Childless Aussie vegans getting vasectomies shows environmental movement has finally lost its humanity
© Getty Images / kzenon
By Frank Furedi | RT | January 15, 2021
During the pandemic Down Under it has become fashionable for young male vegans to get sterilised in the name of saving the planet. This Malthusian instinct shows that increasingly babies are viewed not as a blessing, but a curse.
Australia has long been the country with the second highest rate of vasectomies in the world. Since the beginning of the pandemic, however, the rate of sterilisation has doubled!
According to Australian psychiatrist Dr Tanveer Ahmed, young male vegans are getting the snip because they believe it helps reduce population and consumption, which benefits the environment.
The belief that newborn babies constitute a threat to the environment is not confined to Australia. Environmentalist lobby groups are busy condemning those who have large families, branding them “environmentally irresponsible.” Having children, especially lots of children, is treated as an eco-crime. Prince Harry, via the issue of Vogue edited by his wife Meghan, pushed this idea last September, with his promise to have only two children in the name of eco-sustainability.
Many young female environmentalists have also declared their decision to boycott motherhood. In the UK, they have formed the ‘BirthStrike’ movement. These activists have decided “not to bear children due to the severity of the ecological crisis and the current inaction of governing forces in the face of this existential threat.” The BirthStrike website features personal statements from individuals who think it is wrong to give birth. When you read these statements, you realise just how much this movement has become estranged from the experience of motherhood.
The idea that giving birth is some kind of crime against the environment is now even endorsed by celebrities. Miley Cyrus says millennials “don’t want to reproduce, because we know that the Earth can’t handle it.”
The BirthStrike movement is merely the most extreme and depressing manifestation of an anti-humanist culture of pessimism. As is the case with Australian male vegans opting to get the snip, what drives them is not simply a deep attachment to the environment, but also a sense of misanthropy that leads them to the conclusion that the world would be a better place if humans stopped having babies. Their view of babies as polluters of the planet seamlessly meshes with a sentiment that treats parenthood as an undesirable and ‘problematic’ goal.
The dehumanisation of babies illustrates the sensibility of misanthropy driving sections of the environmentalist movements. The consequences of this sentiment were shockingly brought home to me when I read an article in the Australian Medical Journal by Barry Walters, a professor of obstetric medicine.
Walters wrote that “anthropogenic greenhouse gases constitute the largest source of pollution, with by far the greatest contribution from humans in the developed world” and that “every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years.”
He went on to ask: “What then should we do as environmentally responsible medical practitioners? We should point out the consequences to all who fail to see them, including, if necessary, the ministers for health. Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and thereby rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a ‘Baby Levy’ in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle.”
Depicting new motherhood as “greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour,” Walters proposed a baby tax. From this perspective, the very act of giving birth is a form of pollution!
The vegans who are getting snipped clearly got Walters’ message and are making absolutely certain they are avoiding any “greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour.” As potential polluters, babies cease to be those lovely cuddly things that bring so much joy to our lives. Robbing babies of their endearing innocence makes it easier to scare people off having them.
In centuries past, babies were depicted as a blessing, but now some argue that not having one is a blessing – at least for the environment. This reversal in the way we regard human life is explicitly advocated by the environmentalist writer Kelpie Wilson, who presents abortion as not so much a necessary option to allow women to determine their life, but as a sacrifice well worth making in the interests of the planet.
“To understand that a tiny embryo must sometimes be sacrificed for the greater good of the family or the human species as a whole is the moral high ground that we stand on today,” argues Wilson. Why? Because “we have to consider how we will live tomorrow on a resource-depleted and climate compromised planet.”
From Wilson’s perspective, abortion is morally justified as a resource-saving strategy. She believes that “most women who seek abortions do so in order to conserve resources for children they already have.” Scare stories about the “physical limits of the planet” are now being presented as “moral arguments about abortion.”
King Herod’s fear of newborns was confined to one baby. Today’s misanthropic fear merchants have a far more ambitious target – the act of human birth itself. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that those who believe, far from being precious, a human life is a burden on the planet are deeply messed-up people.
Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century. Follow him on Twitter @Furedibyte
Unexploded bombs at military site hinder Australian firefighters tackling enormous ‘life-threatening’ blaze
RT | January 5, 2021
Firefighters in Western Australia are being prevented from reaching at-risk homes due to unexploded bombs buried in the ground, as they tackle a huge blaze that has ripped through more than 9,000 hectares of land since Saturday.
The fire is located near the town of Lancelin, some 160km north of Perth, and is advancing at a pace of about 3.5km an hour towards the mainland settlement of Wedge Island, where a bombing range contains explosives buried underground.
The Department of Fire & Emergency Services (DFES) told local residents on Tuesday to “act immediately to survive” and ordered them to evacuate the area amid the “threat to lives and homes.”
