TODAY. The China bogey-man distraction from the REAL threat OF GLOBAL HEATING
The global military-industrial-corporate-political-media complex has done a damn good job of taking attention away from the world’s genuinely serious danger – climate change.
Sometimes it takes a military man to tell us the truth.
As Australia gets ready to be USA’s proxy fighter in war against China, former Defence Force chief Admiral Chris Barrie said climate change posed a bigger risk to Australia than China’s rapid military build-up. Other Defence experts agreed on “climate change as an existential threat. It’s a much bigger threat to our national security than a potential fight with China “
The Defence expert went on to say – “This is about transparency and keeping people informed.”
There’s the problem.
Big business – the fossil fuel industries, the weapons industry, the bought politicians, the craven, subservient media (media often owned by fossil fuel interests anyway,) the frightened national media like BBC and ABC – all of them tout the myth about China planning to militarily attack other countries.
All of them, parrot-like, recite the mantra of the “global rules-based order” – what a beautiful invention of the global military-industrial-corporate-political-media complex. ( no doubt the fossil fuel and weapons industries in Russia and China promote the same kind of propaganda to boost themselves)
Does Admiral Barrie have a hope in hell of the Australian government being transparent about the genuine peril to Australia of global heating, the melting Antarctica, and all that is already ensuing from this?
I doubt that he will be heard, along with how many other intelligent military leaders world-wide, who would rather see action on climate change, than another pointless and wasteful war?
CIA’s surveillance methods on Assange revealed
https://www.rt.com/news/574018-cia-spies-assange-firm/ 2 Apr 23, A private contractor installed microphones inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where the WikiLeaks co-founder lived, an El Pais investigation has found.
The CIA used private Spanish security company UC Global to secretly install microphones inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to monitor WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, El Pais reported on Wednesday, citing the company’s internal communications.
UC Global was hired to provide security for the embassy. Assange, who was granted asylum by Ecuador at the time, resided in the diplomatic compound from 2012 to 2019, before he was forcibly removed by British police. The Spanish company’s alleged links to US intelligence agencies were first reported by El Pais in 2019.
According to the newspaper, UC Global founder and head David Morales first came into contact with the CIA in 2017. Around that time, Morales informed his employees that the company would have to provide a new American client named ‘X’ with remote access to the server that collected the data from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, which was referred to as the ‘Hotel’.
“Regarding the Hotel work, I would like to offer our information collection and analysis capability to the American client,” Morales wrote in a September 2017 email. “We must… try to make it attractive and easy to interpret.”
The information shared reportedly included profiles of Assange’s visitors, including lawyers and diplomats, as well as cell phone data. Morales was quoted as saying in a chat message that “the people in control are our friends in the USA.”
One of microphones that Morales’ team secretly planted inside the embassy was hidden in the base of a fire extinguisher in order to listen in despite Assange’s habit of using a white noise machine to prevent surveillance, El Pais said. Stickers were attached to window corners to avoid vibrations and allow sound to be recorded through laser microphones. “I know it is of the utmost interest and that the USA wants to do it,” Morales reportedly wrote to his employees.
According to El Pais, UC Global’s work helped Washington foil a plan to sneak Assange out of the embassy in December 2017. Lenin Moreno, Ecuador’s president at the time, allegedly wanted to grant the WikiLeaks co-founder Ecuadorian citizenship and get him out of Britain in a diplomatic car.
Morales’ team reportedly recorded a conversation between Assange and Ecuadorian officials and then quickly sent it to the US. Washington responded by issuing an arrest warrant for Assange to Britain, which apparently prompted organizers to abort the plan.
In 2019, the Spanish authorities launched an investigation into Morales’ company and briefly detained him. He has since been released on bail.
ERA hopes to raise $369 million to continue rehabilitation of Ranger uranium mine in Kakad
ERA hopes to raise $369 million to continue rehabilitation of Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu The operator of a decommissioned uranium mine in Kakadu National Park is hoping to raise $369 million to continue paying for rehabilitation, with its current funds due to be exhausted by the end of September. Energy Resources Australia (ERA) has been trying to find enough money to return the Ranger uranium mine, 250 kilometres east of Darwin, to its pre-mining state, after operations shut in January 2020.
East coast nuclear submarine base decision likely to be made after next federal election
ABC News, By defence correspondent Andrew Greene and Kelly Fuller 3 Apr 23
Senior Labor figures say a decision on where to put a future submarine base on Australia’s east coast is unlikely to be made until after the next federal election, insisting locking in a location is not an immediate government priority.
Key points:
- Labor says a decision on where to put a future east-coast submarine base is unlikely to be made before next election
- Port Kembla appears to be the preferred option, though residents are wary of becoming a military target
- Officials claim they are in no rush and the new base is “not needed” until the 2040’s
Ahead of the formal unveiling of the AUKUS submarine plan in San Diego in March, the ABC revealed Port Kembla in New South Wales has firmed as the Defence Department’s preferred option following months of study examining three shortlisted sites, but the government says an announcement “won’t be rushed”.
Last year former prime minister Scott Morrison announced Port Kembla as one of three potential options for a new naval facility to house Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines, along with Brisbane and the NSW city of Newcastle.
Revelations that the busy commercial harbour south of Wollongong was the military’s favoured location has been met with mixed reactions from unions and businesses in the Illawarra community………………………………. more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/east-coast-nuclear-submarine-base-decision-after-next-election/102181528
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 