(We) can do better

Would you be surprised to know that Australia supports financing motley militia gangs to fight the lawfully elected Bashar al-Assad Government of Syria on the basis of false documents in the mainstream media? Robert Stuart is an anti-war activist whose site records correspondence with the BBC and other mass media about broadcasts which seem to have contained false war documents or in other ways present documents in a faulty way. In this latest correspondence, Stuart complains to the UK Telegraph newspaper that it is recycling as new, the same old footage also recycled as if new by UK Television Channel 4 (the subject of another article here: "Complaint to UK Channel 4 of reuse and relabeling of old film for anti-Syrian propaganda purposes - by Robert Stuart"). We publish Stuart's letters here in order to help create a true record of what is really happening.

Robert Stuart

12:07 AM 19 July 2015

to inquiries

Bashar al-Assad's airmen laugh as they drop barrel bombs on fellow Syrians – The Telegraph, 20 May 2015

Dear Sir or Madam,

I wish to complain that the above print and web article breaches Clause 1 of IPSO's Editors' Code of Practice, relating to Accuracy.

The article refers to “New footage obtained by al-Jazeera” in the subheading and states in the first paragraph that "New footage has emerged showing Syrian aircrew using barrel bombs”.

The Telegraph includes the al Jazeera footage in the online version of its article. However the section of the video commencing at 1 minute 54 seconds, in which a crew member uses a cigarette to light the fuse on a long, slender munition which is then ejected overboard, appears at 4 minutes 32 seconds in this You Tube video which was published on 27 October 2012.

At least part of the al Jazeera footage was therefore over two and half years old – and possibly even older – at the time the Telegraph article was published.

Further statements in the Telegraph article suggest that the al Jazeera footage is contemporary:

- The inclusion of a quote from President Assad from February 2015 denying that his government uses “barrel bombs” indicates that the al Jazeera footage can be considered subsequent evidence countering this claim.

- Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is quoted saying of the al Jazeera footage: “It shows the casual and indiscriminate way in which Syrian regime forces are dropping these horrific weapons out of helicopters onto civilians below. For months we have seen reports of barrel bombs hitting hospitals and schools, killing thousands.” The use of present tenses (“are dropping”, “have seen”) strongly indicates that the al Jazeera footage is to be understood as depicting current events.

Yours faithfully

Robert Stuart

https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/
Attachments area
Preview YouTube video Leaked: Regime Forces Dropping Barrel Bombs on Homes, Celebrating

See also: The Crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 : Unanswered Questions, One Year Later (16/7/15) Global Research, Donbass Militia did not down MH17 – Russian radars data (16/7/15) Global Research.

Candobetter.net Editor: NewsCorp have published an article, "Full transcript: Russian-backed rebels ransack the wreckage of MH17 in shocking 17-minute video", but the video does not bear this allegation out for me. It just looks to me as if the people examining the baggage around the crash site are trying to work out where the plane came from and documenting their findings on film. Julie Bishop, Minister for Trade and Foreign Affairs' 'disgust' at these actions seems inflammatory and unjustified. The soldiers searching the site initially think the plane is a Sukhoi-25 fighter plane which they shot at. Then they realise it is a passenger plane and they then think that the Sukhoi-25 fighter plane they brought down must have shot down the passenger plane in order to implicate the East Ukrainian self-defence forces. They hear that the Sukhoi-25 fighter plane went down in a nearby village and that people escaped with parachutes. Note, we have linked to a you-tube version of the Newscorp video. Judge for yourself: The following article published on RT originally and original contains copyright video footage from Newscorp. See http://www.rt.com/news/310082-mh17-video-another-aircraft/

News Corp Australia has obtained a previously unknown video allegedly taken minutes after Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed in Ukraine exactly one year ago. The voices cited by the transcript of the full footage claim a warplane shot down the Boeing.

The four-minute clip posted by News Corp Australia is an extract from what is claimed to be a longer 17-minute video, which allegedly depicts the immediate aftermath of the MH17 Boeing crash. The clip shows rebel fighters who arrived at the scene, first looking to get things under control. Their commander is heard ordering them to clear the area of civilians and onlookers and search for the black boxes.

In the clip a man's voice is heard, which is thought to be that of a rebel commander, who receives a number of phone calls apparently from other rebel fighters at different sites where the debris fell. The man is heard saying “What? There’s another plane?” and orders the men to “establish a perimeter and keep civilians away”.

READ MORE: Israeli-made air-to-air missile may have downed MH17 - report

The four-minute clip posted by the News.com.au is followed by a transcript from a longer 17-minute video, which has not been released. News Corp Australia told RT that they "stand by the transcript, it was taken from the full video, which investigators now have."

The text cites a rebel commander as saying that "the Sukhoi [fighter jet] brought down the plane and we brought down the Sukhoi."

Later on, the man is quoted as saying that "there’s two planes taken down,” while a voice in the background says, "the fighter jet brought down this one [MH17 Boeing], and our people brought down the fighter. They [the Ukrainians] decided to do it this way, to make it look like we have brought down the plane."

According to the transcript, there were also between two and "five parachute jumpers" who landed at the nearby Grabove village. These included a pilot “roaming about Rassypnoe" [a nearby village] and a commander ordering his men go and get him immediately.

One of the rebels is also wondering who and why they [the Boeing] was given permission to fly over the warzone.

The four-minute clip shows rebels searching the debris for black boxes and finding one, as well as personal IDs of the passengers, which they then filmed on the camera.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop reacted upon the release of the video by saying that she could not verify its authenticity. “It is sickening to watch and, 12 months on from the downing of MH17, it is deeply concerning that this footage has emerged now," she told the Nine Network.

Bishop also said “it is certainly consistent with all that we were told, the advice that we received two months ago, that flight MH17 had been shot down by a... missile,” she said.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was downed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.

The Royal Commission recommended burns to over 5% of our natural landscape annually have finally been shown to be a waste of time, money and horrifically damaging to our biodiversity.
The recent review (link is external) of the burn targets used 12 criteria to measure how effective the blunt hectare-based target is compared to the proposed risk-reduction target. The hectare burns scored 13/48 (a serious flunk!) while a risk-based target scored 40/48. This is what EEG and thousands of others have been saying since day one. This excellent and informative summary originally published by Environment East Gippsland (EEG) here: http://www.eastgippsland.net.au/news/planned-burns-review-and-recommendations-%E2%80%93-admits-failure-%E2%80%93-plans-for-more-effective-risk See also AWPC fire and wildlife conference for more background.

In Feb 2015 Environment Minister, Lisa Neville asked for a review of the 5% burn target and their effectiveness. Tony Pearce, the Inspector General of Emergency Management released this report and recommendations in April/May - a surprisingly quick turnaround time.

It was welcome relief to see the review recommend a shift from just burning, to look at more effective measures to keep people safe and the environment protected. Let’s hope our wildlife and ecosystems can recover after five years of horrendous arson attacks across millions of hectares.
One worrying aspect was the suggestion that it could take another year of the old burning regime before they can implement the new direction of reducing risk rather than reducing our environment. They still need to develop their capability on risk-based planning they say. With a score of 13/48, and maximum environmental damage to boot, maybe they’d be better off to not burn at all until they develop their new program.

What the report said

The Review acknowledges that Rec 56 of the Bushfire Royal Commission just had a broad 5% target policy to burn areas that “are not of equal value”, and that it refers to public land “but remains silent on whether that land is treatable or untreatable”. p2.

In 2013, Neil Comrie the Bushfire Royal Commission Implementation Monitor stated clearly in his report that the 5% target was not achievable, affordable or sustainable. This was repeated in subsequent reports.

The Code of Fire Management has 2 primary objectives – one being to minimise the risk of bushfire and protect human life. The other which has been totally neglected in the last 5 years is:

To maintain or improve the resilience of natural ecosystems and their ability to deliver services such as biodiversity, water, carbon storage and forest products. P 30

How they measure ecosystem resilience is still a question. DELWP don’t have the capacity despite it being a requirement of them to ensure such resilience. It’s still ‘in development’.

The review stated that a risk based approach was:

• More efficient at achieving fuel management
• Provides better incentives (not relying on a numbers game)
• More adaptive, transparent, efficient and equitable.

After years of convincing the public that leaf litter is a killer, the Department fire managers now have to re-set their messaging to convince a fearful public that they were a bit wrong, and there are now better ways to make communities safer. They mention shared responsibility - with other agencies and by encouraging people to be responsible for their own assets we assume. There is also a welcome acknowledgment of the serious health and economic impacts from burn-off smoke.
They talk of community preparedness, shared responsibility, improved rapid first-strike attack, fire shelters and evacuation. We would also like to see them consider other options such as remote heat sensing cameras installed at key points, enhancing the natural fire resistance of our forests and less financial incentives to keep fires going.

Another welcome sentence was:

...bushfire risk can be reduced through activities other than fuel management, such as land use planning controls, community education, suppression strategies, availability of fire refuges, or evacuations…”

and that:

…recommendation 56 (5% burn target)… is only one of many relating to bushfire management.

There was a telling chart which showed the level of planned burns in relation to major bushfire events. There was no correlation that could be drawn between more burns and less bushfires.
Modelling by DELWP estimates that the 5% burn target reduces bushfire risk to people by about 18%, whereas the risk based approach could achieve a 30% risk reduction for the same cost.

The environment gets a look in

The review received 127 written submissions from groups or individuals. Most were very concerned at the devastating impacts the burns policy has had on their local and the wider environment. The policy evaluation which the review carried out showed that under the criteria ‘ensure the resilience of natural ecosystems and their services’, the 5% burn target score ZERO out of four. Under the proposed new approach, it scores three out of four. Not only that, but it is also more effective at keeping people safe and the best return on money spent. A fire safety plan where ecosystem protection scores four out of four would be even better though.

The report also mentions the need to monitor water and air quality in relation to burns. There is a need for more information, reporting, performance measurements and reviews, and in a way that is accessible to the public it says. All this would be conditional on funding and resources of course.
The RMIT was engaged to carry out an independent analysis of the impact on the environment. Under the 5% target it said:

The primacy of the hectares burned target dis-incentivises incorporation of ecosystem resilience considerations… Ecosystem resilience can be actively harmed by large scale burns when they destroy micro-ecosystems and fauna lack alternative habitats within reach. Appendix 4, p11.

But…

Regarding ‘fuel reduction’ it also states that:

Given planned burning is the most effective approach to reducing the fuel hazard over large areas, the practice is likely to remain a significant component of the Bushfire Management Program. p46.

So while it states that there are many tools in the tool box and burning was a costly, relatively ineffective and environmentally destructive tool, it will still be a significant part of annual fire safety measures. This was the worrying sentence within an otherwise refreshing document. The only other criticism is that the review was five years too late. But we thank Lisa Neville for realising that such a rethink was finally needed.

Environment East Gippsland (EEG) has won its fourth successful legal case, in a remarkable series for this David vs the Goliath of logging and destroying habitat. Over 2000 hectares have been set aside for owl habitat in a legal win for the owls. This was EEG's fourth Court case challenging the government's non-adherence to its own environment laws and it was settled on 17 July 2015, in favour of the owls!

EEG, DELWP and VicForests have agreed that the environment department (DELWP) take action to adhere to legal obligations and increase owl protected areas as well as assess the damage done to owl habitat and study owls post-fire to inform whether new protection zones are necessary. Logging in key areas of unprotected owl habitat scheduled for clearfelling will be halted for 4 years while this work is underway.

The department and VicForests have agreed to:

- move 9 stands of old growth forest off the logging schedule and into protection zones
- put a 4 year moratorium on another 16 stands of prime owl habitat planned for clearfelling
- increase the size of all owl protected areas that are below legal minimums in East Gippsland
- task biologists to study owls post-fire and consider if additional owl protection measures are needed
- carry out assessments of burnt owl zones
- pay a portion of our considerable legal costs

The department and VicForests have agreed to:

- move 9 stands of old growth forest off the logging schedule and into protection zones
- put a 4 year moratorium on another 16 stands of prime owl habitat planned for clearfelling
- increase the size of all owl protected areas that are below legal minimums in East Gippsland
- task biologists to study owls post-fire and consider if additional owl protection measures are needed
- carry out assessments of burnt owl zones
- pay a portion of our considerable legal costs

Specific areas include:

An additional 180ha added to a protection site for the Powerful Owl in the Cobon forest including 58ha that was scheduled for clearfelling. An additional 1,390 ha of good quality forest for the Masked Owls (including 500ha within Kuark and 36ha that was scheduled for logging).

Brown Mountain’s remaining unprotected stands of 580ha (including a Powerful Owl nest site) to be included in a Special Protection Zone, including 185ha that was scheduled for logging.

Forests totalling 537ha planned for imminent clearfelling will be put under a 4 year moratorium. This includes old growth areas of:

- 235 ha around Bonang-Bendoc
- 65ha at Martins Creek
- 237ha around Kuark/Freds Track

The case was launched 10 month ago when the Napthine government was in power. Then Ministers Walsh and Smith refused to review the owl protection zones. Although we were disappointed that the new Labor government chose to continue along the legal path for some 7 months, we are pleased that it now accepts that it must do more work to ensure our large forest owls survive.

We look forward to working with the department on these owl protection measures over the next year while continuing to demand permanent protection for all remaining old growth forests and the many other threatened wildlife species in East Gippsland.

Background:

In summer 2014 bushfires raged across some of East Gippsland’s best old growth forests in and around the Snowy River National Park. The loss of primary habitat for many threatened wildlife was obvious. The constant crashing of hollow bearing trees for 2 months (and afterwards, thanks to the department’s habit of falling every big tree within cooee of a track) made it clear this would have a shocking toll on wildlife – especially those dependent on old trees with large hollows.

There were 46 protected owl zones impacted in the final 170,000ha of burnt forest (much of which was deliberately burnt by the department). Some zones suffered very severe fire that killed trees and ‘evaporated’ the understorey. Others had less severe fire through them but still resulted in many hollow bearing trees being lost.

Owls, gliders, frogs, bandicoots, potoroos and untold other species were wiped out in the inferno. It will take decades for the damage from this shockingly managed fire to start to recover. East Gippsland’s rare species that relied on the Snowy Park for refuge will now be under even greater threat and need all the help they can get.

APop or The Australian Population Institute http://www.apop.com.au/, is an organisation put together by developers and other members of the growth lobby to promote a 'big Australia' - that is, a huge population in Australia. APop campaigns for higher and higher immigration and also for policies for bigger families. Although almost entirely officiated by members from industries driving the growth lobby, the organisation has hosted talks by high profile and credible-sounding people, like university lecturers or authors, which added cachet to their big Australia agenda. The ABC used to quote them a lot as though they were a disinterested demographic organisation, but seems to have stopped doing this in past few years, perhaps due to complaints about APop's growth agenda affecting its objectivity, but perhaps more likely due to a decline in APop activities.