A community meeting with DFES officials determined it would be too dangerous for fire crews to enter the old Lancelin bombing range surrounding the Wedge Island mainland settlement due to the unexploded ordinances.
The coastal dune area has been used in the past by the SAS for counter-terrorism practice, and for navy diver explosives-clearance training.
More than 200 firefighters are tackling the fire, which broke out in the Red Gully area of the shire of Gingin on Saturday and has spread rapidly, helped by winds of 20 to 30km/h.
So-called ‘spot fires’ are also being ignited by embers blown hundreds of meters away from the main blaze, with dry conditions set to continue amid highs of 40 degrees Celsius this week.
A DEFS statement on Tuesday warned people in the affected areas not to delay evacuating, as “leaving at the last minute is deadly,” adding that people who find themselves unable to leave should brace for sheltering inside.
No homes are reported to have been destroyed, according to local media. The DFES said the fire had been started accidentally.
Russia may benefit from trade rift between China and Australia
RT | December 16, 2020
Russian coal suppliers could boost their exports to China, as the world’s largest coal buyer is reportedly curbing shipments of the commodity from Australia amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
The developer of the largest Russian coal deposit, Elga, announced on Tuesday that it created a joint venture with a Chinese shipping company to promote Russian coal on the massive Chinese market. The project between Elgaugol and GH-Shipping is set to satisfy China’s growing demand for high-quality coking coal.
The deal is set to help boost Russian coal supplies to China from one million tons this year to 30 million tons in 2023, and the developer could potentially further increase annual imports to 50 million tons. The joint venture is also expected to contribute to the ambitious goal of the Russian and Chinese governments to significantly increase bilateral trade turnover, as it would increase the volume of trade between the two countries by $5 billion per year.
“The supplies of coking coal from Elga will replace a significant amount of Australian and American coal of similar quality,” Elgaugol Director-General Aleksandr Isaev said.
Another Russian producer, Mechel, previously said that it was planning to increase exports of coal to China amid Beijing’s restrictions on Australian imports. In November, the shipments rose by 13 percent, and are set to jump by 25-30 percent in December, Mechel CEO Oleg Korzhov said as cited by Russian media.
Tensions between the two countries have been growing for around three years, after the Australian government began limiting Chinese investments in the country. In 2018, Canberra added fuel to the fire when it banned China’s Huawei and ZTE from its 5G rollout. The most recent escalation occurred when Australia pushed in April for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.
Earlier this week, Chinese state-linked media reported that the nation’s top economic planner gave domestic power plants the greenlight to import coal without clearance restrictions from several countries “except for Australia.” While Beijing has not officially confirmed the restrictions, Canberra has already urged the Chinese government to clarify the reports.
This week’s reports are not the first to allege that China is quietly banning coal imports from Australia. Last month, several million tons of Australian coal worth more than $500 million were reportedly stuck in Chinese ports.
Australian court upholds sacking of academic for criticising US and Israeli militarism
By Mike Head | WSWS | December 2, 2020
A Federal Court judge last week set a chilling and far-reaching precedent for the further overturning of basic democratic rights and academic freedom, especially to express political or other dissenting views.
The ruling backed the University of Sydney’s February 2019 dismissal of Dr. Tim Anderson, an economics department senior lecturer, primarily on the basis of allegations that his criticisms of US militarism and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people were “offensive.”
Dr. Tim Anderson (Photo source: Facebook)
The court decision is another warning of the poisonous and repressive atmosphere being whipped up to silence opposition to the preparations for Australian involvement in potentially catastrophic US-led wars against China or other perceived threats to the global hegemony asserted by Washington since World War II.
Significantly, the University of Sydney hosts the US Studies Centre, which was established in 2006, with US and Australian government funding, for the express purpose of overcoming popular hostility to US militarism after the massive protests against the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The court’s judgment also exposed the fraud of claims by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) that its enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) with universities protect the essential principle of academic freedom.
Justice Thomas Thawley ruled that the university’s EBA with the union, which is similar to those at most universities, “does not recognise the existence of, or give rise to, a legally enforceable right to intellectual freedom.”
In particular, Thawley declared that EBA “academic freedom” clauses do not protect university workers from being sacked for making comments—even on their private social media accounts—that managements deem in breach of their employee codes of conduct. Instead, EBA commitments to academic freedom were “purely aspirational.”
University of Sydney Institute Building, where United States Studies Centre is located (Photo source: Wikipedia)
This thoroughly anti-democratic decision comes on the back of a similar result in another case taken to the courts by the NTEU. In July, the Full Federal Court upheld the dismissal of James Cook University academic Dr. Peter Ridd, for expressing his views, as a climate-change sceptic, that cut across the university’s reputation.
Anderson’s case demonstrates how far university managements, working in league with governments and the corporate media, can victimise academics, especially those who oppose the wars of US imperialism and its allies, including the Zionist regime in Israel.
