7ne6j25bv

But not any more.

Now I've finally learned to relax and love Big Pharma. I've finally become philosophical on the subject. I've finally learned to just reflect on the Spartans of ancient Greece and how they put their weaker babies and old folks out to die in the snow -- for the good of the tribe. Or was it Sarah Palin who did that?

And then I remembered that the presence of lions in Africa are actually good for the gazelle population there -- because they cull the herd. On the plains of the Serengeti, only the strong survive.

And then I learned to cogitate upon the African slaves who survived the dread Middle Passage -- only the strongest made it through that ordeal too, right? So that only the most healthy slaves arrived in the New World? Or I'd think about the small-pox-laden blankets that European immigrants used to give Native Americans so that the weaker ones would die off and stop hogging up all the good land.

And now, like some heroic latter-day Spartan or Indian-killer or human trafficker, Big Pharma is also culling our modern American herd of weaker babies and seniors -- making sure that only the strong survive. How philosophical of them is that! http://yournewswire.com/mandatory-vaccine-act-2015-spine-chilling-u-s-legislation-proposed/

A recent study has shown that America is ranked way down at Number 34 in the list of countries with regard to infant mortality rates -- and is also the highest in the world regarding vaccines given to babies in their first year. So what does that tell us? That we should all immediately move to Singapore as soon as we get preggers? http://www.wanttoknow.info/health/vaccines/vaccines-studies-infant-deaths

No, this tells us that we Americans should stop bitching all the time about how Big Government (under pressure from the Big Pharma lobby of course) is taking away our very right to choose whether or not to have our babies inundated with huge doses of preservatives and fillers before they are even out of diapers, and about how over-selling drugs to our elders has become such a profitable racket -- and instead just be grateful that now only our strongest babies and most viable old people survive, and that Big Pharma is culling our herd.

I mean really. Who the freak wants a weak baby or an old person who can no longer produce and will retire or be hospitalized before reaching age 90? "Man up, babies. Old guys, stop being wimps."

PS: I just went to see Rebecca Solnit give a talk here in Berkeley. "The greatest danger to human beings right now is climate change," she said. No, the greatest danger to us right now is what causes climate change -- the use of fossil fuels, especially by the military.

According to Project Censored, "The U.S. military is the biggest polluter on the planet." So not only is Big Pharma trying to cull the American herd, but War Street is apparently trying to cull this herd too. With all of its various wars and proxy wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine, Haiti, Honduras, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Russia, China, Africa, South America and goodness-knows-where all else? The American military is now endangering the lives of babies and elders here at home as well as killing them outright on the other side of the world. http://www.projectcensored.org/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-polluter-on-the-planet/

Just sayin'. Rebecca Solnit got me to thinking about how War Street is also culling the herd. Perhaps she will get you to thinking too. Nah, thinking is obviously un-American.

First published on Jane Stillwater’s blogspot at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/06/only-strong-survive-how-big-pharma_6.html

5 June 2015 is World Environment Day, but you wouldn't know it in Australia as State and Federal Governments pave the way for inappropriate and highly environmentally damaging land-clearing. This week media reports have detailed the Federal Government's approval for significant clearing of Critically Endangered woodlands in the Hunter Valley and lack of oversight on potentially illegal broad-scale clearing in Cape York, permitted by the former Queensland Government in direct contravention of national environment law.

The Federal Environment Department has just given mining company Coal and Allied the green light to clear 535 hectares of White Box-Yellow Box-Blakely's Red Gum Grassy Woodland and Derived Native Grassland, a Critically Endangered ecological community listed under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The community has been recognised as Critically Endangered since 2006, primarily due to a decline in geographic distribution, and since that time numerous developments have chipped away at what remains. Permitting a further 535 vital hectares to be cleared for a single project indicates the Government is loath to use its habitat protection powers effectively.

"This is a unique and incredibly important ecosystem that has been absolutely smashed by development. More than 93% of the woodlands have been cleared since European settlement, yet the Commonwealth has justified the destruction of a further 535 hectares by requiring a biodiversity offset management plan and vegetation clearance protocols - simply inappropriate measures for Critically Endangered habitats,” said Humane Society International (HSI) Senior Program Manager Evan Quartermain. "This decision goes directly against the Threatened Species Scientific Committee's conservation advice as well as the Recovery Plan prepared for the ecological community by the Department itself, both of which recognise that with around 5% of the woodland left, protecting what remains is the only chance of survival,” stated Mr Quartermain.

Similarly bad news has surfaced in Cape York, where clearing of 33,000 hectares of habitat for the buff-breasted button-quail (the only known Australian bird to have never been photographed in the wild) and at least 17 other threatened species listed under the EPBC Act was permitted in the dying days of the former Queensland Government. Any action that may significantly impact on an EPBC Act listed species requires Commonwealth referral, yet neither the Newman Government nor the pastoral company that owns the land in question did so.

"This is a private business being allowed to destroy core habitat for a range of legislatively protected Matters of National Environmental Significance for their own personal gain. That such major clearing was not referred to the Federal Government is a blatant disregard of procedure and works must be immediately halted and swift investigation and action undertaken. What is the point of legislation if the powers at be don't have the teeth or intent to enforce it? It's a mockery and embarrassment,” Mr Quartermain concluded.

Humane Society International, 5th June 2015

Video-link inside. Australians now have a choice of many news services from all over the world via the internet. Many countries broadcast in English. Iranian television on-line has a continuous on-line news broadcast service in English and conducts some very topical and vivid debates. Tonight Shabbir R. Hassanally, activist and Islamic scholar in London debated Lawrence J.Korb, former US assistant secretary of defense from Washington, on the subject of who benefits from sowing the seeds of division among Muslims. The role of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States vis a vis ISIS are questioned. The whole notion of 'Sunni-Shia' division is challenged. Female presenter, Kaneez Fatima, comperes. Well worth listening to if you want to hear the other side of what is served up by the ABC and SBS on the wars we support in the Middle East.

Most Australian and US viewers will be completely unaware that polls have consistently shown the majority of Syrians  supporting their government and opposing armed opposition attacks. British journalist Jonathan Steele wrote in 2012, “Most Syrians back President Assad but you’d never know from Western media. In 2013, a NATO study concluded that Assad was winning the battle for Syrian hearts and minds. In light of this it seems fair to ask: Why are none of these voices included in a documentary about Syria? Why were there no voices from members of the Syrian American Forum or Arab Americans for Syria or from Syrians who actually live in Syria and experience the conflict first hand? Read whole article inside.

This article originally entitled: PBS Frontline Fails the Public with “Obama at War”: A Case Study in Distortion and Bias on Syria, by Rick Sterling and first published on June 4th, 2015 at Dissident Voice.

Introduction

Frontline is an influential television program which examines important foreign and domestic issues. The shows tend to be technically well done – combining concise writing with compelling video. Many North Americans watch and have their beliefs shaped by Frontline documentaries.

Last week Public Broadcasting System channels across North America broadcast the Frontline special titled “Obama at War”. The 52 minute video portrays the following:

* Origins of the Syrian conflict

* Response of the Obama administration

* Evolution of the conflict

* The run-up and response to alleged chemical attacks in 2013

* Emergence of ISIS, Nusra and other extremist groups

* Where is the conflict headed?  Where is US policy headed?

The video is online here. The approximate time stamp of some key moments in the video are noted in text below.

Positive Elements

On the positive side, the documentary acknowledges that:

* It is a violation of international law to provide weapons to a non-state actor trying to overthrow a sovereign state.

* The overthrow of the Libyan government led to chaos and increased sectarianism and violence.

* There might not be any easy solutions; escalating US involvement as demanded by the “Syrian opposition” and interventionists might actually make things worse.

In addition, the program shows the inner workings and debate process in the Obama administration.

That said, following are some key problems with the documentary.

Key Failings:

(1) Promotes “Syrian Opposition” that is more American than Syrian

Three “Syrian Opposition” members (Ouabi Shahbandar, Murhaf Jouejati, and Amr al Azm) appear 12 times through the documentary, using about 7% of the total time.  In reality all of the three are U.S. Citizens; none of them has lived in Syria for many years or decades.

Ouabi Shahbandar is the “Syrian Opposition” member given prominent attention in the video. He came to the US at age 8.  At Arizona State University in 2003 he was a young Republican neoconservative on the rampage, strongly supporting GW Bush and the invasion of Iraq, denouncing war protesters as “terrorists” and allying with far right figures such as David Horowitz. In the past decade he has worked for the US Dept of Defense.

Murhaf Jouejati teaches at the National Defense University (US Dept of Defense). A third voice is from Amr Al Azm who is leader of the US funded “Day After Project” intended to plan for development after regime change in Damascus. In short, all three “Syrian Opposition” voices are aligned and committed to US not Syrian national interests.

(2) Excludes authentic Syrian voices

Most viewers will be completely unaware that polls have consistently shown the majority of Syrians  supporting their government and opposing armed opposition attacks.  As the widely respected British journalist Jonathan Steele wrote in 2012, “Most Syrians back President Assad but you’d never know from Western media.”  In 2013, a NATO study concluded that Assad was winning the battle for Syrian hearts and minds and “After two years of civil war, support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad was said to have sharply increased.”

In light of this it seems fair to ask: Why are none of these voices included in a documentary about Syria? Why were there no voices from members of the Syrian American Forum or Arab Americans for Syria or from Syrians who actually live in Syria and experience the conflict first hand?

(3) Gives biased and contradictory characterization of the conflict

At (2:30) “Syrian opposition” member Murhaf Jouejati claims the Syrian opposition has universal goals and is not sectarian. In contrast, at (3:35) Washington Post journalist David Ignatius describes the uprising as a “Sunni revolution”. How can it be a “Sunni revolution” and non-sectarian at the same time?

In reality, both portrayals are distortions. The Syrian conflict has been often characterized in Western media as “an Alawi regime dictatorship dominating the Sunni majority population.” Although repeated countless times, it is essentially untrue. For example, the powerful Syrian Defense and Information Ministries are both led by Sunni Muslims; the Syrian Army is majority Sunni; the economy is dominated by Sunni businessmen. In reality, Syria is a mix of many religions and the government is predominately nationalist and secular, not religious.

The opposition is driven by sectarian Wahabi ideology but that does not represent Sunni Islam any more than Zionist supremacism represents Judaism or right wing Christian fundamentalists represent Christianity.

(4) Excludes important background information about U.S. Ambassador and US Policy

U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford is ever-present in the documentary. He appears 15 separate times and his perspective uses almost 10% of the entire video.  In the opening scenes, Ford talks about going to support a protest march in Hama. He says “We were not backing any particular set of demands that the protesters were putting forward; we were simply supporting their right to demonstrate peacefully.” This is a nice platitude for those who believe in the tooth fairy, but how about the real world?

In fact, U.S. policy has been hostile toward Syria for many years. In 2003-4 the Syria Accountability Act imposed sanctions.  It’s widely known that the US and allies Israel and Saudi Arabia seek to break Syria’s alliance with Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement. Israel has attacked Syria numerous times. In 2007, Seymour Hersh wrote:

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Robert Ford is very familiar with these “extremist groups” since he was Political Counselor under Ambassador John Negroponte in Baghdad 2004 – 2006 during the time that they were launched. Negroponte is infamous in Latin America where he was US Ambassador to Honduras coordinating the creation of the ‘Contras’ in Nicaragua and death squads in El Salvador and Honduras.  Negroponte and Robert Ford implemented the transformation in US strategy in Iraq following the first year of US occupation.  Called the “Salvador option” by Newsweek magazine, Robert Ford likely played a pivotal role since he was a top official and fluent in Arabic. But this important background information is missing from the Frontline special.