See http://www.apop.com.au/news.html At first APop seemed to be the peak growth lobby developer body, with branches in all or most states, but the Property Council of Australia appears to have taken over the baton as the ultra peak body. However, APop is still in there with a fascinating cast of growth lobby stars with fingers in property development pies at all levels. I have attached a picture of the current APop front page, followed by some information about the industry backgrounds of Committee members. Note that there are quite strong links with the Scanlon Foundation which itself has strong links to ATSE and to the Multicultural Foundation of Australia and thence to most recent prime ministers and opposition leaders. APop in 2009 hosted Professor Andrew Markus, who "presented "Mapping Social Cohesion 2009: The Scanlon Foundation surveys". The presentation provided an overview of the Scanlon Foundation survey findings, with particular attention to change over the last two years and to the challenges facing maintenance of a large immigration program. "

Backgrounds of Current Executive and Committee members Victoria and South Australia :

Jane Nathan (President) - author of many pro growth articles
Michael Hickin botham, Vice President, Hickinbotham Group - South Australia's (SA), describes itself as "the largest and longest established building group in South Australia."
Albert Dennis, (Past President) Dennis Family Corporation - major developers, builds suburbs
Greg Crafter, Johnston Withers Solicitors
Victorian Committee:
Douglas Coomes - Spiire Australia Pty Ltd, Land Development consultants
Chris McNeil, Economist and former Policy Director with Urban Development Institute of Australia, UDIA (Victoria)
Frank Bosco, Director Bosco Jonson, town planners
Tony Fry, Scanlon Foundation see: http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/1179
Brenton Gardner, Housing Industry Australia
Jim Curnow, Alexander & Symonds, Surveyors
Tim Jackson, Chief Executive Officer, City of Playford, South Australia

Origins of APop

"The Committee for Economic Development of AustraliaCEDA Conference, November 1999, inaugurated the Australian Population Institute (APop), a group with the sole purpose of promoting a big Australian population. Apop seems to be mainly composed of business people involved in the property development industries.[1] Altogether nine papers were delivered in favour of, or neutral about, population increase, including that of the key speaker, Professor Withers.[2] Without in any way impugning the sincerity and disinterest of the academics involved, Tom Morrow points out in Growing for Broke, that Apop - composed of businessmen with a vested interest in maintaining high population growth - thus benefited from the cachet of academic disinterest, whilst only airing one point of view.[3] Morrow also criticises the lack of an ecological perspective." (Source: Sheila Newman, The Growth Lobby in Australia and its Absence in France

NOTES

[1] This information was yielded by investigating the business associations of the officials of Apop as listed on the Apop website and downloaded on 20/7/2001 from http://www.apop.com.au/people.htm. Additional information about business interests was obtained from the Business Who's Who of Australia, Dun and Bradstreet Marketing P/L, 35th Edition, 2001.
[2] Tom Morrow, Going for Broke, Tomorrow Press, 2001, p.109
[3] Ibid.,"Five of the papers were delivered by university professors, two by PhDs, one by a Federal Cabinet Minister and one by a Shadow Cabinet Minister: impeccably qualified commentators, all - and none of them directly from the corporate sector that was hosting the event."

The Fairfax media sank to a new low recently in pushing its in-house pro-population bias (in The Age) by publishing commentary on this crucial issue from the Australian Population Institute.

Unfortunately, the article, ‘We should look to the west as our population swells’, by Jane Nathan, 16 July 2015, highlights the way in which the left-liberal establishment in Australia, including Fairfax, now sings from the same song sheet as free-market growth maniacs. While it may be claimed that the population-boosting rant presented in this article is the opinion of the Australian Population Institute and not Fairfax, Fairfax, of course, can exercise considerable bias in its selection of opinion piece commentary. It has a broad menu of pro-population vested interests to choose from. It is worth mentioning that material presented as commentary or opinion does not have to stand up to any serious standard of factual accuracy or rationality in the eyes of the Australian Press Council. Commentary, therefore, provides an opportunity to push an in-house view to extremes without being very accountable about it. Fairfax may respond that ‘balance’ will be struck over the longer-term with the subsequent publication of opposing views. Just when this may occur or whether subsequent opinion would directly address the inaccuracies and bias of commentary like this within a reasonable time frame remains unclear.

The opinion piece presents a one-dimensional account of booming population growth in the western suburbs of Melbourne, with no recognition, let alone discussion, of the potential short or long-term damage that rapid population growth may cause. It is unadulterated propaganda. Without any consideration of such challenges, the core message of the commentary is simple: rapid population growth is manageable and beneficial; the suburb of Sunshine in Melbourne’s west is an example to be emulated everywhere; and such rapid population growth is compatible with the creation and maintenance of thriving harmonious communities.

In advocating this mind-numbingly superficial view, a number of spurious assumptions are made. It is stated that the tertiary-educated population of Sunshine has increased from 21 to 50 per cent, and the number of women working has increased markedly. What are we to make of such claims in relation to the issue of population growth? The implication is that rapid population growth has the effect of spreading wealth around – that population growth has lifted Sunshine up from being a down trodden working class area to one of higher social status. The reality is that Sunshine remains one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged areas within metropolitan Melbourne. The 2011 Census showed that Sunshine remained in the bottom decile in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Index of Socio-Economic Disadvantage.

The implied linkages are logically flawed and factually feeble. Levels of tertiary education have risen across the board over time and would likely have risen in Sunshine to some degree, despite its low socio-economic status, in the absence of population growth. As to the number of working women in Sunshine, the growth is presented in terms of raw numbers and not rates. The cited numerical growth in employed women is likely to be a simple reflection of overall population growth and not improved labour market access for women in Sunshine. In any case, historically, the workforce participation rates of disadvantaged women in poor areas have often been high – out of necessity. The question should be -- what proportion of women in Sunshine has access to decent jobs? No matter how this question may be answered, the links to population growth remain tenuous.

Reference is made to the provision of new infrastructure in Sunshine, to serve the burgeoning population. The suggestion is that without population growth, we would not have such wonderful new infrastructure. Again, there is a worrying absence of balance and objectivity in this claim. It is widely accepted that rapid population growth in Australia, and particularly in Australia’s capital cities, has created a situation of chronic infrastructure shortfall in many essential areas. In this context, to simply say that some infrastructure has been provided in Sunshine, without any assessment of the remaining shortfall, and of the social and economic consequences of such a shortfall, is bewildering. The public deserves a much better standard of public commentary than this.

Just how misinformed the Australian Population Institute is may be gleaned from its website, where it is claimed that current levels of population growth will take Australia to between 25 and 27 million people by 2050, which it maintains is far too little. Where have these people been for the past decade! Current mid-range population projections from the Australian Bureau of Statistics point to around 37.6 million people by that year. That is roughly the equivalent of an additional three cities the size of Melbourne in a time frame of 25 years.

It may not be surprising that someone, somewhere, may hold such a silly, ill-informed view. But, that it should be shouted from the rooftops by Fairfax deserves greater scrutiny. “Centre-left”? Not likely. This is Fairfax at its hypocritical best and music to the ears of the growth maniacs who are constantly at the doors of our political leaders demanding ever greater levels of population growth to keep the gravy train of dumb growth rolling along. Don’t let Fairfax’s preoccupation with asylum seekers, human rights and political corruption fool you. On basic issues of the economy and economic democracy, Fairfax is far to the right of centre.

Contrary to the Fairfax’s in house view, population is not a politically neutral issue, whereby population growth may be reasonably advocated by either the left or right of the political spectrum. Unquestioning advocacy of population growth by ‘left’ intellectuals reflects an historic capitulation to the deregulatory, free-market right. This is particularly so in Australia where, because of decades of economic short-sightedness, the only way to keep Gross Domestic Product growth rates high in the absence of a mining boom is population growth and city building (given the serious structural impoverishment of the Australian economy – we sell dirt and a little agriculture to the world in return for elaborately transformed goods). In reality, the Australian economy’s reliance upon population growth is a form of crisis management, from which particular sectoral interests parasitically and disproportionately benefit (e.g. housing, banking and retail). For these sectors, any correction of the structural imbalance in the Australian economy would be perceived as a dire threat.

Reliance upon population growth is dumb growth writ large and Fairfax’s faux humanitarianism helps the free-market right along its way.

"The proposed redevelopment (or "renewal" to use the Lord Mayor's term) of the Queen Victoria Market will cost $250 million. Does this signify the start of a new battle for inner Melbourne or has the populace been sweet talked by the Lord Mayor into accepting the demise of the QVM as we know it - and love it? And what are the traffic and transport implications for the CBD and inner Melbourne of this redevelopment?" (Submission from the Friends of Queen Victoria Market)

Future Melbourne Committee meeting 5:30 pm Tuesday 14 July
Item 6.5 Queen Victoria Market Precinct Renewal Master Plan (pdf)

Submission from the Friends of Queen Victoria Market

I represent Friends of Queen Victoria Market, an active Facebook group with over 1300 ‘likes’.

In particular I want to speak on behalf of people like myself, the ‘customers’ who shop at the market every week.
• We spend hundreds of dollars at the market every week, and we do almost all our shopping there.
• Fresh produce vendors estimate we regular customers are responsible for 80% of their sales.
• We have ongoing relationships with traders and with other regular customers.
• The market is a significant element in our life and we are an important part of the market community – arguably THE most important part of the market community …

…. yet our voice has been lost in the consultation process.

We have been subsumed into a category of ‘visitors’ but we have quite different interests to the tourists and other occasional market shoppers.

Many of us made the points I make here were also made very vigorously in the consultation process but somehow our input has not made it into the final reports and feedback.

So I welcome this opportunity to represent our views.

Some of us have shopped at the market for decades and many are second or even third generation market customers.

We value the market heritage but we recognize that this extends beyond built heritage to an appreciation of the market as a trading and social space based on its functioning as a community space for small scale trading for over 150 years.

If the bulk of the present market area is remade as public space for events, pop up markets, curated ‘craft’ (just like so many other markets) and so on, the market will lose what is distinctive in its heritage, even if the buildings remain.

Our first requirement is that the market remains an everyday shopping place:

• We do not support plans to reduce fresh produce trading at the market to fewer, fixed stalls, as this will decrease quantity, range and variety of fresh produce.
• We do not see any benefit for customers in updating plant, storage, or trader parking.
• Increasing onsite cool rooms will kill the whole point of market fresh produce, as will extending the opening hours.
• Some members have suggested that changing the market from an everyday shopping experience to a tourist destination is a way of justifying reduced parking provision.

Our second interest is in accessible car parking:
• We travel in from surrounding suburbs because we appreciate the kind of sustainable, value for money and varied shopping currently available at the market but this is only viable if the market provides accessible parking.
• Better pedestrian and bicycle access is not helpful to many of us who buy 20 or 30 kilos of food each week.
• Others of us bring small children or elderly and disabled relatives.
• We support market traders who have told you that any decrease in the total number of parking places available (currently 1200 including on street parking) would be a disaster for them and us.

Finally we are alarmed at the lack of specificity in this Plan and that it is left to the Implementation Strategy which is scheduled for completion in 2016 to address a number of these matters.

This has left market traders and customers in a state of uncertainty in terms of their future plans.

Especially as the market seems to be being currently being run down, which some members believe is being done in order to support the case for renewal:
• There are many, many empty stalls.
• Unlike supermarkets or many other fresh produce markets in Melbourne, parking is extremely expensive.
• Recent vacancies in the iconic Dairy hall have been filled by franchises, not small independent traders.
• New initiatives that are supposed to revitalise the market like the Cooking School and Melbourne Music Week have not been well supported, according to some sources.

The market community, rightly or wrongly, has interpreted this running down of the traditional market as indications of a deliberate tactic to justify the repurposing of the sheds.

There is a widespread perception in the community that the main and indeed the only beneficiaries of the redevelopment plans are the developers who will access land within the Queen Victoria Market Precinct and benefit from the new planning rules.

Signed: Miriam Faine, Friends of Queen Victoria Market

"The redevelopment and remodelling of the Queen Victoria Market (QVM) plus changes in its functions proposed by the City of Melbourne, led by the Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, should be ringing alarm bells amongst Melburnians. This is one of the biggest assaults ever mounted on the QVM in the history of Melbourne." (Julianne Bell, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.)

Report on Queen Victoria Market and Development Proposals by City of Melbourne [1]

In the early 1970s the City of Melbourne, with the support of the Victorian State Government, proposed to demolish the QVM and replace it with a combined Trade Centre, office and hotel. The Save the Victorian Market Committee was formed. Then Norm Gallagher and the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) . put Green Bans on the demolition of the QVM and guaranteed its survival from demolition and redevelopment. The QVM was put on the Historic Buildings Register. There is talk of nominating the site for World Heritage and it certainly fills an important place of Melbourne’s cultural heritage. Twenty years later, prior to his death in 2006, John Cummins (a former BLF official and then CFMEU official) gave market stall holders assurances that the QVM would be defended by the CFMEU should there be any retreat from agreements to save the Place. (This information paraphrases quotes from Dave Kerin’s history of the BLF.)

I have not analysed in detail the destruction of heritage should the City of Melbourne’s plans be implemented. It is certain that, however, that the current plans will destroy the social heritage of the QVM, maintaining the sheds as a kind of “Disneyland” market, which in the long term would not be sustainable

I thought it useful to look, firstly, at the fact that the QVM is possibly one of the biggest suppliers of fresh and processed food, as well as other retail items such as clothing, in the inner Metropolitan area. Dr Miriam Faine, who is a Convenor of the Friends of OVM Facebook group and who is alarmed at the changes proposed, says that the QVM currently supports traders who will lose their business if the development proceeds; offers a voice to market customers who shop regularly at the market (and are not 'visitors' but part of the market community); preserves the market as an every day shopping space for the people of Melbourne; and, she argues, provides a traditional market model with many small independent traders competing on freshness, variety, value and sustainability.

To the Lord Mayor and Councillors the market is just a show piece and a tourist attraction as they appear to have no clues that the market is an integral part of people's lives and plays an important part in supplying the metropolis with food. As far as I know the Lord Mayor of Melbourne does not live in the municipality of Melbourne and possibly has no experience of shopping for the family every week in the QVM.

The QVM is not just a market for the municipality of Melbourne but for a huge radius of suburbs. One reason that the Market serves this vast hinterland is because of the parking availability at the Market and also in the streets around, although complaints are made that charges are excessive compared to other shopping centres. There are 700 spaces at the QVM plus another 500 which are now under threat in the surrounding streets. It would be disastrous if they were removed. See the web page - http://au.parkopedia.com/parking/carpark/queen_victoria_market/3000/melbourne/ - which provides a run down of all available parking within reasonable reach for QVM patrons. There is certainly a case for retaining cheap parking easily accessible for QVM patrons, within the context of a broader objective of maximising space efficient and sustainable modes.

Public transport advocate Ian Hundley has made a great contribution to this report. His comments concerning transport have been included below.

With regard to the count of daily traffic numbers over the last 10 years for major arterial roads (Dudley Street, Peel Street, Victoria Street, Elizabeth Street) near to or abutting the QVM, it appears that these numbers have been static, or even declined, during this period. This is welcome news and confirms that Melbourne really only works as well owing to the fact that a substantial proportion of visitors travel by sustainable means. This is not the case with most of the suburban activity centres which are highly car dependent and face increased road traffic congestion as a consequence. The tram lines mentioned here in relation to the QVM connect with north and western suburbs.

An emerging threat for the north-west part of the City of Melbourne is the Victorian State Government's proposed Western Distributor which includes a feeder into the Melbourne CBD from the Westgate Freeway. Ian Hundley comments that he is of the view that, as this is a Transurban inspired toll road, they might well be looking to maximise road traffic numbers in this area.

We understand that daily visitors to/users of the market vary between about 22,000 and 32,000 with the greatest numbers being on Saturdays. Furthermore we understand that the QVM administration reports that a phenomenal ten (10) million people visit the markets every year. We do not know how many people visit the QVM as their one and only destination or how many people have multiple destinations on journeys within the CBD, one of which is the QVM.

It appears that the QVM, as currently configured, does not cater very well for the many patrons who use shopping trolleys, a design issue mainly. It is also an issue for public transport users in the area with no services on Elizabeth Street and Victoria Street being low floor. This will improve over time, but it is not happening quickly enough.

We consider it would help to get many more people onto public transport if a number of problems were addressed. For example, the Victoria Street tram corridor is not continuous which makes it difficult for quite a few people and there is no ready access to North Melbourne station from the QVM. Also, low floor trams would be a plus, especially for shoppers at QVM.

Finally with regard to transport and planning issues, I have heard that plans are being formulated by the City of Melbourne for Franklin Street to be closed; for QVM car parking to be removed; and for three 50 storey tower blocks to be built on the site. Franklin Street provides very useful access from Victoria Street through to the RMIT complexes on Swanston Street and through to the legal world in Lonsdale Street and William Street. Predictions are there could be disastrous traffic congestion resulting from the Franklin Street closure.

The QVM is seen as of central importance to people's lives enabling them to live within strict budgets. The food prices are the most reasonable in the metropolis. One is able to buy food items - costs go down in seasons of plenty. Also prices go down close to closing times so traders can dispose of goods. The QVM does not serve just residents in surrounding suburbs but also the international student population increasingly living in high rise apartments in the city. If a large part of the QVM is closed down then where will numbers shop? There are few Big Block Coles and Woolworths in the city. Many of the thousands of tertiary students who live in inner Melbourne seldom dine out. They need to watch their budget and want to shop locally and economically to cook at home.

