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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, our government-funded media outlet, has published an article titled “Australian expat living in Hong Kong throws off business suit to join protest movement“. The entire story is in the headline: some random guy, who ABC keeps anonymous but for the name “Daniel”, has joined the protests in Hong Kong. That’s it. That’s the whole entire bombshell newsworthy news story.

“In Australia we have proper democracy but in Hong Kong, democracy is being slowly eroded away and I’ll try to do whatever I can to try and help the cause,” the anonymous guy told ABC.

This sort of enthusiastic empty non-story cheerleading is typical for western media coverage of the Hong Kong protests so far, while these same media outlets consistently ignore or downplay protests against the government of France, Israel, Honduras, India, Indonesia and any other region that happens to fall within the US-centralized power alliance. It’s an amazingly reliable pattern: the entire western political/media class finds protests and uprisings endlessly fascinating when they are in opposition to governments which haven’t yet been absorbed into the imperial blob like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, pre-collapse Libya, or then-Moscow-aligned Ukraine, but any protests or uprisings within that empire are ignored at best or demonized at worst.

If dissidents in the United States began donning yellow vests and holding aggressive demonstrations in the current media environment, you could safely bet your bottom dollar that they would be ignored for as long as possible and then smeared as fascists, antisemites and/or Russian pawns thereafter. This would happen with absolute certainty.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

More Police Raids As War On Journalism Escalates Worldwide

June 5, 2019

More Police Raids As War On Journalism Escalates Worldwide

The Australian Federal Police have conducted two raids on journalists and seized documents in purportedly unrelated incidents in the span of just two days.

Yesterday the AFP raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking information related to her investigative report last year which exposed the fact that the Australian government has been discussing the possibility of giving itself unprecedented powers to spy on its own citizens. Today they raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, seizing information related to a 2017 investigative report on possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

In a third, also ostensibly unrelated incident, another Australian reporter disclosed yesterday that the Department of Home Affairs has initiated an investigation of his reporting on a story about asylum seeker boats which could lead to an AFP criminal case, saying he’s being pressured to disclose his source.

✔

AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019.

“Why has AFP suddenly decided to carry out these two raids after the election?” tweeted Australian Sky News political editor David Speers during the Sydney raid. “Did new evidence really just emerge in both the Annika Smethurst and ABC stories?!”

Why indeed?

“If these raids unconnected, as AFP reportedly said, it’s an extraordinary coincidence,” tweeted The Conversation chief political correspondent Michelle Grattan. “AFP needs to explain ASAP the timing so long after the stories. It can’t be that inefficient! Must be some explanation – which makes the ‘unconnected’ claim even more odd.”

Odd indeed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Australian Police Raid National Broadcaster Over Leaked Afghan War Crime Stories

June 5, 2019

Australian Police Raid National Broadcaster Over Leaked Afghan War Crime Stories

Australian federal police officers raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) over a series of 2017 reports known as The Afghan Files, which exposed crimes committed by special forces in Afghanistan based on hundreds of pages of leaked defense documents marked AUSTEO (Australian Eyes Only).

*The AFP officers arriving at the ABC on Wednesday. CREDIT:KATE GERAGHTY (via* *Sydney Morning Herald)*

The incident marks Australia’s second such move against journalists in just two days, after police raided the home of a News Corp editor over an April, 2018 Exposé on government spying.

According to the police, the raid was “in relation to allegations of publishing classified material, contrary to provisions of the Crimes Act 1914,” while the warrant names the authors of the report, Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, along with ABC news director Gaven Morris.

“It is highly unusual for the national broadcaster to be raided in this way,” said ABC Managing Director David Anderson in a statement, adding: “This is a serious development and raises legitimate concerns over freedom of the press and proper public scrutiny of national security and defense matters.”

During the raid, ABC staff members were rounded up and asked to assist in examining their email server to look for “a series of key words.” Others searched a hard drive, according to ABC executive director John Lyons – who live-tweeted the raid.

After four hours, authorities had collected more than 9,200 files and were deciding which ones were allowed to be seized under the warrant, according to RT.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

ABC News Anchor Leaves Because of Fake News

July 4, 2018

ABC News Anchor Leaves Because of Fake News

One of the prominent faces of ABC news has been Brian Ross, one of their star investigative correspondents. He has been forced to resign because he embarrassed the network late last year when he did an on-air report suggesting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been toldby President Donald Trump to make contact with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign for president. Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, who was the chief investigative producer for Ross’ team, has had to step down when that report proved to be false.