Among the charges the University of Sydney made against Anderson was that he tweeted, on his own Twitter account, criticism of the university hosting an address by US Senator John McCain. Anderson described McCain, a backer of every US military intervention for the past three decades, including the brutal neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as “a key US war criminal.”
Other allegations included Anderson posting on his personal Facebook account a photograph of a group of friends eating lunch, one of whom wore an anti-Israel badge. Anderson was accused of “promoting racial hatred and/or racism” and charged with violating the university’s Code of Conduct even though he was on leave from the university at the time.
Anderson was further charged with posting to his Facebook and Twitter accounts a denunciation of a video news report by Channel 7 reporter Bryan Seymour that insinuated that Anderson supported racism and the North Korean regime. Anderson’s comment that “Colonial media promotes ignorance, apartheid and war” was declared “derogatory” toward Seymour.
Anderson was also cited for giving a lecture that allegedly featured an Israeli flag with the Nazi swastika superimposed on it, examined media coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2014, and encouraged students to seek independent evidence of claims of “moral equivalence” between Israel’s deadly aerial bombardments and primitive Palestinian rocket attacks.
This was judged to be “derogatory and/or offensive” and as “reasonably seen as racist towards or seeking to target and/or offend Israelis and/or Jewish people and/or Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.” Yet, critics of the Israeli government, including anti-Zionist Jews, have often compared its persecution of the Palestinian people to the actions of the fascist German regime.
Finally, Anderson was accused of breaching confidentiality orders barring him from even telling anyone that he was facing dismissal, and of failing to comply with “a lawful and reasonable direction” to delete his social media posts.
The judge agreed with the university management’s determination that Anderson’s posts and efforts to fight his dismissal amounted to “serious misconduct” under both the NTEU’s EBA and the university’s Code of Conduct, thus justifying his sacking.
Anderson’s dismissal followed a protracted campaign by senior figures in the federal Liberal-National Coalition government, the corporate media and university management, to demonise Anderson because of his denunciations of wars and military interventions by the US, Israel and other major powers.
In April 2018, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, who was in charge of university funding, demanded an investigation into Anderson for comments he made questioning US claims that the Syrian government was responsible for a sarin gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
The Murdoch-owned Sydney Daily Telegraph hysterically denounced Anderson as a “sarin gasbag” and the Sydney Morning Herald later reported that the university was taking disciplinary action against Anderson—a media disclosure that violated its own confidentiality regime.
Justice Thawley found Anderson’s dismissal as justified by the university’s Code of Conduct, which imposes requirements such as “the exercise of the best professional and ethical judgment,” “integrity and objectivity,” being “fair and reasonable” and treating “members of the public with respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity.” The university’s employees must also “uphold the outstanding reputation of the University in the community.”
These formulations are so vague and value-laden that they could provide a pretext for sacking academics or other university workers for condemning government policies, denouncing corporate greed or accusing the US and Australian governments of military aggression or war crimes. Employees could be dismissed for criticising university policies, such as hosting pro-military think tanks.
Virtually every university campus across the country now participates in government-funded programs to tie academic research to the development of new military technologies. Australian universities are being integrated into a vast US-led military build-up, aimed at preparing for war with China and other powers.
The NTEU’s response to the court ruling, as it was to Anderson’s sacking itself, and the massive job cuts ravaging universities, is to oppose any mobilisation of university workers and instead appeal to the employers for a deal.
In a union media statement, NTEU New South Wales division secretary Michael Thomson said: “We call on all Vice Chancellors to come to the table to talk about how we can formulate a legally enforceable right, to provide the appropriate protections for university staff and to avoid these circumstances occurring in the future.”
The Federal Court’s support for Anderson’s victimisation is part of a deeper attack on fundamental democratic rights. It widens the impact of a High Court 2019 ruling that essentially abolished freedom of speech for workers, whether in government or corporate employment. With no dissent, the judges endorsed the sacking of a federal public servant for criticising—even anonymously—the country’s brutal refugee detention regime.
A warning must be sounded. The ruling class and its agencies, including university managements, are seeking to suppress dissent amid mounting social inequality, war preparations and deepening political discontent.
Hence the federal police raids on journalists for publishing leaks exposing government and military crimes, the prosecution of the whistleblowers involved and the bipartisan backing for the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Australian authorities seize child, rule parents abusive for resisting hormone therapy to alter daughter’s sex
RT | November 29, 2020
An Australian couple whose child was reportedly seized by state authorities is appealing a magistrate’s ruling finding them abusive and “dangerous” for resisting testosterone therapy for their daughter, who identifies as male.
Lawyers for the unidentified parents filed papers last week seeking to appeal a magistrate’s October decision, setting up what appears to be the country’s first test case on parental rights regarding gender dysphoria medicine, the Australian newspaper reported on Saturday. Their child, then 15, was taken away from the family last year, after discussing suicide online.
