CHINA THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

by James Reed
As news of yet another Australian manufacturer's move to China hits the headlines it is difficult to find criticisms of China's rampaging economic development in the Australian press, let alone inside The Australian's "Business Section".

Rowan Callick, China correspondent for The Australian, ("China Growth Creates a Great Dividing Wall," 11/9/06, p.28), wrote: "China's economic development is not, as many predicted it would, also ushering in social or political development.At present, the reverse is happening; the rich, many of them Communist Party cadres are becoming fabulously so while the poor are living lives of Dickensian squalor, and any signs of dissent are being suppressed more vigorously than since the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989."

Chinese families often awake to find that their houses have been designated for destruction because they are in the way of some development project. The families are usually relocated to some remote area.

'Justice' in China:
Callick gives an interesting example of "justice, China style". A lawyer, acting for the people who had received a notice that their house would be demolished the next day, was physically attacked by the judge who grabbed him around the neck. The judge had previously said: "Be careful when you walk alone at night."

Life is cheap in China and the rights of ordinary people, few and far between. Nothing is to get in the way of China's quest to be "No.1" - top of the globalist pop charts.

Callick concluded his article with these words: "It is important though that investors and others should not be deluded into believing that economic activity can be morally neutral."

Comment:
Economic activity in China with the aid of Western Finance-Capitalism is morally neutral Mr. Callick. Neither Western Finance-Capitalism nor Chinese Communism understand what you mean by 'moral'.

A COLONY OF CHINA

by James Reed
The great education sell out continues. Monash University is falling over itself to bring a Chinese university campus to Melbourne (Monash to Welcome China on Campus," The Australian 28/8/06 p.4).
According to Monash University's deputy vice-chancellor: "This is a Chinese University having a physical presence in Australia." The Chinese haven't set up any offshore campuses elsewhere.

As well, the anticipated number of Chinese students is projected to fall. Hence this plan. In my opinion it is the same sort of cargo mentality that we have seen Australian elites adopt before with the Japanese. (Who remembers the proposed Adelaide Multifunction Polis?…ed)

Rather than nurture the education of our own people, as part of the colonising logic of globalism our universities seem to exist only to serve the elites of Asia. I look forward to the Asian 'cash cow' students staying home in their, probably better universities; I look forward to an end of this madness.

The universities have forsaken their task as being lights of truth to society and are littler more than vast corporate high schools. Better that they close and taxpayer's money is channelled into alternative mechanisms of education.

Jasper Becker has argued in an on-line article: "China: Imperfect Memory to Global Impurity" that China is not behaving like a good global citizen with its new found wealth. Not only does China sell arms to anyone who will buy them but China uses economic and diplomatic mechanisms to protect the nations that are among the world's worst violators of human rights.

China is one such violator, but the Communist Party of China has never confronted its evil past. As Becker puts it: "Beijing has never had to apologise for occupying Tibet; attacking India, Burma and Vietnam; creating Pol Pot's Cambodia; bankrolling Enver Hoxha's Albania; and fuelling devastating insurgencies across Southeast Asia and Africa."

China lies about its history in official statements and has fabricated historical events such as the 1935 battle to cross the Luding bridge (there being no such battle). Mao launched the cultural revolution, Becker argues, to kill his colleagues who knew the history of his own lies.

This is the nation which the elites are working so hard to make us a colony of. China is a nation which expects us to play by the free trade rules, while itself having a multitude on non-tariff barriers and no intellectual property rights. Guess what they have is store for us in the future. Source: >www.openDemocracy.net,23/08/06<

OH! WHERE HAVE MY LITTLE ANTI-TANK ROCKET LAUNCHERS GONE?

by Betty Luks
I know other people who also habitually lose things. One young lady I know - which shows it can't all be due to ageing - consistently loses her keys. Well what about anti-tank rocket launchers?

Just before Christmass, a story circulated in the press that Defence Minister Brendan Nelson ordered an audit of the army's anti-tank rocket launchers, due to the fact that some may have been stolen. Ponder this: This discovery did not make front page news - the cricket and other bread and circuses were competing for space. But never fear, the counter-terrorism police were working with the Middle Eastern Crime Squad, all of whom were looking for 8 or 9 of these advanced weapons of destruction.

