tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60271439330534059972024-03-19T01:46:28.254-07:00VanguardFor Australian independence and socialism!
Vanguard expresses the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist).
Contact: PO Box 196, Fitzroy, Vic., 3065
Email: info@cpaml.orgUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2159125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-70637782998036985072024-03-19T01:40:00.000-07:002024-03-19T01:40:54.040-07:00Poverty in Australia: more entrenched than ever<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 19 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Still+left+behind....png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Still+left+behind....png" style="background: transparent; border: 5px solid; height: 602px; margin: 0px 3px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">Original photo by Fernando Goncalves</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Some recent studies have revealed just how much the Australian working-class have lost in the past few years with rampant inflation which has undermined living standards. Lower socio-economic groups have been particularly hard-hit. While economists continue to discuss the likely causes of the problem, the seriously dysfunctional nature of the Australian capitalist economy would appear the likely outcome of being part of the imperialist globalised economy.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A recent study conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has found 970,000 Australian workers were employed in multiple jobs, up by 13,600 compared to the previous quarter ending last December. (1) Many Australian workers find it difficult, if not impossible, to retain their living standards with one job. Australia, in recent years, has been hard-hit with soaring price/profit inflation levels which have reduced spending power by as much as 20 per cent to 25 per cent.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian workers have experienced a drastic wage-cut.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While Australia has a total workforce of 14,201,300, the participation rate has remained relatively constant at 66.8 per cent. In reality, therefore, the workforce is only 9,486,468. (2)<br />Using the official government statistics as the benchmark, therefore, a total of 10.23 per cent of the Australian working class cannot financially survive with only one job.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The what extent the second jobs remain outside the usual structured and policed economy with recorded wages and entitlements together with income tax and super being paid and non-official work with payment in the form of cash-in-hand is difficult to accurately establish. The latter, nevertheless, is a factor which has to be taken into account together with the problem of wage-theft.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A further problem workers experience when employed in more than one job is that entitlements for injuries are affected; income protection insurance for main employment, for example, does not apply usually apply if a worker is injured in a second job. If the second job is in the informal economic system, serious legal and liability issues automatically arise during the subsequent investigation.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The official statistics are all the more appalling when taking other criteria into account.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Those employed on the casual basis or precarious levels of employment, while sometimes earning high wages, usually lack credit ratings to raise a mortgage to buy their own homes. They are, subsequently, frequently found in rental accommodation. A recent study conducted by PropTrack has established rental affordability is now at the worse levels since records began. (3) While the average national median household income has increased 19 per cent during the 2019-24 period, rents have increased by 38 per cent during the same period. (4) Last year an ABS study found city rents across Australia increased by an average of 7.3 per cent. (5)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Soaring interest rates have also exacerbated the problem, with the age of cheap credit well past. Many Australians with credit card debts now experience serious financial difficulties.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While economists continue to argue about the causes of the price/profit inflation, a common theory is that it has been the natural outcome of a financial stimulus by the then Trump administration in Washington, designed to ease the problems caused by the COVID pandemic. It was noted 'every year from 2017 when Trump took over from Obama, his administration increased the federal deficit significantly, ultimately adding more to US debt than all former US presidents combined'. (6)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Due to the globalised economy, the problem quickly spread through financial and banking systems to those countries such as Australia which remain strongly linked to the US. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the top-end-of-town, however, unequal distribution of wealth has continued to be a serious problem. The rich and wealthy continue to expand their portfolios well above levels of inflation while giving their workers wage increases below half that of existing inflation rates! (7) There is no sign the problem of price/profit inflation will end in the near future.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Multi-job record a sign of bad times, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Weekend Australian</em>, 9-10 March 2024.<br />2. ABS: Australian Workforce, January 2024.<br />3. Rental crisis worst on record, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Weekend Australian</em>, 9-10 March 2024.<br />4. Ibid.<br />5. Quoted: Prefabricated and build-to-rent houses, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Conversation</em>, 12 March 2024.<br />6. Trump or Biden? It won't matter to the US economy, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian,</em> 14 March 2024.<br />7. Website: Forbes List, where the rich openly flout their wealth and gloat over their ill-gotten gains; information about what they pay their workforces can be accessed through the ABS and trade-unions.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-76580201794278404082024-03-15T17:33:00.000-07:002024-03-15T17:33:42.225-07:00The return of the Philippines puppet Mark 2<p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="small4" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Written by: (Contributed) on 16 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Albanese+and+Marcos+Jnr.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Albanese+and+Marcos+Jnr.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 447px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The recent visit of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr. to Australia for high-level diplomatic talks marks a return to the days of the previous Cold War now being played-out with the present one against China.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Taking place on the eve of the ASEAN Summit in Melbourne, the Marcos address to parliamentarians in Canberra was designed to act as a rallying-cry for a further escalation of diplomatic hostilities between US-led positions and China inside the regional trade body.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Philippines has had a long history of political leaders who acted as puppets for US-led regional diplomacy; the present President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr. is no exception to the general rule. Historically, US military strategists have used the Philippines as the centre of an arc which swings to the more economically developed countries of northern Asia and the under-developed yet resource rich countries of South-east Asia. (1) Operations have followed the regional planning.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">An arc from sensitive US intelligence facilities based at Pine Gap, Central Australia, likewise, swings to counterparts on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Guam in the Pacific which have been upgraded as hubs for regional operations. (2) The arc also cuts across the Philippines where the US now has access to nine military bases in strategic areas of the country based on the defence and security of 'US interests' in Taiwan and sensitive island chains used to restrict access and egress across the region. (3)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While great play was made of the Philippines closing some of the huge US military bases in the 1990s with the end of the previous Cold War, the Pentagon soon returned by stealth; emphasis was placed upon re-opening former military facilities then hosted by the Philippine government, partnered to enable US troop rotations with 'permission to operate from the old installations as guests, mostly on the temporary basis'. (4) The moves in the Philippines were also accompanied by similar diplomacy across the region; high-level diplomacy conducted by then President Obama toward traditional allies included numerous agreements about increasing the US military presence without too much publicity about longer-term implications. (5)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The relationship between US-led regional foreign policy and the Philippines, nevertheless, soured considerably with the election of President Rodrigo Duterte whose administration pursued a popularist and pragmatic line; Duterte, politically, came from outside the traditional ruling oligarchies imposed on the Philippines by the Spanish colonial administrations. Instead of, therefore, pursuing the US-led policies of confrontation with China, the Duterte administration stated that it 'will not take sides with any parties contesting China's move to set up a missile base on some of the islands in the South China Seas … this is to avoid the Philippines being dragged into a conflict between superpowers'. (6) The political and diplomatic position was quite clear. It included reference to 'it is not in our national interest … to … be involved in any armed confrontation between China and the US … an independent foreign policy is the best position to take … everything will be resolved in peaceful and diplomatic means'. (7)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The position of the Duterte administration also included their questioning and possible termination of a 1998 agreement with joint US-Philippine military exercises, which set alarm bells ringing frantically in the Pentagon. (8) It effectively threatened to push the US into a front-line position as opposed to lurking behind regional partners and allies. When then President Obama addressed a graduation of US military cadets at West Point, New York, in 2014, for example, he stated 'it was possible for the US to lead through example and by creating international alliances … and … the promise of a less aggressive American foreign policy', was subsequently used for the later Indo-Pacific Strategy. (9)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With the demise of the Duterte administration and election of Marcos Jnr. the US gave a sign of relief; the oligarchies were back in control, with the Marcos oligarchy holding presidential power. Washington and the Pentagon were subsequently able to return to the traditional hegemonic and diplomatic positions of the previous Cold War, now played-out in the present one against China.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was, therefore, no surprise to observe President Marcos Jnr. being given a big welcome in Canberra; Australia is a regional hub for 'US interests', with defence and security considerations resting partly on the Philippines. In fact, the US regard the Philippines as the front-line with its diplomatic hostilities toward China, with 'Australia the main rear for US military forces'. (10) The diplomatic positions include preparations for 'real-war scenarios'. In recent times, for example, Australian military facilities have been upgraded specifically for this purpose, coinciding with the formal Visiting Forces Agreements between the Philippines, Australia and the US leaving little to the imagination about longer-term implications.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marcos, furthermore, used his visit to Canberra and address in Parliament House, on the eve of the ASEAN Summit in Melbourne, to state the Philippines 'is prepared to choose a side', namely the US against China. (11) Most ASEAN member countries, however, prefer to not take sides between the US or China; they benefit from diplomacy with both sides. (12)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No doubt the US is, therefore, pleased with their Marcos Mark 2 puppet in Manila, who is serving 'US interests' well, as his father did before him, together with the sowing of seeds of doubt and division inside ASEAN, the premier Asian trade bloc:</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> We also need an independent foreign policy!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <br />1. The objectives of the US, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian</em>, 6 August 2003.<br />2. See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.<br />3. US plans to expand its military presence in the Philippines to counter threats against Taiwan, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">USA Today</em>, 2 February 2023.<br />4. US eyes return to south-east Asian bases,<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Guardian,</em> 29 June 2012.<br />5. US signs defence deal in Asia, The Guardian, 2 May 2014.<br />6. Duterte won't antagonise China over missile system, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Philippine Star</em>, 9 May 2018.<br />7. Ibid.<br />8. Philippines rethinks defence deal with the US, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 4 June 2020.<br />9. US signals foreign policy shift away from military might, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian</em>, 6 June 2014, and; The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hankyoreh</em>, 12 November 2019.<br />10. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Guardian</em>, op.cit., 6 August 2003.<br />11. Bongbong knows he needs friends, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 1 March 2024.<br />12. See: Tapping in to ASEAN needs, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 7 March 2024, with reference to the 'China plus one' strategy of ASEAN member countries.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px;"> </span> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-25792918517268528472024-03-15T04:38:00.000-07:002024-03-15T04:38:45.398-07:00 Aged Care Workers Win Higher Wages and Some Respect<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Ned K. on 15 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/aged+care+150324.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/aged+care+150324.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 600px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">Source: United Workers Union, X</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On Friday 15 March 2024 the Fair Work Commission handed down its second Decision on wage increases for aged care workers. In 2022 the Commission handed down a Decision increasing nurses and personal care workers and chefs in aged care facilities a 15% wage increase.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The principal unions with membership in the aged care sector (Nurses Union, Health Services Union and United Workers Union) initial case was for a 25% wage increase for all occupations in the aged care sector. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The second Decision of the Commission handed down on Friday 15 March 2024 increased the wage increase (inclusive of the 15%) to up to 28.5% for nurses and personal care workers and a 6.8% wage increase to support service aged care workers such as cleaners, laundry workers and food preparation workers assisting the chefs.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Although aged care workers did not take industrial action to win increases in pay, they raised their voices in unity exposing to Royal Commissions, politicians and the media the impact that low pay had not just on their own personal lives but on the quality of care of elderly people dependent on aged care. It has been their stories that demanded the Fair Work Commission and the federal government ensure that aged care workers be paid wages that reflect the skill and complexity of the work they perform.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Aged care workers’ wages are paid from money allocated to the aged care employers who own and dominate the aged care sector, both residential and home care.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many aged care sector employers, even the so-called not for profit operators, have a history of mis-allocating federal government money provided to pay workers.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sometimes this has been done by outright underpayment (wage theft) of workers and sometimes by "creative rostering" and not replacing staff absent from work. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With the increase in wages to aged care workers, the temptation to continue bad practices will no doubt continue. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">However, through the workers’ campaign for higher wages and respect for the work they do, they have become more united and organized with thousands joining their appropriate union for the first time. Many are migrant workers who are standing up for their rights and the rights of residents like never before.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The next big battle for the aged care workers and indeed communities is to tackle the question of ownership and control of the sector.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Is it in the interests of aged care residents, workers and communities as a whole that aged care is dominated by private for-profit operators, many of them large overseas owned conglomerates?<br /> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-2404815611762677992024-03-15T04:37:00.000-07:002024-03-15T04:37:21.228-07:00Party Anniversary and Congress<p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="small4" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 15 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/cpaml+logo.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/cpaml+logo.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 259px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 350px;" /></a></span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Today, March 15, 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of our Party’s founding.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To mark the occasion, we are announcing today that we will be holding our 16th Congress this year.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Congress is taking place at a time of intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries and continuing crisis of global monopoly capital. Although US imperialism is still strong, especially militarily, it is more widely exposed and isolated. The gulf between the ruling classes of monopoly capital and the masses is widening globally. Conditions for expanding anti-US imperialist forces are strengthening, not least in Australia. Economic and living conditions of the people are worsening. Climate crisis is rallying the people against monopoly capitalism. Nevertheless, we need to take account of uneven conditions and developments. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The heroic Palestinian resistance is isolating reactionary and imperialist forces, inspiring and mobilising the oppressed and progressive forces. The overwhelming international solidarity for Palestinians is an antidote to the ruling class’s push towards fascism. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The inter-imperialist rivalries between the US bloc and China/Russia bloc are intensifying, threatening imperialist war, giving rise to anti-war and independence movements. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Congress consultations offer excellent opportunities to examine Australia’s and international conditions, class struggle, the people’s and revolutionary movements, enabling the party to set the direction for our work and study in the next 4-5 years.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Central Committee<br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px;">CPA (M-L) </span> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-49604879688373203142024-03-12T20:08:00.000-07:002024-03-12T20:08:18.511-07:00Australia surrenders sovereignty again: integrates with US-UK military exports and RnD<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Nick G. on 13 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/open+arms.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/open+arms.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 467px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A new set of policies on Australian exports introduced last November has been designed to make local research and development interoperable with that of our AUKUS “partners”, the US and UK imperialists.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hugh Jeffrey, Australia’s Deputy Secretary of Strategy, Policy, and Industry made the announcement during a Canberra speech sponsored by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hugh Jeffrey has had 4 overseas postings, including as Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of Australia in Washington DC and to NATO in Afghanistan, where he was Senior Adviser to the International Security Assistance Force Commander and the NATO Ambassador.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jeffrey said that the changes will mean “a net decrease in regulatory compliance costs, and actually expand the amount of research that can occur internationally without a permit”.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“…with the national exemption for export permits from the US and UK, (the changes will) remove regulation from $5 billion of almost $9 billion in annual Australian defence exports.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">That will please not just the American and British, but also our good friends in the Zionist genocidal army to which we are exporting arms and technology.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But local researchers outside the US loyalists in the Australian military, public service and government, are worried about the implications. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The president of the Australian Academy of Sciences, Chennupati Jagadish, was concerned about the prospect of a brain drain towards the military. “My ability to attract the best and brightest in the world, wherever they are, will diminish,” he said. “It’s timely to ask what Australia is really seeking to secure if we are restricting the development of technologies that are critical for the future of our country?” </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Even people in the US close to their military are surprised at the gullibility of their Australian servants.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bill Greenwalt, who as a staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee wrote many of the US export control rules, said he thought “Australia just gave up its sovereignty and got nothing for it.” </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Greenwalt, also a former US deputy undersecretary of Defense for industrial policy, warned that incorporating many of the principles of the International Trafficking in Arms Exports (ITAR) regulations to gain access to US nuclear submarine technology would set Australia back 50 years. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The changes are designed to more closely bind Australia to the United States and Britain in return for access to the technology and intellectual property that comes with the primary goal of the AUKUS agreement — buying and building nuclear-powered attack submarines.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The gullibility extends to a promised gift to the US of A$4.7 million to pump prime their submarine production at a time when there is no guarantee of that happening. A matching contribution of US$3 billion has yet to pass Congress, held up by the same Republicans who are hoping for a Trump return to the Presidency.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Editor of the online Australia Pacific Defence Reporter, Kym Bergmann, commented yesterday: “In the US the return of Donald Trump to the Presidency is suddenly looking more likely – and if he scraps AUKUS it might do us all a favour by bowing to the inevitable.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Commenting on US-Australia relations, former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick wrote yesterday that “There are no guarantee the US will actually deliver. US national interests will always take precedence.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also said yesterday that under AUKUS, Australia has ‘lost all sovereignty, all agency’.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australia will never have the capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy so long as our economy is dominated by the US, and our ruling circles are blindly loyal to US imperialism.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-28445120904161057442024-03-08T17:38:00.000-08:002024-03-08T17:38:42.201-08:00WOMAD: Marley to perform, Palestinian musicians banned<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Nick G. on 9 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Ziggy+protest+080324+1.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Ziggy+protest+080324+1.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 465px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">Photo: Asbjorn Kanck</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yesterday, members and supporters of the Australia Friends of Palestine Association picketed the entrance to the popular WOMAD music festival calling on audiences to boycott the performance by Ziggy Marley, son of the famous Rastafarian Bob Marley.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Their very vocal calls of "cease fire NOW" and "stop the genocide" rang out during the one and a half hour-long rally. Drivers of passing cars honked their horns in support.</span> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The AFOPA bookshop in Adelaide said that many with tickets to WOMAD had called at their shop to purchase pro-Palestinian t-shirts to wear to WOMAD.<br />Calls on WOMAD organisers to drop Marley from the program owing to his support for Israel and its armed forces, calls rejected by the organisers, had fuel added to the fire when the same organisers, at the last moment, withdrew their invitation for Jordanian-based Palestinian group 47SOUL.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marley’s wife Orly Agai, is an Israeli of Iranian-Jewish descent. In Israel in 2011 for two concerts, Marley told the Zionist Israeli news agency Ynet: "The history of our connection to the roots of Israel, to David, Solomon, goes way before I met my wife. My father, my Rastafari culture, has a tight link to the Jewish culture. We have a strong connection from when I was a young boy and read the Bible, the Old Testament.” He told the agency that he “felt very close to Israel”.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In November 2018, Marley displayed that closeness when he joined US rapper Pharrel Williams on stage at the annual Friends of the Israel Defence Forces gala which raised US$60 million for the genocidal army.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Their audience included Israeli soldiers in uniform.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Although he claims his music sends a “message of justice, love, and peace for all people,” on October 20, 2023 Marley posted a picture of a raised hand, along with the words, “You know wha! There must be a better way. Free Gaza from Hamas.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">He also signed an open letter affirming his support of Israel amid the war with Hamas. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The letter instructs Hollywood “to speak out forcefully against Hamas, to support Israel, to refrain from sharing misinformation about the war, and do whatever is in their power to urge the terrorist organisation to return the innocent hostages to their families”.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">WOMAD director Ian Scobie tried to defend his decision to allow Marley to perform, saying that it was a lie that he had performed for the IDF and only promoted harmony in his songs. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">47SOUL, which had twice before performed at WOMAD, were to be banned, he said, because of the way feelings were running in the community at the moment, and his inability under those circumstances to be able to guarantee their safety. He added that they could perform in 2025 if they wanted to. This was a bullshit excuse, because anyone can see how feelings are running in the community at the moment.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">47SOUL issued a statement on the withdrawal of their invitation to play:</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Having initially accepted the invitation, we were later informed that WOMADelaide took the decision to rescind 47SOUL's invite, citing doubts at being unable to present a 'suitably safe environment' for the artists and audiences at the festival due to community protests taking place in Australia," it said.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"We find this line of reasoning deeply problematic and disheartening as it feeds into the narrative of Palestinians being an inherent source of danger to others.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"At this critical time, the message of multiculturalism that WOMAD seeks to espouse, and its specific relevance to the events we are witnessing, could not be of greater importance."</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">British-Lebanese multi-genre music producer and DJ Saliah withdrew from WOMAD in protest, saying “I am of British-Lebanese heritage. Members of my family are currently suffering daily bombardment by the IOF (Israeli Occupation Force) in Lebanon….WOMADelaide…refuses to provide a ‘safe’ platform for Palestinian artists and their allies at a time when amplifying our voicescould not be more critical.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian singer-songwriter Jen Cloher, who is part of Sunday’s WOMADelaide program and has vowed to donate any profits from that performance to 47SOUL and the Palestinian cause, lashed out at organisers’ claims the decision was based on safety.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tunisian performer, Emel Mathlouthi performed last night, waving a Palestinian flag for a supportive audience.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Womad+Emal+mathlouthi.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Womad+Emal+mathlouthi.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 492px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In contrast to the deplorable decisions that have mired WOMAD in controversy, peaceful audiences of many hundreds of people listened with great interest to speakers on Palestinian and Israeli issues at the previous week’s Adelaide Writers Festival.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Avi Shlaim, whose Arab-Jewish family fled their Iraqi homeland after the First Arab-Israel War in 1948, described the discrimination his family faced from the Ashkenazi Jews who had come to Israel from Europe. He had researched the circumstances of the large-scale migration of Jews from Iraq to Israel at that time, and had discovered “incontrovertible proof” that three of the five terrorist bombs directed at Iraq’s Jewish community had been planted by the Israelis themselves to induce a state of panic, forcing Iraq’s Jews to seek refuge in Israel. He explained why he rejected the “two-state solution” and now sought a singular secular and democratic state of Palestine. His book is <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew.</em></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tareq Baconi serves as the president of the board of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. He was listened to without interruption by more than 2,000 people at 8am as he outlined the origins of Hamas, its political ambitions and the reasons why it has the support of the people of Gaza. His book is <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hamas Contained. </em></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Several hours later, another huge audience heard Israeli-born Ilan Pappé address the question of Israel and Palestine more broadly. The author of several books on the topic, he is best-known for his detailed study of the Zionist crime of ethnic cleansing that both pre-dated and continued through the Naqba. It was “a crime that needs to be confronted politically as well as morally”, he wrote in<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.</em> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a tale of two decisions, Adelaide Writers Week and WOMAD could not be further apart.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Further protests are planned at the latter.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-859110376982605382024-03-08T04:26:00.000-08:002024-03-08T04:26:02.490-08:00Rising Tide Lifts All Boats<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Ned K. on 8 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/early+childhood+sa+070922.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/early+childhood+sa+070922.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 525px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above: Early Childhood Workers at a rally in 2022.</em></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The dust has settled on the federal government's changes in the Fair Work Act in relation to enterprise bargaining. Workers and their Unions are looking to see where the changes can be used to advantage workers and what are the traps to look for.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The employers said the sky would fall in if the federal parliament approved widening the opportunities for multi-employer bargaining. So far that has not proven to be the case. One of the few sectors where the new multi-employer laws have been applied is the Early Childhood Education sector. The sector is now dominated by private equity companies and other private for profit operators while the wages paid to workers are highly dependent on federal government funding.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Early Childhood Education workers (predominantly women) and their Union, United Workers Union, initiated multi-employer bargaining and utilised the new provision in the Fair Work Act regarding relevant funding third parties being involved . The third party involved was the federal government as it funded the wages in the sector. While the federal government said it as sympathetic towards the low pay and poor conditions of workers in the sector it dragged its heels on committing to fund wage increases. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Consequently the sector owners stalled the bargaining process.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The workers and their Union responded in February this year by giving notice of a strike on Internatinal Women's Day, 8 March.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">About a week before the intended sector wide strike, the federal government announced it would fund a substantial increase in wages. Union members' Delegates agreed in consultation with members to postpone the strike action and possibly withdraw it altogether once they knew the exact amount that the federal government was going to agree to fund in the form of wage increases and over what time frame.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Delegates thought it best to keep the powder dry as they realised that their members may only get one clean shot of strike action as under the new laws the employers and fderal government had plenty of legal options to try and block on-going industrial action.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The threat of industrial action definitely moved the federal government's position on funding wage increases in the sector.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">From the workers' perspective, their Union had utilized changes in the new laws to apply the "rising tide (of struggle) to lift all boats(multiple private for-profit Early Childhood Education Centre owners)".</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On International Women's Day, thousands of women workers in the sector will be keeping a close eye on developments and waiting to see the dollar signs from the federal government.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In a completely different sector of the economy, the stevedoring and maritime sector, there is a history of protracted enterprise bargaining disputes between the Maritime Union members and a single employer. The new laws in relation to enterprise bargaining have strengthened the powers of the Fair Work Commission to arbitrate when an employer or group of employers argues that workers and their Union are being "unreasonable" if they have not accepted an employer offer after 9 months of bargaining. The new provisions come under an Intractable Bargaining section of the Act. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This new provision of the Act went through without headlines in the daily press and for good reason. The big corporations and no doubt both Labor and Liberal governments want to limit the power of the workers in key areas of the international economy such as shipping trade and turn around time of containers on and off ships.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So whatever the laws of capitalism regarding the class struggle within workplaces, workers and their Unions learn how to both use the laws to their advantage and how to avoid the worst aspect of the laws to further the interests of the working class as a whole to maximize the opportunity of a rising tide lifting many, if not all boats!<br /> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-18508132422713714262024-03-08T04:23:00.000-08:002024-03-08T04:23:55.932-08:00International Women's Day and Palestinians' Struggle<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Ned K. on 8 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/wong+and+crabb.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/wong+and+crabb.