(We) can do better

This article was previously published on SANA as Protests in Turkey in support of Syrians and against Erdogan-backed terrorism (1/5/15).
Update (4/5/15): Israeli occupation forces continue treating terrorists wounded in Syria (4/5/15) | SANA, Al-Jaafari: Syria first line of defense against extremism and terrorism (4/5/15) | SANA, 4 Turkish officers killed in joint raid by Syrian army and Hezbollah on NATO-backed terrorists’ command centre in Idlib (2/5/15) | Syrian Free Press, At least 52 civilians dead in US-led strikes in Syrian village: not even a terrorist among those killed (2/5/15) | Syrian Free Press, Turkey to start training terrorists on May 9 | PressTV (2/5/15): New protest in Turkey demanding a halt to terrorism-supporting policies of Erdogan | SANA.

Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist in Jisr al-Shugour, just south of the Turkish border, 25/4/15

Ankara, SANA – Unions, civil society organizations, and political parties in Turkey organized a protest in Taksim area in Istanbul on Friday to express solidarity with the Syrian people and to denounce the support provided to terrorists by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party government.

The protestors rallied in front of Galatasaray School in Taksim area, denouncing the terrorist organization Jabhet al-Nusra and the government of the Justice and Development Party.

Speeches delivered during the protest held the Justice and Development Party responsible for the massacres committed against Syrian people, calling for stopping all the military and logistic support provided by the Party to ISIS, Jabhet al-Nusra, and ISIS terrorists.

On a relevant note, similar protests denouncing the support provided by Erdogan and his government to terrorists were also held in Antioch, Iskenderun, Samandag, Ankara, Izmir, Mersin, Tunceli.

Another protest was organized in Istanbul by supports of Beshiktash FC to denounce the massacre committed by terrorists in the town of Eshtabraq in Syria and condemn the role played by the Justice and Development Party government in this massacre.

These protests follow a protest that was held on Thursday in the town of Samandag in Iskenderun area, in which the participants also condemned Erdogan’s government for its support for terrorism and held it responsible for the massacres committed by terrorists in Syria.

Hazem Sabbagh

"Yarmouk is only a few kilometres south of Damascus. It was once a thriving centre of colour and life with a vibrant market that made it much more than just a Palestinian enclave. Over the last four years though it has been the centre of so much violence and death that it is now the most festering wound on the ailing Syrian body. And perhaps the most tragic dimension of Yarmouk at the moment is the way the suffering of these people is being manipulated to provide a new rationale for Western military intervention."

Originally published at the Prayers for Syria site by Father Dave [1] under the title of "What's going on in Yarmouk? Title changed to indicate more about subject.

I thought it might prove difficult to get to Yarmouk. My God, it’s hard enough to get into Syria at the moment!

At first I thought we weren’t even going to make it out of Sydney! As soon as the airport authorities saw the word ‘Syria’ on our exit visas we were handed over to the counter-terrorism unit! Even so, we eventually got out of the country, made it smoothly through Beirut airport and then to the Syrian border by taxi, where we found, to our delight, that our visas had been approved. A short drive further and we were at the beautiful Dama Rose hotel, and you wouldn’t know that you were at the centre of a nation-wide war (except for the 40 or so checkpoints that we had to pass through to get there).

I announced our intention to get to Yarmouk right away to the people I thought might be able arrange something, and various phone calls were made. Even so, it wasn’t till we met with the Minister for Tourism the next day (a man whose portfolio sadly leaves him with time on his hands) that the right connections were made and plans were put in place.

Yarmouk is only a few kilometres south of Damascus. It was once a thriving centre of colour and life with a vibrant market that made it much more than just a Palestinian enclave. Over the last four years though it has been the centre of so much violence and death that it is now the most festering wound on the ailing Syrian body. And perhaps the most tragic dimension of Yarmouk at the moment is the way the suffering of these people is being manipulated to provide a new rationale for Western military intervention.

The dominant narrative at the moment is that ISIS, by lodging themselves in Yarmouk, are on the doorstep of the Presidential palace, threatening to take over Damascus! The Assad government, in response, is throwing everything it has at Yarmouk (including its notorious ‘barrel bombs’), killing rebels and civilians alike, in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. The only hope for the poor people of Yarmouk (so the narrative goes) is to send in the Marines!

Of course the Marines don’t have a great track record when it comes to solving other peoples’ problems, especially in the Middle-East (think Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, …). Even so, if the people of Yarmouk are suffering at the hands of a reckless government in its death throes, can we really expect our benign super-powers to sit on their hands?

My thought was that I needed to get to Yarmouk to see for myself what was going on, and we got there.

We got to within about 300 meters of the border anyway, where the Syrian military made sure we stopped. We could see the front line from where we were but, as our guides pointed out, this meant that ISIS snipers could see us too, and so we soon moved off from the main entrance road and entered a school on the government controlled side of the border where a number of Yarmouk residents were being housed as well as schooled.

We spent our first few hours there teaching the children to box. I appreciate that most people would see that as a crazy thing to do but the kids certainly enjoyed themselves. There was lots of laughter and cheering as young and old put on the gloves and learnt how to throw punches against the pads without hurting their hands (which is not as easy as some think).

After we’d exhausted ourselves playing we sat down with the Principal of the school and some of the elders of the camp and talked, while enjoying the obligatory coffee that always accompanies such meetings.

From our day at Yarmouk, and through subsequent discussions with local Palestinians and with others in Damascus who knew what they were talking about, I came to some pretty firm conclusions about the situation in Yarmouk and, as I expected, the truth is pretty much the reverse of what we’re being told.

The Syrian Arab Army are not the chief villains in this drama. On the contrary, the Yarmouk residents that we met were being housed and fed by that army, and the children that we saw treated the army men like benign uncles. Indeed, when one of the officers who was with us put on the gloves and started throwing punches, all the children started cheering for him!

This is what I’d expected to find, as I’d spent time in a similar encampment for displaced persons from Yarmouk almost exactly 12 months earlier. There again we’d met hundreds of children, all of whom had been relocated to safe places by the army, and we’d taught them to box.

So let’s be clear on a few points:

• Firstly, Syrian Army never enters Yarmouk. This isn’t contested by anyone on the ground. The army may work inside Yarmouk through their proxies in the Palestinian militia but army personnel never enter the camp themselves.
• Likewise, the army does not shell Yarmouk. Clearly the Assad government does not want to be remembered for murdering Palestinians.
• Finally (and predictably) those who are fleeing Yarmouk are running in the direction of the Syrian army in order to escape ISIS. They aren’t running to ISIS in order to escape the Syrian army. And the army is finding shelter and protection for the fleeing residents.

This is not to say that every Palestinian loves the Syrian army or the Assad government. Indeed, one Palestinian man I spoke to swore that the army had deliberately shelled ISIS in such a way as to force them into Yarmouk! “Why would they do that?” I asked? “In order to bring ISIS into contact with their other great enemy, Hamas, so that they would destroy each other”.

Whether or not that guy was right, his analysis highlights the absurdity of the other side of the media narrative. ISIS are not threatening the Presidential palace from Yarmouk. On the contrary, whether by design or by good fortune, the Syrian army is probably quite pleased to have ISIS in Yarmouk.

There are apparently only around 2000 ISIS militants in Yarmouk in total, and even with superior weapons (being channeled in from Qatar) it seems that they can still be contained by the Palestinian factions opposing them, let alone the Syrian army who have been containing rebels within Yarmouk for a number of years now. The residents have paid a terrible price for that, but the strategy has certainly been effective in protecting the capital.

And so the big lie needs to be turned on its head. The people of Yarmouk are not suffering at the hands of the Syrian army. They are suffering, but the Syrian Arab Army is probably the best friend they have at the moment.

And the army is not about to be overrun by ISIS troops streaming out of Yarmouk. That’s not to say that the army isn’t in trouble. Indeed, they have real problems to deal with in Aleppo and Idlib, but Yarmouk is a relatively minor headache.

In truth, I’m not sure what more can be done for the people of Yarmouk or for the Syrian army. One thing I am sure about though is that we don’t need the Marines, or any more foreign military intervention in Syria. Indeed, the further away our military stays the better are the chances for the people of Yarmouk and for the country as a whole.

Father Dave

click the thumbnail to watch the videos

Father Dave,
www.fatherdave.org

Rev. David B. Smith, B.A. (Hons), B.Th., Dip.A.
Parish Priest, Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill
Professional Boxer, 6th degree black belt,
Senior Trainer, Father Dave’s Fight Club
Manager, Binacrombi Boot Camp
Managing Director, Fighting Fathers Ministries
President, Friends of Sabeel Australia
Marrickville Citizen of the Year 1994 & 2009
Nominated Australian of the Year 2004 & 2009
Guiness World Record “Most Continuous Rounds of Boxing” 2012

A delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean arrived in Damascus on Tuesday 28 April 2015 to discuss ending the crisis in Syria. Participants discussed the role of Western-backed armed groups in destabilizing the country. They also discussed ways in which the Mediterranean Parliament can support a peaceful solution in Syria. The Parliamentary Assembly is working on a UN resolution to condemn all violent extremism and prevent funding for groups that perpetrate it. Members consider the prolongation of the crisis as very dangerous for the region. This sounds like a concerted approach from an organisation that is able to name some of the problems out loud.

Nashwan Abdullah reports from Damascus for teleSUR. Original publication here: http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/web/telesur/#!en/video/mediterranean-parliament-discusses-peaceful-solution-in-syria

Member states of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM)are: Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Syria, Macedonia, Tunisia, Turkey.

Associate and partner states are: Romania, San Marino, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia and the Holy See.

The organisation was established in 2005.

According to Wikipedia, "The main objective of PAM is to forge political, economic and social cooperation among the member states in order to find common solutions to the challenges facing the region, and to create a space for peace and prosperity for the Mediterranean peoples.

PAM's membership is open exclusively to Mediterranean countries, which are represented on equal footing. This is reflected in the composition of the Bureau and the alternating Presidency. The current President of PAM is Sen. Fayez Al-Tarawneh of Jordan. Each national delegation has five members with equal voting and decision-making powers. Associate Members and Observers do not have voting rights.

PAM conducts the bulk of its work within three standing committees. The standing committees focus on three strategic areas; the first standing committee is dedicated to political and security cooperation, the second is focused on economic, social and environmental issues, while the third standing committee addresses dialogue amongst civilisations and human rights issues. The PAM may also set up ad hoc committees or special task forces for particular topics, such as the Middle East, migration, free trade, terrorism, climate change, and others."

Read more about PAM here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Assembly_of_the_Mediterranean#Member_states

Itai Anghel: No Free Steps to Heaven (Four Corners, No April 27, 2015.) This is an amazing video showing how female Kurdish fighters claim they are causing ISIS fighters to turn and run. Although the female soldiers are obviously well-trained, effective, and brave, they say that ISIS soldiers run away because they believe that if they are killed by a woman, they will go straight to hell. If they are killed in battle by men, they think they will go to heaven. Two prisoners identified as captured ISIS soldiers affirm that this is true.

The video makes clear that the Turkish Government (Australia's ally) is allowing foreigners to join ISIS via Turkey using connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. President Erdogan of Turkey is said to be a great sympathiser with the Muslim Brotherhood, indeed he has been described as a deluded fanatic by the Syrian president. (See CNN interview.) See also, ""Turkey appears to have overlooked the anger bubbling among its own Kurds towards its Syria policy."". Source:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/01/how-turkey-misread-kurds-201511910421859659.html

Unfortunately the narration of the video curtly damns Bashar al-Assad as suppressor of Kurds, whereas the truth is complex. Some Kurds in Syria have citizenship, others have work permits, others lack these rights. It depends on when they came to Syria, where from, and other historic circumstances. On the 20th of April, however, Syrian Minister for Information, Omran al-Zoubi, indicated that President Bashar al-Assad's government is willing to accept Kurdish autonomy in Syrian Kurdistan to the north, where much of the fighting against ISIS has taken place. Source: Source: http://ekurd.net/assad-regime-ready-to-accept-kurdish-autonomy-in-syrian-kurdistan-2015-04-20 and http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/130320151 (Some interesting comments under this article.)

There are problems of trust with some Kurds because of Israel's investment in Kurdish territory, notably in Iraq. Israel is suspected of divisive activities against Palestinians in Yarmouk in Damascus and elsewhere. Syria is the only country that gives full rights to Palestinians. This is probably a major reason why it is thought to be a target of Israel/US demonization and military undermining. The film about the Kurdish women fighters was made by an Israeli.

No Free Steps to Heaven by Itai Anghel

(Source: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/27/4222860.htm

Meet the women taking up arms against Islamic State.

"We are ISIS's nightmare." Ahin, female Kurdish guerrilla

"They should fear me... What I have and they don't is a purpose worth fighting for... I'm here to protect my existence." Zozan, female Kurdish guerrilla

These highly effective female fighters are taking on Islamic State forces in northern Iraq and Syria as part of the Kurdish guerrilla army.

One of their senior leaders is Commander Media and she's clear about her purpose:

"For people like that even hell is not enough. My role is to make sure they get a one way ticket."

Commander Media and the story of her soldiers feature in No Free Steps to Heaven, a film that takes you right into the conflict zone as these women take charge during tense fire fights.

Through the camera of Israeli film-maker Itai Anghel, we meet young women giving up any prospect of a normal life to train and fight in tough conditions.

Sitting fireside at night in the mountains, 20-year-old Zozan says: "I am fighting to live, they are fighting to die."

Then there's newly trained Ahin on her way to join two siblings on the frontline. Anghel asks if she is afraid of ISIS. Her reply: "On the contrary they are afraid of us."

These female guerrillas also engage in psychological warfare. As they go into battle they taunt the ISIS fighters, who believe dying in combat will lead them to heaven and 72 virgins, but not if they are killed by a woman.

Anghel also meets ISIS soldiers captured by the Kurds. They chillingly boast about the pleasure they take in killing their enemies. One claims to have beheaded at least 70 people.

As an Israeli, Anghel went undercover to film these close encounters. A friend of murdered American journalist James Foley, Anghel was well aware of the dangers facing journalists in the region. Using trusted contacts within the Kurdish forces, his journey provides a fascinating insight into the fight against ISIS.

NO FREE STEPS TO HEAVEN, reported by Itai Anghel and presented by Kerry O'Brien, goes to air on Monday 27th April at 8.30pm on ABC. It is replayed on Tuesday 28th April at 10.00am and Wednesday 29th April at midnight. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners

Victoria is still far from having a comprehensive, adequate and representative national park and conservation system, and most major threats to nature identified in past reviews are still very much with us – habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, harmful fire regimes, over-grazing, modified water flows. Precious habitat remnants are being bulldozed for urban expansion or roads.

This article also appears on the AWPC website.

Great Forest National Park needs your pledge.

Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia, populations of native birds and animals are in freefall, and less than 25% of our rivers and creeks are in good condition.

The Great Forest National Park proposes that Victorians create and add a new 355,000 hectares of protected forests to the existing 170,000 hectares of parks and protected areas in the Central Highlands of Victoria. The basis for this tenure change is weighed scientifically, socially and economically against 5 key reasons;

1. Conservation of near extinct wildlife and plants after Black Saturday and in light of future fire events.

2. Water catchments of Melbourne, LaTrobe and the Goulburn Murray systems. The largest area of clean water and catchment in Victoria. Food bowl and community security.

3. Tourism. This is Victoria's richest ecological asset, but these magnificent forests have not yet been included in a state plan to encourage tourism. Our rural towns want and need this boost to tourism.

4. Climate. These ash forests store more carbon per hectare than any other forest studied in the world. They sequester carbon, modulate the climate and can act as giant storage banks to absorb excess carbon if they are not logged. The financial opportunity in carbon credits is significant and can be paid directly to the state when a system is established federally.

5. Places of spiritual nourishment. These magnificent forests have been described as a 'keeping place' by the traditional owners, a place to secure the story of the land and places of spiritual nourishment that we pass on to future generations. There should be no price tag on the value nature brings to mental health and spiritual well-being.

The tallest flowering trees on Earth grow north-east of Melbourne. In their high canopies dwell owls, gliders and the tiny Leadbeater's (or Fairy) Possum. Victoria's precious and endangered faunal emblem lives only in these ash forests of the Central Highlands.

David Lindenmayer, from the Australian National University, is an ecologist and conservation biologist who has spent over 30 years studying the Mountain Ash Forest of Victoria.

‘There’s a little mixture of things that always want to have the last word. The Lyrebird is one and the Kookaburra is another and the Eastern Yellow Robin and the Pilot Bird are two others,’ he says.

(image: Eastern yellow robin)

‘The birds are calling less than in the morning, but still nevertheless calling, and they’re just confirming their territories before there's an extraordinary change in the light in this long dusk period,’ says Lindenmayer.

The Mountain Ash, and one of Australia’s most endangered mammals, the Leadbeater’s Possum, are threatened by ongoing clear-felling and bushfires.
The population of large old hollow-bearing trees has collapsed. These are a critical habitat for the animals that use them, including Leadbeater’s Possum. There is a high risk that the possums will become exinct in the next 20-40 years.

