This Is The Face Of The Greatest Threat To World Peace in 2017

NOTE: This post will be updated throughout 2017

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal statement and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.” [United States President Donald John Trump, Associated Press, 8 August 2017]

NORTH Korea has retaliated to Donald Trump’s warning of “fire and fury like the world has never seen” by threatening a missile strike on a US Pacific territory frighteningly close to Australia.

The reclusive state announced it was “carefully examining” a plan to attack Guam, just hours after the US President issued an apocalyptic warning following reports North Korea had produced a missile-ready nuke.

Kim Jong-un plans to fire intermediate range ballistic missiles at the Micronesian island, which is situated in the Western Pacific 4447 kilometres north of the Australian coast, according to state-run media. [news.com.au, 8 August 2017]

"The people of our country are safe. Our allies are safe. And I will tell you this: North Korea better get their act together or they're going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world.....Maybe it wasn't tough enough. They've been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years. And it's about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries." [United States President Donald John Trump, doorstop announcement, 10 August 2017]

"The Bible gives President Trump the moral authority to use whatever force necessary including assassination or even war to take out an evildoer like Kim Jong-un and I think most Christians understand that." [Pastor Robert Jeffress, personal spiritual adviser to Donald Trump speaking on Fox News, 10 August 2017]

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said Trump in recent days has been restless to share his thoughts on what she termed “one of the juiciest, newsiest periods of his presidency.” [The Washington Post, 10 August 2017]

“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.” [U.S. President Donald J. Trump, Twitter, 11 August 2017] 

The S&P500 fell 1.5% and volatility spiked over tensions between US and North Korea

Gold rose to a two-month high and is predicted to soon top $US1300 if tensions grow [The Sydney Morning Herald at 4:38pm on 11 Aug 2017]

NORTH KOREA has warned Australia it has committed a “suicidal act” by pledging its allegiance to the US and sending defence force members to join military exercises with American and South Korean forces.

Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull last week told 3AW that an ANZUS treaty would be invoked and Australia would send troops to the aid of the US “if there is an attack” on the ally.

“In terms of defence, we are joined at the hip,” Mr Turnbull said.North Korean news agency KCNA has since reported that Australia’s allegiance to the US and its decision to take part in a military drill in South Korea was a “suicidal act”. [news.com.au, 21 August 2017]

“I worry about frankly, you know the access to nuclear codes. If in a fit of pique he decides to do something about Kim Jong Un there is actually very little to stop him.  The system, the whole system’s built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there is very little in the way of controls you know over exercising a nuclear option. Which is pretty damn scary”

[James Clapper, national security analyst & former US Director of Intelligence, CNN Tonight (@CNN) 23 August 2017]

“Military action would certainly be an option.  Is it inevitable?  Nothing is inevitable.  It would be great if something else could be worked out.  We would have to look at all of the details, all of the facts.  But we've had Presidents for 25 years now -- they've been talking, talking, talking -- and the day after an agreement is reached, new work begins in North Korea, continuation on nuclear. So I would prefer not going the route of the military, but it’s something certainly that could happen.  Our military has never been stronger.  We are in a position now -- and you know the new orders.  You see the new numbers just like I see the new numbers.  It’s been tens of billions of dollars more in investment.  And each day new equipment is delivered -- new and beautiful equipment, the best in the world, the best anywhere in the world, by far. Hopefully we're not going to have to use it on North Korea.  If we do use it on North Korea, it will be a very sad day for North Korea.”  [United States President Donald John Trump, White House press conference, 7 September 2017]

“We will respond to the barbaric plotting around sanctions and pressure by the United States with powerful counter measures of our own.” [North Korea government representative, Third Annual Eastern Economic Forum in Russia, 7 September 2017] 

'We've been kicking the can down the road, and we're out of road. For those ... who have been commenting on a lack of a military option, there is a military option.' [White House National Security Adviser HR McMaster report quoted by Sky News, 16 September 2017]

‘Our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with the US and make the US rulers dare not talk about military option for the DPRK.' 

 [North Korean state agency report quoted by Sky News, 16 September 2017]

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.  Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” [U.S. President Donald John Trump, speech at 72^nd Session of United Nations Assembly, 19 September 2017]

"The speech made by the US president in his maiden address on the UN arena in the prevailing serious circumstances, in which the situation on the Korean peninsula has been rendered tense as never before and is inching closer to a touch-and-go state, is arousing worldwide concern.

"Shaping the general idea of what he would say, I expected he would make stereo-typed, prepared remarks a little different from what he used to utter in his office on the spur of the moment as he had to speak on the world's biggest official diplomatic stage.

"But, far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors.

"A frightened dog barks louder.

