‘This is unacceptable’: Australia slams ‘malicious’ Russian acts

AUSTRALIA has joined in an extraordinary public slapdown of Russia over its “malicious” actions towards other countries.

By

Sam Clench@SamClench

THE Australian Government has slammed Russia for committing “malicious” acts against the rest of the world.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne joined with the United Kingdom today to blame the Russian military intelligence unit, the GRU, for a wave of global cyber attacks.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt accused Russia of perpetrating “indiscriminate and reckless” attacks against businesses, political institutions, media and even sport organisations, citing evidence from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.

Australia’s own intelligence agencies have reached the same conclusion.

“Based on advice from Australian intelligence agencies, and in consultation with our partners and allies, the Australian Government has determined that the Russian military and their intelligence arm the GRU are responsible for this pattern of malicious cyber activity,” Mr Morrison and Ms Payne said in a joint statement.

They admitted Australia had not been significantly impacted by Russia’s actions — unlike several other nations.

“This activity affected the ability of the public in other parts of the world to go about their daily lives. It caused significant, indiscriminate harm to civilian infrastructure and resulted in millions of dollars in economic damage.

“This is unacceptable and the Australian Government calls on all countries, including Russia, to refrain from these types of malicious activities.”

The GRU has been linked to four separate attacks.

It stole content from email accounts belonging to a British TV station, hacked and then released the confidential medical records of international athletes, hacked the Democratic National Committee in the United States, and infected computers in Ukraine and Russia with BadRabbit ransomware, which disrupted businesses and infrastructure.

“Cyberspace is not the Wild West. The international community — including Russia — has agreed that international law and norms of responsible state behaviour apply in cyberspace. By embarking on a pattern of malicious cyber behaviour, Russia has shown a total disregard for the agreements it helped to negotiate,” the statement from Mr Morrison and Ms Payne said.

“Australia is working with allies and partners to improve co-operative global responses to malicious cyber activity that undermines international security and global economic stability. At home, the Australian Government has invested in world-leading cyber security systems to help deter, detect and manage cyber incidents, together with domestic and international partners.”

Australian Ambassador for Cyber Affairs Dr Tobias Feakin said Russia’s actions were completely out of bounds.

“We’ve very, very sure that it is them who have conducted this array of activity in the international arena. So we feel the evidence base is firm,” he told Sky News.

Riot squad to escort council workers to Islamic leader's alleged illegal land clearing site: court

By Kathleen Calderwood ABC News

Posted 20 Aug 2018, 4:29pm

Dashcam vision of Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali (right) and another man during a visit to the property by council officers in July.

Council workers visiting a rural property in Sydney's north-west used by a religious group were told police needed the riot squad and a Polair helicopter when accompanying them due to safety concerns, a court has heard.

Hawkesbury City Council has launched civil action against Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali and Diaa Kara-Ali in the Land and Environment Court, alleging the men carried out illegal land clearing, earthworks and built gates, fences and driveways without seeking any of the relevant development approvals at a property in Colo, in Sydney's north west.

Mustapha Kara-Ali, a former member of then-prime minister John Howard's Muslim Community Reference Group and past postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, is the Imam of religious guild Diwan Al Dawla, which he founded.

In a letter by Dr Kara-Ali to council staff, tendered in the court documents, he said the members of his guild live "separated from secular lifestyles to pursue a religious mode of worship and an ascetic lifestyle under an oath of self-sacrifice and dedication to the purposes of Diwan Al Dawla".

The letter said the Colo property was used "for the carrying out of religious activities of devotion, self-discipline, ritual baptism, inter-community prayers, contemplation and religious study".

The matter was set down for a two-day hearing starting today, but neither of the men attended court and there was no lawyer there to represent them.

The hearing has continued without them and it is alleged development on the site has continued despite the court proceedings and repeated requests from council for them to stop.

Lawyer for the council, Mark Cottom, told the court a council officer had requested police accompany them on a site inspection of the property, because they might have required forced entry.

"The police appear to have significant concerns in relation to safety … wishing to have the riot squad and Polair available," Mr Cottom said.

Mr Cottom tendered evidence that council officers had seen construction of a barn and shed had begun on the property.

He also tendered photos of two manufactured homes that have allegedly been moved onto the site.

The court heard earlier this month a council worker, Gary Collins, went to the property where he saw a number of flag poles had been installed and were flying flags that appeared to be for Diwan Al Dawla and Southern Chariot Stud.

Mr Collins approached two men who were moving earth and building a shed at the site and was told by one of them that he was building the shed, as instructed by Mustapha and Diaa Kara-Ali.

According to Mr Collins's affidavit, when told about the issues with the site, the builder replied, "Now I know why they were hassling me and in such a rush to get the shed up".

