Lawmaker’s Links to China Heighten Alarm Over Beijing’s Reach in Australia - The Wall Street Journal

Opposition lawmakers in Australia have pushed for scrutiny of Gladys Liu’s ties to China. Photo: lukas coch/Shutterstock

By

Robb M. Stewart

Robb M. Stewart
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @RobbMStewart
• robb.stewart@wsj.com

Sept. 13, 2019 4:42 am ET

MELBOURNE, Australia—An Australian lawmaker is facing a political backlash over her ties to Beijing-backed organizations, a sign of deepening sensitivities about perceived meddling by China in national affairs.

Hong Kong-born Gladys Liu said in a statement that she once was a member of an organization linked to a Chinese Communist Party agency that seeks to rally support overseas for the party’s policies, having earlier said that she couldn’t recall any such links. Ms. Liu, who represents the electoral district of Chisholm, which includes leafy suburbs in eastern Melbourne, has lived in Australia for three decades.

Her statement followed an interview with broadcaster Sky News in which Ms. Liu declined to label as unlawful China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and didn’t accept the characterization of Chinese President Xi Jinping as a dictator. Sky News is owned by News Corp, which publishes The Wall Street Journal.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended Ms. Liu, saying she had given a clumsy interview and had subsequently explained herself and the circumstances. He said any suggestion Ms. Liu was in cahoots with the Chinese government was ridiculous and “an insult to every single Chinese-Australian in this country.”

Ms. Liu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Opposition lawmakers have pushed for scrutiny of Ms. Liu’s ties to China. Labor Senate leader Penny Wong called on the prime minister to assure parliament that Ms. Liu was “fit and proper” to be a lawmaker, while her party has pushed for the government to address the matter in parliament.

Australia has sought to balance a deeper relationship with China, its biggest trade partner, with concerns about Beijing’s foreign-policy ambitions. Acting on advice from intelligence officials that Beijing was meddling in everything from politics to media and college campuses, Canberra last year enacted new campaign finance and counterespionage laws modeled on the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In February, the conservative government rejected a prominent Chinese political donor’s application for citizenship and canceled his residence visa while he was overseas because of concerns he was too close to Beijing. China in turn accused Australia of being the “most unfriendly” nation toward its rising economic and geopolitical clout.

In her statement, Ms. Liu said she held an honorary role with Guangdong Overseas Exchange Association in 2001 but was no longer part of the organization. She also confirmed associations with two other Australian-Chinese organizations, saying membership of such community groups helped her to support Australia’s trade ties with Hong Kong.

She said nations claiming rights in the South China Sea should resolve disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law.

Ms. Liu became an Australian citizen in 1992, one week before the birth of her first child, and in 2003 she joined the Liberal Party, becoming a spokesperson for the party in Melbourne’s ethnic Chinese community.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

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2019-09-13 08:42:00Z
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Australian social media influencers detained in Iran for taking illegal photos with a drone - CNN

In a statement Thursday, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) confirmed that Australians Mark Firkin and Jolie King were being held in Iran.

On Thursday, a source with knowledge of the situation said the pair were arrested in July, accused of taking illegal photos with a drone. The source also confirmed that King is a British-Australian dual citizen.

In Iran, a permit is required to operate a drone that can take photographs.

The couple often feature drone shots on their YouTube channel, where they have 21,600 subscribers. Their most popular YouTube episode features them driving through the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan and has over 150,000 views.

According to their blog The Way Overland, the couple planned to travel from Australia, across Southeast and Central Asia, and on through to their final destination, the United Kingdom. The pair have also been documenting their travels on Instagram, where they have 19,000 subscribers.

The couple haven't posted on their YouTube and Instagram accounts since late June. Their last Instagram posts were from Kyrgyzstan. On their blog, the couple said they planned to travel through Central Asia and Iran before heading on to Turkey.

In a statement released by DFAT Thursday, the couple's families said they hoped to see the pair "safely home as soon as possible." DFAT is providing consular assistance to the couple's families.