"I'd like to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words and to be considerate of whom he speaks to when making a speech in front of the world.

"The mentally deranged behavior of the US president openly expressing on the UN arena the unethical will to "totally destroy" a sovereign state, beyond the boundary of threats of regime change or overturn of social system, makes even those with normal thinking faculty think about discretion and composure.

"His remarks remind me of such words as "political layman" and "political heretic" which were in vogue in reference to Trump during his presidential election campaign.

"After taking office Trump has rendered the world restless through threats and blackmail against all countries in the world. He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician.

"His remarks which described the US option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last.

"Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the DPRK, we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.

"Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.

"As a man representing the DPRK and on behalf of the dignity and honor of my state and people and on my own, I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the DPRK.

This is not a rhetorical expression loved by Trump.

"I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue.

"Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation.

"I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire." [Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, quoted in The Independent, 22 September 2017]

The Pentagon says B-1B bombers from Guam and F-15 fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, have flown a mission in international airspace over the waters east of North Korea.

The U.S. says it’s the farthest north of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula that any American fighter or bomber has flown this century.

Defense Department spokesman Dana White says in a statement that the mission shows how seriously the U.S. takes what he calls North Korea’s “reckless behavior.”

His statement says the flights are a “demonstration of U.S. resolve and a clear message” that President Donald Trump “has many military options to defeat any threat.”

White says “we are prepared to use the full range of military capabilities to defend the U.S. homeland and our allies. [Associated Press, 24 September 2017]

“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!” [U.S. President Donald J. Trump, tweet, 24 December 2017]

US President Donald Trump has declared war on North Korea, Pyongyang says, adding that it reserves the right to take countermeasures, including shooting down US bombers even if they are not in its air space.

"The whole world should clearly remember it was the US who first declared war on our country," Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters in New York.

"Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country.

"The question of who won't be around much longer will be answered then," Mr Ri added in a direct reference to a tweet by Mr Trump on Saturday.

In response, the Pentagon said it would be providing Mr Trump with "options" on how to deal with Pyongyang.

"If North Korea does not stop their provocative actions, you know, we will make sure that we provide options to the President to deal with North Korea," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning said. [Representatives of North Korea and United States of America, ABC News, 26 September 2017]

I wonder if Liberal and Nationals MPs and senators remember that Adani's corporate structure in Australia is allegedly also geared towards siphoning money into tax havens?

The Guardian, 16 August 2017:

A global mining giant seeking public funds to develop one of the world’s largest coal mines in Australia has been accused of fraudulently siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowed money into overseas tax havens.

Indian conglomerate the Adani Group is expecting a legal decision in the “near future” in connection with allegations it inflated invoices for an electricity project in India to shift huge sums of money into offshore bank accounts.

Details of the alleged 15bn rupee (US$235m) fraud are contained in an Indian customs intelligence notice obtained by the Guardian, excerpts of which are published for the first time here.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) file, compiled in 2014, maps out a complex money trail from India through South Korea and Dubai, and eventually to an offshore company in Mauritius allegedly controlled by Vinod Shantilal Adani, the older brother of the billionaire Adani Group chief executive, Gautam Adani.

Vinod Adani is the director of four companies proposing to build a railway line and expand a coal port attached to Queensland’s vast Carmichael mine project.

The proposed mine, which would be Australia’s largest, has been the source of years of intense controversy, legal challenges and protests over its possible environmental impact.

Expanding the coal port to accommodate the mine will require dredging an estimated 1.1m cubic metres of spoil near the Great Barrier Reef marine park. Coal from the mine will also produce annual emissions equivalent to those of Malaysia or Austria according to one study.

One of the few remaining hurdles for the Adani Group is to raise finance to build the mine as well as a railway line to transport coal from the site to a port at Abbot Point on the Queensland coast.

To finance the railway Adani hopes to persuade the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif), an Australian government-backed investment fund, to loan the Adani Group or a related entity about US$700m (A$900m) in public money.

Adani family’s Australian corporate structure…..

ABC News, 14 March 2017:

Up to $3 billion from Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine will be shifted to a subsidiary owned in the Cayman Islands if the controversial project goes ahead, an analysis of company filings shows.

An "overarching royalty deed" gives a shell company rights to receive a $2-a-tonne payment, rising yearly by the inflation rate, beyond the first 400,000 tonnes mined in each production year for two decades.

The company with this entitlement is ultimately owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a secretive entity registered in the Cayman Islands, and controlled by the Adani family.

"In plain English, the upshot for the Adani family is [that] if the mine goes ahead, they receive a $2-a-tonne payment, so up to $3 billion, via a Cayman Islands company, a company owned in a tax haven," says Adam Walters, principal researcher and Energy Resource Insights.

