Australian Police Raids Target News Media Over Leaked Documents - The New York Times

SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian Federal Police raided the Sydney offices of Australia’s public broadcaster on Wednesday, apparently in connection with an article published in 2017 about Australian special forces being investigated over possible war crimes in Afghanistan.

The raid of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s offices came a day after the same agency searched the home, computer and cellphone of a journalist who reported on secret correspondence between government ministries over a plan to expand intelligence agencies’ surveillance powers. The police said the two raids were not related.

John Lyons, the executive editor of ABC News and the head of its investigative journalism unit, said on Twitter that the police had arrived at ABC’s headquarters with a search warrant that named three journalists. “We’ll be taking material with us. It will be sealed,” he quoted one of the officers as saying.

AFP arriving at ABC. Not sure “welcome” is quite the right word. pic.twitter.com/oRVng3bH2x

— John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) June 5, 2019

The federal police said the raid was connected to allegations of publishing classified material, saying they had received a referral on July 11, 2017, from the Australian military and the then-defense secretary. On that date, ABC published “The Afghan Files,” an article based on leaked military documents that detailed clandestine Australian operations in Afghanistan, including cases in which children and unarmed men were killed.

It is against the law in Australia for government officials to disclose classified or secret information. That allows the police to investigate leaks to journalists.

ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, said in a statement that it was “highly unusual for the national broadcaster to be raided in this way.”

“This is a serious development and raises legitimate concerns over freedom of the press and proper public scrutiny of national security and defense matters,” he said. “The ABC stands by its journalists, will protect its sources and continue to report without fear or favor on national security and intelligence issues when there is a clear public interest.”

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The journalist whose home was raided on Tuesday, Annika Smethurst, is the political editor of The Sunday Telegraph of Sydney, one of Australia’s most-read newspapers. She was at her residence in Canberra, the capital, on Tuesday morning when Australian Federal Police officers arrived with a warrant to search her house and belongings.

The police said in a statement that the warrant was related “to the alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security.”

Image

The police on Tuesday raided the home of Annika Smethurst, the political editor of The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney.

Asked about the raid on Tuesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “It never troubles me that our laws are being upheld.”

The raid on Ms. Smethurst’s home was believed to be the first such action against an Australian journalist in more than a decade. The Australian union for journalists, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, called it “an outrageous attack on press freedom.”

“Australians are entitled to know what their governments do in their name,” the union’s president, Marcus Strom, said in a statement. “That clearly includes plans by government agencies to digitally spy on Australians by hacking into our emails, bank accounts and text messages.”

The Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp. Australia, the parent company of The Sunday Telegraph, said that Ms. Smethurst had complied with the warrant. News Corp. called the raid “outrageous and heavy-handed.”

In April 2018, Ms. Smethurst reported that a top-secret proposal to expand the powers of the Australian Signals Directorate, the equivalent of the National Security Agency in the United States, was to be submitted for ministerial approval. She wrote that the proposal would allow “cyber spooks to target onshore threats without the country’s top law officer knowing.”

In the article, she quoted Mike Pezzullo, then the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, as advocating “further legislative reform” to help law enforcement agencies combat “online, cybercrime and cyber-enabled criminal threats facing Australia.”

Under current law, the signals directorate cannot gather intelligence on Australian citizens. But the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the country’s domestic spy agency, have the power to do so with a warrant. They can also turn to the signals directorate for technical guidance.

Since the article was published, there has been no formal government proposal for legislative amendments on the issue.

While the police are allowed to investigate leaks to journalists, members of the news media do have some recourse. Legislation passed in recent years gives journalists protection from having to disclose their sources. But courts can decide that the public interest in learning the identities of sources outweighs any adverse effect of disclosure.

After the raid on Ms. Smethurst’s home was reported, an Australian talk radio host, Ben Fordham, told listeners that his executive producer had been contacted by the Department of Home Affairs after he said on the air that several boats full of asylum seekers had tried to come to Australia from Sri Lanka, citing a source he did not identify.