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 427px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In Adelaide, celebration of International Women's Day starts early with the now traditional International Women's Day Breakfast at the Adelaide Convention Centre.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Each year thousands of women arrive at the Convention Centre from about 6.30am for a 7am start.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many school children also attend the Breakfast and there are women from many different backgrounds and occupations in attendance.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This year the guest speaker was Annabelle Crabb and as in previous years, the Breakfast was attended by politicians including Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong who hosted the Breakfast.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nothing different about that.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The difference this year was that as women approached the Convention Centre from north Terrace's footpath they saw police paddy wagons. Once up the escalator and on the plaza they would have seen more paddy wagons and a large contingent of uniformed police spread across the plaza in a straight line.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Were they there to protect the people entering the Breakfast? Possibly.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Or were they there to keep an eye on the small group of mainly women carrying large Palestinian banners standing behind a blockade especially placed to separate them from people entering the Breakfast, especially Penny Wong, the Foreign Affairs Minister so supportive of Zionist Israel?</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many women entering the event would have put two and two together to see the Palestinian flags behind barriers, a row of police nd Penny Wong being the host of the Breakfast.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-80535122166426645212024-03-08T04:22:00.000-08:002024-03-08T04:22:29.367-08:00 International Women’s Day lifts struggle for liberation of women and socialism!<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 8 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">All power to women of Palestine resisting the occupation!</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On 8 March, International Working Working Women’s Day, women all around the world demonstrate their determination to struggle for the liberation of women and humankind from the shackles of colonialism, capitalism, imperialism and its wars. Women resolutely oppose fascism in all its disguises.</span></p><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We fight for our rights as women workers, as carers, cleaners and society’s nurturers, indispensable for the profit making by the capitalist class. We stand as equals in the long struggle for a revolutionary change. We fight against gender exploitation, commercialisation, abuse and violence against women. We lead numerous struggles for our livelihoods, for our kids, for the environment, for peace and a better future for humanity and the earth. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many struggles for women’s rights and liberation are joining the widening stream of people’s struggles flowing in the direction of socialism. We welcome and celebrate the growing numbers of women joining the revolutionary struggle for socialism and communism.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We are inspired by the resilience and tenacity of generations of working women overcoming extraordinary obstacles and hardships of oppression and subjugation, only to rise stronger, and more determined to pass on the baton of struggle for liberation and revolutionary change to the next generation of women. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Palestinian women</span></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We dedicate this International Working Women’s Day to the courageous women of Palestine who, after 76 long years resisting the brutal Zionist colonial occupation and genocide, refuse to give up their struggle for the liberation of their people and country from brutal Zionist colonialism propped up and supported by US imperialism.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">76 hard years of brutal occupation, intimidation, genocide, torture and rotting in Israel’s gaols, has not held back the Palestinian women’s lifelong resistance, many joining the armed resistance and charting the Palestinian people's revolutionary road to liberation. Women in the struggles for liberation can break the chains of patriarchy.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Around the world women weep and rage in solidarity with the women of Gaza and occupied territories, for their unbearable grief and loss of children, families, friends, neighbours and entire communities. We are inspired by their courage, resilience and generosity, and draw on their strength for our struggles. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We stand in solidarity with the women of Israel who defy the fascist Israeli state in opposing the Zionist colonial occupation and genocide of Palestine. These courageous women are themselves exploited, attacked and vilified by the fascist Zionist capitalist state. They long for friendship and solidarity with the women of Palestine. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">More Palestinian and Jewish voices are calling for one truly democratic, equal and secular state for the people of Palestine, Israel and all peoples, that can guarantee lasting equality, peace and security for all.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We also pay special tribute to revolutionary women of the Philippines and India engaged in their people’s armed struggles against colonialism, fascism and imperialism. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Working women of Australia</span></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Day in, day out, the great majority of working women are burdened with the rising cost of living, many struggle to make ends meet, in constant fear of losing jobs, unable to pay for roof over their heads, healthcare, education and child care. Rising homelessness is endemic, especially amongst women. Equal pay is still unattainable. Recent figures show the gender pay gap in Australia is on average 29%. Foreign controlled banks and finance sector monopolies have the largest pay gap between women and men workers. Women still overwhelmingly dominate in insecure and part time jobs.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For over a hundred years women in Australia have struggled to alleviate the economic and social burdens on their lives. The few progressive reforms we’ve achieved to alleviate the burdens on women have only been won through women’s long struggles for better pay and working conditions, affordable child care, legal abortion, laws on sex discrimination and violence against women. Many are now being take away or made unenforceable by the capitalist state.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These are permanent problems and burdens of capitalism, and can never be solved within the capitalist system that totally relies for its survival on the exploitation of people and the environment. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As long as the capitalist exploitation and discrimination of women goes on, generations of women inevitably continue this fight.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The First Nations women are leading the militant fight against the settler colonialism and imperialism, demanding land rights and self-determination. They spearhead campaigns to stop the disproportionate incarceration and deaths in custody of young Aboriginal people, against the poverty and dispossession of their people and country. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The First Nations peoples’ long struggles for self-determination is gathering wide support from non-indigenous Australia.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Working women - organise and mobilise in workplaces and communities!</span></div><ul style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Equal pay for equal work and work of equal value</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lift wages of all workers</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bring child care into public hands – make it affordable</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">More public and affordable housing</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Increase Single Parents’ Benefits</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Implement and enforce anti-discrimination legislation across society</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ban commercial profit-driven culture that commodifies women as sex objects</li><li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oppose involvement in imperialist wars</li></ul><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Make the multinationals pay!</span></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Socialism will create the necessary conditions for women to achieve their full potential, economic independence, equality and respect in all sectors of society. In a socialist system, working women will be empowered to run the society as equals for the benefit of all working people”</em>. <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">General Programme of the Communist Party of Australia Marxist-Leninist.</span></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-47108110570466933632024-03-08T04:20:00.000-08:002024-03-08T04:20:34.059-08:00 Tuvalu’s Taiwan ties remain, but seeks to regain sovereignty from Australian security pact<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 7 March 2024</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br /></span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Tuvalu+climate-change-in-pacific-2019.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Tuvalu+climate-change-in-pacific-2019.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 551px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above: People of Tuvalu protest Australia's indifference to global warming in 2019</em></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Concerns arising about the new government of Tuvalu led by incoming Prime Minister Feleti Teo switching diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China appear to have been resolved, at least for the time being. A diplomatic note from Taiwan's ambassador to Tuvalu stated he had assurance ties with Taipei would be maintained in line with existing defence and security provision. While Tuvalu is a tiny Pacific Island country, it has important geo-strategic significance for US-led regional diplomacy and Taiwan.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In late February the Taiwanese Ambassador to Tuvalu issued a brief diplomatic statement that the incoming government of Prime Minister Feleti Teo in Funafuti would continue to maintain existing links with Taiwan. Concerns had arisen about a possible diplomatic switch to China, following a statement from former Finance Minister, Seve Paeniu, that 'Tuvalu's new government … would review … its Taiwan ties'. (1)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tuvalu, a small country strategically placed in the Pacific has, historically, maintained full diplomatic ties with Taipei in return for a 'large assistance program'. (2)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tuvalu achieved independence in the mid-1970s and although it has low levels of economic development, its membership of the British Commonwealth, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), together with a treaty of friendship with the US, nevertheless, have shown its vital strategic importance for regional western military and security provision. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Its security pact with Australia, likewise, has revealed its continued significance for Canberra. (3) The Falepili Union, signed last year, allowed for increased migration to Australia, while surrendering veto power over Tuvalu's security arrangements to Canberra. Tuvalu still broadly supports the deal but wants to make changes it says will make the arrangement more "workable" and will safeguard the "integrity of the sovereignty" of the country. Its decision to revisit the pact has dealt a blow to Australia's signature foreign policy initiative in the Pacific. (4)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A major issue arising during recent election campaigning during the New Year was climate change and the very real fear Tuvalu could eventually submerge with rising sea-levels in a few decades. The offer by China, therefore, to create artificial island projects to protect Tuvalu from submerging was taken very seriously by the peoples of Tuvalu. (5) While China's offer was eventually not accepted, the problem, nevertheless, remains unresolved. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In fact, informed opinion has already noted it was too early to expect the Teo administration to categorically maintain its ties with Taiwan, thereby creating continued disquiet amongst those linked to US-led militaryand security provision. (6)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Studies of Tuvalu reveal little about the role of US-led regional diplomacy, which in itself may be an indication of its highly sensitive nature. The US Department of State, however, acknowledge Tuvalu is part of its Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). (7) The IPS is based on the global alliance established between the US and Japan, which, in turn, rests upon the Quad. (8) Tuvalu is situated approximately in the centre of the Quad and also strategically-placed at the inter-section of the equator and International Time/Date line. (9)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As Tuvalu also rests on an arc from sensitive signals facilities in Queensland, it would appear an important part of US-led regional military and security provision, particularly for the South and Western Pacific.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Quad is also composed of numerous lower-level partners inside the main alliance, and Tuvalu would appear part of the regional IPS provision. Part of the US-led IPS strategy has been to build an anti-China missile network along sensitive island chains, used to restrict access and egress of adversaries across the vast region. (10) The geographical, political and diplomatic position of Taiwan is, furthermore, central to the US-led Island Chain Theory.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Tuvalu PM 'rock solid with Taiwan', Australian, 27 February 2024. <br />2. Tuvalu, GlobalSecurity.org – March 2024.<br />3. Pact with Tuvalu in the balance, Editorial, Australian, 30 January 2024.<br />4. Tuvalu's new prime minister indicates he will revisit deal…, ABC News, 28 February, 2024<br />5. See: Fears of Tuvalu turn to China, The Weekend Australian, 20-21 January 2024.<br />6. Australian, op.cit., 27 February 2024.<br />7. US Relations with Tuvalu, Website: US Department of State, 23 June 2023.<br />8. The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.<br />9. Ibid., and, See: Peter Projection, World Map, Actual Size.<br />10. See: US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-86519560011413512422024-03-08T04:17:00.000-08:002024-03-08T04:17:23.621-08:00Indonesia: Shadowy hands, shady dealings<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 6 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/ShadyDeals2-squashed.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/ShadyDeals2-squashed.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 268px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A carefully worded high-level diplomatic statement recently released from Canberra regarding regional trade organisation has revealed how Australia has followed US-led initiatives to undermine ASEAN in favour of the OECD.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fears exist that ASEAN has proved ineffective at confronting China's regional influence.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The statement appears to show how US-led regional diplomacy has pushed hard against the BRICs, with other considerations played down to avoid unnecessary publicity and controversy.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The announcement that the OECD has been willing to accept Indonesia as a full member was greeted with enthusiasm from Canberra. (1) The sprawling 38 member countries, largely from the advanced, industrial west, appeared to accept Indonesia on the basis that it was an emerging economy destined to become 'an advanced economy by 2045'. (2) While the country has had involvement with the OECD from 2007, the move toward full membership has important implications. The fact that China has remained Indonesia's largest trading partner has not caused undue concern, at the present time.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Behind the scenes, however, the shadowy hands of those well-placed in Canberra has been duly noted.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The present OECD secretary-general, Mathias Cormann, has remained a well-placed Australian Liberal Party member from the National Right faction; a former senator from 2007-20, he was also finance minister, spanning the three successive administrations of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison in Canberra. (3) In fact, it was Morrison who actually nominated Cormann for the elite OECD position in lavish display of patronage. (4)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The patronage chain linked to Morrison has also included his membership of the board of the so-called International Democrat Union (IDU), which has been aligned with the 'intolerant far right', linked to pro-Trump political groups in the US. (5) The IDU has had a long-time involvement with the Australian Liberal Party and their coalition 'friends'; John Howard was chair of the organisation for more than a decade, while serving as Australian Prime Minister. (6) The period was marked by a particular sycophancy toward the US with his nearly every political move.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In recent times a major push has taken place from Canberra to establish more amenable diplomatic relations with Indonesia, largely due to its geo-strategic position in the neighbouring region. Allegations of war-crimes by leading Indonesian political and military figures, particularly in East Timor and West Papua, have been played down.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Indonesia, historically, has also been more closely associated with ASEAN, an important regional trade body composed of neighbouring countries. In recent times, however, concern has been raised about the continued usefulness of ASEAN for US-led regional diplomacy. Its member countries all retain important trade links with China, and they have little time for choosing either side in the rising diplomatic hostilities between the US and China. They have vested interests in maintaining the present diplomatic status quo.