One would have thought, at the time, no air flight could be considered safe! The Lucas Heights nuclear facility could have been a target, what about the Sydney Harbour Bridge? And who knows what else? Obviously the authorities didn't want to panic the people at that time of year when the message was to "shop 'til y'u drop" - but, if there really is a war on terrorism, wasn't the response a little on the slack side? An audit should have been completed before the story hit the headlines on 23 December. And, as a matter of public safety, the people should have been informed of possible threats. Strange indeed are the ways of our authorities and their 'war on terror'.

Stop Press!
Those words were written on Christmas Eve (yes, I do have a family life!) On 6 January the media reported that one man (of Middle Eastern extraction) had been arrested for the possession of a - you've guessed it - a rocket launcher. The man in question was connected to a terrorist group arrested in 2006 for plotting to blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Lucas Heights nuclear facility.

Those who know me personally wouldn't say I was a rocket scientist (let alone a police detective), so if I could guess these places were possible targets, surely at Christmass time there was a very real threat to public safety?

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner said on 6 January 2006: "We still haven't satisfied ourselves that there were other missing weapons." By 6 January the audit of weapons should have been completed. That should have been a matter of urgent national security. But we were assured, the AFP is investigating how the weapon/s got into the hands of a potential terrorist organisation, but no, no members of the ADF were under investigation. Don't you think it is reading more and more like something from a "Dad's Army" script?

Did the rocket launcher fall off the back of a truck (maybe along with the leaked email about taxing our rainwater tanks), or was it stolen? If it was stolen, who forgot to put the padlock on the tin shed, where, no doubt, these dangerous weapons are kept?

Stop Press No2:
The latest story (The Weekend Australian 13-14 January 2007, p.4) has it that the six mysterious rocket launchers are buried somewhere on the outskirts of Sydney. And 'heavens to Betsy!' - we now learn an 'outlaw' bikie gang may have been involved!

Be alert but not alarmed:
The police, we are assured, are now using high-tech metal detection equipment to search for the missing weapons. Well, at long last we are now reassured, yes, the weapons are really missing. The problem now for our super-sleuth anti-terrorist heroes may be a variant of finding a needle in a haystack.

TAMWORTH, SUDANESE FAMILIES & POLITICAL DEMOCRACY

by Betty Luks
I watched the 7.30 Report during the week, as it focussed on the 'storm' whipped up by the media in the New South Wales town of Tamworth. Tamworth, Australia's 'home of country music' is holding its annual Country Music festival so what better time to dump down a barrage of negative publicity upon such a recalcitrant group of people.
No matter that the people of Tamworth had spoken through their local council - they do not want Sudanese refugees settling in their town.

What! storms Big-Sister, who are they to dare to contradict the policies (orders) issued from Canberra? "Now hear this, we can't have that" she proclaims as she orders her bureaucratic 'top-dogs' to round up the town's recalcitrants for a public meeting. "What's required are re-education programmes, then they will see 'reason'."
"Our policy is, not only will the Anglo-Australian majority accept that Australia becomes a polyglot of many cultures but also a polyglot of races."

Awake Australia from your sleep:
Our sovereignty, our freedom to choose, was taken away long ago. Not through physical force but by the much more clever and subtle psycho-political propaganda - aimed at brainwashing us, mind-conditioning us.
If you the reader have any thoughts of fighting for your freedom why not inform Big-Sister Amanda Vanstone and her Big-Brother 'mates', we, the Australian people want to have a say in what direction this country takes.

The first step on a long road:
Take the first step on the road to regaining your freedom - meaning the right to choose or refuse one thing at a time - and stand and be counted.
Identify yourself with the good citizens of Tamworth: write to their local newspapers, the Tamworth Mayor and Council, and your federal and state politicians and say you back the rights of the people of Tamworth to decide who they want to be their neighbours.
The Swiss people have that right - why haven't Australians?
Those people who insist the Sudanese families be allowed to settle in Tamworth should be the very first people to take responsibility for that decision.

Begin with the pollies in Canberra:
Where do pollies stay while in Canberra? There could be some delightful units to let quite near them. We are sure the hearts of the fat-cat bureaucrats are bleeding for the refugees. We suggest Canberra is the best place for the families to be settled. That way, the Canberrans can take responsibility - real responsibility - for the decisions they have taken.