FAKE NEWS has been building because there have been no checks and balance. I have had my encounters over the years that will make your head spin. I was flying to Australia to give a public conference there and a journalist, who was obviously a socialist and President Reagan-hater calling it “trickle-down” economics, ran a full-page story on me and said I was the author of just about everything and Reagan did everything I instructed so I was an evil capitalist and nobody should go listen to me. When I landed, the staff informed me about the article. I called the journalist who never bothered to interview me that I was only called in for that dog & pony show to launch G5 and that I disagreed with that policy. As for “trickle-down” supply-side economics, I told him that was Arthur Laffer – not me. Of course, there was never a retraction. I went to a cocktail party and someone called me a liar. His interpretation of that article was that I had worked in the White House as the Chief Economic Advisor. When I denied that, I was a liar because I was “embarrassed” to admit I worked for Reagan. That was just one of many encounters I had with FAKE NEWS.

Rep. Gabbard Speaks Truth to Power About the Real Reason Korea Has Nukes

January 18, 2018

Rep. Gabbard Speaks Truth to Power About the Real Reason Korea Has Nukes

Photo by AFGE | CC BY 2.0

We already knew that Tulsi Gabbard was courageous, when the Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii resigned from her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee in disgust during the primary season in 2016, declaring publicly what we now know to have been true — that the DNC was manipulating the primaries to favor Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders — was courageous. Now as basically the only member of Congress with the guts to call out the US as the cause of our current knife-edge threat of a nuclear war, she’s demonstrated her courage again.

Gabbard, [1]interviewed on ABC News, declared unambiguously that the reason that North Korea has worked so diligently to develop nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them to the US is that the United States over several decades and under a number of presidents, has had a policy of “regime change,” and a history of violently attempting to overthrow governments that it doesn’t like. As she put it in an interview over the weekend with ABC news host George Stephanopolos, “Our country’s history of regime-change wars has led countries like North Korea to develop and hold on to these nuclear weapons because they see it as their only deterrent against regime change.”

Rep. Gabbard, who has been calling for the US to negotiate directly “and without pre-conditions” with North Korea to resolve the crisis, says the US also needs to recognize the reality that North Korea already has nuclear weapons and is not going to give them up unless it feels secure from US attack.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

ABC & Fake News

October 21, 2017

ABC & Fake News

Murrow Edward R (1908-1965)

ABC News has indeed violated the principles of a Free Press and is the example why the old Fairness Doctrine should be restored. ABC News has come out and wrote: “Every American president has sparred with the press and fought back against stories unflattering or unfair. But no sitting president has in decades suggested media organizations should be shut down or that the federal government should consider curtailing their content or reach.”

The press thinks it is their right to push their agenda on the people. They no longer report the news, but twist it for their agenda be it left or right. It was back in a 1958 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association when veteran CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow told a room full of TV executives: “We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent.” Murrow produced a series of reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his trumped up witch hunt for communists when it was revealed that he was just making accusations without evidence.

Murrow was one of the journalism’s greatest figures, noting his honesty and integrity in delivering the news. That stature of ethics has been lost which some news organizations like CNN produce fake news not just on Trump, but of everything they touch right down to exaggerating the hurricane in Florida.

Edward Murrow used his position to take on powerful politicians and defend the American people, a free press as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. He also exposed issues such as segregation and warned that the new TV medium was being used to “distract, delude, amuse and insulate” the public.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

End Games: the Apocalyptic Trope That Swallowed the World

September 6, 2017

End Games: the Apocalyptic Trope That Swallowed the World

Photo by Mikey | CC BY 2.0

Everywhere you look these days, you see the trope: the “end of the world” is nigh from a nuclear war. You see it in somber headlines, in weighty punditry, even in throwaway jokes in the middle of, say, a TV review: “Looks like the BBC finally has a comedy hit — just as the world is about to blow up!” Ha ha. The current situation with North Korea is being portrayed as if it’s a reboot of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with two massively armed superpowers on the brink of all-out global conflagration.

But putting aside the entirely context-less hype and fear-mongering of our media and political elites, even if there were some kind of war between the US and North Korea, it would not remotely lead to anything like the “end of the world.” The US has thousands of immediately launchable nuclear weapons; North Korea has, er, none. And even if you believe Pyongyang’s propaganda (and if you swallow it about their nuclear weapons program, why not believe their BS about the happy workers’ paradise they have there?), you’re still left with the fact that North Korea might be able to put a weapon on a missile at some point in the future. OK, then they could possibly lob this missile (or heck, two or three of them, maybe) in the direction of the United States – which, we assume, would just stand back and watch this happen, despite having North Korea absolutely blanketed with surveillance and having the ability to destroy any launcher the instant it reared skyward. And then North Korea would be obliterated by a US retaliation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Don’t Mess With Yellowstone Supervolcano” Geologists Warn NASA

September 3, 2017

“Don’t Mess With Yellowstone Supervolcano” Geologists Warn NASA

Two weeks ago, we reported that Brian Wilcox, a former member of the NASA Advisory Council on Planetary Defense, had shared a report on what the Space Agency considered one of the greatest natural threats to human civilization: the Yellowstone “supervolcano.”