Another point is that numbers of stall holders provide surplus food to “Second Bite” and charities so these services would be lost if the QVM trading were to be drastically reduced in size, as Lord Mayor Doyle’s “redevelopment” proposes.

The “deli” shops specialise in ethnic foods. The Greek deli shops, for instance, have a huge number of clients from the Greek Community from all over Melbourne. .

Also interesting to note would be just how many top City restaurants and cafes obtain their food from the market. I used to go to the organic foods section and encountered many restaurant owners/chefs purchasing fresh supplies.

My parents used to go every week from Camberwell for about 50 years! And I used to go to the QVM by tram when living in Parkville and North Carlton for many years. Many Melburnians remain loyal to certain stall holders and keep up patronage for a lifetime.

Queen Victoria Market is very special. For many years it been an effective antidote to mega sized, corporate retail food distribution and it needs to be retained as such for the benefit of the growing numbers of local, inner city residents including students, the loyal shoppers from the middle suburbs, as well as the visitors to the city.

There is a related topic which needs to be dealt with separately. It is difficult to imagine where fresh food will be grown given the rapid loss of arable food producing land with the spread of housing developments. The question arose some years ago when the Brumby Government extended the urban growth boundary to allow spread of residential housing into arable farming land. . Melbourne is now heading for 8 million population. Will we soon be reliant on imported food?

Signed:

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

Mobile: 0408022408

Date: 3 July 2015

NOTES

This article is slightly represented from the original letter signed by Julianne Bell for Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., which was entitled: "REPORT ON QUEEN VICTORIA MARKET AND DEVELOPMENT PROPOSALS BY THE CITY OF MELBOURNE."

How many more outrageous options for our state’s (planet’s) most valuable climate moderators and wildlife arks can they come up with?! Whole logs to China now. Not even processed (value added!) into woodchips. Has VicForests also got Daniel Andrews by the short and curlies? In The Age today… http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-forests-bound-for-china-under-secret-andrews-government-rescue-plan-20150712-gian0v.html Discussion on ABC Gippsland’s facebook page … https://www.facebook.com/ABCGippsland/timeline

Victorian forests bound for China under secret Andrews Government rescue plan Date July 12, 2015 - 7:42PM by Josh Gordon, State Political Editor

Exclusive

Victoria's low grade native timber could soon be packed into shipping containers bound for China and other cut-price countries for processing under a rescue plan to help ailing state timber company VicForests.

VicForests has been left without a market for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of so-called "residual" timber following the loss of a key contract with Japanese-owned wood-chip company South East Fibre Exports (SEFE).

In response, the Andrews government is now considering relaxing a rule requiring local processing before export in a bid to open up new markets for the struggling state-owned wood business.

A confidential November 2013 Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) briefing seen by The Age confirms the industry has for months been lobbying to relax the requirement for domestic processing of timber.

"VicForests indicates the Victorian Association of Forest Industries (VAFI) now supports relaxing certain aspects of the export restrictions," the briefing to former treasurer Michael O'Brien, said. "Such a change should lead to improved outcomes for both VicForests and industry. DTF supports the reconsideration of the timber export policy."

[...]

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-forests-bound-for-china-under-secret-andrews-government-rescue-plan-20150712-gian0v.html#ixzz3fjOUCeGO

Geoff Dowsett, Member of Hornsby Kuringai Greens has questioned the Greens NSW Senate pre-selection candidates and provides the following graphics to put Australia's population growth into political and demographic perspective.

The only political party that provides an alternative to business as usual is the Sustainable Population Party.

This article previously appeared on Russian Insider (4/7/15) and Global Research (11/7/15). See also: War without mercy in Yemen (8/7/15) and other articles about Yemen on PressTV and candobetter.

No "We are the children"
for the children of Yemen

80 percent of people in the Arab world's poorest country are in danger of starving to death under a US-backed and US-enabled blockade and bombing campaign.

Have the CNN, BBC, NBC, Fox, Sky, etc told you about that?

Obviously news that doesn't directly touch on Russia. However, obviously an enormously important one – this is the biggest humanitarian disaster in the world right now – but it's getting barely any attention because the US is contributing to it in a major way. (The Saudi campaign in Yemen wouldn't be possible without American diplomatic, intelligence and logistics backing.)

Another interesting (albeit in the light of 20 million lives in danger far less key) angle is that despite repeatedly causing such tragedies (260,000 people died in 2010-12 Somalia famine after a sustained US-Ethiopian military intervention there made an even greater mess of that country and up to a million who died in the 1990s due to sanctions on Iraq passed after the US destroyed chunks of the country's civilian infrastructure) the US still thinks it can take the moral high ground against Russia.

Preposterous! Even if Russia actually did everything the US accuses it of (and it doesn't) it would be far, far cleaner than the US, which is the world's premier killer today.

Twenty million people in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, are at risk of dying from hunger or thirst. That's 80 percent of the country's population, which according to UN agencies badly needs emergency supplies of food and water, along with fuel and medicine.

This almost unimaginable crisis sounds like something out of a disaster movie. But the cause isn't an earthquake or a tsunami.

The main reason for all this suffering is months of merciless bombardment and blockade led by the richest Arab countries – Saudi Arabia and its neighboring petro-princedoms – and backed by the United States. Washington's providing the attackers with technical assistance, intelligence, and top-shelf armaments.

The countries bombing Yemen are targeting a rebel group they claim is a proxy for Iran. The evidence for that is very thin.

In fact, the conflict in Yemen is rooted in internal disputes. Try to stay with me...

In 2011, a nationwide uprising akin to those in Tunisia and Egypt deposed the country's autocratic leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. There was no democratic election before his successor, the Saudi- and U.S.-backed Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, took over – he ran unopposed. And there was no relief from the terrible poverty, unemployment, and government corruption that brought about the popular revolt.

So a few months ago, a reformist movement and militia called the Houthis – which had launched a handful of rebellions against Saleh in the past – took advantage of widespread discontent to conquer the capital, Sanaa. Hadi fled into exile, and the Saudis started bombing shortly thereafter.

Since then, local militias in central and southern Yemen have fiercely resisted the Houthis and army units still loyal to Saleh, who is now allied with his former foes. Meanwhile, a local franchise of al-Qaeda is fighting everybody.

In short, it's terribly complicated, and the bombs aren't helping.

The Yemenis caught in this crossfire were already thirsty and hungry before the war – unlike their Saudi neighbors, they don't have a lucrative oil supply. Now, with Yemen's borders closed, its airports shut down, and Arab navies enforcing an embargo at sea, the situation is breathtaking in its desperation.

Saudi Arabia and its friends, including the United States, support Hadi. Yet they have no discernible plan for winning beyond reducing Yemen to rubble and besieging civilians in the hope of securing the Houthis' surrender.

The Obama administration probably doesn't believe the Saudis' nonsense about the Houthis and Iran, but it's shown no interest in stopping the war.

In fact, the United States has even announced a full suspension of aid to Yemen for a year, undercutting its occasional murmurs of humanitarian concern. By endorsing this Saudi-led shooting match, Washington may hope to calm the Saudis' nerves about the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, which Saudi Arabia opposes.

Is that what it's come to, soothing a bully's nerves just because it pumps a lot of oil?

Instead, the Obama administration should withdraw its support for the bombing, lift the blockade, and broker a power-sharing agreement between Yemen's competing factions. For the people of Yemen, it's beyond urgent.

On Q & A of 6 July 2015, ex-jillaroo, Louisa Vaupel, asked the panel's opinion on a proposed sale to a foreign state of the Glengyle, a huge cattle station near Lake Eyre in South Australia, owned by Kidman & Co. Vaupel said she was worried about food security, that she believed that Australian farming needed foreign investment, but was concerned that foreign state-owned enterprises might buy it. We followed the story up and located a photographer called Rod Moffatt, who is trying to have this huge area with many striking natural features conserved for a Lake Eyre Superbasin Park. He made the short youtube video inside this article for Q & A. They did not air it but we are, plus his well-written argument for the superbasin park.

You can read the Q & A panel responses in the appendix. They are all over the place on foreign ownership. Green Larissa Waters did state that the Greens were against selling Australian land, food producing land in particular, in this age of food insecurity, given the changing climate, to state owned outfits. However they are not against foreign investment. Vrasidas Karalis's response mixed foreign investment up with multiculturalism, openness and globalism - all of which he felt we 'must' have for fear of becoming 'inward looking economies because essentially they are self consuming passions'. It seemed that almost everyone was unable to question globalism. Amazingly the legendary right wing owner of the Sydney Institute, Greg Sheridan, was better on this and several other questions than anyone else.

Rod Moffatt's proposal for Glengyle becoming part of a Lake Eyre Basin Super Park

Lake Eyre Basin Super Park
Open letter to all Australian politicians:
Imminent Sale of S.Kidman & Co Ltd Pastoral Leases in Lake Eyre Basin

I am writing to you, seeking your urgent support to halt the planned sale of the S. Kidman & Co Ltd pastoral leases located in the Lake Eyre Basin and the Channel Country - where cattle grazing activities are conducted on land that contains natural values of international conservation significance - worthy of World Heritage listing.

I propose the Commonwealth (with the assistance and cooperation of the relevant State Governments), acquires these Kidman pastoral assets to form Australia’s largest sub-contiguous national park.

On Wednesday 10th June 2015, Ernst & Young (Adelaide) released an Information Memorandum pertaining to the proposed sale of Australia’s largest private landholder, S. Kidman & Co, which has pastoral interests spanning more than 10 cattle stations, and covering more than 100,000 square kilometres, across South Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Over 80 percent (80,529 square kilometres) of the Kidman portfolio comprises pastoral leases situated in the arid desert rangelands of the Lake Eyre Basin of northern South Australia, and the Channel Country of southwestern Queensland and northeastern South Australia - including Anna Creek, Innamincka, Macumba, Durham Downs, Naryilco, Durrie, Morney Plains and Glengyle Stations.

Collectively these cattle grazing holdings constitute nearly 1% of Australia's landmass and occupy a significant footprint over the fragile, arid, and environmentally significant Lake Eyre Basin and Simpson-Strzelecki Dunefields bioregions.

Introduced hoofed animals, such as cattle, and inappropriate grazing management are among the most significant causes of chronic modification of arid and semi-arid land in the Lake Eyre Basin and the Channel Country, and one of the greatest contributors to the increased desertification of these regions.

With the effects of climate change (anthropogenic or otherwise) becoming much more apparent across Australia, it is likely the continued pressure of cattle grazing on arid land pastoral leases in and around the Lake Eyre Basin and the Channel Country will accelerate wind erosion of the soil resource and increase the frequency and intensity of dust storms along the eastern seaboard.

The total cost of the 23 September 2009 ‘Red Dawn Event’ dust storm (just to the NSW economy), was estimated by the CSIRO to have been in the order of $299 million (Tozer & Leys, 2012).

The sale of the Kidman pastoral empire marks the end of the colonial pastoral era, and provides an opportunity for contemporary Australian Government to redress a significant historical environmental mistake.

By acquiring, and extinguishing the leases over a considerable tract of the internationally significant Lake Eyre Basin and Channel Country landscape, and converting the land to an iconic national park...this fragile, arid desert landscape (including its extensive surface aquatic drainage systems) can be preserved and protected for posterity.

Such decisive action by our nation will send a potent and unequivocal message to the world that Australia is proactive in mitigating the anthropogenic impact on its natural environment and is genuinely committed to addressing the conservation of the biodiversity of this continent...and, most importantly...the elephant in the room, climate change.

Ordinary Australians crave visionary bipartisan leadership from strategic politicians, who possess intestinal fortitude and conviction, and your success in persuading your colleagues to support and facilitate the creation of the Lake Eyre Basin - Channel Country national park will be a totemic achievement for you personally...and a victory for our nation.

It is in the national interest that this land be preserved for the people and, with your assistance, history can be made.

On behalf of all sensible Australians, passionate about preserving our environment, I implore you to act.

Rod Moffatt

PO Box 588

Bribie Island QLD 4507

Ph:0417 995 485

APPENDIX- Q & A Question about Foreign Farm Ownership

Monday, 6 July 2015 Greece, Gags & Grazing Land
Panellists: Vrasidas Karalis, Professor of Modern Greek; Richard Marles, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection; Larissa Waters, Queensland Greens Senator; Trisha Jha, Centre for Independent Studies; and Greg Sheridan, Foreign Affairs Editor, The Australian.

Excerpt

TONY JONES: Okay, all right. Okay, all right. Yes, all right. So we’ve got to go to another question I'm told. It is from Louisa Vaupel.

FOREIGN FARM OWNERSHIP00:48:59

LOUISA VAUPEL: Yeah, my question was originally for Barnaby Joyce, Minister For Agriculture. I think it’s a shame he is not here to answer it but I will put it to the panel because I think we urgently need to talk about the future of Australia's food security and agriculture. I worked as a jillaroo for two mustering seasons on Glengyle station in western Queensland, which is a property of Kidman & Co and Kidman is one of Australia's largest beef producers. It's got 100,000 square kilometres. That's three quarters of the size of England, almost 2% of the land mass of the Australian continent, and for the first time ever, this farmland is up for sale for just $325 million. Interested bidders include State owned enterprises from the US, South America, Indonesia and China. And my question is should foreign State owned enterprises be allowed to buy up Australian farmland?

TONY JONES: Trisha, we will start with you.

TRISHA JHA: My view is that I'm basically in favour of foreign investment. My understanding, although I don't understand agriculture very well, is that the sector is in dire need of fresh capital. I'm open to suggestions that it may be very much contrary to the national interest, particularly in terms of national security to basically refuse an offer for a foreign state owned enterprise to invest in agricultural property in Australia but so far I haven't heard that case being made and so I am inclined to perhaps not share your concerns.

TONY JONES: Larissa Waters, should foreign state owned enterprises be allowed to buy up Australian farmland?

LARISSA WATERS: Well, thank you, Louisa, for your question and well done on working the land as a young woman. It would be nice to see more young women following in your footsteps. This is a vexed issue because, with the white paper being released today, foreign ownership is a key issue and the Foreign Investment Review Board have quite a high threshold for when they review what's considered in the national interest when there is a proposal for purchase by a foreign entity. When it comes to state owned enterprises, it’s a bit of a different kettle of fish and the Greens believe that we should not be selling Australian land, food producing land in particular, in this age of food insecurity, given the changing climate, to state owned outfits. So lower the FIRB threshold for foreign investment, yes, and apply that national interest test but I think, for state owned entities, the sale of food producing land look, food security is going to become increasingly problematic as the climate continues to change, which is why it’s such a shame that that agricultural White Paper released just earlier today, the fact that it's got five paragraphs on climate change towards the end of the book, what a tragic missed opportunity. It’s going to change the face of agriculture.

TONY JONES: Well, Barnaby Joyce is not here to make this point but no doubt he would, that there are elements of climate change action right through the entire report. That’s his argument.

LARISSA WATERS: Well, I wish that were the case. Certainly I’ve not seen any evidence of that. The other issue I want to raise in relation to food security is the fact that coal seam gas and coal mines can currently go onto our best food producing land and landholders don't have the right to say no. They don’t have the right to safeguard their aquifers. And I think that's a real shame and I’ve had legislation in the Senate to try to rectify that with no support so far.

TONY JONES: We’re going to stick with the actual question that was asked here and I’ll go to Greg Sheridan to hear from him.

GREG SHERIDAN: Look, this is a difficult question full of contradictory impulses. I am very uneasy about state owned enterprises buying agricultural land. The Prime Minister once said we don't believe in socialism when it is an Australian Government owning Australian enterprises, why would we want foreign governments to own Australian enterprises. On the other hand and there is also a big danger in convincing foreign governments that, in order to trade with us, they need to own our assets, whereas it’s much better if they just buy the things that we produce in a good market. On the other hand, we’ve kind of buggered ourselves up pretty badly in this country. We’ve made our cost structures terrible. We’ve put massive disincentives in the way of domestic investment and, you know, a system finds a way of coping with that. One way the system copes with our terrible insane cost structures is by sort of subleasing enterprise to foreign entities. We went through, in the resources boom, a period where we kind of became Saudi Australia. We paid ourselves more than we were really earning and we didn't like to do dirty, difficult, dangerous and demanding work and I think we need to get back to developing our own agricultural land. But I'm very uneasy about state owned enterprises owning Australian land.