Of course, the long-term answers for these people begin back in their country of origin. Why are they fleeing in the first place? The bureaucrats will be spending millions of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars (whilst justifying their own jobs) - why not spend that money back in Sudan?

And don't be conned by the claim Australia is a 'democracy'. Until we have political democracy (what the people want) we are simply spouting schmaltzy jingoism.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE - BIG-BROTHER WANTS TO TAX TANK RAINWATER

UNBUNDLING WATER FROM LAND

Posted on Online Opinion, 15 January, 2007 Susan Hawthorne outlined the greater plan for WATER in this country:

"…On January 1, 2007, water trading came into force in Australia. What does this mean and why should we be worried?

Water and land:
Water fits land like a glove fits a hand. It follows the lay of the land, pools in hollows and flows between inclines. Water and land are not only intimate, they shape one another. Water seeps through the soil, jumps down cliffs; rocks bounce through streams, clatter along shorelines. Each in relationship with the other. This seems almost too obvious to state. So why do I? I do so because new laws are coming into force that separate land from water, water from land.

Separation is a long-used method of big business, big science and big government, those who are purveyors and beneficiaries of global markets. Separation is the first action of colonisers who take the land and the resources from the original inhabitants…

The players have shifted. Instead of monarchies and Indigenous peoples, we now have corporate governments and governing corporations. Each is pocketing what the other does best: governments pocket money from corporations and corporations pocket political power. How does this apply to water? Governments are about to allow trading of water rights. It used to be that land users bordering rivers had use rights over water from the river. Water was allocated, sometimes unfairly, but the water could only be used by the landowner or the land user.

What is about to happen is that the water, through laws that unbundle land and water, can be separated from the land. This means that water not used by the landowner or the land user can be sold to another party who does not own or use land bordering the river.

This shift in national law has been accompanied by changes to state laws.
For example, in Victoria there is a new 2006 law on Separation of Land and Water Titles. This law is to be followed in 2007 by a law on Unbundling of Land and Water. Both follow on from a 2006 national law on Water Trading.

It no longer matters whether one votes Labor of Liberal, since both parties are eagerly participating in these separations.

As water is separated from land, the reciprocal relationship between the two will be snapped (as if chopping the fingers out of the glove). When that happens, environmental degradation will occur on the one hand and those with the most money will profit on the other.

The international context:
How does Australia sit in relation to water politics internationally? Privatising of water is a huge multi-billion dollar global business dominated by three corporations - Suez-ONDEO, and Vivendi-Veolia based in France, and RWE-Thames Water based in Germany. These super companies control 70 per cent of the world's water market (Barlow and Clarke: 2002). Their control comes through water "concessions". The last time the word "concession" was used regularly in this way was during the colonial era when land grants or "concessions" were given to colonisers to ease their investment in the colony.

Plans being developed to export water from Adelaide!!!
[As the citizens of Adelaide get up at the crack of dawn, or stay up late into the night, to hand -water their gardens, they might like to ponder on the news that United Water in Adelaide is developing plans for bulk water exports. Yes! I said Bulk Water Exports!…ed]

Water concessions:
The water concession in Adelaide is held by United Water International - jointly owned by Vivendi (France), RWE-Thames Water (Germany) and Kellogg Brown and Root (USA).
United Water is developing plans for bulk water exports in their Adelaide water concession (Barlow and Clarke 2002). As one of the driest cities anywhere in the world, it makes no sense to export water from Adelaide.
Since they also control Ballarat's water, they could start planning to export water along the same pipeline that is needed currently to bring water into this very dry inland Australian city.

US companies active in Iraq:
Bechtel, a US-based company which, like Kellogg Brown and Root, has been active in "reconstruction" in Iraq, also has concessions elsewhere in Australia.
While the water trading discussion is currently focused on talk about trade within Australia, the endgame is about exporting water from Australia, the driest continent.

The Australia US Free Trade Agreement AUSFTA)
There are two recent moves that suggest this. The Australia US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) enables US-based companies special access to Australian markets. Water was not excluded from the treaty. The result is that US-based companies such as Bechtel, Halliburton, and Kellogg Brown and Root can move into operating in Australia without meeting any arduous requirements.

