Australia

Would you betray a neighbour for £100k? China wants to know

Melbourne residents have been sent a letter in the style of a police appeal as Beijing hunts for Kevin Lam, a pro-democracy Hong Kong lawyer who fled to the city

Kevin Yam was wanted on suspicion of “a range of national security-related offences”, the anonymous letter read.

The letter in the style of a police appeal was sent to residents in the suburbs of Melbourne, seeking the whereabouts of a dissident Hong Kong lawyer living in their midst.

“A reward of one million Hong Kong dollars is being offered by Hong Kong Police to any member of the public who can provide information on this wanted person and the related crime,” it added.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", Australia, Hong Kong

‘Smug’ Justin Trudeau’s downfall a warning for Anthony Albanese after the Canadian PM reaped the destructive rewards of progressive politics

This week, Justin Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister of Canada.

The latest in a run of centre-left darlings to become unstuck.

He follows Ardern, Merkel, Sturgeon – all who resigned without the courage to face voters.

Within a fortnight Trudeau will be followed out the door by Joe Biden, and with a German election just around the corner, I suspect Olaf Scholz knows that he is next.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAustralia, Canada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Congregant raised alarm as pre-dawn fire ripped through synagogue ‘jewel’

A witness who was inside the Melbourne synagogue firebombed before dawn on Friday has recounted fleeing the building to raise the alarm.

Yumi Friedman, founder of business Yumi’s dips, told this masthead he was inside Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea, in Melbourne’s inner south-east, with one other person at the time of the attack about 4.10am.

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by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inAnti-Semitism, Australia, You know damn well it's Islamic Terrorism

The epidemic plaguing Aboriginals

Why do so many indigenous Australians turn to substance abuse?

A little over 10 years ago, as a young anthropology student, I arrived in the dusty, shrub-infested outback town of Alice Springs in a champagne-coloured Toyota Camry. It’s an extraordinary place: vast and dry and scorched. I planned to spend my summer break managing three local liquor stores there — given the town’s reputation for Aboriginal alcohol abuse, I thought it would make an interesting case study — and ended up living in Alice Springs for much of my early adulthood.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Australia

Australian police arrest 7 alleged Muslim teen extremists linked to stabbing of a bishop in a Sydney church

SYDNEY (AP) — Australian police arrested seven teenagers accused of following a violent extremist ideology in raids across Sydney on Wednesday, as a judge extended a ban on social media platform X sharing video of a knife attack on a bishop that started the criminal investigation.

The seven, aged 15 to 17, were part of a network that included a 16-year-old boy accused of stabbing a bishop in a Sydney church on April 15, police said.

Clips of the stabbing were taken from the church service’s livestream and subsequently made the rounds on X. An Australian regulator on Monday ordered the platform to take down the videos, an action the platform is fighting.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Australia, Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

Hamas apologism has taken Australia by storm

Since the 7 October pogrom in Israel, it has become increasingly clear that hostility towards Israel is no longer confined to its Islamist enemies. It is increasingly prevalent in Western democracies, too.

This has certainly been true in Australia. Indeed, just days after Hamas committed atrocities in southern Israel, mobs stood on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, chanting ‘Gas the Jews!’. It set the tone for subsequent pro-Palestine protests, each one serenaded by the hateful chant, ‘From the river to the sea’. Israel has rarely been more threatened, and it has certainly never been so alone.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", "Oct 7 2023", Australia

Sydney church stabbing: Bishop attacked by Muslim during sermon

A bishop and several other people have been stabbed during a sermon in Sydney that was being streamed online, local media report.

The incident reportedly happened on Monday night in the suburb of Wakeley.

Police responded to reports that a number of people had been stabbed but said none of their injuries were life-threatening.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Australia, Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

Conrad Black: Lessons from Australia’s the ‘voice’ referendum

Canadians should perhaps pay more attention than we have to the referendum in Australia on Oct. 14 on the subject of the Aboriginal peoples. There are just under one million designated Aboriginals in Australia, slightly below four per cent of Australia’s 25 million people. The roughly corresponding figures in Canada are that Indigenous Canadians, including in both countries a good number of mixed ancestry, are slightly under five per cent-just, at under two million in a population of 40 million. The issue in the referendum was a proposed amendment to the Australian Constitution by which a federal advisory body comprised of native people would be set up which would have only a consultative role. How this body would be selected and its recommendations presented would be dealt with later. The idea was just to give Aboriginal people, in the wording of the referendum, a “voice” in the politics of the country.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Australia

Australia appoints first feral pig ‘tsar’ as population booms to 24 million

Australia’s most populous state has for the first time appointed a feral pig “tsar” in a battle to eradicate huge numbers of the animals as their population booms after three years of plentiful rain.

Bec Gray, whose official title is State Feral Pig Coordinator, has a budget of A$13 million (£7 million) and aims to eliminate 87,000 wild hogs in New South Wales in the next eight months.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAustralia, WTF?

From Down Under … and slightly to the right of OZ

Why did Australia vote No in the Voice referendum?

I’m in Sydney for the Voice referendum result and was ready to settle in and watch the declarations for each state – but it’s already over. No looks to have won, by a pretty big margin. Tasmania voted No and New South Wales seems to have gone the same way. Both were swing states. If those two voted heavily for No, then it’s likely that it has won by a landslide. Similarly, No is way ahead in Victoria and is likely to win by a large margin when counting begins in Western Australia. So, an ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice’ will not added to Australia’s democratic apparatus. Aussies have voted to protect the principle of everyone being equal before the law and in parliament.

And from New Zealand … slightly to the right of OZ

New Zealand: out with the old, in with the new

With Christopher Luxon now the next New Zealand Prime Minister and a majority about to be formed in Parliament via a coalition with the Act Party and its very inspiring speaker and leader, David Seymour, there is little doubt that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

New Zealand First may jump on this bandwagon too and why wouldn’t they?

With Labour and the Greens having plummeted in the results, the dream, or rather, cauchemar, of their coalition has been rightly thrown under a bus.

h/t TB Canucklehead and a few others.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAustralia, New Zealand

Australia’s night of infamy

Awakening to news on my X feed of 40 babies being beheaded by Hamas animals at a kibbutz in southern Israel was beyond shocking.

It deepens my sense of shame as an Australian that supporters of this were allowed to chant ‘gas the Jews, f**k the Jews’ on the steps of the Opera House on Monday night.

Forty babies. Beheaded. Allahu Akbar.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAustralia, Hamas

Canada calls on Israel to reverse thousands of West Bank settlement approvals

The Canadian government has joined a chorus of allies condemning Israel’s approval of more than 5,700 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, a move that comes amid surging violence in the region.

In a joint statement with her Australian and U.K. counterparts Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says she is gravely concerned by the move.

“The continued expansion of settlements is an obstacle to peace and negatively impacts efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution,” says the statement.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAustralia, Canada, Israel, UK

Over 17,000 weapons surrendered in first year of Australian firearms amnesty

Retrieved weapons include a Vietnam war-era flamethrower, sawn-off shotguns, rifles, gel blasters and revolvers

More than 17,000 weapons, including a Vietnam war-era flamethrower, were surrendered in the first year of Australia’s national permanent firearms amnesty.

States and territories struck an agreement with the Commonwealth in 2019 to establish an enduring amnesty allowing gun owners to hand in unregistered, illegal, or unwanted firearms without punishment or investigation.

The amnesty began in mid-2021, after Covid-related delays, aiming to claw back some of the roughly 260,000 illicit firearms thought to be in circulation in Australia.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAustralia, Gun Control, Gun Rights