cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3009371

Australian and European Union trade negotiators will spend two days thrashing out the details of a potential new agreement after a breakthrough meeting between Australia’s Trade Minister Don Farrell and his EU counterpart [Trade and Economic Security Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič] in Paris.

The trade talks collapsed in 2023 over the EU’s refusal to allow more Australian beef into the single market.

But as a result of US President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on the EU and Australia, and most recently increasing duties on steel to 50 per cent, both sides want to see if they can try again.

...

“Both sides reviewed shared objectives for a strong and reformed rules-based trading system and took stock of EU-Australia FTA negotiations,” the Commission spokesman said after the meeting that lasted one hour.

...

Technical teams will now compare notes on outstanding issues.

...

The European Australian Business Council [a non-profit, member-based organisation that promotes trade and investment between Europe and Australia] estimates that as Australia’s third largest trading partner after China and Japan, a trade deal with the EU could deliver between up to $7.4 billion dollars extra to Australia’s GDP by 2030.

...

More than a dozen organisations representing different sectors of Australia urged the political leaders to take the deal across the line.

They include the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Australian Industry Group, Australian Services Roundtable, Business Council of Australia, Export Council of Australia, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, the Group of Eight, Medicines Australia, Minerals Council of Australia, Property Council of Australia, Super Members Council, and Tourism and Transport Forum.

...

Not sure how widely this little drama is known outside of Tassie. But this farce just keeps getting more ridiculous.

The Australian Federal Court has been rocked by a major new case, as Beef Weelington has filed a defamation suit against Death Cap Mushrooms claiming the later has permanently damaged their reputation.

The plaintiff alleges their reputation has been tarnished, with the addition of the death caps leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths.

“The case of B. Wellington vs. D.C. Mushroom is a textbook ‘He-said, Beef-said’ story,” said one federal court justice. [...]

First of all, sorry if this really isn't the right spot for this but I figured that maybe some Aussies in here recognise it.

I've had this stuffed frilled-neck lizard since roughly 2006 when a family member brought it back from Australia for me, I know for sure that my brother had a stuffed dinosaur with a similar design on it. According to the tag it was hand made in Australia by "Kurrajong Aboriginal Products". A quick search brought me to a company with the same name that sells child education books and hand made dolls, so the connection is kinda there but I can't be sure; they don't sell stuffed animals (anymore). I'd really like to know if anyone has seen these or even has one.

Here's some pictures I took of it.

When I was in Australia myself a while ago I searched for similar things but couldn't find anything. Even the museum shops I went to only seemed to sell generic Chinese-made stuff, which really is a shame but anyway...

An early release of findings from an Australian study published in medRxiv this week showed the incidence of bowel cancer is up to three times higher among Australians born in the 1990s compared with the 1950s cohort.

Bowel cancer is now the leading cause of death in people aged 25 to 44 in Australia.

Archive.

Archived version

Last week, Chinese coast guard vessels rammed and shot water cannon at Philippine ships in the South China Sea. The incident was well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and was completely unprovoked.

It is the latest example of a sustained pattern of Chinese maritime coercion that has intensified over the past three years. Despite the growing frequency and sheer aggression of these tactics, international attention and official rebukes have noticeably waned in the past 12 months.

For Australia, a nation whose prosperity and security relies on maritime trade, there can be no room for complacency or desensitisation. China’s maritime aggression puts Australia at risk.

...

History teaches that once coercion goes unchecked, it tends to escalate. The incident last week is not an isolated provocation, but part of a continued deterioration of security in the waters around us.

Australia has both the right and the responsibility to challenge the normalisation of this kind of maritime aggression. We can push back by calling out each incident, continuing to deepen our regional partnerships, accelerating the development of our naval capabilities, and reinforcing international maritime law.

Our future prosperity, and the security of generations to come, depends on it.

Each year, the NFSA curates a selection of recordings that capture the spirit and memory of life in Australia – a sonic record of the people, moments and culture that shape us.

From beloved songs and political speeches to advertising jingles, podcasts, radio moments and the sounds of nature, any Australian recording over 10 years old is eligible for nomination.

These sounds help preserve our national story – past, present and future.

Nominations close 30 June.

Submit your pick

Snippets

People are not “placed” on the floor – that is what you do with bags, boxes and rubbish. But that was the word used by the Northern Territory police to describe the sequence of events to the media. Tragically, painfully, I think it says a lot.

Almost a million more people voted yes in the referendum than voted for the Labor party in the recent election. The combined Liberal National party vote was about half the no vote. While the majority rejected the voice proposal because they didn’t know, didn’t care or thought it was unfair, this cannot be mapped on to the political snapshot that the election provided. The referendum was not a proxy election. The door to meaningful, symbolic and practical recognition can and must be opened again.

Archived version

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted he wants the Port of Darwin returned to Australian ownership, as an American private equity firm makes a play to buy the strategically significant asset from its Chinese owners.

Both Labor and the Coalition announced during the election campaign that they would move to strip Chinese firm Landbridge of its controversial 99-year lease of the port, which sits directly opposite Darwin’s Larrakeyah Defence Precinct.