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Indonesia, therefore, has been taken by the OECD as a test-case; it is an important part of Australia's defence and security concerns and Canberra has noted 'it will also have a ripple effect through other countries across South-east Asia in terms of encouraging a greater alignment to OECD standards at a time when China seeks to assert its influence throughout the region'. (7)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Indonesia has also chosen not to apply for membership of the BRICS trade body last year, which came with a sigh of relief from Canberra. The BRICS, composed of China, Russia, and other strategically-placed countries has in recent years dramatically expanded its diplomatic influence across emerging economies. At its Pretoria Summit last year, the BRICS began high-level diplomatic discussions with the Palestinians and called for a State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as the capital. (8) Australia clearly did not want a BRICs member country geographically close in the neighbouring region.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While the BRICs initiative enhanced the diplomatic standing of the Palestinians, it met with complete silence from the West. There was no official media coverage, which was duly noted with interest.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It is, therefore, revealing to also note the recent Canberra diplomatic statement included three references to Israel, and concerns raised by Tel Aviv about Indonesia's support for the Palestinian people. The OECD leadership, nevertheless, appear to have provided encouragement for Indonesia to join the trade body. It was noted, for example, that Cormann was the 'driving force behind getting the other 38 OECD member nations on board. This wasn't easy. Israel was staunchly opposed'. (9) </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What relevance this political chicanery has in connection with developments which took place on 7 October and afterwards has yet to be accurately clarified and established.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. See: Jakarta in a nickle pickle amid its bid for OECD membership, and, Talks signal a key shift towards the West, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 22 February 2024.<br />2. Ibid.<br />3. Wikipedia: Mathias Cormann.<br />4. Ibid.<br />5. See: Scott Morrison signs on, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The New Daily</em>, 14 September 2022.<br />6. Ibid.<br />7. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, op.cit., 22 February 2024.<br />8. BRICS Summit, Pretoria, WAFA News Agency, 20 July 2023. <br />9. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, op.cit., 22 February 2024.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-46199808307331700922024-03-04T19:24:00.000-08:002024-03-04T19:24:51.964-08:00We support the international campaign to free Ecevit Piroğlu<p> <span style="color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: CPA (M-L) on 5 March 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/free+ecevit+piroc49flu.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #3e3e3e; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/free+ecevit+piroc49flu.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; height: 393px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the request of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) Turkey/Kurdistan, we have petitioned the Serbian Ambassador to Australia for the release of Kurdish prisoner Ecevit Piroğlu. Our letter follows:</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">H.E. Ambassador Mr. Rade Stefanovic<br />Embassy of the Republic of Serbia in Canberra</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Your Excellency,</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On June 4, 2022 I wrote to you in relation to the Turkish national Ecevit Piroğlu who is currently facing an extradition request by Turkey for his return to that country from Serbia.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Since 1 June 2022, Kurdish political activist Ecevit Piroğlu has been in detention in Serbia following an extradition request from Turkey. He was denied his legitimate right to asylum. Last year, he went on a 136-day hunger strike in protest. An international campaign stopped his extradition.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On 12 January 2024, Ecevit Piroğlu was released, but the Serbian immigration police were already waiting outside the prison to unlawfully arrest him again and take him to another extradition camp. Piroğlu, who does not accept these unlawful practices, has since gone on another hunger strike for his freedom. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This illegitimate action by the Serbian judiciary, which indicates close cooperation with Ankara, has been going on for 32 months. Turkey is known for systematic human rights violations and attacks on democratic institutions and organisations. The extradition of Ecevit Piroğlu to Turkey would jeopardise his life. With great concern the democratic world public is following the illegality of the Serbian state and is calling for immediate compliance with international and Serbian law. Lawyers from all over the world are informing themselves about the situation and condemning the arbitrariness of the Serbian judiciary.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We protest in the strongest possible terms against these actions of the Serbian state, which violate all human rights. Extradition to Turkey would be a serious violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." This means that extradition to a country such as Turkey, where there is a risk of such treatment, is prohibited. The imprisonment of Ecevit Piroglu is therefore already a gross violation of the law.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We respectfully request that Ecevit Piroğlu be allowed to seek asylum in Serbia and that the extradition order made on behalf of Turkey be quashed.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nick G.<br />Chairperson,<br />Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)<br />5 March 2024</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-25769491911649130562024-02-27T20:17:00.000-08:002024-02-27T20:17:19.906-08:00US imperialism has no friends, only ‘interests’<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVeW2j53HXITu0XtGHrzW7Bzaxt8FO6iuCeE1GqpdHLt3ZK2XuIcFMeebKBHcPw8dJEUe93U4xU5RAQ50QazgJwrwLne7GL6yC229HG5gkMjTBEZ-5muGlKZF2jPZ3DEiQrQ5BAygW8x9kpO1JTNBIO_qk8u_a71IJj6X0JCsVxdOd2s9ZxPlLjEbbaDA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="654" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVeW2j53HXITu0XtGHrzW7Bzaxt8FO6iuCeE1GqpdHLt3ZK2XuIcFMeebKBHcPw8dJEUe93U4xU5RAQ50QazgJwrwLne7GL6yC229HG5gkMjTBEZ-5muGlKZF2jPZ3DEiQrQ5BAygW8x9kpO1JTNBIO_qk8u_a71IJj6X0JCsVxdOd2s9ZxPlLjEbbaDA=w640-h372" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above - Island chain theory - see reference in article</em></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 28 February 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Those observing the dysfunctional nature of US politics may have overlooked one of the serious side-effects of the irrational behaviour. Three Pacific countries which remain dependent upon US foreign aid, have been kept waiting for financial support to materialise with no sign it will take place at some future date. It has been noted from more sensible quarters the three countries, at present diplomatically linked to Taiwan, are, in effect, being pushed closer to switching to China, and thereby, creating greater problems for US regional foreign policy and foisting likely military options upon their allies</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Decision-maskers in Washington, supposedly operating in line with Pentagon military planning, can hardly be described as behaving in a rational manner and pursuing a straightforward agenda; they are pushing policies which are clearly counter-productive. Other countries, also dependent upon US foreign policy, including Australia, should perhaps take notice of the highly questionable political and diplomatic behaviour, and evaluate it accordingly. The US budget impasse has thrown elements of AUKUS planning into doubt, according to some in the Australian military community.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With US presidential elections looming later this year the spectacle of an ageing president with cognitive problems being confronted by a far-right buffoon backed by red-necks and gun clubs has become a daily event. It is hardly worth speculating their next move; in fact, it is difficult to take the spectacle seriously.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The latest political chicanery has included pro-Trump supporters wanting to re-introduce an amendment about funding for security on the US border with Mexico into the budget; they have actively campaigned for building a wall to prevent asylum-seekers from Central America as a central part of their increasingly racist and nationalistic political agendas.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Behind the scenes, however, they are pursuing a peculiar and devious agenda, which contributes to undermining US leadership positions in the Pacific; the region is a centre of geo-political battles between the US and China. The US budget impasse has hindered US foreign policy toward Palau, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, effectively cutting their financial support. Dependent upon US foreign aid, the three countries have been kept waiting for months for vital foreign aid. (1) There is no sign the budget impasse will be resolved in the near future.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In fact, reliable observations about the debacle have noted the three Pacific countries signed a twenty-year agreement last October with the US which cost Washington $7.1 billion, designed to safeguard sensitive shipping lanes in competition with China; the cost of replacing the agreement with military options has been estimated to cost $100 billion. (2) </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Most of the Pacific islands had neo-colonial economic relations foisted upon them with independence; their economies have never been sustainable without foreign aid. The mass of the populations live subsistence lifestyles. Essential services are usually provided by foreign aid.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Elsewhere in the region, countries such as the Solomon Islands which made the diplomatic switch in 2019, were rewarded with extensive support from China. Beijing, historically, has been generous with its regional aid programs. It has, therefore, been noted by the President of Palau, Surangel Whipps Jnr., that he was 'coming under domestic political pressure to shift his country's allegiance from the US to China, dropping support for Taiwan'. (3) He further noted that 'every day … the US budget is not approved … plays into the hands of China'. (4)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Similar concerns have also been raised in neighbouring Tuvalu following recent presidential elections where the pro-Taiwan leader lost his seat. Nauru, likewise, made the diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China following recent presidential election last month.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The three Pacific countries, Palau, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, also form a strategic component part of Taiwan's New Southbound Policy, based on forging closer links with countries in the region and using their diplomatic links to gain access to regional dialogues and trade organisations. (5)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Taiwan, however, has become increasingly diplomatically isolated with a declining number of countries supporting Taipei, none of the remaining countries can be regarded as diplomatically significant. In fact, Taiwan stands the very real risk of total diplomatic isolation as countries switch allegiance to China. In practical terms, as the number of countries diplomatically recognising Taiwan dwindles, decision-makers in Taipei have fewer supporters to assist them at UN level.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Taiwan, however, is diplomatically important for Washington and the Pentagon, marking the centre of Island Chain Theory, used for regional foreign policy with tiny Pacific countries having huge significance by providing strategic access and egress across the vast waterways. (see diagram) Each diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China also enables Beijing to gain access to exclusive economic zones, rich in minerals and natural resources. (6)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Other regional defence and security considerations include the Pentagon planning to build a radar base on Palau and the Marshall Islands hosting the Space Fence, a sensitive space surveillance system. (7)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Returning to the budget impasse in Washington, it is perhaps appropriate to see the whole spectacle as a collapse of political will at the imperial centre being played-out inside a constitution which one side does not even regard as legitimate; it has far-reaching implications for Australia and other US allies.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The US appear to be abandoning Taiwan, if not in word, then by their actions; both Washington and the Pentagon, it should be noted, appear to expect their allies within the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) to take greater responsibility for regional operations. (8)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bound ever closer to the US through the 'alliance' and numerous military agreements, Canberra, for example, has been forced to accept greater responsibility for regional 'US interests'; the defence and security of strategic Pacific countries, therefore, is a major concern foisted upon Australia. The recently published list of military acquisitions reveals longer distance deployments outside of Australia's usual areas of concern, already been planned by the Pentagon.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In order to increase US production of nuclear-powered submarines and thus have several to pass onto Australia, both countries agreed to provide US$3.3 billion – or A$4.6 billion from our side – but the US payment has been delayed by Congress. Editor of the online Asia Pacific Defence Reporter Kim Bergmann commented: ‘So while Australia remains on the hook for a contribution of $4.6 billion – which neither the government nor the RAN can justify – the Americans refuse to spend their own money to speed up submarine production. What an ally! Unless Virginia class submarines are being built at a rate of 2.33 per year, Australia will receive nothing.’</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The vast Australian defence budget is also set to increase dramatically, lifting spending from 2.05 per cent of present GDP to 2.3 per cent by the end of the decade. Much of the increased expenditure is based on military systems and equipment with designed interoperability with the US under their command; little thought or consideration has been given to the defence and security of Australia itself. (9)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The IPS, likewise, has established an agenda to only serve 'US interests', not those of its allies: </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We need an independent foreign policy!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />1. See: US budget impasse driving Palau into arms of China, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 21 February 2024.<br />2. Ibid.<br />3. Ibid.<br />4. Ibid.<br />5. See: Beijing keeps a wary eye on new Taipei outpost, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 18 June 2018.<br />6. US v. China, Japan Forward: Politics and Security, Dr. Rieko Hayakawa and Jennifer L. Anson, 14 February 2020.<br />7. Ibid., and,<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Australian</em>, op.cit., 21 February 2024.<br />8. See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hankyoreh</em>, 12 November 2019, with details about the US regional policy for allies taking responsibility for US-led operations.<br />9. Introductory remarks to APDR Podcast no. 37</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-79710866302342960382024-02-27T20:13:00.000-08:002024-02-27T20:13:18.039-08:00Cancel the Elbit contract!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiYAlShOOnyQtI9Um8MkjDUNLsdCjmO6NKLP-11y5yDuTnF3g91OoHxfNs5ViaNLvTtSEPk5Ui2aCOBq3LCwxJHxGAl5r21GE2oeoQJSIX_PXcXulmFtdFaVY747i50VFN1esjryO2K29tFusvZMMuu3AthtEqcbcgMJW1zoFajDaKxA5yoRzT-Fddr64" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiYAlShOOnyQtI9Um8MkjDUNLsdCjmO6NKLP-11y5yDuTnF3g91OoHxfNs5ViaNLvTtSEPk5Ui2aCOBq3LCwxJHxGAl5r21GE2oeoQJSIX_PXcXulmFtdFaVY747i50VFN1esjryO2K29tFusvZMMuu3AthtEqcbcgMJW1zoFajDaKxA5yoRzT-Fddr64=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above - the Hanwha Redback PHOTO </em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px;">Andrew Green via Australian Ministry of Defence</span></div><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Nick G. on 28 February 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Israel’s Elbit Systems announced yesterday that it had been awarded a $600 million contract by the Australian Department of Defence for the supply of systems to South Korean company Hanwha. </span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hanwha is to produce 129 Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) for the DoD at Geelong. </span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hanwha and Elbit last year signed an agreement to cooperate on the manufacture of the IFVs which already include the Redback Turret, which is based on the latest generation of Elbit’s 30 mm manned turret with the COAPS gunner sight, additional electro-optic systems, Iron Fist active protection system, Elbit's Iron-Vision advanced situational awareness head mounted display system, and Elbit's ELAWS laser warning system.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The contract for the IFVs is worth $7 billion AUD ($4.6 billion USD), of which will go to Elbit, in addition to the additional $600 million. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">All of this was negotiated by the DoD last year after the Zionist army attacked Gaza, and is a totally unwarranted reward for Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The significance of the contract was omitted from today’s online <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian Defence Magazine’s</em> announcement, but was prominent in yesterday’s US online <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Breaking Defense</em> report.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The US report said that the contract ‘expands Elbit’s role in Australia. It is also the largest contract announced by the Israeli firm since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.’</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Australian report did not say why we needed the IFVs, but the US report was less coy, quoting the DoD as saying that ‘The acquisition of these infantry fighting vehicles is part of the Government’s drive to modernise the Australian Army to ensure it can respond to the most demanding land challenges in our region.’</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What ‘land challenges’ there might be ‘in our region’ were not specified, although it strongly suggests preparation on the part of the DoD for military action in other people’s countries in the South Pacific.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This contract must be cancelled. There should be no purchases of military equipment from the genocidal Zionists, nor should there be any arms sales to them.<br />By way of a postscript, the Wikipedia page on Elbit documents other countries that have taken a moral stand against dealing with the company.