Following an article published by BBC about super volcanoes last month, a group of NASA researchers got in touch with the media to share a report previously unseen outside the space agency about the threat Yellowstone poses, and what they hypothesize could possibly be done about it.

“I was a member of the NASA Advisory Council on Planetary Defense which studied ways for NASA to defend the planet from asteroids and comets,” explains Brian Wilcox of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology.

“I came to the conclusion during that study that the supervolcano threat is substantially greater than the asteroid or comet threat.”

Yellowstone currently leaks about 60 to 70% of its heat into the atmosphere through stream water which seeps into the magma chamber through cracks, while the rest of the heat builds up as magma and dissolves into volatile gasses. The heat and pressure will reach the threshold, meaning an explosion is inevitable. When NASA scientists considered the fact that a super volcano’s eruption would plunge the earth into a volcanic winter, destroying most sources of food, starvation would then become a real possibility. Food reserves would only last about 74 days, according to the UN, after an eruption of a super volcano, like that under Yellowstone. And they have devised a risky plan that could end up blowing up in their faces. Literally.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

After the ISIS War, a US-Russia Collision?

June 20, 2017

After the ISIS War, a US-Russia Collision?

Sunday, a Navy F-18 Hornet shot down a Syrian air force jet, an act of war against a nation with which Congress has never declared or authorized a war.

Washington says the Syrian plane was bombing U.S.-backed rebels. Damascus says its plane was attacking ISIS.

Vladimir Putin’s defense ministry was direct and blunt:

“Repeated combat actions by U.S. aviation under the cover of counterterrorism against lawful armed forces of a country that is a member of the U.N. are a massive violation of international law and de facto a military aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic.”

An ABC report appears to back up Moscow’s claims:

“Over the last four weeks, the U.S. has conducted three air strikes on pro-regime forces backed by Iran that have moved into a deconfliction zone around the town of Tanf in southwestern Syria, where there is a coalition training base for local forces fighting ISIS.”

Russia has now declared an end to cooperation to prevent air clashes over Syria and asserted an intent to track and target aerial intruders in its area of operations west of the Euphrates.

Such targets would be U.S. planes and surveillance drones.

If Moscow is not bluffing, we could be headed for U.S.-Russian collision in Syria.

Sunday’s shoot-down of a hostile aircraft was the first by U.S. planes in this conflict. It follows President Trump’s launch of scores of cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in April. The U.S. said the airfield was the base of Syrian planes that used chemical weapons on civilians.

We are getting ever deeper into this six-year sectarian and civil war. And what we may be witnessing now are the opening shots of its next phase — the battle for control of the territory and population liberated by the fall of Raqqa and the death of the ISIS “caliphate.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rising oil production will push Alberta economy to fastest growth in country in 2017: Conference Board

February 23, 2017

Rising oil production will push Alberta economy to fastest growth in country in 2017: Conference Board

Solid increases in oil production, Fort McMurray rebuild will be the difference in Alberta this year

The Conference Board of Canada forecasts Alberta will see a 2.8 per cent growth in real GDP in 2017.

The Conference Board of Canada forecasts Alberta will see a 2.8 per cent growth in real GDP in 2017. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)

After two difficult years, Alberta’s economy is climbing out of recession thanks in part to oil prices, but the Conference Board of Canada warns the road to a full recovery will be long.

In its winter quarterly report released Thursday, the board projects Alberta will lead the country in terms of real GDP growth in 2017, which is forecast at 2.8 per cent.

“The recent stability in oil prices has encouraged optimism that the worst is over, laying the foundation for a modest gradual recovery in capital spending in the energy sector,” the report said.

Oil prices are expected to remain low, which will hinder economic recovery and pull overall real GDP growth down to 1.9 per cent in 2018, the report says.

The OPEC factor

However, an agreement made between Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC countries in late 2016 to cut crude oil production by 1.8 million barrels per day supports a stronger price outlook for Alberta’s energy sector, the report says.