The prospect of a forced divestiture has angered Beijing, which feels Chinese companies are being unfairly singled out for punishment over national security concerns.

...

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy struck a similar tone to Albanese’s when asked whether the government would support US ownership of the port.

“We’ve been very clear that we want to see the port back in Australian hands,” he said.

“We’re going through the process now of looking through all the options, but our commitment is, at the end of the process, the Port of Darwin will be in Australian hands.”

The Australian Financial Review reported that Australian freight company Toll had partnered with [U.S. investor] Cerberus on the bid in a move that could help ease concerns about foreign ownership of the port, even by a trusted ally such as the US.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has detailed extensive connections between Landbridge [the Chinese company that runs the port on a lease contract], the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, raising concerns about the national security implications of the leasing agreement from both Coalition and Labor MPs.

...

Australia's defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have "such an extraordinary military build-up".

He said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance as it is the "fundamental issue" for the region.

Meanwhile, the Philippines defence minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr has called China "absolutely irresponsible and reckless" in its actions in the South China Sea.

The ministers had separately addressed reporters on the sidelines of an Asian defence summit held in Singapore.

[...]

Archived

[...]

Cheng, now 49, spent more than three years cut off from the outside world in detention in Beijing, subjected to horrific mental torture after falling foul of the Communist Party.

Her crime? Discussing a government press release with a fellow journalist several minutes ahead of a supposed embargo.

[...]

Why China went after the respected broadcaster, who was the face of the country’s CGTN news channel and anchor of its most popular program, is still a mystery.

But her arrest and imprisonment coincided with a deep erosion of diplomatic and trade relations between Beijing and Canberra, leading many to conclude she was a pawn in a merciless political game.

Almost five years on, she still bears the deep scars of her barbaric treatment.

[...]

In August 2020, Cheng was greeted at work by some 20 officials from the secretive Ministry of State Security.

“I am informing you on behalf of the Beijing State Security Bureau that you are being investigated for supplying state secrets to foreign organisations,” one told her.

A few months earlier, Cheng had received a press release about the Premier’s Work Report, the main document to come out of the Communist Party’s largest political gathering of the year.

She was sitting in a make-up chair, getting ready to go on air, and texted a colleague a brief summary of the highlights – eight million jobs target, no GDP growth target – to help them get a headstart on a story.

“And that was my crime, that I eroded the Chinese state authority, even though there wasn’t an embargo [on the report],” Cheng recalled.

[...]

Much later, in court, another colleague who she barely knew testified against her – likely under coercion – and claimed she’d told Cheng there was in fact a strict embargo.

“That is bogus,” she said.

“If I had known it was a classified document embargoed before 7.30, why would I send it to my friend, and then keep the document, keep the texts?”

Cheng was taken from her office to her apartment and watched on as spies ransacked it, looking for evidence that didn’t exist.

Then she was blindfolded, bundled into a blacked-out SUV and whisked to an RSDL facility, or Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location.

[...]

For months, she was interrogated relentlessly as the Ministry of State Security tried to justify its trumped-up charges.

[...]

Cheng was monitored every other moment of the day, including when using the toilet and while sleeping.

[...]

After six months, she was pressured to confess to the manufactured charges or face a more severe punishment at the end of a trial.

Reluctantly, she did, knowing her fate was inevitable. No-one is found innocent in China’s justice system.

“I worked out what ages my kids would be by the time I got out,” she recalled. “It was horrible. But had I not pleaded guilty, my sentence would have been a lot longer and my treatment would have been a lot worse.

“What is the point of a defence lawyer? There’s only the state. The state is the only thing that matters.

“And at least in jail, I could see a bit of the sky.”

[...]

Australian Ambassador to China Graham Fletcher was blocked from entering Cheng Lei’s closed-door trial.

[...]

In all, Cheng spent three years in detention before eventually being freed in October 2023 after a long-running public campaign tirelessly fought by her peers and friends, and the diplomatic efforts of the Australian Government.

[...]

When she left the detention centre, she was taken to a halfway house and for the first time years, she was able to enjoy what she describes as being a host of “luxuries” like a mirror, a sit-down toilet, and a string to hang her washing on.

[...]

Some things will never be normal, though, like the high likelihood Chinese spies based here in Australia are monitoring her.

“I assume there is some monitoring, but I have a very fearless attitude. I was there, they could do [those things] to me, they can’t do that to me here.

“And I think if we live in fear and self-censor and always check ourselves, just in case China gets the s***s again, then what’s the point of freedom? We may as well be living in China.”

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2969071

Archived version

The European Union says it is seeking a defense partnership with Australia, as the bloc looks to forge a united international response to the Ukraine war and other global crises.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pointed to similar security agreements the bloc had inked with South Korea and Japan late last year.

“We see you as a strategic partner,” she said during talks on Sunday with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Rome, where world leaders gathered following Pope Leo’s inaugural mass, according to a video she posted to social media.