(5) Falsely claims the Syrian insurgency was predominately secular in 2012/2013

One of the major arguments of Robert Ford and other interventionists is that the Syrian uprising was not sectarian; they claim the Obama Administration did not do enough to support the secular opposition and thereby “allowed” it to be radicalized. Ford says toward the end of the documentary:

Of course there was a window of opportunity. The jihadi elements in Syria were a distinct minority in the Syrian armed opposition in late 2012 and going into 2013.(45:35)

This assertion is contradicted on multiple counts. Observing conditions in Aleppo in September-October 2012, American journalist James Foley wrote:

Many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition — one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups.

More significantly, just in the past few weeks, the August 2012 analysis of the Defense Information Agency has been released following a law suit connected to Congressional hearings around Benghazi.  That report states:

Internally, events are taking a clear sectarian direction. The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major force driving the insurgency in Syria.

It appears Ford was deliberately downplaying the sectarian reality of the conflict to justify his call for greater US intervention.

(6) Falsely suggests Obama Administration was preventing opposition forces from receiving weapons

The documentary gives the impression the Obama administration was steadfastly blocking the supplying of weapons to Syrian armed opposition through 2012.  In reality, huge quantities of weapons were transferred  beginning 2011. Another Defense Intelligence Agency document discloses:

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the Gaddafi regime, in October 2011 and up until early September 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped …to Syria.

The weapons included “Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 150mm howitzer missiles.”

As documented here, beginning November 2012 there was a major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels:

3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan.

The kernel of truth here is that despite the huge shipments of weapons to the armed opposition they were still losing. Unwilling to accept this, Saudi Arabia wanted to escalate the shipments and transfers even more.

(7) Excludes Crucial Information including the Huge Number of Syrian Soldiers Killed

There are many scenes of Syrian victims from “armed opposition” territories and battle zones. Like all wars and conflicts, it is horrible with good and bad people on all sides. However, it is striking that there are no videos or interviews showing the extent of casualties in Syrian government areas.

Three quarters of the Syrian population live in areas under Syrian government control and they are also victims of random or targeted attacks. Nor is there any hint about the huge number of Syrian soldiers, police and national defense forces who have been killed.

Viewers of “Obama at War” will have no idea that between 80 and 120 thousand Syrian soldiers and civil defenders have been killed in the conflict. Many thousands are victims of those “Sniper” rifles shipped under the watchful eye of the CIA. Skeptical readers are urged to look for themselves at the range of estimates from different sources shown here.

Contrary to the mythology, there was a violent faction provoking the conflict from the beginning.

What would happen in the USA or Canada if foreign sponsored “rebels” killed tens of thousands of police or military soldiers?

(8) Falsely claims “clear proof” that Syrian government used Sarin in Spring 2013

At (22:15) Frontline intones “With no one to stop him, Assad initiates a new phase in the war: the deployment of chemical weapons.”

Mark Mazetti of NY Times says:

Intelligence community was assessing that the rebels were on the ropes. You have the clear proof in the intelligence community that there had been chemical weapon attacks ….

Mazetti’s assertion ignores the widespread debate and differing opinions among those looking into the sarin issue.  For example, UN Inspector Carla Ponte said the evidence pointed toward the rebels being responsible, not the government. She said:

There are strong, concrete suspicions …of the use of sarin gas….on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.

If the “rebels” were “on the ropes”, why would the Assad government use chemical weapons and provoke international outcry and possible intervention?  On the other hand, the “rebels” had the motive and the means. Syrian insurgents had even been captured with Sarin in Turkey earlier in the year.

(9) Excludes key research on responsibility for Sarin Use in August 2013

At (26:45) Frontline says “Then, a sarin gas attack on a rebel held suburb of Damascus…..1400 men, women and children are killed according to what the American intelligence agencies tell the President.”  John Kerry accuses the Syrian government of using “the world’s most heinous weapons against the most vulnerable people”.

In reality, there was immediate skepticism about the responsibility. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), made of up retired members of the US intelligence community especially the Central Intelligence Agency, issued a statement saying:

Former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this.

“Obama at War” ignores the critical debate and simply repeats the accusations which have been largely discredited.  Over the past 18 months some of the best US investigative journalists have researched what happened on August 21 in Ghouta.  Seymour Hersh wrote “The Red Line and the Rat Line” pointing to Turkish and Nusra culpability. Robert Parry wrote “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case” identifying the “junk heap of bad evidence” used to blame the Syrian government. Two months before the gas attacks, Russ Baker predicted the drive toward another US intervention based on false premises.  He commented sarcastically:  “No one is likely to demand good hard evidence for the use of chemical weapons. After all, the Bush administration and its lies for war was so…very long ago.”

Instead of dealing with the controversy and contrary evidence, Frontline ignored it and echoes the assertions of interventionists.

(10) Largely ignores the lessons from Libya

The situation in Libya is highly relevant to Syria – and recent. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to explore what happened there and the lessons to be learned?  At (9:45) there is a passing reference to the chaos in Libya following the overthrow of the Gadaffi government.

Earlier at (5:45) NY Times reporter Mark Mazetti says “We had seen what happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya … Popular demonstrations would ultimately bring down the regime.” However, that is inaccurate regarding Libya where the government was overthrown by a seven month US/NATO/GULF bombing campaign – not “popular demonstrations”.

Considering that the attacks on Libya were presented as necessary to “protect civilians” (as is currently argued for Syria), and the eruption of sectarianism and violence which has followed, and the terrible decline in living standards and security for Libyan civilians …. isn’t this worthy of more than five seconds passing reference?

(11) Repeats Dubious Accusations regarding Chlorine Gas Bombs

“Obama at War” repeats accusations based on unreliable evidence that the Syrian government has been using chlorine gas bombs to attack civilians. Logic would suggest that the opposition has a motive for this while the government does not.  Some widely publicized writers, such as Dr. Annie Sparrow, are full of moralistic condemnations but curiously short of facts.  As reported by Time magazine in Spring 2013, the major chlorine producing factory in Syria (and its stockpiles of chlorine) were under Nusra (Al Queda) control since 2012.  It is also curious there are no current videos showing the alleged onslaught of chlorine filled barrel bombs while there are many videos showing the armed opposition launching gas canisters.

(12) Promotes False History of the Expansion of ISIS and Nusra

At this point the documentary does something very misleading: it presents the expansion of ISIS and Nusra as a consequence of the Obama decision not to attack Syria.  At 36:25 the documentary intones “Extremists exploited the decision not to attack.”  At 36:35 Shahbandar claims that extremists are telling Syrian civilians “Look you’ve been betrayed by the world ….”.  At 36:55 Baker (NY Times) suggests that ISIS and Nusra are saying “We’re the only ones who can take down Assad and create a new order here.” The documentary then claims that moderate rebels are joining extremists with ISIS emerging as the strongest. That is soon followed by video showing ISIS surging through Iraq and seizing Mosul.

In reality, the extremists (Nusra, ISIS, etc) were the major armed opposition force long before the August 2013 situation.  That was confirmed in the August 2012 DIA report.  Nor was the surge of ISIS into Iraq a consequence of the Obama decision. The ISIS seizure of Mosul occurred in June of 2014, ten months after the Obama decision.

If the US had proceeded and attacked Syria in September 2013 it would have further weakened the Syrian government and helped the extremists expand even more.  After four years of attacks by tens of thousands of heavily armed insurgents from all over the globe, the Syrian government and military is greatly weakened. That has allowed ISIS to control the lightly populated eastern part of the country. The Syrian army is bogged down fighting thousands of extremists in the major urban areas in the west, north and south which has allowed ISIS to continue in the east.

(13) Suggests that ISIS and Nusra are “helping” and “defending” Syrians

At 37:10 Ford says:

I think it’s human nature to seek help from those who will defend you against the external threat that’s killing you, arresting you, torturing you … It’s no surprise that Syrians seek support of anyone to get rid of the regime that’s inflicting the pain.

Ford’s assertion that the extremists are “defending” Syrians against an “external threat” is bizarre since the “external threat” refers to the Syrian government and “those who will defend you” refers to extremist organizations consisting of huge numbers of sectarian fanatics and mercenaries from across the globe.

While there are some Syrians who want a sectarian wahabi state with strict sharia law, they are vastly outnumbered by Syrians who want to maintain a secular state and inclusive multi-faith society. The suggestion in this documentary that a significant number of Syrians seek “help” from ISIS or Nusra is a grotesque falsehood.

Ford continues his nonchalant description of ISIS at 44:30:

Dropping bombs is not going to destroy the Islamic State and so it seems the Islamic State is going to maintain control over the eastern half of Syria more or less indefinitely.

Conclusions

* “Obama at War” presents a biased and distorted view of the reality in Syria.

* The experience and perspective of the vast majority of Syrians is ignored.

* There is a pressing need for realistic reports which convey the perspectives and experiences of all people in the conflict, not just the “opposition” and their supporters.

Rick Sterling is active with the Syria Solidarity Movement and Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center. He can be emailed at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Rick.

Most of these animals are stolen pets. All Chinese are not cruel, but this festival provides an economic excuse for the cruelest of thefts and practices, which many Chinese want ended: Open letter from Animal activist, Chantal Buslot: An animal rights lawyer in Beijing said that official claims that all dogs slaughtered for the Chinese Dog Meat Festival are bred by local dog farmers is false. Xiang said according to research there are no such farms and that all dogs are abducted from the streets. (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-dog-meat-festival-2014-10000-dogs-be-slaughtered-yulin-summer-solstice-celebration-1451869) It is thought most dogs are pets or strays abducted from streets. Vendors then buy them for nine yuan (85p) and sell them for 25 yuan. People who steal the dogs make the biggest profits of all, the news agency said.
(http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-dog-meat-festival-2014-dogs-sold-85p-c ooking-solistice-hotpot-1452814)

Criminal laws are broken

"Some of the animal thieves broke Criminal Law using weapons to threaten residents to hand over their dogs,"Li said.
(http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-dog-meat-festival-2014-dogs-sold-85p-cooking-solistice-hotpot-1452814) According to the 'Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, Part I-General Provisions, Article 2 states The tasks of the PRC Criminal Law are to use punishment struggle against all criminal acts to defend national security, the political power of the people's democratic dictatorship, and the socialist system; to protect state-owned property and property collectively owned by the laboring masses; to protect citizens' privately owned property; to protect citizens' right of the person, democratic rights, and other rights; to maintain social and economic order; and to safeguard the smooth progress of the cause of socialist construction.

As a concerned global citizen, I am worried about the beloved pets of families being stolen and sold for the YuLin Dog Meat Festival.

According to Chapter Three, Section V, Article 99 of the Chinese Constitution states the following Local people's congresses at various levels ensure the observance and implementation of the Constitution and other laws and the administrative regulations in their respective administrative areas.

Within the limits of their authority as prescribed by law, they adopt and issue resolutions and examine and decide on plans for local economic and cultural development and for the development of public services.

Is it not the duty of the Yulin government, and the Agriculture Ministry, to ensure Criminal laws are not broken and the Chinese Constitution is upheld? If this were implemented in the next couple weeks, then this YuLin festival would assuredly be closed down as a public health risk and because of the brutal killings of the cats and dogs of greater YuLin.

Please, President Xi, this is not about animal rights but about upholding Chinese laws that are there to protect all citizens. We urge you to please get involved and ask the appropriate committees to prevent future laws from being broken by canceling the festival.