He said the department told his producer it had begun an investigation, targeting his source. “The chances of me revealing my source are zero,” Mr. Fordham told his listeners.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/world/australia/journalist-raid-annika-smethurst.html

2019-06-05 06:03:37Z
CAIiEHKm043m3LlJp-c7nZ3Xo2sqFwgEKg8IACoHCAowjuuKAzCWrzww5oEY

Alleged Darwin gunman arrested after shooting rampage leaves four dead – video - The Guardian

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1. Alleged Darwin gunman arrested after shooting rampage leaves four dead – video  The Guardian
2. At least four dead, two more injured after Australian gunman goes on shooting spree: reports  Fox News
3. Darwin shooting: Four killed, one injured, as 45yo alleged gunman arrested | ABC News  ABC News
4. Police release details about the four victims shot dead in Darwin mass shooting  NT News
5. At least 4 dead in shooting in Darwin, Australia  CBS News
6. View full coverage on Google News

https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2019/jun/05/alleged-darwin-gunman-arrested-after-shooting-rampage-leaves-four-dead-video

2019-06-05 02:43:00Z
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Qantas To Fly Nonstop From Australia To Chicago - One Mile at a Time

Earlier I wrote about how the joint venture between American & Qantas was conditionally approved today. This is something that the two airlines have been hoping to get approved for years now, so the fact that this finally came through is big news.

However, in order to justify this joint venture, they had to prove to the Department of Transportation that this would be in the best interest of consumers. As part of that, American and Qantas said that they’d launch up to three additional new routes between Australia and the US in the next two years, in addition to increasing capacity on existing routes.

While these routes have been rumored for quite a while, Qantas has now confirmed what they will be.

Qantas will launch nonstop flights from Brisbane to both Chicago and San Francisco in the next two years. They say they’ll do this once they’re given final approval from the DOT for the joint venture.

Qantas’ 787-9 business class

These two flights are pretty significant:

• Qantas already flies from Melbourne and Sydney to San Francisco, so adding a third destination from the Bay Area is impressive; San Francisco is a huge market, and on top of that Qantas has a partnership with Alaska, which provides them feed to & from SFO
• A Brisbane to Chicago flight would cover a distance of nearly 9,000 miles, and would be just about 100 miles shorter than Qantas’ Perth to London flight; this would be the world’s fourth longest flight

Both of these routes would be operated by 787s. Qantas currently has eight 787-9s in their fleet, with a further six to be delivered in the next couple of years. Presumably they’d need a couple of additional 787s to launch either of those routes, unless they shuffle around their current network.

You might be wondering why Qantas would operate their Chicago flight from Brisbane rather than Sydney. Well, the flight to Sydney would be about 330 miles longer, and at ~9,230 miles, that’s a stretch for the 787-9, especially with the headwinds we often see across the Pacific.

As far as additional routes go, in the past Qantas has talked about launching nonstop flights to Seattle. While that hasn’t been mentioned this time around, I imagine it’s something that’s on their radar.

Qantas’ 787-9 premium economy

Bottom line

While I’m generally against the expansion of joint ventures — especially in markets where there’s already not enough competition — we may see some good new routes and capacity increases come from this.

The question is whether Qantas would have launched these routes otherwise. There’s no denying that both American and Qantas have intentionally scaled back transpacific flights in order to make a compelling case to the DOT, so even if they saw a business case for either of these routes without a joint venture, they absolutely would have waited.

What do you make of Qantas launching Brisbane to Chicago & San Francisco flights?

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https://onemileatatime.com/qantas-brisbane-chicago/

2019-06-04 12:05:02Z
CBMiM2h0dHBzOi8vb25lbWlsZWF0YXRpbWUuY29tL3FhbnRhcy1icmlzYmFuZS1jaGljYWdvL9IBAA

Qantas To Fly Nonstop From Australia To Chicago - One Mile at a Time

Earlier I wrote about how the joint venture between American & Qantas was conditionally approved today. This is something that the two airlines have been hoping to get approved for years now, so the fact that this finally came through is big news.