“And we would very much like to broaden this strategic partnership.”

...

For his part, Albanese said Australia and the European Union continued to “stand together with the people of Ukraine.”

“We have common values as well, which in today’s uncertain world… is so important.”

The European Union has been racing to build new security ties as it confronts fears the United States may walk away from the continent under President Donald Trump.

In recent months, the bloc has courted India while signing defense agreements with South Korea and Japan — nations that lie far from its usual sphere of defense interests.

Key parts:

In 2017, Richard blew the whistle on the ATO for inappropriately, indiscriminately, and carelessly issuing garnishee notices that brutally emptied businesses’ bank accounts of money to settle ATO debts.

During the Court of Appeal proceedings, the prosecutors conceded that Richard was a whistleblower as that term is commonly understood. He had disclosed information to an authorised person pursuant to the terms of the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

It was also accepted that his disclosure was not dealt with properly by the ATO. The ATO botched the investigation into his claims and did nothing.

That is, they did nothing until their inappropriate activity was the subject of an ABC Four Corners program (Note that there is no allegation that Richard disclosed taxpayer information to the ABC). In an act of revenge, the ATO charged Richard, not for blowing the whistle, but for what he did in preparing his disclosure, namely using his mobile phone to take photographs of taxpayer information, covertly recording conversations with ATO colleagues; and uploading photographs of taxpayer information to his lawyer’s encrypted email account.

The Court of Appeal found that those preparatory acts were not covered by protections in the Public Interest Disclosure Act and,

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35707933

Archived

Question: [In 2025, U.S. President] Donald Trump ... jump started major changes in the global security order, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and populism is rising across Europe. How would you evaluate these first steps of the new era?

Timothy Garton Ash: The triple shock: the Putin shock, what I call the Xi Jinping shock, and now the Trump shock means that we are in the deepest crisis Europe has been in for a very long time, in some respects, since 1945.

But it also means that we all know that in Europe.

[...]

There's a long-term trend of the United States becoming less committed to and less engaged in Europe, which started already after the end of the Cold War. It was happening under the Democrats and under the Republicans. It's turning either to what (Barack) Obama called nation-building at home, or the pivot to Asia.

[...]

First of all, we never really had a unipolar world. Even the U.S.-led liberal international order was only a large part of the world. It worked because the United States was what the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry calls a "Liberal Leviathan."

[...]

So I believe that if we are to preserve what's left of the liberal international order, which is not a great deal, it's up to us as Europeans, but also other liberal democratic partners.

Canada becomes much more important to us. Australia becomes important to us. Japan becomes important to us. In other words, there's a whole new constellation of liberal international order — if you like, a new West.

[...]

Our role is to defend ourselves and to look after what we've achieved in Europe over the last 80 years. That means defending ourselves against external enemies or challenges. Obviously, Vladimir Putin's Russia in the first place, but also China in a different way, and other powers.

[...]

[We Europeans need to] preserve at least some elements of what we call the liberal international order — for example, a free trading world, an international economic order. The EU is a regulatory superpower. Can we preserve some of those shared regulations around the world?

[...]

I would say the forces of integration and disintegration [Ash mentions right-wing populism in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic] in Europe are quite finely balanced at the moment.

We have to be tough on populism and tough on the causes of populism. We have to fight the nationalist populist and make a convincing case to our public for a different approach.

But we also have to understand why they continue to get large numbers of votes. For example, the sense that large parts of our societies have been both economically and culturally neglected in the name of liberalism.

And we need to show that we care, we're actually doing something for them economically, that culturally we don't just care about specific minorities in the name of multiculturalism, but we actually care about everyone in our societies.

[...]

There's always been an anti-liberal Europe, as well as a liberal Europe throughout European history. And it's always been a great mistake to believe that the liberal Europe has prevailed once and for all. By the way, there are also liberal and anti-liberal forces in Ukraine, let's make no mistake about that.

The two things are intimately connected. It's very difficult to imagine Ukraine making a successful transition to a prosperous, sovereign, democratic European future if Europe is disintegrating next door. It's quite difficult to imagine a successful, liberal, democratic, integrated Europe if Ukraine is disintegrating next door.

[...]

[History is] going to give us both hope and warnings.

The warning is that just when everybody takes things for granted, they start going wrong. [...] The hope is that we already have examples of successful liberal fightback [against anti-democratic tendencies]. The Polish (2023 parliamentary) election is a classic example of a (country) which had nearly gone in the direction of Hungary and an electoral-authoritarian, non-liberal regime, and then it came back.

The larger lesson is that you have these wave movements in history. We had what I would call a liberal democratic revolution across Europe and much of the world from the early 1970s to the 2000s. Now we have an anti-liberal counter-revolution. But with time, people start discovering that that doesn't deliver either.

In fact, it delivers even less. And if you look at the enormous demonstrations in Serbia, large demonstrations in Hungary in support of an opposition candidate, and in Turkey after the imprisonment of Mr. (Ekrem) Imamoglu, you see that the fightback also comes from the countries that have gone authoritarian.