“The authorities say we will not allow her to change gender, so it’s dangerous for told her to come back to our house because we will mentally abuse her,” the father told the Australian. “They want us to consent to testosterone treatment.”
The parents are seeking an independent psychological review of all possible causes of their child’s depression, as well as consideration of non-invasive treatment options. The teen struggled after losing friends at 13, when the family relocated, and those difficulties were compounded by a difficult start to puberty and anxiety about eating and body image, the mother said.
The family migrated to Australia a decade ago, the newspaper said, without identifying their native country. The magistrate found that the teen likely suffered verbal abuse over “his feelings and expression of gender identity,” which the parents denied.
Lawyers for the child earlier this month filed papers seeking approval to begin hormone therapy.
A Twitter commenter who said her own daughter suffered from rapid onset gender dysphoria, said state interventions such as in the Australia case mark “the end of parenting as we knew it.”
“We have no rights. Our children can be seriously harmed by the government and medical profession, and we are powerless to stop it.”
As the debate on treatment for gender dysphoria heats up in Australia, some US states are creating exceptions to parental consent laws to enable children to get such treatments as hormone therapy and sex-change surgeries without parental consent. Starting this year, children as young as 13 in Washington state have been allowed to obtain confidential treatment for gender dysphoria, billed to their parents insurance plan and done without parental consent.
“Hard to overstate how radical this is,” Abigail Shrier, journalist and ‘Irreversible Damage’ author, tweeted. “States are intervening in a loving relationship between parent and minor child and declaring: ‘We will physically transform the child against your wishes and behind your back.’”
Australia’s War Crimes and Culture of impunity
By Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 8, 2020
There is yet no reckoning for Australia’s SAS war crimes in Afghanistan, although details of horrendous atrocities are coming to light. A 2016 report detailing the extent of torture and extrajudicial killings by the Australian SAS forces in Afghanistan have been described as “fuelled by blood lust”, and compared on a scale to the infamous torture and murder practices at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The 2016 report which has recently been seen by two leading Australian news outlets, was compiled by sociologist Dr Samantha Crompvoets. Testimonies of war crimes, accompanied by the normalisation of such action and recurring impunity, have been characterised by a reliability in narration among different participants, pointing towards routine practices that escalated over time.
Notably, the report points towards an adulation of violence. The Australian special forces working alongside British and US counterparts held up the latter as the pinnacle of violence to emulate. However, the torture and killing of Afghan civilians by the Australian SAS is held on a par in terms of desensitisation and normalisation. A report earlier in March this year, which is based upon the witnessing of an execution of an Afghan man, states, “The visual image to me was, the guy had his hands up and then it was almost like target practice for that soldier.”
Human rights organisations in Australia and Afghanistan have called upon the Australian government to release the inquiry report into war crimes committed by the SAS, which commenced in 2016, in a manner which would hold the country accountable to upholding International Humanitarian Law. The open letter makes an important point that resonates even in relation to other countries subject to foreign intervention and impunity for the perpetrators. It states, “The Afghan people have remained trapped in an unbroken cycle of a 40 year long conflict which is profoundly rooted in a culture of impunity, with many actors operating in total disregard of local and international laws and norms in the firm belief that nobody will ever hold them accountable.”
Under the guise of foreign intervention and the democracy narrative which is used to sell war to the public, impunity for human rights violations is being cultivated. The lack of accountability is related to several processes, including policy, leadership failure, and dysfunctional communication between divisions; the latter amounting to secrecy that develops further possibilities for impunity.
One story featured in Australian media in March this year detailed the killing of an Afghan man who posed no threat to soldiers, and whose corpse was chewed upon by an assault dog. In another case captured on camera, another Afghan man, again posing no danger, is shot three times at point blank range – for no other reason than abuse of power, as indicated by the perpetrator.
Democracy and war crimes go hand in hand when it comes to foreign intervention and the bloody trail they leave behind. In an investigation by the Australian Defence Forces (ADF), the soldier who killed the Afghan man in a field was exonerated and is still serving in the Australian special forces; the narrative being that the victim had been seen with a radio, despite evidence to the contrary.
Such coverups are a regular occurrence which serve to perpetrate additional human rights violations. It is possible that the Australian government, as indicated by Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, will agree to publish parts of the report for “transparency” this month. The so-called War on Terror has unleashed a brand of state terror on targeted countries which so far has been met with an ingrained reticence from leaders to investigate accusations of war crimes. Between the bureaucratic delays of the International Criminal Court, and opposition to the institution by world leaders intent on saving the culture of impunity, there is little chance of implementing justice unless the international justice system is pressured to work against the globalisation of war.
