It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, March 02, 2023
Spears taken by Captain Cook in 1770 to be returned to o Sydney's La Perouse Aboriginal community
The surviving Kamay spears were given to Cambridge's Trinity College in 1771. Photo: Supplied / Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge D 1914.4
Four spears taken during Captain James Cook's landing at Sydney's Botany Bay will be handed back to the local Indigenous community more than 250 years later.
The spears are the last remaining of 40 gathered from Aboriginal people living around Kurnell at Kamay, also known as Botany Bay, where Captain Cook and his crew first set foot in Australia in 1770.
Scholars said they were the earliest artefacts collected by Europeans from Australia that were documented and intact.
Now a decision has been made for their permanent return after years of negotiations between the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council, the Gujaga Foundation, and museums in Australia and the UK.
Gujaga Foundation chair Ray Ingrey said the spears were taken by the HMB Endeavour's crew from campsites at Kurnell after a conflict with Gweagal warriors who opposed the landing.
"The spears were pretty much the first point of European contact, particularly British contact with Aboriginal Australia," he said.
"I think for us it's a momentous occasion that where Australia's history began, in 1770 on the shores of Botany Bay at Kurnell, the spears that were undoubtedly taken without permission are returned to the rightful people."
Ingrey said the decision came more than 20 years after local elders started campaigning for objects taken from the area to be returned.
The spears were presented to Cambridge's Trinity College by Lord Sandwich John Montagu in 1771, soon after Captain Cook and the Endeavour's return.
Since 1914, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge has cared for the artefacts, apart from short loans at the National Museum of Australia and the University of Sydney.
Those trips helped kickstart their permanent return, with the National Museum working with the La Perouse community to build relationships with Trinity College.
Trinity College agreed to return them home, and its master, Dame Sally Davies, said the college was committed to "addressing the complex legacies of the British empire".
"We believe that this is the right decision, and I would like to acknowledge and thank all those involved," she said.
The college is approaching the UK's Charity Commission to gain approval for the legal title's transfer after a formal repatriation request from the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council, the Gujaga Foundation, in December.
It is hoped the objects will be back in Sydney in a few months.
"They are an important connection to our past, our traditions and cultural practices, and to our ancestors," the land council's chair Noeleen Timbery said.
"Our Elders have worked for many years to see their ownership transferred to the traditional owners of Botany Bay.
"Many of the families within the La Perouse Aboriginal community are descended from those who were present during the eight days the Endeavour was anchored in Kamay in 1770."
Ingrey said the spears could be stored at the National Museum until they are displayed at Kurnell when the visitor's centre is rebuilt.
"Ultimately, they'll be put on permanent display for everyone to go see; at the very spot they were taken 250 years ago."
- ABC
Australia joins Vanuatu's campaign to push for consequences for climate-harming countries through the ICJ
Vanuatu's representative to the United Nations said 105 states back its push.
(Supplied: Vanuatu Department of Tourism/Kirkland Photos) Australia will join more than 100 nations and co-sponsor Vanuatu's landmark bid to have the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rule on the legal obligations that states have to deal with climate change and the damage it has caused.
Key points:
Vanuatu has welcomed Australia's move
The United Nations could hold a vote on the matter later in the year
The move could help determine international legal obligations to protect people from climate change, and to compensate individuals and countries
Vanuatu's representative to the United Nations said on Thursday that 105 states — including several European countries, Pacific island nations and a host of smaller developing countries — would join its push to get the UN General Assembly to formally seek an opinion on the international legal obligations countries have to respond to global heating.
Neither China nor the United States, the world's two largest emitters, have signed on as co-sponsors for the motion, and neither have some larger developing countries that remain dependent on coal, including Indonesia and India.
However, an actual vote at the United Nations will not be held until later in the year.
Australia's move to join as a co-sponsor has been welcomed by Vanuatu and environmental groups, which have been urging the government to ramp up its ambition on tackling climate change. Ruling would not be binding
Vanuatu was slammed by Cyclone Judy on Wednesday, and its foreign minister, Jotham Napat, said the disaster was another reminder of his nation's vulnerability to extreme weather events supercharged by climate change.