In evidence to the court, Mr Collins said he had visited the property in the past week and saw people measuring a concrete slab and some metal framework on top of the slab.

Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali

In correspondence with the council, tendered to court, Dr Kara-Ali claimed his organisation was exempt from Australian law because it was classed as a basic religious charity.

However, this claim is not supported by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.

 However,

Hawkesbury City Council has successfully prosecuted Mustapha Kara-Ali, Diaa Kara Ali and Southern Chariot Stud Pty Ltd at the Land and Environment Court with the Orders of the Court handed down on Monday, 27 August 2018. The full Orders of the Court are attached.

The Orders of the Court will be served upon the respondents by the Land and Environment Court due to their lack of attendance at the Court on Monday, 27 August 2018.

Council officers attended the Colo site on many occasions with the initial visit being in October 2017. Officers issued several Notices and Orders under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act for development carried out without consent. However, the owners continued to carry out earthworks, land clearing and building on the property.

Due to the lack of regard for planning legislation and the scale and high environmental impact of the illegal works undertaken at the property, Council sought to prosecute the property owners at the Land and Environment Court.

At the Land and Environment Court on Monday, 27 August 2018, the Orders of the Court were that:

• All further works earthworks, building works, fencing, and other works cease
• All works that have been carried out are to be either removed/demolished or restored; this includes all buildings, flag poles, fencing, gates, sheds, boat ramp and works by the river, septic tanks and demountable buildings
• Engineering, landscape and revegetation plans from qualified experts, for the restoration and rehabilitation of the site, to be provided to Council
• The Respondents are to pay Hawkesbury City Council the cost of legal proceedings.

The Court Order has requested that these works are complied with, within certain timeframes, and Council Compliance officers will monitor these actions to ensure that they are complied with. If the orders are not complied with, Council will seek additional legal advice to have the matter brought back before the Land and Environment Court for further determination.

Inside China's capital punishment system of forced confessions and secret executions

By China correspondent Matthew Carney ABC News

Zhu Jingru visits the gravesite of her son, who was executed almost a decade ago.

China likes to present itself as an alternative model to lead the world in development and governance, but critics say its justice system still has a very long way to go.

More people are executed in China each year than in the rest of the world combined, and it is believed some of them are being wrongly convicted because of fundamental flaws in the justice system.

The ABC has obtained secret mobile phone video of one execution that took place in northern China.

In the video, a man is taken into a field. Surrounded by dozens of security personnel, he is forced to kneel — and is then shot in the back of the head.

Families only find out after loved ones executed

Executions in China are classified as state secrets. Names of the people killed are not released, and families only find out after their loved ones have been put to death.

Zhen Lin is one of the few people inside China working to advocate against the death penalty.

She works for a small non-government organisation called China Against the Death Penalty.

"Our estimate, sourced from court judgement documents and related media reports, says 2,000 [people] were given the death penalty in the last year," she said.

"And that is a very conservative estimate."

At a cemetery in Jiangsu province in Eastern China, Zhu Jingru is inconsolable at her son's gravesite.

Her pain is very great, as she believes her son was wrongfully convicted and executed for a murder that he did not commit.

Slumped over the gravestone and wiping back tears, Zhu Jingru tells her dead son: "Mum is here to visit you, my poor child."

"Mum and Dad will definitely seek justice for you, my child, wait for us."

Ms Zhu has devoted her life to clearing the name of her son, Yu Haidong, who was executed almost a decade ago on October 14, 2008.

She has obtained the original police interview transcripts and says the evidence speaks for itself.

She says her son was not present when the murder he was accused of took place after an argument in a bar.

Ms Zhu says her son's organs were harvested

Yu had gone to support a friend, but when he turned up at the scene, the crime had already been committed, Ms Zhu says.

Ms Zhu claims the police found a knife in Yu's car and used that to frame him for the murder.

According to the police forensic investigation, the real murder weapon was a much larger knife, more like a machete.

"They didn't find any bloodstain on his knife, there was no bloodstain on him," Ms Zhu said.

"They found none of the victim's DNA on him. They had no evidence."

The Chinese courts have refused Ms Zhu's repeated requests for a retrial.

Ms Zhu says it is a cover-up because the real killer paid a bribe to the judge, and because her son's organs were harvested.

"We demanded to see the remains of my son, but the court refused," she said.

"His father was a surgeon, we wanted to see whether my child's body was intact.

"They only gave us a slip of paper to collect his ashes the next day. It means they took his organs.

"My son was 28 when he died, he was tall at 1.8 metres and handsome. They would sell his organs easily. It's is a great catastrophe, we have lost our only child."