The world is watching Yulin as this festival gets closer and it's terrified by what it sees.

Sincerely, Chantal Buslot Belgium [Animal Activist]

Health risks associated iwth the consumption of dog meat trade

More medical warnings link dog meat to rabies http://www.animals24-7.org/2015/03/18/more-medical-warnings-link-dog-meat-to-rabies/ Epidemiological investigations of human rabies in China - The results showed 19,806 human rabies cases were reported in China from 1996 to 2008, with an average of 1,524 cases each year... http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/9/210 https://youtu.be/TKOQIuHI3Eo

China dog meat festival sparks outrage everywhere in the world!

http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/01/shocking-photographs-show-the-horrific-reality-of-banned-cat-and-dog-meat-festival-in-china-5225145/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3103008/Rows-pet-dogs-beaten-death-hanging-hooks-cats-skinned-ready-dinner-table-Inside-Chinese-meat-festival-banned-year.html">
http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/02/10/protestors-hope-to-end-annual-dog-eating-festival-in-southern-chinese-city
http://www.causeribbon.com/ribbon/stop_yulin_2015
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/magazines/2015/01-02/surge-of-comp assion-chinese-animal-activists-confront-dog-meat-trade.html
https://www.thedodo.com/china-yulin-dog-meat-trade-1113447741.html
http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Societe/Viande-de-chien-et-de-chat-Yulin-le-festival-de-la-barbarie-759642 Misleading advertisements of authorities
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-762e768c-f5da-4807-8e5d-1550754304cb-tg2.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-kinosian/gruesome-yulin-dog-fest ival-must-end-you-have-a-voice_b_7073662.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/22/world/asia/china-yulin-dog-meat-fe stival/
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32965554

Compassion was a far more effective environmental management tool than “poison and guns,” award winning ecologist Dr Arian Wallach told a recent conference of conservationists and farmers. And dingoes were an ideal agent for saving the environment and promoting co-existence between native and exotic species. The May 17, 2015 conference, “Dingo – Friend or Foe” was held at Hervey Bay Community Centre, just across the Great Sandy Straits from World Heritage listed Fraser Island where, it was argued, Australia’s war on the dingo began. Three prominent local farmers, Harry Jamieson, Lindsay Titmarsh and James Hansen told the conference of dingo problems, worse in recent years than ever before. (Article by Arthur Gorrie. )

Researcher and grazier Adam O’Neill said the national “war on the dingo” which followed the death of a boy, Clinton Gage on Fraser Island in 2001 had caused a significant worsening of the problems it was supposed to address.
Farmers concerned about problems with dingoes, wild pigs and native and exotic herbivores, in numbers never seen before, needed to ask why government agencies were disrupting natural balances by baiting in national parks and other crown land.

Arian Wallach:
Dr Wallach, whose work has been published in the international journals Nature and Science, said human attempts to manage the environment by killing came with high costs – ethical, economic, social and environmental.

Winner of the 2013 Eureka Science prize (Australia’s foremost research award) for work on the ecological role of dingoes, she advocated greater humility from the scientific community.

“We need to be very humble in what we think we know and don’t know,” she said.

Agriculture needed to focus more on non-lethal control methods, including guardian dogs. But although human persecution was the main threat to large carnivores worldwide, it was not farmers who posed the main danger. “The most dangerous place for a dingo is in national parks,” she said.

“Unlike national parks in other countries where the authorities protect the predators, dingoes are not protected anywhere.

“Foxes are common where dingoes are scarce. Where there are many dingoes, there are fewer foxes. Foxes are strongly associated with the extinction of marsupials. Where dingoes do well, marsupials are also doing well, essentially across the entire continent. Where dingoes are persecuted we get more stock losses, not less.”

She also attacked the “wild dog” concept, which she said was “perfect” as a public relations tool to justify extermination, implying that problem animals were not really dingoes.

“The wild dogs are dingoes,” she said.

Harry Jamieson:
Retired beef cattle grazier, agricultural public servant and conservationist Harry Jamieson, told about 80 participants (including three dingoes and one assistance dog) about his experience on land frequented by dingoes, kangaroos and wallabies as well as stock. He spoke as a former president of the Mary River Catchment Co-ordinating Committee, which has been active in conservation efforts for the endangered Mary River turtle, cod and lungfish.

Mr Jamieson said he had operated a family beef property in dingo country and had never suffered any calf losses as a result of dingo predation.

“Often we would hear them howling. Kangaroos and wallabies were numerous. I never shot or allowed anyone to shoot a kangaroo or wallaby. They were for the dingoes.

“You hear so much about dingoes causing a lot of people to incur losses… and you have to have sympathy. Over the years it’s been baiting, trapping and shooting. It doesn’t seem to have made a lot of difference. We’ve got to take a different approach,” he said.

Lindsay Titmarsh:

Grazier Lindsay Titmarsh, of the Tandora property at the Mary River mouth told of an unprecedented recent increase in dingo numbers.

He said his family had shot and trapped dingoes at times over the years but they had always been in small groups and did not seem to breed up.

“If you see a dog every two months, you’re doing well, (but) we have shot 16 dingoes in the last five months, that’s unheard of at Tandora. I don’t know what the story is. They just keep coming, from everywhere. We lost 20 calves in one year.”

James Hansen:

Dairy farmer, Fraser Coast Regional councillor and a member of the council’s Koala Conservation Committee, James Hansen said he remembered it once being rare to see a dingo.

“Then about 10 years ago, something strange began happening. We lost 30 weener heifers in one year. They cost about $1000 each to replace and would earn $10,000 over their lifetime.
“I really couldn’t sleep at night. Then they struck during the day and took to eating calves as they were born. I don’t know where they came from.”

Adam O’Neill:

Mr O’Neill said the evidence from farmers of problems becoming much worse in recent years supported his contention that they coincided with national persecution of the dingo, which he said had started with the Beattie Queensland Government, after the Clinton Gage tragedy.

This caused over-breeding, hybridisation and changes in behaviour.

He said he and Dr Wallach had conducted the experiment that proved his point while managing the Evelyn Downs cattle station in central Australia.

“I decided not to kill any dogs and within two years, stock predation was eliminated.

“You need dingoes to stabilise everything. When dingoes are stable they become invisible and no-one notices the good things they do. People only notice dingoes when they become a problem.

“Stop the baiting, let the dingoes stabilise and they’ll control the pigs and foxes and you’ll save a shitload of money,” he said.

“You’ve got to inquire how these government agencies are running our vast areas of wilderness. They’re baiting for no apparent reason. They don’t have livestock.”

Dr Wallach said consumers were the key to solving the problem.

“Do you want to put your money towards contributing to the persecution of big predators (to produce) wool or meat?”

She said a global “predator friendly” certification system already existed.

“As consumers we have an opportunity to make a choice about the kind of human beings we want to be. Being compassionate and not being so quick to use guns and poison, let’s put lethal control at the bottom of the list.”

Malcolm Kilpatrick:

Save Fraser Island Dingoes president Malcolm Kilpatrick cut his address short because of time constraints, but said the organisation had sought to make the island manager, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service more free with information and had agitated for an animal care centre, especially for animals injured by humans. There was no real care facility except at the Seaworld and Australia Zoo tourist attractions. Of animals taken off the island for veterinary treatment, only a small number survived.

New problems for old

“As an ecologist I can tell you we do not understand eco-systems at all,” Dr Arian Wallach told the conference, which was facilitated by the Save Fraser Island Dingoes group.

Killing for conservation was a dangerous tactic.

“When we fix problems, we often create new ones.”
Cat eradication on Macquarie Island had been considered one of the great successes, because the cats were attacking native birds.

“Then came rabbit and rat plagues.

“The rabbit plague caused a decline in plants and (as a result of plants no longer holding hillsides together) landslip destroyed birds’ nests.

“Then we spent millions of dollars to eliminate rabbits and rats and mice.

“What have we gained to justify these costs?

“Sometimes we have a win – once or twice.”

Killing foxes to save the (endangered small macropod) woylies was a big success initially.

“They were de-listed, but then we lost them anyway because, instead of being killed by foxes, they were wiped out by cats.

“When we pick out anything by itself we find it hitches to everything else.

“We have cats and foxes and cane toads and there is nothing that is going to change this.

“If we want an environment that includes bilbies and rock wallabies, maybe we have to envisage an eco-system where there is co-existence.

“The problem with cane toads is poison glands on their back. Where they come from predators all know that.”

There were now snakes with smaller mouths so they could only eat small toads and get a smaller dose of the poison. “Birds are figuring it out. They turn them over and eat from the underside.”

Attempts at dingo eradication were another example of ill-thought management.

“Ecosystem survival is determined by whether they have big predators.

“The oceans have sharks, while Australia has dingoes.

“When wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone Park in 1995, they killed some animals and gave life to many others.
“Deer numbers had built up (eating away vegetation on the ground). This had affected trees, birds and beavers.”

A Youtube video, Sustainable Man, which she showed, recorded the return of these species and improvements in river water quality as a result of the re-introduction of wolves.

“Apex predators drive eco-systems,” she said. “But with 94% of large carnivore species, the main threat is human persecution.”

In Australia, dingoes helped promote co-existence between native and exotic species, but “there is no safe place for dingoes, (because) unlike other national parks where authorities protect the predators, it is OK (in Australia) to poison-bait national parks and to kill dingoes on Fraser Island.”

Dingoes helped promote co-existence between native and exotic animals, many of which were here, like it or not.

“Since white people came, Australia is no longer isolated.

“Australia now has the world’s largest populations of wild horses and donkeys and is the only place in the world where there are wild camels.

“There are creatures that have been here for millions of years and ones we’ve brought here.
“What’s an animal to do when it’s brought here?”

Introduced animals impacted the environment by using native resources and killing native animals and plants.
It seemed to be thought that by shooting and poisoning them, “we’ll get a proper Australian wilderness back the way it was.”

“But killing for conservation bears high costs and responsibilities.

“We need to be clear if the cost is worth it, in view of the environmental problems we face.”

Large herbivores were in trouble around the world and many were extinct in their native range, or endangered.

“If we could snap our fingers and get rid of all wild camels in Australia, there would be no wild camels left in the world.”

There were none left in Israel, where Dr Wallach said she came from and part of the region where camels were generally supposed to be native.

They appeared to have originated in North America. “Should we send them back there?”

There were camel relatives in South America and in Mongolia they were “slaves.”

“This is the one place in the world they exist in the wild. If we eradicate them here, we are eradicating them globally,” she said.

Almaz-Antey, a Russian manufacturer of Buk missiles and Russia's main air-defense manufacturer has begun its own investigations into the MH17 affair, where a Malaysian air flight was downed over war-torn East Ukraine. Since this tragedy, NATO supporters have accused Russia of being the owner of a BUK missile which some believe may have been the thing that brought the Flight MH17 passenger aircraft down. Russians have responded by suggesting that if a missile was involved, it was probably a Ukrainian missile fired from East Ukraine when it was under Kiev military control. Although there are other theories, including one that another aircraft may have fired on MH17, the missile manufacturer itself is now trying to conduct its own investigation in order to have sanctions against it lifted. According to Almaz-Antey, missile manufacturers, the missile that likely struck the Boeing aircraft, 9M38-M1, was not produced in the Russian Federation since 1999, but they have evidence that the BUK-M1 air defense missile system and accompanying missiles were still deployed with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2005. According to their evidence, Ukraine had a total of 991 9M38M1 missiles at the time.

Article contains material republished from RT where originally published on June 02, 2015 at 9.46am. For live updates go to the original article.