However, in order to justify this joint venture, they had to prove to the Department of Transportation that this would be in the best interest of consumers. As part of that, American and Qantas said that they’d launch up to three additional new routes between Australia and the US in the next two years, in addition to increasing capacity on existing routes.

While these routes have been rumored for quite a while, Qantas has now confirmed what they will be.

Qantas will launch nonstop flights from Brisbane to both Chicago and San Francisco in the next two years. They say they’ll do this once they’re given final approval from the DOT for the joint venture.

Qantas’ 787-9 business class

These two flights are pretty significant:

• Qantas already flies from Melbourne and Sydney to San Francisco, so adding a third destination from the Bay Area is impressive; San Francisco is a huge market, and on top of that Qantas has a partnership with Alaska, which provides them feed to & from SFO
• A Brisbane to Chicago flight would cover a distance of nearly 9,000 miles, and would be just about 100 miles shorter than Qantas’ Perth to London flight; this would be the world’s fourth longest flight

Both of these routes would be operated by 787s. Qantas currently has eight 787-9s in their fleet, with a further six to be delivered in the next couple of years. Presumably they’d need a couple of additional 787s to launch either of those routes, unless they shuffle around their current network.

You might be wondering why Qantas would operate their Chicago flight from Brisbane rather than Sydney. Well, the flight to Sydney would be about 330 miles longer, and at ~9,230 miles, that’s a stretch for the 787-9, especially with the headwinds we often see across the Pacific.

As far as additional routes go, in the past Qantas has talked about launching nonstop flights to Seattle. While that hasn’t been mentioned this time around, I imagine it’s something that’s on their radar.

Qantas’ 787-9 premium economy

Bottom line

While I’m generally against the expansion of joint ventures — especially in markets where there’s already not enough competition — we may see some good new routes and capacity increases come from this.

The question is whether Qantas would have launched these routes otherwise. There’s no denying that both American and Qantas have intentionally scaled back transpacific flights in order to make a compelling case to the DOT, so even if they saw a business case for either of these routes without a joint venture, they absolutely would have waited.

What do you make of Qantas launching Brisbane to Chicago & San Francisco flights?

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https://onemileatatime.com/qantas-brisbane-chicago/

2019-06-04 11:22:47Z
CBMiM2h0dHBzOi8vb25lbWlsZWF0YXRpbWUuY29tL3FhbnRhcy1icmlzYmFuZS1jaGljYWdvL9IBAA

Qantas To Fly Nonstop From Australia To Chicago - One Mile at a Time

Earlier I wrote about how the joint venture between American & Qantas was conditionally approved today. This is something that the two airlines have been hoping to get approved for years now, so the fact that this finally came through is big news.

However, in order to justify this joint venture, they had to prove to the Department of Transportation that this would be in the best interest of consumers. As part of that, American and Qantas said that they’d launch up to three additional new routes between Australia and the US in the next two years, in addition to increasing capacity on existing routes.

While these routes have been rumored for quite a while, Qantas has now confirmed what they will be.

Qantas will launch nonstop flights from Brisbane to both Chicago and San Francisco in the next two years. They say they’ll do this once they’re given final approval from the DOT for the joint venture.

Qantas’ 787-9 business class

These two flights are pretty significant:

• Qantas already flies from Melbourne and Sydney to San Francisco, so adding a third destination from the Bay Area is impressive; San Francisco is a huge market, and on top of that Qantas has a partnership with Alaska, which provides them feed to & from SFO
• A Brisbane to Chicago flight would cover a distance of nearly 9,000 miles, and would be just about 100 miles shorter than Qantas’ Perth to London flight; this would be the world’s fourth longest flight

Both of these routes would be operated by 787s. Qantas currently has eight 787-9s in their fleet, with a further six to be delivered in the next couple of years. Presumably they’d need a couple of additional 787s to launch either of those routes, unless they shuffle around their current network.