TONY JONES: Vrasidas, what do you think?

VRASIDAS KARALIS: May I say that I agree with what's said because but we live in a period of globalisation and what we need from government is to regulate these markets, especially for state owned and want to buy something in Australia but, at the same time, I believe that we have to open up this economy because we can't have inward looking economies because essentially they are self consuming passions at the end and it is not enough anymore to feed a population as diverse as the Australian one simply with what is produced here. We are a consumer society, we have so many needs from all over the world, we have so many communities from all over the world, so multiculturalism becomes something very important in the whole mixture here but I think what we need is a government who will be able to regulate this market instead of regulating the secrecy about the refugees and have to pay more attention in this regulation of the market instead of looking to impose more sort of secretive legislation on these cases.

TONY JONES: And you’ve slipped off the topic and I’ll go to Richard Marles to get back onto it.

RICHARD MARLES: Look, agriculture represents one of the enormous opportunities for the Australian economy going forward. Being a food bowl for the growth of the middle class in Asia, particularly in China, is going to be a huge source of production and employment in Australia going forward but to make that happen, we are going to need foreign investment. Some of that is going to come from state owned enterprises. Now, at the moment, if you are a state owned enterprise, you need to go through the Foreign Investment Review Board. Invariably you get approval for that. I think that's appropriate. But, you know, for us to go out there and be trying to put more restrictions on foreign investment in Australia, I think, is a huge mistake. It is actually going to stifle the growth of what is one of the most important production parts of our economy going forward and, can I say, this Government has been completely hopeless when it comes to its regime around foreign investment. Rather than encouraging it, it has been discouraging, which is remarkable from what is meant to be a conservative government and it flies in the face of what's our economic opportunity in the future.

TONY JONES: Okay. Well, it’s been a great discussion. We are just about to run out of time. Our last question is on politics from Xanthi Kouvatas.

Towards the end of Saudi Arabia?

The Saudi-American war against Yemen, led by a coalition of the richest Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, etc. along with their servants like Egypt and Morocco) against the poorest Arab country, enters its fourth month. According to the United Nations, it has killed ??more than 3,100 and wounded 15,000, displaced 1 million and created 245,000 refugees, and created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis which the United Nations has declared to be on the level of maximum humanitarian alert. Ruthless and indiscriminate strikes target all civilian infrastructure, up to residential areas, markets, granaries, water tanks, hospitals, schools, mosques, and even archaeological remains and tombs – which recalls that the destructive ideology of the Islamic State takes its roots in Saudi Arabia – without sparing civilian convoys fleeing violence. A merciless siege has been imposed in Yemen, a country which imports 90% of its food, and Relief Organizations are prevented from delivering supplies to the country, and even see their workers targeted while providing humanitarian assistance. More than 21 million people (80% of Yemen's population) are without adequate access to staples and essential services such as food, clean water, medical care, electricity and fuel. Originally published at http://www.sayed7asan.blogspot.com Translated from French by Jenny Bright At end of this article there is an embedded you-tube video: "Message from Abd-al-Malikal-Houthi to the Resistance", July 2nd, 2015 (English Subtitles)

Already, it appears that Saudi Arabia has used unconventional weapons (cluster munitions, and perhaps even chemical weapons) and has committed war crimes and perhaps even crimes against humanity.

However, this war remains largely ignored by the mainstream media, both in the West and in the Arab-Muslim world (with the exception of Iran and the media close to Hezbollah in Lebanon). The US sponsors this illegal and criminal military intervention that they provide full support for, putting all their resources at the service of the Gulf monarchies who have acquired the most modern weapons to the tune of $115 billion for the single year 2014: they can therefore destabilise the region without sending their armed forces, conforming to the Obama no-boots-on-the-ground doctrine that favours proxy wars. It is the same for the other NATO member countries – United Kingdom, France, etc., which is not surprising coming from the supporters and apologists of terrorism in Syria.

Regarding Riyadh, Wikileaks has recently unveiled the procedure of Saudi censorship of the entire Arab world, between corruption and intimidation. All these actors provide direct support to Al Qaeda and to the Islamic state, which has appeared on the Yemeni scene and is now on the border of Saudi Arabia, their long-time goal. The Saudi blindness seems to know no bounds.

The Saudi assault was not to repel an alleged advance of Iran and/or Shiism, but to break the attempts towards independence of this country that historically has been a vassal of Riyadh. So far, this war has not realised any of its stated objectives. On the contrary, the Yemeni resistance has taken hold of most major Yemen cities, and it takes more and more initiative by carrying the war into the territory of Saudi Arabia, bombing its border towns and attacking its military bases and convoys, and causing dozens of casualties among the Saudi forces – of which the extent of the losses is inviolable military secret. Moreover, the attacks resulted in uniting the country – the regular armed forces of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Houthi rebels and other popular committees – behind the slogan “Death to the House of Saud”, an unprecedented development in the Middle East, and revealed both the barbarism of the Wahhabi regime and its vulnerability and powerlessness on the purely military field. Held in check despite the benefit of the steady stream of Western weaponry, Riyadh already sees its influence wane in the Middle East.

In a message to the combatants dated 1^st July 2015 – that evokes those of Hassan Nasrallah toHezbollah fighters during the 2006 war –, Abd-al-Malik al-Houthi, head of the Yemeni resistance, denounced the collusion of the Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyad Axis, denouncing the war and the siege imposed in Yemen as even more barbaric than the Israeli crimes in Gaza.

He agrees with the analysis of the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who recalled that even the Zionists did not have a systematic policy of targeting hospitals, tombs and archaeological remains. Abd-al-Malik al-Houthi brandished nothing less than the slogan of the holy war against the cradle of Islam, equated to the “devil's horn”, which is, according to a famous prophetic tradition, an evil heresy called to arise in the Najd region – where Wahhabism emerged. Again, this is an unprecedented development: Saudi Arabia, which, since March 2015, broke with its policy of underground action and now acts without cover, has never been so violently shaken.

Riyadh is now in an impasse: its air campaign is a bitter failure, as was predictable given the six previous offensives since 2004 by the forces of President Saleh (yesterday supported by Saudi Arabia and now allied with the Houthi rebels), which all ended up in a failure, as well as the Israeli experiences in Lebanon and Gaza, which constitutes the perfect model of the Saudi aggression. As for the option of a ground operation, all data indicates that it would be absolutely disastrous and would end with a rout of Saudi forces. But there is no question for the House of Saud, blinded beyond any possible return, of accepting a cease-fire that would be a victory for Yemen; rather it must continue this fanatic war of terror at all costs, by torpedoing all attempts of agreement or truce, at the risk of rushing towards the abyss. As for the forces of the Yemeni resistance, they are far from having exhausted all their possibilities, and multiply the incursions into enemy territory. They could even question its territorial integrity by claiming Yemeni provinces formerly annexed by Saudi Arabia. And as a last resort, they could close the strategic Strait of Bab al-Mandeb – which they are quite capable of –, one of the largest global maritime passages, especially for hydrocarbons, which would have severe global repercussions. If, like Syria, Iraq and Libya, Yemen is threatened with disintegration, Saudi Arabia itself is now on the way to becoming destabilised, and even dismantling.

Will the Saudi crusade push into the Axis of Resistance a new country, Yemen – about which Hassan Nasrallah declared that the awakening and resistant spirit of its people were such that he could without hesitation send 100,000 or 200,000 men to fight Israel? Whatever the case may be, already the Ansarallah movement has reached the extent of a new Hezbollah, and the Saudi war is doomed to failure. It announces with certainty the inevitable fall of the House of Saud, whose Wahhabi ideology and foreign policy have been the cancer of Islam and of the Arab world for decades, and ultimately, the end of the US-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. More than one of the region’s peoples will rejoice.

Message from Abd-al-Malik al-Houthi to the Resistance, July 2, 2015

Subtitled video:

Source : http://ansar-allah.net/news/9874. Translation from Arabic and subtitles: Sayed 7asan. Translation from French:  Jenny Bright

I have had my car modified so that it cannot exceed 40kmh. The story that led up to my decision to cauterise my means of transport in this way is that I found I cannot afford to drive on Victorian roads unless I have some sort of protection against expensive fines for exceeding by a small margin often seemingly arbitrary speed limits.

I consider that I drive normally around the streets and roads of Melbourne with the occasional sortie into the country. I am ever vigilant about speed signs and aware of cameras lurking, ready report any inadvertent misdemeanors to the money crunching accountant authorities, who are ever- ready to extract a day’s hard earned from my coffers.

In Melbourne the speed signs change at frequent intervals from 60kmh to 50kmh , 60kmh to 40kmh, 40kmh to 60kmh again etc. A frequently encountered speed sign is 40kmh around school during school times. One always has to reflect: Is it school holidays? Is it school hours? What time is it? All in a second or two.

I normally slow down anyway while these questions go through my mind. After the highlight of the school crossing, there is never any demarcation at the end of the 40kmh zone, so I drive at 40kmh until I see the next 60kmh sign. The cars behind me bank up but if the last sign I saw was 40kmh then surely I must go at 40kmh until I am instructed otherwise?

What really decided me on the major modification to the engine of my car which was capable of maybe 140kmh was the story of a friend who had gathered a few demerit points for minor speeding infringements- for 57kmh in a 50kmh or 46kmh in a 40kmh zone. She wasn’t actually driving fast! As we all know, even if one is using cruse control, the speed can vary according to the road surface. So despite your best efforts you can momentarily go above what you intended and if you are caught by a camera in that instant you pay the price. If traffic were policed by real police who did not have quotas to fill, then their discretion might bring about a fairer result in terms of making the punishment fit the crime.

The story is that my friend thought that the number of demerit points she had accumulated still allowed her to drive. She had no notification otherwise, but was recently pulled up by the police whilst driving and told she had exceeded the demerit points limit and was driving effectively un licensed. She tells me she also has a $6,000 fine for her efforts in mainly trying to get to work where $6000 would represent about 3 weeks’ work.

I’m pleased though that now I am permanently protected from the extortion of “speeding” fines and demerit points as I just can’t physically speed any more! It is a little inconvenient as I have to set out very early now for any assignation. In fact I had better stop writing this very soon as I have an appointment four suburbs away at 3.00pm and its getting on for 10.00a.m. I think of my car now, not so much as a means of transport but as I sort of shopping cart. I could really walk to most of the places I go faster than I could drive when all the obstacles as well as the speed are taken into account but it is good to be able to throw the shopping into the boot and carry wet weather gear in the back seat.

Melbourne was not always like this. Once you could more or less drive at what you considered a safe speed, most of the time and you would be right. With major, ongoing increases in population and traffic, regulations abound. I do not expect driving in Melbourne to be fun any more, but I’m pleased I’ve found a way to survive from the legal point of view on Melbourne’s roads.

I have seen speed limit sign of 30kmh on odd occasions, but I opted for the limit on my car ..er shopping cart to be 40kmh as I am actually a bit of a risk taker underneath it all.

This is a letter of complaint to UK television Channel 4 [1] about what looks like recent blatant re-use and relabeling as new film of old film shot in 2012. This film has been used as propaganda against the Syrian Arab Army for the purposes of justifying support of 'rebel' groups, in an article entitled, "Syria: Living under the horrors of barrel bombs in Aleppo." We are republishing it for information and for the record.

Syria: living under the horrors of barrel bombs in Aleppo, Channel 4 News, 10 June 2015.

Dear Sir or Madam

I wish to raise concerns regarding the above Channel 4 News report.

The first video on the Channel 4 News webpage above is captioned “amateur footage of recent barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo and Deraa”. At 34 seconds there is a shot of two men aboard a helicopter, one of whom appears to take a cigarette from the mouth of the other which he uses to light the fuse on a munition which they then both push overboard.

The same scene appears at 23 seconds in the second, longer report on your webpage, at the conclusion of the following narration:

“Sweets for the Syrian rebels yesterday after they drove out Bashar Al Assad’s troops from the Brigade 52 base in Deraa. It’s another setback for the government which has been rapidly losing territory. Syrian air force video online shows the response: they drop four barrel bombs, which hit not only rebel positions but civilians.”  

This clearly indicates that the scenes of the two men pushing the munition out of the helicopter took place shortly after the “rebel” victory in Deraa, which you inform viewers occurred on Tuesday 9 June 2015, and to which the images you show were "the response".

A portion of the same footage of the same two men is included at 27 seconds in video “obtained by Al Jazeera” embedded in a Daily Telegraph article of 20 May. 

However, another portion of the Al Jazeera/Telegraph footage – the section at 1:54 where a crew member uses a cigarette to light the fuse on a long, slender munition which is then ejected overboard – appears at 4:32 in this You Tube video which was published on 27 October 2012.

It would seem very likely that the Al Jazeera footage presented by the Telegraph is all of the same vintage, i.e. around two and half years prior to the Telegraph’s and to your report - and quite possibly even older.

Are you able to provide an assurance that the footage of the two airmen featured in your 10 June report is, as you claim, “recent” and specifically that it represents, as you claim, “the response” to the capture of the Syrian army's Brigade 52 base on Tuesday 9 June 2015?

Yours sincerely

Robert Stuart  

https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/

NOTES

"Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began transmission on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body established in 1990, coming into operation in 1993. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, Channel 4 became an entirely UK-wide TV channel for the first time.

The channel was established to provide a fourth television service to the United Kingdom in addition to the television licence-funded BBC's two services and the single commercial broadcasting network, ITV." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4

See also: How "Fascist Capitalism" Functions: The Case of Greece (12/7/15) by Eric Zuesse | Global Research, Are we Sure that Tsipras Caved In? (11/7/15) | Global Research/fsaraceno.wordpress.com, Behind the Greek Debt (7/7/15) by Thierry Meyssan | VoltaireNet and other articles about Greece.

Greek citizens, We are at a critical juncture regarding the future of this country. Sunday’s referendum is not about whether our country will stay in the Eurozone.

This is a given and no one should question this. [More inside article]

On Sunday we will choose whether to accept the institutions’ agreement or whether, with the strength of the people’s verdict, we will seek a viable solution.

In any case, I want to reassure the Greek people of government’s firm intention to reach an agreement with its partners, with conditions that are sustainable and will provide for the long-term.

Since we announced our decision to hold a referendum, better proposals have been offered concerning the debt and its necessary restructuring than those that were on the table on Friday.

We did not ignore them. We immediately submitted our counterproposals asking for a viable solution, and for this reason an extraordinary Eurogroup meeting was convened yesterday, which will continue this afternoon.

Should there be a positive outcome, we will respond immediately. In any case, the Greek government remains willing to negotiate and will do so until an agreement is reached. The government will be at the negotiating table on Monday as well, immediately after the referendum, seeking better terms for the Greek people.

A popular verdict is always so much stronger than the will of a government alone. And I would like to reiterate that democratic choice is a core European tradition. During very important moments in European history, the people have made important decisions through referenda.

This happened in France, and in many other countries, concerning the referendum on the European constitution. This happened in Ireland, where the referendum temporarily voided the Treaty of Lisbon and led to a renegotiation, that resulted in better terms for Ireland. Unfortunately, in Greece’s case, we’ve been subjected to different standards.

Personally, I would have never expected that democratic Europe would not understand the need to give some space and time to a people to sovereignly make a choice about their future.

The prevalence of extreme conservative forces led to the decision to asphyxiate our country’s banks–with the obvious aim of blackmailing not just the government, but each each citizen individually.

It is unacceptable in a Europe of solidarity and mutual respect to have these disgraceful images:

For the banks to be closed, exactly because the government decided to give the people the opportunity to express their will;

And for thousands of elderly people to be deeply inconvenienced. However, the Greek government, despite the financial asphyxiation, took the appropriate measures and made sure that pensions were paid and deposited into the accounts.

We owe an explanation to these people who have been so inconvenienced:

We have been fighting all these months in order to protect your pensions.