DFAT is also providing consular assistance to a third Australian national in Iran. The unnamed source confirmed to CNN that the woman is a British-Australian dual citizen who has been behind bars for almost a year. The Australian government is taking the lead on securing the release of all three detainees, the source said.

In a statement, a DFAT spokesperson urged Australian citizens and holders of dual nationality with Australia who are traveling to or through Iran to follow the government's latest travel advice.

According to the Smartraveller website, which was updated on Monday, Australia's latest travel advice for Iran is to "reconsider your need to travel," due to "the risk that foreigners, including Australians, could be arbitrarily detained or arrested."

Britain's Foreign Office wouldn't confirm the ABC report, but said in a statement that UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had met Iran's ambassador on Wednesday and "raised serious concerns about the number of dual national citizens detained by Iran and their conditions of detention."

Increased tensions

The detentions come amid tensions between Iran and United States and its allies, including Australia and the UK.

Washington has attempted to use what it calls "maximum pressure" to change Iran's behavior and limit its nuclear ambitions since the decision by US President Donald Trump in 2018 to abandon the Iran nuclear deal.

Earlier this year, tensions between the US and Iran soared to levels that prompted fears of a war. Oil prices jumped as investors feared that attacks on oil tankers risked a disruption of shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, which passes by Iran and is the most important place on the planet to the global supply of oil.

Australia and the United Kingdom have also become involved in the tensions. Last month, Australia agreed to work alongside the US and the United Kingdom on a maritime security mission in the Strait of Hormuz.

When asked about the timing of the detentions given Australia's actions in the strait, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told media Thursday that the cases were "very sensitive" and involved issues that would not be addressed well by public commentary.

"We will continue to pursue these matters in the interest of the Australians who are at the center of these cases ... in close consultation through our officials who have been part of this process now for some time."

'Hostage taking'

On Wednesday, the UK's former Middle East minister Alistair Burt described the detentions as a "hostage-taking" during an interview with BBC's Radio 4.

"The policy of effectively taking hostages, and that's how it looks, makes it very difficult for those who want a different relationship with Iran to get on the front foot with those who regard it as unremittingly hostile," Burt added.

During an interview with Sky News Wednesday, UK business minister Andrea Leadsom added that reports of the detentions sound "extremely concerning."

"Iran once again ups the stakes," opposition Labour Party lawmaker Tulip Siddiq said in a post on Twitter. "This is a wake up call for our Prime Minister, Government and Ministers that they must act urgently to bring our innocent citizens home."

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian citizen from Siddiq's constituency in London, has been detained in Iran since 2016 on spying charges.

CNN's Matt Egan and Hilary McGann contributed to this report.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/australia/australia-iran-detained-named-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-09-12 09:40:00Z
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Three Australians Are Being Held in Iran, Government Says - The New York Times

Three citizens of Australia are being held in Iran, the Australian government said on Wednesday, confirming the detentions as frictions remain high between Tehran and Western nations over the imperiled 2015 accord limiting its nuclear program.

The Australian government said it was providing consular assistance to the families of those detained, and it reminded travelers that they risk arbitrary detention when visiting Iran. The government provided no other details, citing privacy requirements.

The Times of London, which first reported the detentions, said the three people jailed were a British-Australian blogger and her Australian boyfriend, as well as a British-Australian academic.

The newspaper said that the couple was taken into custody about 10 weeks ago, and that the scholar was detained earlier and had since been sentenced to a decade in prison on unknown charges.

The paper reported that the blogger and the academic were being held at Evin Prison in Tehran, in the same ward that houses female prisoners such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman who was detained in 2016 on charges of spying.

The detentions of the blogger and the scholar are the first in years in which Iran has held Britons who do not also have Iranian citizenship, the newspaper said.

The British government said in a statement Wednesday that its foreign secretary met with the Iranian ambassador and raised “serious questions” about dual nationals detained in Iran. It gave no information about specific cases.

In April, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, publicly proposed a prisoner exchange with the United States, and raised the cases of Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe and an Iranian woman being held in Australia. Iran has detained several dual and foreign nationals in recent years, including at least four Americans.