Confessions often coerced or extracted under torture

China banned the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners in 2015, but fundamental changes to the justice system still have to take place to stop the innocent being executed.

Experts say a confession, not evidence, is still the primary way to secure a conviction, and often that's coerced or extracted under torture. Once in court, there's little chance of a fair trial, and 99 per cent of cases are convicted.

Zhen Lin from China Against the Death Penalty said quotas also have to be reduced.

"At present there's still a focus on the rate of solving cases and the fulfilling [of] quotas.

"For example, for drug-related crimes they promise how many cases they'll solve in a year, how many drugs they'll destroy and how many will be convicted and executed."

Zhen Lin said the system has actually improved when you consider the number of executions has dropped from 10,000 a year a decade ago, and there have been some reforms.

Now, all death penalty cases have to be reviewed by a higher court — but she says much more has to be done.

"Thirteen types of crimes for the death sentence have been abolished, but China still has 46 types of crimes for capital punishment," she said.

"We are pushing for non-violent crimes and drug-related crimes to be excluded too."

But that's no relief for Ms Zhu, who said she wants justice to be served on behalf of her son.

"I want the truth to be restored and I want those in the circle of the police, the prosecutors and the judges who were corrupted and abused the laws, who were involved in falsification and who fabricated the facts in my son's case, to be severely punished," she said.

"This is my demand, it's hard to say whether it can be achieved."

Reincarnation evidence given by spiritual healer in defamation trial

Serge Isaac Benhayon  

The Daily Telegraph

September 6, 2018 12:27pm

A NSW spiritual healer suing an ex-client for defamation has told a jury people who abused their authority, such as Roman emperor Nero, dictators and corrupt politicians, are reincarnated as disabled children.

Serge Isaac Benhayon on Thursday claimed such abusers were reincarnated as people with autism, Down syndrome or other disabilities — but he admitted his belief was not supported by medical science.

Mr Benhayon, the founder of Lismore-based Universal Medicine, contends the blog contained defamatory meanings, including that he was a sexual predator and the leader of a cult.

Ms Rockett has pleaded a range of defences, including truth and honest opinion.

On Wednesday Mr Benhayon told a court that most people have lived at least 2300 lives and he is the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci.

Mr Benhayon testified that he received information about past lives by accessing the “ageless wisdom”, and he was a female author in his most recent former life.

Mr Benhayon said on Wednesday he felt Ms Rockett had “basically crossed every line” and attempted to demolish his reputation when he first sawher blog post about him.

“You feel raped. You feel that you’ve been stripped,” he said.

He said Ms Rockett’s claims definitely were not true and he was taking her to court to protect his reputation and because he strongly believed in having a fair and decent society.

His barrister has contended Ms Rockett’s blog contained defamatory meanings, including that his client was the leader of a socially harmful cult, a sexual predator, had indecently touched her in the treatment room, preys on cancer patients and is delusional.

The defamation trial continues.

Controversy erupts over photo of union heavyweight’s children

Mr Setka posted this photo. His children’s faces were not blurred in the original.

EVEN the Prime Minister has publicly denounced this photo of two young children, saying it makes his “skin crawl”.

By Sam Clench News.com.au

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has angrily denounced a controversial social media post by union heavyweight John Setka, saying it made his “skin crawl”.

Yesterday Mr Setka, the Victorian secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), posted a photo of his son and daughter holding up a sign directed at the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and its boss, Stephen McBurney.

“GO GET FU#KED,” the sign read.

“Message to McBurney & ABCC: ‘LEAVE OUR DADS ALONE AND GO CATCH REAL CRIMINALS YOU COWARDS!!’

 Happy Father’s Day to all the CFMEU dads today!” Mr Setka said in the accompanying tweet.

Mr Morrison leapt on the post during an interview with 2GB radio this morning, berating Mr Setka and talking up his ties to the Labor Party.

“The CFMEU under John Setka has behaved like a bunch of thugs. And to involve his children in that, I think, is one of the ugliest things I’ve seen,” the Prime Minister said.

“You know, when you see children being used in these sorts of protests, and we saw it in some of those horrific things in relation to the protests around terrorism, this kind of stuff just makes your skin crawl.”

Mr Morrison tried to draw Bill Shorten into the story as well, accusing the Opposition leader of being “led” by unions like the CMFEU.

“What I can’t understand is, this is a bloke the Labor Party gives life membership to and holds parades for. This guy shouldn’t have a parade, he should be paraded out of the place,” he said.

“If Bill Shorten is fair dinkum about anything, then he must cease all ties between the Labor Party and himself and John Setka and the CMFEU out of decency, let alone anything else.

“Bill Shorten’s got his arms all around John Setka. And John Setka has his arms all around Bill Shorten.