With a production capacity of 60 million tonnes or more a year, that amounts to about $120 million per annum in payments, increasing each year in line with the CPI, potentially flowing offshore.

"I would describe it as a structure that means that the Adani family enriches themselves if the mine goes ahead but that other shareholders are impoverished," associate professor Thomas Clarke, director of the Centre for Corporate Governance at UTS told the ABC.

"The worry is that this may be just the beginning.

"That the Adani family have the ability to shift cash and assets around at will and in the future they may well do so at the cost of shareholders and the Queensland economy."

He said the billions flowing to the Adani private company would come at the expense of minority shareholders in the company listed on the Bombay stock exchange which ultimately owns the Carmichael mine.

How Adani acquired the right to this multi-billion-dollar revenue stream is a tale in itself.

In 2010, Adani Mining Pty Ltd bought the coal tenement that is set to become the Carmichael mine from the now defunct Linc Energy.

Part of the sale involved Adani Mining giving Linc Energy an "overriding royalty deed" which entitled it to receive $2-a-tonne for all coal mined beyond the first 400,000 tonnes in any production year.

Linc Energy informed investors at the time could be worth "over $120 million per annum" and up to $3 billion over the course of the royalty right.

But in August 2014, in dire financial straits, Linc Energy agreed to sell the royalty deed back to Adani at a fire sale price: just $150 million.

The obvious course would have been to extinguish the royalty deed, because it represented a multi-billion-dollar liability for the mine which is ultimately owned by Adani Enterprises Ltd, the Bombay-stock exchange listed company.

Instead, the royalty deed "was assigned by Linc Energy Limited to Carmichael Rail Network Pty Ltd as trustee for Carmichael Rail Network Trust," notes in financial reports of Adani Mining Pty Ltd say.

Carmichael Rail Network is one of a group of companies behind the proposed North Galilee Basin rail line, which Adani is currently seeking a subsidised loan of up to $1 billion from the Federal Government's Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to build.

"What this means is that one of the companies currently seeking up to $1 billion in public subsidy is going to profit to the tune of up to $3 billion if the mine goes ahead," Mr Walters said.

Adani Mining Pty Ltd, the proponent of the Carmichael mine and the holder of its environmental approvals, appears to have lent Carmichael Rail the funds to buy the royalty deed.

BACKGROUND

The Guardian, 21 August 2015:

We know that Abbott loves coal and thinks that it is “good for humanity”. Is that why he is prepared to back a financially risky project?

Is it the “10,000” jobs that government ministers say will come from the project (remembering that Adani’s own consultant has said that those numbers were vastly overblown and that Carmichael would result in less less than 1500 jobs).

Could it be the prospect of cash from coal royalties? Maybe.

Does the substantial media coverage from the mine just give the Abbott Government another opportunity to tell the public that all environmentalists are economic saboteurs who want to take away people’s jobs and come in the dead of night to steal your babies? Possibly.

But could there be another causal factor that has contributed to the way Australian politicians have forcefully backed Adani for so many years?

Could that other factor be the close relationships that the company has managed to forge at the highest levels with Australia’s political leaders?

Whenever an Australian leader sets foot in India, it seems that a meeting with Gautam Adani is never more than a figurative (and sometimes literal) flight in a private jet away.

There’s evidence of this going back at least as far as October 2010 and its there in the records of trade missions tabled before parliaments.

Let’s peruse together.

In October 2010, Queensland’s then Premier Anna Bligh travelled to India on a trade mission to promote the state’s bid to host the Commonwealth Games and “strengthen Queensland’s position as an ally and destination for future trade and investment in the eyes of the Indian market and nation leaders”.

A report tabled to the Queensland Parliament shows that Bligh’s first official meeting with Indian figures was with Adani, where the company’s owner Gautam Adani and his international development executive Harsh Mishra got to quiz the Premier about policies relating to rail lines, underground coal gasification and support for mining in the Galilee Basin.

Bligh also “agreed to attend the opening” of Adani’s offices in Brisbane later that month and extended an invitation for Adani to meet with its co-ordinator general when they were next in Brisbane.

After Campbell Newman won power for the Liberal National Party in Queensland, he led a trade mission to India too.

While there, Newman joined former Labor Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and a 76-strong business delegation for a tour of an Adani port and a power plant, reportedly getting there on a private jet.

The report on the trade mission, tabled to Parliament, shows that Mr Adani then hosted a lavish reception at his home for the entire delegation.

Judging by one freelance photographer’s images, the event was quite an affair with much handshaking all-round.

The event was part of “OzFest” – Australia’s “largest cultural festival” for which Adani was a “platinum sponsor”

In 2013, the Queensland Government was again in India for a trade mission led by then Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney and, again, the Adani company was on hand.