Update: See note [1] on where candobetter.net's values differ from those apparent on Party for Freedom site. John Ajaka, the NSW Minister for Multiculturalism's indignation at Nick Folkes's (Party for Freedom)[1] protests against foreign property ownership in Australia would ring truer if Ajaka distanced multiculturalism from the billion dollar property development growth lobby that has captured the multicultural tag. See Background on the Australian Multicultural Foundation. Instead he sounds like a hypocrite attacking an Australian who tries to stand up to this Goliath.[2] Unfortunately multiculturalism has become code for mass migration and a political shield for a powerful global network of engineers, banks and financiers, property developers, government departments and academic propagandists, represented by numerous peak bodies of which the Property Council of Australia is probably foremost. The Fairfax and Murdoch Press are members of this growth lobby with strong vested interests in their own huge property dot coms, realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. The major political parties are similarly invested, with the Labor Party's stake best known, but it is no Robinson Crusoe.

The multicultural cloak has been given unmerited authority and power by vested interest and protection from political figures. Nick Folkes is a working man attempting to lead protests against mass dispossession of Australian citizens by virtually unregulated foreign property buyers who are outbidding Australians and contributing to an overpriced Australian housing market.

The multiculturalist Goliath is well-organised to maintain and increase focused financial benefits from high immigration, but the Australian public, which wears the cost of mass immigration and land-speculation, has great difficulty organising to combat it.

This disorganisation of the masses is largely due to the way the Fairfax, Murdoch and ABC media manage 'public' debate to reflect the opinions of the big end of town whilst pretending to reflect those of the majority. Although population growth is a constant topic in the mass media, the media usually only publishes criticism of the growth lobby if they can pretend such criticism is laced with innuendos of racism, NIMBYism or can be stigmatised as 'ignorant'. Whilst Tony Abbott is cocooned by his party and the mainstream media against public criticism for wearing his foot in his mouth, we can expect that Nick Folkes will be afforded no such protection for speaking plainly against narrow financial interests that cost most Australians.

There are huge sums of money involved in the population growth and foreign investment that uses multiculturalism to censor criticism of its projects and muzzle those it disadvantages. According to the Foreign Investment Review Board, China overtook the United States as the biggest source of proposed foreign investment in Australia in 2013-14 and may soon 'pump $60 billion into housing' here. The ABC reports that Knight Frank property developers and realtors 'showed Chinese investment in the Sydney and Melbourne property markets doubled last year and that Chinese investors spent more on Australian real estate than on properties in London and New York for the first time'. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-29/chinese-invasion-leaflet-campaign-slammed-as-idiotic/6506412

Numbers and wedge politics

It makes you think that Pauline Hanson's speech writer was on to something when he had her say in 1996 that Australia was in danger of being 'swamped' by Asians. Americans and Canadians are still not far behind though in driving up housing prices, resource demand and development expansion over Australia's fast diminishing green spaces.

In 1996 Australia's population was 18,300,100. At 31 May 2015 it had grown by 5,306,010, that is, by more than a quarter, and was 23,838,210 (Source). From 2009 planned invited economic mass immigration of between 250,000 and 300,000 per annum far outweighed Australia's natural increase (births minus deaths) of 150,000 per annum.

Every effort has been made by the authorities to confuse the public about the numbers. In 2006 immigration statistics became uncomparable with those before 2009 after the statistical method was changed.[3] There have been concerted mediatised wedge politics to

(a) confuse planned invited economic immigration and paying foreign students with refugees and asylum seekers, and
(b) stigmatise asylum seekers and refugees as overwhelmingly freeloaders and criminals

This confusion has divided the community, journalists and political party members.

A better informed public could unite against overpopulation that is inflating the cost of living and housing here and the illegal wars that are creating huge numbers of refugees and economic immigrants as economies and nations are destroyed by global investment in war and 'development'. Instead the wider community has been relegated to a passive and worried audience as mass media anointed 'community leaders' pontificate on the imminence of terrorism and the need to retreat into a police state or engage indefinitely overseas in wars against terrorism. (See, for example, David Kilcullen, "Blood Year,"Quarterly Essay, No.58, May 2015).

Leaflets distributed by Nick Folkes say, "Aussie battlers are being pushed to the fringes of our cities while foreign intruders are reaping the benefits of our hard-working previous generations." "The new dispossessed or forgotten people will one day be remembered as the 'stolen generation' priced out of their market by invading Chinese foreigners." He might have rephrased his proposition more 'correctly' as a complaint that organised mass migration was inflating the property market, without pointing at particular national or ethnic beneficiaries, but he wouldn't have received mass media coverage then by taking advantage of the mass media headlines which said exactly the same thing:
"Cashed-up Chinese are pricing the young out of the property market".
"Sydney house prices driven by Chinese 'bolthole' buyers".
"Chinese investors are pushing into Melbourne and Sydney."

Although some put it in triumphant economic terms:

"Real Estate: Vendors delighted as Chinese buyers flock to Glen Waverley and Mt Waverley."
"Chinese property investment through the roof: What it really means."
"China's $60 billion Australian property splurge"

It didn't matter whether the media put its articles about Chinese investment in positive or negative terms, property agents still advertised close to these stories. The developers and investors, including the newspaper property dot coms cannot lose in this globalised market as long as there is population growth.

Politics and power

Ecological groups have for years earnestly and soberly criticised trends to overpopulate Australia by citing immigration statistics and the impact of overdevelopment on Australia's environment and ecology, hardly making a ripple in the mainstream media or the awareness of the general public, despite the fact that population growth is the number one topic in the mass media. The fact is that the Australian public have been sensitised by commercial and public mass media to multiculturalism and economic terms and desensitised to ecological and scientific terms. A political movement that succeeds in mobilising Australians against population growth is likely to use the terms the public are most familiar with and those are the ones that the mass media consistently use. This is the case with Nick Folkes's Party for Freedom.

Nick Folkes is trying to register his Party for Freedom as a political party. Success could be dangerous. Tony Abbott, then parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs , organised the Australians for Honest Politics Trust in 1996, which financed litigious activity culminating in the jailing of Australian politician Pauline Hanson in 2003 on the grounds that her party was improperly constituted. See https://newmatilda.com/2012/12/11/how-abbott-funded-fight-against-one-nation. Although sentenced to prison for three years, Hanson was freed on an appeal which found that her party was in fact legally constituted. But the message had been delivered to Australian citizens and residents that if they criticise mass immigration and the industries that cultivate it, punishment will come from the top. John Howard, the Prime Minister in 2003 explained to Lateline, "It's the job of the Liberal Party to politically attack other parties," but actually, it looks as if the top job is to protect the growth lobby. Tony Abbott is now Australia’s Prime Minister.

NOTES

[1] The title of this article was originally, "Nick Folkes a David standing up to a Multicultural Goliath," but we have changed it, regretfully. Even though Mr Folkes shows some courage in standing up to power, in the form of the multicultural property development lobby, his website features articles and comments of which we don't want to appear to approve. These comments and articles use 'scientific' theory against specific groups of peoples. For instance, one article discusses a high rate of cousin marriage in a particular people as if it were unusual or hazardous incest. That is a popular view that does not take into account the widespread role of endogamy in preserving land within a people, and other factors that need to be taken into account when assessing cousin marriage. In fact, a high rate of endogamy need not be genetically damaging; it can be beneficial, both in terms of preserving control over territory and in strengthening positive traits. Depending on the public relations, where one highly endogamous group can be stigmatised for 'inbreeding stupidity' another may be famous for 'inbreeding genius'. When assessing the impact of marriage and land-tenure traditions on genetic inheritance, environment and changes to economy, diet, and social organisation also need to be taken into account. See http://candobetter.net/node/3197 about the importance of dynasties in modern power. There is also a comment on the Party for Freedom site suggesting that a particular group of people have lower average I.Q.s that other people. IQ tests are not reliable when dealing with culture and language differences and this theory also does not take into account mass dispossession and changes to economy, diet and social organisation - and the impact of drugs and alcohol. It's a pity that the Party for Freedom does not seem to be able to see how fighting between groups weakens the ability of Australians to stand up to the powers that have overtaken national control of land, housing and economic benefits.

[2] "The man behind a letterbox campaign warning Sydney's housing market is under threat from 'Chinese invasion' is an idiot, New South Wales' Multiculturalism Minister says."

[3]#txtNf2"> ↑  "Technical note: '12/16 month rule' methodology for calculating net overseas migration from September Quarter 2006 onwards." In itself this was a tragedy because Australia shared with France the distinction of havg the longest set of comparable demographic statistics in the world.

Inside are three videos warning about the dangers of signing the TransPacific Trade agreements that global organisations want to get many countries, including Australia, to sign. The first is a very quick overview. In the second video, at Democracy Now, "Secretive Deal Isn’t about Trade, but Corporate Control", Julian Assange speaks in some detail on the subject. Sophie Shevardnadze's interview on with Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation Magazine follows as a partial transcript with a link to the actual interview. We have previously published Kelvin Thomson's Australian opinion on the dangers here, which is in agreement with the other sources.

Find out more, speak up and spread the word:
http://www.StopFastTrack.com; http://www.ExposeTheTPP.org; http://www.sumofus.org/tpp

Julian Assange on the Trans-Pacific Partnership - Exclusive Interview by Democracy Now

As negotiations continue, WikiLeaks has published leaked chapters of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership — a global trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries. The TPP would cover 40 percent of the global economy, but details have been concealed from the public.

TPP agreement will deal mortal blow to democracy in US - Nation magazine chief

The following is an extract from "TPP agreement will deal mortal blow to democracy in US - Nation magazine chief" from this video of Sophie Shevardnadze interviewing Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation Magazine (United States).

SS: I want to talk about another deal that’s grabbing attention now in the U.S. and that’s the Trans-Pacific Partnership. However, the details of this agreement are unknown, Obama insists the TPP is not secret, but in reality, a deal that is supposed to affect millions of Americans is classified, and even members of Congress can’t just go and flip through the pages without minder hanging about. Why?

KVH: I don’t think it’s consistent with American principles, but I’ll tell you: it seems the trade agreements have been, for the last decades, negotiated this way. But, this time, because of a mobilization of labor groups, citizen groups, workers, people inside the Congress, business isn’t being done as usual. People are saying: “Enough! We don’t want this to be done in secrecy; we’ve learned enough from our history to see what these trade agreements have done to communities around the country and workers.” In fact, Sophie, one of the most controversial parts of the trade agreement is the investor dispute settlement provision – which is truly anti-American, allowing corporations to suit governments and countries if they try to institute health and safety measures. It was leaked by WikiLeaks, which is how people know about it. So we need a new way of doing business, we need a new way of doing trade. I’m not…progressives are not against trade, they are against the way banks and investment firms have dictated the terms of trade. In fact, the big fight over TPP is really about corporate power and who’s going to write the rules about the global game, so to speak. I think this is a wake-up moment, and I place it very clearly in this populous moment I described earlier.

SS: But the people who are most outspoken about being against this deal are trade unions and worker’s rights groups and environmentalists – those are the ones, the people who traditionally are on Obama’s side. Now, if the agreement is going to hurt them…

KVH: This is an interesting, very interesting new alignment, but it’s a very interesting new alignment that President Obama is essentially fighting the core elements of his own party. This is not fully new, because President Bill Clinton with NAFTA 20 years or so ago was also at war with his own party. But this coalition is far stronger, Sophie, far stronger, because… President Obama accuses his own coalition of peddling recycled arguments – no. This coalition has learned from history, workers have learned on their own backs, communities have died, jobs have gone, factories closed – but others are now standing up and saying: “enough! We want true enforcement mechanisms of labor and environmental protection; we want to know what’s in the agreement.” How is this truly American to have agreements, conceived in secret with private corporate courts overseeing and arbitrating agreements? No, enough!