You might be wondering why Qantas would operate their Chicago flight from Brisbane rather than Sydney. Well, the flight to Sydney would be about 330 miles longer, and at ~9,230 miles, that’s a stretch for the 787-9, especially with the headwinds we often see across the Pacific.

As far as additional routes go, in the past Qantas has talked about launching nonstop flights to Seattle. While that hasn’t been mentioned this time around, I imagine it’s something that’s on their radar.

Qantas’ 787-9 premium economy

Bottom line

While I’m generally against the expansion of joint ventures — especially in markets where there’s already not enough competition — we may see some good new routes and capacity increases come from this.

The question is whether Qantas would have launched these routes otherwise. There’s no denying that both American and Qantas have intentionally scaled back transpacific flights in order to make a compelling case to the DOT, so even if they saw a business case for either of these routes without a joint venture, they absolutely would have waited.

What do you make of Qantas launching Brisbane to Chicago & San Francisco flights?

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https://onemileatatime.com/qantas-brisbane-chicago/

2019-06-04 09:55:23Z
CBMiM2h0dHBzOi8vb25lbWlsZWF0YXRpbWUuY29tL3FhbnRhcy1icmlzYmFuZS1jaGljYWdvL9IBAA

Trump Administration Considered Tariffs on Australia - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration considered imposing tariffs on imports from Australia last week, but decided against the move amid fierce opposition from military officials and the State Department, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

Some of President Trump’s top trade advisers had urged the tariffs as a response to a surge of Australian aluminum flowing onto the American market over the past year. But officials at the Defense and State Departments told Mr. Trump the move would alienate a top ally and could come at significant cost to the United States.

The administration ultimately agreed not to take any action, at least temporarily.

The measure would open yet another front in a global trade war that has pitted the United States against allies like Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan, and deepened divisions with countries like China. It would also be the end of a reprieve for the only country to be fully exempted from the start from steel and aluminum tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed last year.

The White House declined to comment. But the Trump administration has fiercely criticized past administrations for making concessions on trade policy to accomplish foreign policy goals. Mr. Trump has said the approach has left the United States in the position of subsidizing the world, weakening American industry and pushing factories and jobs overseas, and has pledged to rework America’s trading relationships.

But his decision to hit close allies with tariffs has also prompted an uproar. The Trump administration said it was imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum to strengthen American national security, but critics argue that the approach strains relationships with allies that are far more important to America’s defense.

The latest example came Thursday, when Mr. Trump abruptly announced that he would also levy tariffs on Mexico to try to pressure that country to stem the flow of migrants across the United States’ southern border. The move has sent foreign officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill scrambling to head off tariffs that could damage Mexican and American businesses and threaten to derail a newly negotiated North American trade deal.

The tariffs on Australia would have hit imports of aluminum, although measures that would have applied to other products had been discussed as well. Shipments of Australian aluminum to the United States have surged since last year, when Australia became one of the few countries not to face metal tariffs.

Mr. Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum from many countries last year. The move was an effort to shield American producers from low-priced imports, which the administration said were a threat to the domestic industrial base and therefore national security.

Some countries, like Brazil, Argentina and South Korea, won temporary exemptions on some of their imports, but ultimately agreed to limits on how much metal they could ship to the United States. But Australia’s full exemption appears to have been the work of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who reached a handshake deal with Mr. Trump in 2017 to avoid the tariffs. In August 2018, Mr. Turnbull lost the confidence of his party and was ousted from office.

Exempting Australia from tariffs effectively allowed Australian producers to sell cheaper metals to the United States than their competitors from Europe, North America and Asia. Aluminum imports from Australia rose by 45 percent from 2017 to 2018. They are up even more, by 350 percent, for the first three months of 2019, compared with the same period in 2018.

But Australia remains a relatively small supplier of aluminum to the United States, accounting for about 6 percent of total imports so far this year, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, and Peter Navarro, the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, were among the backers of tariffs on Australia. But other senior administration officials, who have cultivated ties to Australia, favor prioritizing other elements of the relationship.