To protect your right to a decent pension and not a miserly “tip”.

The proposals that they tried to blackmail us in order to accept demanded huge pension reductions.

And we refused to go along with this.

And this is why they are retaliating today.

The Greek government was given an ultimatum to implement exactly the same austerity measures, and all the outstanding aspects of the memorandum that had not been implemented.

And, in fact, without any provisions on the debt and financing.

This ultimatum was not accepted.

The self-evident alternative was to reach out to the people.

And this is what we have done.

I am well aware that during this period the sirens of destruction have been blaring.

They are trying to blackmail you as well, and ask that you vote YES on all the measures requested by the institutions, without any prospect of exiting the crisis.

They want you to side with those in Parliament who have repeatedly said YES to all the measures that have burdened the country.

To become one with them.

Complicit in perpetuating the memoranda.

It is important to understand, NO is not just a slogan.

NO is a decisive step towards a better deal that we aim to be signed immediately after Sunday’s result.

It constitutes the clear choice of the people concerning how their lives will be going forward.

NO does not mean breaking with Europe, but rather, returning to a Europe of values.

NO means: strong pressure for an economically viable agreement that will solve the debt issue, that will not increase the debt so that it continuously undermines our efforts to rebuild the Greek economy and society.

A socially just agreement that will allocate the burdens to those that can shoulder them, and not the workers and the pensioners.

An agreement that will allow the country, in a short period of time, to access the international financial markets, and thus end the supervision and guardianship.

An agreement containing reforms that will punish, once and for all, those who enable corruption and that have been fueling the political system all these years.

And at the same time, it will address the humanitarian crisis, create a comprehensive safety net for those who are marginalized–precisely because of the policies that have been implemented in our country for so many years.

Greek citizens,

I am fully aware of the difficulties.

I personally pledge that I will do everything possible so that these difficulties are temporary.

Some insist on linking the referendum’s result to the country staying in the euro.

They claim that I have a hidden agenda, if the NO vote prevails, to remove the country from the EU.

They are knowingly lying.

These are same people who used to say the very same thing in the past.

And they do a great disservice to the people and to Europe.

As you are aware, a year ago during the European elections, I was a candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission.

I stood before the Europeans then, just as now, and I argued that austerity policies must stop, that the memoranda will not lead to an end to the crisis.

That the program implemented in Greece failed.

That Europe must stop behaving in an undemocratic manner.

A few months later, in January 2015, the Greek people confirmed these sentiments.

Unfortunately, certain people in Europe refuse to understand this, refuse to admit this.

Those who want a Europe of authoritarianism that fails to respect democracy, those who wish for Europe to be a superficial union with the IMF being the “glue” that binds, are not visionaries for Europe.

They are timid politicians, unable to think as Europeans.

They stand side by side with those in our domestic political system, who are responsible for leading our country to bankruptcy, and that now have the gall to attempt to dump the burden on us–even as we’ve been trying to put an end to the country’s course of destruction.

They dream, indeed, of being restored to power.

This is what they’ve been hoping for—and still hope for, irrespective of whether we accepted the ultimatum–as they have blatantly sought an unelected Prime Minister who would implement it– or whether we gave our people the opportunity to express their will.

They talk of a coup. But democracy is not a coup. Unelected governments intent on manipulating circumstances—that is a coup.

Greek citizens,

I want to wholeheartedly thank you for the calmness and composure you’ve shown during every hour of this difficult week.

I want to assure you that this situation will not drag on.

It will be temporary.

Salaries and pensions will not be lost.

The deposits of citizens who did not withdraw their money or place it abroad will not be sacrificed on the altar of expediency and extortion.

I personally assume responsibility for reaching a solution immediately after the democratic process.

I urge you to strengthen this negotiating effort with your support, I invite you to say NO to the memorandum measures that are destroying Europe.

I invite you to respond positively to the prospect of a viable solution.

To turn a page, that calls for upholding democracy.

With the certain hope that we will reach a better deal.

We owe this to our parents, our children, ourselves.

It is our duty. We owe this to history.

Thank you.

Thank you Prime Minister of Greece
Source: http://www.primeminister.gov.gr/2015/07/01/13835
Publication Date of original article: 01/07/2015
URL of original article: http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=15112

Other Articles about Greece

Greece – Black Friday – Blackmailed into Capitulation? Tsipras' Austerity Plan (10/7/15) by Peter Koenig | Global Research, Why Greece Will Have to Exit the Eurozone (8/7/15) by Jonathon Cook | Global Research, Planned US Coup in Greece? (8/7/15) by Stephen Lendman | Global Research, Behind the Greek Debt (7/7/15) by Thierry Meyssan | VoltaireNet, Greece – The Triumph of Democracy – The First Day of a New Beginning. "The Western Fraudulent Monetary System is Doomed" (7/7/15) by Peter Koenig | Global Research, Greece: Of Disappearing Debt and Illegal Loans (7/7/15) | Global Research, 'He doesn't negotiate, he kicks ass!' Why Varoufakis was the coolest finance minister ever (6/7/15) | RT, Warrior Economist: The Varoufakis Legacy (7/7/15) by Binoy Kampmark | Global Research, Varoufakis resigns as Greek finance minister 'to aid deal' (6/7/15) | RT, Greeks Vote NO To EU-Imposed Austerity Paul Craig Roberts (5/7/15) | PaulCraigRoberts.org

Today there is heightened concern and fear among western publics about terrorism. There is no doubt that ISIS, along with other jihadi groups, poses a real (if often exaggerated) threat and have committed many heinous atrocities. But the horrible truth is, that the U.S and their G7 'partners' - that is, the political wing of what today makes up a Transnational Elite (i.e. the political, economic, cultural, elites who reside mainly in the G7 and who collectively manage neoliberal globalization) – are not only responsible for far greater crimes (i.e. millions dead and maimed in wars), but share a large degree of the blame for the rise of these groups in the first place.

There is a long history of the Transnational Elite (TE), either directly or indirectly supporting Islamist movements. From the Taliban’s precursors, the Mujahedeen (back then dubbed 'freedom fighters') fighting with U.S support against the progressive Soviet backed government, to the jihadist’s in Libya, who NATO knew from the beginning of that conflict, formed the backbone of the uprising against Gaddafi. Today, we can add the various Islamist groups in Syria, which have been directly and indirectly supported, as declassified U.S defence documents recently confirmed, by the TE in an unholy alliance with reactionary Arab states, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The main reason why the TE has aided such groups is that they have played a useful role in weakening their real target – namely, independent/nationalist governments that, in one way or another, fail to play by the rules of neoliberal globalization, managed by the TE.

These independent governments have in various ways frustrated the TE, not because of their lack of democracy or human rights abuses etc – otherwise how could one explain the continued close alliance between the TE and reactionary regimes e.g. the militarist head chopping Saudi's! But because they have tended to adopt an independent foreign policy – supporting, for example, Palestinian resistance movements – and most of all because they have refused to open up, privatise and liberalize their economies for the further penetration of Transnational Corporations, who today dominate the global economy and who are owned and controlled by economic elites residing mainly with the G7! Syrian President Bashar Al Assad summed all this up well in a recent interview he gave:

"France wanted Syria to play a role with Iran concerning the nuclear file. What was required was not to be part of that file, but to convince Iran to take steps which are against its interests. We refused to do that. They also wanted us to take a position against resistance in our region before putting an end to Israeli occupation and aggression against the Palestinians and other neighboring countries. We refused that too. They wanted us to sign the Euro-Association Agreement which was against our interests and was meant to turn our country into an open market for their products while giving us a very small share of their markets. We refused to do that because it is against the interests of the Syrian people."

With respect to ISIS, it is well documented that this Sunni insurgent group was incubated in the wake of the chaos unleashed by the Iraq war the subsequent dismantling of the Baathist state. But it’s worse than that. The G7 elites were quite happy to let ISIS and other Jihadi groups do their worst in Syria, in coalition with their main agents on the ground the so-called 'free Syrian Army,’….as long as the guns were pointed at the Syrian state which the TE had earmarked for 'regime change'. Up until recently, the western media failed to report the atrocities of these groups and instead blamed everything, despite much counter logic/evidence, on the government.

ISIS only became the official target of the TE when they got out of hand. That is, they started to attack the FSA - the direct agents of the TE on the ground – as well as the pro-western Kurds of Barzani in Northern Iraq, who sit on top of some of the most lucrative oil fields in Iraq! It was these actions that led ISIS to become a target of the TE. Even today, however, the war against them is only cosmetic. Bashar Assad observed that the Syrian Army has carried out many more airstrikes in a single day than the western led coalition of 60 countries has carried out in weeks. Clearly ISIS is being allowed to continue to play a role weakening the main target of the TE: the Syrian Government.

But aren't 'we' (i.e the TE) supporting the 'moderates' in Syria? For starters all of these ‘moderates’ are a far cry from the peaceful protestors we are familiar with – they are armed insurgents. Imagine if western states were faced with armed movements (backed by foreign governments no less!), committing atrocities and aiming to overthrow the government. One can hardly imagine them being labeled ‘moderates’! Perhaps more importantly, almost the entire armed opposition, including the ‘moderates’, are Islamists, not secularists, and their only 'revolutionary' demand is to overthrow Assad! The only force within Syria fighting for secularism is the Syrian Arab Army, which strong evidence and logic suggests, still retains strong support from the majority of Syrians.

That said, as Steven Gowens points out, there is indeed a real difference between the ‘moderates’ and the ‘extremists’ in Syria – that is, ‘if moderate is defined as amenable to direction by Washington.’ And he goes on to spell out the real role these groups play, in the regime change strategy:

"Most rebels are Islamists whose goal is to establish a state governed by the Koran. US strategy in Syria is not to allow Islamists to come to power, but to use them to force a political settlement—one in which Assad steps down and relinquishes power to actors who are keen to turn Syria into a western puppet state, much like the current government in Ukraine, with its cadre of wealthy business people, investment bankers, anti-Russian rightists, and foreigners, including a former US government employee as finance minister."

I disagree with a supposedly 'anarchist' sentiment one sometimes hears: i.e. 'a pox on all your houses'. The implication being, that anarchists should idly sit by in sublime 'neutrality', while the most powerful elites in the world run roughshod over the basic right of all people to national independence/sovereignty, in their bid for reliable client states who will play by the rules of globalization! To me, there is no contradiction in standing up for a people’s right to national sovereignty – even when that means supporting governments and armies we may not like – and being an anarchist.

All this does not mean that I blame everything to do with war and terrorism on the G7 elites. Clearly the conflict in Syria (and elsewhere) emerges out of long tensions between the Syrian secular state and a poor/disenfranchised Muslim minority. Ecological issues, such as rapid population growth across the Middle East in recent decades, and the consequent ‘youth bulge,’ have also played a major role enhancing tensions. Then there is the whole question of why Islamic/religious fundamentalism has been resurgence in recent decades – a question, which has been well addressed from radical left perspectives by Saral Sarkar here and Takis Fotopoulos here.

In a real sense we too – the ordinary citizens of the west – are culpable. Not just due to our lack of interest in these issues, or willingness to speak out or protest about what governments do in our name. Even more so because we continue to demand the affluent middle class lifestyles that, in a real sense, are the spoils of a now globalized transnational empire of capital. Yes, the super-corporate rich are the main beneficiaries, but the middle class billions – still a small minority of the world’s population – are also beneficiaries, at least in a narrow material sense. As Ted Trainer reminds us, in a world of scarce resources, ‘if you want affluence, prepare for war.’

So next time a discussion among your family and friends breaks out about issues of militarism, terrorism and war, tell them that to overcome this sad syndrome requires some radical actions. In the short term we must speak out against the global power elites who are often supporting or helping terrorists to flourish in their attempts to undermine independent/nationalist governments. But we also need to work toward the long-term transformation of our own societies, towards systems, cultures and lifestyles that do not require us to take more than our fair share of world resources. We need to work, in other words, towards a simpler way.

I thought the issues in this matter would be obvious from the background of the actual event itself and from the Wikipedia link I provided re Zaky's actual background in my article, "Zaky Mallah and the Zombification of ABC Australia". Public response elsewhere indicates that this is not the case. So I'll make this effort to present them explicitly.

1) Zaky's background:

He had his passport revoked in 2003. He sought formal appeal against this decision. He was refused access to the 'evidence' upon which the decision was made and the decision was upheld.

He was greatly upset by this and made a fair bit of public fuss about it. Zaky readily admits some of his response at the time was over the top, but he also submits that he was only 19 and that he can be a bit of an idiot.

The Australian and Alan Jones picked up on this and, for whatever reason, gave some public bandwidth to Zaky and his concerns.

Quite probably as a result of this publicising of Zaky and his gripe, an ASIO agent posed as a reporter and sought to induce Zaky to enact a siege upon ASIO staff and give him the 'scoop story'.

At some point in this induced farce Zaky made a death threat toward this ASIO agent. On the face of it, this sounds understandable.

Zaky was then arrested and charged for his threat. He was held in solitary at Goulbourn prison for 2 years and eventually tried under newly enacted terrorism laws that were not even in place at the time of his arrest.
The judge and jury found him not guilty of the terrorism charge. The judge allowed admission of the evidence regarding the death threat even though it was illegally generated via entrapment and should not have been admissible. Zaky pleaded guilty and was convicted.

2) The current event:

Zaky appeared on Q&A and asked Minister Ciobo how he would be dealt with under the new pending legislation to rescind citizneship. Clearly this question is vital to him and anyone in the community like him. They all pay their 8ç for the ABC just like we do and are fully entitled to be heard and to hear on the matter. More broadly though, the question and the answer provide a vital measure to to all of us who might want to better understand exactly what this new legislative bundle may or may not actually mean.

Ciobo's answer was revealed the chilling reality that decisions would be based upon visceral reflex and not any objectively considered merit. No surprise really but usefully shocking to have it out in the open.

Zaky observed that the Minister's attitude, and thereby it can be presumed the Government's, would help mobilise vulnerable local sentiment toward ISIS rather than away from it.

At that point the world melted down. Utterly unlikely allies, beginning immediately with Tony Jones, all worked together from that point to completely obscure these stark utterances of ugly truth beneath an incendiary mob attack upon Zaky and upon the ABC, which has offered itself up for sacrifice either out of stupidity, cowardice or complicity toward the weirdly horrible status quo that we are being steadily conscripted into.

3) Zaky's misogynous tweets:

He did not tweet about women per se. He tweeted about two particular journalists who happen to be women.
The gist of his tweet was that they were whores. Personally I find his concern for their particular behaviour, and his character analogy of them, quite compelling.

I am not about to insulate myself from the useful truth and meaning of his communication simply because he frames it in the language and imagery that is common to a youth from the western suburbs of Sydney. Why is elitism any better than so-called misogyny? Both are divisive and marginalising. Moreover, persons fortunate to have an education should be better able to rise above such failings rather than seek advantage in their own 'elevated' form of it.

3) Fundamentalism:

Zaky is a prominent and repeated denouncer of ISIS and advocate against Moslem youth joining them.

Due to this he has received personalised death threats directly from Mohamed Elomar, an active Australian ISIS operative in Syria.

Zaky has continued his anti-ISIS advocacy despite these threats.

Maybe those anti-ISIS identities who are denouncing Zaky might like to compare their own effectiveness and bravery regarding the task with his.

4) Why this is an important issue:

It reveals the innate character and implementation of a very severe, potentially far-reaching new 'security'' regulation.

It reveals the innate character and purpose of the Govt. implementing that regulation.

It reveals the ruthless and coordinated intent of a media and community sector in prosecuting this socio-political character and purpose.

It reveals the gormlessness of the rest of the media and the community toward objecting to both the actions and the purpose of such obvious manipulation. In fact, with some rare and largely muffled exception, they are all falling over themselves to not be seen as being in any way obstructive or oppositional to this purge toward an acceptable national orthodoxy. Any particular minority group or point of view (population and growth management?) should be extremely worried about this dynamic.