While OPEC restrains itself, Alberta’s output is forecast to increase, as new oilsands projects come online.

The price of crude oil is also expected to rise to almost $60 US by the end of 2018.

That energy sector recovery is good for the Canadian economy as a whole, according to Marie-Christine Bernard with the Conference Board.

“There was very weak growth for Canada as a whole in the last two years,” she said.

“The difficulties in the resource sector and in particular in the energy sector really hurt investment. That really pulled economic growth down in Canada to one and one-and-a-half per cent on average over the last two years.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mattis “We’re Not In Iraq To Seize Anybody’s Oil”

February 20, 2017

Mattis “We’re Not In Iraq To Seize Anybody’s Oil”

In the latest distancing by Trump administration advisors from recent statements by the President, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit on Monday to discuss the war effort against ISIS, and said that the US military is not in Iraq “to seize anybody’s oil.”

Secretary of Defence, James Mattis, arrives in Baghdad, February 20, 2017

Speaking to a small group of reporters traveling with him, Mattis was quoted by Reuters as saying “I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America, have generally paid for our gas and oil all along and I’m sure that we will continue to do so in the future.”

On his first trip to Iraq as Pentagon chief, Mattis is set to assess the war effort against the Islamic State as Iraqi forces launch a new push to evict ISIS militants from their remaining stronghold in the city of Mosul. In Iraq, he is likely to face questions about Trump’s remarks and actions, including a temporary ban on travel to the United States and for saying America should have seized Iraq’s oil after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003. Trump told CIA staff in January: “We should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance.”

Trump later clarified his position in an ABC interview. The president said ISIS would not have become a global threat if it hadn’t taken over Iraq’s oil industry when the country was left weakened by the war.

“We should’ve kept the oil when we got out. And, you know, it’s very interesting, had we taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS, because they fuel themselves with the oil. That’s where they got the money. They got the money… when we left, we left Iraq, which wasn’t a government.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Fake news’? Time to choose: Corporate media fakes us into 2 central lies for more illegal war on Iran: ‘threat to Israel’ and ‘nuclear program’ EVEN AFTER 12 YEARS of anyone checking the facts soooo easily refuting these claims as known lies (8 of 15)

January 13, 2017

‘Fake news’? Time to choose: Corporate media fakes us into 2 central lies for more illegal war on Iran: ‘threat to Israel’ and ‘nuclear program’ EVEN AFTER 12 YEARS of anyone checking the facts soooo easily refuting these claims as known lies (8 of 15)

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. And then you win.” ~ unsourced, and attributed to Gandhi’s analysis of British empire response to having their hypocrisy exposed: claiming to bring Christian love and progress while looting resources with forced local labor.

“When we now know that all claims for war with Iraq were known lies as they were told (and verbally explained here), and CNN provides similar innuendo for war by an unsourced alleged report with concerns of what might occur in the future allegedly stated by an unnamed US source reporting on an unnamed foreign source, this is propaganda and not news.” ~ My 2010 analysis of “fake news” reporting from CBS, ABC, CNN to lie Americans into illegal war on Iran.

The Washington Post added to President Obama’s rhetoric for Americans to be aware of “fake news”: easily refuted lies of omission and commission in media. This article series reveals the inversion of those claims: .01% “official” news by corporate media (six conglomerates) is easily documented as fake in our most important reporting.

‘Fake news’? Time to choose article series (links added as series progresses):

Corporate media fakes us into wars that aren’t even close to lawful, are Orwellian illegal Wars of Aggression (1 of 15)
Corporate media fakes us into Orwellian illegal Wars of Aggression with lies known to be lies as they were told (2 of 15)
Corporate media fakes us into ongoing bankster looting of increasing total debt impossible to repay, while ignoring solutions worth trillions (3 of 15)
Corporate media fakes us into their fake world never admitting to a history of their easily documented lies (4 of 15)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Advising its citizens How to Prepare for Nuclear War Warning US Intends to Attack

October 16, 2016

Russia Advising its citizens How to Prepare for Nuclear War Warning US Intends to Attack

Just as Obama keeps ratcheting up the allegations that Russia will hack the elections to ensure Trump wins, in Russia they are warning their citizens that war is coming and it maybe nuclear. They are warning that NATO is retrofitting tactical aircraft for the use of nuclear weapons, “which is sign of preparation for war with Russia”. A whole website has gone up in Russia dedicated to the World War III and one offering advice and how to prepare.