“We have an Iranian lady in Australia who gave birth to a child in prison,” Mr. Zarif said during a discussion at a think tank in New York, adding that the case involved the purchase of transmission equipment for an Iranian broadcasting company.

“That’s her charge,” he added. “She has been lingering in an Australian jail for the past three years.” He said that the United States had requested that the woman be extradited, and that Washington had not responded to the Iranian overtures on a prisoner swap.

Tensions have spiked between Iran and the West after President Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed punishing sanctions last year. In July, Britain and Gibraltar seized an Iranian ship they accused of carrying oil to Syria, and Iran retaliated by detaining a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

Last month, Australia agreed to join an American-led mission to police the strait against Iranian threats. The fledgling coalition also includes Britain and Bahrain.

The family of Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe confirmed that she and the British-Australian blogger were being held in the same ward at Evin Prison. The blogger came out of solitary confinement a few weeks ago, the family said.

Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 41, had lived in London for more than a decade before she was detained in Tehran while trying to return to Britain; she had been in Iran visiting family with her young daughter.

At the time, she was a program director at the Thomson Reuters Foundation — a charity independent of the media conglomerate Thomson Reuters. She was accused of plotting to overthrow Iran’s government. Her family and the foundation have vigorously denied the charge.

Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said that the British Foreign Office had not given the family information about the other British nationals being held, but that the families and their representatives in Parliament were pressing for a joint meeting with Dominic Raab, Britain’s foreign secretary.

“The U.K. government needs to be transparent about what is going on and its responsibility to protect its citizens,” Mr. Ratcliffe said in an emailed statement. “And it needs to work better with other affected countries — so that the Iranian government truly understands this practice has to stop. Hostage diplomacy is not O.K.”

Tulip Siddiq, a member of Parliament for Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s constituency, tweeted about the situation on Wednesday, saying Iran’s action “once again ups the stakes.”

“This is a wake-up call for our prime minister, government and ministers that they must act urgently to bring our innocent citizens home,” she wrote.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/world/australia/australians-detained-iran.html

2019-09-11 10:18:00Z
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Queensland bushfires: Two teens charged over devastating Peregian blaze - 7NEWS

Police have charged two teenagers following investigations into a devastating fire that ravaged the Sunshine Coast.

More than 5000 people from 2500 homes in the Peregian area were evacuated due to the fire, as firefighters worked tirelessly to protect properties.

Watch the video above

Queensland police allege a group of juveniles was spotted in bushland off Koel Circuit, where the massive blaze was deliberately lit.

The fire quickly spread in a south-easterly direction to Peregian Beach, damaging a significant amount of bushland before threatening housing and destroying one home.

Residents of some bushfire-affected Sunshine Coast suburbs have been allowed to return home.Image: AAP

Emergency Services battled the blaze for three days and were forced to evacuate residents from a number of neighbouring suburbs.

A 14-year-old Peregian Springs boy and a 15-year-old Coolum Beach girl have been charged with endangering particular property by fire.

Investigations are continuing.

Multiples blazes

Emergency services say children have ignited at least eight of the dozens of blazes which have contributed to a bushfire emergency across Queensland.

Some of the thousands of hectares burnt out by the Peregian bushfires on Tuesday afternoon.Image: Dan Peled/AAP

The Youth Justice Act allows a child to be let off with a caution if they have no criminal history, with community service and restorative justice orders also available to authorities.

A 12-year-old boy was dealt with under the Act on Tuesday over a deliberately-lit fire which destroyed bushland and a section of a storage facility at Woodridge on Monday night.

More on 7NEWS.com.au

Three young boys were also arrested for lighting a fire in a stormwater drain at Pimpama on the Gold Coast.

Three teenagers were questioned on Tuesday after allegedly admitting online they were responsible for a bushfire which has destroyed two homes and forced hundreds to flee the Sunshine Coast's Peregian area.

Two girls were also questioned following an alleged deliberately-lit fire in bushland at Ormeau on the Gold Coast.