(image: The Wilderness Society)

(image source: The Wilderness Society)

Home to threatened species, including Victoria’s animal emblem - the Fairy Possum, the proposed park will also be a sanctuary, providing real and lasting protection to some of Victoria’s, and the world’s, rarest plant and animal species. Prominent environmentalists Tim Flannery and Bob Brown have lent their support to the campaign. Sir David Attenborough has weighed into the state election, backing a call for the creation of a Great Forest National Park to protect the state faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum.

The environmentalist’s intervention comes as a survey found 89 per cent of Victorians support the creation of a new national park in the Yarra Ranges and Central Highlands.

Logging over many years had previously reduced the Leadbeater's possum down to a fraction of its original range and now only around one per cent of mountain ash forest is old growth. A new 'taskforce' attempts to negotiate the future of the logging industry in the central highlands of Victoria and the possible creation of the new national park, in light of the critical status of Leadbeater's Possums.

The state government — elected in November — has so far made no official commitment to the proposed 355,000-hectare Great Forest National Park, which would include both recreational areas and conservation zones.

https://www.facebook.com/GreatForestNP?fref=ts

The good news is that the Victorian Government has given its strongest indication yet that it is open to ending clearfelling and closing down the hardwood timber industry in key parts of Victoria's Central Highlands to prevent the extinction of the Leadbeater's Possum.

‘The time for further reviews and studies is over. The only thing that will save Leadbeater’s Possums from extinction is to immediately stop the clearfell logging of the forest it lives in,’ Greens Senator Rice said.

Join the Great Forest National Park Volunteer Campaign Team. Text 'GFNP volunteer' to 0428 029 437. http://wilderness.org.au/articles/great-forest-national-park#sthash.UHAmATbg.dpuf

Send Your message of Support:

Item: Statscan reports that Vancouver and Toronto residents are the least happy of Canadians
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2015046-eng.htm

Interesting. According to a recent Statscan report, people in Vancouver and Toronto are less happy than folks in any other Canadian city. How can that be?

Don't they like the massive and relentless influx of "New Canadians"? Don't they like "diversity"? Don't they like higher density, unaffordable housing, traffic congestion, ethnic gangs, crime and job competition from a growing pool of cheap imported labour? Don't they like being told they must fork out more and more money for improved transit and infrastructure because Vancouver will add another million to its numbers? Don’t they like being told to move over and squeeze tighter to make room for more and more people? Don't they like listening to city politicians who want to "welcome" migrants and grow the population while promising to make the city the "greenest" in the world at the same time?

The unfortunate truth is that while many Vancouver and Toronto residents are unhappy, they can't tell you exactly why. Yes, they don't like unaffordable housing, traffic congestion etc. But apparently they can’t connect it to the federal policy of mass immigration. And anyone who tries to connect the dots for them is buried by media outrage and driven off the stage. Just ask Ontario's former Environment Commissioner, Gordon Miller.

Meanwhile, after reporting Statscan’s findings, the CBC featured a story about a Harvard academic whose research has demonstrated that with enough effort, we can all “choose” to be happy. All it takes is practice. We can train our brains to be optimistic and positive. Translation: don't try to change your circumstances, change your attitude! If you work in a sweatshop or a fast food restaurant or at Walmart for the minimum wage, don't worry---be happy. Be happy with mass immigration. Be happy with your displacement. Be happy with 'diversity'. Be happy with Euro-Canadian cultural suicide. Don’t worry.

You see, it is all about how you look at it. Instead of being unhappy about the surrender and betrayal of your country or how your community and your neighbourhood has been rendered unrecognizable thanks to policies that were enacted by governments that never had a mandate to do so, you can focus on the positive. As Bing Crosby said, you've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don’t mess with Mister-in-Between!
Each day you should endeavour to count your blessings, meditate and be kind to strangers and friends. If you keep doing that, one day you will suddenly wake up and realize that you are happy.

So give it a try, won't you? Say, "Despite the fact that Chinese millionaires have demolished heritage homes on the West side of town, inflated local real estate beyond the reach of ordinary Canadians and replaced English signs with Chinese-only signs, I'm happy!" Or, "Despite the fact massive numbers of Muslim immigrants are unwilling to accept our cultural norms or respect our traditions and impose a net fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers, I'm happy! Then meditate and think about it.

Voila! Suddenly you understand what Vancouver City Council and Mayor Gregor Robertson meant by “Reconciliation”. You are happily reconciled to your own displacement! You are born again! You are at one with the Multicultural universe! You are “welcoming”. You are ready to run to the airport and like a Walmart greeter shout, “Welcome to Canada, Home-to-the-World!” Or, “Welcome to Vancouver, The World-in-a-City”!

You are ready to be kind to strangers, strangers like the ones who came from China to rip down good housing stock, price you out of the local market, and drive your wages down as not-so-temporary foreign workers. Or ready to be kind to vitriolic imams who preach anti-Western hate from the safety of their mosques while their agents and front men wage law-fare against critics or threaten them with a human rights complaint. It is amazing what a little kindness will do.

If people in Vancouver and Toronto are so unhappy, then why don't they take that advice? Decide to be happy. Decide to change their attitude. As that Harvard academic said, the world is what you perceive it to be. Change your perception and you change the world. Your world.

So tomorrow morning, I am going to do just that. I am going to perceive the world differently . And I am going to start by perceiving my VISA bill and my mortgage debt as being paid off. Poof! Gone! See!

I wonder if the Royal Bank will accept my perception of reality?

Tim Murray,
April 22, 2015

And now a word from our Minister of Immigration, Chris Alexander (with apologies to Bob Marley):

"You say mass immigration has robbed you of a job so you ain't got no place to lay your head? Somebody came and took your bed? Don't worry, be happy. The landlord say your rent is late and he may have to litigate, don't worry, be happy. Look at me I am happy!

Here I give you my phone number. When you worry call me. I make you happy—or I’ll call the police and shut down my constituency office until you go away!

Monday, 27 April 2015

“The suggestion by the Centre for Independent Studies[1] that the family home should be included in the pension asset test and be reverse mortgaged for an income stream would cost pensioners dearly,” said Manager, Research and Advocacy, Amelia Christie.

“Forcing pensioners to take out reverse mortgages in order to put food on the table is both heartless and poor policy – the only winners would be the banks.

“Government backed reverse mortgages have been investigated in the past for aged care and wholly rejected by Treasury because they effectively make the Federal Government the country’s largest bank.

Tackle housing affordability, not home owners and their children

“Inbuilt into the pension system is the assumption that people own their own homes. The rate of pension is not enough to be able to live easily in the private rental market, an increasing reality for many pensioners. The report is correct in stating that non-homeowners are worse off than those who have been able to purchase a home. The solution to this, however, is not to penalise homeowners but rather to tackle housing affordability and increase Rent Assistance.

“CPSA calls on the Government to stay true to its word to not include the family home in the pension asset test[2] ,” said Ms Christie.

It should also be noted that it is extremely difficult to change plans after a reverse mortgage, for instance, if you want to move or if you need to go into aged care.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/meanstesting-the-family-home-could-boost-pension-incomes-study-says-20150426-1mti8q.html

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-17/morrison-rules-out-family-home-in-assets-test-for-age-pension/6126090

Source of quotes was: http://www.cpsa.org.au/income/income-media-releases/1268-pensioners-reject-forced-reverse-mortgages

The Federal hospital funding system, based presently on growth in demand and costs, will change under the Abbott government. This "change" is actually about slashing and downgrading what each States receive, to make the system "more efficient".

This "change" is an $57 billion attack on our nation's health care system.

In two years, over $50 billion will be stripped from hospital funding. So despite Australia's population growing faster than any other developed nation, funding will be savaged and more people will be "cared for" with less!

The Abbott government is set to change the hospital funding system introduced by Labor, which was based on growth in demand and costs, with one that ties federal funding increases to inflation and population growth. So, under this "change", funding will be on a whim, and what's begrudgingly available, not on population growth or needs!

“On top of this, the Government scrapped the National Partnership Agreement funding to the States, which rewarded performance in meeting waiting time targets for emergency departments and elective surgery. The enormity of the ongoing cuts was starkly highlighted when the Treasury advised the Senate Economics Committee that Commonwealth funding for public hospitals from 2017-18 to 2024-25 would be reduced by $57 billion" says AMA President,AMA President, A/Prof Brian Owler

Treasury figures show the commonwealth savings from cutting funding to the states for hospitals and schools will escalate rapidly, rising from $1bn in 2017-18 to $3bn in 2018-19 and $7bn the following year. By 2020-21, it will be $10bn. So, as our population continues to blow out, there will be more and more "savings" on hospitals and schools - a formula for a third world nation?

Australian Medical Association (AMA) said the system was not coping with the demands and warned the situation would worsen with less funding, and hospitals have already been hit by a $1.8 billion cut in last year's budget. The AMA has also warned of a possible ‘perfect storm’ in Australia’s public hospital system as Commonwealth funding shrinks, performance benchmarks are not being met, and prices for hospital services under activity-based funding decline.

Governments love, sponge off and delight in population growth, but they not only fail to maintain funding, it's being shrunk, piece by piece! Health care is not an optional extra, or a luxury that puts icing on the budget "cake", but something very basic that's part of our human welfare and an essential service! After more than 2 decades of "economic growth", ironically we are becoming more impoverished and worse off? Who actually benefits from this economic system? Clearly not the majority!

How can economic rationalism justify risking people's well-being, and even lives? How is our health care system to become "better", and provide more with less? It's unsustainable, cruel and potentially catastrophic.

Victoria's biggest hospitals each stand to lose out on more than $1 billion in federal funding over the next decade, according to a state government analysis. The State stands to lose $13.6 billion in funding, which according to Health Minister Jill Hennessy, was equivalent to losing 2.3 million elective surgeries or 11.6 million chemotherapy treatments. Of course, denying people surgery, and chemotherapy, will make the system more "efficient"! Nature will take its course, and people will suffer and die on the waiting lists, and thus eliminate excessive demands!

The massive shortfall in federal funding for hospitals will lead to even longer waiting times for elective surgery, prompting higher morbidity rates, with the smaller states and regional Australia worst hit. People's health care should be locked in, and set to increase incrementally with population growth- not be set as a political bargaining chip, and people made victims of poor economic management!

It's pure and cruel neo-liberalism - of caring for The Economy as the expense of the people it's meant to serve.

If Treasury is failing our present population with the provision of basic public service funding, how can it be trusted with the future, and expect the public to have confidence in the integrity of the latest Intergenerational Report?

ANMF Campaign - Take Action

Kelvin Thomson's response to a question about how Multilateral Trade Agreements (such as the transpacific partnership agreements) might affect Australia's ability to control immigration numbers and to control the awarding of local jobs to local firms. He describes how this might be problematic and does not think we should sign any treaties containing an "Investor state dispute settlement clause." He explains why. He also discusses the process which sounds as if it has a distinct bias towards corporations and against citizens. What you can do: Contact your MP and ask them what they are doing and what they have done to stop any signing of treaties with these clauses. If they cannot show they have done anything to stop them, and do not undertake to do so, then let us know and we will publish this information and their photo. (Transcript and video inside.)

Transcript of Kelvin Thomson responds on Multilateral treaties

This question was asked after Kelvin's speech about Intergenerational Equity, where he mentioned multilateral trade treaties..
(Headings and emphases by Candobetter.net editor, for clarity.)

QUESTION: I noticed that you mentioned the multilateral trade agreements. I'm just wondering. I haven't had time to get into them myself and I'd really appreciate a speech in Parliament about their impact on our ability to control immigration and also to control the awarding of local jobs to local firms and things. And anything else you can think of. Can you speak on it off the cuff for a minute?

KELVIN THOMSON MP for WILLS: It is a very serious issue. In the past, the trade agreements were directed at tariffs and quotas - getting rid of tariffs and quotas - but they are pretty much gone. So if you enter into a trade agreement with another country now - with Korea or China or whoever - the issue is, what do they want? And the sorts of things that they want are freeing up of anything in the way of restriction between movement of people, freeing up of foreign ownership restrictions, and things of that nature. So, some of these agreements now have jumped into the area - I think - of diminishing our democratic capacity to determine our own future.

"Investor state dispute settlement clause"

And, in particular, there is a thing called the "Investor state dispute settlement clause", which is in a number of trade agreements. It's not in all of them. It is in the Korean one. It's not in the Japanese one. I assume it's in the China one, but they haven't released it yet - which is another matter of concern about these trade agreements. They get signed and we only get to see them some distance down the track.

But the Investor state dispute settlement clause allows corporations to sue governments if they believe that the decisions of governments impact adversely on their bottom line.

Health impacts

And the classic example of this is when the previous government introduced plain packaging on tobacco products that - and I think it's Phillip Morris - got themselves incorporated in Hong Kong expressly to take advantage of an investor state dispute settlement clause that we've had as part of a trade agreement with Hong Kong. And they are now suing Australia on the grounds that the plain packaging legislation disadvantages them. Now, that in itself is problematic from my point of view. I believe that governments need to be able to make democratic decisions - in this case in the health interests of the nation.

Environment impacts

It's equally problematic in relation to environmental issues. For example, there are foreign companies that wish to engage in coal-seam mining in New South Wales and Queensland and the like, and you have the prospect that if governments there knock them back, that they will be sued in relation to the Investor state dispute settlement clause.

Settlement of disputes lack normal legal standards

One feature of these clauses, which again is very unsatisfactory, is that it's not that you go to some international court which rules - you know, where you've got judges of the High Court, for example, sitting there. They are arbitration arrangements and the arbitrators come and go. They can be people who are acting for the company one day and sitting as an arbitrator the next, and then acting for a company on the day after that. So that the normal legal protection and rules concerning precedent and - you know - traditional independence and the like, are not present, in terms of these disputes.

We should not enter agreements with investor-state dispute settlement clauses in them

And my own view is that we should not enter into any trade agreements which have investor state dispute settlement clauses.

QUESTION: But do members of Parliament have any control over the signing of these things? Do they get to see the agreement?

KELVIN THOMSON: What happens, Sheila, is that the Executive has control over the treaty-making process and they enter into treaties. The treaties get layed on the floor of the Parliament and Parliament has a Treaties Committee which I chaired for quite a number of years and I'm now the Deputy Chair of - so I do have some experience with this. The Parliamentary committee takes evidence, takes submissions and so on. We can listen to people and make recommendations.

Abbot Liberal Government has majority on the Treaties Committee

There is a government majority on the Treaties Committee, as on Parliamentary Committees generally, and so you don't want to be sort of too carried away about the capacity of the Committee to do much once the treaty has been signed, but we make recommendations about whether the treaty should proceed to ratification and, from time to time Treaties Committee has made serious recommendations in relation to ratification and talked about provisions in particular treaties they regarded as unsatisfactory, but we don't have the capacity to look at treaties in the same way that United States members of the Congress do, for example. [Indistinct ?It's said that] they are able to scrutinise the text of treaties and know what is being negotiated. They're not supposed to tell people about it.

Double Standard: Corporations given privileged info; Civil Society kept in the dark

But this question about the negotiation of treaties and the process being followed is interesting because - so when the Treaties Committee talks to civil society, not government organisations and so on - they say, 'This is a highly secret process. No-one knows what's going on.' You know, the train goes into a tunnel and comes out the end of the tunnel and you've got this treaty. But when we talk to corporations, or agriculture groups and the like, they say, 'Oh, no, it's a good process. You know, they tell us what's going on and they keep us informed.' So, it's clear that there is a double standard at work. There are some people who are kept informed and know what's being discussed and negotiated, and a lot of people who don't.

Seismic testing to look for petroleum has begun in protected marine areas off the coast of Western Australia after permits were quietly granted by the Abbott government. What sort of 'protected" areas would allow the mining of petroleum? It's protected on paper no more! Nothing is protected when it comes to the power of international mining companies, and their quest for profit and energy.

These reserves were set up mainly outside existing commercial fishing zones, mining regions and away from population centres, and designed to have minimal impact of human maritime activities.

The government has cited a lack of consultation and science as the reason for the review , despite 20 years of scientific, economic and social research, and years of consultation with commercial and recreational fishers, the oil and gas industry, conservationists and community groups. What could be more comprehensive?

The Abbott government is trashing environmental safeguards, and are simply bulldozing their way through "green tape" for mining access. Just like the Peace deal in Tasmania to protect their iconic wildnerness areas, no doubt mining and petroleum companies were major donors to the party were influential in destroying previously fought agreements.

The first phase of testing included areas of the Carnavon Canyon Commonwealth Marine Reserve (CMR) , which was declared a Habitat Protection Zone by Tony Burke in 2012. The release of Burke’s plans in 2012 came after more than 20 years of scientific, economic and social research, and years of consultation with commercial and recreational fishers, the oil and gas industry, conservationists and community groups.

Marine reserves are also extremely important in a changing environment. In a time of collapsing fish stocks, ocean acidification, climate change and pollution, it's imperative that our nation protects the Antarctic and Southern oceans.

The areas covered by three sanctuaries near the Abrolhos Islands are important migratory habitat for humpback whales, blue whales, sea lions, and breeding habitat for the western rock lobster.

Australia's largest animals, blue whales , are said to be at risk from "ships of deaf" run by the oil and gas industry. After a shift in control of seismic testing from the Federal Environment Department to an industry regulator, the whales may be forced to run a cumulative gauntlet of noise, a study has found.