"While severe Cyclone Judy is today showing no mercy on the people of Vanuatu, it is welcome news that countries are committing to co-sponsor Vanuatu's UN Resolution on clarifying international climate obligations," he said.
Pacific advisor to Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden said he was also heartened by the strong international support for the motion.
"As the people of Vanuatu look ahead, yet again, to repairing their communities and counting their losses, the support of Australia and other countries around the world will provide hope for a better future," he said.
If the ICJ does agree to take on the issue and delivers an opinion, it would not be binding.
However, Pacific Island officials — who are championing the move — say it will still set a powerful precedent.
It could shape future rulings around the international legal obligations of states to protect people from climate change, and to compensate individuals and countries that suffer as a result of the resulting environmental chaos.
Previously, Australia argued the ruling should not focus solely on the responsibilities of the historically largest emitters, but must also capture the obligations of countries that are currently increasing emissions or that will continue to pollute in future years.
The government hasn't yet issued a public statement on its decision to join as a co-sponsor, but the ABC has approached the office of Foreign Minister Penny Wong for comment.
Qin Gang Delivers a Video Speech at the High-level Segment of the 52nd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
2023-02-27
On February 27, 2023, Foreign Minister Qin Gang attended the High-level Segment of the 52nd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Beijing via video link and delivered a speech titled Following a Chinese Path of Human Rights Development and Contributing China's Strength to Global Human Rights Governance.
Qin Gang said the COVID-19 pandemic is still lingering. The global economy is at risk of a recession. Food and energy crises, disruptions to industrial and supply chains, climate change and other global problems keep emerging. The international human rights cause is facing severe challenges. Given these new circumstances and tasks, we need to ask ourselves: How to better promote and protect human rights? How to enhance and improve global human rights governance? In answering these questions, China wishes to propose the following:
First, committing to a path of human rights development that suits the realities of each country. The right of all countries to independently choose one's own path of human rights development should be respected. Blindly copying the model of others would be ill-fitted for one's own conditions, and imposing one's model upon others would entail endless troubles.
Second, committing to the comprehensive promotion and protection of all human rights. Human rights are indivisible. The right to subsistence and the right to development are basic human rights of primary importance. Civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights should be accorded equal attention and advanced in a holistic way. More attention should be paid to the human rights challenges facing developing countries and their human rights needs. Unilateral coercive measures violate international law and the basic human rights of the people of the countries concerned, and should be lifted immediately and unconditionally.
Third, committing to international fairness and justice. No country is qualified to act as the judge on human rights, and human rights should not be used as a pretext for meddling in other countries' internal affairs or holding back other countries' development. The purposes and principles of the UN Charter should be observed by all, and human rights exchanges and cooperation should be carried out on the basis of equality and mutual respect. The acts by some to politicize, weaponize and instrumentalize human rights issues should be opposed. The practices of lecturing and finger-pointing on others' human rights, while ignoring and failing to solve one's own serious human rights problems should be rejected.
Fourth, committing to dialogue and cooperation. The Human Rights Council should be a stage for constructive dialogue and cooperation, rather than an arena for political manipulation and bloc confrontation. The Council should be UN-membership-led. Only by following the principles of impartiality, objectivity, non-selectivity and non-politicization can the UN human rights system function well and bring continued positive energy to the international human rights cause.
Qin Gang stressed that the Communist Party of China held its 20th National Congress. A blueprint was drawn for advancing national rejuvenation through a Chinese path to modernization. The process of Chinese modernization is also a process of advancement in human rights. China has found a path of human rights development that meets the trend of the times and suits its national conditions. This path holds the key to the country's historic achievements in human rights, and China will stay on this path going forward.