SS: Now, you’re also saying that TPP means loss of jobs and sinking middle class, extreme inequality. But those who are in favor say that it would actually benefit the U.S. companies and create new jobs at home. Why are they wrong?

KVH: I think you need to look at history. Those were the same arguments, Sophie, peddled, 15-20 years ago, and we haven’t seen those benefits. Again, not against trade or globalization, but the way the rules have been written have shown that they don’t benefit workers, they don’t increase wages, and they don’t help environmental problems. So, I think, we need to step back – and there are, by the way, good proposals, the Congressional progressive caucus, the group of about 80 Representatives in the House, have put forward an alternative. I think we need to end this particular round, step back and think anew about what a fair trade deal would mean. Finally, President Obama now seems to be…you know, there are new arguments, the new arguments are now about how we need to really counter China in setting the rules of the global economy. This is very tricky, to use this trade agreement for that purpose.

SS: But just really quickly, in a nutshell, can you really undermine China in the region, economically? I mean, is that really possible?

KVH: No. In fact, China is already between the partnership with Russia, the Investment Bank it has set up, bringing in both the UK, I think, and Germany; what you want to do is engage, you don’t want to have a so-called “pivot”, which essentially is countering or jettisoning the relationships. So no, I don’t think so.

SS: Thank you so much for this wonderful interview, we were talking to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation Magazine, talking about what needs to change in U.S. foreign policy and if the 2016 president hopefuls will stand a chance of delivering this change. That’s it for this edition of Sophie&Co, I will see you next time.

This is a report on Transurban and the Western Distributor and the Defence of Our Parks from Commercial Development and Takeover by Park Furniture. It also contains details of upcoming Transurban: Western Distributor - Information sessions through the inner west in May and June.

I. Transurban and the Western Distributor

Death of the East West Link

Yesterday I attended a meeting at the State Netball and Hockey Centre in Royal Park - the first since the election - and lost no time in reminding the meeting that the wonderful views of Royal Park from the Hockey Champions Room - the Conference Room - would have been entirely ruined as, had Napthine been elected, construction on the EW Link would have started by now. We would have been looking down on a quarry immediately to the south of the SNHC - 40 metres away in fact. This would have been the preparation for the tunnel under the Upfield Railway Line through to the Ross Straw Field in West Royal Park. Plus there would have been a construction road for trucks up Brens Drive right past the SNHC building and through the SNHC carpark into the area to the west of the Zoo which was designed as a construction camp and a carpark. It is a major miracle that the Royal Park landscape is still intact.

So again thanks to the multitude of groups and organisations fighting the EW Link and the Labor Government for terminating the project.(See attached Age photo dated 22 November 2014 taken on the location of entry to the tunnel on the Ross Straw Field.) But read on for the danger of the Transurban and the Western Distributor. Thanks to YCAT for the information - see YCAT website.

Transurban: Western Distributor - Information sessions through the inner west in May and June

Thanks to Berish Bilander, of Public Transport Not Traffic who organised the walk in Yarraville last Sunday.

Coming up are Transurban's information sessions. They say ""Drop in to learn more about the project, talk with the team and provide feedback" People are urged to attend! But watch our for the advertising spiel. We have had experience with Linking Melbourne Authority for the - in our view - highly misleading sessions re the EW Link. They consisted of lots of photos on walls and a few staff to answer questions. Transurban has already an advertising campaign on commercial radio and is even advertising on Radio 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne!

Details of coming public information sessions:

1pm - 5pm, 30 May 2015 at St Augustine's Parish, 61 Somerville Road, Yarraville.Melways Map Reference 41 K7
4pm - 8pm, 4 June 2015 at St James Old Cathedral, Corner King and Batman Streets, West Melbourne. Melways Map Reference 43 E7
5pm - 8pm, 11 June 2015 at Scienceworks, 2 Booker Street, Spotswood. Melways Map Reference 56 B1
9am - 1pm, 13 June 2015 at Footscray Community Arts Centre, 45 Moreland Street, Footscray.Melways Map Reference 42 E5

More at: http://consult.transurban.com/western-distributor-join-the-conversation/

II. Defence of Our Parks from Commercial Development and Takeover by Parks Furniture

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbournes-parks-need-more-tourist-attractions-new-york-parks-man-says-20150525-gh8ulp.html The Age 25 May 2015 by Aisha Dow "Melbourne's parks need more tourist attractions, New York parks man says." This online version contains my comment but the editor had cut me out from the hard copy. For once I agree with the Lord Mayor of Melbourne quoted here! It was encouraging that according to a 3AW report 80% of listeners to 3 AW said leave our parks alone they are fine. This was after the interview with the American visitor Mr Mitchell Silver. See below letters to the Age Editor.

Age Letters Thursday 28 May 2015

Very unattractive

Mitchell Silver, New York City's parks commissioner, believes Melbourne's parks don't have enough attractions ("US expert says Melbourne parks are lacking attractions", 26/5). Clearly, he did not take the time to visit Albert Park. If he had done so, he would have witnessed how this park has been sacrificed by successive state governments for the staging of a taxpayer-subsidised annual car race. Would New York residents be happy if Central Park was offered up for a similar purpose? I don't think so. (Joe Erftemeyer, Caulfield East)

Parking it on the grass

Mitchell Silver said that Fitzroy Gardens "did not seem heavily used" and there was not enough seating. He is also quoted as saying: "What will happen is that people will either sit in the grass or keep walking." This reveals cultural differences between Australians and Americans. First, most of us are working during the day but we appreciate our parks as they are still active as the lungs of the city. Second, we just love sitting on the grass. If catering for the elderly or disabled, we folk will come prepared with fold-up table and chairs. That way we can enjoy the true bush atmosphere of Royal Park or the elegance of the historic Royal Botanic Gardens without their being cluttered with useless, dated and visually intrusive park furniture. (Lewis Prichard, Hawthorn)

Julianne Bell,
Secretary,
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.,
PO Box 197, Parkville 3052

"Where does ISIS come from and how can we stop them?" you might ask. Answering that question is easy if you just do the math. So let's find out the answer -- by simply adding up the columns of numbers listed below:

ISIS = American weapons and training. http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/26/tsarnev-sentenced-to-death-one-to-be-executed-while-others-get-weapons-and-training/

ISIS = Israeli supplies, weapons and medical backup. http://www.asawinstanley.com/2015/05/why-is-the-media-ignoring-israels-alliance-with-al-qaeda/

ISIS = Chechen, Libyan, Malaysian, Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters paid for and armed by the House of Saud. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-islamic-terrorists-are-supported-by-the-us-israel-and-saudi-arabia/5396171

ISIS = Access to Syria from Turkey http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/11/turkey-is-supporting-isis/

ISIS = American neo-colonialists working in tandem with Al Qaeda.

When we subtract American, Turkish, Israeli and Saudi neo-colonialists' $$$ and weapons from ISIS, we get peace in the Middle East -- or at least a hopeful shot at it.

"But, Jane," you might ask next, "how can we prove this equation?" We don't have to be Euclid or Einstein. We just have to do the math.

The Middle East minus Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Palestine = more land + more oil + more power + more $$$ for Turkish, American, Israeli and Saudi neo-colonialists.

ISIS + Al Qaeda + the spoiled-brat House of Saud's grand illusion that oil $$$ can buy them anything they want + America's Wall Street and War Street immoral lust for profit and power + Zionist neo-con lust for "Greater Israel" + Turkish neo-con lust for a return of the old Ottoman Empire = Bad News for the Middle East + Bad New for you and me too.

Our tax $$$ to America's Wall Street and War Street + ISIS + Al Qaeda + Israeli neo-colonialists also = less jobs, more class conflict, less education for our children, more paramilitary cops, more Fergusons and Baltimores, more homelessness and tent cities and a lot less democracy here at home.

Bottom line: To stop ISIS, all we have to do is cut off the flow of $$$ + weapons + training to it from American + Saudi + Israeli + Turkish neo-colonialists. Plus start up a flow of $$$ to Americans like you and me instead. Plus hopefully stop the eventual flow of ISIS to Turkey, Arabia, Israel and America as well.

This article first published on Jane Stillwater’s blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/05/doing-math-isis-us-saudi-turkish.html

On the early evening of Tuesday the 26 of May, the tranquil peace at Boneo was broken by the sounds of over 100 gun shots.

The farm responsible for these shots was carrying out a kangaroo cull. However in order to carry out the cull it looks to me as if they had to trespass on Melbourne Water land to get the kangaroos back on the farm.

As you can see in image 1.1 there is no available food on the farm as it has been cleared (cleared very recently in fact).

The tree line behind the cleared land is Melbourne Water land where the kangaroos are seeking refuge.

A couple of witnesses have claimed that they saw dogs released onto the adjoining Melbourne water land to chase the kangaroos back on the farm where they could be shot. Unfortunately 2 young joeys didn’t make it off the Melbourne Water land as they were killed by the dogs (see image 1.2 below of a joey carcass).

It is with much gratitude that I thank a concerned neighbour, who put out feed for the kangaroos who turned up for refuge on their property.

A team went out this morning to search for any injured and orphaned joeys. By the morning the kangaroos were back on the Melbourne Water land and very agitated. They saw us before we saw them and they fled from us to hide in the thick scrub. We were thus unable to get a good look at them, but it is of my belief there are most likely orphaned and injured Kangaroos in the mob.

We were also unable to find any of the shot kangaroos (we assume they were moved) and as such we have no idea of how many were shot. While we know that there were at least 2 joeys killed by dogs, there were another 4 adults hit and killed on the road in front of the farm (see images 1.3 and 1.4).

So after the search was undertaken today (but will continue over the week), actions were taken by the team to ensure that justice for these animals was secured. A complaint was registered, of an offence to wildlife with DELWHP. DELWHP have now started an investigation. Melbourne Water has been contacted and will be making an investigation. The police were called as well however they did not seem to concerned. The witnesses to last night’s atrocities have made formal statements to appropriate authorities and departments, and the RSPCA has been contacted as well.

While Kangaroos have been killed, exactly what took place last night is unclear as yet and any fault remains an allegation until the investigations are over and charges are either laid or not laid. However in these cases more often than not, if the accused is found guilty, a very small penalty is handed out. Such penalties present no deterrent to stop the offender from committing this crime again.

In this case a local supplier of everything from parsnips, iceberg lettuce, cabbage, silverbeet, celery and cos lettuce to a major supermarket chain has been accused of responsibility in this matter.

Story by
Craig Thomson
27/5/2014

In Geraldine Doogue's interview with war strategist David Kilcullen on ABC's Saturday Extra (Blood Year, 23 May 2015), there was every sign that Ms Doogue accepted his point of view without question despite his being someone who works closely with the deadly U.S. war machine in Iraq and the region. Yes, Kilcullen is an ‘expert’ in that he has spent time in the ME and he has studied terrorism. He is eloquent. He is personable. He is an Aussie: he seems calm and reasonable. But in his work for the U.S. military, what truths does he omit, what ‘facts’ does he invent?

27 May 2015

Dear Geraldine,

In your interview with war strategist David Kilcullen on ABC's Saturday Extra (Blood Year, 23 May 2015), there was every sign that you accepted his point of view without question despite his being someone who works closely with the deadly U.S. war machine in Iraq and the region.