If petroleum is found, of course these sancturies will be allowed to succumb to mining! Seismic testing caused stress and disorientation for marine life and could lead to physical injury for endangered species. The whole concept of "economic growth" is about continually loosening environmental controls, and encroaching on habitats of non-human species that are being destroyed by human quest for power, energy and growth!

While Australia is consuming more oil we are producing less at home, and we are also storing less of it. Australia is the only member of the International Energy Agency (IEA) to be in breach of its treaty obligation to hold a 90-day 'strategic petroleum reserve'. Australia now imports about 90 per cent of its crude oil for refining into petrol and diesel fuels at the five remaining refineries. Already there are implications for defence, as the former Air Force chief points out: the Navy is now completely dependent on import sources for F44, a specialised fuel for ship-based helicopters.

There's no doubt a desperation to maintain our energy supplies, and our economic model based on "growth", and fuel for "big Australia". A whale nursery, marine biodiversity and pristine ocean ecosystems are a mere triviality, it seems. They will be under great threat for spillages and disasters.

Tony Abbott and his colleages have no respect for the environment or science and seems to be actively trying to destroy both in Australia.

The Abbott government has granted petroleum exploration licences in a proposed marine reserve near Western Australia’s Abrolhos Islands. This does not inspire much confidence that conservation currently ranks high on their agenda. It's about short-term profits and trashing any science, environmental commitments, and being "open for business" at all costs!

Update (4/5/15): Yemeni army, Popular Committees thwart Saudi naval attack on Aden | PressTV After the Saudi aggression on Yemen and the aerial bombardment campaign on its different regions, more than 2600 innocent lives have been lost, most of who are women, children and the elderly. The silence of the world on such an atrocity is heart breaking to say the least. To add to this, more than 4000 people have been injured who cannot receive medical treatment due to the lack of supplies in this poverty stricken country.

For current information about Yemen, see Saudi Aggression Against Yemen | PressTV. Other informative sites are RT, Sputnik International and Global Research. This article was sent to me by the [nosyriaintervention] mailing list. I am unable, at the moment, to provide a link to the original article. - Ed

With the financial and media support of the Persian Gulf countries such as Qatar, UAE and Bahrain alongside the military and armament support of America, England and the Zionist regime, the Saudi warplanes have destroyed numerous hospitals and clinics, 76 schools and centers of learning, 6 oil refineries, 1500 residential buildings and governmental institutions.

The devastation caused by the Saudis has destroyed water and electricity installations, bridges and important highways connecting different cities. This has created an immeasurable amount of difficulties in the lives of the oppressed people of Yemen which furthermore has led to the prospect of a humanitarian crisis for the residents of those cities.

Until now, numerous human rights organizations and Yemeni hospitals and clinics have declared a state of emergency and announced the urgent need for food, medicine and health supplies. The lack of electricity, food supplies and a supply of clean drinking water are among the most urgent needs.

Taking into account the widespread censorship on the news related to the people of Yemen and the multi-dimensional support of the Western and Arabian countries to these deadly attacks, it has once again become the responsibility of the people and grass roots human rights activists to make the suppressed voices of the oppressed Yemenis heard in the world. By breaking the inhumane restrictions of the media on Yemen, the people will fulfill a historic duty in the face of this humanitarian crisis, and by exposing the truth of the war mongering nature of Aale Sa’ud and America, they will stop the march towards another humanitarian disaster.

For this cause, a group of grass roots anti-war activists from different countries in the world have gathered together to condemn “Operation Decisive Storm” by announcing the creation of an international campaign with the title of “The Breeze of Mercy”. This is with the hope that the campaign can be an ointment for the deep wounds inflicted upon the nation of Yemen and a few steps of friendship towards its war inflicted people.

This international campaign will work to break the media censorship on the plight of the Yemenis, call for a stop in the continuation of this oppressive war and look to gather funds and donations from friends all over the world for the 170,000 displaced and war inflicted people of Yemen.

Previously published (23/3/15) on SANA.

23 April? 2015

Yerevan, SANA – Syria expressed on Thursday at a global forum its condemnation of the genocide which the Ottoman Turks committed against the Armenian people in 1915. The global forum "Against the Crime of Genocide" was held in the Armenian capital Yerevan commemorating the Centennial of the well-known genocide, which is marked on April 24 every year.

Delivering Syria's speech, Speaker of the People's Assembly Mohammad Jihad al-Laham said history will not forgive those "who didn't learn the lessons of wars on other peoples."

See also: Hockey abandons plans to speak at Armenian "genocide" centenary ceremony as Tony Abbott prepares to attend ANZAC Day services at Gallipoli | The Australian (24/4/15), Syria recognizes the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire, Parliament Speaker says | Public Radio of Armenia (24/4/15), Millions worldwide mark 100th anniversary of Armenian genocide (PHOTO, VIDEO) | RT (25/4/15), Armenia, Turkey still at odds a century after 1915 massacre | RT (22/4/15) and other articles about the Armenian Genocide.

The current Turkish government, the successor of the Ottomans, has thrust itself so deeply in the current crisis in Syria, opening its land wide to terrorists coming from all corners of the world to cross border into Syria and commit horrible crimes against its people.

"Any crime against humans must be condemned and rejected whoever the perpetrator, and how if that crime was a genocide in which more than a million and a half of the brotherly Armenian people were killed," al-Laham told the forum.

"We in Syria have always felt the Armenians' sense of belonging is as much to Syria as it is to Armenian and vice versa," he said, affirming that the Armenians in Syria are an integral part of its people.

Al-Laham drew parallels between the Armenian Genocide and the mass crimes targeting the people in Syria and Iraq, saying the crimes systematically committed by the terrorists in both countries target all of the two peoples' components and are aimed at cleansing areas of their inhabitants.

These, and the deliberate damaging of the cultural heritage and the archeological and historical sites in Syria and Iraq, all constitute "a genocide against humanity" and crimes against the history and culture, he added.

While stressing that the history of appalling criminality is repeating itself now through the terrorists of today, al-Laham said this would not have happened was it not for those states and sides that are supplying the terrorists with whatever funds, arms, training and political and media cover they need to commit crimes.

Armenian Premier: We support Syria in confronting terrorism, seek more economic cooperation

Later, Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said his country supports Syria in its fight against the terrorism exported to it from different countries.

During his meeting with Speaker al-Laham Abrahamyan stressed that the historical relations between Syria and Armenia are firmly established.

He saw that the Syrian participation in the forum, which marks the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, committed by the Ottomans in 1915, reflects how much deep is the friendship relations binding the people of Syria and Armenia.

Out of Armenia's interest in further activating the parliamentary, political and economic relations with Syria, Abrahamyan used the opportunity of his meeting with al-Laham to extend an invitation to the Syrian Prime Minister to visit Armenia with a view of expanding the areas of economic cooperation between the two countries.

Al-Laham renewed Damascus's solidarity with Yerevan on the occasion, calling for joint work on the international level to prevent such crimes from being repeated through eliminating the terrorism ravaging Syria and Iraq.

Qabas/Haifa Said

#appendix" id="appendix">Appendix: Other articles about the Armenian Genocide

Why Israel does not recognize the Armenian 'genocide' | Washington Post (24/4/15), Why Israel still refuses to recognize a century-old genocide | the Times of Israel (24/4/15), Obama again avoids the term 'genocide' with Armenia | USA Today (24/4/15), As Armenia marks 1915 killing, Berlin calls it genocide | Reuters (24/4/15), Armenians mark 100 years since massacre, Recognizing the Armenian Genocide | theStar.com (20/4/15), Armenian genocide survivors' stories: 'My dreams cannot mourn' | The Guardian (24/4/1515), Obama, Armenia, and What Hitler Learned About Genocide Denial | The Daily Beast (23/4/15), Armenian 'genocide': Nine ethnic and religious groups facing extermination today | The Independent (24/4/15), Armenian Genocide March Will Halt West Hollywood Eastside Traffic on Friday | WeHo ville (23/4/15).

Glen Marshall was born 19th June 1926 at Cessnock New South Wales and died at Sea Lake Hospital on 28th February 2015. He was buried in Culgoa Cemetry on 4 March 2015. After working as a ranger in Tasmania, where he raised his children, he obtained a degree in Agricultural Science from Melbourne University, where he also knew Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke. He spent the years 1960 to 1974 in Papua New Guinea and was Assistant Director of Education from 1962. During this time he became very interested in the religion of the peoples he met there. He came to the conclusion that the primary function of religion was to 'keep a tribe or community together'. He later obtained a Masters degree in theology, and, still later, was employed by the University of Melbourne in a related field. He was named Anzac of the year in 2004.

Whilst in New Guinea, he was a lay preacher and incurred the wrath of Christian missionaries there both for taking indigenous religion seriously and for discussing the rising problem of overpopulation, which he observed had not been a problem before colonial and missionary interference with tribal traditions. He was told to 'keep his hobby to himself' and was so disgusted that he immediately resigned. He told me that he never entered a church again, although he maintained an interest in what he called 'progressive theology'. You can see an interview with him about this period in this video and read a transcript here.

Glen eventually retired to Culgoa, in the Mallee Wimmera, North Victoria, after considering several other small towns. He liked small towns and the land.

Activism for Water in Culgoa and the Wimmera Mallee

The economics of the post WWI and WW2 eras had brought injury and insult to Culgoa and the Wimmera Malley region with the deployment of that famous and unfortunate Australian invention, the 'stump-jump' plough, which had stripped this marginal land of the invaluable protection of malley eucalypts. Over the next hundred years many local farmers had taught themselves the value of the local vegetation and had replanted and protected what remained in order to survive.

Glen joined the Victorian branch of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA - formerly AESP) and corresponded occasionally over the years with the writer. In 2003 he and fellow Culgoa citizen, Audrey Mather, convinced Jill Quirk and myself, both on the SPAVic executive, to investigate the Bracks and Brumby Government big agribusiness plans to divert water from Culgoa River to already ecologically costly irrigation activities in the Riverina and to hear the other side of the story from local farmers who had formed PipeRight Inc. See article here: /node/1191. We also noted that the concentration of voters in the Riverina versus their sparseness in the Wimmera Malley played a part in the popularity of irrigation for Victorian politicians.

The government proposal favored an opaque 'business case' that ultimately closed the century-old gravity channels where water was used to supplement mixed farming activities in years when rainfall was insufficient even for the famous drylands wheat farming there. Through the Victorian Government initiative the Wimmera-Mallee farmers incurred large new expenses for water and infrastructure, making their climate-adapted agriculture financially very difficult. The government used a short-term and purely economic argument that irrigated activities like intensive pig farming and wine growing in the Riverina contemporarily earned more dollars per litre of water, as opposed to the long-term sustainability of drylands farming in the rangelands.

In March 2015, Jill Quirk (recent past president of SPAVicTas) and me (Sheila Newman, current president) went to visit Glen Marshall in Sea Lake Hospital where he was in treatment for terminal cancer. Our purpose, apart from saying good bye to an old friend, was to record Glen's important observations about indigenous social organisation and population growth rates. (See the short video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5OOGStLRI4) Glen suffered from nerve deafness and Jill (a retired audiologist) had recently been able to get over an administrative hurdle to have his hearing aid fixed, so dialogue was easy. We stayed overnight at a local hotel and visited Glen twice. Both visits had a feeling of happy intellectual meetings, during which Glen covered many other subjects besides population. Glen also spoke with great appreciation of the caring attitudes of the hospital staff at Sea Lake, where it was obvious that he was allowed to remain an individual to the end and had a functioning office in his hospital room. He particularly enjoyed chats with his doctor, an Irish immigrant who had obtained a degree in classical studies prior to his medical degree.

Glen would have approved of our adding to this article that Sea Lake was a testimony to the great social importance of small towns in their ability to give time and place to everyone and to blend with their physical environment.

As mentioned, Glen spent his latter years in Culgoa in the Wimmera Malley and this was where he was buried.

The Victorian government 'won' its business case and, since our first visit in 2003 the town of Culgoa, where Glen was buried on March 4, 2015, has virtually dried up. Anticipating this, Audrey Mather had since moved to Bendigo. On our drive up to see Glen in Sea Lake in March 2015, we passed through Culgoa. Due to scavenging for irrigated agriculture elsewhere in the early 21st century, the Culgoa River that had once preserved life in the town, was reduced to stagnant puddles more typical of drought, despite relatively good rainfall this year. The beautiful knotty malley gums and the silk-thin ground cover that lined the dry river bed were doomed. Only a government located in a distant place could have brought itself to remove the little water that made such a difference over centuries to this place. Economics as practised in our day is surely the destroyer of social and ecological capital, of local democracy and the ability to preserve spiritual and functional relationships with the land. What happened to Papua New Guinea is happening to Australia. It has little to do with the colour of our skins and a lot to do with the colour of money.

Early life

Glen's father was born in the north of Scotland in 1884 and his mother was born eight years later in Eden on the south coast of NSW. Both came from Christian families and remained practising Christians all their lives. They married in 1913 and reared three children of which Glen was the eldest. Glen's father initially made a very good living from a business associated with the manufacturing and exporting arm of the dairy industry. The family remained quite wealthy through Glen's early school years, however, when the Great Depression destroyed his father's business and the family followed Glen's father around the country as he attempted to scratch a living from any job he could. Glen wrote that, from the age of seven until his seventh school year, he attended 19 separate schools and that he never identified with a school. These circumstances made it impossible for him to be accepted by any peer group at the time.

Although the Depression eased by the time he reached the age of 13, his father had gone into debt to help the family survive and Glen could not remain at school. After he passed the merit certificate exam, he had to leave school to work as a lad labourer in a butter factory in Merrigum.

For the next five years he worked his way through the technical stages of butter manufacturing, acquiring DLI 'tickets'. He writes that he was not at all interested in social life, but spent all his spare time reading mathematical texts.

Aged 19 he joined the RAAF and served mainly with the 56 Operational Base Unit (OBU). After the war he matriculated, then took a degree with honours at Melbourne, qualified to be a teacher, then served in numerous schools in Victoria, Papua New Guinea, prison education service and finally in education administration where his major duty was integration of physically and mentally handicapped children into mainstream education.

He wrote that his Christian formation helped cultivate a deep concern for true social justice. He became convinced that, "although no-one is independent, all of us ought, wherever and whenever possible, irrespective of any circumstances, serve others more than we expect to be served."

He hated bigotry. He wrote, "Bigotry surrounds us, its ugly effects showing up in too many facets of our work, play and social life."

Inside is a video and transcript of an interview with Glen Marshall about indigenous population growth and self government before and after his time with the Australian government of Papua New Guinea. In it Mr Marshall describes the destruction of a matriarchal society in which population numbers were kept well under control, in part due to the fact that men and women lived within their own separate territories. The material totally contradicts much that is assumed about Papua New Guinea tribes - peoples who have lived in the area perhaps 60,000 years. Unfortunately it is a short interview edited from longer and unrelated discussions, but I hope it will inspire others to learn more from unusual sources about this extraordinary island and its struggle to conserve traditional land-tenure and self-government. See also "Glen Marshall, population and indigenous rights activist - obituary."

Note that this interview was recorded in Sea Lake Hospital on 5 February 2015, only 22 days before Glen succumbed to cancer after a battle that lasted close to two decades, during which time he remained outward-looking and interested in many things, especially science. In the interview, due to a growth in his throat, some of Glen's speech is hard to decipher and occasionally he seems to confuse words, such as using 'popularize' where he probably meant 'colonise'. He also at first thought I was making a euphemism for sexual congress out of 'cohabit', which he turns into a humorous verb, 'cohabitating'.[1]

At lunch nearly 20 years ago Glen told me of his observations on indigenous behaviour and population numbers in Papua New Guinea. He said that Europeans had nothing to offer the peoples of PNG, except perhaps technique for setting a broken leg. He said to me that breast feeding failed as a contraceptive in PNG after spouses began to cohabit as they were instructed to do by Christian colonisers. Prior to this they did not cohabit. Men and women had their own land and villages. A revelation to me, this information stuck in my mind and motivated my later research into Pacific Islander land-tenure traditions and their effect on population numbers in: Demography, Territory, Law: Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2015 .

Unfortunately, for reasons to do with Glen's growing deafness making phone calls difficult and his not remaining on the internet, especially after hospitalisation, I failed to question him more closely about the details of his time in Papua New Guinea. For instance, I should have asked him exactly where he was stationed and which tribes he was in contact with. Nonetheless, I hope that I have fulfilled his desire to tell the truth as he experienced it about Papua New Guinea and the impact of Australian governance and religious missions on it between 1960 and 1974.

Transcript from video:

GLEN: What interests me greatly is the number of primitive societies up and down the American coast and various other parts of the world and certainly in Papua New Guinea, it was distinctly matriarchal. Distinctly matriarchal! And it was so much so that when we, the 'lords of the manor', the white 'we', took over, we actually forbade the women to be luberised [1] - that means 'leader' - They were not allowed.

The leader was given a red cap. No woman was given a red cap. The 'funny jobe was'. It was a joke. That if a native person in PNG - a native man wanted a smoko, he had to ask the women for it. But they greatly respected it. One school which was mostly adults rather than children, one - he'd be about 20 years of age - said that, when a woman dies in the tribe, there's great mourning and the man could pass away with hardly any recognition.