It suggests that the Government's purpose is, at best, careless toward the actual effect it might have upon vulnerable Moslem youth and their communities, and, at worst, it might actually seek to provoke young moslems to subscribe to ISIS et al. This serves to keep the domestic electoral fire on National Security alive for the Coalition and it helps maintain middle Eastern instability, which has been instigated and maintained as a western Geo-political agenda from the beginning. This in turn keeps the domestic border security issue alive. Deliciously cynical isn't it? Keep the refugee source ignited and then make a big electoral deal about keeping our shores safe from their consequent flow. Personally I find such abysmal futility utterly sickening, even if only stubborn stupidity is at the nub of it.

But no, say the crowd, this is all a meaningless distraction orchestrated by an attention-seeking misogynistic fundamentalist.

Yeah, and endless economic growth is good and population increase is both inevitable and beneficially productive. Essentially the same narrative and source, isn't it?

Adapted from PressTV article Russia to supply Saudis with Iskander missile complexes (4/7/15) In recent years, particularly since 2011, Russia has, been an obstacle to the plans by the United States and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, to re-establish global hegemony through further bloody wars of aggression such as those fought against the people of Iraq and Libya.

However, the surprise visit to Russia by the ruler of Saudi Arabia earlier this year after it had launched a war of aggression against neighbouring Yemen and whilst it continued to arm and fund the hordes of terrorists who had been attempting to invade Syria since 2011, would have been of concern to anti-war activists across the globe.

On 4 July, as Saudi Arabia's war continued, it was reported in the in the Iranian PressTV article republished below, that Russia is supplying to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia its Iskander ballistic missile systems.

If the sale proceeds, it will be hard to continue to see Russia in 2015 as that much morally superior to the Tsarist Empire that helped start the First World War in 2014 or the police state of Josef Stalin.

Russia to supply Saudis with Iskander missile complexes

Russia has announced its readiness to provide Saudi Arabia with Iskander tactical missile systems, a Russian official says.

This file photo shows a Russian Iskander ballistic missile launcher rolling
during a rehearsal of a military parade in Alabino outside of Moscow. (AFP)

"If we, let's say, begin the talks today they will certainly take some time," Tass news agency quoted Igor Sevastyanov, a deputy director general of Russia's state weaponry trading corporation Rosoboronexport, as saying on Friday.

"I think if Saudi Arabia wants buying [sic] this equipment, Russia will supply it," he added.

Sevastyanov added that a number of procedures must be carried out for the process of delivery of such a weapon to begin.

A Saudi delegation has also been presented with coastal guard ships and patrol vessels at the International Maritime Defense Show IMDS-2015 underway in the city of St. Petersburg.

The development comes amid Riyadh's incessant aggression against Yemen, which has killed and injured hundreds of people over the past weeks.

This photo taken on June 15, 2015 shows a view of the destruction caused by Saudi air-
strikes in the UNESCO-listed heritage site in the old city of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a.

Saudi Arabia has been attacking different areas in Yemen since late March, without any authorization from the United Nations and heedless of international calls for the cessation of its deadly campaign against the Arabian Peninsula country.

In an unprecedented move, Russia and Saudi Arabia also on June 18 signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.

The deal was signed after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman in St. Petersburg on the same day.

Saudi Arabia recently signed a slew of deals with France worth billions of dollars to buy patrol ships, border guard helicopters and planes from the European country.

MR/HSN/HMV

One of the main reasons I hate Wall Street and War Street is that they are usually lying through their teeth to us. Fortunately, however, there are usually actual eye-witnesses to what really happened as well, and these actual eye-witnesses are always calling Wall Street and War Street out for their lies -- but none of that even seems to matter. Remember all the lies we were told about Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Palestine? Bosnia? Ukraine? Panama? Guatemala? Granada? And how we were always warned about these lies? And yet all those "wars" went on anyway.

And here is just one more example of the kind of pretty lies that we are constantly being told -- this time about Syria. An internet friend of mine who I met after visiting Damascus last year is now living in Aleppo and he sent me the following eye-witness 411 about what is really going on in his town.

So you read this. And you have been told. By an actual eye-witness. But does that mean that the unjust and mendacious "war" on the Syrian people will now stop, now that you actually know the actual truth? Obviously not.

"We didn't sleep at all last night," my friend Waheed (not his real name)[1] wrote me today from his home in Aleppo. "Attacks by the so-called 'moderate rebels' started in the afternoon yesterday and continued constantly up until this morning. The news here said that three or four civilians died and that 87 civilians were injured. But the ambulance sirens didn't stop all night long."

Hey, Waheed, are you okay? Apparently yes, but just barely.

"I'm sure that you have heard time and again in the American media," said Waheed, "that Syrians support the so-called 'moderate rebels'. But every single one of the people I know over here do not -- and aren't they the real Syrians? And after all these years and after all these attacks on them and after they have lost their income sources and family members, they are still asking the Syrian army to fight on their behalf, to terminate these vicious attackers and their nests, which have become like cancer in our body."

But what about the barrel bombs we hear so much about? I asked.

"At this point in time," said Waheed, "the Syrian people no longer even care if the termination of these terrorist who are invading our homes is by chemical weapons, bombs or whatever. All we want is for the killing of Syrians to stop. Yet, around the world and in the mainstream media, they still dare to demonize the so-called 'barrel bombs' of the Syrian army and they talk about the loss of lives of ISIS terrorists as if it was the loss of lives of some mythological Syrian peaceful moderate opposition who had been killed by a dictator!"

Waheed is totally pissed off that all these lies are being spread around. Barrel bombs? Really? When the terrorists' ISIS version of Freddie Kruger is being armed, trained and paid for by US, Saudi, Israeli and Turkish neo-colonialists who are only after capturing Syria's land and oil? Barrel bombs are the bad guys here? I think not.

"I don't swear, and I'm fasting this month," Waheed said next, "but this injustice is unlimited and it makes me and many others here feel like we are going to explode with cursing and swearing against all that nonsense of people lecturing in some conference in Britain this week or people at the UN who are telling nothing but lies and hypocrisy."

Part of Waheed's family spent last night huddled in the bathroom of their house because it was the safest room. "Everyone there was crying and terrified by the 'moderate peaceful opposition' as their house is located close to one of the conflicts lines. But the Syrian army can't bomb these ISIS and foreign-fighter terrorists because then the 'international community' will accuse the Syrian army of using this unprecedented super-ultra-modern weapon that is way stronger than a nuclear bomb: Barrel bombs!"

Yeah, right. And next the Syrian army will probably be accused of illegally using fire crackers or cap guns to protect themselves.

"The terrorists are using mortars, explosive bullets, cooking-gas-cylinder bombs and bombs made out of water-heater cylinders; filled up with explosives and shrapnel and nails, and fired by what they call "Hell Canons". Just Google these weapons or see their YouTube clips." Yes, they still do have Google in Aleppo -- but not for long if Obama and Bibi and Turkish hard-liners and the House of Saud have their way.

"The cooking-gas cylinder is made of steel, and it weighs around 25 kg. Imagine it thrown by a canon to hit civilians? And imagine knowing that it is full with explosives? And yet, the mainstream media in America is all busy with the legendary weapon of 'barrel bombs'! And also filled up with how these terrorist ISIS 'moderate rebels' came to spread 'freedom' among Syrians! How dare they say that Syrian army shouldn't fight them back?"

And meanwhile the fighting just keeps getting closer to Waheed's house. "For the first time last night, we smelled gunpowder. The shelling was so extreme and so close as to leave the smell gunpowder in the air." Yet no one at the UN complains about the American-backed terrorists.

"The results of last night's shelling was nothing but more new innocent civilian victims," said Waheed. At this point I'm almost ready to cry.

"I mean, the terrorists failed in gaining new land or occupying new buildings or quarters. They lost many of their foreign-fighter cannon-fodder 'zombies' here of course but their zombies don't count because they are being paid to fight and have no families or friends here to weep over their mangled bodies like is the case with our civilians."

Waheed then apologizes for being so upset -- as if he didn't have a legitimate reason. I know if it was my family and neighbors who were being blown up by terrorist death machines, I'd be too hysterical to even put words on a page!

"Mostly I'm not so much upset by the attackers and whoever is supporting them in Turkey over here (and Israel and Jordan in the south); but mainly from the liars in that conference in Britain or at the UN, who keep lying and lying, telling piles and tons of lies, about 'freedom' and 'barrel bombs' -- and they live in their perfumed and ironed suits and ties, happy with their Ph.D degrees in stupidity and fooling the world, having no problem in obtaining clean water, electricity, hot food and the rest of the services that we are suffering over here to obtain, even a part of them.

"Those people travel in 1st class airlines and live in 5-star hotels, and are ready to come on TV to weep over the fate of the 'Syrian people' and blame the 'regime' -- while giving a blind eye upon all the terrorists they are funding and supporting. I wish these people, whether they are Arabs or Western, Muslims or Christians, Syrians or others... I wish them Hell! And to taste and suffer the same pain they are causing to the innocent Syrian people." Me too!

These pond-scum should be evicted from their 5-star hotels and forced to go live out the reality that they now happily force millions of others to endure.

"The Syrian army has defended our city, and all the lies on the media claiming terrorists' victories are nothing but rumors and gossip. But that's all for today. Take care." You too, Waheed.

NOTES

Jane Stillwater and candobetter.net have the same correspondent from Aleppo, whom we reported here: Aleppo, Syria: 2nd-3rd July 2015 attacks - Please stop blaming the Syrian Government However Jane has had some more dialogue with him which means that the block of words we posted originally has been clarified, contexted and better explained in this article of Jane's.

First published on Jane Stillwater's blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/07/syria-where-america-drops-barrel-bombs.html

Updates 4 Jul 15 from RT: Pro-Greece rallies STORYMAP: How the world is expressing solidarity with anti-austerity campaign, 'No more looting': Thousands rally across EU to express solidarity with Greece, From historic vote' for Greece's Syriza to #Greferendum : INTERACTIVE TIMELINE

Update July 6, 2015: The 'NO' vote has won, 62%: 38%!The 11:00PM ABC news last night reported large rallies for a 'No' vote at today's referendum in Greece. Rallies in Greece in support of a 'Yes' vote were considerably smaller. Rallies by Greek Australians also featured in the report. In spite of the fact that further austerity and privatisation that could only be ended with a 'No' vote, would be disastrous for the Greek people, the organisers of the Australian rallies chose not to advocate 'No' vote. Instead, the rallies are taking a neutral stance ostensibly in solidarity with Greece.

Reports of rallies in Australia and Greece can be found on the ABC News site. ₁  Included below, in this article, are two embedded videos of rallies of Greeks in support of a 'No' vote against the IMF bailout conditions. Both were uploaded on 3 July 2015. The first, from the RT YouTube channel, is of length 3:28 minutes. (The fact that this video is only in Greek and has no English sub-titles does little to detract from its value for English audiences.) The second, from ThePressProject video channel is of length 10:30 minutes. It has been dubbed over by an English interpreter.

'OXI, OXI!': Tens of thousands chant 'No' to bailout conditions as Tsipras addresses crowd

Alexis Tsipras speaks to the Greek people before the Greferendum

In the speech, although Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tells the crowd that democracy will have triumphed regardless of whether the 'No' vote or the 'Yes' vote wins on Sunday, he contradicts this by also implying that a yes vote would be a surrender.

As explained by Tsipras, and as shown elsewhere, a majority 'Yes' vote, far from being a triumph of democracy, would signify a surrender to the demands of the IMF for ruinous austerity and privatisation of publicly owned assets in return for temporary relief from the interest payments on an illegitimate loan. That loan from the IMF was taken out on behalf of of the Greek people, with neither their consent nor the consent of the then opposition Syriza Party, by a previous corrupt PASOK government.

Other stories about the referendum include: Thousands attend Greek solidarity protest in Dublin as Greece prepares for polls (4/7/15) | Irish Examiner, Greece's referendum shows you can have too much democracy [?!!] (4/7/15) | Quartz. See also list of earlier stories here.

Footnote[s]

1. ↑ I was advised by 'J-D' on johnQuiggin.com, where the report of large rallies for a 'No' vote can be found, Greek debt crisis: Prime minister Alexis Tsipras demands debt write-off, 'grace period' for repayments as rival rallies fill streets, can be found on the ABC News web-site.

A panel in Japan has proposed the government take measures to halt the country's population slide so it goes no lower than 100 million people. At present Japan's population is likely to fall to about 87 million by 2060. This new proposal probably reflects outside interference by globalists, who are pushing for cheap imported labour. We should take into account that Japan's population numbers were stable until international trade and 'development' pushed them up by reorganising the population away from largely rural and small cities to massive land-less labour sources in huge cities. The Japanese are a very big tribe and have managed to regain control over their numbers. This push for immigration will once again destabilise them. Japan can only feed itself by importing food and energy. Already the national atomic power production system has shown itself to be hugely unstable and dangerous. This should be taken as a signal that Japan needs to go with its natural trends to return to a smaller, stable population. Reference: Anthony Boys, How will Japan feed itself without fossil energy? in Sheila Newman, (Ed) The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008.

The panel which the mainstream western press has unsurprisingly given such prominence, reportedly advised, using typical pro-growth terms 'greying population' , 'vibrancy', 'shrinking workforce', 'larger group of pensioners':

"Japan should stabilise its population about 100 million people, stemming an expected dramatic fall in the next 50 years in the rapidly greying country. If the plan is adopted by the government, it would be the first numerical population target in the country.

The population of 127 million is projected to fall to about 87 million in 2060 because of a far-below replacement fertility rate and the almost complete absence of immigration.

That would have potentially huge knock-on effects on the size and vibrancy of the economy, and will heap ever-increasing pressure on a shrinking workforce to provide care for a larger group of pensioners.

In its interim report, released on Tuesday, a government panel proposed Japan should take measures to halt the population slide so it goes no lower than 100 million people.

The panel estimated that if Japan's total fertility rate - the average number of children born to a woman - recovers to 2.07 in 2030 from the 1.41 in 2012 and stays at that level, the country's population will be about 100 million in 2060.

In its report, the panel called on the government to double its support for parents to make childcare easier, while encouraging senior citizens to work longer to help offset the cost of their old age.

The panel also suggested Japan accept more foreign skilled workers to boost the labour force. Previous such suggestions have fallen on deaf ears in a country that views immigration with suspicion.

Economic and fiscal policy minister Akira Amari said the government planned to reflect the proposals in its guidelines on economic and fiscal policies to be released in June.

"We hope the government will share our sense of crisis," Akio Mimura, the panel's head and chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said at a panel meeting, a cabinet Office official said. Source: AAP 13 May 2014 - 6:02 PM UPDATED 13 May 2014 - 9:40 PM"

The Japanese are a national group of tribes of Pacific Islanders who occupied and organised land-tenure in this region for millenia without advice from globalist entrepreneurs.

Diet change in Japan in the 20th century

During the Edo Period, when Japan’s population numbered around 33 million, total cereal dependency was probably around 90 percent, with 6 percent provided by soybeans and azuki beans, and a further 6 percent by potatoes and sweet potatoes, plus fresh vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, when available and/or in season.

Remarkable changes took place in the Japanese diet from the 1930s to the 1990s. The increases and decreases are symbolic of the changes that have taken place in Japan over the last 70 years (the mid-thirties was the period when buses, trains, and telephones were beginning to change patterns of life in rural Japan) and over the last 40 years, since the inception of the drive to industrialization and economic growth.

With the exception of wheat consumption, which rose 4-fold, direct cereal consumption decreased generally. Intake halved of the traditional soybean-foods, miso and soy sauce. Consumption of milk and other dairy produce increased 28-fold (4-fold since 1960), along with oil and fat, which rose 15-fold (over 3-fold since 1960), meat, which increased 14-fold (6-fold since 1960), eggs, which rose over 7-fold, and fish, which increased nearly 4-fold. More than twice as much fruit was eaten. Since 1990 domestic production of cheese has increased nearly 120 percent , all part of the ongoing change (Westernization) of the Japanese diet that has been taking place over the last half-century.

Today’s westernized Japanese diet represents a move away from cereals into animal protein foods. In fact, the total consumption of cereals has not decreased, the cereals are simply "processed" through livestock to provide food in the form of animal protein.

What food does Japan still produce for herself?

