Australia

A Chinese national accused of covertly collecting information about a Canberra Buddhist association on behalf of a foreign principal has been charged by the AFP under the Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce (CFITF).

The woman appeared in ACT Magistrates Court today (4 August, 2025), to face one count of reckless foreign interference, contrary to section 92.3 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment.

The AFP arrested and charged the woman on Saturday (2 August, 2025), after executing search warrants at homes in Canberra.

During the searches, a number of items, including electronic devices, were seized and will undergo forensic examination.

[...]

It is the third time a foreign interference offence has been laid in Australia since new laws were introduced by the Commonwealth in 2018, and the first time relating to alleged community interference. A Victorian man was charged in November 2020, while a NSW man was charged in April 2023.

[...]

“Foreign interference is a serious crime that undermines democracy and social cohesion,” [AFP Counter Terrorism and Special Investigations Assistant Commissioner Stephen] Nutt said.

“As with other like-minded countries, Australia is not immune to foreign interference, and we should not expect that this arrest will prevent further attempts to target our diaspora communities.

“At a time of permanent regional contest, offenders will attempt to spy on individuals, groups and institutions in Australia.

[...]

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said he was proud of the significant contribution ASIO has made to this matter.

“Foreign interference of the kind alleged is an appalling assault on Australian values, freedoms and sovereignty,” Director-General Burgess said.

“In this year’s Annual Threat Assessment, I called out these types of activities and put perpetrators on notice by stating, ‘we are watching, and we have zero tolerance’.

“Anyone who thinks it is acceptable to monitor, intimidate and potentially repatriate members of our diaspora communities should never underestimate our capabilities and resolve.”

[...]

Meet Robert Thomson. CEO of News Corporation.

The right-hand man Rupert Murdoch.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/australia-s-highest-paid-chief-executive-has-just-landed-a-new-deal-20250623-p5m9i9.html

The Australian. The Herald Sun. The Daily Telegraph. The Courrier Mail. The New York Post. Skynews. The Adelaide Advertiser. The Wall Street Journal. The Time. The Sunday Times. The Sun. The New York Post. Fox News.

In wealthy business circles, it's a well-known fact that you don't cross Robert Thomson. You don't. Because he can destroy you. It doesn't matter who you are.

Look at what he did to Gordon Brown.

Late yesterday it became clear that a full-scale assault on the privacy of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was under way for almost a decade during Labour's time in office. The trawl for private data wasn't confined to the News of the World.

At least two other Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers, The Sun and The Sunday Times, have been accused of participating.

Perhaps the worst example came when medical records concerning his older son, Fraser, were obtained by The Sun, edited at the time by News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks

https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/01/how-phone-hacking-brought-gordon-brown-tears

Oh? Rebekah Brooks? The woman that bribed police officers?

Yeah. She was actually promoted by News Corp

www.news.co.uk/abouet-news-uk/people/rebekah-brooks/

She was in Sydney recently. That's the kind of senior executives that Robert Thomson surrounds himself with. He also uses former spooks.

Malcom Turnbull and Kevin Rudd describe him a formidable political force.

Every Billionaire has a henchman. Someone ready to do the most vile and wicked things. Robert Thomson is Rupert Murdoch's personal henchman. And he is lavishly rewarded for his loyalty. He is the highest paid CEO in Australia.

So far I've found:

Hiatus kayote (phychedelic jazz funk)

The Steppers (funky slight phych to it, fun live)

Alyson rae (pop funk)

Laneous (I don't really know where he fits but it's got something. Sad clown neo soul?)

Play lunch ( chillipeppers flavor)

Kaiit(funky neo soul)

Squid nebula (phychedelic funk)

Anything else I should be checking out. I lean more jazz/hiphop/gospel/neo soul than I do phychedelia.

Let's get a playlist going!

To ensure compliance with upcoming Australian government regulations, Chinwag services qualifying as “social media” will have a minimum age restriction of 18 years for account holders, going forward. A verification process may be required for new accounts on creation, or retroactively for existing accounts if flagged. We will be working with a number of third-party age verification partners to implement our processes, many of whom have been operating in this space for a very long time.

If your account with a Chinwag service is flagged for verification, we are going to need you to bring us a bottle of gin (henceforth referred to as a “verification token” or “token”).

As the supply and sale of alcohol in Australia is well regulated and familiar to most citizens, we expect that this will pose a minimum of technical challenge to our users. Any of our age verification partners (such as Dan Murphy’s) will be more than capable of validating any person as over the age of 18 years and should have a readily available supply of verification tokens acceptable to Chinwag Communications, the possession of which will be considered as evidence that the account holder is a legal adult.

The work is scholarly, but the straight-talking Australian can also be direct, such as when setting out how a global collapse could be avoided. “Don’t be a dick” is one of the solutions proposed,

Well, we do keep electing those that would make it worse, so perhaps we're as "guilty" as they are ?

The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/25479430

She moved to Moscow from Miami in 2019 — before Mr Putin's new scheme was introduced — seeking to escape racism in the United States.

Earlier this month, the Black woman took to social media with a bloodied face, saying she'd been attacked by bigoted neighbours

In a video uploaded on Instagram this month, Ms Villa says her neighbours changed the locks to her apartment and cut off her electricity.

A 2021 report by Amnesty International said "violent racism" was "out of control" in Russia.

It said attacks, including killings, were reported with "shocking regularity" and that "anyone who does not look typically Russian" was at risk.

Also talks of the Texas family posted elsewhere in here. Still alive ... Apparently.

A newly discovered stick insect which weighs slightly less than a golf ball may be the heaviest insect in Australia, scientists say.

The 40cm-long new species, named Acrophylla alta, was found in the high altitudes of the Atherton tablelands in north Queensland – and scientists said the habitat could be part of the reason for its large size.

Signal president Meredith Whittaker is prepared to withdraw the privacy-focused messaging app from Australia — saying she hopes it doesn’t become a “gangrenous foot” by poisoning its entire platform by forcing it to hand over its users’ encrypted data to authorities.

Ms Whittaker says Signal would take the “drastic step” of leaving any market where a government compelled it to create a “backdoor” to access its data, saying it would create a vulnerability that hackers and authoritative regimes could exploit, undermining Signals’ “reason for existing”.

Pressure has been mounting on Signal and other secure messaging platforms. ASIO director general Mike Burgess has urged tech companies to unlock encrypted messages to assist terrorism and national security investigations, saying offshore extremists use such platforms to communicate.

archive.today

It looks like they chose August 1st as a date to disable access to the old interface. I'm very sad, I really don't like the new one:

• Padding everywhere (touchscreen-shique, even for things you can't tap on like paragraphs)
• Bigger text on narrower text columns (a LOT more scrolling)
• News articles arranged left-right as well as up-down (not as nice to navigate as a single list).
• News articles summaries/blurbs often just one sentence, far too little. I have to click on a lot more articles now to even find out what they're about. (I worry this is an engagement metric that makes them think the new interface is working better).
• Defaults to only showing you articles for your state. This makes me really uncomfortable (is the average person only expected to care about what happens in their state?).

/vent