Pompeo’s ‘Tokyo Kick’ Cannot Start the QUAD
By Salman Rafi Sheikh | New Eastern Outlook | October 26, 2020
Mike Pompeo lashed out at China in his latest visit to Tokyo where he met his counterparts from India, Australia and Japan as part of his efforts to revive the QUAD, a US-centered anti-China alliance of the four countries. Speaking to his counterparts, Pompeo said that there was an urgent need to counter China, adding that “As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP’s exploitation, corruption, and coercion.” In an interview given to a Japanese news outlet, Pompeo also said that the grouping was a “fabric” that could “counter the challenge that the Chinese Communist Party presents to all of us.” “Once we’ve institutionalized what we’re doing – the four of us together – we can begin to build out a true security framework”, he added further. Mike Pompeo, who was clearly on a mission to persuade his allies to join the military alliance, was obviously trying to make US allies sell the same anti-China discourse that the Trump administration has used at home to start a ‘trade war’ with China. The US, now aiming to expand the war, is recruiting allies; hence, Pompeo’s high-pitched speeches against China.
While Pompeo said what he had to say, prospects of the QUAD’s rise as a powerful military alliance or an ‘Asian NATO’ remain bleak. Its most important reason is the fact that none of the countries—India, Japan and Australia—are interested in picking a military fight with China, while the US has no real allies against China.
While there is no gainsaying that all of these countries—India, Japan and Australia—have tense and uneasy relations with China, they appear not in the least interested in formalizing a US led anti-China military alliance, thus making PRC their official enemy.
It explains why these countries have so far chosen to manage their relations with China on their own and continue to shy away from exacerbating the fault lines by joining the US bandwagon of a ‘global anti-China coalition.’
Consider this: while Japan has its economic ties with China and there is no will in Tokyo to ‘de-couple’, following the US in its footsteps, it, with an eye on China, still is increasing its military strength. Whereas it is already converting two of its existing ships into aircraft carriers, it is going to make a record increase in its defense spending as well. Japan’s Defence Ministry has asked for an 8.3 per cent increase in the defense budget, which is by far the country’s largest rise in last two decades. Interestingly enough, one crucial reason why Japan has decided to increase the budget is the pressure that the Trump administration has been putting on the Japanese to manage their own national security. If Japan is anyway going to spend more and more on defense, increasing its military capability to position itself better in the region, not requiring extensive US military support, and it still wants to continue to have strong economic ties with China, there is no reason why it would want to permanently destabilize its relations with China by joining the ‘Asian NATO.’ Although this was prime minister Abe’s dream, his absence from the government will leave a further dampening impact on the alliance’s future prospects and Japan’s standing therein.
Australia’s government has announced a raft of legislation to curb foreign influence that is clearly (though unofficially) targeted at China. And India is actively engaged in a high-altitude, high-stakes game of chicken with China in the Himalayas—a hot-and-cold conflict in which India is no longer acting passively.
The fact that all of these countries have their specific problems with China and yet they have not been able to fully activate the QUAD shows there is no active and strong desire for a US-led military alliance. As such, the QUAD summit failed yet again to issue a joint statement or a communique.
Notwithstanding the US belligerence, the main focus of Japan, Australia and India remains a politically, economically and militarily balanced relationship with China.
This is the crucial reason that explains why, despite Pompeo’s hype and upbeat assessment of the ‘China threat’, none of the countries’ mentioned China directly in their statements issued after the meeting.
Unlike Pompeo, Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi notably did not mention China in his remarks, and the Japanese government was quick to clarify that the talks were not directed at any one country. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar noted the fact that the meeting was happening at all, given the coronavirus pandemic, was “testimony to the importance” of the alliance. Accordingly, while India like Japan, did endorse the agenda of “free pacific region” and “rule-based system”, it did not mention China either. Certainly, Indian policy makers were not looking to further destabilize the situation in and around the Ladakh region. For Australian foreign minister, who also did not mention China, the essence of the QUAD was to “promote strategic balance” in the Indo-pacific (and not start an Indo-pacific military alliance).
Starting a military alliance against China does not make sense. If the US is these countries’ biggest military and security ally, China is by far one of the largest trading partners, which makes the summit more symbolic than substantive. Accordingly, while Pompeo was talking of creating a ‘security network’, Japanese officials confirmed to local media that the subject was not even raised in the meeting; for, such a venture is unlikely to gain traction in the wake of these countries’ main thrust for balanced ties with China.
In the absence of a clear will and desire for building up military pressure on China, the ‘Asian NATO’ will remain an engine-less rail car, one that even persistent kicks wouldn’t be able to ignite.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Australia Faces Challenging Times Caused by Deteriorating Relations with China
By James ONeill – New Eastern Outlook – 16.10.2020
A recent article published in Russia Today on 13 October 2020 by Tom Fowdy raised some very important issues affecting Australia’s economic well-being. That economic position is rapidly deteriorating as the country’s crucial economic relationship with China disintegrates at an accelerating rate. Australia’s export structure has had several distinctive features over the 250 or so years since it was first colonised by the British in the late 18th century.