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2019-09-11 09:52:00Z
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Behrouz Boochani Is One of Australia’s Most Celebrated Writers, But He Can’t Step Onshore - The New Yorker

In his acceptance speech for the Victorian Prize, the largest literary prize in Australia, Behrouz Boochani said that he had imagined himself as “a novelist in a remote prison” while writing “No Friend but the Mountains,” which has swept Australian literary awards this year. (Its most recent honor is the National Biography Award, received last month.) Boochani indeed wrote the book in a remote prison, on Manus Island, where he has been for six years. But the romantic image conjured by the phrase “a novelist in a remote prison”—a solitary man cast out of society—is different from Boochani’s reality. He wrote surrounded by hundreds of other men, never in solitude. And Boochani is by no means an outcast from Australian society—he is one of the most celebrated cultural figures in the country. He just can’t come onshore.

Boochani, who is Kurdish, was born in Iran in 1983. Educated as a political scientist, he worked for a Kurdish magazine that came under attack from the authorities. Many of his colleagues were arrested, and Boochani fled Iran, making his way to Indonesia. He then made two attempts to get from Indonesia to Australia by sea. His second harrowing journey is described in “No Friend but the Mountains.” The smuggler’s boat sank; Boochani watched some of his fellow-refugees drown. The survivors were picked up by an Australian Navy ship. They thought they were saved. The asylum seekers were first taken to Christmas Island, where they were held for a month, then transported by plane to Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. They couldn’t have known this when they were boarding the boat in Indonesia, but Australia had just entered a new stage in its war on immigrants, which was then a decade old.

It began with extreme anti-immigrant sentiment in what seemed like the very far-right fringes of Australian politics—a political party called One Nation, founded by the parliament member Pauline Hanson, who had split from the (conservative) Liberal Party, in 1996. In a few years, Hanson’s rhetoric—she railed against the danger ostensibly posed by asylum seekers coming to Australia by sea—had gained enough traction that the leading political parties found it necessary to court the anti-immigrant vote. In 2001, a Liberal government refused entry to a Norwegian freight ship that was carrying more than four hundred rescued refugees. Within months, both of the leading parties had signed on to a policy known as the Pacific Solution: migrants who came by sea would now be detained offshore. Following a 2013 election, the policy was militarized, in both rhetoric and implementation. It was now known as Operation Sovereign Borders, and it deployed the Australian military to enforce a zero-tolerance policy toward maritime arrivals.

In a 2016 piece in the Times, the Australian journalist Julia Baird called the offshore detention centers “Australia’s asylum gulag.” It would have been more accurate to call them concentration camps. Before being transported to Manus, Boochani and other asylum seekers were issued identical oversized T-shirts and shorts and issued an identification number. In his description of being transported to Manus, Boochani writes:

And then they call out my number: MEG45. Slowly but surely I must get used to that number. From their perspective, we are nothing more than numbers. I will have to forget about my name. My ears start ringing when they call out my number. I try to use my imagination to attribute some new meaning to this meaningless number. For instance: Mr MEG. But there are a lot of people like me.

These people would be piled into corrugated-metal hangars, which were partitioned into tiny rooms with ineffectual giant fans. Some of Boochani’s most vivid descriptions concern the smells of the camp: the unrelenting odor of men’s bodies in extreme heat, the inescapable smell of foul breath in close quarters. The highest number of men—it was all men, many of them separated from their families—in the camp at one time was more than thirteen hundred, in January, 2014.

The offshore detention centers on Manus and Nauru islands were closed in 2008, under the Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, then reopened by the next Labor government, in 2012. Politicians framed the camps as both a deterrent measure and, consequently, a humanitarian one: in 2015, Prime Minister Tony Abbott claimed that the Pacific Solution saves lives at sea. Rudd returned to the office of Prime Minister in 2013, and he announced that no refugee arriving by boat would ever be allowed to settle in Australia. The language Australians used to describe people in need of international protection changed from “asylum seekers” to “illegal maritime arrivals.” (International law guarantees the right to seek asylum, regardless of the mode of transport or exact location of arrival.) Another phrase crept into Australians’ vocabulary: “queue jumpers” (based on the myth that asylum seekers are cutting in front of other immigrants).