For one thing, Australia has emerged as an important ally — perhaps the most critical one — in helping Washington constrain China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Australian officials have banned the Chinese company Huawei from the country’s online networks, and have investigated the Chinese Communist Party’s influence and interference in Australia. Washington is also relying on Canberra to compete with the Chinese for political clout in the Pacific islands.

Furthermore, a conservative party won a general election last month in an upset, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison intends to enact conservative policies. That means Washington and Canberra are growing even closer, as some American officials find more affinity with their Australian counterparts.

The Australian military has over the years joined important American campaigns. Notably, Australia sent soldiers to Iraq to be part of President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing,” and to Afghanistan.

Tariffs against Australia could also have broader reverberations, serving as a warning to Canada and Mexico, which recently saw tariffs on steel and aluminum lifted as part of a bid to secure congressional approval of the renegotiated trade agreement with those countries that the president signed last year.

Instead of tariffs, Canada and Mexico agreed to set up a system for monitoring and enforcement for import surges into the United States. Under the agreement, the United States can reimpose tariffs on individual exports of 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum in the case of such surges.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/business/trump-australia-tariffs.html

2019-06-03 01:47:28Z
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Australia PM in Solomon Islands to build ties with eye on China - Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrived in the Solomon Islands on Sunday, the first visit by an Australian leader in more than a decade as Western nations seek to rein in China’s influence in the Pacific.

FILE PHOTO: Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media as he arrives at the Horizon Church in Sutherland in Sydney, Australia, May 19, 2019. AAP Image/Joel Carrett/via REUTERS

The trip comes as the United States and its regional allies try to ensure that Pacific nations with diplomatic links to Taiwan do not severe those in favor of ties with Beijing.

The Solomon Islands is one of six Pacific countries to recognize Taiwan, a policy now in question after recent elections. China views Taiwan as a renegade province with no right to state-to-state ties.

Morrison flew into the capital Honiara on Sunday on his first overseas trip since winning re-election last month. He did not make any public comments on arrival, but has said the visit will show Australia’s commitment to the region.

“The Pacific is front and center of Australia’s strategic outlook,” he said in a statement last week.

Morrison’s trip comes just a few days before a visit to the Solomon Islands by New Zealand deputy prime minister Winston Peters, who will also travel to Vanuatu this week.

Australia has historic ties with the Pacific, but China has raised its influence in the region in recent years.

Keen to undercut China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to recreate the old Silk Road to link China with Asia and Europe through big infrastructure projects, Australia has directed ever larger amounts of its foreign aid to the Pacific.

Australia has offered Pacific countries up to A$3 billion in grants and loans to build infrastructure, as Morrison declared the region was “our patch”.

Canberra said last year it would spend $139 million to develop undersea internet cable links to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, amid national security concerns about Chinese telecoms company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd

Australia became the first country to ban the world’s largest maker of telecom network gear from its nascent broadband network, a step the United States followed this year by effectively banning U.S. firms from doing business with Huawei.

President Xi Jinping said last month China has offered to help developing nations and is not seeking a sphere of influence in Pacific Ocean island states.

The issue of climate change, which has at times strained Australia’s relationship with its Pacific neighbors, will probably feature prominently during the visit, Australian broadcaster SBS News said on Sunday.

Peter Kenilorea Jr, a Solomon Islands legislator, said he wanted Australia to show “stronger leadership” on climate change, SBS News journalist Pablo Viñales said in a tweet on Sunday.

Last month, Fiji’s prime minister hit back at remarks by an Australian politician that Fijians should seek higher ground in response to higher seas.

Reporting by Colin Packham and Will Ziebell; editing by Darren Schuettler

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pacific-australia/australia-pm-in-solomon-islands-to-build-ties-with-eye-on-china-idUSKCN1T308I

2019-06-02 07:59:23Z
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