Qin Gang said some forces with hidden agenda keep hyping up issues related to China's Xinjiang and Xizang in an attempt to smear China and suppress its development. We firmly oppose such moves. We welcome all fair-minded people from across the world to China to visit more places and see more things, to learn what is truly happening on the ground. Since the legislation on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong took effect, Hong Kong is at a new stage where it has restored order and is set to thrive. We will remain steadfast in fully and faithfully implementing the policy of One Country, Two Systems, firmly safeguard China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and maintain Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.
Regarding the Japanese government's decision to release contaminated water of the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, Qin Gang stressed this is not Japan's private business and this decision bears on the security of the global eco-environment and the right to health of people around the world. Countries should urge Japan to take the legitimate concern of the international community seriously, fulfill its due international obligations, and deal with the nuclear waste water in an open, transparent, science-based and safe manner.
Qin Gang said as the new year starts, China is ready to work with all parties to advance the global cause of human rights protection, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Bears rescued from illegal bile farm in Vietnam
MARCH 01, 2023
Reuters
HANOI - Five moon bears have been rescued in Vietnam from an illegal bile extraction farm, in the latest effort by authorities to eradicate a practice widely condemned for its cruelty.
The bears were given up by a farmer in a commune on the outskirts of Hanoi, according to animal rescue group Animals Asia, and since their rescue last week have been taken to a sanctuary and nicknamed Chronos, Dawn, Noon, Twilight, and Midnight.
Authorities estimated the five bears may have been on the farm as long as 20 years.
The farming of bears for their bile has been outlawed in Vietnam since 1992, but the practice continues, fuelled by demand for bear bile-enriched products.
Digestive bile is forcibly extracted from the gall bladders of bears and sold on the black market for use in traditional medicine. The bears suffer extreme physical and psychological trauma and are often kept in cramped conditions and succumb to disease and malnutrition.
Keeping a bear in a small cage would create mental and physical problems for the animal and bear farmers didn't know how to look after them properly, said Tuan Bendixen, Vietnam director for Animals Asia.
The potential of Africa’s mobile and digital ecosystem
NEW AFRICAN 01/03/2023 The UK’s Department for Business and Trade is cooperating with African Business magazine to highlight how Africa’s vibrant and entrepreneurial tech community can leverage partnerships to overcome hurdles to unlocking the potential of digital trade in the continent.
This week, the UK’s international trade department hosted the Africa Mobile & Digital Leaders Reception. The event, which was hosted on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is the third in a series of events looking at promoting partnerships between the UK and Africa, specifically in mobile-driven digital trade.
Digital trade is a driver of business growth all over the world. Market research company, eMarketer, predicts that online sales will soar from $3.3 trillion 2019 to $6.2 trillion in 2023 and $7.4 trillion by 2025. In Africa, the United Nations estimates that internet business could add $180 billion to the continent’s GDP. However, there are hurdles that need to be overcome to unlock the immense opportunity for mobile-driven digital trade on the continent.
Jamila Saidi, Head of Digital Commerce at the trade department said, “We know that digital trade and digital services powered through mobile and other channels is the future and will be at the heart of growth in Africa. The continent is one of the most exciting in entrepreneurship and innovation and this century will redefine Africa as its population claims the opportunity ahead and reaches for economic empowerment, all powered by entrepreneurship and investment.”
The Department is cooperating with African Business magazine to highlight how Africa’s vibrant and entrepreneurial tech community can leverage partnerships to overcome hurdles to unlocking the potential of digital trade in the continent.
The event also saw the announcement of a new business group, The Africa Forum for Digital Commerce, which will bring together people and organisations who are passionate about advancing Africa’s economic growth, to collaborate and create digital commerce opportunities from the continent and to the continent. The forum’s founding members include ARM (E3)NGAGE which has recently been launching its own digitisation initiatives across the continent.
Stephen Ozoigbo, Snr. Director, Emerging Economies at Arm, said, “Since the inception of our (E³)NGAGE lab model, we have seen tremendous progress across targeted program areas that support our digitization strategies across the continent. Our current ecosystem successes in Africa have also accelerated Arm’s ambitions around launching additional labs, as we expand across the continent.” Other founding members include:
Other founding members include:
AfricaNenda, an independent, African-led organisation created to accelerate the growth of instant and inclusive payment systems.