General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS):
The other international treaty that affects water in Australia is the General Agreement on Trade in Services that applies to all countries who are members of the World Trade Organisation, that is 149 countries with 32 more with observer status, is a very broad trade agreement covering all services - and once water is tradable, once it is transferable between private parties, it becomes a service.
The interesting thing about GATS is that it includes water in its "rules and regulations".

Although it is possible for governments before ratifying the agreement to name "exclusions". The GATS text identifies a host of ways in which water can be considered a service:
It has sections that cover sewer services, freshwater services, treatment of waste water, nature and landscape protection, construction of water pipes, waterways, tankers, groundwater assessment, irrigation, dams, bottled water, water transport services, and the like.

In the second round offer made by Australia in May 2005 there are exclusions on "the provision of water for human use, including water collection, purification and distribution through mains" (AFTINET June 2005).
Somewhat surprisingly, Australia has named water as an exclusion to the GATS agreement. Surprising, because we have had, in the Howard Government, a gung-ho attitude to free trade for the past decade.
But there is one thing Howard likes better, and that is to kowtow to the Bush administration. So, when water was excluded by Australia from the GATS agreement, there was celebration among Fair Trade activists.

U.S.-based corporations 'in for the kill'
But I fear that this celebration came too quickly. I say so because water is not excluded from the AUSFTA, but its exclusion from GATS heightens the ability of US-based water corporations to make very big profits in Australia.
As the Europeans have a head start on water corporations, the exclusion of water from GATS is likely a gift to US-based water lords.
In the lead up to the AUSFTA, it was clear that there were going to be many downsides for Australians in this agreement.

One I highlighted at the time was:
"Water and other utility services will be increasingly privatised and public ownership and access threatened. The result is profit at the expense of access and safety" (Hawthorne 2003).
With many of the US-based companies finding a foothold in concessions around the country in metropolitan and regional centres, it may well be that in excluding water from GATS but not from the AUSFTA we have simply swapped one lot of water lords for another.

The water on our planet is one of the crucial ingredients that makes life possible: Without water none of us can survive more than a few days. Access to water should not be a tradeable resource.
Separating water from land is just the first move in a number of legal rewritings which we can expect to see in coming years.

If you think Howard's move on saving the Murray Darling Basin is important, look closer, read the small print, look out for separations. They are markers of far worse things to come.
Confusing citizens by claiming one thing while doing another is becoming a frequently used strategy by governments to persuade us that they really have our interests at heart.
While Howard claims to speak against postmodernism, his political shillyshallying with multiple moves and shapeshifting flexibility is an indicator of just how well he has learnt the postmodern tango.
Don't be fooled by this bipartisan concern about water. It is rooted in profit-making and unaccountability."

Comment:
It is rooted in the push for world control of all food, fibres and minerals as outlined in Jeremy Lee's "Australia 2000: What Will We Tell Our Children?"
When are Australians going to wake up to the fact they are now governed by a Criminal-Financial Overworld as Ivor Benson so aptly named the ruling elites of Finance, Business and Government? Susan Hawthorne writes of Howard's 'shillyshallying and shapeshifting' flexibility. She is being too kind. The political parties have done deals with this Criminal-Financial-Overworld and we are being bound hand and foot so that we cannot move in any way.
Our heritage, the fruits of our pioneer-fathers and our children's inheritance has been handed over to this Financial-Business-Mafia.

Water is absolutely essential to Life, no one group should have control over it. It belongs to ALL the people.

PILGRIMAGE TO BETHLEHEM

The Archbishop of Liverpool Patrick Kelly led a delegation of the British Catholic Conference on a pilgrimage entitled 'Journey to Bethlehem' on Friday the 12th of January.
The theme of the pilgrimage were Christ's words "Allow the little Children and do not forbid them to come to Me" (Matt 19.13-15), reflecting the state of closure in Bethlehem, the restrictions on movements of the local community and the Israeli-built wall that surrounds Bethlehem and has turned the city of Christ into a prison.

The British delegation joined the heads of the Churches of Jerusalem, world Church leaders and the local mayors in a Bethlehem city parade that gathered more than 800 Christian children from thirty parishes across Palestine: Bethlehem and its sister cities of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, Jerusalem, Abboud, Nablus, Ramallah and elsewhere. The procession also included Christian children from the Israeli city of Nazareth which has a large Palestinian Christian community. For many children, the pilgrimage was their first trip to Bethlehem - a city only a few miles from their home towns.