Yes, Kilcullen is an ‘expert’ in that he has spent time in the ME and he has studied terrorism. He is eloquent. He is personable. He is an Aussie: he seems calm and reasonable. But in his work for the U.S. military, what truths does he omit, what ‘facts’ does he invent?

Can he represent the aspirations of Iraqi and Syrian people who want their countries to be united, stable, peaceful, prosperous and free of foreign interference?

Or do their aspirations inevitably clash with powerful interests in the United States? Would Kilcullen’s work with the U.S. and Australian armies compromise him in the eyes of most Iraqis and Syrians?

The fact that David Kilcullen can put on his CV, “In 2003, I did not support the war in Iraq” would be irrelevant to most Iraqis since he has effectively supported the American war machine ever since.

In 1991, American war planes strafed or bombed one to two thousand Iraqi military vehicles on a 60-mile stretch of highway. They killed thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers returning from the disastrous war in Kuwait. It was dubbed the “Highway of Death” and memories of it would be etched in the brains of Iraqis. One U.S. pilot is quoted as saying, “It was like shooting fish in a barrel”.

The fact that the people of Iraq and the region have no reason to honour the United States is a no-brainer.
As a spokesperson for the ME war plans of the American Administration, David Kilcullen will not, cannot, present events through the eyes of the ordinary people of Iraq or Syria, the people who are traumatised, terrified, maimed and killed. In Australia, those who stand up with strong and eloquent voices against war, sectarianism and division are not given a chance to challenge his views.

But who will present their stories and hopes and dreams to the Australian public? Unless we seek them out, we are diminished.

One hundred years ago, the Anzacs swore allegiance to their ‘Lord the King’ and so it was the Imperial plans of Britain they fought for. Today, in Australia, particularly in the media, there seems to be an unwritten, unspoken allegiance to the Imperial plans of the United States.

The Middle East was a world away in 1915. Today, there are many Australians who have an allegiance to one side or another in the wars there. The blood lost there is mourned here. The hatreds simmering there are simmering here, within our own communities.

It is not the time for allegiances to empires or caliphates. To be supreme, both must seek to divide, destroy and brutally kill. Instead, it is the time for pursuing our most precious of human values and for seeking the truth. Only by doing so can hatred, wars and terror be stopped.

How often must we be reminded that ‘No man is an island’?

The charm and sophistry of David Kilcullen, and his reliance on sectarian terms to describe the war in Iraq, are not a substitute for the voices of the people of Iraq and Syria who live in a hell the United States and its allies have engineered.

Iraqi and Syrian people who want to end the terror and war have spokespeople. Let’s not imagine they are unsophisticated natives. Let’s not ignore them. Let’s learn about their lives and hear their voices.

In a video interview in early 2014, Monsignor Jacques Behnan Hindo, Archbishop for Syriac Catholics stated,

There is always fear. There is always anxiety. We live with the same anxieties. We are waiting for salvation. Unfortunately Geneva (2 conference) has not yielded anything yet. And, even more unfortunately, the United States, France, yes, France – and England do nothing except add poison to things …by aiding these opposing … these factions, more than half of which have come from outside (Syria). And when one comes from outside (Syria), he/she does not want what is good for Syrians but rather massacring them. And then they want to declare an Islamic State. And we as Christians cannot accept that. I am not a masochist. I do not accept to get flogged. I cannot accept these people, purely and simply. And when I hear Kerry or Fabius, these people who take their fake humanitarian sentiment, I ask myself: “What are they doing?”…

(A political solution) is always possible. However, the first thing that must happen is for these terrorists to leave. This is an essential condition. And when they are out, we Syrians can come to an agreement. We had already several towns where the Army entered because residents had had enough, and they expelled the foreigners that were in their town. And now they live much more quietly. In our region, it is the same thing … in all the cities and villages of the north. Yes, there are people who oppose (the state). I myself am not that much for the government. However, when I compare what awaits me with these people to what I have today, I say to myself: “I am doing very well today.” And I wouldn’t want to put Fabius in my place... when these people come and occupy the country. I do not want to see Fabius, Kerry, or the others. But they are not supposed to understand that they will never be here. That is why they are screwing around. Excuse my expression. They are screwing all Syrians. I wrote a letter to Obama and I told him that, in his name Barack, there is the word Baraka (blessing). However, when he sent all his fleet, it was to declare war. It was a curse! Between a curse and a blessing, there is a huge difference.

(Question: Are you able to maintain hope?) I am, even physically, very optimistic. And then I always have the hope of Christ. I always believe that even Christ on the Cross had the light of resurrection behind him. Therefore it will come. The torment and the fear might extend for a while, but it will be over. And we shall live. I have a lot of hope. That’s why I tell my people not to immigrate, because we can turn our region, our country, into another Switzerland. There is absolutely everything to make it happen. There is intelligence, money, land… everything. Therefore nothing is missing in order to live a life much better than before, in 2 or 5 years from now.

Sami Ramadani, a political exile from Sadam Hussein’s regime wrote in The Guardian in June 2014,

The most serious sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq's modern history followed the 2003 US-led occupation, which faced massive popular opposition and resistance. The US had its own divide-and-rule policy, promoting Iraqi organisations founded on religion, ethnicity, nationality or sect rather than politics. Many senior officers in the newly formed Iraqi army came from these organisations and Saddam's army. This was exacerbated three years ago, when sectarian groups in Syria were backed by the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Geraldine, I implore you to challenge your guests, challenge your listeners, and search for other points of view besides those that only serve to indirectly promote more war and more terror in the Middle East.

Saturday Extra no longer allows comments to be submitted to its online page. All old comments have been removed. It is unfortunate Saturday Extra does not welcome dissenting voices from the community. I have created a page online with all my emails and letters to you as well as comments I submitted to your webpage. I will include this message above.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Susan
National Coordinator of "Australians for Musslaha (Reconciliation) in Syria"

CC: some of your colleagues in the ABC

The protection of owls might soon go to the Supreme Court and a proposed regulatory change will allow native forest wood to be burnt for electricity. It was been tabled in the House of Reps today, 27 May 2015. There is a danger that Bill Shorten's Labor Party might support the bill, despite what that says about our renewable energy scheme. Read on to find out how we might fight this.

Owls' Legal Case

The court-ordered mediation with the department and VicForests last week did not resolve.
The next step is a Directions hearing on the 26th of June to have the matter heard in the Supreme Court.
We can’t give you much more detail than that at this stage. In the meantime, tell Minister Neville and her Department to protect our rare Owls and their forest in East Gippsland.  And if you’d like to help us along with this 4^th legal challenge (so far we’ve won or settled 3/3) click here to make a tax-deductible donation.”
Read the background to this case here

Bill tabled to burn forests as ‘renewable energy’

The regulatory change that will allow native forest wood to be burnt for electricity has been tabled in the House of Reps today.
It looks like Bill Shorten’s Labor Party might support the bill, even though it means undermining our renewable energy scheme.  This is urgent. Please make a quick phone call to Bill Shorten's office and urge that Labor opposes this.   (02) 6277 4022.

If Labor opposes this, the vote will be decided by the independents on the crossbench in the Senate. The Senate sits again on June 15, so contact the cross benchers and let them know that you want them to vote against the change to the regulation.

A few suggested points to raise are available here

Some of the crossbenchers have been concerned that the industry will need certainty, and Labor could reverse the regulatory change next in government, so that uncertainty is a point to raise as well. Plus, many still believe the lie that the ‘waste’ will only be the heads and sweepings (!) There needs to be a very clear definition provided before anyone votes on this. 

From our experience, emails are good but can get ‘lost’, so phone calls or tweets are better. 

Ricky Muir (03) 5144 3639  [email protected] Glenn Lazarus (07) 3001 8940  [email protected] Nick Xenophon 08 8232 1144   [email protected] John Madigan   (03) 5331 2321 [email protected] Dio Wang (08) 9221 2233    [email protected] David Leyonhjelm (02) 9719 1078 [email protected]

Plus there are some quick petitions to sign if you haven’t already. www.change.org/p/please-reject-burning-and-subsidising-of-native-forest-wood-as-renewable-energy www.dontburnforests.com/ www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/dont-burn-our-native-forests www.nature.org.au/get-involved/take-action/keep-our-forests-out-of-the-ret/ Truly folks – this is a massively serious threat that is looming. It needs your help!

So I'm down here in Van Nuys right now -- at an Islamic trance-dancing convention of all things. So this morning I go into a Sufi-like trance and what is the first thing that crosses my mind? How much I hate all those hundreds and hundreds of new-car commercials we always see on TV. What a waste of a good trance dance!

And what a waste of good TV air-time too.

Here we all are, living on a planet that is about to extinguish all human life here by choking us to death with all the rings and layers of air pollution that currently circle the earth -- and the only thing mankind can come up to hopefully solve or stop this desperate and scary crisis is to bombard Americans with hundreds and hundreds of commercials to go out and buy yet even more new cars? Cars that are causing this desperate and scary crisis in the first place?

That is not thinking outside the box. That is a death wish.

And now I'm about to go off to have dinner at a famous Jewish delicatessen in Encino, about six miles away. And I'm gonna walk there!

PS: Are you aware that some sleazy Israeli neo-colonialists have just sold some sleazy Saudi Arabian neo-colonialists a bunch of bunker-buster bombs -- which the House of Saud immediately went out and dropped on helpless civilians in Yemen? Apparently Yemen has become the House of Saud's equivalent of Gaza.

And are you also aware that the Saudis, in order to stop relief ships loaded with medicine, food and toys from landing in Yemen, have totally bombed and destroyed the port where the ships were supposed to land? This war crime would be the equivalent of that if the House of Saud didn't want relief ships to dock in California (perhaps after watching the movie "San Andreas"), they then blew up the entire Port of Oakland.

Talk about your air pollution!

I guess that I should just be grateful that there aren't any ads for bunker-buster bombs or bomb-dropping airplanes on prime-time TV.

So far.

NOTES

The painting in the illustration is by Mahmoud Said. Mahmoud Said was a central figure in modern Egyptian art, born in Alexandria. He is called the “father of Egyptian modern art.” He abandoned his career as a court judge when he turned fifty to dedicate himself to his art full-time. His paintings are much sought after by collectors. A museum dedicated to his art has opened in Alexandria.

The subject of this painting is the ecstatic whirling of the Sufis or dervishes of the Mawlawi (Mevlevi in Turkish) order that follows the teachings of Jalal al-Din Rumi. For more on this mystical order and its practices, see this site.

First posted on Jane Stillwater's blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/05/climate-change-car-commercials.html

Allegations by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott against Russia may have no solid basis, but could escalate world tensions. Many people view these allegations as propaganda to provide a platform for eventual NATO aggression. These allegations have recently been reinforced by Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, as a reason for applying sanctions against Russia. See "Russia Sanctions based on False Statement by Julie Bishop, Australian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister"http://candobetter.net/node/4437".

12 May 2015

The Prime Minister,

Dear Mr Abbott,

Would you please let me know the evidence and documentation the Prime Minister or the person who wrote this statement has used to make the serious allegations highlighted in yellow below about the Russian Government, which I also cite below in case the highlighting does not come through.

I am concerned that they may actually have no solid basis and that this and similar press releases will escalate hostilities and the threat of nuclear war by misleading public and politicians.

Allegations:

My inquiry is for a freelance article in the public interest which will be published on candobetter.net among other outlets.

sincerely,

Sheila Newman
03 97835047

01 September 2014

Prime Minister

EXPANDED SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA

The Government is deeply concerned by escalating events in Ukraine.