Connected Places Catapult, the UK’s innovation accelerator for cities, transport, and place leadership. The Catapult has an established track record of working with cities across Africa and around the world on initiatives designed to solve pressing challenges in rapidly growing cities, such as congestion and overcrowded public transport.
Vodafone – The largest pan-European and African technology communications company, Vodafone operates mobile and fixed networks in 20 countries, and partners with mobile networks in 47 more. Vodafone has over 330 million mobile customers, more than 28 million fixed broadband customers, and 21 million TV customers. Vodafone is also a world leader on the Internet of Things (IoT), connecting over 155 million devices and platforms. Vodafone has revolutionised fintech in Africa through M-Pesa, the region’s largest fintech platform, providing access to financial services for more than 58 million people in a secure, affordable, and convenient way.
what3words, a British founded tech company that has created a simple way to communicate precise locations. It has divided the globe into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, and assigned each one a unique combination of three words: a what3words address. This allows users to find, share and navigate to any precise location using three simple words. The innovative location technology is used by businesses and governments worldwide to solve issues caused by poor addressing – improving efficiencies, enhancing customer experiences, offering smoother journeys and even saving lives.
Giving birth in US getting deadlier: media
Xinhua, March 2, 2023
The United States has a shameful track record when it comes to maternal health, and a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows it's only getting worse, reported The Washington Post early this week.
Over the last two decades, much of the world made steady progress in reducing the number of deaths during or soon after childbirth, but the United States headed in the wrong direction, said The Washington Post report.
According to the WHO, maternal health improved in most countries between 2000 and 2015, though advances began to plateau -- and in some places, reverse -- between 2015 and 2020. The United States was among just 23 countries that saw the average rate of maternal deaths increase during those two decades.
By 2020, nearly all other rich countries saw the number of deaths per 100,000 births dip well below 10, while the United States saw a nearly 78 percent increase to 21 deaths per 100,000 births. These data, however, aren't a surprise to anyone following the depressing state of health care for pregnant people in the United States, according to the report.
"Yet the United States is not doing anything to address this national shame. And efforts to ban abortion will only make it worse," it added.
Global Economic Prospects At A Turning Point – Analysis
The year 2023 represents a turning point. If economic realities guide global prospects, it will be a positive turnaround. If geopolitics will continue to penalize economic prospects, a negative inflection point is more likely.
Recently, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), suggested that the year 2023 could “represent a turning point, with inflation declining and growth bottoming out.” She based the prediction on economic assumptions. Unfortunately, we no longer live under an economic status quo.
Since the mid-2010s and the advanced economies’ trade protectionism, sanctions and militarization, geopolitics has driven global prospects, as it did in the interwar period. As long as these underlying conditions prevail, so will persistent inflation.
The year 2023 could represent a turning point. Not the kind Georgieva had in mind – but a negative reversal.
Poor economies driving global growth
While the latest IMF projections show global growth slowing to 2.9 percent this year, the IMF anticipates a modest rebound to 3.1 percent in 2024. But it is the emerging and developing economies that are providing the momentum.
In 2021-24, the share of global growth by the largest emerging and developing economies will climb from 63 to over 80 percent. Accordingly, the share of the advanced economies will almost halve to less than 20 percent (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Global growth, 2021-E2024: Source: IMF
Starting from a low base, India’s GDP is still barely an eighth relative to the US and its growth is now slowing from the 7% growth projected to 6.8% in the 2023/24 fiscal year, as the global slowdown is likely to hurt exports. However, China’s GDP is already three-fourths of that of the US and this year growth in the mainland (5.8-6.5%) could prove almost as fast as that of India (6.0-6.8%).
Together, China and India are likely to account for almost a third of global growth in 2023, as the major advanced economies are coping with recessionary conditions. Furthermore, the share of emerging and developing economies of global growth will progressively increase, whereas that of advanced economies will continue to fall as secular stagnation is spreading among them.