In 2016, the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled that Manus was illegal because it violated the constitutionally guaranteed right to liberty. In 2017, the United States accepted its first group of refugees from Manus—twenty-five people, which was far fewer than had been initially negotiated—and early last year took fifty-eight more. Also in 2017, the camp at Manus was officially closed: electricity and water were disconnected and the guards left. But hundreds of the men remain on the island, in what the Australian government calls “guarded centres,” in legal limbo.

Boochani’s book contains many descriptions of the varied tortures of waiting. Early on, describing the boat trip, he writes, “Living in anticipation vexes me sorely, it has always vexed me. The sense of cessation and inertia. It’s even worse when one’s own anticipation is compounded by that of others. At this particular moment we are all staring fixedly at one point, all desiring the same thing.” Later, about to be taken to Manus, he writes, “I have always despised waiting, always despised glancing at whatever is around me, staring for hours while I wait for something worthless. . . . I want the fate that awaits me. I want it to arrive immediately.” There is still no end in sight to Boochani’s waiting.

Boochani tapped his book out in text messages to his friend Omid Tofighian, who translated the book from Persian. Before the book was published, Boochani filmed a movie, “Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time,” which was shot in secret, on his cell phone. He has written many articles and essays for Australian and international media. He now holds a non-resident appointment there. In a different place, or at a different time, these professional recognitions, to say nothing of his many literary awards, would have signalled that Boochani is integrated into Australian society, and valued by it. But Australia’s extreme anti-immigrant turn, which preceded that of the United States by several years, has created a stark disjuncture between what the culture values and what the state allows. In an era when simply being a person in need of international protection makes a man a criminal, he cannot live in the society that has showered him with praise.

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2019-09-11 09:01:00Z
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Some Queensland bushfire evacuees allowed to return home - 7NEWS

Thousands of people forced to flee a bushfire on Queensland's Sunshine Coast can now return to their homes as conditions ease.

Milder temperatures are giving bushfire crews across Queensland a brief opportunity to get blazes under control before the fire danger spikes again on Friday.

Watch the video above

Almost 80 fires are still burning from the southeast corner to Lockhart River in the far north and have destroyed 33,000 hectares of bushland since the crisis began late last week.

The most dangerous blaze at Peregian on the Sunshine Coast was downgraded overnight on Wednesday but thousands of Sunshine Coast residents were still displaced as the day began.

More than 5000 people from 2500 homes were evacuated within 24 hours after Monday's fire, which could have been deliberately lit, broke out.

By mid-morning Wednesday, police told residents of Peregian Beach, Marcus Beach and Castaways Beach – areas east of the National Park – it was now safe to go home. People evacuated from Peregian Breeze, Weyba and Weyba Downs cannot yet go home.

A destructive Sunshine Coast fire has been downgraded overnight but unfavourable weather is forecastImage: AAP

The fire is still not contained despite the help of a 737 aircraft that dumped 15,000 litres of fire suppressant on the flames on Tuesday. The region received some brief showers overnight but not enough to extinguish the fire. Little rain is expected anywhere in the state in the foreseeable future.

The Bureau of Meteorology says cooler temperatures and lighter winds on Wednesday and Thursday will be favourable for firefighters. However, the fire danger will spike again on Friday and Saturday when temperatures rise again.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said at least 17 homes and five commercial properties have been destroyed by bushfires since Thursday, with many more damaged. A special police task force has been established to investigate whether any of the fires were caused by arson.

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said detectives had so far established ten fires - in Brisbane, Stanthorpe, the southeast and central Queensland regions - were deliberately lit. Eight of those were set by juveniles.

"Some of these have just been kids playing with fire; some deliberate and some repeat offenders," she told Seven's Sunrise program, adding some had been cautioned and others would be dealt with by the courts.

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"We had a circumstance where a child is playing with fire and got away.

"Every circumstance has been different but all dealt with in different ways. All have been acted on."