“Bill Shorten is union bred, union fed and union led, and that’s how he would run Australia.”

Asked whether he would consider deregistering the CMFEU, Mr Morrison said “of course” he would, and indicated he would discuss the possibility with the Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations, Kelly O’Dwyer.

Ms O’Dwyer herself has also slammed Mr Setka, telling The Australian he is “supposed to be the tough guy of the union movement, but uses his children to fight his fights”.

“It is beyond the pale. I am disgusted that any father would use his children in such an obscene way to attack a regulator for doing their job,” she said.

Mr Setka initially responded to the controversy by taking aim at Mr McBurney last night, saying he “wouldn’t know justice if it slapped him in the face while every day children like mine lose a brother, sister, mother or father due to unsafe work sites”.

This afternoon, facing a rising backlash, he deleted the photo and apologised.

Mother's heartbreak inspires effort to raise awareness of accidental prescription drug overdose

ABC Radio Sydney 

By Harriet Tatham

A Sydney woman whose son died of an accidental overdose of prescription medication is urging people to ask questions about the drugs their doctors prescribe.

In 2016, Daniel Bogart was on a skiing holiday in Canada with six of his friends.

On Christmas Day, he didn't wake up.

"He was perfectly fine before he went to bed," Daniel's mother, Sally Wilkinson, said.

"And he literally went to bed and never woke up."

At age 40, Daniel was prescribed Valium for anxiety and oxycodone to treat the pain of pancreatitis, a condition developed from alcohol use.

Oxycodone is a common opioid medication; Valium is a benzodiazepine, or benzo, often prescribed to treat insomnia or anxiety.

Together, the combination can be lethal.

"I thought overdose meant you took too much," Mrs Wilkinson said.

"All the medication he took was at sub-therapeutic levels, which means they're at or below the correct dosage."

Dr Meredith Craigie, the Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and NZ College of Anaesthetists, said the risk was caused by the drugs depressing the central nervous system.

"The risk is related to the added sedation that we get from both medications, and when added together they can have powerful effects on breathing and making people stop breathing," she said.

"If you're heavily sedated with another drug, it may be that the brain simply doesn't wake you up to start breathing again."

After Daniel's death, Mrs Wilkinson went in search for answers.

"I did read his medical records and there were conversations about his ongoing battle with alcohol, and there was no mention at all of any risk with having combined the two different drugs," she said.

And stories like Daniel's are on the rise.

Accidental drug deaths involving prescriptions on the rise

The Annual Overdose Report, commissioned by not-for-profit public health research organisation the Penington Institute, showed a surge in drug-related deaths in all states in the years up to 2016.

This includes a doubling of deaths related to the use of sleeping and anxiety medication (benzodiazepines).

Another recent report from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found of the 1,109 people who died of an opioid overdose in 2016, three-quarters had taken prescription opioids, 45 per cent had mixed opioids with benzos, and 83 per cent of deaths were considered accidental.

Mrs Wilkinson said there was a clear need for greater awareness.

"[Daniel] told me he was taking some pain medication but I didn't know what it was, and to be honest I knew nothing about opioids.

"I did talk to him about the Valium and said to him, 'that can be addictive,' but he said, 'yeah, look that's fine, I'm not taking it very often, only if I really need it', and I didn't realise there was any issue with combination.

"And that's the only reason that I'm speaking up now.

"It's obviously still a really heartbreaking situation but we need to have the awareness raised, we need to let people know to empower them and ask their doctors more questions and to be aware that this is a real problem which does and can happen a lot."

Awareness needed for doctors and patients

Dr Craigie said while GPs should be aware of the risk of taking opioid and benzodiazepine medications at the same time, there was still work to do.

"It's certainly being highlighted in medical journals, but I think when you're familiar with medications and you're familiar with your patients, it might be easy [for doctors] to say, 'oh, but my patient needs this for this reason and needs that for that reason'."

And she said a lack of affordable allied health services might lead doctors to prescribe medication rather than offering long-term treatments like psychological therapies.

"It might be [that] we don't have a suitable allied health team that can help managing with this patient, or it might be that this patient can't afford those services in the private sector, because a lot of people that live with chronic pain have financial difficulties as well."

In July 2017 the Federal Government committed $16 million to the rollout of real-time monitoring of prescription drugs.

The system is expected to provide an instant alert to pharmacists and doctors if patients receive multiple supplies of dangerous prescription-only medicines.

Dr Craigie said while the monitoring would not change all cases, it should make some difference.

"Any system like that, it needs to be national, it needs to be mandatory, and we need to get information from interstate.

"That's part of the solution."

August 31 marks International Overdose Awareness Day.