Most of the tribes - when I first went there - the women were completely in charge. By the time I left, which was 14 years later, it was just the opposite. And that was enforced by legislation because the women... when we were having a school meeting, the women would make up their mind, and tell the men what to say, and that's how they got their point over. It was ridiculous, but it was encouraged by the authorities, unfortunately.

But previously, the Germans - see New Guinea was first colonised [said 'popularised' by mistake] by Germans, was New Guinea German, and then Papua was mainly British for a time bu they have the same - exactly the same thing. They were paternal or patriarchal.

QUESTION TO GLEN: Did men and women cohabit after marriage in New Guinea.

GLEN: Not particularly, no. But I'm going to qualify it. Every three months they had a sing sing. It was for everybody and they cohabited there completely and utterly and foolishly and in every other way. But they remained for the main part separate, yes.

QUESTION TO GLEN: Even after marriage?

GLEN: They only that just during the sing sing. Generally a whole weekend.

QUESTION TO GLEN: But when they married? Later? When a man married a woman, did they live together?

GLEN: Nowadays they live together. but once they didn't.

QUESTION TO GLEN: So, women had their own land and own villages?

GLEN: They owned their own trees and all sorts of things. We took that from them. And then we started to build habitations for them and they were all built on family living together. And that created a violence. Rightly or wrongly, it created a violence. They were not a violent people, but they became violent.

QUESTION TO GLEN: What about the population size - fertility - did that go up with cohabitation?

GLEN: It did, yes. Badly.

QUESTION TO GLEN: In 14 years, did you see that?

GLEN: It was very very obvious. There were four [?regions or religions] in Papua New Guinea. One was run by the Catholics. One was run by the Methodist Overseas Mission, administered from England. The other one was the German Church. [Lutheran] Seventh Day Adventist was the other one.

By the time I left there were no less than 34 disparaged religions.

I found that although you don't agree with everything in their pagan religion, there was one fundamental rule for all of their pagan religions. And that was to keep the village together. It was so obvious!

And yet the religious people would say, "God will forbid this!" I thought he would be very pleased about it.

QUESTION TO GLEN: What do you think of the Australian government thinking it can teach Pacific Islanders how to limit their populations?

GLEN: Oh, absolutely hopeless! They [PNG indigenous people] knew it already. They knew it in full. They knew it in full.

NOTES

'luberize': I cannot find any examples of this word on the internet, however records are extremely sparse for New Guinea over this period, even sparser than for the preceding period, when volcanic eruptions and war apparently destroyed a lot.

[1] I met Glen in the mid 1990s when he cheerfully came down to Melbourne to have himself fitted for a coffin after he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. He knew that he had quite some time to live and was not overly upset by his diagnosis. We had lunch in the city and he gave me a pair of salad tongs in the shape of false teeth, saying that he could not afford the present I deserved, so offered the salad tongs as a light-hearted substitute. I still have the false teeth tongs and enjoy the memory of our first meeting, but maybe I should not mix this too prominently with Glen's more serious message. I sort of suspect that he wouldn't mind though.

Video and text inside: Recently the Federal Government released another Intergenerational Report. It would be easy to dismiss it as a political stunt. After all the well-known scientist they got to spruik it, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, has now done just that, correctly lambasting it for its failure to talk about climate change. Any discussion about the future which leaves out climate change is farcical.

And these Reports, first commissioned by Peter Costello, are absolutely a Trojan Horse for the right wing agenda of winding back the social contract, dismantling the benefits achieved in Australia with a lot of blood, sweat and tears over many years, in health, education, and retirement incomes, which make Australia one of the best countries in the world to live in. They run a scare campaign about population ageing designed to convince us that our health, education and retirement incomes systems are not sustainable. Speech by the Hon. Kelvin Thomson, Federal Member for Wills, to the Protectors of Public Lands Annual General Meeting Saturday 18 April 2015

But is the issue of Intergenerational Equity important? Bloody oath it is. Do we want to be remembered as a generation that wrecked the planet and passed on an inheritance and legacy of unemployment, mental health problems, drugs, conflict and terrorism to the next generation? Surely we have an obligation to pass on to our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our parents and grandparents gave to us. We do not have a right to trash the joint.

So how are we going so far? Well let's look at deficit and debt, the two Ds, a bit like Daz and Dee from The Block. It is true that we need to balance the books. It is true that leaving behind deficit and debt is unfair to future generations, who have to pick up the interest bill.

It is worth noting that countries with large populations and rapid population growth tend to have greater problems of deficit and debt than smaller countries, or countries with stable populations. Rapid population growth leads to overcrowding and pressure on existing infrastructure. Residents and communities naturally object to this, so in order to head off public objection to rapid population growth governments have to build new infrastructure. This new infrastructure is very expensive, and leads to deficit and debt.

The Queensland academic Jane O'Sullivan points out that maintaining infrastructure in a population growing at 2 per cent doubles, repeat doubles, the infrastructure cost for governments, who have only two percent extra taxpayers to pay for it.

We have seen a classic example of this in Melbourne, with the former State Government secretly locking Victorians into a contract to build a tunnel through Royal Park that would have cost $8 billion. Seriously $8 billion for a tunnel! I recently had Professional Engineers in my office giving this outrageous cost as an example of the way the public sector is being stooged by private consortiums. Victorian taxpayers have dodged a massive financial bullet as a result of the new Victorian Government negotiating an end to this contract. It is remarkable that the Liberal Party and its media and corporate cheer squad have the temerity and audacity to criticise this. To lock Victorians into a multi-billion dollar contract with a secret side note days before an election was the height of contempt for the right of Victorians to democratically decide our future.

It is brazen and shameful that they should criticise an incoming Government for delivering what it promised - no East West Link. The $340 million cost is entirely the responsibility of the Liberal Party for its secret and devious attempt to foist this project on the Victorian people no matter how they voted. Frankly they should pay the money, not ordinary Victorians. At the very least they should hang their heads in shame.

Let me return to the double Ds, deficit and debt. During the good times John Howard and Peter Costello introduced measures which damaged the revenue and pushed up deficit and debt. The fiscal time bombs they left behind for subsequent governments included abolishing tax on superannuation income, cutting capital gains tax in half, introducing the Baby Bonus - now thankfully gone - and ramping up Family Payments.

The Abbott Government has gone down the same path. They reinstated the Howard Government’s fringe benefits tax arrangements for privately owned motor vehicles, which Labor had cancelled, at a cost of $500 million a year. They cancelled Labor's 15 per cent tax on superannuation income over $100,000. This reduced revenue by about $600 million a year. They abolished the carbon price, at a cost of $7.6 billion, and overturned the mining tax. One country which runs a whacking great surplus and has no debt is Norway, which years ago introduced a sovereign wealth fund. People say Norway is fortunate because it has lots of natural resources. And we don't?

The legacy of deficit and debt we are handing down to future generations is not unavoidable. For example we have allowed companies to avoid paying tax on their income.

In one financial year just 10 companies channelled over $30 billion from Australia to Singapore and avoided paying tax in Australia. In that year, 2011-12, an estimated $60 billion in so-called "related party transactions" went from Australia to tax havens. Energy companies have established "marketing hubs" in Singapore, but their principal purpose appears to be as a destination to shift profits in order to pay less tax. A report by the Tax Justice Network estimated annual tax avoidance by the top 200 companies at over $8.4 billion.

And as for infrastructure spending, the property developers who are the beneficiaries of the increased land value that comes from population growth ought to be the ones to pay for the costs of this growth. I support the Labor Government capping Council rates. Pensioners shouldn't be the ones paying for population growth; the beneficiaries should be.

My friends let's now look beyond the double Ds. How are we really going? Is there really intergenerational equity? Not in my book. The opportunities I and my generation had - free tertiary education, lots of job and career opportunities, affordable housing - seem a distant memory for way too many young people. They are now fitted up with an axis of financial evil - job insecurity, housing unaffordability, and student debt.

Job security has declined dramatically. Back in the 1980s well over half a million 15 to 19 year olds had a full time job. By January this year the figure was more like 150,000, an all-time low. There has been a dramatic switch from full-time to part-time employment. Back in 1980 just 20 per cent of workers aged between 15 and 19 were part-timers but the figure is now about 75 per cent.

This might not be a problem if those same young people were also studying and setting themselves up for more secure work once they have improved their skills and qualifications. But this is not happening. Youth unemployment is now at its highest for 17 years. The number of long-term unemployed has risen dramatically in the last seven years, and is now well over double what it was in 2008.

Well-qualified young workers are finding it difficult to break into high-skill jobs. Many young people have to continue their part-time university jobs after they finish their degree. And those who do have jobs have less secure jobs. Three weeks ago the Saturday Age reported a worker who only knew if he had work when he received a text message just 15 minutes before his shift was due to start at a clothing warehouse. As a statement of the bleeding obvious, it is impossible to plan his day or his life around that kind of insecure work. It is a throwback to the work arrangements on the waterfront a hundred years ago, when dock workers would stand in a line waiting to be picked out for a day's work.

The rise of casual, contract and labour hire jobs, with far fewer protections for workers, is a feature of the last 20 years. More than 2 million workers are now engaged as casuals and more than 1 million are contractors or in labour hire.

The personal and social consequences of unemployment and underemployment are negative and long-lasting.

Experts say that young people lose their hope, their health deteriorates, they suffer from depression and anxiety, and they become vulnerable to drugs and crime. Being out of work for long periods can affect physical health, mental health, and future employability. The job market is now also tougher for postgraduates.

Young people are also getting the rough end of the pineapple in relation to housing. Whereas I and my generation had opportunities to buy and live in detached houses, high-rise apartment towers in Central Melbourne are now being built at four times the maximum densities allowed in such crowded cities as New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

These hyper-dense skyscrapers are being built with little regard to the effect on the residents within, or their impact on the streets below, or on neighbouring properties.

And as if these issues aren't big enough, this week a prominent Britain-based international mental health commentator, delivering a public lecture for the Queensland Mental Health Commission, suggested the modern rat race could be making us unhinged! Gregor Henderson said that across the world levels of diagnosed depression and anxiety, and the prescribing of drugs to deal with those conditions, are rising alarmingly. Mr Henderson said there may be a link between the way the modern world is structured and the elements of emotional and psychological distress we are seeing.

He said that if we keep putting such a high value on economic product, this leads to materialism, consumerism and individualism, which are mostly short-term benefits. Our modern style of living is out of synch with our mental and physical wiring.

I certainly think one of the contributors to increasing mental health issues is the loss of our connection with nature. Numerous studies have shown that public open space delivers tangible and important benefits for physical and mental health. Mathew White and colleagues at the University of Exeter Medical School found that people who live in urban areas with more green space tend to report greater wellbeing - less mental distress and higher life satisfaction - than city dwellers who don't have parks, gardens or other green space nearby.

A study from Norway says that health benefits from nature arise from nature's stress reducing effect. Stress, as is well known, contributes to cardiovascular diseases, anxiety disorders and depression. The American biologist E. O. Wilson says that because humans evolved in natural environments and have lived separate from nature only relatively recently in our evolutionary history, we have an innate need to affiliate with other living things. That is why the work of civic-minded groups such as the Protectors of Public Lands is so important, not just for us, but for those who come after us, and I congratulate you on the work that you do to protect our remaining public open spaces.

People aren't just unhappy with their own lives. They're unhappy about the quality of their political leadership as well. One of the defining features of modern political life is a pervasive loss of faith in government's ability to solve problems, or indeed do anything much at all.

Sally Young, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne, says we are living through a lost era of policy making. She says that politicians of today are suffering a crisis of confidence about whether their policy making can make a difference. She contrasts this with the difference made in the 1970s by Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser.

So if we are failing future generations, and I am convinced that we are, what can we do about it? I think employment is one key. We need to get fair dinkum about full employment. Now there are plenty of captains of industry and economists who immediately change the language and the objective of "full employment" to that of "creating jobs". But they are not the same thing at all, even though they may sound similar.

The objective of "creating jobs" is used as cover for the desire to reduce workers’ pay, conditions and rights. It is claimed that reducing these things will increase labour market flexibility and thereby create jobs. It is also used as a battering ram against the environment, with the need to create jobs used to justify all manner of environmental atrocities. We should not agree to surrender pay and conditions or our beautiful and unspoiled environment. This would be the opposite of intergenerational equity.

So how do we achieve full employment then, given its importance? I think five steps are crucial.

First, we should wind back our migrant worker programs, which have skyrocketed in the past decade. In a stable or slowly growing population, workforce ageing will help solve unemployment. As workers retire unemployed workers or young people entering the labour force get job opportunities. This is how things used to be. But when we are running massive permanent and temporary migrant worker programs, the unemployed and young people entering the market find themselves up against ferocious competition from new arrivals. The size of these programs puts us on a treadmill. No matter how fast we create jobs we still have unemployment above 6 per cent. More than 760,000 Australians are out of work, a totally unacceptable figure, and a recipe for drugs, crime, mental health issues, even terrorism. As recently as the year 2000 the then Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock said that net migration may average out at 80,000 per annum. A funny thing must have happened on the way to the Forum, because his government subsequently increased it to over 200,000 per annum, where it still sits.

Second we should focus on education, skills and training. What has happened to technical and further education is a scandal. Back in 2008 political parties promoted the deregulation of vocational education. 'Contestability', that is competition between the public TAFE Colleges and new private training colleges, became the name of the game. They competed for students and for government subsidies. The idea was that competition would lift standards and be good for students. The result has been the opposite.

Private training colleges have been quite unscrupulous. Their interest has not been in the students, it has been in making money.

They get students in and churn them through. They have no interest in whether the students get the skills they need to find work afterwards. As long as the students, or taxpayers, pay them, they're alright jack.

Private colleges have cherry-picked the most lucrative courses, leaving TAFE to deliver the balance. The creation of a private market in education led to the appearance of education brokers, signing up people outside Centrelink offices with inducements like free laptops. Consumer protection has been inadequate.

And then there is the change towards "competency-based" training. Whatever the virtue of the theory, in practice colleges have put students through courses in a matter of weeks. Quality assurance has been absent. Trainers sign students off as competent, but in practice they are woefully incompetent.

What we can do about this? The Australian Education Union TAFE Division has called for a cap on the funding available to private training providers, with 70% of government funding going to the public TAFE institutes, and TAFEs and private providers able to compete for the remainder. The union is also calling for the abolition of third-party delivery, in which training providers pay external businesses to deliver training courses.

Then there are the universities. We introduced student fees and uncapped student places. Now the Liberal Government wants to deregulate student fees. This would be a disaster. When I went to University there were no fees and places were allocated on the basis of academic merit. If Christopher Pyne succeeds, the system will have been turned on its head. Academic merit and performance will count for nothing. Your capacity to pay large fees, or more commonly your parents’ capacity to do so, will count for everything. How are academic standards and quality expected to survive such an onslaught?

The explosion of international student numbers has damaged the integrity of the system. On Thursday the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption released a damning report which said universities are too financially reliant on international students to fully confront academic incompetence, poor language skills, plagiarism and even bribery. “Students may be struggling to pass, but universities can’t afford to fail them,” the report says.

Education needs to return to being about academic achievement and quality, not making a profit.

Third we need to back science. The 2014-15 Budget cut a staggering $150 million from the science budget, including a $115 million cut to the CSIRO. The CSIRO says these funding cuts will cause the loss of nearly 1400 workers, over 20 per cent of its workforce, including 500 science and research staff. We can't compete with the rest of the world behaving in this short-sighted way. And we should rebuild engineering expertise in government, and insist that companies building infrastructure invest back into the engineering profession, for example through cadetship graduate programs.

Fourth we need to back manufacturing. During the mining boom we acted as if it didn't matter if all our manufacturing went offshore. But to have all our eggs in the mining and agriculture baskets is, once again, foolish and short-sighted. Recent developments around the iron ore price reinforce this. We need a diverse economy, and manufacturing provides good jobs in the middle of society - not rich but not poor. It brings with it research and engineering expertise; the kinds of things that distinguish successful nations from unsuccessful ones. We should be wary of entering into trade agreements that kill off manufacturing and render our economy narrow and vulnerable.

Finally we should back the home team - Australia. Our personal buying habits, our government buying habits, and our foreign takeover laws should support Australian jobs and Australian industry. It is remarkable that when the Victorian Labor government says it is going to use local steel that we have economic commentators saying you can't do that it's a breach of our trade agreements!

We should have food labelling laws that spell out what food is Australian and what is imported, so consumers can make an informed choice. We should not enter into Trade Agreements that contain Investor State Dispute Settlement clauses or other provisions which act as a barrier to governments carrying out the wishes of the electorate on matters like these.

There is much that we can do which will generate full employment, and it needn't involve trashing the environment. But if we don't do it, then future generations will be deprived of the opportunities that so many of us have had. And the big question for us now is, do we want to be remembered as greedy, selfish, ignorant and short-sighted, or remembered as visionary, intelligent, compassionate and generous?

Republished from TelsurTV (18/4/15). See also: Global Research | "US Human Rights Abusers Not Welcome in Venezuela." President Maduro Calls for "Global Rebellion Against US Imperialism" (2/2/15) and other related articles. Julian Assange has joined a range of other prominent Australians in condemning the sanctions on Venezuela.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has added his name to a growing list of Australian journalists, academics, politicians, trade unionists and solidarity activists calling on U.S. president Barack Obama to revoke his executive order against Venezuela.