Japan could easily have been self-sufficient in food in 1960, but is now grossly dependent on the international market for food supplies. Since the late 1990s, 60 percent of food calories consumed in Japan are imported. Japan ranks about 130 in the world, far below Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Brazil in grain self-sufficiency.

Production of the food staples – rice and soybeans as well as other cereals – has predictably diminished along with farmland and levels of consumption. Rice is one crop for which Japan can easily be self-sufficient. At the end of the 19th century, Japan planted about 2.6 million ha of wet rice per year, but yields were about two tonnes per ha. From 1920 to 1969, planted area hovered around the 3 million ha mark, but yields rose from about 3 tonnes/ha to about 4.5 tonnes/ha. Planted area in 2004 was around 1.7 million ha, yield being around 5.2 tonnes/ha.

Planted area for soybeans was a high of over 400,000 ha in the 1870s and peaked in 1910 at 470,000 ha, but by 1995 it was under 69,000 ha. A complicating factor for adducing food needs is that soybeans are now imported as livestock feed.
Self-sufficiency in soybeans has fallen steadily since 1930 and is now around 20 percent, with annual imports since the early 1980s in the 4.5 million to 5 million tonne region.

In areas of Japan with fairly mild winters, and where the land was not snowbound in the winter months, winter wheat and barley were often grown on paddy land as a winter crops. Total production of wheat and barley, 3 million tonnes in 1913 and 3.8 million tonnes in the late 1950s, has plummeted to around a million tonnes or less since 1970.

Japan still produces about 80 percent of vegetables, 39 per cent of the fruit , 44 per cent of beef, 51 per cent of pork, and 67 per cent of the dairy products she consumes.

Self-sufficient in fish (though at lower levels of per capita consumption) up to around 1980, since then Japan has had to maintain, and even raise, per capita fish consumption by subsidizing her ever-declining fish catches with imports.
Japan has gone from potential or near self-sufficiency in livestock feed in 1960 to about 50 percent overseas dependency in just under 40 years. Source: Anthony Boys, How will Japan feed itself without fossil energy? in Sheila Newman, (Ed) The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008, pp 354-357.

Previously published (2/7/15) by Paul Craig Roberts.

Updates, 4 Jul 2015: Tsipras calls for 'No' vote in referendum on creditors’ demands | PressTV, 'No more looting': Thousands rally across EU to express solidarity with Greece | RT, 'No' and 'Yes' bailout referendum rallies gather thousands in Athens | RT, Greece – Risk of False-flagging Greece into Submission and Chaos? by Peter Koenig | Global Research, Could Greek resistance bring down the EU? (1/7/15) by Prof. John Quiggin | ABC The Drum, Greece and Other Musings On July 4th by Paul Craig Roberts, Greek Press Accused of Spinning Preliminary Poll Results as Yes Vote | Sputnik News.

James Galbraith, a professor at the University of Texas, explains what is at stake this Sunday. This is an important article. Because of the presstitute Western press, Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and Australians have no comprehension that their own liberty, or what little remains of it, is dependent on this vote. If the Greek people accept the conditions given to them in the ultimatum from the IMF, European Union, and European Central Bank, an ultimatum supported by Washington, the precedent will be established that the greed of the One Percent prevails over the sovereignty of peoples.

There is a massive Western propaganda campaign to make Greeks fearful and to use this fear to manipulate a Greek vote against their own government and in favor of the Global One Percent.

Greece: Only the "No" Can Save Europe

James K. Galbraith

Greece is heading toward a referendum on Sunday on which the future of the country and its elected government will depend, and with the fate of the Euro and the European Union also in the balance. At present writing, Greece has missed a payment to the IMF, negotiations have broken off, and the great and good are writing off the Greek government and calling for a "Yes" vote, accepting the creditors' terms for "reform," in order to "save the Euro." In all of these judgments, they are, not for the first time, mistaken.

To understand the bitter fight, it helps first to realize that the leaders of today's Europe are shallow, cloistered people, preoccupied with their local politics and unequipped, morally or intellectually, to cope with a continental problem. This is true of Angela Merkel in Germany, of François Hollande in France, and it is true also of Christine Lagarde at the IMF. In particular North Europe's leaders have not felt the crisis and do not know the economics, and in both respects they are the direct opposite of the Greeks.

For the North Europeans, the professionals at the "institutions" set the terms, and there is only possible outcome: to conform. The allowed negotiation was of one type only: more concessions by the Greek side. Any delay, any objection, could be seen only as posturing. Posturing is normal of course; politicians expect it. But to his fellow finance ministers the idea that the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was not posturing did not occur. When Varoufakis would not stop, their response was loathing and character assassination.

Contrary to some uninformed commentary, the Greek government knew from the beginning that it faced fierce hostility from Spain, Portugal and Ireland, deep suspicion from the mainstream left in France and Italy, implacable obstruction from Germany and the IMF, destabilization from the European Central Bank. But for a long time, these points were not proved internally. There are influential persons close to Tsipras who did not believe it. There are others who felt that, in the end, Greece would have to take what it could get. So Tsipras adopted a policy of giving ground. He let the accommodation caucus negotiate. And as they came back with concession after concession, he winced and agreed.

Ultimately, the Greek government found that it had to bow to the creditors' demands for a large and permanent primary surplus target. This was a hard blow; it meant accepting the austerity that the government had been elected to reject. But the Greeks did insist on the right to determine the form of austerity, and that form would be mainly to raise taxes on the wealthiest Greeks and on business profits. At least the proposal protected Greece's poorest pensioners from further devastating cuts, and it did not surrender on fundamental labor rights.

The creditors rejected even this. They insisted on austerity and also on dictating its precise shape. In this they made clear that they would not treat Greece as they have any other European country. The creditors tabled a take-it-or-leave-it offer that they knew Tsipras could not accept. Tsipras was on the line in any case. He decided to take his chances with a vote.

The stunned and furious reaction of the European leaders was, possibly, not entirely inauthentic. Perhaps they did not realize they were dealing with something not seen in Europe for some years: a political leader. Alexis Tsipras has only been on the international stage for a few months. He is brash, but charming. It would be easy for those as sheltered as Europe's present leaders to fail to figure him out – to fail to realize that like Varoufakis, Tsipras meant what he said.

Faced with Tsipras's decision to call a referendum, Merkel and her Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, Hollande of France and David Cameron of Britain – and shamefully also Italy's Matteo Renzi – all sent direct messages to the Greek people, that they would really be voting on membership in the Euro. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker went further, to say it would be a vote on membership in the European Union. It was an orchestrated threat: surrender or else.

In fact, neither the Euro nor the EU is at issue. The plain language of the referendum states that the vote is about the creditors' terms. The threat to expel Greece is an obvious bluff. There is no legal way to eject Greece from the Eurozone or the EU. The referendum is actually, and obviously, on the survival of the elected government in Greece. The European leaders know this, and they are trying now to ensure that Tsipras falls.

What does Tsipras gain by a "no" vote? Apart from political survival, only this: it is his way of proving, once for all, that he cannot yield to the conditions being demanded. So then the onus will be back on the creditors, and if they choose to destroy a European country, the crime will on their hands for all to see.

That said, there is no guarantee that Tsipras will win on Sunday. In the January elections, his party only won forty percent; now he needs a majority. Fear and confusion abound. The Greeks are, in effect, voting for a choice of unknowns, which can never be a sure thing.

If the Greeks vote "no", there is obvious uncertainty over the economic future. Perhaps the banks will stay shut, the deposits will be lost and the creditors will carry through their threats. The uncertainty is amplified, unavoidably, by the fact that the government cannot campaign to stay in the Euro and also explain how it would handle the trauma of being forced out. If there have been preparations, they are a well-kept secret so far.

If the Greeks vote "yes", on the other hand, the uncertainty is political. SYRIZA may split and its government may fall. What then? There is no credible alternative government in Greece. Moreover, it is hard to think that any government formed to accept the surrender and deepen the depression would last very long.

And it seems certain that after a "Yes", a surrender, and a deeper depression, the official Opposition would no longer be the pro-European Left that is today's government in Greece. Europe will have destroyed that. The new Opposition, and someday the government, will be either a Left or a Right party opposed to the Euro and to the Union. It could be Golden Dawn, the nazi party. The lesson of Greece also will not be lost on Oppositions elsewhere, including the rising far right in France.

The irony of the case is that the true hope – the only hope – for Europe lies in a "No" vote on Sunday, followed by renewed negotiations and a better deal. "Yes" is a vote for fear, against dignity and independence. Fear is powerful – but dignity and independence have a way of coming back.

Mark Scott is described on the internet as a businessman. But as MD of the ABC isn't he first and foremost a public servant?

On 1 April 2014 The Guardian quoted him as saying: "Mark Scott: News Corp papers never more aggressive than now. ABC managing director warns of dangers for Australian public debate in 'winner takes all' media battle. The strident editorial stance of some of the mastheads in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire had serious implications for "public debate and the contest of ideas" as they headed towards an almost total print monopoly in a "winner takes all" media battle, the public broadcasting chief said on Tuesday evening."

More recently the ABC's MD, Mark Scott, agreed that allowing Zaky Mallah on Q&A was poor judgement, but defended the ABC as being an independent public broadcaster and not a government broadcaster, and as such was on the side of the people of Australia. This was in sharp contrast to a state broadcaster that only represented the views of the government of the day. Scott said it was important to allow people, including the criminal and corrupt to “express views that run contrary to accepted public values” as part of free speech. “We still need to hear in order to gain insight into thinking, into motivation. To understand the root cause of behaviours and actions that we might find confronting and alarming, or worse.”

So Scott tells a story that is contrary to the ABC's suppression of the population growth issue in Australia, which is arguably of major relevance to issues such as carbon emissions and the Australian Budget. Scott has been MD since 2010 and has presided over ABC coverage of both without once addressing the relationship between Australia's extreme population growth and these issues.

Just to reiterate these relationships:

• Between 1991 and 2011 ABS statistics show that Australia's emissions and population grew by 32%. This growth rate far exceeded the most optimistic predictions of what a carbon tax could do to reduce emissions. This provides strong evidence that population growth is having negative environmental impacts
• For the last decade or more the Federal Budget has been growing by roughly 8% per capita per annum while GDP has grown at less than 1% per capita per annum while infrastructure investment (which should be financed in part by the Federal Budget) has been unable to keep up with demand. This provides strong evidence that population growth is having negative financial impacts

At the same time the ABC effectively promoted the concept of a Carbon Tax by concealing the potentially futile nature of such a tax in a country whose population growth rate is roughly 4 times the OECD country average.

At the same time the ABC failed to mention repeated polling over the last decade or more which shows 50% or more of Australians have significant concerns about the rate of population growth.

At the same time the ABC has repeatedly referred to people travelling to Australia from Indonesia with people smugglers on boats as "refugees" while Europe refers to such people as "migrants". We can be sure they are all migrants, whereas defining them as refugees requires case by case analysis.

But is it possible that the media's obsession with the word "refugee" is just part of the mass migration scam? The duplicitous policy of a country dedicated to foolish extreme population growth? A country whose most recent annual target was 13,750 "refugees" and 190,000 "migrants"?

So Mark Scott repeatedly lectures us about his dedication to "public debate and the contest of ideas" and the need to “express views that run contrary to accepted public values as part of free speech.", yet he appears to have been dedicated to the complete opposite when it comes to the Carbon Tax and Population Growth Management.

He describes the "ABC as being an independent public broadcaster and not a government broadcaster, and as such was on the side of the people of Australia.", yet with the Carbon Tax he appeared to provide biased and dishonest support for the government of the day as they passed their Carbon Tax legislation.

He has done the same with all governments in support of extreme population growth by failing to identify the direct correlation between population growth and emissions growth, or population growth and unsustainable Federal Budget growth.

Mark Scott looks somewhat schizophrenic, describing himself as a businessman rather than public servant, and as a leader of independent media that looks more like a tool of government in relation to at least two of the most important issues facing modern Australia; both of which are driven by government's autocratic mass migration policy. This is in turn driven by incoherent short term GDP chasing that simply isn't backed up by the social, environmental or economic facts.

Previously published (1/7/15) on Global Research

Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis, who holds dual Greek- Australian nationality

Other articles, which are supportive or of critical of the way in which Greek government has stood up to the IMF or neutral: Greece Again Can Save The West (1/7/15) by Paul Craig Roberts, The European Union does will kill Greece? by Webster G. Tarpley (8/6/15) | VoltaireNet, Syriza: Plunder, Pillage and Prostration: How the 'Hard Left' Embraces the Policies of the Hard Right (15/16/15) by Prof, James Petras | Global Research, Greek Journalists "Trained by the IMF in Washington to Spin Stories in Favor of the IMF and the European Commission (18/6/15) | Red Pill Times/Global Research, What Greece's Creditors Should Know (18/6/15) | Global Research/Socialist Project, 'This road of austerity is spiral of death' – Greek minister, (19/6/15) | RT, Greece to Face IMF Funding Deprivation Until Arrears Paid off –IMF Chief (19/6/15) | Sputnik News, Greece to hold national referendum on debt deal - PM (26/6/15) | PressTV, Brussels: A bloody-minded blob' of costly dysfunction (28/6/15) by Patrick L. Young | RT Op-Edge ...

1. Negotiations have stalled because Greece's creditors (a) refused to reduce our un-payable public debt and (b) insisted that it should be repaid 'parametrically' by the weakest members of our society, their children and their grandchildren
2. The IMF, the United States' government, many other governments around the globe, and most independent economists believe — along with us — that the debt must be restructured.
3. The Eurogroup had previously (November 2012) conceded that the debt ought to be restructured but is refusing to commit to a debt restructure
4. Since the announcement of the referendum, official Europe has sent signals that they are ready to discuss debt restructuring. These signals show that official Europe too would vote NO on its own 'final' offer.
5. Greece will stay in the euro. Deposits in Greece's banks are safe. Creditors have chosen the strategy of blackmail based on bank closures. The current impasse is due to this choice by the creditors and not by the Greek government discontinuing the negotiations or any Greek thoughts of Grexit and devaluation. Greece's place in the Eurozone and in the European Union is non-negotiable.
6. The future demands a proud Greece within the Eurozone and at the heart of Europe. This future demands that Greeks say a big NO on Sunday, that we stay in the Euro Area, and that, with the power vested upon us by that NO, we renegotiate Greece's public debt as well as the distribution of burdens between the haves and the have nots.

Appendix: Other articles about Greece's default on IMF loan repayment

New York Times Warns Greece to Accept Endless Depression –Because Default Might Be Painful (26/6/15) | Global Research, Greece's exit from eurozone may be best choice: UK PM (27/6/15) | RT, Troika Intends Starving Greece Into Economic Submission (28/6/15) by Stephen Lendman | Global Research, On Greece and Europe: What is Called "Negotiation" is a Demand for Total Surrender (28/6/15) | Global Research, Greek Parliament Authorizes Referendum on Bailout Program (28/6/15) | Sputnik News, ?Eleventh hour deal on Greek debt still feasible – Juncker (29/6/15) |RT, "Greece Should Go Bankrupt, Get It Over and Start It Over" (29/6/15) | Global Research, Varoufakis threatens EU with court as Greek default looms – RT Business (30/6/15) | RT, European Leaders Dictate Terms for Greece (3/7/15) | WSWS/Global Research

[Candobetter.net Editor: Updated with spelling corrections and some links on 2 July 20145.] My reaction to the short drama between Mr Mallah, Mr Ciobo and Tony Jones on the Q & A program of June 22 is different in some ways from Greg Wood's in his article earlier today, "Zaky Mallah and the Zombification of ABC Australia", although I agree with much of it.

Firstly, I have been pleasantly surprised at the mix of participants and topics in the last few Q & A programs. I thought the program of the 22nd June 2015 was really great. I thought it was fantastic to get a man acquitted of jihadist terrorism on to raise the issues that we all know exist in Australia's terrorism laws.