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ethical concerns and divestment</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A number of financial and investment organizations have divested their interests in Elbit.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On September 3, 2009, the Government Pension Fund of Norway's ethical council decided to sell the fund's stocks in Elbit due to the company's supply of surveillance systems for the Israeli West Bank barrier. At a press conference to announce the decision, Minister of Finance Kristin Halvorsen said "We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law". The Norwegian Ambassador to Israel, Hans Jacob Biørn Lian, was called to a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry where the decision was protested.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In January 2010, Danske Bank added Elbit to the list of companies that fail its Socially Responsible Investment policy. A bank spokesman noted that it was acting in the interests of its customers by not "placing their money in companies that violate international standards". The Danish financial watchdog DanWatch placed Elbit on its ethical blacklist in 2011. In 2014, one of Denmark's largest pension fund administrators PKA Ltd announced it will no longer consider investing in Elbit, stating "The ICJ stated that the barrier only serves military purposes and violates Palestinian human rights. Therefore we have looked at whether companies produce custom-designed products to the wall and thus has a particular involvement in repressive activities."</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In March 2010, a Swedish pension fund, not wanting to be associated with companies violating international treaties, boycotted Elbit Systems for its involvement in the construction of Israel's West Bank barrier wall.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In December 2018, HSBC divested from Elbit following Elbit's acquisition of IMI Systems. HSBC cited IMI's manufacturing of cluster bombs, which violated the bank's ethics policy of not investing in companies linked to the manufacturing or marketing of cluster munition.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In 2019, Axa partially disinvested from Elbit Systems following pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The move followed several years of campaigning by NGOs, including an April 2018 petition launched by SumOfUs that received 140,000 signatures. Axa "quietly reduce" its investments in Elbit and Israeli banks. Axa remains indirectly invested in Elbit and Israeli banks through a non-controlling interest in its former subsidiary Alliance Bernstein.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-36673834557360326002024-02-27T14:23:00.000-08:002024-02-27T14:23:22.848-08:00Aaron Bushnell – rest in power…<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX8iggAlnQ-3ZTFjyt93n_yw5eO0Zz9garKkyEVzd4t5iARFYZMVaehwiQTJrgGPGuoKygeqi5QCNc33QPUwYKjZOwoeYna9OEjEMTdR8t1vmpwSOtXSjGM8ePRYE06CpXCcJK56UvH4KXX0uZ_Sw-id7GI7NBIyQPot2YOm4M-iR4wlLUi6iAT2e8rog/s900/RIP%20Aaron%20Bushnell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="879" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX8iggAlnQ-3ZTFjyt93n_yw5eO0Zz9garKkyEVzd4t5iARFYZMVaehwiQTJrgGPGuoKygeqi5QCNc33QPUwYKjZOwoeYna9OEjEMTdR8t1vmpwSOtXSjGM8ePRYE06CpXCcJK56UvH4KXX0uZ_Sw-id7GI7NBIyQPot2YOm4M-iR4wlLUi6iAT2e8rog/w391-h400/RIP%20Aaron%20Bushnell.jpg" width="391" /></a></div><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Nick G. on 28 February 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The self-immolation of an American serviceman in protest against US support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, has gone largely unreported in the Australian media.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The event is a major embarrassment for the US and for supporters of Zionism.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The 25-year old US Air Force senior airman set himself alight outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC on February 25.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As he collapsed to the ground in flames, one security guard pulled a gun and pointed it at him. Another, with a fire extinguisher, remonstrated with his colleague, yelling "I don't need guns! I need fire extinguishers!"</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As he approached the embassy, Bushnell declared: "I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine it is not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As flame engulfed his body, he kept shouting ‘Free Palestine’.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hamas released the following statement on Bushnell’s death:</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, extends our heartfelt condolences and unwavering support to the loved ones of American pilot Aaron Bushnell. His name will forever be remembered as a champion of human rights and a staunch opponent of the oppression faced by the Palestinian people at the hands of the American government and its unjust policies. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We also honor the memory of American activist Rachel Corrie, who tragically lost her life in 2003 while standing up against Zionist aggression in Rafah. <br />The responsibility for Aaron Bushnell's untimely death lies squarely with the Biden administration, which has continuously supported the brutal actions of the Zionist regime against our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Bushnell made the ultimate sacrifice in an effort to bring attention to the genocide committed by the Israeli military in Gaza. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Aaron Bushnell's bravery will forever be etched in the hearts of the Palestinian people and all those around the world who stand in solidarity with our just cause. His tragic passing serves as a stark reminder of the growing discontent among the American populace towards their government's complicity in the suffering of our people. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 40px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We call on the global community to join us in condemning the actions of the American government and demanding justice for the Palestinian people. The legacy of Aaron Bushnell will serve as a beacon of hope and inspiration in our continued struggle for freedom and justice.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It gives us no joy to report this young man’s death. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">However, the murderous Israeli security agency, Mossad, was jubilant. On its Twitter page on February 26, it gleefully declared ‘Our enemies kill themselves’.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/mossad+on+bushnell.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/mossad+on+bushnell.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 630px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 515px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It took the post down the nest day, prompting one of it supporters to ask: ‘You posted yesterday that our enemies are killing themselves and you deleted a post. (Referring to the soldier Bbq'ing himself). Do you consider the US an enemy?’ Mossad replied, ‘the post was deleted because it came across that way. The US is an ally and a friend. Individuals don't change it, not even a president,’ which was hardly a retraction at all.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The people of Gaza do not need more guns, tanks, planes, bombs, drones sent to Israel from the US, Australia, and others in the imperialist bloc.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They need the very real fire extinguisher of the defeat for all time of Zionist expansion, aggression and genocide.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-25448436515336010782024-02-20T15:16:00.000-08:002024-02-20T15:16:34.840-08:00Greetings to DFLP on its 55th anniversary<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibb1h4z0Ww2Yv9BOQSPYoK8VErtcOvq2olUuCJmYNpDB8Qfi8eWgfl7JMwJW_K79DAww8h44rN5YQ2B_aoK1yTE-IyrGd_bOf49WxsyrM8to67T-mT6v4iPCDVT7mbRyuKkyfTcrAMnXp27NPOqqaM1Xqlfk-MC-PWhBtqJtCDSXR1hDErWYUmWw8Hie4/s349/logos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="349" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibb1h4z0Ww2Yv9BOQSPYoK8VErtcOvq2olUuCJmYNpDB8Qfi8eWgfl7JMwJW_K79DAww8h44rN5YQ2B_aoK1yTE-IyrGd_bOf49WxsyrM8to67T-mT6v4iPCDVT7mbRyuKkyfTcrAMnXp27NPOqqaM1Xqlfk-MC-PWhBtqJtCDSXR1hDErWYUmWw8Hie4/w400-h200/logos.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />Written by: DFLP and CPA (M-L) on 21 February 2024 <p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine is one of the constituent bodies in the Palestinian resistance. Tomorrow marks the 55th anniversary of the founding of the DFLP. We received a message from them and have sent a reply. They are both below.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dear comrades,</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the founding and launch of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) on February 22, 1969, and in light of the Israeli genocidal crimes committed against the Palestinian people that have continued for more than 75 years, the DFLP continues its struggle and resistance in order to end the Israeli occupation of its lands and establish the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the return of refugees to their homes, and self-determination of the Palestinian people.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">DFLP has sacrificed a large number of martyrs in the face of the Israeli occupation and its crimes against the Palestinian people, including members of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau, and it is still defending its Marxist-Leninist ideas in order to implement its political program.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Based on the extent of the real suffering and tragedy that the Palestinian people are experiencing in the Gaza Strip, DFLP will suspend its celebrations on the 55th anniversary of its launch, and activities will be limited to support the resistance and struggle of the Palestinian people.<br />……………..<br />Our reply reads:</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) expresses its solidarity with, and support for, the heroic and long-suffering Palestinian people.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Australian people have been shocked by the genocidal slaughter imposed on Gaza by the Zionist regime. In their hundreds of thousands they continue to rally and march for the right of Palestinians to exist peacefully in their homeland from the river to the sea. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The bloodlust of Netanyahu, and his determination to eliminate Palestinians from the last of their territory, will bring thousands more into the movement, including those Australian Jews who refuse to allow Netanyahu to speak in their names.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Comrades, your adherence to, and defence of, Marxism-Leninism in the context of the need to maintain the broadest united front against Zionist aggression, is an inspiration to Communists everywhere.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Long live the Palestinian resistance!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Smash Zionism and its imperialist backers!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For Marxism-Leninism, the ideology of successful revolutionary struggle!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Central Committee<br />Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-46289887642393680222024-02-19T18:59:00.000-08:002024-02-19T18:59:32.245-08:00The Solomon Islands and the 'Look North' policy.<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 20 February 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Sogavare+and+Xi.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Sogavare+and+Xi.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 391px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 616px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above - Sogavare and Xi Jinping establishing a comprehensive strategic partnership July 10, 2023. Photo China Daily</em></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Solomon Islands goes to the polls on 16 April with the present government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare expected to retain power. The ruling Sogavare administration remains popular with Solomon Islanders although it has been demonised in recent years by right-wing defence and security hawks in Canberra, backed by the US. An assessment from the right-wing Lowy Institute, influential in the corridors of power in Canberra, therefore, has provided an interesting insight into the nature of Australia-Solomons Islands diplomacy.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With electioneering taking place in the Solomon Islands, the present government of Prime Minister Sogavare has announced its five key policy priorities if returned to office; the priorities are all linked to China and its active diplomatic involvement since the Solomon Islands switched to Beijing from Taipei in 2019. They include a national broadband project by Huawei, closer involvement with the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese police training their Solomons' counterparts, with closer security co-operation with China together with strengthening existing relations with China. (1)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new Look North policy of the government has also been strengthened with the formation of a ruling political organisation, the Ownership, Unity and Responsibility (OUR) Party.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Politics in the Solomon Islands, like much of the vast Pacific region, has traditionally been based on strongly localised leaders representing a multitude of different ethnic groups. The new OUR Party, however, is based at the national level and has over-ridden many of the ethnic problems which have plagued the Solomon Islands for decades, hindering economic development of one of the poorest countries in the region.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The problem was also exacerbated by diplomatic links between the Solomon Islands and Taiwan; Taiwanese aid programs were channelled through provincial government administrations, the outcome favouring some ethnic groups over others. The decision by the Sogavare government in 2019, to switch diplomatic links to China was regarded by many Solomon Islanders as a good move, although those ethnic groups which lost their aid provision on Malaita Island subsequently marched on the capital Honiara and attacked businesses regarded as owned or controlled by China. Direct involvement from Canberra for law enforcement was necessary to restore political stability.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Solomon Islands, as part of the South Pacific sub-region, has always been regarded as an important addition to Australia's defence and security in conjunction with neighbouring Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. It is, therefore, in keeping with the relationship for the arc from Australian military signals intelligence facilities in Queensland to swing through the capital cities of all three Melanesian countries. (2)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While the three countries have their own defence and security provision, established when they achieved independence, they have historically been over-ridden by Australia as the former colonial power. Australia retained the status of the Mother Country afte independence. The defence and security facilities, however, are also further over-ridden by the US, with its global intelligence system at Pine Gap, Central Australia. The US, nevertheless, has usually relied upon Australia for localised operations in line with Five Eyes provision; the 'alliance' always has been the dominant force in US-Australian diplomacy as part of the elite Five Eyes intelligence facilities.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">From the early 1970s the US National Security Agency (NSA) together with the British GCHQ starting sharing intelligence work with other members of the Five Eyes. (3) It has now evolved into a highly sophisticated defence and security-based relationship. The origins, however, were not coincidental. In 1973 the US opened sensitive intelligence facilities on Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean which operated in conjunction with Pine Gap.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The opening of the US intelligence facilities included counterparts at Silvermine, near Cape Town, in South Africa, likewise, became operational at the same time. The stated range of the South African intelligence facilities reached from Argentina to Bangladesh, and from north Africa to the South Pole, providing defence and security provision for the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions. (4) The South African facilities maintained direct contact with both the US and UK, as dominant within the Five Eyes. (5) </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As the present Cold War position taken by the US toward China has escalated, regional defence and security provision has become increasingly important for the Pentagon and its military planners. A quick study of the US regional military involvement has revealed endless obsession and preoccupation with the maintenance of traditional hegemonic positions in the face of increasing competition from China.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), for example, has included Japan being elevated into a global alliance with the US for regional operations, resting on the so-called 'quad' designed to hem in China on all sides. (6) The 'quad' is linked to lower-level partners. (7)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Elsewhere, the Pentagon has re-opened a multitude of military facilities across the vast Indo-Pacific region. (8) The US-led regional foreign policy has included re-using Island Chain Theory (ICT), largely discredited during the previous Cold War, and using it to host numerous missile networks. (9) The ICT is, at present, being upgraded to include the Indian Ocean. (10)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It is, therefore, hardly surprising to find the Sogavare administration has been increasingly demonised by right-wing defence and security hawks in Canberra eagerly pursing the US line; it cannot be trusted to follow their diplomatic positions. A recent assessment from the Lowy Institute, for example, included reference to 'the wide array of China-backed policies that will continue to cause Canberra unease if Mr Sogavare is returned after the April election, as is expected by many analysts … he fully intends to pursue closer ties with China'. (11) No recognition was provided in the assessment for Melanesian traditional diplomacy conducted along lines of the peoples of the sub-region being 'friends to all and enemies to none'. (12)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In conclusion, the diplomatic position of Canberra toward the Solomon Islands remains one based in neo-colonial attitudes based on wanton speculation. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At this stage, Australian and US fears that China plans to establish a military base in the Solomons appear unfounded, but China is pursuing its own imperialism – with Chinese characteristics – and must be watched if countries are to maintain their independence.