On March 9, Obama issued the order which imposed sanctions on a number of Venezuelan state officials and deemed Venezuela to be an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." In response, the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (Melbourne), with the support of the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network, initiated an open letter to Obama.

The letter has over 70 signatories, including Assange, renowned journalists John Pilger and Antony Loewenstein, Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, two socialist local councillors, officials from four different trade unions, academics from ten universities, and representatives from a range of political parties and solidarity organisations.

The letter urges the U.S. president to revoke the executive order and "stop interfering in Venezuela's domestic affairs and cease making reckless public statements regarding Venezuela's democratic processes."

It also encourages Obama to "demonstrate to Latin America that the U.S. is capable of establishing relations based on the principles of peace and with respect for their sovereignty."

Obama's recent actions have seen relations continue to sour between the U.S. and the rest of the Americas. At the recent Summit of the Americas, held in Panama April 10-11, numerous regional heads of states expressed their support for Venezuela and called on Obama to revoke the executive order.

#related" id="related">Related articles

Australia – Venezuela Solidarity Network TelesurTV | ALBA Adds to Condemnations of US Threats on Venezuela (10/3/15), Syrian Arab News Agency | Forum held in Damascus University in solidarity with Venezuela against US plots (Apr 2015), RT | ?5 million Venezuelans sign petition against US aggression and interference (Mar 2015), Maduro: US trying to 'defeat' Venezuela govt with sanctions, we'll fight back (Mar 15), Syrian Free Press | Venezuelan Parliament passes law to confront US aggression (Mar 15), , Global Research | Letter to the People of the United States: "Venezuela Is Not a Threat". Nicolas Maduro (Mar 2015), US Pilot Detained in Venezuela; Accused of Recruiting Citizens for Coup (Mar 15), "US Human Rights Abusers Not Welcome in Venezuela." President Maduro Calls for "Global Rebellion Against US Imperialism" (Mar 15)

Last week GECO - Goongerah Environment Centre reported an illegal rainforest logging operation that has occurred on the Errinundra Plateau, East Gippsland. We documented the destruction and sent a report to the Victorian government. The mainstream media reported it, Australians called, emailed, tweeted and talked about it. They asked the Environment Minister to end this senseless destruction and immediately stop logging. The pressure was felt in her office but logging continues and the forests need you to act again.

Email: lisa.neville [ AT ] parliament.vic.gov.au
Call: 03 9637 9654
Tweet: @LisanevilleMP
#LogOutOfRainforest #ProsecuteVicForests

GECO - Goongerah Environment Centre reports:

Logging machinery was taken out of the area for a short time and some restrictions have been placed on where logging can now occur. But yesterday we observed that logging has recommenced and ancient trees, some up to 600 years old, near the area where rainforest has been logged are falling today!

We need to act now and let the Victorian Government know that if this matter is being taken seriously all logging operations in the area must immediately stop!

You can remind the Minister's office of the following points.

- Rainforest is a listed as a threatened community under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFGA).

- The Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act requires VicForests to comply with the Code of Practice for Timber Production which forbids the logging of rainforest.

- Evidence is overwhelming that VicForests has illegally logged Rainforest in breach of these two Acts.

- While an investigation takes place, all operations need to stop.

- VicForests need to be penalised and kicked out of the coupe.

#10;<p><strong>- At this stage, we know that at least a quarter of the coupe has been logged illegally. Continuing operations in the coupe may also be in breach of the law. So it's important to immediatley stop all operations until an investigation is complete.</strong></p>&#10;<p><strong>- VicForests should be forced to reserve an area equivalent in size to the area that was logged illegally.</strong></p>&#10;<p><strong>- The area of logged rainforest is about one hectare in size, it should have been given a 40 m buffer of retained trees either side of it. So it's not just rainforest that has been illegally logged, ancient trees (like the one in the photo at the top of this email) that should have been buffering the rainforest have been illegally logged.</strong></p>&#10;<p><img src=" />

- Once the investigation concludes, the government need to prosecute VicForests for breaking our state environment laws.

In your letters it's important to emphasise that VicForests are the problem here. The Minister's department enforces laws to protect rainforest but the rogue forest agency of VicForests think they don't need to obey them. They must be prosecuted and the logging must be stopped.

Our rainforests are unique, rare and precious and illegal logging of them by VicForests is an abomination that flies in the face of state environment laws. This sort of reckless destruction doesn't belong in the 21st century.

Thanks for taking action. You have the power to stop the destruction and if we all join our voices and make ourselves heard we can get the loggers out.

For the forests,

GECO - Goongerah Environment Centre.

See also: SANA, VoltaireNet | Bashar al-Assad interview with France2 (21/4/15) and
Full unedited video of President al-Assad’s interview by Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes (31/3/15).

Damascus, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad described in an interview with the Swedish Expressen Newspaper the outcomes of Moscow talks as a breakthrough and said that the UN envoy’s Aleppo plan, which is supported by the government, was spoiled by external intervention, renewing his warning that the terrorism imported to Syria will "bite" its backers whenever it has the chance. He also called on Sweden to influence the EU to lift the economic sanctions imposed on the Syrian people. President Assad also answers (yet again) re-posed questions about chemical weapons and talks about contradictions in US policy and treatment of terrorism since 9-11. The following is part of the full text of the interview, which was first published by Al-Masdar News on April 17, 2015. (The 22:59 minute video and part 1 and part 2 of the full transcript of the original interview ₁  can be found in the Swedish Expressen magazine.)

Question 1: Mr. President, I would like to offer my most sincere thanks on behalf of Expressen for giving us this interview. Thank you so much. While we are sitting here, doing this interview, the terrorist organization ISIS and even al-Nusra is overrunning al-Yarmouk refugee camp. At the same time, al-Nusra is controlling the Syrian-Jordanian border and have taken control over Idleb. How serious would you describe the situation now?

President Assad: Whenever you talk about terrorism, it’s always serious, because it’s always dangerous, anytime, anywhere, no matter how. That’s what you always say about terrorism, and it is not related directly to the example you have mentioned, because this is only a manifestation of terrorism. It’s a long process that started years ago even before the crisis in Syria. Terrorism is serious and dangerous because it doesn’t have borders, it doesn’t have limits. It could hit anywhere, it’s not a domestic issue. It’s not even regional; it’s global, that’s why it’s always dangerous. In our case, it’s more dangerous, let’s say, the situation is worse not only because of the military situation that you have mentioned in your question. Actually because this time it was having a political umbrella by many countries, many leaders, many officials, but mainly in the West. Many of those officials didn’t see the reality at the very beginning. It’s more dangerous this time because we don’t have international law, and you don’t have the effective international organization that would protect a country from another country that uses the terrorists as a proxy to destroy another country. That’s what’s happening in Syria. So, I’ll say yes, it is dangerous, but at the same time, it’s reversible. As long as it’s reversible, it’s not too late to deal with it. It’s going to be more serious with the time when the terrorists indoctrinate the hearts and minds of people.

Question 2: But they are overrunning more areas in Syria. Are the Syrian forces and army weakened?

President Assad: That’s the natural, normal repercussion of any war. Any war weakens any army, no matter how strong, no matter how modern. It undermines and weakens every society, in every aspect of the word; the economy, the society, let’s say, the morals, and of course the army as part of this society. That’s normal.

Question 3: But is the army weaker than before? Because last year, we could see win-win effect from your side, from the army’s side, you overrunning more areas, more control over al-Qalamoun and other areas, but now, they have control over Idleb, as an example.

President Assad: It’s not related to that issue, whether it’s stronger or weaker. As I said, any war undermines any army, that’s the natural course of events. But in your case, when you look at the context of the war for the last four years, you have ups and downs. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and that depends on many criteria, some of them related to domestic, internal and military criteria, or factors, let’s say, which is more precise. Some of them are related to how much support the terrorists have. For example, the recent example that you mentioned about Idleb, the main factor was the huge support that came through Turkey; logistic support, and military support, and of course financial support that came through Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Question 4: Is it information, or is it an opinion?

President Assad: Information, everything, they were like one army; the terrorists, al-Nusra Front which is part of al-Qaeda, and the Turkish government or institutions or intelligence, were like one army in that battle, so it doesn’t depend on the weakening of our army. It depended more on how much support the terrorists have from Turkey.

Question 5: Turkey and Qatar and Saudi Arabia, they had an agenda four years ago. Did it change? Did they change that agenda?

President Assad: First of all, they’re not independent countries, so they won’t have their own agenda. Sometimes they have their own narrow-minded behavior or vengeful behavior or hateful behavior that’s been used by others’ agenda, let’s be frank here, sometimes the United States. So, we cannot say that they have their own agenda, but they haven’t changed. They still support the same terrorists, because this behavior is not related to the crisis in Syria. They supported the terrorists in Afghanistan, they supported the Wahhabi ideology, the extremism that led to terrorism recently in Europe, for decades, and now they are supporting the same ideology and the same factions under different labels and names in Syria. So, there’s nothing to change because this is their natural behavior.

Question 6: Which ideology you mean?

President Assad: The Wahhabi ideology, which forms the foundation for every terrorism in the world. No terrorist acts for the last decades in the Middle East and in the world happened without this ideology. Every terrorist bases his doctrine on the Wahhabi ideology.

Question 7: Wahhabi ideology, it’s linked to 9-11 and all the terrorist groups. Doesn’t the United States know about that link between Wahhabi ideology and terrorists? But they continue to support Saudi Arabia.

President Assad: This is a very important question, because the United States in the 1980s called the same groups of al-Qaeda and Taliban, in Afghanistan, they called them holy fighters, and that’s what president Bush described them as, holy fighters. And then, after the 11^th of September 2001, they called them terrorists. The problem with the United States and of course some Western officials is that they think you can use terrorism as a card in your pocket, as a political card. Actually, terrorism is like a scorpion; whenever it has the chance, it will bite. So, they know, but they didn’t estimate how dangerous terrorism is to be used as a political card.

Question 8: Mr. President, the official Syrian delegation and part of the opposition have recently met in Moscow. Are there any effective results of that meeting?

President Assad: Actually, yes. We can say yes, because this meeting was the first time to reach – because you know we had many dialogues before – this is the first time to reach an agreement upon some of the principles that could make the foundation for the next dialogue between the Syrians. We haven’t finalized it yet, because the schedule of that meeting was very comprehensive, so four days wasn’t enough. Actually, two days, it was four days, but two days between the government and the other opposition representatives. It wasn’t enough to finalize the schedule, but because when you have a breakthrough, even if it’s a partial breakthrough, it means that the next meeting will be promising in reaching a full agreement about what are the principles of Syrian dialogue that will bring a Syrian, let’s say, solution to the conflict.

Question 9: It’s very important, what you say, Mr. President, because the United Nations’ Syria Envoy, Mr. Staffan de Mistura, he’s planning a series of consultations to begin in May or June to assess the chance of finding a common ground between the main states with an interest in the conflict. What do you think about it?

President Assad: Actually, I agree with de Mistura about this point, because if we want to look at the conflict in Syria as only an internal conflict between Syrian factions, that’s not realistic and that’s not objective. Actually, the problem is not very complicated, but it became complicated because of external intervention, and any plan you want to execute in Syria today in order to solve the problem – and that’s what he faced in his plan towards Aleppo – it will be spoiled by external intervention. That’s what happened in Aleppo, when the Turks told the factions, the terrorists they support and supervise, to refuse to cooperate with de Mistura, so I think he’s aware that if he couldn’t convince these countries to stop supporting the terrorists and let the Syrians solve their problem, he will not succeed.

Question 10: What is your opinion about de Mistura’s efforts?

President Assad: We discussed with him the plan for Aleppo, and it comes in line with our efforts in making reconciliations in different areas in Syria. This is where we succeeded, and this is where you could make things better, when you have people going back to their normality, when the government gives them amnesty and they turn in their armaments, and so on.  So, his plan for Aleppo comes in line with the same principle of reconciliation, so we supported it from the very beginning, and we still support his efforts in that regard.

Question 11: Mr. President, Sweden is the only country in Europe that grants permanent rights of stay for people that flee the war in Syria. What has that meant, and how do you view Sweden’s policy?

President Assad: In that regard or in general?

Question 12: In that regard, that’s right.

President Assad: I think that’s something that’s appreciated around the world, not only in our country, and this humanitarian stand of Sweden is appreciated regarding different conflicts, including the Syrian one. So, this is a good thing to do, to give people refuge, but if you ask the Syrian people who fled from Syria “what do you want?” They don’t want to flee Syria because of the war; they want to end that war. That’s their aim, that’s our aim. So, I think if you give people refuge, it is good, but the best is to help them in going back to their country. How? I think Sweden is an important country in the EU. It can play a major role in lifting the sanctions, because many of the Syrians who went to Sweden or any other country, didn’t only leave because of the terrorist acts; they left because of the embargo, because they have no way for living, they want the basics for their daily livelihood. Because of the embargo, they had to leave Syria, so lifting the embargo that has affected every single Syrian person and at the same time banning any European country from giving an umbrella to terrorists under different names, whether they call it peaceful opposition, whether they call it moderate opposition. It’s been very clear today, it’s been proved, that this opposition that they used to support is the same al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood. Third one is to make pressure over countries that support terrorists and prevent any plan of peace in Syria, like the one that you mentioned, of Mr. de Mistura, to be implemented in Syria, mainly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. So I think this is the best help and humanitarian help on the political title that Sweden could offer to the Syrian people.

Question 13: Embargo and war, and millions of refugees or people who fled from the country. This has been described as the worst refugee crisis since World War II. How big of a responsibility, Mr. President, do you have for this situation?

President Assad: I think to compare between what’s happening in Syria, even from a humanitarian point of view, and what happened in World War II, I think it’s kind of a huge exaggeration. We cannot compare, for political reasons. But regardless of this exaggeration, we have millions of people who are displaced from their areas to other areas because of the terrorist acts, and that’s a huge burden. Actually, so far, we bear the major brunt of the crisis. You hear a lot of fuss about what the international organizations and what they call themselves “friends of Syria” spend money and give support and donations to the Syrians. Actually, if you want to have just a glimpse of what we are doing, for example in 2014, last year, all those countries and organizations offered in the food sector 22% of what we offer as a country during the war. That’s a huge difference, which is 1 to 5.

Question 14: Inside the country?

President Assad: Inside Syria, yes. Regarding the healthcare sector, it was 1 to 18 in our favor. So actually, we are bearing the brunt. Besides that, we’re still paying salaries, sending vaccines to the children, offering and providing the basic requirements for the hospitals in the areas that are under the control of the terrorists. So, we are still running the country and bearing the brunt.

Question 15: According to SAPO, the Swedish intelligence agency, returning jihadists – there are many here in Syria now – returning jihadists are the biggest domestic threat in Sweden today. Do you agree?

President Assad: I wouldn’t look at terrorism as domestic or as regional. As I said, it’s global. So, if you want to look at Sweden as part of Europe or part of the Scandinavian group of European countries, you have to take into consideration that the most dangerous leaders of ISIS in our region are Scandinavian.

Question 16: This is information?

President Assad: Yes, it’s information. That’s what we have as information. So, you cannot separate this group of countries or Sweden from Europe. As long as you have terrorism growing in different European countries, Sweden cannot be safe. As long as the backyard of Europe, especially the Mediterranean and Northern Africa is in chaos and full of terrorists, Europe cannot be safe. So, yes I agree that it is a primary or prime threat, but you cannot call it domestic, but it’s a threat.

Question 17: Has Sweden asked you to share information about these ISIS fighters or other jihadists?

President Assad: No, there’s no contact between our intelligence agencies.

Question 18: Mr. President, in December 2010, Taimour Abdulwahab, a Swedish terrorist who was trained in Iraq and Syria, carried out a suicide attack in Stockholm. Recently, the same scenario in Paris, Charlie Hebdo, and even Copenhagen. Do you think Western countries will face the same scenario in the future?

President Assad: Actually, everything that happened in Europe, and I mean terrorist attacks, we warned from at the very beginning of the crisis, and I said Syria is a fault line, when you mess with this fault line you will have the echoes and repercussions in different areas, not only in our area, even in Europe. At that time, they said the Syrian president is threatening. Actually, I wasn’t threatening; I was describing what’s going to happen. It doesn’t take a genius because that’s the context of events that happened many times in our region, and we have experience with those kinds of terrorists for more than 50 years now. They didn’t listen, so what happened was warned of before, and what we saw in France, in Charlie Hebdo, the suicide attempts in Copenhagen, in London, in Spain, ten years ago, this is only the tip of the iceberg; terrorism is a huge mountain. It’s not isolated events. When you have those isolated events, you have to know that you have a big mountain under the sea that you don’t see. So, yes, I expect, as long as you have this mountain, and as long as many European officials are still adulating countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar just for their money and selling their values and allowing the Wahhabi dark ideology to infiltrate and be instilled in some communities in Europe, we have to expect more attacks in that regard.

Question 19: What is the most effective way to deal with terrorism?