ABC News is reporting that Russian Television Warns of Nuclear War Amid US Tensions. US mainstream press is not questioning what is going on when we have a President who got the Noble Peace Prize. They are not looking at Obama floating all sorts of stories that a Trump victory will be proof of a Russian cyber attack. The Washington Post pitches the story that Russia wants war. Meanwhile The Daily Mail reports that the Kremlin calls Joe Biden’s threat to ‘cyber strike’ Russia ‘unprecedented’ and pledges to protect itself from the “aggressive, unpredictable United States”. CNN has reported that Russia and the US have moved past a Cold War to unpredictable confrontation.

Personally, I was just a kid in 1962. But I remember walking with my friends discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis which last for a 13-day period (October 16–28, 1962). That was the closest we had come to World War III until today. Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba even mad kids pay attention. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. A 8,6 year plot from that event completed the 51.6 year wave terrifyingly on schedule – 2014.

That is when the new Cold War began with sanctions imposed on Russia. It has not worked and only escalated the entire confrontation. Sorry to say, this is on time.

Australian Public Broadcaster ABC unable to look at oil statistics

May 7, 2016

Australian Public Broadcaster ABC unable to look at oil statistics

Four times in as many months did ABC publish inaccurate statements about US shale oil. A glut of mis-information. This is unacceptable because it leads to wrong policy decisions and has ultimately damaging economic and financial consequences.

(1) “US shale producers pump like never before”
Just in time for last year’s X’mas we received these reassuring news:

Peak oil losing credibility as renewables shift accelerates
24/12/2015
“US shale producers are pumping like never before and adding to stockpiles”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-24/peak-oil-losing-credibility-as-shift-to-renewables-accelerates/7052196

(2) “US virtually self-sufficient in oil”

This was broadcast on the 7 pm news (ABC channel 1)
16/1/2016
“The United States is now virtually self-sufficient in oil, while Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer, has stepped up production to protect its market share.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-16/benefits-of-falling-oil-prices-not-fully-passed-on-to-motorists/7091862?section=business

(3) “US oil output rises”

Two months later the headline was:

Oil output rises even as US rig count falls to historic lows
18/3/2016
“The US Energy Information Agency said, despite the dramatic decline in rig numbers, production has steadily grown, indicating that drilling has becoming increasingly efficient”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-18/oil-output-rises-even-as-us-rig-count-falls/7259566

This ABC article included the following graph

Fig 1: EIA’s annual US oil production

Coming from this post by the EIA:

Hydraulic fracturing accounts for about half of current U.S. crude oil production
15/3/2016
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=25372

The graph shows that indeed 2015 production is higher than 2014 but the ABC author failed to look at monthly statistics where a turning point was already visible.

(4) “New shale oil technology the end of OPEC”

In the most recent article “Saudi Arabia to sell part of Aramco as part of shift from oil” we find this para:

New shale oil technology ‘the end of OPEC’
26/4/2016
“With US shale oil producers pumping more than ever before and Iran production coming back on line with US sanctions lifted, the planned Saudi reforms underscore the damage from falling revenues.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/saudi-arabia-to-sell-part-of-aramco-as-part-of-shift-from-oil/7360388?section=business

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ted Koppel Is Buying Freeze-Dried Food For The Day When A Cyberattack Takes Out The Power Grid

November 11, 2015

Ted Koppel Is Buying Freeze-Dried Food For The Day When A Cyberattack Takes Out The Power Grid

Most Americans have absolutely no idea how incredibly vulnerable our electrical grid is, but Ted Koppel does. For many years, Koppel was the level-headed host of Nightline on ABC, but now he is issuing a very chilling warning to America. For more than a year, he investigated potential threats to our power grid, and he has detailed what he discovered in a new book entitled “Lights Out“. He is convinced that a massive cyberattack could take down our entire electrical grid for an extended period of time, and he was horrified to learn that the Department of Homeland Security really doesn’t have a plan for how to deal with this kind of a scenario.

What Koppel found out during the course of his investigation freaked him out so much that he actually decided to buy freeze-dried food for himself, his children, and even his grandchildren. The following comes from CBS News…

In “Lights Out,” Koppel paints a grim picture of a paralyzing power outage in the form of an all-out cyberattack on the nation’s electrical grid.

“It’s frightening,” Koppel said. “I mean, it is frightening enough that my wife and I decided we were going to buy enough freeze-dried food for all of our kids and their kids.”

Koppel believes that Russia, China and Iran already have the ability to conduct such attacks. And actually, the truth is that many other nations such as North Korea have been rapidly developing the capability to conduct such operations as well.

It is only a matter of time until we see absolutely massive cyberattacks unleashed against national power grids, and the United States is the most likely target.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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