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Every country needs an independent foreign policy!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />1. Solomons PM vows: 'I'll look to China', <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 14 February 2024.<br />2. See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.<br />3. Spyworld, Mike Frost, (Canada, 1995), page 40.<br />4. 'Maritime Operational Communications HQ', <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Star</em> (South Africa), 10 March 1973; and, Security in the Mountain, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Star</em> (South Africa), 17 March 1973.<br />5. Ibid.<br />6. The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hankyoreh,</em> 12 November 2019.<br />7. Ibid.<br />8. US eyes return to south-east Asian bases, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian Weekly </em>(U.K.), 29 June 2012; and, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian Weekly</em>, (U.K.), 2 May 2014.<br />9. US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nikkei Asia</em>, 5 March 2021.<br />10. Wikipedia: Island Chain Theory.<br />11. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, op.cit., 14 February 2024.<br />12. Ibid.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-27056947272023044402024-02-17T20:23:00.000-08:002024-02-17T20:23:19.048-08:00Workers’ power and closing the loopholes industrial laws<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLNlzP_RgjV-AsoBAL8PMzKzcilfAyjV39D097PkhYQnHh9Fxf38N0qJjWpfIlao8FHDfG_Awk96h7lP3hsnX3Q0uBA21KARat6O-H3iWqDGBa2-w0O7RfBvqnrUkWv87RL0OZkSxJyUgnYbZjS-8XelOsVO9va49KostVtJ-qiK802o8dRwI8hrmtbc/s370/231123_farms_perfection-fresh_album-cover-artwork_SD-1-370x370.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="370" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLNlzP_RgjV-AsoBAL8PMzKzcilfAyjV39D097PkhYQnHh9Fxf38N0qJjWpfIlao8FHDfG_Awk96h7lP3hsnX3Q0uBA21KARat6O-H3iWqDGBa2-w0O7RfBvqnrUkWv87RL0OZkSxJyUgnYbZjS-8XelOsVO9va49KostVtJ-qiK802o8dRwI8hrmtbc/s320/231123_farms_perfection-fresh_album-cover-artwork_SD-1-370x370.png" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above - the Perfection Press women, as part of their campaign, released a CD available <a href="https://www.rottenperfection.org/album/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">here</a>.</i></p><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Ned K. on 18 February 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The federal Labor Government has succeeded in having its Closing the Loopholes industrial laws passed through both Houses of Parliament.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new laws will find their way into the Fair Work Act and become operational over the next 6 to 12 months.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new laws make some attempt to regulate working conditions for gig economy workers and owner drivers in the transport industry. They also provide a more detailed definition of casual employment which may assist some casuals to be recognised as permanent workers with at least minimum paid sick leave and annual leave.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">David Peetz, a researcher well-respected by workers and their unions, recently wrote an article online in the Pearls and Irritations website about the recent changes.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Peetz's most astute observation about the "rough and tumble" in parliament by Dutton and his cronies about the new laws is that possibly the most important change of all the laws went through "under the radar", so to speak.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Peetz was referring to the changes to the Fair Work Act arising from the Closing the Loopholes Bills that for the first time since the early 1990s see the term Union Delegate and rights of Delegates included in the industrial relations Act of the day.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Fair Work Act will now require the rights of Delegates in workplaces to be included in Awards and Enterprise Agreements.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Peetz has done very detailed research of the impact on workers’ collective strength in workplaces of the decline in Union Delegate numbers in Australia during the period from early 1990s to about 2015.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">His research showed a direct correlation between decline in union membership in workplaces and the decline and/or complete absence of Union Delegates in workplaces.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">His research also showed the relationship between strong Delegate networks and stronger industrial outcomes in wages and conditions, respect of workers by bosses and better job security and control of casualization of the workforces, even during the onslaught of Workchoices and the (Un)Fair Work Act years.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Peetz's research findings are backed up by two recent disputes that have been prominent in the media in the last few weeks.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The dispute between stevedore multinational DP World and the MUA and their members saw these maritime workers take industrial action in various forms over a number of weeks against DP world in order to win wage increases and better conditions.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why were the MUA members able to maintain their struggle for a considerable period of time and win?</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One important factor was that throughout all the attacks on the MUA since at least the 1930s, their members have maintained organization and elected Union Delegates across the whole maritime industry.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The second dispute that made headlines was the shocking and utterly disgraceful exploitation and sexual harassment of migrant women farm workers at the biggest tomato producer in Australia, Perfection Fresh.<br />Twelve courageous women farm workers with the strong support of their Union, United Workers Union, have taken Perfection Fresh to the Federal Court after being sexually harassed by labour hire male workers in positions of power over them.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One important reason these women workers have been able to take this action is because the hundreds of mainly migrant workers in their workplace at Virginia, north of Adelaide, have courageously organized themselves (supported by their Organizer) and elected their own leaders including Union Delegates. Without that level of collective Strength within the tomato glasshouses of Perfection Fresh, the twelve women's decision to take action would have been much more difficult.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As David Peetz correctly points out, even with the new laws giving formal recognition to the rights of Delegates in workplaces, it is up to union leaderships to ensure that workers are given full support and opportunity for development when they step up as Union Delegates in their workplace.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Workers will soon notice which Unions want to organize the unorganized and further develop the already organized.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If David Peetz's research is still valid today, when workers unite and organize, bosses will tremble.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-51840113582712656342024-02-11T19:08:00.000-08:002024-02-11T19:08:15.123-08:00ADF in trouble as personnel leave in droves<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 12 February 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/ADF+retention.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/ADF+retention.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 381px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">The ADF beset with recruitment and retention problems PHOTO: defenceconnect.com.au </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cold War US-led diplomatic hostilities and sabre-rattling continue to escalate across the Indo-Pacific region on the daily basis. An official statement from Duntroon has, therefore, proved particularly revealing when placed in the context of developments in the Western Pacific. While the statement was primarily concerned with training provision and serious shortages of personnel, it revealed the sense of urgency taking place within military planning circles inside the corridors of power, for Australia to be prepared for 'real-war scenarios' at the behest of the US in the next few years.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In early February the Royal Military Training College at Duntroon issued an official media release announcing the beginning of a two-year trial for army officer training provision whereby their standard 18-month courses would be shortened to 12-months. (1) While the stated reason for the shortening of the training provision was 'recruiting and retention problems', a sense of urgency would appear to have taken priority. (2) The present course structure of six separate modules has also been altered to enable students to take each stage separately and not in the usual sequence. The statement also quoted a Lieutenant General Stuart noting that 'officer cadets were keen to get out there and apply what they have learned'. (3) </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">During the next two years Duntroon will be providing training provision for between 500-600 military officers who, after graduation, will then form part of the command led by the Pentagon for largely regional defence and security provision and military operations.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Following the re-organisation of the elite US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) over a decade ago, the Pentagon now receives a regular stream of regional military assessments from various locations in the Indo-Pacific; the region has seen the US experience a serious challenge to traditional hegemonic positions with the rise of China and is regarded as a potential theatre of war. (4)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The US military assessments have already provided the Pentagon with what they regard as a serious problem.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Serious problems face US imperialism</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Assessments of the Western Pacific region, for example, have revealed the US is no longer the dominant power. (5) The recent attempt by China to win over the government of Nauru for diplomatic recognition away from Taiwan has heightened tensions still further; it has been noted that 'Nauru could not have been unaware how the timing of its announcement would put the region again on the geo-political frontline'. (6) </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Taiwanese diplomatic recognition elsewhere in the region is also under threat with serious concerns about Tuvalu and Palau, the last two countries in Micronesia which support Taipei. (7)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A major US concern is that China has been able to win support from Pacific island countries enabling them to gain access to their huge exclusive economic zones (EEZs); some of the EEZs are used by the US to host sensitive military and intelligence facilities. (8)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">North of the Marshall Islands, for example, the small US territory of Wake Island together with the Japanese territory of Minami-Torishima both host highly sensitive facilities for US-led military facilities. (9)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many of the small Pacific islands also mark sensitive areas of the US-led Island Chain Theory, used for demarcation of the region; they have already been used to host defence and security provision against China. (10)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ADF to recruit footsloggers and commanders from the Pacific</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The changes to training procedures reflect government and ADF concern about the numbers of people leaving the ADF. The military recorded a <a href="http://australian%20defence%20force%20mulls%20allowing%20pacific%20islanders%20to%20serve%20amid%20recruitment%20drive%20(islandsbusiness.com)/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">separation rate</a> of 11.2% in 2022/23, falling short of its retention targets. For several years, the right-wing ASPI and similar groups have called for a relaxation of ADF screening of recruits, believing too may are turned away.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In early January, then-acting Defence Minister Keogh announced the <a href="http://australia%20exploring%20pacific%20recruitment%20to%20bump%20up%20adf%20numbers%20-%20defence%20connect/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ADF was looking to island nations in the Pacific for recruits</a>. At the same time, Pacific military leaders are being given command positions in the ADF. In <a href="https://bnnbreaking.com/conflict-defence/military/pacific-officers-promoted-to-high-ranks-in-australian-defence-force-a-strategic-move" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a first for the ADF</a>, Colonel Boniface Aruma from Papua New Guinea and Fiji's Colonel Penioni Naliva have been appointed deputy commanders of Australian Defence Force brigades. In Naliva’s case, the screening could not have been that thorough – Amnesty International wants him investigated for <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/pacific/programs/pacificbeat/calls-to-investigate-fiji-military-officer-for-alleged-torture/103426530" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">human rights abuses following the 2006 coup in Fiji</a>. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What seems to have been more important to the government and the ADF is the way the appointments would be perceived: “…as strategic responses to China's increasing influence in the Pacific…This region is traditionally considered within the sphere of influence of Australia and the United States. The ripple effect of these appointments is expected to have vast geopolitical implications, altering the balance of power in the Pacific region.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Black Hawks darken our skies…</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What is also particularly significant about the recent statement issued by Duntroon is their emphasis upon helicopters, in fact about half of the statement was focussed upon the US providing Australia with Black Hawk utility helicopters following the phasing out of existing Taipans together with provision of a Black Hawk training simulator. (See our recent comment <a href="https://cpaml.org/post4.php?id=1707459819&catitem1=Independence%20From%20Imperialism&catid1=14" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Heads must roll to clear Defence of US loyalists</em></a>).</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was noted Australia will eventually be acquiring forty Black Hawks together with a further 29 AH-64E combat helicopters. (11)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Helicopters have traditionally been associated with rapid deployment in and out of difficult terrain. Small and remote landmasses are, no doubt, already in mind!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new helicopters have been accompanied by upgrades to sensitive military facilities in Queensland, facing the western Pacific.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The time-line from defence and security provision into likely military operations, therefore, would appear to be shortening:</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> We need an independent foreign policy!</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Army officers on fast track to command, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 7 February 2024.<br />2.. Ibid.<br />3. Ibid.<br />4. Pentagon plays the spy game, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian Weekly </em>(U.K.), 7 December 2012.<br />5. See: Study – US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Paul D. Shinkman, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019. <br />6. Island recruits a win-win solution for ADF shortfall, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 18 January 2024.<br />7. Pact with Tuvalu in the balance, Editorial, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 30 January 2024; and,<br /> Tuvalu security pact in jeopardy, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 29 January 2024.<br />8. See: US v. China, Japan Forward, Politics and Security, Dr. Rieko Hayakawa and Jennifer L. Anson, 14 February 2020.<br />9. Ibid.<br />10. See: US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nikkei,</em> 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.<br />11. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Australian</em>, op.cit., 7 February 2024.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-68737938435823694672024-02-08T22:45:00.000-08:002024-02-08T22:45:52.471-08:00Heads must roll to clear Defence of US loyalists<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4qhxt62LO3Qzo5iCfGtKXQcLixAkwqvdBZ-8xq1PauOEwEV68UMzwz4XyFhbaw_oasHfCiDI6CdCnfaqMozu2WVyzKwhpffLdb_be28uOIkukKq53kKwhpFQAmtZAFC4uHKB84FGV5gfiS05yMmeZY3WcO0HSdIPsVYQZ8L_IGCnJM5h2pBjFh4LDk0/s873/Austin%20-%20our%20people%20in%20your%20Defence.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="873" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4qhxt62LO3Qzo5iCfGtKXQcLixAkwqvdBZ-8xq1PauOEwEV68UMzwz4XyFhbaw_oasHfCiDI6CdCnfaqMozu2WVyzKwhpffLdb_be28uOIkukKq53kKwhpFQAmtZAFC4uHKB84FGV5gfiS05yMmeZY3WcO0HSdIPsVYQZ8L_IGCnJM5h2pBjFh4LDk0/w640-h356/Austin%20-%20our%20people%20in%20your%20Defence.png" width="640" /></a></div> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Nick G. on 9 February </span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Senior figures within the Australian Department of Defence are agents of influence for US imperialism and must be removed if we are ever to have the capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy.</span></p><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They have tied defence procurement exclusively to the needs of US arms manufacturers, and their concept of “interoperability” is that the moment the US creates an excuse for war with China, Australia will automatically take part.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">These senior figures are protected by like-minded US loyalists in both the Labor and Liberal parties.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This group was complicit in reviving a 2013 proposal by the US that Australia lease and operate ten or twelve Virginia-class nuclear submarines. PM Morrison subsequently scrapped the submarine contract with the French, and, via the AUKUS arrangements, announced that we would purchase, not lease, several second-hand US nuclear-powered subs and have others manufactured on the same model at an estimated cost of $368 billion. That was in addition to the $835 million settlement with Naval Group for the dumped $90 billion French submarine program.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tanks for nothing…</span></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The same group of US empire loyalists were responsible for a controversial decision to replace the army’s 59 Abrams M1A1 tanks, which were bought in 2007 but have not seen combat.