The Fed as a global risk
Global economic prospects have been further penalized by the US Federal Reserve’s ill-advised monetary policies, particularly since fall 2021. After years of easy money and rounds of quantitative easing, the Fed misread the market signals after mid-2021, when inflation started to climb rapidly, and Fed chairman Jerome Powell downplayed the threat of soaring prices calling them “transitionary.”
It was a fatal policy mistake, which a year ago led to my warning that US inflation was the global risk of 2022. With the onset of the proxy war only a month later, I predicted that the world economy would have to cope with the risk of stagflationary recession, compounded by energy and food inflation. The rest, as they say, is history.
In its February 2023 meeting, the Fed raised the interest rate to 4.5-4.8 percent, pushing borrowing costs to the highest since 2007. Recently, Powell warned of more rate hikes and seems to be aiming at a rate of 5.25 to 5.5 percent, thus flirting with a recession.
Rather than transitionary, inflation has proved sticky and persistent. Thanks to America’s central role of the US in the world economy, what happens in America won’t stay in America.
Rich economies’ geopolitics penalizes global growth
Recently, US stocks sank to their lowest levels in a month, with the S&P 500 Index dropping under 4000. Despite interest rate at almost 5 percent, the inflation rate, which soared close to 10 percent in summer 2022, slowed only to 6.4 percent in January.
After the US hit its $31.4 trillion debt limit set by Congress, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that a failure to make payments that are due “would undoubtedly cause a recession in the US economy and could cause a global financial crisis.” New debt limit can be enacted, but not without unsustainable debt-taking.
In January, euro area bank lending fell again amid downturn, while cash and liquid deposits declined for the first time ever, thanks to rapid rate hikes by the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB analysts stressed that the euro area has “ shown remarkable economic resilience to the effects of the war [in Ukraine].” But that resilience is elusive because it’s also based on massive debt-taking.
Consumer price inflation was revised slightly higher to 8.6 percent year-on-year in January. That’s significantly below the peak of 11.1 percent in November, yet remains far above the ECB’s target of 2.0 percent. It is likely to result in half a percentage hike at the Bank’s mid-March meeting.
In Japan, inflation was negative until fall 2021. By January, it soared to 4.2 percent; the biggest increase since September 1981. Core inflation has been well above the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) 2% target for nine months in a row. This is largely attributable to continued increases in the cost of fuel and raw materials. Hence, the market’s rising concern about global bond market spillovers if and when the BOJ’s new chief Kazuo Ueda will hike interest rates (Figure 2).
Figure 2 Inflation and interest rates: US, euro area, Japan, and China: Source: Tradingeconomics, Difference Group
China’s rebound offsets the Fed’s risks
When Chinese policymakers began to prepare the reopening of the world’s second-largest economy, many international observers warned it would unleash inflationary headwinds. But numbers do not back up the story.
China’s annual inflation rate rose to only 2.1 percent in January. Expectedly, prices of food jumped and those of non-food gained further on the back of the Lunar New Year festival and the removal of pandemic measures. Nonetheless, the inflation rate remains only half relative to Japan, a third to the US and a fifth compared to the euro area.
At the eve of the Two Sessions, Chinese leaders pledged stronger growth. Recovery is taking hold and economic activity picking up pace with the country’s reopening. China’s GDP growth could soar to 5.5 to 6 percent in 2023, or over 6 percent on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
Internally, China’s emphasis on social policies promoting a moderately prosperous society supports rising purchasing power among new middle-income groups. External risks have been in part reduced by the misguided US trade wars and protectionism, which have compelled Chinese policy authorities to stress the importance of self-sufficiency. Spillovers will be significant in those economies that participate in China’s huge Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the vast new trade bloc.
Global growth engines, without voice
The US, the euro area and Japan are struggling with secular stagnation and exporting runaway inflation. By contrast, China’s growth is accelerating while inflation remains in check. Its reopening could lift global GDP up to a stunning 1 percent in 2023.