Its initial role was to serve as a penal colony for people from Britain who had committed crimes, but not severe enough to warrant execution. The rights of Australia’s indigenous population who had inhabited the country for more than 100,000 years did not enter the equation. Indeed, they were not officially regarded even as human beings, that status only being assigned in the 1960s. Before then the aboriginal people had the same legal status as flora and fauna.
The defeat of the British in Singapore by the Japanese army in 1941 lead to the beginning of a move from reliance on the British for the country’s security to reliance upon the Americans. The latter’s troops arrived in 1942 and they have been there ever since.
Australia’s trading patterns showed a similar reliance upon the British until the latter’s joining the European Common Market on 1 January 1973 forced a reappraisal of that economic relationship. Thereafter, Australia’s trade shifted progressively to its Asian neighbours, a trend that accelerated in every year since the 1970s. Today, Asian nations account for the vast bulk of Australia’s trade with the world.
China, which accounted in 2019 for more than one third of the total Australian exports, was easily the biggest trading partner, accounting for nearly twice the amount of trade than that with Japan, the second most important trading partner.
Despite its geography, being a landmass immediately South of its major trading partners, the Australian political psyche has remained firmly fixed to the Anglo-United States worldview. Since the end of World War II in 1945, Australia has joined the United States in at least four major military conflicts; Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, that are not only geographically remote from Australia, but also involved no discernible vital Australian strategic interest.
The fact that all four wars were based on false justifications did nothing to enhance their legitimacy. The Korean War was manifestly aimed at the overthrow of the then newly installed Communist Party in China. This was readily discernible from the actions of the Allied troops that clearly violated the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising military action (in the absence of Russia and with China’s seat still held by the Nationalists.)
The lies told about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” or Afghanistan’s alleged role in sheltering the falsely accused Osama bin Laden for his alleged role in the events of 11 September 2001 are too well known to bear repetition here. What is important for present purposes is that the falsehoods and ulterior motives for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq did not deter Australia from either its initial involvement or its continuing role as an occupying power.
Australia similarly joined in the United States manufactured war in Vietnam, again for no discernible strategic or military interest to Australia. It was the experience of the 1972 –1975 Whitlam Labor government in Australia in response to that war that cemented the subservience to United States interests.
Whitlam had removed Australian troops from Vietnam and recognised the PRC as China’s legitimate government. Both moves met with bitter opposition by the Liberal Opposition party. What sealed the Whitlam government’s fate however, was its decision to close the American run spy base at Pine Gap in Australia’s Northern Territory. The Whitlam government was dismissed by the country’s Governor General John Kerr the day before Whitlam was to announce Pine Gap’s closure to the Australian parliament. That the base is still open (one of at least eight United States military bases in Australia) speaks volumes about the geopolitical consequences of the Whitlam dismissal.
Through these tumultuous years trade with China continued to flourish. China also became the largest source of foreign students, the largest source of foreign tourists, and the third largest source of foreign investment. In 2020 all this changed. Clearly acting as a mouthpiece for the American administration, Australia demanded an “explanation” from China at the beginning of this year for the outbreak of the Corona virus.
The accusatory tone of the Australian demand was not well received in Beijing. This began a series of economic countermeasures by China. The initially relatively small economic impact of banning wine imports was clearly intended to send a signal.
That signal fell on deaf ears. Australia’s anti-China rhetoric progressively escalated through 2020. The Chinese response was to increase the banning of Australian imports. The latest (early October 2020) was to ban coal imports from Australia. This is a market worth $US13 billion to the Australian economy. It will not be the last item to be banned or greatly restricted, with iron ore (more than US$100 billion) probably being the next commodity banned, already falling 17% each month since July.
The Covid crisis has also resulted in an almost complete cessation of Chinese student arrivals (again the largest foreign source) and an industry worth billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the Australian economy. It would be naïve to expect those numbers to recover in the foreseeable future. The same is true with Chinese tourists, a vanishing species and again unlikely to return to anywhere near previous levels. Again, tens of thousands of jobs are lost.
The rational response by an Australian government would be to review both its policies and its rhetoric. Not only has the Morrison government shown no such inclination, it is difficult to see how it could feasibly do so without adversely affecting its close and continuing (subservient) relationship with the United States.
The memory of the fate of the 1975 Whitlam government which dared to pursue policies contrary to United States wishes continues to cast a very long shadow over Australian politics.
Fowdy suggests that Australia’s situation “might be described as the most clear and explicit reaction yet of the discomfort in the Anglo-sphere world caused by the rise of China.” I respectfully agree. The solution however, is not to try and maintain the dominance of the Western world as it has been for the past 300 years.