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <br /></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Abrams tanks are made by the former US car manufacturer Chrysler Corporation, now operating as General Dynamics Ground Systems. The existing tanks will be replaced by 75 M1A2 main battle tanks, which feature some minor upgrades on the previous model, as well as some other armoured vehicles, at a cost of $3.5 billion. The decision was controversial because Australian tanks have not been used for over half a century, in the Vietnam War; their huge weight (70 tonnes) makes them difficult to transport either within or outside the country; and the small differences between the M1A2 and the earlier M1A1 do not justify the increase in numbers nor the huge cost.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But the decision did show the willingness of the US loyalist clique to feather the bed of US arms manufacturers, earning brownie points with their US masters.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian Defence Review cuts out Australian manufacturers</span></div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian manufacturers are angered that the Smith-Houston Australian Defence Review, commissioned by the Albanese government, firmly prioritised purchases of US military equipment over that which could be suppled locally. They cited the example of a decision to spend over $307 million to buy towed array sonar systems that could be made locally from Australian industries already supplying the equipment to the US, UK and French Navies. Instead, Defence opted to purchase US-made sonar systems.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to the online Australia Pacific Defence Reporter magazine’s editor Kym Bergmann, “the pro-U.S. faction only want things with the stars and stripes plastered on them – and AUKUS will make that mentality even worse”.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This matches continuing uncertainty about the Arafura-class offshore patrol vessel (OPV) program. Originally, a contract for 20 OPVs was let to the German company Luerssen Australia and building the vessels has begun in South Australia and Western Australia. Then the loyalists started a campaign against the German build, and had the number reduced to 12. One option under consideration by the government is to halt production, transfer any completed vessels to the Australian Border Force, or possibly Papua New Guinea, and instead relet the contract to the US for a fleet of missile-armed corvettes.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Which leads us to the current controversy over the disposal of Australia’s NH90 Taipan helicopter fleet. The Taipans were manufactured by a European consortium of French, Italian and German arms manufacturers headed by France’s Airbus. They are operated by a number of countries, but were involved in several accidents here in Australia which led to the whole fleet being labelled “unsafe”. The US loyalists in Defence were behind this campaign to call for the replacement of the Taipans, and were successful, with the announcement that the Taipans would be jettisoned in favour of US-manufactured Black Hawk, Apache and Chinook helicopters.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rather than offering the Taipans for sale to other countries, including those currently operating them, or gifting them to the Ukrainians to assist their fight against the Russians, Defence hastily arranged for the Taipans to be broken up – destroyed – and buried.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to Bergmann, this was done because “senior officers in the Army would be highly embarrassed if another nation was able to safely and effectively operate Taipans when they have so mismanaged the program.”</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This means that $3.7 billion, the estimated cost of the Taipans according to the National Audit Office in 2021, is being deliberately poured into a hole in the ground by the US loyalists – both those in Defence and those in the Albanese government.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The 40 Black Hawk helicopters, manufactured by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky, will set Australia back an estimated $2.8 billion plus blowouts.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Additionally, the following payments will be made:</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">•<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span>$340 million to Lockheed Martin Australia for support and maintenance of the UH 60M Black Hawk fleet.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">•<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span>$306 million to Boeing Defence Australia for a seven-year Initial Support Contract for the Apache helicopter for maintenance, engineering, training and logistics services.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">•<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span>A $184 million contract awarded to Boeing Defence Australia to extend the Chinook Integrated Support Services Contract to August 2028.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why Defence and the government would trust Boeing with a maintenance contract when its civilian 737 MAX passenger airliner has been grounded worldwide following crashes and the loss of hundreds of lives, caused by poor design and maintenance, is anyone’s guess.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australia’s armed force are being reshaped to have no role outside that of supporting the declining US empire. </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To understand a nation’s foreign policy you need to look at its economy, and Australia’s is dominated by imperialist finance capital of which the substantial portion is US capital.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To have an independent and peaceful foreign policy means the revolutionary overthrow of the political structures that serve US economic domination of Australia.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Such a fundamental change must be led by the working class acting according to its own independent class agenda.</div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Out with the US loyalists!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-42637132156598735062024-02-06T22:21:00.000-08:002024-02-06T22:21:58.064-08:00Iran, Iraq and the isolation of US imperialism in the Middle East<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_BU-Sp2smHprG67wOf5MjEi942trjKE2SZe0n1Uqds-k-gl2lBh71cOAxWBSa-NN8bkzUCZGZI152r09Mw0BhxPAD9cGfVH2rH6rj160-I8PX8BhGy2M8I5W9b1ZOjOGSLgrPhE_u-DGp8Rv0PpeCw_LiR2P6Cn19zFth7v2nMNH5uCRM56KDGhFGftw/s1110/Iraq%20protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="1110" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_BU-Sp2smHprG67wOf5MjEi942trjKE2SZe0n1Uqds-k-gl2lBh71cOAxWBSa-NN8bkzUCZGZI152r09Mw0BhxPAD9cGfVH2rH6rj160-I8PX8BhGy2M8I5W9b1ZOjOGSLgrPhE_u-DGp8Rv0PpeCw_LiR2P6Cn19zFth7v2nMNH5uCRM56KDGhFGftw/w640-h360/Iraq%20protest.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above - </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px;">Iraqis call for removal of US troops in 2020 following US assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px;">Image: Thaier Al-Sudani/REUTERS</span></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 7 February 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">High-level diplomatic talks between the Iraqi and US governments about a US military withdrawal from the country reveal the changing balance of forces across the region has had its effect upon the ruling presidential administration of Abdul Latif Rashid in Baghdad. US policy against the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and since has rebounded; the Middle East has responded, effectively challenging traditional hegemonic positions, and pushing Iran into a regional leadership position. Despite huge financial budgets for their military incursions into the Middle East, the US have not achieved either their initial objectives or any realistic lasting presence in the region.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When the masses in Iran rose up in 1979 and ousted the Shah and established and Islamic Government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the US lost one of its most loyal allies in the Middle East. The Shah was a US puppet - he 'remained the lynchpin of America's anti-Soviet efforts in the Middle East'. (1) In fact, he had been installed 'with the assistance of the CIA and Britain's SIS in 1953 in a coup organised against the left-leaning government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq'. (2) The motive left little to the imagination; US interests were the order of the day. It was noted that 'the catalyst for this action was Mossadeq's imminent nationalisation of western interests in Iran's oil industry … the … CIA subsequently provided organisational and training assistance for the establishment of an intelligence organisation for the Shah … and was placed … under the guidance of US and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957'. (3)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Five decades later the US has been left with the legacy of their interference in Iranian affairs; while creating a Cold War diplomatic position toward the Islamic Republic in 1979, the US has not achieved its objectives. In fact, they have proved counter-productive. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It has given rise to three significant developments:</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Firstly, a changing strategic relationship between Iran and its Arab neighbours, linked to the uncertainty about the future of the US role in the region. (4) Iran's initial relationship with its closest neighbours, for example, was strained; while the country was regarded as the centre of Islam, Iranian involvement with US interests was problematic. Slowly, however, the US Cold War position pushed Iran into a leadership role against US interests across the region.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The establishment of a Revolutionary Guard in Iran under a decree issued by Khomeini on 5 May 1979 with 'the ultimate responsibility of guarding the revolution itself', saw Iranian operatives form links with like-minded groups and organisations. (5) Its tentacles now spread across the wider region and into a multitude of armed and opposition groups.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It is, therefore, not surprising to observe Hamas in Gaza, establishing links with Iran. While differences exist between different strands of Islam, the common goal of ridding the region of US interests can be regarded as a binding force.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Secondly, Iran's growing capabilities for asymmetric warfare can be regarded as a serious challenge for US interests. (6) While maintaining a large standing army of regular forces, Iran has also forces trained in unconventional warfare: guerilla tactics, insurgency, rebellion, terrorism. Their influence has grown with the changing balance of forces following the failure of western backing of anti-Assad groups in Syria and the growing influence of Russia, Syria and Turkey, across the Middle East; US backing for anti-government forces and the so-called Arab Spring, was a serious mistake. It has rebounded upon Washington and the Pentagon; their initial intelligence assessments were clearly flawed.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Finally, Iran's success in creating more effective air-defence systems including drones, can be regarded as a serious challenge to US-led military hegemony across the wider region. (7)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The recent attack of a US military facility in Jordan and high-level diplomatic talks between Baghdad and Washington have to be assessed in that context.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The attack, by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, on a secret US Tower 22 military facility in Jordan, close to the borders with Iraq and Syria, took the US by complete surprise. The pro-Iranian militia used a drone to attack residential quarters, killing three service personnel and injuring many others. (8) It was part of a program which has included at least 165 similar attacks on US interests across the region since last October, with serious implications. (9) A pro-Israeli intelligence source, for example, has noted that as 'the war in Gaza heads into its fifth month … it has brought … the region to the brink of full-blown conflict'. (10) </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohamed Shia al-Sudani’s call for a withdrawal of US troops from the country has also led to high-level diplomatic talks; Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh recently issued a statement noting 'the US footprint in Iraq will certainly be part of the conversations as it goes forward, indicating that Baghdad's desire for a reduction in these forces was on the table'. (11) A statement from Baghdad, however, revealed that the Iraqi government was attempting to 'ease pressure … from … militia groups to oust US forces'. (12) There is no wish to prolong the US presence.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The US, at present, has 2,500 military personnel in Iraq together with 900 based in Syria, and a further 900 deployed elsewhere. (13) Their longer term future is questionable. It is unlikely they will have a lasting presence, as the balance of forces continues to slowly swing away from previous US hegemonic positions. A recent statement issued by Hamas, for example, noted 'the continuation of the American-Zionist aggression on Gaza risks a regional explosion'. (14)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It should be noted, furthermore, that during the 2001 to 2019 period, the US Department of Defence has estimated regional operations had been costed at between $2,002.4 to $2,106.2 billion. (15) There has been comparatively little gained for the massive financial costs, and the position of the US, in general, would now appear precarious.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />1. US foreign policy and the Iranian Revolution, Christian Emery, (London, 2012), page 2; see also, Project Dark Gene / Project Ibex, www.spyflight.co.uk / dark gene.htm; and, Iran / RSA, Le Monde Diplomatique, December, 1976; and, Project Dark Gene and Project Ibex, Tom Cooper and Art Kremzel, www.acig.org<br />2. Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), pp. 142-46.<br />3. Ibid.<br />4. Iran and the changing military balance in the Gulf, CSIS., 20 March 2020.<br />5. Ibid.<br />6. Ibid.<br />7. Ibid.<br />8. Three US troops killed and 34 hurt, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Sun</em>, 28 January 2024.<br />9. Drone mix-up blamed for deaths, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 31 January 2024.<br />10. US pushes for deal to end war, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 2 February 2024.<br />11. America, Iraq to hold talks on troops,<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The Weekend Australian</em>, 27-28 January 2024.<br />12. Militia to suspend attacks on US,<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Australian</em>, 1 February 2024.<br />13. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, op.cit., 31 January 2024.<br />14. President vows revenge for dead troops,<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Australian</em>, 30 January 2024.<br />15. CSIS., op.cit., 20 March 2020.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-71925013206999957912024-02-06T21:45:00.000-08:002024-02-06T21:45:50.099-08:00Hobsons Bay community rally for Palestine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp_DPHh9DT9aNQPFQ0qa3Ja88vzdMMEMxC8pKsh2qUIPWtxmv6ck0xxoIUB-Rf6Ej242BuI1QpDac00Sg-QrsmdCilAmbnmrfkCdZVTy57gnP1LSW3D8_QmUPqKquxx99We0pf4r4byHIuNJHPz8QEomen2xc3NrErdHXYMPf9LrUG5KFURw8_6I3Xm38/s1080/Photo%20from%20Hobsons%20Bay%204%20Palestine%20rally%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="1080" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp_DPHh9DT9aNQPFQ0qa3Ja88vzdMMEMxC8pKsh2qUIPWtxmv6ck0xxoIUB-Rf6Ej242BuI1QpDac00Sg-QrsmdCilAmbnmrfkCdZVTy57gnP1LSW3D8_QmUPqKquxx99We0pf4r4byHIuNJHPz8QEomen2xc3NrErdHXYMPf9LrUG5KFURw8_6I3Xm38/w640-h518/Photo%20from%20Hobsons%20Bay%204%20Palestine%20rally%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Shirley Winton on 7 February 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On Friday 2 February, 200 residents of Hobsons Bay community, western suburbs of Melbourne/Naarm, gathered outside the electorate office of our local member and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Tim Watts.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The rally, organised by Hobsons Bay Community 4 Palestine demanded Tim Watts and the Labor government stop supporting the genocide in Gaza, called for immediate and lasting ceasefire, and for the immediate resumption of the desperately needed humanitarian aid to UNRWA. Speakers included Palestinians and First Nations People.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many passing cars honked in support of the rally with drivers shouting solidarity messages and waving.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the end of the speeches the 200 protestors spilled on to the busy Melbourne Road in a short march to “unveil” a newly painted mural (below) on a large wall near Tim Watts' electorate office, and next to the busy Newport Railway station. After unveiling the mural, the organisers treated the protestors to numerous large slices of watermelon, symbolising the banned Palestinian flag and the determination of the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice and self-determination.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Hobsons+Bay+4+Palestine+mural.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/Hobsons+Bay+4+Palestine+mural.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 454px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 700px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The rally called on the local Hobsons Bay Council to pass a community resolution condemning the genocide in Gaza and Australia's complicity, and supporting the Palestinian people."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-76268703617716465652024-02-02T15:04:00.000-08:002024-02-02T15:04:40.988-08:00Barngarla join fight to reposition Pt. Lincoln desal plant<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Nick G. on 2 February 2024</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7eHwFx9TA0aBPB_vuGKuF6MAFtk23KpP63tT0estn9JyjqtUhNS9YBw-sa178R9ZnHnE2FxdnUn586cdoTVxWx1zU9iUHyqmWzPjRLgDeyl2IlxrhCc-OPmgckeK22wPpxH4R0Jk6voRJ_phFnq45YzeVUZpoVo0xo3vYSZxDFDBRXG1RxeAkfdRxj4/s862/2021%20Pt%20Lincoln%20rally.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="862" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7eHwFx9TA0aBPB_vuGKuF6MAFtk23KpP63tT0estn9JyjqtUhNS9YBw-sa178R9ZnHnE2FxdnUn586cdoTVxWx1zU9iUHyqmWzPjRLgDeyl2IlxrhCc-OPmgckeK22wPpxH4R0Jk6voRJ_phFnq45YzeVUZpoVo0xo3vYSZxDFDBRXG1RxeAkfdRxj4/w640-h360/2021%20Pt%20Lincoln%20rally.jpg" width="640" /></a></em></div><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />Above - a 2021 rally in Pt Lincoln against the desal plant Photo by ABC Eyre Peninsula: Jodie Hamilton</em><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Barngarla Development Aboriginal Corporation, which led the successful fight to block the proposed nuclear waste dump at Kimba on Eyre Peninsula, has joined Pt. Lincoln aquaculture companies to oppose a $313 million 3.5 gigalitre desalination plant at Billy Light’s Point about 1km across the water from the local marina.