President Assad: First of all, terrorism is not a war. First of all, it’s a state of mind, it’s a culture, so you have to deal with this culture. You have to deal with it in an ideological way, and that implicates the education and the culture. Second, those terrorists exploit the poor people. You have to deal with poverty, so economic growth is very important, development. Third, you have to deal with the political issue that’s being used by these terrorists in order to indoctrinate those youths or children in solving the political problems in our region, for example the peace issue was one of the primary reasons for those terrorists to recruit terrorists.

Question 20: Which peace? You mean the peace process?

President Assad: I mean between the Arabs and the Israelis. Solving this problem, because this is one of the reasons to having desperation, you have to deal with the desperation of those youths who wanted to go and die to go to heaven to have a better life. That’s how they think. So, you have to deal with these desperations. The last measure is exchanging information between the intelligence. War is only to defend yourself against terrorism. You cannot go and attack terrorism by war, you can only defend yourself if they use military means, so that’s how we can defend against terrorism.

Question 21: Mr. President, ISIS has asked its supporters from around the world to come to Syria and Iraq to populate their so-called caliphate. How do you see the future for ISIS?

President Assad: I don’t think that ISIS so far has any real incubator in our society. Let me talk about Syria first. I cannot talk on behalf of other societies in our region, because when you talk about ISIS it’s not a Syrian issue now; Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Libyan, in Egypt, in many areas they have it. But regarding Syria, they don’t have the incubator, so if you want to talk about the short term, ISIS doesn’t have a future, but in the midterm, in the long term, when they indoctrinate the hearts and minds of the people, especially the youths and children. This area will have only one future; al-Qaeda future, which is ISIS, al-Nusra, and Muslim Brotherhood, and this is going to be your backyard, I mean the European backyard.

Question 22: In the middle and long term, it’s very dangerous.

President Assad: Of course it is, because you can take procedures against many things, but ideology you cannot control.  When it is instilled, it’s very difficult to get rid of. So, when it’s instilled, this is the only future of the region.

Question 23: ISIS and al-Nusra, they get help, they receive support from outside, you said Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and like that, but so does your side too. You have Hezbollah fighting for you. Do you need Hezbollah here in Syria?

President Assad: As a Swedish citizen, you don’t accept anyone to tell you or to draw comparison between Taimour Abdulwahab, for example, as a terrorist, and your government, no matter whether you agree with your government or oppose your government. The same for Charlie Hebdo, terrorists and the French government, you cannot make comparison. So, we don’t accept as Syrians to have comparison between the state and the terrorist organizations. Our mission is to help the country, to defend the citizens, while I don’t think this is the role of ISIS or al-Nusra or the Muslim Brotherhood. Their role, actually, is only to kill people and terrorize them. So, you cannot make a comparison. Second, as a government, we have the right to ask for support from any state or organization or any entity that will help us in our war against terrorism. Third, because when I said terrorism cannot be a domestic issue, and this is wrong to look at it as a domestic issue, the good thing is to have cooperation with different powers in the region. For example, we had cooperation between the Syrians and the Iraqis even before the rise of ISIS recently during the summer of last year in Mosul. Before that we had good cooperation, intelligence and even military, for one reason; because the Iraqis were aware that the terrorism in Syria could spill over to Iraq, and that’s what happened in Mosul. The same is with the Lebanese. So, Hezbollah is aware that terrorism in Syria means terrorism in Lebanon. Chaos here means chaos there, so this kind of regional cooperation is very important for all of us.

Question 24: Mr. President, once again you are accused for having used chemical weapons in Syria. Two sets of tests carried out for The Times and medical charities reveal that your forces chlorine and cyanide, according to The Times and even Amnesty International, I think. What do you have to say about it?

President Assad: We always said this is propaganda against Syria from the very first day, to demonize the president to demonize the state, in order to bring the hearts and minds of the Syrian people toward their agenda. That didn’t work, and if you want to compare this propaganda to what is happening now in the West regarding Ukraine, it’s nearly the same; demonizing Putin and telling and forging, a lot of videos and things that only tell the public opinion in the West lies. This is reality. Western people should be aware about this. That doesn’t mean we don’t have mistakes, we don’t have something wrong or something bad going on, but at the end, this media propaganda doesn’t reflect the reality in our region. So, talking about the chemical weapons, they didn’t have a single evidence regarding this, and even the numbers that are being published by many European organizations as part of that propaganda were varied from 200 victims to 1,400 victims. It means it’s not objective, it’s not precise, and so far there’s no evidence that those people were killed because of this attack. The only evidence that we have when the committee came from the United Nations, it proved that the sarin gas was used in that area, but they couldn’t tell how and by whom, so they just keep accusing Syria of that. That’s not realistic, because if you want to use WMDs, you don’t kill a few hundreds; you kill tens of thousands of people, and that’s beside the capital, it will affect everyone. So, many stories regarding this issue are not correct. Second, we are the party who asked the United Nations to send a delegation to verify this allegation.

Question 25: You still do that?

President Assad: We did, Syria did. Syria asked the United Nations, not any other country. When there was proof that terrorists used it in the north of Syria, they didn’t try to verify it. They didn’t mention it. So it’s part of the political agenda against Syria.

Question 26: As you know there are many serious allegations against your government, about human rights abuses committed by your side. How much do you know about torture in your prisons here?

President Assad: When you talk about torture we have to differentiate between policy of torture and individual incidents that happen by any individual. When you talk about a policy of torture, the closest example is what happened in Guantanamo. In Guantanamo, there was a policy of torture by the American administration that was endorsed by president Bush and by his minister of defense and the rest of the administration. With Syria we never had under any circumstances such a policy. If you have any breach of law, torture, revenge, whatever, it could be an individual incident that the one who committed should be held accountable for. So, that’s what could happen anywhere in the world, like any other crime.

Question 27: Can Amnesty International or Red Cross visit your prisons here?

President Assad: We had many reporters and many organizations that came to Syria, but if you want to mention a certain name to come and visit, that depends on the kind of cooperation a certain organization and our government and that depends on the credibility of the organization. But in principle, many organizations and entities can visit our prisons.

Question 28: Mr. President, I have covered the war in Syria for the last four years. I met different groups and activists who were involved in the conflict. I even met soldiers from your army here. Some of those activists are actually not Islamists. I have been told that they fight for freedom. What would you like to say to them?

President Assad: We never said every fighter is an Islamist. We know that. But they are prevailing now, the terrorists, ISIS and al-Nusra, but if you want to talk about freedom, freedom is a natural instinct in every human since our ancestor Adam, and this is a divine thing for anyone to ask for, so it’s going to be illogical and unrealistic and against the nature of the Earth and the people to be against freedom. But we have to ask a few simple questions. Is killing people part of that freedom? Is destroying schools and banning children from going to schools part of that freedom? Destroying the infrastructure, electricity, communications, sanitation system, beheading, dismemberment of victims. Is that freedom? I think the answer to that question is very clear to everyone regardless of their culture. So, we support anyone who works to get more freedom, but in an institutional way, under the constitution of that country, not by violence and terrorism and destroying the country. There’s no relation between that and freedom.

Question 29: They blame even the Syrian army for the same things, as in killing and like that.

President Assad: They have to prove. I mean, the army has been fighting for four years. How can you withstand a war against so many countries, great countries and rich countries, while you kill your people? How could you have the support of your people? That’s impossible. That’s against reality, I mean, that’s unpalatable.

Question 30: If you could turn back the time to 2011 and the start of the crisis, what would you, with the benefit of hindsight, have done differently?

President Assad: We have to go to the basics first. I mean, the two things that we adopted in the very beginning: fight the terrorists, and at the same make dialogue, and we started dialogue during the first year, a few months after the beginning of the conflicts in Syria. We invited everyone to the table to make dialogue, and we cooperated with every initiative that came from the United Nations, from the Arab League, and from any other country, regardless of the credibility of that initiative, just in order not to leave any stone unturned and not to give anyone the excuse that they didn’t do this or didn’t do that. So, we tried everything. So, I don’t think anyone could say that we should have gone in a different way, whether regarding the dialogue or fighting terrorism. These are the main pillars of our policy since the beginning of the problem. Now, any policy needs execution and implementation. In implementation, you always have mistakes and that’s natural. So, to talk about doing things differently, it could be about the details sometimes, but I don’t think now the Syrians would say we don’t want to make dialogue or we don’t want to fight terrorism.

Footnote[s]

#fnExpr1" id="fnExpr1">1.#txtExpr1"> ↑  Whilst Expressen's Middle East correspondent Kassem Hamade conducted the interview fairly and professionally, the same cannot be said of all of Expressen's editors.

Unlike with part 1 of the interview, part 2 of the interview commences with an 'introduction'. The heading, in huge font, which precedes, is:

The poison gas victims al-Assad refuses to see.

The 'introduction' is:

He denies that he sold out his country to Iran.

He denies that he sold out his country to Iran.

He talks about his dependency on support from Hizbollah.

But Syria's President Bashar al-Assad refuses to admit that his regime uses poison gas, despite reports of several horrific attacks where children were killed.

Those who do take the trouble to objectively read part 2, in addition to those who have already read part 1, will find that the above claims are not borne out. Possibly the claims were designed to sow prejudice against President al-Assad in readers' minds in the hope that they won't commence to read part 2 of the interview.

"We live in a time when compassionate rhetoric is used as a weapon of state-corporate control. The rhetoric focuses on ethical concerns such as racial, gender and same-sex equality, but is disconnected from any kind of coherent ethical worldview. Corporate commentators are thereby freed to laud these moral principles, even as they ignore high crimes of state-corporate power." (Media Lens editor David Edwards)

See: other articles which refute claims that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against its own people.
The ABC World Today 'report' can be found here.

Australians who are alarmed at the situation in Syria have today expressed disappointment and concern at the emotive bias and poor research shown in ABC World Today 17 April 2015 report, "Syria chemical attack: UN ambassadors 'moved to tears' by video of child victims" on renewed investigations into purported use of chlorine and sarin gas on civilians in Syria. As noted in the interview, there would indeed need to be very strong proof of the government's use of such gases, and there is not._{#fnAbcSy1" id="txtAbcSy1" style="font-size:120%;"> 1}  It should by now be well known that the chlorine necessary to make gas is available everywhere as a household chemical, but also that chlorine gas is an ineffective poison to use in war. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has repeatedly denied using such a gas and no-one has been able to come up with wholly convincing arguments that such a gas was used by anyone in any effective manner, let alone the Syrian government. There is evidence of the use of sarin gases in Syria but these have also not been convincingly linked to the Syrian Government, but they have been linked to 'rebels'. The Syrian Government surrendered all chemical weapons stocks in 2012. You can read a very detailed analysis and correspondence on how the facts have been tested and sifted here: The Red Line and the Rat Line, Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdogan and the Syrian rebels
Why does the ABC persist in entertaining the reinvention this barrel-bomb-chemical-weapons story? Has it no memory of how the United States has run this line before as an excuse to destroy several states? Have the reporters concerned no sense of pity or responsibility for the consequences?

How long do they think that Syria can survive an assault funded and driven by world powers? Syrians voted overwhelmingly for Bashar al-Assad in an election monitored by UN observers last year. See "Attacking Syria is simply illegal". We are not talking about a 'regime' here. We are talking about a very popularly elected leader by a population determined to save its country even as that country is reduced to rubble by US, French and British arms whose public relations people weep crocodile tears for their victims - and blame Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian government is the only protective force left in Syria. It is the only force capable of routing ISIS and other 'rebel' forces out and bringing populations to safety.

Even if Bashar al-Assad were using gases or 'barrel bombs', given that his government is the only chance of survival for his people, why would the US/NATO and allies try to remove him except to destroy Syria and raze its people from the earth? For this seems to be in train via the numerous so-called 'rebels' supported and unleashed on Syria with funding and weapons supply from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States and Turkey (see Turkey's latest here)- to name a few war criminal states.

Tell me, how does pursuing Bashar al-Assad to the end help anyone?

And how can the ABC and the awful people it allows to rehash the chemical weapons furphy support the brutal Saudi Arabia dictatorship - whose dreadful religion is the prototype for ISIS doctrine - and damn Bashar al-Assad, who presides over a secular Arab state where women may wear what they want and go about their business, where there is free education and health care for all, and the home of millions of permanent refugees_{#fnAbcSy2" id="txtAbcSy2" style="font-size:120%;"> 2}  well before al-Assad became 'the enemy' and the only permanent home to Palestinians in the Middle East?

#appendix" id="appendix">Appendix: Other articles which refute claims that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against its own people

OPCW, Julie Bishop set up Syrian government for invasion by the United States? (14/9/14), "West blocks naming Syria chemical attackers": US backed terrorists committing atrocities (2/10/13), Tony Cartalucci, James Corbett, Michel Chossudovsky demolish mainstream media chemical weapons lies against Syria (18/9/13),
10 Questions about Syrian chemical weapons (4/9/13), Syrian Girl refutes chemical weapons lie, calls upon Australians to attend rally against war tomorrow (30/8/13) - includes embe3dded Syria CW "Evidence" by "Brown Moses Blog" Debunked (29/8/13), Breaking news: UK Parliament to oppose Syrian war until after weapons inspectors' report received (29/8/13), Feigned indignation over Syrian chemical deaths a cover for invasion plans (23/8/13), 'Rebels' not Syrian Government using Chemical weapons - doctors, witnesses, UN investigator says (8/5/14).

Footnote[s]

#fnAbcSy1" id="fnAbcSy1">1.#txtAbcSy1"> ↑  For those who immediately go to Wikipedia, I can tell you that you will find that journalists mostly get their opinions about weapons in the Middle East from a blogger in Britain called Elliot Higgins who has learned through following events on the internet. If you go right to the end of the article, you will find a short paragraph entitled, "Criticism": "Richard Lloyd and Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stated that "although he has been widely quoted as an expert in the American mainstream media, [he] has changed his facts every time new technical information has challenged his conclusion that the Syrian government must have been responsible for the sarin attack. In addition, the claims that Higgins makes that are correct are all derived from our findings, which have been transmitted to him in numerous exchanges." Note 16 will take you to The Red Line and the Rat Line, Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdogan and the Syrian rebels If you click on the link this will take you to a very comprehensive analysis of Higgins's observations in the light of much more varied sources. You might also take the time to listen to some interviews with Bashar al-Assad on you-tube, where he argues his case very logically. The most recent is by Charlie Rose of CBS News, 30 March 2015. (The complete video below is also embedded, with the transcript, here on candobetter. The full transcript can also be found on the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). - Ed)

#fnAbcSy2" id="fnAbcSy2">2.#txtAbcSy2"> ↑  Including 1.3m Iraqis who fled the illegal sanctions and wars of 1991 and 2003 and against Iraq in which Australia was complicit.

At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Australia’s population was 19 million, and will reach 24 million in late 2015. That extra 5 million people means a 25 per cent increase in just 15 years, or another Sydney.

The federally registered Sustainable Population Party says the Intergenerational Report’s predicted doubling of Australia’s population to 40 million by 2050 will deliver greatly reduced infrastructure services for ordinary citizens.

Why can’t infrastructure be doubled?

“The doubling of our population demands a doubling of our infrastructure, but this will be impossible to deliver in Australian cities. The increasingly obvious reason is that our cities have reached diseconomies of scale,” said William Bourke, President of the Sustainable Population Party.

“Diseconomies of scale are the forces that cause governments to produce infrastructure - like schools, hospitals, road and rail - at increasing per-unit costs.

“In short, governments do not receive enough proportionately extra tax from each new citizen to provide for this disproportionately expensive infrastructure.

“It used to be easy to deliver infrastructure when the government owned the land, but because our major cities are already planned and built up, there is no room to retro-fit new infrastructure without expensive additions like land buy-backs and tunnelling.

“Consequently, projects like Melbourne’s East West Road Link and Sydney’s North West Rail Link now cost $18 billion and $8 billion respectively. That’s an astounding $350 million to $1 billion per kilometre. The impact on government budgets is clear. According to The Grattan Institute, state and territory borrowing for capital expenditure over the last seven years drove their finances backwards from $37 billion in the black in 2006 to $69 billion in debt in 2013.[1]

“Huge infrastructure costs then force unpopular asset sales, increased debt borrowings and austerity. The ongoing failure to deliver infrastructure leads to congestion and lower productivity.

“Sustainable Population Party rejects the bipartisan political agenda to double Australia's population to around 40 million by 2050. We support a target of around 26 million.

“Sustainable Population Party is #RedefiningGrowth to secure a prosperous economy, healthy environment and better quality of life for all Australians. Real growth means better, not bigger.

“We call on the federal government to urgently hold a national population summit, closely followed by a referendum-style vote,” said Mr. Bourke.

[1] http://grattan.edu.au/report/budget-pressures-on-australian-governments-2014/

Friday 17 April 2015: The Animal Justice Party has won in a race against the No Land Tax Party for the last seat to be finalised in the New South Wales Upper House. Mark Pearson, a former psychiatric nurse, now holds the seat. What an incredible win for animals everywhere, but especially in New South Wales. Now they have a champion in government with a knowledge of human psychology.

"Mark Pearson is Executive Director of Animal Liberation in Australia. He is employed full time via funds from the Christina Fitzsimons Trust. Before this he had been Team Leader of the Newcastle Community Mental Health Service in Newcastle and worked as a Clinical Acute Adult Psychiatric Nurse Specialist. In his current position the main focus is on farm animals – particularly factory farming for the past 21 years and recently kangaroos.