Seeney’s delegation travelled with Adani executive Harsh Mishra to visit an Adani-owned port and power station before Seeney had a private lunch with the company.

Later that same day, Seeney met with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi (now the Indian Prime Minister) and… Gautum Adani.

Mr Adani then hosted a private dinner with Seeney “which included Adani Group senior executives and members of Mr Adani’s family”.

But it’s not only Queensland politicians who have sought out Adani company bosses while on missions to India.

Former New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell met with Gautam Adani during a trade visit to India in December 2013.

Current NSW Premier Mike Baird also went on a trade mission to India earlier this year. You can probably guess by now the name of one Indian billionaire he met with.

Gautam Adani is also a co-chair of the Australia-India CEO Forum – an initiative of the Australian High Commission.

Trade minister Andrew Robb attended the last meeting in New Delhi. I don’t know if they had dinner (but if I was a betting man….)

Millionaire mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest's cashless welfare card adopted by the Turnbull Coalition Government is not the answer

NITV, 14 August 2017:

The income management trial was set up in the east Kimberley in April 2016 to help curb problem drinking, gambling and domestic violence - elements that were present in the lives of 13 young Indigenous people who killed themselves over a three-and-a-half year period.

University of Melbourne development studies lecturer, Dr Elise Klein is researching the policy and told the inquest the compulsory program was rolled out without proper community consultation, silencing many Aboriginal voices and causing tension and frustration amongst a diverse population.

Dr Klein told the inquest via video link from Melbourne the scheme represents neo-colonialism and government overreach.

"It's explained as the 'white card'," she said.

"The card has been a symbol of disempowerment, a symbol of state intervention, punitive intervention over someone's life."

Dr Klein said the system was chaotically introduced with design flaws, including a balance-checking mobile app for people who "didn't know how to use the internet let alone own a mobile phone"

Many of the children who claimed their own lives were inadequately fed, but Dr Klein said it was "naive at best" to think controlling parents' consumption would effectively combat this, insisting the card made money management "much harder" for people already living below the poverty line.

Dr Klein said many of the scheme's participants had told her using the card was like going back to the "ration days", referring to when Aboriginal people working on pastoral stations were paid in tea and sugar, as opposed to real wages.

"Young people watching this play out in their families can only feel extremely debilitated," she said.

The problem is compounded for jobseekers subjected to the coalition's controversial remote work for the dole scheme, which Dr Klein slammed as oppressive.

She called for bottom up, community-led development of services to address the complex social dysfunction plaguing Indigenous communities.

Earlier, one of the last people to speak to a 13-year-old boy before he killed himself, former Kununurra District High School deputy principal Jamieson Coltman, told the inquest child protection authorities failed to intervene despite reports of domestic violence.

This isn't the first time Coalition MPs have lied about costings

“FEDERAL Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's populist "tax grabs" would cost Australians an eye-watering $150 billion over 10 years, the Federal Government will reveal today……Independent modelling by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) and Treasury shows that under a Shorten government small business, mum and dad investors, older Australians and higher-income earners would be slapped with higher taxes.” [The Northern Star, 14 August 2017]

The Parliamentary Budget Office exposes the lie………

PBO Media Release

This is not the first time a Coalition MP has uttered political lies about costings. Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb became rather famous for it.

ABC News, 11 October 2010:

The Federal Government says the Coalition did not tell the truth before the last election when it claimed to have had its costings audited.

The Opposition did not submit its costings to Treasury before the election, but said they had been audited by a big accountancy firm.

Fairfax newspapers quote letters between the Liberal Party and the accountants saying the work would not constitute an audit in accordance with Australian standards.

And conservative politicians wonder why the general public perceives such a yawning credibility gap.

Tweet of the Week

Political Cartoon of the Week

@halltoons

Quotes of the Week

“I am the world’s greatest person”

[US President Donald J. Trump, 28 January 2017]

“Common sense tells you that when you have an industry that pays less than others, employs more young people than others, and has a much higher level of underemployment than others, it is not really in need of policy that will have 10,000 young people working for less than the minimum wage and for which the employer will not only not have to pay them, but will be given $1,000 from the government.”  [Greg Jericho writing in The Guardian, 6 August 2017]

“That the era of deregulation is exhausted should no longer be an issue. Free market fundamentalists rebounded from the global financial crisis with a remarkable ease, treating it like a mere flesh wound. But almost a decade later, the game is up. The twin business strategies of suppressing wages and side-stepping taxation obligations to benefit those at the top of the wealth distribution curve is no longer acceptable. The economic and political damage is too great. The other 90% are joining the dots. They are many and they are angry.” [Lawyer Josh Bornstein writing in The Guardian, 27 July 2017]