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Oceanographer Professor Jochen Kaempf and Dr Paul McShane, a highly experienced marine biologist, have criticised the selection of Billy Light’s Point because its waters are part of Boston Bay, which has poor flushing characteristics within the bay and poor water circulation.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Desalination plants remove salt from seawater to produce freshwater. In doing so, they produce hyper-saline effluent (at least twice the concentration of normal seawater) which is discharged into coastal waters. Because of the potentially harmful effects of their effluent, desalination plants are recommended to be situated on high energy coastlines where wave action and ocean currents can disperse effluent to harmless levels.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In fact, SA Water first identified three sites in the Sleaford Bay, 25km south of Pt Lincoln as an area for a desalination plant for Eyre Peninsula in 2009. Sleaford Bay is on the southern side of the Lincoln National Park and faces the deep open waters of the Great Australian Bight, whereas Billy Light’s Point is on the northern side of the Park, and sheltered by it from the currents of the open coastline.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Aquaculture in Boston Bay includes the growing of mussels and industry leaders say their industry would be threatened by a desal plant’s hypersaline discharges. Five local councils around Pt. Lincoln oppose Billy Light’s Point as the site for the desal plant.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When a Billy Light’s Point site was announced it sparked community protest in November 2021 with a rally of about 350 people and a flotilla of fishing vessels under the banner Hands Off Boston Bay</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Barngala people regard the Billy Light’s Point waters as a site of cultural and heritage significance. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation deputy chairman Jason Bilney said Billy Light’s Point had some of the last pre-colonial fish traps in the Port Lincoln area and echoed community concerns about environmental damage to the lucrative aquaculture industry. The Barngarla were ignored when the marina was developed and lost heritage fish traps to the development.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The South Australian government, which is currently calling for nominations from SA First Peoples for elections to the Voice to the SA Parliament, faces a real test of its commitment to listen to First Peoples.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It can either listen to the Barngarla and relocate the desal plant to Sleaford Bay, or it can follow the dictates of capitalism’s destructive war on nature. <br /><br /></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The indications so far are that the economics of the capitalist path represent the government’s preferred option.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Climate, Environment and Water Minister Susan Close, deputy premier and a leader of the so-called “Left” faction of the ALP in SA, has said that the Sleaford West site would cost $150 million more than the Billy Lights Point proposition.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Billy Light’s is the one that stacks up. It stacks up because it is the cheapest," Dr Close said.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Eyre Peninsula needs a desal plant. Its 35,000 customers currently use the local Uley Basin water supply, but require a further 1.7 gigalitres pumped annually all the way from the Murray River.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Surely the cost of a 25km pipeline from Sleaford Bay is worth saving the aquaculture industry of Boston Bay and the Barngarla’s heritage fish trap sites.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-44548647152892463112024-01-29T19:54:00.000-08:002024-01-29T19:54:40.964-08:00Nauru’s diplomatic switch to China is a setback for US imperialism<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXhXH4STMILHXV1VhmSLaNTBQCauQIntemiWBNT2k7FjJgTn2hAfrOJilOH4OTctxJrMkQ-chC10Zll4Iut0n39GB61vWAlzawikPU8p3rBgGh_N71hWTh2Wo-PEHb3CVSkB_984QJ3UHCqiJ4w1a7TPm5GcpJxdW6qvyt4ZM2AzDWl64AOguhWWjcvg/s1200/chinese%20embassy%20nauru.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1200" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXhXH4STMILHXV1VhmSLaNTBQCauQIntemiWBNT2k7FjJgTn2hAfrOJilOH4OTctxJrMkQ-chC10Zll4Iut0n39GB61vWAlzawikPU8p3rBgGh_N71hWTh2Wo-PEHb3CVSkB_984QJ3UHCqiJ4w1a7TPm5GcpJxdW6qvyt4ZM2AzDWl64AOguhWWjcvg/w640-h384/chinese%20embassy%20nauru.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Above; Chinese Embassy opening, Nauru, January 2024 Photo Xinhua</em></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: (Contributed) on 30 January 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A brief, short diplomatic statement from the government of Nauru, that it had decided to switch diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, was largely overlooked by western media outlets. It was not expected and obscured by the Taiwanese general elections only two days earlier. The timing of the diplomatic switch together with the terse nature of the statement, however, would tend to reveal a major diplomatic stand-off has taken place; it has, furthermore, been a major setback for US-led regional foreign policy.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On 13 January the people of Taiwan returned a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government for a third term of office with president-elect Lai Ching-te. It is, however, a minority government with 51 MPs as opposed to the Kuomingtang (KMT) with 52 seats. The small Taiwan Peoples Party (TPP) had eight MPs elected, ensuring that it holds the balance of power. The election results, nevertheless, were given high-profile through US-led media outlets, stressing the 'democratic' nature of Taiwan's political system.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Quite unexpectedly, only two days later, the government of Nauru announced it was switching diplomatic allegiance immediately from Taiwan to China. The diplomatic statement included that Nauru would 'no longer recognise Taiwan as a separate country but rather as an inalienable part of China's territory …. and ... Nauru said it would sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan immediately and no longer develop any official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan'. (1)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No official explanation was provided about the diplomatic switch although a statement from Taiwanese deputy foreign minister, Tien Chung-kwang, said 'the government was ending diplomatic relations with Nauru to safeguard our national dignity'. (2) It was accompanied with an official statement from the Biden administration in the White House, that 'criticised the micro-state's distorted rationale'. (3)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Political intrigue inside the corridors of power in Nauru would appear to have taken place in secret. Following the elections in Taiwan on Saturday, Nauru was the first country to congratulate Taipei on the success of the elections the following day, while on Monday morning the diplomatic switch took place! (4) The timing was also particularly embarrassing for the Biden administration which had sent a senior US delegation to Taipei including former national security adviser Stephen Hadley, to assist president-elect Lai for what has been regarded as a 'tense five-month period before his inauguration'. (5)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The US is quite clearly concerned about Taiwan: last October, for example, Nauru president Russ Joseph Kun was given what was regarded as a hero’s welcome in high-level diplomacy with Taiwan; on returning home he was ousted with a no-confidence vote led by David Adeang who was responsible for the sudden announcement about the diplomatic switch to China. (6)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The diplomatic switch has been a further addition to the failed DPP New Southbound foreign policy which is now left in tatters; attempts to foster stronger diplomatic ties across the Indo-Pacific region have seriously backfired. Nauru is the tenth country which has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan since the DPP took office in 2016, with President Tsai Ing-wen. Taiwan now only has official diplomatic links with twelve countries, none of which are major players in global diplomacy. A recent statement from a former senior Taiwanese foreign ministry figure, likewise, has also caused concern by suggesting 'another one or two of Taiwan's allies … could … be poached by China in coming months'. (7) More to come? </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While it is difficult to generalise about China's ability to marginalise Taiwanese diplomacy research conducted by AidData, based at the William and Mary University in the US, has established Chinese diplomacy remains strongly based in economic and financial criteria; Beijing is not reluctant to offer developing countries meaningful aid packages in return for mutually beneficial diplomatic ties. China's aid packages in the Pacific region have been particularly generous over the past two decades. (8)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It has been strongly speculated that Nauru's diplomatic switch away from Taiwan to China was caused by the Australian government winding down aid packages for its off-shore asylum-seeker facilities on the islands causing a shortfall with their budget. (9)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While Taiwanese officials have been invited to regional dialogues and forums, China has effectively forced them out, emphasising the One China policy. (10) Taiwan, nevertheless, maintains 112 representative missions in over seventy countries; in less than sixty years it has been transformed from a rural backwater to a highly developed economy and part of global supply chains for semi-conductors. (11) Its diplomatic future now, however, is beginning to look increasingly vulnerable and precarious, with dwindling diplomatic recognition.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The developments have been particularly problematic for the US; it is not difficult to track US-led regional miitary and security concerns and their inability to maintain traditional hegemonic positions in the face of competition from a strongly assertive China. The Nauru diplomatic switch is all the more acute for the US due to local politician, Barron Waqa, soon to become the next secretary-general of the highly influential Pacific Islands Forum. China, potentially, will be able to use its newly established diplomatic links with Nauru to present a favourable image to a wider regional audience. (12)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Taiwan is a component part of the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy and its diplomatic links are also used for intelligence-gathering. The increasing diplomatic isolation of Taiwan, therefore, rebounds strongly inside the Pentagon and also the 'Quad', used to contain and encircle China. (13) Countries switching diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China are regarded as problematic: Nauru, for example, has a relatively central position in the Pacific, the arc to US military facilities based in Guam also swings through sensitive Australian military signals facilities based in Queensland. (14)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/numbered_island_chain+28129.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads2/numbered_island_chain+28129.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; height: 233px; margin: 3px 5px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 400px;" /></a></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Secondly, Taiwan is the vital component part at the head of US-led Island Chain Theory (above); small Pacific countries, such as Nauru, have huge strategic significance for access and egress across the wider region. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Demands, from inside the ruling DPP presidential administration for eventual full independence, have a huge significance for the US and its allies, including Australia!<br /> </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Nauru switches diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 16 January 2024.<br />2. Ibid.<br />3. US says Nauru switching ties from Taiwan to China 'disappointing', <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The New India Express</em>, 16 January 2024.<br />4. China advances into Indo-Pacific, Editorial, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 17 January 2024.<br />5. Beijing warns of 'harsh punishment', <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 16 January 2024.<br />6. Editorial, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, op.cit., 17 January 2024.<br />7. Beijing 'buying up' allies in Pacific, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Weekend Australian</em>, 20-21 January 2024.<br />8. China's billions make new allies, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 8 November 2023.<br />9. Editorial, Australian, op.cit., 17 January 2024.<br />10. See: Beijing keeps a wary eye on new US Taipei outpost, <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian</em>, 18 June 2018.<br />11. See: Democratic Taiwan proud to stand with regional partners, Editorial, Australian, 15 January 2024.<br />12. Nauru gave Australia advanced warning of decision, SBS., 16 January 2024.<br />13. See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.<br />14. See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6027143933053405997.post-31349810614746051822024-01-29T19:51:00.000-08:002024-01-29T19:51:19.002-08:00Book Review: THE NEW CHINA PLAYBOOK<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnMvu7d1RBUT0WBNs1525w1QGVZLtuIue0BazML9yAhHzYyNoXPgg-URo_aztPPkzu9pCwiupCg_kJbqlkvkdE50lV_KWHgMAqKljHBrACu5xZfX3JBUreD3BQ3MuVcPwpdYg6zWOQE4jEwVzk-0XVeZoon7K_x6ZETOOzbaFCHetzRVVv_n4S2r5Wjpw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2772" data-original-width="1804" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnMvu7d1RBUT0WBNs1525w1QGVZLtuIue0BazML9yAhHzYyNoXPgg-URo_aztPPkzu9pCwiupCg_kJbqlkvkdE50lV_KWHgMAqKljHBrACu5xZfX3JBUreD3BQ3MuVcPwpdYg6zWOQE4jEwVzk-0XVeZoon7K_x6ZETOOzbaFCHetzRVVv_n4S2r5Wjpw=w260-h400" width="260" /></a></div><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f75bc; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Written by: Duncan B. on 30 January 2024</span><p></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nearly every day there are articles in the newspapers about China’s economy. These are some recent examples from the <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Melbourne Age</em>.</span></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fading giant: Why China is facing a difficult future.</em> (Nov 9); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Weakened China badly needs a truce with the West</em> (Nov 10); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China’s tech billionaires bleed as Biden inflicts pain</em> (Nov 22);<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> China’s green surge could be watershed for the world</em> (Nov 23); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China’s financial cancer spreads and sounds alarm bells</em> (Nov 28); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Stay of execution for Chinese property giant</em> (Dec 6); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China put on notice as it tries to repair its economic mess</em> (Dec 7); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Chinese tians making a killing, but far from home</em> (Dec 20); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Beijing shifts gears to avoid fate that trapped Japan</em> (Jan 16); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China hits it growth target, but no one’s impressed with data</em> (Jan 19); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Red Sea crisis is a serious risk to Beijing’s economic interests</em> (Jan 20); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China’s $9 trillion problem won’t be solved by quick fix </em>(Jan25); <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Warning for investors over China’s market woes</em> (Jan 27).</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">How do we work through this overload of sometimes contradictory information about China?</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The New China Playbook</em> by Keyu Jin may help. The author is an associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was born in China and educated in China and abroad.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Keyu Jin was born in 1982, making her a member of the first generation of Chinese born in the era of Deng Xiao Ping’s economic reforms which started in 1978. She writes, (p23), “I was born into this era of China’s modern economic transformation and experienced its life-changing effects firsthand.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On page 283 she writes, “The miracle of China over the past four decades is not the nation’s record-breaking span of dizzying GDP growth, but the unimaginable transformation that has taken place for hundreds of millions of Chinese and their children within a single lifetime. This was true for my family and for most families we knew.”</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The New China Playbook</em> Keyu Jin traces the development of China’s economy and the transformation of Chinese society from 1978 when Deng Xiao Ping’s reforms started, to the present day. There have been many negative features accompanying this transformation such as environmental degradation and pollution, massive waste of resources, extremes of income differences, property speculation and corruption. (Of course these were a feature of the development of capitalism in England and the USA in the nineteenth century.)</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On the positive side there has been a large growth in GDP, the considerable improvements in the Chinese peoples’ lives as described by the author and the incredible growth in technology in China. Keyu Jin is a supporter of the current state of affairs in China, to the point of being coming across as an apologist for the Chinese government and its policies. </p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">While <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The New China Playbook</em> is useful to help us understand what is happening in China, as Marxist-Leninists, we must be aware of our Party’s position on China. In 1978, Deng Xiao Ping steered China onto the capitalist road, ultimately leading to the imperialist power that we know today.</p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Verdana; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The CPA (M-L) position on China is explained in the booklet <a href="https://www.cpaml.org/web/uploads/Explaining+China+Final+v2.pdf" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #bf0101; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Explaining China. How a Socialist Country Took the Capitalist Road to Social-Imperialism</em></a>, and other publications such as the <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australian Communist</em>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0