I was glad that Tony Jones and his team, whoever was responsible, allowed a citizen who had been at the margins of society to speak in this forum. With my own fairly extensive knowledge of interview techniques, I thought I recognised Ciobo's tactics as calculated to shame and inflame Mallah. Effectively Ciobo's personalisation of a legal issue caused Mallah to have to defend his 'face'. (You lose 'face' if you are attacked in public; it is much harder to deal with if a powerful figure tries to shame you in front of a crowd.) Very few ordinary people could have seen that one coming, nor could they have dealt with it any better. Perhaps only a seasoned politician could maintain apparent equanimity at such a public insult. Then again, maybe Ciobo was blowing off some steam he had accumulated after taking a drubbing from Antony Hegarty (Singer of Antony and The Johnsons) and Linda Tirago , (American anti-poverty campaigner). I think his response to Mallah probably even took Tony Jones by surprise, although I would have to review the podcast to know, and I'm not inclined to get into things that far.

Mallah's retort may or may not have been meant seriously and it may not have really made sense. Maybe he did mean, "Well, if you're so unforgiving and rude to a once extreme Islamist who has since tried to reintegrate and become a positive influence and make amends, that might reinforce the decision of others who are contemplating joining violent Islamist sects."

Or maybe he just retorted the first thing that came into his head, like a slap response to a public slap.

It is also shocking that Ciobo accused Mallah of having got off 'on a technicality' if, as Anne Aly, 'Counter Terrorism Expert' insisted on the next show, on 29th June, he was well and truly cleared.

But I also have to say that the whole government rhetoric which we live daily and which formed the context of the controversy on Q & A seems to me like an exercise in hypocrisy and a subtle encouragement for people to go to Syria and join 'rebel fighters'. It is our government and its slimy billionaire mentors in the United States and NATO who demonise the Syrian Government as an excuse to continue to rape and pillage a whole swathe of countries in the Middle East, in a fine old tradition begun at the beginning of the 19th Century in the Great Game.

You don't actually have to be a marginalised muslim immigrant with poor education to be taken in by the 'reforming the brutal Assad 'regime' (which is actually an elected government, not an illegitimate 'regime') spin. Plenty of apparently educated and intelligent people simply believe whatever Mr Abbott, Fairfax and Mr Murdoch's team tell them, which I find amazing.

The variation that probably occurs with some young muslims is that, as well as hearing about the 'brutal Assad regime' they also hear of how the West is raping and pillaging the Middle East. And they hear from religiose Arab sources, (sponsored by the Saudis, Turkey, Qatar for instance - Australia and NATO allies) ranging from The Brotherhood through Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, to ISIS, that Bashar al Assad's government is too secular and is repressing people in possession of religious truth. They rarely hear of how that government is the only one that provides Palestinians with effective citizenship and housing, nor that Syria has taken in a huge number of refugees from the surrounding countries wrecked and disorganised by western interference.

It must require extreme learning curves of sophistication and self-control for people who work out for themselves in the field that ISIS and various religious 'revolutionary armies' are actually led by crims, nutters and/or cynical politicians, often armed and financed by oil-states, the US and NATO, to then find some good in our own government and press, which endorse and amplify a host of transparently inadequate reasons to keep on bombing, invading and interfering with the Middle East.

Apparently Mr Mullah has also said some very nasty things endorsing sexual violence towards women. Well, I hope he learns that that is a pretty stupid and scurrilous attitude sooner rather than later. Now that everyone knows, let's hope girls stay well away from him.

Back to the ABC. Q and A did nothing wrong, in my opinion, in inviting a citizen with an unusual experience of notable relevance to the terrorism laws being debated on the program. Mr Ciobo, who is the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade, should be called out publicly for the way he addressed Mr Mullah. As Greg Wood (in Zaky Mallah and the Zombification of ABC Australia) implies, Mr Steve Ciobo sounded as fundamentalist and inadequate to foreign affairs as an infuriated Mr Mullah; he just had a nicer suit.

But the clash over terrorism and dual citizenship was only a cherry on a multi-tiered cream cake. Three guests, Grahame Morris, 'Political strategist' and Steve Ciobo and Joel Fitzgibbon (shadow minister for Rural Affairs, right wing NSW ALP) came off the worse as they were bluntly and skilfully challenged on issues of class entitlement, privatisation, poverty and environmental and social responsibility by Antony Hegarty and Linda Tirado.

Was that why the government really got so mad? Because the blokes on its side were so woefully inadequate to their ideology being challenged?

On the 22nd the Q and A program had as a guest Mr Paul Kelly, long time editor of The Australian. One felt as if one were in the presence of Mr Murdoch himself, as Mr Kelly articulated what strikes me as a delusional corporate media belief that the ABC is massively left-wing biased. My impression was that Kelly and another guest, Tim Wilson who is a former Director of the IPA and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs[1], were there more to claw back the lost face of the people from their political side of the fence who had been trumped the week before by Hegarty and Tirado. In the context of the Prime Minister's sublimely inappropriately themed recommendation that 'heads should roll' their poe faces were kind of scary.

In my view, the Government and the ABC management should step right back from any punitive or even finger wagging exercises against Q and A, which really does an excellent job of mixing right wing with left wing and 'academiccy' with business, ordinary or even marginalised. At candobetter.net we are often justly critical of the ABC, including Q & A, but not in this case.

Good job Tony Jones. Keep at it.

NOTES

[1] Now he is the Human Rights and “Freedom” Commissioner, serving under its President Professor Gillian Triggs.

Update: Full Report now attached inside this article."[...]There is an insufficient amount of publicly available information about agreements under negotiation, and independently sourced economic analyses of their likely benefits are not mandatory. In relation to the TPP, this has fuelled media speculation on the content of the agreement when certainty based on fact is required. It is unsatisfactory for complex trade agreements, which are years in the making, to be negotiated in secret and subject to stakeholder and parliamentary scrutiny for a few short months with no realistic capacity for text to be changed, and then for implementation of the legislation to be rushed through parliament unamended. This comes very close to making a mockery of the process and of parliament's involvement." (Alex Gallacher, SA, Australian Labor Party, Senate debates, Thursday, 25 June 2015, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee; Report [1])

I present the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on the Commonwealth's treaty-making process, together with a Hansard record of proceedings, documents presented to the committee. [...]

I am pleased to table this report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References committee into Australia's treaty-making process. The timing of this report could not have been better. Only last week, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement was signed, tabled in the Australian Parliament and referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, for inquiry and report within 20 joint-sitting days, consistent with the process that has been in place for two decades. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is also entering its final stages of negotiations, with parliamentarians told recently they could access the draft text, but only after signing a confidentiality agreement.

ChAFTA and the TPP have thrown into sharp relief evidence received by the committee from industry bodies, the union movement, academic experts and other stakeholders that the treaty-making process is in need of reform.

During the committee's hearing the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, DFAT, which is responsible for negotiating, consulting and finalising free trade agreements, was a lone voice in supporting the status quo. All of the 95 submissions received by the committee and every witness appearing before it over two days of hearings, with the exception of the department, argued that the current treaty-making process falls short on a number of counts.

First and foremost, all treaties, especially complex free trade agreements, are presented to the parliament and subject to scrutiny only after they are signed by the government. That parliament is faced with an all-or-nothing choice when considering legislation to bring an agreement into force prevents it from pursuing a key scrutiny and accountability responsibility. It is no longer satisfactory for parliamentarians and other stakeholders to be kept in the dark during negotiations when Australia's trading partners, including their industry stakeholders, have access under long-established and sensible arrangements.

Second, it is pointless for JSCOT to conduct its inquiries after the agreements are a done deal and signed by the government. This does not provide for an adequate level of oversight and scrutiny. Parliament should play a constructive role during negotiations and not merely rubber stamp agreements negotiated behind closed doors.

Third, the department's process of consultation is not working, contrary to what officers told the committee at a hearing. Meetings and briefings with stakeholders are plentiful but they are not as effective as they could be and fall way short of stakeholder expectations, adding to their frustration.

Finally, there is an insufficient amount of publicly available information about agreements under negotiation, and independently sourced economic analyses of their likely benefits are not mandatory. In relation to the TPP, this has fuelled media speculation on the content of the agreement when certainty based on fact is required. It is unsatisfactory for complex trade agreements, which are years in the making, to be negotiated in secret and subject to stakeholder and parliamentary scrutiny for a few short months with no realistic capacity for text to be changed, and then for implementation of the legislation to be rushed through parliament unamended. This comes very close to making a mockery of the process and of parliament's involvement.

In addressing these problems, this report steers a middle course between doing nothing, which appears to be the entrenched position of the coalition government, and recommending that treaties be subject to parliamentary approval, which is unlikely to garner political support any time soon.

The opposition favours incremental change building on the package of sensible reforms introduced by the government in 1996. This is why the report makes practical recommendations aimed at improving the level of transparency in negotiating treaties and the quality of consultations between DFAT and stakeholders, and making parliament a real player in treaty making.

Specifically, the report's key recommendations are: that the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties engage more in the oversight of trade agreements under negotiation and not wait until the end of the process; that parliamentarians and stakeholders be given access to treaty texts on a confidential basis during negotiations and not a token look at the end, as with the TPP; that trade agreements be subject to an independent cost-benefit analysis prepared up-front at the commencement of negotiations; and that a model agreement be developed as a template for all future agreements that deal with complex issues such as investor-state dispute settlement, intellectual property and copyright.

These are practical measures that improve stakeholder engagement during treaty negotiations and entrench democratic accountability through effective parliamentary scrutiny using the existing committee system These measures also better serve Australia's national interest by providing a more strategic and less reactive approach to treaty making.

The report's recommendations are consistent with the bipartisan approach of successive Australian governments to trade liberalisation, including the pursuit of free trade agreements. They do not question the constitutional parameters of treaty making or undermine the executive's authority to sign treaties or hinder the ability of the Australian government to implement free trade agreements in a timely fashion. The recommendations can be introduced quickly and without the need for legislation.

Put bluntly, the government has nothing to fear in supporting these measures. This report will lead to a better treaty-making process and, ultimately, better treaty outcomes for Australia in the future. Doing nothing is no longer an option. Treaty making in Australia faces a number of challenges which cannot be met by continuing with the existing process unchanged. These challenges include the changing nature of Australia's international obligations and their intrusion into domestic law and regulation; new methods of consultation and negotiation adopted in overseas jurisdictions resulting in less secrecy; and ensuring that DFAT is adequately resourced with the knowledge and skills to negotiate, conclude and review complex free trade agreements.

NOTES

[1] http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/99c8aee1-aa1b-48da-8cdc-593fed2e4d62/toc_pdf/Senate_2015_06_25_3556.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

[2] Thanks to OpenAustralia for its tracking capabilities and analysis of parliamentarian voting and other behaviour. For more on Alex Gallacher see http://www.openaustralia.org.au/senator/alex_gallacher/sa

Material has been added to this article on 1 July 2015. The general deception and essential horror active within the current bullshit storm being unleashed around the ABC and Mallah is fully revealed by simply reading the factual account of Mallah's background, linked below, and then considering what was actually said in the Q&A program in context to that factual background.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaky_Mallah

As stated at the outset by ABC chief Mark Scott, Mallah had a democratic right to ask the question that he did on that program. Beyond that though, every Australian citizen had the right, and a vital and pressing need, to hear Mallah's question and the Minister's answer to it.

In true fact and context, it was Ciobo's answer that was horrendous. His reflex response was steeped in ignorance, intolerance, exclusivity and malice. It flashed a stark, Freudian insight into this current government's purpose and will toward our national 'Freedom and Security'.

But having correctly established Mallah's democratic right, the ABC Chief then immediately resiled from his base position to also acknowledge that 'it was a mistake' for Q&A to have Mallah on the show.

What the hell? How? Why?

That weak-minded contradiction gave the hounds of fascism ground to swerve around the sound bulwark of Scott's fundamentally correct, crucially important argument. This avenue of circumvention allowed the rabid attack to proceed unabated; upon the ABC, upon Scott's compromised 'defence', and upon democracy itself and the free social dialogue necessary to its healthy function.

True to type, the ABC journalist group have since let these baying hounds set the parameters of the ensuing media 'conversation'. Every attack dog from every available right-wing brood kennel has emerged to swell a lobotimised howl for the ABC'c blood. The cacophony is now so loud, so pervasive and so disturbing that even moderate liberal puppies like John Hewson apparently feel they also have to join in with harmonic yelps, lest they be found socially and personally wanting in some indeterminable but viscerally uncomfortable way. To my mind, Turnbull has established beyond all doubt that he is utterly amoral and unable to control the fascist horde he sleeps with, or that he has fully resigned himself to being a part of it as the pragmatic mechanism for best maximising his own personal achievement. Labor and the Greens are both absent from the fray regarding the truth on this matter.

Faced with this unmoderated, slavering onslaught upon their own character, and quite possibly their own professional existence, the ABC journo group has proven unable to execute a competent and forensic examination and prosecution of the pertinent facts and context of the situation. No wonder they fail so abysmally on critical issues that are removed from their direct, immediate personal well-being, such as population, housing affordability, etc. They can't even effectively argue the case for their own professional freedom and identity. How then can they possibly act in any useful way to mediate due protection of our rapidly diminishing democracy, social equity or resource sustainability. Especially now that they have gone down so badly in this ugly episode of media and party political gang rape. PTSD now forthcoming or what?

Things are not at all well in this Nation at present. Very clearly our democracy now depends heavily upon citizens acting to inform themselves and each other. The mainstream media cannot be relied upon.

Footnote:

Within all of this it is also imperative to recognise that the frenzy and consternation of this attack upon the ABC has served to utterly obliterate any useful attention toward the nature of Government intent and character that was revealed by Minister Ciobo in his interchange with Zaky Mallah. Maybe the ABC is not in fact the primary objective of the current political exercise. Rather it is a subsidiary victim for the aggressors, although a desirable one nonetheless.

Notably, and perhaps shamefully, Tony Jones initiated this cover-up of spontaneous, 'pants-down' revelation of awful truth when he immediately declared that Zaky's final incisive observation be 'struck from the record'. What on earth did he mean? Zaky's comment can't be excised from the public record as its recording is not limited to a contained, formal transcript from which it can be simply and completely struck. It is recorded on public, readily reproducible media. It would have to be blasted out of its public domain existence by a campaign of mis-information and intimidation, which is exactly what has now been achieved.

Surely Tony's declaration at the time wasn't the invocation to begin this ensuing spiritual cleansing. Rather, was he simply prescient of its imminent arrival and reflexively at pains to be not too far on the wrong side as it unfolded? Which begs the question, just how well trained are the ABC cohort? Are they Pavlov's reporters, conditioned to familiar non-threatening ground by the constant bell-ring of the baseless but unchallenged accusation of them 'all being lefties'. My god! Why do they fail to challenge this inaccurate, essentially meaningless and effectively limiting generalisation of themselves as a work-group? Do they actually embrace the wistful but practically disabling and pathetic romance of it? Where might such a high profile embodiment of meaning render a real 'leftie'? As a pathological nut-bag or extremist? No wonder then that the parameters of social discourse have mutated so far to the right. And so excruciatingly clever to employ the self-absorbed narcissism of 'authentic' and wannabe celebrity journo's as vectors to deliver this mutation.

If the ABC journo group do actually embody the contemporary definition of being 'lefties' then I am indeed down a deep, dark rabbit hole and am in desperate need of the right drugs and/or implements to get back out again... and quickly please. Mind control is not the product of compulsion by the aggressor. It is one of submission by the victim. However no one person is an island. At some point within the labyrinthe of perceived reality and illusion we all need to access, and also to provide, some collective help. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' is an old film with a modern message in this regard. I've no doubt that Zaky could certainly do with some collective support right now. He deserves recognition of the merit of his basic position, and for his stoic courage and relatively calm consistency in the face of persistently mendacious attack, unreasonable accusation and confected collective hate being variously levelled at him by the voices of political neanderthals and 'progressives' alike. In this regard, Waleed Aly should very particularly bow his head in shame over his own efforts interviewing Zacky on a recent episode of The Project.

Thanks Zaky. Your effort has helped me to understand things more clearly than I did. However, with that understanding I also do feel more endangered, not by you, but by the horrific nature, breadth and scale of the social response to you. By many real measures, this country is not as safe as it once was. The enemy is how we think, or are lead to not think, about important things.