Acting Premier Jackie Trad renewed calls for parents to reinforce the message about the devastating effects these fires can cause.

"The really important thing is that parents ... make sure that they get very clear messaging across to young children who might be a little bit fascinated at this stage by all of the coverage around fires," she told Sunrise.

"This is, you know, just playing with fire can get really out of hand really, really quickly."

Ms Trad also said the government was honouring its commitment to boost the number of firefighters in Queensland, with 100 currently undertaking the recruitment process. Fire crews from around the country will arrive on Wednesday to lend more support to those on the ground.

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2019-09-11 00:54:00Z
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Australia Bushfires Arrive Early, Destroying Historic Lodge in ‘Omen’ of Future - The New York Times

SYDNEY, Australia — The conservationists who built the secluded Binna Burra Lodge in Australia’s lush mountains more than 80 years ago hoped to protect and share the natural beauty of the surrounding rainforest.

But over the weekend, a bushfire destroyed the beloved getaway, one of Australia’s oldest nature resorts — drawing tears from neighbors and alarm from officials who warned that climate change and drought threatened to bring Australia its worst fire season on record.

“This is an omen, if you will,” said Andrew Sturgess, who is in charge of fire prediction for the state of Queensland, where the lodge had stood in Lamington National Park.

What is happening now “is a historic event,” he said at a news conference. “Fire weather has never been as severe this early in spring.”

Experts and some state officials, agreeing with that dire assessment, have been quick to identify climate change as a major cause — a controversial argument for some people here in a country that is heavily reliant on the coal industry, with a conservative government that has resisted making climate policy a priority.

But the recent flames spreading not just through the country’s dry middle but also into its rainforests are one of many data points that make the patterns and problems undeniable.

Fire season itself has become nearly a year-round trial, according to fire officials. Independent studies have also shown that the number of hot days in Australia has doubled in the past 50 years, while heatwaves have become hotter and longer. Extreme weather events, such as flooding and cyclones, have intensified in frequency and strength, as well.

“We’re seeing records breaking left and right,” said Robert Glasser, a visiting fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the former head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

“This isn’t the new normal,” he added. “We’re going to see much worse — the pace of the change is going to accelerate.”

Image

A bushfire near a house in the rural town of Canungra in South East Queensland, Australia.CreditRegi Varghese/EPA, via Shutterstock

Joëlle Gergis, a climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University, warned that Australia’s experience “is a sign of things to come.”

She said she was especially alarmed by the losses near the Binna Burra in the Gold Coast hinterland.

“It is devastating to see these usually cool and wet rainforests burn,” she said. “Although these remarkable rainforests have clung on since the age of the dinosaurs, searing heat and lower rainfall is starting to see these wet areas dry out for longer periods of the year, increasing bushfire risk in these precious ecosystems.”

Some experts believe an especially horrific fire season could be enough to push Australia to make climate policy more of a priority, at least in terms of planning for climate disasters.

In a radio interview Saturday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised continuing support for the affected areas and he said the federal government has been adding resources to help.

But already, the current fire season is straining firefighters and raising questions about whether Australia has the equipment and capacity to handle such extreme events.

On Monday, fire officials in Queensland and New South Wales identified dozens of bushfires still burning across both states.

Hundreds of firefighters are combating the blazes, and at least 20 structures have been destroyed over the past three days, including the Binna Burra Lodge. A volunteer firefighter was critically injured on Friday with burns to his hands, arms, legs, back and face.

And conditions do not seem likely to improve: Roughly 65 percent of Queensland and 98 percent of New South Wales is currently affected by drought, Ms. Gergis said, and meteorologists are predicting dry windy weather for the next few days, which threatens to spread the fires far and wide.

“It hurts many people of different generations, we all feel the pain,” said Steven Noakes, the chairman of the Binna Burra Lodge. Though his house was still intact, he said, many of his neighbors had lost their homes to the blaze and more destruction was expected.

“It’s a devastating impact and it generates a range of emotions,” he said. “It’s difficult.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/world/australia/bushfires-wildfires-climate-change.html

2019-09-09 05:12:00Z
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