Instead there needs to be a recognition that the Anglo-Saxon dominance was an historical anomaly, and that the old order is resetting itself. In Australia’s case that will require some major mental adjustments.
The country has flourished in recent decades precisely because of its geography and growing trade and other links with what Australians call “the near North.” What has been manifestly lacking is the political attitudes and conduct that match the geopolitical and trade realities. Unfortunately, that adjustment may be a bridge too far for the Australian psyche. It has only itself to blame.
James O’Neill is an Australian-based former Barrister at Law.
Round up the ‘anti-vaxxers’? Enlist religious leaders? Bill Gates warns US needs to brainstorm ways to reduce ‘vaccine hesitancy’
RT | October 6, 2020
Billionaire software tycoon Bill Gates has urged the US to prepare for a Covid-19 vaccine rollout by deputizing trusted community leaders to “reduce vaccine hesitancy,” bemoaning the rapid spread of “conspiracy theories” online.
The Microsoft founder-turned-vaccine-evangelist painted a mostly rosy picture of a vaccine rollout getting “rich countries” back to normal by the end of 2021 in an interview during the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council on Tuesday.
However, with less than half of Americans saying they’d get a Covid jab – even if paid $100 for it – in a recent survey, Gates then focused his talk on enlisting the nation’s “trust network” to overcome the skeptics.
Lamenting that “vaccine hesitancy is in all countries and predates the pandemic,” Gates suggested American health officials start “thinking about which voices will help reduce the hesitancy, so we can get a level of vaccination that really has a chance of stopping” the virus.
Gates provided the example of challenges the polio vaccine faced in some countries – and the cunning lengths some were willing to go to get their populations jabbed.
“In places like Nigeria we had to go to the religious leaders, talk to them, have them speak out, you know, vaccinate their children. So [it is about] understanding the trust network – who is it that you view as an expert. Very few people can look at the formulation or data directly.”
Coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci hinted back in June that he was already on the task, revealing the government had a PR blitz planned in which “people [vaccine-hesitant Americans] can relate to in the community – sports figures, community heroes, people that they look up to” – will spread the pro-vaccine gospel.
Gates had typically harsh words for both conspiracy theorists and the social media platforms he believes enable them, complaining that “very titillating things” like the notion that “somebody intentionally made this virus, or that there’s some conspiracy” spread online “so much faster than the truth, which is that it comes from a bat.” Gates called on social media to “slow down or annotate things that actually cause huge damage, like not wearing masks or not being willing to take the vaccine if it proves that it is this key tool to getting back to normal.”
While he stressed he wasn’t suggesting Facebook and its peers go for “the Chinese solution” of telling companies what they must censor, the billionaire has previously called conspiracy theories about his funding of global vaccination schemes “a big problem,” and on Tuesday he slammed platforms for the absence of “smart solutions” to that problem.
Gates saved some barbs for the Trump administration, disparaging the government’s preparation for and response to the pandemic, accusing it of creating a “vacuum of leadership” by pulling out of the World Health Organization. Among other failings, “we didn’t do [pandemic] simulations” like some countries, he complained, referencing his now-famous 2015 TED Talk about the importance of comprehensive state-level planning for epidemics.
However, his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation actually staged one of the best-known pandemic simulations, Event 201, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum and Johns Hopkins University in New York last October. The barely-fictional scenario involved a deadly coronavirus originating in geese spreading around the world, devastating economies and triggering the imposition of strict behavioral controls while leaving a trail of 65 million bodies in its wake. The narrative was so close to the subsequent outbreak of the novel coronavirus that Johns Hopkins was forced to include a disclaimer on the event website.
Indeed, the US government has run several such simulations in conjunction with representatives of local governments, hospitals, and various other private sector interests over the years. “Crimson Contagion,” one such exercise held from January to August last year, predicted the US would respond in a chaotic and disorganized fashion to an outbreak, exposing weaknesses that were apparently not remedied in time for Covid-19. A 2017 Pentagon report similarly warned that a “novel respiratory disease” emanating from, among other places, a Chinese wet market could spread throughout the world, hurting the military’s readiness and national security for as long as two years and prescribing correctives – which apparently fell on deaf ears.
Gates has previously warned that the “final hurdle” to a vaccine-fueled return to normalcy is convincing the population to actually roll up their sleeves and take the jab(s), and the World Health Organization – of which his foundation is the single largest funder, following the US’ departure – declared “vaccine hesitancy” one of the biggest threats to world health last year. The billionaire has stated he hopes to have seven billion humans vaccinated with whatever formula proves safe and effective, but has suggested a mandate would be counterproductive and actually increase resistance to vaccines.
Gates is far from the only voice urging governments to soft-pedal their inoculation demands. Noting that a straight-up mandate would probably be challenged and nullified in court, a paper published earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine instead suggested at-risk populations be threatened with “penalties” like job loss for failure to get vaccinated. Australian PM Scott Morrison similarly had to walk back comments that vaccination should be “as mandatory as possible” after intense public outcry, and US President Donald Trump has promised the shot will be optional even as he tasked the military with delivering it.