Two recent successes have been in relation to sheep and kangaroos. The phase out of the most invasive mutilation of any animal without analgesia – ‘mulesing’ in sheep and convincing the Russian Federation to ban imports of kangaroo meat by exposing inherent cruelty and hygiene problems. He enjoys opera – even trying to sing some- and stopping live export death ships from entering Australian ports." http://animaljusticeparty.org/about/committee/.

Animal Justice Party National President and founder Professor Steve Garlick revealed that the party's total budget for the election was a tiny $12,000.

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. Annual General Meeting, Saturday 18 April 2015 Flemington Community Centre. 2:15 pm Saturday 18 April 2015 Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt Alexander Road, Flemington. On Debneys Park. Speaker Kelvin Thomson MP, population campaigner and Victoria First president will speak on Intergenerational Equity: How we are failing future generations.

Transport: Tram along Flemington Road and Mt. Alexander Road; Train station - Upfield line - nearby; Capital City Trail  for cyclists next to Centre; carparking at front door of Centre. Melways 29 B12  

See also: VoltaireNet | Western wars have killed four million Muslims since 1990 (11/4/15), Land Destroyer | Syria: America's Democratic Terrorists? (10/4/15), other related articles.

Those rightly outraged at the murder of Tori Johnson and the death of Katrina Dawson on 16 December at the end of the Martin Place siege and at the murder of 11 people on 7 January 2015 in Paris by terrorists (see #appendix1">embedded Syrian Girl video) should also contemplate the fact that, since March 2011, the people of Syria have suffered terrorism on a scale which is vastly greater than these two tragedies. Since March 2011, they have faced an invasion by hordes of foreign terrorists coming from almost every corner of the globe and not just the Arab world. These invaders have been paid for and supplied by the United States, its European allies and its allies amongst the Arab dictatorships including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So far, over 200,000 Syrians have been killed at the hands of these terrorists. As a consequence, the Syrian government has demanded of the United Nations act against the terrorists' sponsors.

The article below was previous published in SANA (12/4/15).

Damascus, SANA – Syria demanded deterrent measures by the United Nations against the terrorist organizations and the states backing and sponsoring them.

The Syrian demand was expressed in two identical letters which the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry addressed to Chairman of the UN Security Council and UN Secretary General on Sunday.

It was prompted by the bloody terrorist rocket attacks which hit Aleppo city yesterday, leaving heavy casualties of at least 19 civilians dead and scores of others wounded and causing massive material damage.

The new crime, the letters said, came as a response from the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan to the "important" outcomes that were reached at the latest Moscow inter-Syrian talks.

In their "clear message" delivered by their agents of the so-called "moderate opposition", those regimes have sought to foil any political solution that could be reached by the Syrians themselves without foreign interference, the letters added.

The Foreign Ministry dismissed the claim of those and other countries of them sending "non-lethal" weapons to the terrorists, stressing that a new type of destructive weapons seemed to have been used in Aleppo attack.

Several four-story buildings were completely demolished, falling on their inhabitants’ heads, according to the letters.

The Ministry blamed the continuation of terrorist acts on those countries which have not ceased providing direct support to the Takfiri terrorist organizations, including the notorious Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, in addition to the so-called "Free Army", "Islam Army", "Islamic Front", "Liwa al-Fateh", "Ahrar al-Sham Movement", "Al-Ansar Front", etc.

Striking out at this continued support, the Ministry said the terrorist organizations would not have been capable of launching such bloody attacks, was it not for those countries shielding these organizations against punishment and continuing to supply them with weapons and explosives.

It named France, Britain, Jordan and the US as accomplices in backing the terrorists.

The Ministry demanded a Security Council non-politicized action towards enforcing counterterrorism resolutions in deeds not only in words.

The Security Council, it said, is also called upon to cooperate and coordinate with the Syrian government, which "has been combating terrorism for years on behalf of the entire world people."

The Syria government, the Ministry said, stresses dodged determination to continue fighting terrorism in Syria and defend its people by virtue of its constitutional responsibilities.

Haifa Said

#appendix1" id="appendix1">Appendix 1: "The Charlie Hebdo Attacks Exposed" by the Syrian Girl

#related" id="related">Appendix 2: Other related articles

Land Destroyer | Syria: America's Democratic Terrorists? (10/4/15), VoltaireNet | Western wars have killed four million Muslims since 1990 (11/4/15), Global Research | Syria at the UN: US, Britain, France, Jordan Refuse to Name ISIL as “Separate Terror Group" (11/4/15), Global Research | Syria: "Al-Qaeda Linked Rebels" Are Al-Qaeda (13/4/15), Global Research | Israel moves to Cover-up its alliance with al-Qaeda in Syria (14/4/15), PressTV | Turkey, Saudis to form anti-Syria military alliance: Report (14/4/15).

Syrian Fee Press | Israeli [occupation] army admits aiding al-Qaeda in Syria (12/4/15) – Asa Winstanley. Whilst informative it dismisses some 'conspiracy theories' about the Syrian conflict:

Popular conspiracy theories have it that al-Qaeda and the “Islamic State” (also known as DAESH, ISIS or ISIL) are Israeli- and/or US-intelligence creations.

Ash continues:

While there’s no evidence for that, it’s certainly true that the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, and its consciously sectarian occupation regime of the country thereafter, created the conditions in which al-Qaeda in Iraq (later known as ISIS) was formed and thrived. Veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn demonstrates this most convincingly in his essential new book The Rise of Islamic State, which I have previously lauded here.

From my recent viewing of some of the articles about the Syria conflict to which Asa seems to be referring, a conspiracy by the United States and its allies to set up ISIS as a bogus extremist 'anti-west' army to undermine popular domestic opposition to war seems to be a highly plausible explanation of the recent course of events. However, having read these words by Asa Winstanley, I will have to re-examine these articles more closely.

Another irritating feature of this article and so much other material which otherwise seems to be strongly opposed to the United States' planned aggression against Syria, is its insistence on labeling of the Syrian government a 'regime' :

Hizballah (my spelling is 'Hezbollah' - Ed) and Iran, allies of the Bashar al-Assad regime, are aiding the government in Syria and fighting on the ground alongside Syrian army troops against al-Qaeda, the “Islamic State” and other Sunni rebel groups.

Could Asa be truly unaware that on 4 June 20914, Syrians overwhelmingly endorsed President Bashar al-Assad in presidential elections, as attested to by four International observers at a United Nations Press conference. See Global Research | Syria's press conference the United Nations doesn't want you to see (20/6/15) with embedded 52:45min video, republished on Candobetter.

The Intergenerational Report's (IGR) predecessors assume that the answer to our future prosperity lies in the combination of population growth, productivity and participation. After an almost unprecedented 24 consecutive years of economic growth, we certainly have achieved population growth, productivity is declining, there's record high unemployment, but where's the prosperity?

Download the summary

The report says that to drive higher levels of prosperity through economic growth, we must increase productivity and participation. If we are to achieve these goals we need to encourage those currently not in the workforce, especially older Australians and women, to enter, re?enter and stay in work, where they choose to do so.

Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey laments that by 2055 around 22.6 per cent of the Australian population will be aged over 65 and that there will only be 2.7 people of traditional working age to support the older population.

... the Intergenerational Report shows the growth in the costs of many services, especially in health, that will put pressure on the budget and threaten the sustainability of those services. Every day our spending exceeds Government revenue by more than $100 million. To make up the shortfall we have to borrow that $100 million per day.

If spending exceedes revenue, surely it's time to reconsider and redefine what's meant by "economic growth"? Family or individual households can't be maintained in this manner, and neither can businesses.

Income tax and goods and services tax, and taxes on superannuation – the taxes that affect us – will have to climb in order to fund the things we are going to need!

Beyond 2017-18 Commonwealth grants to states for hospitals will increase only in line with the population and the consumer price index. But the cost of running hospitals is continuing to climb. Not meeting that cost is unrealistic (unless the states meet it by doing something such as lifting the goods and services tax) but it holds back the projected deficit.

SMH> Intergenerational report how labor was framed

Australians could face record taxes in order to balance the budget if the full suite of government’s economic measures are not put in place, according to the recent intergenerational report!

But the future of the Australian workforce will mean Australians will need to work longer and harder over the next 40 years in order to sustain the nation’s economy.

Productivity

David Richardson from the Australia Institute questions our Treasurer Joe Hockey on the importance of workforce participation and technology and the role that health technology. By implication, education is going to play in economic growth into the future productivity, but none of those things are in the Intergenerational Report. It's assumed that productivity growth is 1.5 per cent for now and for ever, no matter what. Tertiary education, and skill training, is becoming prohibitevely more expensive, and based on a business model - hardly encouraging productivity and cutting-edge innovation!

While the recent Intergenerational Report references how technology is changing our lives it failed to properly quantify the shrinking correlation between future productivity gains and job growth. The Intergenerational Report expects Australia's past level of productivity growth to carry on into the next 40 years, largely on the back of technological change and innovation. On the contrary, our big exports of education and housing are hardly productive, and manufacturing is declining.

High immigration may have no effect on productivity, as data shows, or as the Australian experience suggests, may reduce it. And it can be irrelevant to participation.

Participation
Participation refers to how the workforce can allow people to work later in life, as well as how workforce options and flexibility can build the participation of more young people and women. So apart from population factors, participation and productivity hold the key to future economic prosperity.

Currently, three fifths of our population increase is through migration with only two fifths from natural increase, so it’s already pretty high by historic levels.

The IG report notes the importance of migration to the country's economic performance acknowledging over the years, migrants "tended to be younger" than the resident population and therefore "helped push labour force participation rates". On the contrary, unemployment within migrant groups is higher than averate, and migrants actually don't stay "younger" but age at the same rate as everybody else- one year more per year!

Population

Australia's population growth rate has increased above historic trends, largely due to immigration. Since the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000 the population of Australia has grown by 25 per cent. The ABS predicts population will be around 40 million in 2061 and up to 70 million by 2101.

Dr Jane O’Sullivan, of Queensland University, makes the point that each new person we need to spend at least $200,000 on infrastructure. (Some would say more like $500,000). Rather than producing prosperity, our unwieldy economy is costing more to maintain.

Australia will become even bigger, denser, and more multicultural over the next 5 years. Some ‘Aussie Dreams’ may start to disappear such as the ‘quarter acre block’ and along with it the Hills Hoist garden shed and enough space for a game of backyard cricket. People are to be more crammed together, for the benefit of "economic growth"? If lifestyles can't be maintained, then who benefits?

McCrindle- population growth in the media

Our economy is staggering under the weight of heavy demands, yet illogically it's assumed that we can "offset" our ageing population's costs through high population growth?

A growing number of voters say they would now support an increase in the rate of the GST, following a year in which the tax has been a simmering political issue. The Abbott government on Thursday revealed plans to subject downloaded music, movies and books to the GST in what Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey calls an 'integrity' measure, not a broadening of the GST. So, welfare is being cut, piece by piece, and taxes are increasing. Where's the prosperity?

Experience shows us that rapid population growth is no guarantee of economic prosperity, and conversely a stable population does not doom a country to economic failure.

Koalas and other iconic wildlife are vanishing from our bushland as the trees they call home continue to be cleared for farmland. They’re plastered across our tourism brochures, yet government policies are putting them at risk.
The NSW Baird government is scrapping the Native Vegetation Act – one of the most important protections for koalas in our state.  While the focus remains on native vegetation, a real and important issue is the wildlife, and ecological systems, that inherently belong to these habitats.  It’s assumed they will just “move on” and re-home themselves conveniently elsewhere!   The “elsewhere” is getting harder and harder to find. Article from Australian Wildlife Protection Council

The Native Vegetation Act 2003 (the Act) frames the way landholders manage native vegetation in NSW by preventing broadscale clearing unless it improves or maintains environmental outcomes.

Data collated by the Productivity Commission for their review of native vegetation regulation found that a decline in overall clearance did take place from the early 1980s to the early 2000s in all Australian states and territories (Productivity Commission 2004)  However, of the 74,000 hectares of land cleared in New South Wales in 2005, 40 percent (ie 30,000ha) was cleared illegally (ie without prior approval; NSW AOG 2006).

In 2003, the NSW Government pledged $3.5m to establish a satellite monitoring system in the state (although some parties have claimed the receiving department did not end up using the money for this purpose; The Wilderness Society 2008).

A biodiversity report released last December contained 43 recommendations for significant change, including repealing the Native Vegetation Act and other legislation that had been plaguing farmer productivity for decades.  It also recommended streamlining of development assessment where land use change can occur, which places farming development on an even playing field with other types of development.  It’s commercial interests, of profit-increasing, over conservation and protection of biodiversity.  Instead of a triple bottom-line, the bottom line will be profits, developments and economic progress!

Key to the proposal is the removal of the requirement that land clearing only be allowed if it improves or maintains environmental outcome, and shifting approval for vegetation clearing to the planning system.  North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) spokesperson Dailan Pugh said most rural councils had yet to identify or map high-conservation value vegetation for protection and, where they had ,the National Party had intervened to stop it.

A host of environmental groups, including World Wildlife Fund  and the National Parks Association, condemned the review of the state’s biodiversity legislation for neutering the office of environment and say it will lead to wide-scale land clearing and loss of species.

The review panel report that recommended this backward legislation also recommended conserving habitat at a regional or even state scale. Farmers, it said, had been left to carry an unfair share of responsibility for preserving nature in the state. “Regional or State” level is a way of leaving it up to individuals, who will probably be loaded with conflicts of interests! It’s political abandonment, to make way for housing and urban growth.

Of course the National Party and the farmers will welcome this news, and gives them more license for land clearing and short-term profits.
Mr Evans, chief executive of NSW National Parks Association, said the rate of land-clearing from agriculture had fallen 68 per cent since the Native Vegetation Act was passed in 2003. So, the Act was working!

The Wilderness Society NSW Campaign Manager Belinda Fairbrother said: “Weakening wildlife protection laws will place our threatened species in peril at a time when bold action is required to reverse the ongoing decline in our state’s rich biological diversity… We are resolutely opposed to any weakening of our state’s wildlife protection and land clearing laws”. Backward Australia will be more cleared at a time of multiple environmental and climate change threats, and will be a the cost of long term sustainability, and ultimately more food security threats.

“The Native Vegetation Act is among the most important nature conservation laws in NSW because it protects so much of the state’s wildlife like koalas and gliders from indiscriminate destruction. “If new laws weaken protections for land and wildlife, Mike Baird will be remembered as the Premier who took us back to the dark days of broadscale land clearing” said Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski.

(image: paddock containing remnant native vegetation:CSIRO )

Labor leader Luke Foley said native animals, birds and native bushland would be the losers after the Government said it would implement all 43 recommendations of a review of the state’s biodiversity legislation, completed last year.

Sydney’s urban sprawl had wiped out market gardens on peripheral land since first settlement. The problem now is Sydney’s expansion has reached the last phase, where in 20 to 50 years the sprawl will eradicate unprotected farms. So, instead of containing the limits of population growth, more land clearing will “fix” the problem, and mow down the constraints of trees, grasslands and bush in the path of “progress”.

Australia continues to have a net loss of biodiversity and the United Nations reports that we are entering an extinction crisis. What does this government and some farmers have against a healthy environment?
Contradictorily, at the same time as the government is establishing a $100 million survival fund to stop a ‘race to extinction’! The commitment was made after Opposition Leader Luke Foley promised $150 million to create new national parks including a Great Koala National Park on the north coast — as a nod to the NSW Labor Party’s preference allies the Greens. It’s easy to make political promises, throw out spin, and money to environmental problems, but actually have tight laws and policies protecting native vegetation and wildlife is far to holistic and intrinsic for slippery politicians who pander to lobby groups.

See also: SANA | Palestinian factions’ alliance condemns PLO climb-down on situation in Yarmouk (12/4/15)

Many refugee advocates seem to be entirely unaware that Syria - constantly damned by the mainstream media - is the only country which has given permanent status to the Palestinians who lost their country to Israel. Knowing this gives us a perspective on why US/Israel/NATO is so keen to destroy Syria: their chief target is to destroy any chance of Palestine reestablising itself from Syria. In this article the author, a former resident of Aleppo, with relatives still in Syria, describes some of the history of Palestine-Syrian cooperation and how recently foreign 'Arab Spring' money has religiously radicalised resistance movements in Palestinian refuges in Syria to turn against the secular Syrian Government, to the great satisfaction of Palestine's enemies. Author's name updated 12-4-2015

Original source of image

The situation in Yarmouk (if not in all the region) is so surreal, that I neither can imagine nor describe it without feeling as if I'm drunk or having drug-induced hallucinations. It all looks incoherent to me.

The Syrian government helped "Hamas" for decades, and had suffered international sanctions because of this. It supported them, and gave them safe haven when every other Arab nation refused.

The Syrian government trained Hamas in digging underground tunnels to fight Israel, as a resistance movement. Then the "Arab Spring" started, and the leaders of "Hamas", who are "Muslim Brotherhood" in origin, changed loyalties, thanks to the temptation of the money of Qatar; the allurement of the Great Neo-Ottoman Erdogan; and the glamour of ruling the whole Middle East, starting with Egypt and Tunisia (by their fellow Muslim Brotherhood). They thought they had become a Super Power that didn't need Iranian aid anymore, nor a haven in Syria, nor Hezbollah's training.