Large emerging and developing economies are today’s global growth engines. Currently, their share of global growth exceeds 80 percent. While cyclical recession will end in the major advanced economies, their secular stagnation has barely begun. In the coming decade, the growth gap between the rich and poor economies won’t go away. It is positioned to deepen.
With broadening secular stagnation, the long-run economic growth in the major advanced economies will approach zero. Perhaps that’s why they are now so eager to use geopolitics and military muscle.
The original article was released by China-US Focus on March 1, 2023.
Dan Steinbock
Dr Dan Steinbock is an recognized expert of the multipolar world. He focuses on international business, international relations, investment and risk among the leading advanced and large emerging economies. He is a Senior ASLA-Fulbright Scholar (New York University and Columbia Business School). Dr Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognized expert of the multipolar world. He focuses on international business, international relations, investment and risk among the major advanced economies (G7) and large emerging economies (BRICS and beyond). Altogether, he monitors 40 major world economies and 12 strategic nations. In addition to his advisory activities, he is affiliated with India China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and EU Center (Singapore). As a Fulbright scholar, he also cooperates with NYU, Columbia University and Harvard Business School. He has consulted for international organizations, government agencies, financial institutions, MNCs, industry associations, chambers of commerce, and NGOs. He serves on media advisory boards (Fortune, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, McKinsey).
Defence contractors target Australia as it gears up to counter China
Advanced drones, long-range missiles on display at air show
To make buys once strategic review made public next month
Eyeing local production of key items
AVALON, Australia, March 2 (Reuters) - As close U.S. ally Australia gears up to counter China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region, global defence contractors this week showed off advanced drones, long-range missiles and military communications satellites at its biggest air show.
The firms are pushing for billions of dollars' worth of purchases expected after Australia's long-awaited defence strategic review (DSR) is made public next month, setting out the force structure and equipment required over the next decade. Advertisement · Scroll to continue
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Malcolm Davis, senior analyst in defence strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said securing long-range strike weapons in three to five years should be the priority given China's growing threat to Taiwan and the high likelihood of Australia joining the U.S. in a fight.
"When the DSR comes out there will be diplomatic language that doesn't necessarily squarely target China by name, but I think everyone gets the reality this has been driven by China, its rapid growth and its military capabilities," he said on the sidelines of the Australian International Airshow near Melbourne.
Like other countries, Australia is also focusing increasingly on securing more local production and supply stocks after observing the depletions caused by the war in Ukraine.
The government's aim is to "speed up the acquisition cycle" and move as quickly as possible once the review is public, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy told reporters on Wednesday. The federal budget is due in May and the defence allocation is expected to grow.
At the air show, some defence contractors privately expressed frustration that the tightly held review ordered last August, three months after a new centre-left government took office, had slowed down procurement and delivery times.
Major decisions in the balance from the review include whether to order another squadron of Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35 fighter jets, up to four more Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drones and a major military satellite contract being pursued by five groups, including Airbus SE (AIR.PA) and Boeing Co (BA.N).
"Everyone is reading the tea leaves, but we know a lot of capability will be coming out of that DSR," said Stephen Forshaw, Airbus's chief representative for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
Australia ranked 12th globally in military spending in 2021 at $31.8 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It is a major buyer of U.S. equipment in particular, having operated alongside the U.S. in conflicts around the world. In 2021, it formed an alliance with the United States and Britain to buy nuclear-powered submarines.
The air show also highlighted how Australia's smaller force is influencing U.S. purchases. Australia has operated Boeing E-7A airborne early warning and control planes since 2009, as the first customer for the type. The U.S. Air Force said on Tuesday it planned to buy 26 of them to replace its ageing E-3s.
Boeing is also looking to sell the MQ-28 Ghost Bat fighter-like drone developed in Australia to the U.S. military, while the local arm of Britain's BAE Systems (BAES.L) this week unveiled plans for a smaller armed drone it also hopes to export.
Lockheed was selected last year alongside Raytheon Technologies Corp (RTX.N) to accelerate the manufacture and delivery of guided weapons to Australia.