Russia has been engaged in a campaign to destabilise Ukraine for months. As a consequence, 38 people who called Australia home were brutally murdered, along with many others, when

The situation has recently worsened as Russia steps up its persistent and deliberate violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

in defiance of Ukraine’s sovereignty, the international community and international law.

As Russia refuses to heed the international community’s call to de-escalate the crisis and instead is further fuelling it, the Government will expand Australia’s autonomous sanctions and travel bans relating to Russia.

This is being done in coordination with our partners in the US, Canada and Europe.

Australia’s expanded sanctions will include:

restrictions on arms exports;
restrictions on the access of Russian state-owned banks to Australian capital markets;
preventing the export of goods and services for use in Russia’s oil exploration or production;
restrictions on Australian trade and investment in Crimea; and
targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on an additional 63 Russian and Ukrainian individuals and 21 entities (taking the total number of financial sanctions and travel bans to 113 individuals and 32 entities).

These measures build on Australia’s existing financial sanctions and travel bans, announced in March this year.

They reaffirm Australia’s clear and unequivocal support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

Australia stands with countries around the world in urging Russia to de-escalate tensions, pull back its military, and engage in genuine dialogue with Ukraine.

We remain determined to see the perpetrators of the cowardly attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 brought to justice. We owe this to the innocent victims and their families.

The Government does not rule out further sanctions in the future.

Russia must understand that if it does not act to defuse the current situation, the cost to its economy and international standing will grow.

1 September 2014
Source: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-09-01/expanded-sanctions-against-russia

Julie Bishop is the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Recently she issued sanctions against Russia on the basis of a presumption that Flight MH17 had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile from Ukrainian territory under the control of Russian-backed separatists. Minister Julie Bishop justified these sanctions by repeating allegations by the Prime Minister of the causes and origins of damage to MH17 which she described as consistent with statements in the Preliminary Report by the Dutch Safety Board. In fact the Preliminary Report does not seem to contain any such evidence and it actually seems to contradict Ms Bishop's statement. (Furthermore, the ABC has long since apologised for promoting a similar view, agreeing that there is no conclusive evidence. See ABC Australia apologises for bias against Russia in reporting MH17 crash and general tag: http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/585.)

Crucial to any assumption of guilt, no-one has yet supplied a motive for Russia to have backed such an alleged attack on a passenger aircraft, but the United States has a history of false flag incidents involving aircraft.[1]
Whilst Russia lacked any apparent motive to shoot down a civilian aircraft intentionally, Kiev took advantage of the crash to escalate its armed assault on the area. The refusal of the US to provide satellite surveillance data requested by Russia is suspicious. An agreement signed on 8 August 2014 between Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium and Australia giving any member of the agreement the right to veto publication of the results of the investigation is hardly reassuring for truth seekers.

Unwise polarisation

It is of great concern that Australia seems to be taking sides in formal foreign policy in an internationally tense situation between superpowers based on such prejudiced and premature interpretation of events.

Narrow public consultation

Prior to instituting these sanctions against Russia, DFAT advertised on its site and circularised some trade contacts requesting submissions regarding proposed sanctions and received only four. Two were confidential and two were entirely commercially oriented. There was no wider canvassing for submissions from the general public. It appears that there was no associated discussion about the forensic position on MH17 or the political consequences beyond narrow commercial ones. See correspondence with the legal department of the Sanctions Section at DFAT. [2]

Letter sent to DFAT re concerns

I have sent a letter to the Media Liaison Unit of DFAT, (reproduced in this article) asking for them to please point me to where the Dutch report bears out Ms Bishop's statement but have received no response in the past 12 days. A similar letter sent the same day to Prime Minister Abbott (who made similar statements on September 1) has also gone unanswered. See "Concern that Abbott position on MH17 has no solid basis and is unfair to Russia." I am therefore drawing this matter to public attention because I am concerned that our position against Russia is unwise and unjust in a time when increased international tension may magnify consequences and highlights the need for restraint.

Letter emailed by Sheila Newman to DFAT Media Liason on May 12, 2015.

Dear Sir/Madam,

The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) Australian Parliament held an inquiry into the Treaty between Australia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands on the presence of Australian personnel in the Netherlands for the purpose of responding to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. Because of the urgent nature of the treaty it was fast tracked under the National Interest Exemption provisions and came into effect on the date it was signed, 1 August 2014. The treaty was tabled in the Parliament on 30 September 2014 and the Committee called for submissions until 10 October 2014. The public hearing was held on 27 October 2014 and tabled its report on 12 February 2015. (Report 146: Treaty tabled on 30 September 2014)

In the statement referenced below promoting the Australian-Dutch Treaty by Julie Bishop, Ms Bishop repeats allegations by the Prime Minister of the causes and origins of damage to MH17 which she says are consistent with statements in the Preliminary Report by the Dutch Safety Board. Could your office please point me to where this report bears out Ms Bishop's statement highlighted below regarding the 'Australian Government's initial assessment' because I cannot find the evidence and the report actually seems to contradict Ms Bishop's statement below:

"On 9 September, the preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board into the incident was released. Its purpose is to determine the cause of the incident – not to attribute blame or liability.

I welcome the preliminary report as a clear step towards achieving the full, thorough and independent international investigation sought by Resolution 2166.

The damage to the aircraft documented in this preliminary report is consistent with the Australian Government’s initial assessment - voiced as early as the morning of 18 July - that MH17 had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile from Ukrainian territory under the control of Russian-backed separatists. [3]

On 19 September I attended a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York on MH17. Members of the Security Council firmly rejected Russia’s attempt to discredit the investigation into the downing of MH17 and reaffirmed their support for the International Dutch-led criminal investigation." Source: http://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2014/jb_sp_140930.aspx

HOWEVER, when you go to the actual Dutch preliminary report, what she says is not confirmed.

(1) The report describes multiple small holes consistent with a large number of 'high energy objects' penetrating the aircraft from outside; (2) The report does not seem to have anything to say about where those penetrating objects came from. I.e. it does not locate their origin at all let alone in the Russian- 'backed' separatists area.

"The pattern of damage observed in the forward fuselage and cockpit section of the aircraft was consistent with the damage that would be expected from a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside." [The report contains a number of highly illustrative photos of aircraft exterior peppered with holes. ] Source:http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/701/b3923acad0ceprem-rapport-mh-17-en-interactief.pdf

REFERENCES

[1] See for instance the Lockerbie bombing allegations where Libya was railroaded and the United States flouted international law. And the destruction of the Iran Airbus by the U.S.S. Vincennes during the summer of 1988 about six months before the Lockerbie bombing, in which a US Navy Captain shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988 and escaped with a bare minimum of sanctions. Boyle, Francis A. (2013-09-11). Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade US Campaign to Terminate the Qaddafi Revolution, Clarity Press. Discussion pp. 107-144.

[2] Dear Ms Newman

Thank you for your message.

As the Australian Government sanctions regulator, our primary role is responding to applications from Australian businesses for sanctions permits. You should direct any further concerns about Australian Government policies in relation to Russia to your local Member of Parliament.

As you know, the Australian Government announced the introduction of autonomous sanctions in relation to Russia in 2014. Here are the links to the Government’s statements in this regard:

Foreign Minister

Ukraine situation: Australia announces sanctions
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2014/jb_mr_140319.aspx?ministerid=4

Further sanctions to support Ukraine
http://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2014/jb_mr_140521.aspx?ministerid=4

Sanctions in support of Ukraine commence
http://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2014/jb_mr_140619b.aspx?ministerid=4

Expanded sanctions against Russia come into force
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2015/jb_mr_150331b.aspx?ministerid=4

Prime Minister
Expanded sanctions against Russia

https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-09-01/expanded-sanctions-against-russia

In amending the Autonomous Sanctions Regulations, DFAT conducted a public consultation process, which was advertised on DFAT’s website and emailed to our sanctions mailing list. The submissions that were not published were marked confidential by their authors.

Regards

Sanctions Section

_______________________________
Sanctions, Treaties and Transnational Crime Legal Branch
International Legal Division

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
www.dfat.gov.au/sanctions

[3] Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
Statement by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon Julie Bishop MP
Speech, E&OE
Parliament House, Canberra
30 September 2014

"I rise today to table the Treaty between Australia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands on the presence of Australian personnel in the Netherlands for the purpose of responding to the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. The treaty is accompanied by a National Interest Analysis.

We live in an increasingly interconnected world where events far from home can have profound implications for us.
On 17 July, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine killing all 298 passengers and crew on board. It was a civilian aircraft in civilian airspace, with the wreckage landing in a war zone. In a cruel twist of fate Australia was suddenly at the fulcrum of the Russia– Ukraine conflict.

Among those killed were 38 passengers who called Australia home - and another three with close links to Australia. We have been profoundly saddened by the loss of so many Australians. Among them: a 25 year-old travelling in Europe, like so many young Australians do; a couple, both doctors in Toowoomba, at the end of a six-week holiday; three young Western Australian children travelling with their grandfather, returning home for the start of the school term. All innocent people, for whom we continue to grieve.

In response to this horrific crime, the Government launched Operation Bring Them Home – our contribution to international efforts to secure, identify and repatriate the remains of the victims, to investigate the cause of the incident and to hold those responsible to account.

Australia authored UN Security Council Resolution 2166 which was endorsed unanimously on 21 July. It called for a ceasefire to access the crash site, and a full, thorough and independent investigation into the downing of MH17. During that debate I said:

“Our resolution demands that armed groups in control of the crash site provide safe access immediately to allow for the recovery of the bodies, and that these armed groups stop any actions that compromise the integrity of the crash site. This is imperative.

“There must be a ceasefire in the immediate area around the site. The victims must be treated with dignity, brought back to their homes and laid to rest. All parties are required to fully cooperate with these efforts. Russia must use its influence over the separatists to ensure this. Russia must also use its influence to bring the conflict in Ukraine to an end.
“Our resolution also demands a full, thorough and independent international investigation into this act. We must have answers. We must have justice. We owe it to the victims and their families to determine what happened and who was responsible.”

Over 500 Australian police, military, diplomatic and consular personnel were deployed to Ukraine and the Netherlands in support of these efforts.

As of today, 251 victims have been identified by the Identification Commission in The Hague. We have representation on that Commission and its work is assisted by a number of technical experts from Australia.

Out of respect for the families involved, I will not confirm the number of Australian victims that have been identified to date, however it will be some time before the identification process is complete. I attended two memorial services at Eindhoven airbase in the Netherlands and I acknowledge again the outstanding efforts of the Netherlands in bringing dignity and respect to the retrieval process.

In parallel to the process of recovering, identifying and repatriating remains, an investigation into the cause of the crash, as required by the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, is underway.

The investigation has broad international participation, drawing on experts from France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as from the European Aviation Safety Agency and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

On 9 September, the preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board into the incident was released. Its purpose is to determine the cause of the incident – not to attribute blame or liability.

I welcome the preliminary report as a clear step towards achieving the full, thorough and independent international investigation sought by Resolution 2166.

Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee is one of fifty well-known authors and scientists who have signed this open letter to the Canberra public protesting the mass killing of kangaroos which has been taking place annually for some time in Canberra. For those interested in the history of this annual slaughter, Candobetter.net has published at length on this subject here: http://candobetter.net/SaveTheKangaroo. It is wonderful that a number of influential people have now put their names on the line to defend kangaroos from slaughter and kangaroo science from ideology. Many more people are also against this absurd and cruel practice. [Candobetter.net Editor: Republished from http://www.beautifulwild.com/. Also available here: http://www.arcohab.org/#!letter/c1yzj. Also the subject of an article in the Canberra Times.]