Gates is funding the development of six leading Covid-19 vaccine candidates, and told the conference Phase III clinical trial data would be in before the year’s end. Acknowledging “we still don’t know whether these vaccines will succeed,” he nevertheless pooh-poohed Russian and Chinese vaccine development efforts, predicting that once ‘his’ – the Western – jabs were widely available at low cost, “I doubt there will be a lot of Russian or Chinese vaccine going outside these countries.”
‘Vicious slanders’: China hits out at Australian foreign interference allegations
RT | September 16, 2020
Chinese officials in Australia have dismissed allegations of foreign interference as “vicious slanders.” The denial follows reports that a consular member had been investigated for his role in a suspected propaganda campaign.
The Chinese Consulate in Sydney said on Wednesday that it wanted to promote “friendly exchanges and pragmatic cooperation,” and that it had always abided by “international law and basic norms of international relations.”
“The accusations that the Consulate General and its official engaged in infiltration activities are totally baseless and nothing but vicious slanders.”
Relations between the two countries sunk to their lowest point in decades amid a months-long investigation into whether top Chinese diplomats, academics and journalists were involved in deliberately spreading propaganda and influencing Australian officials.
On September 15, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported it had obtained documents showing that Australian Federal Police (AFP) were investigating whether a consulate official was involved in the suspected influencing of a state politician and policy adviser.
According to the report, an AFP warrant named consulate member Sun Yantao in relation to an investigation involving New South Wales (NSW) State Parliament member Shaoquett Moselmane and one of his policy advisers, John Zhisen Zhang.
Moselmane’s home and office were raided by AFP and Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) officers in June, during which computers and other communication devices were seized. The investigation was focused on whether Moselmane’s activities as a lawmaker were influenced by members of the Chinese Communist Party, with whom he allegedly corresponded.
Gradually worsening relations between the two countries have also affected journalists from both sides. Last week, two reporters working for Australian media in China were rushed out of the country “for their safety.” Before their departure, the correspondents were questioned by China’s state security ministry in relation to the case of Cheng Lei, an Australian China-based journalist who worked for English-language channel CGTN. Cheng was detained in August and remains in custody over suspected activities that endanger China’s security.
At the same time, Beijing has repeatedly condemned the ‘harassment’ of Chinese journalists in Australia. The latest incident of this sort came on late Tuesday, when ASIO agents raided the homes of four Chinese journalists and confiscated communications items, raising questions of a tit-for-tat escalation between the sides, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.
Deteriorating relations between Australia and China partially resemble those playing out between China and the US, where moves have already been made to counter alleged influence and intelligence operations by Beijing.
In July, the Chinese consulate in Houston was forced to close suddenly due to the threat of “espionage and influence activities,” according to a senior US Justice Department official.
Earlier in the year, Chinese-state media organizations operating in the US were told they would be treated as foreign government functionaries, instilling them with the same administrative requirements as embassies and consulates.
According to Washington, the moves were for the purpose of curbing undue Chinese influence from within the US; however, they were met with heavy criticism from Beijing. China has accused both the US and Australia of holding double standards in their approach to freedom of the press and free speech.
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Israeli rabbi says ‘kill everyone in Gaza, including babies’
The Cradle | March 24, 2024
Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, head of the Shirat Moshe yeshiva (religious school) in the occupied city of Jaffa, called on the Israeli army to kill everyone in Gaza, including babies.
During a conference on 8 March, Mali said that “according to the halachic principle (a religious-ethical system of legal reasoning in Judaism), all residents of Gaza must be killed.”
When asked during the conference if babies should be killed as well, he said: “The same thing. You can’t be clever with the Torah. Today he’s a baby, tomorrow he’s a fighter. There are no questions here. Today’s terrorists were previously 8-year-old children.”
“Those who create the terrorists” should also be killed, he said in reference to women in Gaza.
The Rabbi went on to explain that Israel’s war on Gaza is a “Mitzvah war,” which is defined as a war of “commandment” in Jewish tradition. According to Jewish law, this kind of war does not require permission from a “Sanhedrin,” also known as a council or assembly, such as the war against Amalek – previously declared in a biblical reference by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the war on Gaza.
“There is a difference between a civilian population in other places and a civilian population in Gaza. In Gaza, according to estimates, 95 to 98 percent want us destroyed.”
“Since this is a sensitive issue, and I was told that it is being uploaded on the Internet, I want to be ahead of the curve and say that the bottom line is that you have to do exactly what is said in the IDF’s order,” Mali added.
The rabbi’s students in the Shirat Moshe yeshiva serve in the Israeli army. The Yeshiva is sponsored by the Israeli government. … Full article
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