It would have been way better if they had just left Syria when it needed friends to stay with it in this time of crisis, or if they had just become neutral and not joined the government or the rebels.

Instead, they stabbed the government in the back! Using all the techniques that had been taught by Syrians, Lebanese, and Iranians to use against the Israelis, they used them against Syrians! They spread the "knowledge" of digging tunnels and taught it to the Free Syrian Army and all those crazy rebels; they taught them how to make bombs in a certain way which both Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence knew that no other Hamas knew!

Then, they created a military faction called "Aknaf Beit al-Maqdes # The Environs of Jerusalem" (ABM), between 26th of Dec 2012 - early Mar 2013, who occupied Al-Yarmouk Refugee Camp and used it as their base against the Syrian government. Their name should mean that they would fight in Jerusalem, not in a refugee camp in Damascus, but that is logic, and we are talking about living a surreal nightmare where nothing makes any sense! That ABM prevented any relations with the Syrian government on grounds that it was going to fall sooner or later, or because it was "infidel", and they don't need its help! People in the camp started to starve, and many died because of extreme starvation as there was no way for food to come in!

Dozen of conciliation attempts had been rejected at the last minute because of the moody and elusive ABM militia, while blaming it on the "murderer regime" of the mainstream media. The Syrian Government chose to use other Palestinian movements to try to regain the camp from the ABM, and the Syrian Arab Army (Syria's army) besieged the whole camp to keep it isolated from Damascus, although it's not that easy because the camp is almost a part of the greater Damascus today. Before these crises, unless you were one of the camp's inhabitants, you would not have known whether you were inside or outside the camp's borders.

In 1948 and 1967 Yamouk was 8 km away from Damascus, but not anymore because of the urban expansion through the intervening decades. The Syrian president didn't want to be involved in a war against any Palestinian movement, because he didn't want history to say that he had once killed a Palestinian refugee. They were defending Damascus city when necessary, and they preferred other loyal Palestinian movements to do the work. (A minor scale proxy war? So be it).

All that time though, Hamas refused to admit their relationship with the ABM militias, claiming that they were individuals from Hamas who took their own decisions, and that they weren't coordinating with the head of Hamas. Everyone though knew that no other than the notorious Khaled Mish'al, one of the main heads of Hamas, who lived in Syria for more than a decade (2001-2012) and who is living today in Qatar, was the creator of the ABM! A few days ago, Mesh'al reportedly made contact with one the leaders of loyal Palestinian resistance movements in Damascus, Ahmed Jibril, asking for them to assist the ABM against ISIL! For 2 years, he maintained that ABM were not part of Hamas, but lately, he seems more responsible and aware.

'Rebels' refused to use allocated battlefields, preferred civilian areas

Many other nearby towns and small cities had succeeded in conciliation attempts, agreeing that all the armed gangs of "al-Nusra / al-Qa'eda" could leave peacefully to go to other areas. There was a government plan to push them out to some arid areas where there were no civilians, where fighting would be easier and civilian causalities would not be involved.

So, where did these armed gangs go? Right to Yarmouk Refugee Camp, where the ABM greeted them like brothers!

Well, those very "brothers" (who included Palestinians, Syrians, and multinational foreigners) pledged allegiance to no one but the wealthy ISIL, which pays way more than any other terrorist group these days, and which was in the nearby town of el-Hajar el-Aswad.

From el-Hajar el-Aswad, 400 ISIL militants invaded the Refugee Camp at night, in the early hours of April the 1st, where another 200 Nusra fighters joined them, and started their usual orgy of killing against whoever remained of the unfortunate people and the elusive ABM fighters.

The outcome was that ABM fighters divided into 3 factions: One division joined ISIL; the other resisted it and fought it; and the third surrendered to the loyal Palestinian parties who besieged the camp, and therefore, to the Syrian Army.

ISIL had invaded most of the camp, and its members beheaded the very elusive heads of ABM militias. They removed the Palestinian flags from the tops of the buildings and trampled them!

The population of Yarmouk before the Syrian crisis was around 150,000. Although mostly Palestinians, many Syrians lived there as well, as individual Syrian families or through intermarriage with Palestinians. Most of them fled within the last few years. Some even made it all the way to Gaza. There they suffered in the last war with Israel, so that they said wherever they go the war is running after them. Some of them left for other areas in Syria. Some left Syria completely. Some went to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, where they discovered the great difference between Palestinian Refugee camps in Syria and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. In Syrian refugee camps they lived well, with full rights except for voting and citizenship, just like the holders of Green Cards in the U.S., or Permanent Residence in Canada, and a special passport which permitted them to travel. They were entitled to free education and health care, like any Syrian citizen. In the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon they had only minimum rights as human beings, not including the right to work They suffered from the double racial stigma of being both Syrian and Palestinian - the very two nationalities that are so hated by half the Lebanese. (That is another long story for another time.)

After all these events, the number left in Yarmouk before ISIL invasion was less than 20,000.

Now, because ISIL is in the camp, it's a completely different story for the Syrian Arab Army. They won't wait until ISIL becomes a threat to Damascus. The Palestinian authority in Ramallah has told the Syrian government to do whatever they need to do. [#fnYmk1" id="txtYmk1"> 1 ] That means the refugee camp is likely to be flattened like a parking lot very soon, unfortunately.

Hamas has a different attitude. They are asking all fighting parties in the camp to stop the bloodshed between the "brothers"! I bet they are still going to use any Syrian attack against the camp as another smear to demonize the Syrian "regime"!

As PLO Secretary Khaled ‘Abdel-Majeed reportedly said, "If the Syrian Arab Army were dropping perfume they would probably be accused of using chemical weapons". Those mysterious "Barrel Bombs" sound as if they are way more dangerous than any atomic bomb in the mainstream media! Like parrots, they keep talking about that elusive weapon as if it was the most dangerous weapon ever used in wars!  [#fnYmk2" id="txtYmk2"> 2 ]

Syria's Palestinian refuges major target of Israel, US NATO war on Syria

Israel is living its real Spring! One of the main goals of that war on Syria, was to destroy the Palestinian refugee suburbs (known as camps) in it, and to create hatred and enmity between Palestinians and Syrians. Each Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and other surrounding states is a memory for the people. They are stubs and seeds for future resistance against Israel, a motivation for all Palestinians to go back home one day in the future.

No wonder that those camps have been attacked everywhere in Syria, for no reason but to scatter their inhabitants and turn them into double and triple refugees, and maybe, to leave that land and go as far away as Latin America, where they do indeed accept Palestinian refugees !!!

Israel's proxy war against Palestinians

But, Israel didn't carry out these acts itself. It had a proxy war. Coordinating with the entire Axis (NATO, Gulf states, ISIL), they succeeded in one of their goals. Whether Hamas knew that and didn't mind because it was drunk with sectarianism and filthy petro-dollars; or they didn't know and thought that they were doing the right thing for their people: the result is a complete catastrophe for Palestinians!

Today, most Syrians say that they don't care about Palestine anymore, and to let them go and liberate their country themselves! I refuse to say so, because I know that this is exactly what Israel wants, however I have a real problem with few of Hamas's corrupted heads and leaders. If the movement doesn't kick them out, or split from Hamas and create another group under another name, there will be no solution for that complex problem.

The wound is so deep, and such treason usually has no cure for many generations to come. I heard for the last eight months that a split has already happened inside Hamas, as the people fighting on the ground in Gaza are very upset with their corrupted leaders in Qatar and Turkey. The fighters in Gaza still have good relations with both Iran and Hezbollah, while their leaders do not, and still have a dream of the Muslim Brotherhood controlling states and countries, thinking this to be an opportunity that comes once a century. They can't let it go without gambling all their resources on it. Turkey and Qatar would make Khaled Mesh'al live in five star hotels with a seven digit bank account, way better than the life of Yarmouk Refugee Camp.

But neither Turkey or Qatar will give him a bullet to fight Israel.

Plus these states are blackmailing those leaders and putting pressure on them by using the People Cards: They are ready to rebuild Gaza, and to feed the Palestinians, but that is not for free. In exchange, I guess, they have to turn into a political authority, just like the one in Ramallah, and get rid of their arms and missiles. More illusions, more promises, more wishful thinking and blah blah blah.

We all saw what happened after the Oslo Accords in the early 90's till today: NOTHING! Or let's say, nothing for the Palestinians, while ongoing benefits for the Israelis.

It's a surreal situation that shows how stupid humans can become. On the subject of Palestinians, the Israeli-Gulf-NATO axis has won and succeeded 100%, unfortunately.

NOTES

#fnYmk1" id="fnYmk1">1.#txtYmk1"> ↑  See "PLO: Syrian leadership deals with Yarmouk Camp with sensitivity, any decision will be jointly made."

#fnYmk2" id="fnYmk2">3.#txtYmk2"> ↑ 
With regard to the mythical and legendary weapon of "Barrel Bombs"! It seems that everyone in the whole world is talking about these weapons, and I wonder why, if such a powerful weapon exists in Syria, why the Syrians didn't use it against Israel to liberate the Golan Heights at least? Or is this mythical weapon a pretext to try to prevent he Syrian army from using its airforce against the terrorists? What should the Syrian army use? Swords and Daggers ? It's a war, and it's a very dirty one, against criminal terrorists that have no mercy in their hearts. Those terrorists are launching daily random shells from what they called "Hell Cannon". Hell Cannon is a weapon used against civilians, as a punishment because they didn't join the "Blessed Revolution", and because they supported the "Infidel Regime"! The UN doesn't see those arms, nor the slaughtering, nor the massacres, nor the suicide bombers in children's schools and busy markets. It sees only the mighty "Barrel Bombs"!

‘I was to play Rachmaninoff, not preach politics’ – fired pianist Valentina Lisitsa to RT. This article first published April 07, 2015 22:19 http://rt.com/news/247297-canada-orchestra-pianist-ukraine/ The Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa has become even more famous than she's already been among the online community, after her political views cost her a job with a Canadian orchestra. And she doesn't plan on being silenced, she told RT.

See also: Toronto Symphony Bans Pianist Critical of Kiev Regime (9/4/15), twitter.com/ValLisitsa, Canada's Immigration Minister Delivers Pro-War Speech against Russia (18/3/15) and Kiev Becomes First European Capital to Openly Glorify Criminal Ideology (10/4/15).

"I always separated music from politics and tried to keep enormous distance between the two," the pianist told RT's 'In the Now' host Anissa Naouai on Tuesday, after news of how she's been treated by Canada's Toronto Symphony Orchestra has spread globally.

The hashtag #LetValentinaPlay surged in popularity on social media, and thousands of supporters spoke out for the artist, who was offered to be paid not to play.

READ MORE: Canadian orchestra drops Ukraine-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa over anti-Kiev posts

"I was about to play Rachmaninoff concertos with the orchestra, not to preach politics," Lisitsa, who was fired allegedly for her political views rather than lack of skill, told RT. The orchestra hasn't returned RT's requests to comment on the situation so far.

"I never expected my music to be silenced," the pianist said, adding that she's "totally for freedom of speech, freedom of discussion and freedom of heated argument."

"That's what I've been doing on Twitter," she said, explaining her extensive tweeting on Ukraine on the social platform, with her point of view not falling in line with the popular Western narrative, allegedly costing her a job.

This article is based on a press release dated 9 April 2015 from Ahmed Majdalani of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), published by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) in Damascus. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said any decision about the terrorist-besieged Yarmouk Camp neighborhood will be coordinated with the Syrian government. According to this information, the Syrian government has so far evacuated 12,000 people from Yarmouk (which is a permanent suburb) to temporary shelters in Damascus in order to protect them from ISIS. It is thought that the ISIS attack on Yarmouk may be part of a plot by enemies of the Syrian government to reduce the Palestinian population whom Syria has given a safe home now for years, in order to make the Palestinian 'problem' disappear. Candobetter.net comment: If this were true then the major beneficiaries would be Israel/US and their allies. See Voltaire.net article alleging Mossad involved in these attacks. http://www.voltairenet.org/article177039.html

Terrorists, mostly from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in cahoots with Jabhat al-Nusra, entered the neighborhood recently and have been committing terror acts against its inhabitants, which include Palestinian refugees and Syrian citizens.

Any future steps to be taken in Yarmouk Camp will be coordinated between Syria and the Palestinians, Member of the PLO Executive Committee Ahmed Majdalani told a press conference on Thursday.

“The decision will be jointly made by the two sides to retake the camp from the obscurantist terrorists who seize it now,” added Majdalani, who is on a visit to Syria.

He stressed that the Syrian leadership has been dealing with the situation in the neighborhood, which is located in southern Damascus city, with a high level of sensitivity given its special status as it symbolically stands as “the capital of Palestinian Diaspora” in terms of its size, the population and the national and historical role it has played for the launch of “the Palestinian revolution of today.”

Stemming from this sensitivity, Majdalani said, there has not been “any Syrian security solution” in order not to look as if there is a Syrian attitude to liquidate the Palestinian cause.

“Nor has there been Palestinian intervention so that it wouldn’t appear as a Palestinian infighting,” he added.

Terrorists have aborted attempted political solutions

Speaking about the options for the coming period, Majdalani said former options of reaching a political solution were aborted by the terrorists and their criminal acts of killing, kidnapping and rape against civilians.

He said, "This leaves us with other options of going for a security solution that takes into consideration the partnership with the Syrian state in view of its sovereignty over its territories.”

He made it clear that the issue is first and foremost in the Syrian state’s hands in terms of preserving the security and stability of the Palestinians and Syrians alike.

About the results of calls made with the Syrian government and Palestinian factions regarding the arising situation, Majdalani said it has been agreed with the Ministry of Social Affairs to secure the requirements of “safe evacuation” for residents who want to leave Yarmouk Camp.

Makeshift residential centers will be secured for those in Qudssaya area, along with garnering the necessary humanitarian and relief support, in addition to the support provided by the Syrian government, he added.

Out of the 17,500 residents who were in the neighborhood before ISIS entered it, approximately 12000 Palestinians have been evacuated in cooperation with the Syrian government.

Over the past two days, Majdalani has met with a number of officials and stressed that implicating the Palestinian refugee camps in the current events in Syria is aimed at attempting to liquidate the Palestinian issue and ending the refugees’ right to return home.

Qabas/ H. Said

About three years ago, I made the big mistake of looking too closely into my bathroom mirror. Yuck! All I could see was nothing but wrinkles and gray hair. But wait -- I was never supposed to have actually ever gotten old! This was never supposed to have happened! But it did -- at least to my body if not my mind.

"So," I said to myself, "what the freak can I do with OLD?" I know! I'll become an actor! And so I did.

Fortunately, there are several film schools in my city where student directors are always looking for talent to use in their films -- especially talent that will work for free just to have an excuse to get out of the house. And so suddenly I found myself in big demand. I mean really. How many little old ladies do you know who are willing to throw themselves into an acting career? Not all that many. So I seemed to have pretty much cornered the market. Because there's really not all that much competition.

At auditions even for non-paying student-film roles, believe it or not, there are usually scores of child actors, ingenues and even beautiful leading ladies, all dying to try out for a part. But there just aren't that many little old ladies out there to compete with, thank you very much.

And so now I have found one very successful way of taking advantage of the age factor that is currently barreling down on all of us like a steam-roller with no way to avoid. And there are also bound to be other ways to make the most of our "senior" years too (such as finally realizing that "war" is a racket, an obscenity and a con-game, something that most people apparently have not reached the age of having finally acquired enough wisdom to realize at all -- and then working our hearts out to stop all "war" from ever happening again).

In the past three years, I have been in over one hundred student films, playing all kinds of grandma roles -- sweet loving grandmas, for instance. And society grandmas, dying cancer patient grandmas, cowgirl grandmas, evil grandmas, war-correspondent grandmas, psychotic grandmas, ghostly grandmas, college-professor grandmas and corpse grandmas, as well as grandmas who are doctors, lawyers and judges.

But my favorite grandma role of all time is playing a grandma zombie!

PS: Let's face it. Getting old sucks eggs. Nothing fun at all about having creaky joints, being mostly ignored for not being sexy enough, having trouble sleeping, facing possible dementia, living on cat food, facing multiple surgeries, having one's teeth fall out, etc. So we gotta always be constantly looking for ways to make growing older more fun on some level or another.

Turning into a grumpy frump, believing the lies and hatred being constantly broadcast on Fox News, and/or just plain giving up on life are definitely three ways not to have fun!

PPS: "Some will rob you with a shotgun, some with a fountain pen." Elders these days are being targeted as victims by bad guys in several different ways. Street thugs may mug elders for their pocket money -- but probate thugs can mug our elders for their life savings as well. http://marygsykes.com/2015/03/27/in-chicago-what-does-a-nursing-home-do-when-its-understaffed-break-out-the-chemical-restraints/

In Chicago, for instance, probate sharks seek out rich widows, get them declared incompetent, throw them into stark "assisted care" institutions where they are medicated into submission, clean out their safe deposit boxes and then throw them out into the streets to die when there is no money left. http://marygsykes.com/about/

Or else your sleazy relatives rob your rightful heirs of their rightful share of your estate after you're gone: First published here.

But nobody messes with zombie grandmas!