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PUBLIC OF CANBERRA

We the undersigned believe the need for a mass killing of kangaroos by the ACT Government is ill thought out and cannot be substantiated. The analysis in support of such a program fails the tests of good science, conservation, animal welfare, economy and humanity.

We understand that: no causal evidence of any rigorous kind has been provided that directly links kangaroo grazing on Canberra nature reserves with the demise of other small threatened species. No assessment of the subjective lives of native animals in Canberra’s nature reserves is provided as a clue to their survival. No commonly used non-lethal management tools have been advocated by those who believe in the negative impact of the current kangaroo population on the rest of the environment, despite considerable evidence over many years and in many places that they are effective.

The decision to proceed with the killing disregards the extreme brutality of the killing process. There has been no assessment of the impact of mass native animal killings on the local economy and society and our view is that these costs are substantial.

The scientifically substantiated appreciation of other animals’ cognitive, emotional and psychological capacities requires that we break the cycle of violence of conventional management methods. Abandoning such measures offers a unique opportunity to find innovative solutions which promote sustainability and reflect the desire of communities for peaceful coexistence with other creatures on the planet.

We therefore call for an immediate cessation of the mass killing of these native animals, and for a full and truly independent examination of the above-listed and other relevant matters by respected professionals.

Pam Ahern, Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary, Victoria
Dr Rosemary Austen, kangaroo rehabilitation and translocation expert, medical practitioner, ACT
Dr Jonathan Balcombe, biologist, author, Animal Studies Dept (Chair) Humane Society University, Washington D.C. (USA)
Marc Bekoff, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder (USA)
Dr Dror Ben-Ami, Co-founder and lead researcher, Centre of Compassionate Conservation, University of Technology Sydney.
Dr Jeffrey Borchers, ecologist, the Kerulos Center, USA
Dr Melissa Boyde, Australasian Animal Studies Association; Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Law Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong
Gay Bradshaw, PhD (ecology), PhD (psychology), CEO The Kerulos Center (USA)
David Brooks, author, editor, Hon A/Prof, University of Sydney
J M Coetzee, writer
Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature, Pennsylvania State University (USA)
Dr Margo DeMello, PhD, Animals & Society Institute (USA)
Carolyn Drew, MAdEd, Executive Director of Regions, Institute for Critical Animal Studies
Lara Drew, Ph D candidate, Education, University of Canberra
Ray Drew, MA Communication Grad Cert Psychoanalytic Studies, Wildlife Photographer
Katrina Fox, journalist and author
Professor Steve Garlick, PhD, University of Technology, Sydney
Stephen Graham LLB, Virtual Lawyers and Mediators Pty Ltd.
Dr Jason Grossman, philosopher of science
Naomi Henry, Voiceless Council
Melanie Joy, PhD, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston; President, Beyond Carnism; Author
Professor Vrasidas Karalis, Modern Greek Studies, University of Sydney
John Kinsella, author, Professorial Research Fellow, UWA; Professor of Sustainability and Literature, Curtin University.
Lawyers for Animals
David Malouf, writer
Clare Mann, psychologist, author and Managing Director of Communicate31
Jeffrey Masson, Ph.D., Author
Alex Miller, writer
Raymond Mjadwesch, ecologist
Alison Moore, Ph.D., Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong
Nic Nassuet, singer/songwriter (USA)
Mark Pearson, member NSW Legislative Council
Teja Brooks Pribac, The Kerulos Center; PhD Candidate University of Sydney
Daniel Ramp, Ph.D., Director, Centre for Compassionate Conservation, University of Technology, Sydney
Tracy Ryan, author
Stephen Sewell, playwright
Lynda Stoner, Animal Liberation NSW
Bill Taylor Ph.D., retired CSIRO plant scientist
Maria Taylor Ph.D., science communication, author, newspaper publisher
Associate Professor Nik Taylor, School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, South Australia
Marianne Thieme, Leader & Chair, Party for the Animals, The Netherlands
Dr Christine Townend, author, founder Animal Liberation, NSW, co-founder Animals Australia
Dr Richard Twine, Co-Director, Centre for Human-Animal Studies, Edge Hill University (UK)
Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel, Ph.D., Socio-Legal Studies and Human Rights, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney
Brenda Walker, writer, Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia
Bren Weatherstone, M.Env Sci., teacher (ACT)
Elizabeth Webby, Professor Emerita, Australian Literature, University of Sydney
Dr Richard J. White, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Sheffield Hallam University (UK)

Professor Stuart White, Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney
Phil Wollen, OAM Founder of Winsome Constance Kindness Trust
Gypsy Wulff, Teacher, Author, Publisher, Founder of Spirit Wings Humane Education Inc.

FACT SHEET PDF

Further action:
If you would like to help the campaign to stop the A.C.T. Government kill of kangaroos, please sign the Animals Australia petition: http://www.animalsaustralia.org/take_action/stop-kangaroo-slaughter-ACT

Petition to Shane Rattenbury, MLA, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, A.C.T. : https://www.change.org/p/shane-rattenbury-end-the-cruel-slaughter-of-kangaroos-on-public-reserves

Link to The Alliance for Respectful Co-habitation: www.arcohab.org

Taking action! If you live in or near the Australian Capital Territory, and would like to help out in the field by helping to monitor the reserves, please email Carolyn Drew at [email protected]

NOTES

Candobetter.net: Thank you to Brett Clifton for his wonderful site with photographs of many kangaroos at http://www.brettclifton.com/Welcome.html from which I have sourced the photographs in this article.

The United States and United Kingdom have even more inegalitarian domestic economies than many of the countries they trade with. Fifty-eight per cent of the nations that Australia's consumption depends on have greater internal equality than Australia. Nine per cent of countries we trade with have more egalitarian economies. This counters the overall trend of developed countries having more egalitarian domestic economies than those they trade with. Russia, however, despite high inequality within its border, in 2010 had the lowest inequality footprint in the world because approximately 62 percent of its international trade was with Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, where inequality is low. Commodities producing countries tend also to produce inequality. Globalisation does not have a positive effect on inequality. The findings come from the first ever ‘inequality footprint’ of nations, created by researchers at the University of Sydney, demonstrating the link that each country’s domestic economic activity has to income distribution elsewhere in the world. The results, expressed more subtly, are published in the journal PLOS ONE today from research led by the University of Sydney’s Integrated Sustainability Analysis group in the School of Physics. “The footprint maps the movement of commodities around the world. It is a new tool which can assist businesses, government and non-government organisations in understanding the complex dynamics of inequality and trade,” said Ali Alsamawi, a PhD candidate in the School of Physics and lead author of the PLOS paper (see attached).

See also, BBC 2012 article by Charlotte Pritchard, "Is one in eight Australians really poor?", from which this photo comes.

The study uses the employment and household income accounts and (Gini) indexes of income distribution for 187 countries, from 1990 to 2010. It introduces the concept of an inequality footprint – taking into account the inequality of both the internal and external workforce required to satisfy the consumption demands of a given country. The results show that most developed countries, with their international trade taken into account, have less internal inequality than the countries they trade with.

“The United States and United Kingdom are notable exceptions to this. Among developed countries only these nations have within-country inequality higher than their inequality footprint,” Alsamawi said.

Forty million of the 70 million workers from outside the USA who are responsible for many of the products Americans consume, come from countries with high inequality. Despite this, America’s internal inequality is still higher than the inequality footprint representing its international trade. The same applies to the United Kingdom. The United States showed an increasing inequality footprint during the Bill Clinton era and especially after the NAFTA treaty came into force. It has slightly decreased during Obama’s presidency. In the United Kingdom the inequality footprint increased after Tony Blair left power and also jumped after the global financial crisis and recession. Australia and Japan are the only countries with comparable levels of trade activity to the UK and USA. Forty percent of Australia’s international trade activity is with China, a country with relatively high inequality.

“But compared to America and the UK our internal inequality is still much less, giving us an overall footprint of relatively high equality - on a par with Germany but less equal than Japan or Canada,” Alsamawi said.

By contrast Russia has high inequality within its border but in 2010 it had the lowest inequality footprint in the world because approximately 62 percent of its international trade was with Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, where inequality is low. That situation will have greatly changed since trade sanctions have been imposed by some of its trading partners in the context of the war in the Ukraine (more than 20 percent of Russia's external workforce came from Ukraine in 2010). Commodities producing countries tend also to produce inequality Commodities that are inequality-intensive, affecting the internal inequality of the nations producing them and the footprint of the nations they trade with, include electronic components, chemicals, fertilizers, minerals, and agricultural products.

“In the past it was assumed that globalisation would raise the income of almost all nations and help redress inequality but evidence suggests no obvious relationship between a country’s participation in globalisation and positive changes in inequality,” said University of Sydney’s Dr Joy Murray, an author on the paper.

“We do not argue whether trade between more and less equal countries is a social good or ill but have provided a robust, global account of inequality and trade upon which further economic analysis may be built.”

The authors of The Inequality Footprints of Nations are Ali Alsamawi, Dr Joy Murray, Professor Manfred Lenzen and Daniel Moran, all from the University of Sydney’s Centre for Integrated Sustainability and Keiichiro Kanemoto from Tohoku University.

My three-month-old granddaughter has finally fallen asleep so I gotta bang this article out fast before she wakes up and I don't have a lot of time to run all this down to you ad infinitum. Thus I'm only going to explain it to you once. So listen up.

If you are a disenchanted western Muslim youth and you are considering running off to the Middle East to join ISIS and fight to protect the name of the Prophet, I only got one word for you. "Forget-about-it".

Let's face it, guys. If Mohammed (PBUH) was living today, he would be absolutely horrified by ISIS. Horrified! Absolutely. Muslims hacking Muslims to death like they were bloody chickens being slaughtered for Eid and Muslim men raping Muslim women like they were cattle instead of humans? Forget that. Just forget it. The Prophet would be totally appalled.

But if you really really do want to fight to protect Islam, then go to Damascus and join Assad's heroic Syrian army instead. Or go fight for Hezbollah. Or join the Houthi in Yemen. Or decry the slaughter of Muslims in Gaza. Are you pissed off at the western neo-colonialist imperialist Empire of Chaos for unjustly demonizing your religion and destroying the Middle East? Then put your freaking anger where your mouth is. Go fight against ISIS -- not for it.

You need another reason to fight against ISIS? I got another one here.

ISIS was originally created in order to spread chaos in the Middle East so that western neo-colonialists could easily swoop in and take over once all those pesky Muslims who actually own the land (and oil) there are finishing slaughtering each other. And you disenchanted western Muslim youth want a piece of this? Really?

Fighting these neo-colonialist bastards' wars for them is definitely not halal!

Anyone who does even the slightest bit of research and anyone who is even slightly intelligent enough to question all the American, Israeli, European and Saudi neo-colonial lies and propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with has just got to know that western imperialists are equipping, training and backing ISIS -- for both fun and profit. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/22/secret-intel-reports-on-syria-iraq-revealed/

So if you are a good Muslim, don't even think about joining ISIS because the western Empire of Chaos will have all the fun -- and you will be left getting none of the Prophet.

And after the American, Israeli, European and Saudi neo-colonialist bastards get done destroying the Middle East, they are gonna turn on America, Israel, Europe and Arabia next. You think I'm wrong? It's already started to happen.

Oops, gotta go. The baby's awake. And it's time for disenchanted western Muslim youth to wake up too.

Jane Stillwater was an independent observer at the 2014 Syrian elections. Her blogspot is http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/. This article was first published on that blogspot, here: http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/05/wanna-defend-islam-then-forget-about.html