In-country assembly, and eventually manufacturing, are a focus of the project that aims to build local stockpiles, said Ken Kota, vice president of Lockheed's Australian defence strategic capabilities office.
"Manufacturing guided weapons in particular has its own deterrent effect," he said. "It is very important for Australia to have this from a strategic standpoint."
The increasingly shabby treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material it’s printed on.
In January this year, Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court heard that Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus accepted a request from the US before Christmas to extradite Duggan. Duggan is no longer an Australian citizen, but Canberra has often regarded this as irrelevant when it comes to the US-Australian alliance.
In a 2017 indictment unsealed on December 9, Duggan is accused by prosecutors of using his expertise to train Chinese fighter pilots to land on aircraft carriers along with eight co-conspirators working at a South African flight school. It is also alleged that the US State Department warned him to apply for written authorisation to train a foreign air force in 2008, which is a requirement of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The allegation here is that he went ahead without securing authorisation, thereby breaching trafficking and arms control laws between 2009 and 2012.
Duggan has been held since October. In the finest traditions of Australian justice, he is being confined in conditions that suggest presumed guilt. His lawyer, Dennis Miralis, has stated at various points with some exasperation that his client is “presumed innocent under US law”. Duggan’s wife, Saffrine, insists that her husband is “a victim of the United States government’s political dispute with China.”
This presumption has also been sorely tested by Duggan’s detention in a two-by-four-metre cell at the Silverwater jail, which also houses convicted terrorists. Miralis can only assume that the New South Wales Department of Directions has been all too willing to follow instructions delivered from on high.
Earlier this month lawyers for Duggan made a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee challenging these conditions. Their submission argues that the authorities have failed to protect Duggan from “inhumane and degrading” treatment, failed to segregate him from convicted inmates, violated his right to adequate facilities to enable him to prepare his legal defence, and denied his right to confidential communications.
The submission also references the assessment of a clinical psychologist who visited Duggan in the Silverwater prison. “The psychologist described Mr Duggan’s conditions as ‘extreme’ and ‘inhumane’. He advised that Mr Duggan was at risk of a major depressive disorder.” Another condition causing him even further discomfort is benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Regarded as nothing more than contingent paperwork, citizenship is feeble in prosecutions of Australians by other allied countries. To the contrary, Canberra has often aided and abetted the undermining of citizens’ rights with a snotty “good riddance” attitude, glad to be rid of supposedly bad apples in the cart.
During the poorly conceived “War on Terror”, a tellingly ghastly response to the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Australian citizens found themselves captured, rendered and left to decay in detention. Such names should forever be taught in schools. They include the Egyptian-Australian national Mamdouh Habib, and David Hicks.
Habib’s arrest in October 2001 in Pakistan and subsequent detention for three years on suspicion of having prior knowledge of the September 11 terrorist attacks, was a fantasy encouraged by both US and Australian personnel. Despite the US expressing the view in January 2005 that it would not lay charges against Habib, the Australian Attorney-General and Minister for Foreign Affairs were still adamant that Habib had prior knowledge of the attacks, had spent time in Afghanistan, and trained with al-Qaida.
Hicks was sent to the purgatory of Guantánamo Bay in January 2002 after being captured in Afghanistan by forces of the Northern Alliance. He then became something of a judicial guinea pig, the victim of a military commission system initially deemed by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, unfair and illegal.
What was particularly striking here were the instances of premature adjudication and Australian calls that the US authorities do all they could to try and convict Hicks. Prime Minister John Howard worried that Hicks, were he not to face a military commission trial in the US, would escape charges in Australia. He did not “regard that as a satisfactory outcome, given the severity of the allegations that have been made against him.”
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer even dared to claim that Hicks be grateful for not having a longer spell in US captivity. “He would have been there for years if it hadn’t been for our intervention.”
The subsequent Plea Agreement reached in March 2007, under which Hicks pleaded guilty for “providing material support for terrorism”, saw him receive a seven-year sentence, most of it suspended. The remaining seven months of the sentence was served in Australia, which the UN Human Rights Committee held to be a “disproportionate restriction of the right to liberty” in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The HRC also noted that Hicks “had no other choice than to accept the Plea Agreement that was put to him” were he to escape the human rights violations he faced in Camp X-Ray.
