A posting place for news from places around the globe, outside of the US/Europe.
Must be nice to live in a functional country.
It's very unlikely that an election will be called, but I'm glad Elections Canada has a strong plan to run the election safely just in case.
gewy wrote:Must be nice to live in a functional country.
Reading all of that actually hurt.
If you want to feel real pain, read this page.
Cheng Lei: Australian anchor on Chinese TV detained in China
Chinese authorities have detained an Australian citizen working as a high-profile TV anchor, as relations between the two countries deteriorate.Australia's foreign ministry said Cheng Lei, an anchor for Chinese broadcaster CGTN, was detained two weeks ago.
Foreign minister Marise Payne said a virtual consular visit had been held with Ms Cheng via video link.
Australia's government warned its citizens in July that they were at increased risk of detention in China.
The best they could do with no unwitting tourists on hand?
The ABC and the Australian Financial Review have rushed their correspondents out of China after police demanded interviews with both journalists, resulting in an extraordinary diplomatic standoff.
Bill Birtles, the ABC's correspondent based in Beijing, and Mike Smith, the AFR's correspondent based in Shanghai, boarded a flight to Sydney last night after the pair were questioned separately by China's Ministry of State security.Birtles had spent four days sheltering in Australia's Embassy in Beijing, while Smith took refuge in Australia's Shanghai consulate as diplomats negotiated with Chinese officials to allow them to safely leave the country.
The saga began early last week, when Australian diplomats in Beijing cautioned Birtles that he should leave China, with officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade giving the same advice to ABC's managing director David Anderson in Sydney.
Subsequent advice prompted the ABC to organise flights back to Australia for Birtles. He was due to depart last Thursday morning.
But the threatening behaviour from Chinese officials peaked before he could leave, when seven police officers arrived at Birtles' apartment at midnight last Wednesday as he was holding farewell drinks with friends and colleagues.
They told him he was banned from leaving the country, and that he would be contacted the next day to organise a time to be questioned over a "national security case".
China's 'hybrid war': Beijing's mass surveillance of Australia and the world for secrets and scandal
A Chinese company with links to Beijing's military and intelligence networks has been amassing a vast database of detailed personal information on thousands of Australians, including prominent and influential figures.
A database of 2.4 million people, including more than 35,000 Australians, has been leaked from the Shenzhen company Zhenhua Data which is believed to be used by China's intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security.
While much of the information has been "scraped" from open-source material, some profiles have information which appears to have been sourced from confidential bank records, job applications and psychological profiles.
Of the 35,558 Australians on the database, there are state and federal politicians, military officers, diplomats, academics, civil servants, business executives, engineers, journalists, lawyers and accountants.
But there are 656 of the Australians featured on the list as being of "special interest" or "politically exposed". Exactly what the company means by either of these terms is unexplained, but the people on the list are disparate in occupation and background, and there seems little to no explanation in who has made the list.
This list is the scarier one. What does the CCP have on them and how have they been acting on the CCP's behalf.
And that's just the one we know about. You know Russia is compiling the same kind of data.
Luckily Australia is not really on Russia's radar.
Do you really think not having an immediate conflict with them means you're not on their radar? If I were them I'd have a list similar to China's so I could manipulate your ongoing conflict for my own benefit, even if it's just keeping them distracted with you so they don't focus as much on what I'm doing. I expect every world power has a similar list of people from all major countries (and plenty of minor ones too) because you never know where you'll need to manipulate people next.
I mean in terms of priorities. Australia and China have a huge amount of bilateral trade, significant population of Chinese descent located in Australia (~6% or 1.2m), overlapping spheres of influence (specifically the Pacific Island nations). In fact 30% of Australia's trade is with China, something less than 2% with Russia (outside of the top 10 at least).
Luckily Australia is not really on Russia's radar.
I meant on every powerful nation, not just Australia.
I mean in terms of priorities. Australia and China have a huge amount of bilateral trade, significant population of Chinese descent located in Australia (~6% or 1.2m), overlapping spheres of influence (specifically the Pacific Island nations). In fact 30% of Australia's trade is with China, something less than 2% with Russia (outside of the top 10 at least).
Right, but that means that it'd be beneficial for Russia to interfere with Australia's relationship with China as an way to get at China, or your relationship with the US, or the EU, or any country that is on their radar. You don't have to be on their radar yourselves for them to want to keep tabs on your citizens/officials.
Sure, but it's just a case of how many eggs can you juggle and where their focus is at the moment.
Oh you can bet your bottom dollar that Russia has similar dossiers on Australian targets of interest. We’re a middle power of little concern to them at the moment but the ultimate target of their destabilisation efforts is not the US, it’s western democracy as a concept. They will want as many fulcrums as possible and a little bit of kompromat can go a long way today. We are not as far away from dystopia as we like to believe, we’re just far more laconic about it then our northern compatriots. Australia is at the mercy of the creeping banality of evil rather than the bombast of it.
Mining giant BHP has conceded it submitted an application to destroy Aboriginal heritage sites at its $5 billion South Flank iron ore project in the Pilbara, despite opposition from local traditional owners.
The WA Government granted approval to destroy dozens of sites just days after Rio Tinto destroyed 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara.BHP is the second major miner to appear at a federal parliamentary inquiry investigating Rio Tinto's destruction of the ancient sites.
I'm glad people are paying attention now but some serious reform is surely required to prevent this happening again.
The Turks are not going to be happy about that...
It looks like Turkey is testing drone warfare doctrine there.
They've been doing it in Syria and Libya, too. Getting pretty sophisticated, by the reports I've seen.
Today is Indigenous Peoples day, believe it.
A number of Mi'gmaw (the indigenous tribe in question) boats were burned to ashes, a couple of vans were firebombed, some people got roughed up and a storage unit (where the lobster are stored after being caught and before shipping) was also burned to the ground.
Welp, it looks like the Mi'gmaw (with another partner) just bought Clearwater, the commercial fishery that employed all the lobstermen.
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