On February 18, 2015, the United States Court of Military Commission Review set aside Hicks’ guilty plea and sentence. The judges noted that the charge of providing material support for terrorism should be vacated, given the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 that being tried for such an offence by a military commission was an “ex post facto violation”.
To crown this appalling resume of achievements is the Australian government’s grossly feeble response to Julian Assange’s continued persecution at the hands of the US Department of Justice in the United Kingdom. Facing a preposterously broad application of the Extradition Act of 1917, thereby imperilling national security journalism, Australian calls to drop the case have been weak and lukewarm at best. The trend was set by Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose response to Cablegate in 2010 was to presume Assange was guilty for having breached some regulation, despite failing to identify a single law to that effect.
Given this inglorious record, the Duggan case has an all too familiar feel to it. The training of Chinese pilots by veteran personnel from a Western country would hardly have raised a murmur when relations between Washington and Beijing were less acrimonious. Hicks also found himself in the historical crosshairs, foolishly wishing to throw in his lot with forces that were once the anti-communist darlings of the US intelligence community.
The question here is what Australian citizens can do when providing services for foreign countries. Serving in ultra-nationalist Ukrainian regiments, or moonlighting in the Israeli Defence Force, is unlikely to land you in trouble. But proffering aeronautical expertise in a private capacity while earning some cash on the side? How frightful.
If the fevered assessments from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation are anything to go by, the only thing missing in Duggan’s extradition is the welcome card for the US DOJ. ASIO Chief Mike Burgess, in his annual threat assessment, was eager to justify his agency’s bloated budget. “More hostile foreign intelligence services, more spies, more targeting, more harm, more ASIO investigations, more ASIO disruptions. From where I sit, it feels like hand-to-hand combat.”
Burgess shows a striking inability to understand why much of this is overegging paranoia. Academics, business figures and bureaucrats, in suggesting he ease up on ASIO’s foreign interference and espionage operations, could only offer him “flimsy” justifications, such as “All countries spy on each other” and “We were going to make the information public anyway”.
Facing such a jaundiced worldview, Duggan’s future is bleak. And now that Australia has willingly committed itself to Armageddon in lock-step with US forces in any conflict with the PRC, Canberra is doing everything it can to be an efficient detainer for its enormous and not always considerate friend.
Binoy Kampmark
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Covid-19 transmissible between dogs: Study
Reverse zoonosis refers to an infection or disease that is transmissible from humans to animals.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
SEOUL - A South Korean research team has confirmed on Wednesday that some Covid-19 variants, including Delta and Omicron, can be transmitted between dogs.
Although there have been many reports on the transmission of the coronavirus from humans to dogs, this is the first study that proves transmission of the virus among dogs.
The study, done by a joint research team, is led by Professor Song Dae-sub of Seoul National University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and researcher Yoo Kwang-soo of Jeonbuk National University.
The research team infected a beagle with the Delta and Omicron variants by introducing the virus through the dog’s nose. After 24 hours, they put an uninfected dog in the same cage.
Researchers did not detect any visible symptoms in the infected and uninfected dog, after observing them for seven days.
They only detected symptoms of viral pneumonia, a common symptom of Covid-19, when they analysed the tissue of the dogs’ lungs.
The team also found that proliferative viruses can be spread through dogs’ nasal discharge
The study suggested that human coronaviruses such as Covid-19 and Mers can be transmitted to other species.
The research team suggested that pet vaccinations should be actively considered to prevent animal-to-human infection and the emergence of another variant from pets.
“If infection between species and individuals is repeated, the possibility of another variant increases,” said Prof Song.
“It is time to consider the use of animal vaccines to prevent the reverse zoonosis of pets.”
Reverse zoonosis refers to an infection or disease that is transmissible from humans to animals.
The study was funded by the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and the paper was published in Emerging Infected Disorders, a medical journal published by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States.
