Sunday 18 November 2018
US DOJ 'Mueller' Investigation: the list keeps getting bigger
Mueller's list now includes an Australian citizen......
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
16 November 2018:
WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange has been charged under seal, prosecutors inadvertently revealed in a
recently unsealed court filing – a development that could significantly
advance the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential
election and have major implications for those who publish government secrets….
Special counsel Robert
Mueller has also exploring the publication by WikiLeaks of emails from the
Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton campaign
chairman John Podesta. Officials have alleged the emails were hacked by Russian
spies and transferred to WikiLeaks.
Mueller has also been
exploring, among other things, communications between the group and associates
of President Donald Trump, including political operative Roger Stone and
commentator and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi…..
And another Russian gets named....
Fortune, 19 October 2018:
A Russian national was
charged by the U.S. for allegedly being one of the masterminds behind a
conspiracy to interfere in both the 2016 and 2018 elections, marking the first
charges related to next month’s congressional midterm vote.
The woman, identified as
Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova of St. Petersburg, Russia, allegedly served as the
chief accountant for an operation known as “Project Lakhta,” the Justice Department
said Friday in a statement. The department identified the operation as “a
Russian umbrella effort funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich
Prigozhin and two companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting, and
Concord Catering.”
The charges come as top
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies warn Americans about ongoing
efforts by Russia, China and other foreign actors to interfere in the 2018
midterm and 2020 presidential elections.
The charges announced on
Friday centered on a conspiracy that included the creation of thousands of
social media and email accounts that appeared to be run by U.S. persons as part
of what the conspirators referred to as “information warfare against the United
States.”
US Dept. of
Justice, Special Counsel's Office:
On May 17, 2017, Robert
S. Mueller III was appointed by
acting Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to serve as Special Counsel by the
order below.
U.S. v. Paul J.
Manafort, Jr. (1:17-cr-201, District of Columbia)
Paul J. Manafort, Jr.,
of Alexandria, Va., pleaded guilty on September 14, 2018, to a
superseding criminal information filed today in the District of Columbia, which
includes conspiracy against the United States (conspiracy to commit money
laundering, tax fraud, failing to file Foreign Bank Account Reports and
Violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and lying and misrepresenting to
the Department of Justice) and conspiracy to obstruct justice (witness
tampering). A status report with regard to sentencing was scheduled for Nov.
16, 2018.
U.S. v. Viktor
Borisovich Netyksho, et al (1:18-cr-215, District of Columbia)
A federal grand jury in
the District of Columbia returned an indictment on July 13,
2018, against 12 Russian nationals for their alleged roles in computer
hacking conspiracies aimed at interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections. The
indictment charges 11 of the defendants with conspiracy to commit computer
crimes, eight counts of aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder
money. Two defendants are charged with a separate conspiracy to commit computer
crimes.
U.S. v. Konstantin
Kilimnik (1:17-cr-201, District of Columbia)
A federal grand jury in
the District of Columbia returned a third superseding indictment on June 8,
2018, against Konstantin Kilimnik, of Moscow, Russia. Kilimnik is charged
with conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice.
U.S. v. Richard W.
Gates III (1:17-cr-201, District of Columbia)
Richard W. Gates III of
Richmond, Va., pleaded guilty on Feb. 23, 2018, to a superseding
criminal information that includes: count one of the indictment, which charges
conspiracy against the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371 (which includes
conspiracy to violate 26 U.S.C. 7206(1), 31 U.S.C. 5312 and 5322(b), and 22
U.S.C. 612, 618(a)(1), and 618(a)(2)), and a charge of making false statements
to the Special Counsel’s Office and FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001.
U.S. v. Paul J.
Manafort, Jr., and Richard W. Gates III (1:18-cr-83, Eastern District of
Virginia)
Paul J. Manafort, Jr.,
of Alexandria, Va., and Richard W. Gates III, of Richmond, Va., were indicted
by a federal grand jury on Feb. 22, 2018, in the Eastern District of Virginia.
The indictment contains 32 counts: 16 counts related to false individual
income tax returns, seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and
financial accounts, five counts of bank fraud conspiracy, and four counts of
bank fraud. On March 1, 2018, the court granted a motion to dismiss without
prejudice the charges against Gates, following his guilty plea in a related
case in the District of Columbia (1:17-cr-201). On Aug. 21, 2018, a federal
jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts: counts 1-5, subscribing to a false
individual income tax return for tax years 2010-2014; count 12, failure to file
reports of foreign bank and financial accounts for year 2012; count 25,
bank fraud; and count 27, bank fraud. The court declared a mistrial on 10
counts (counts 11, 13-14, 24, 26, 28-32). As part of his plea agreement on
Sept. 14, 2018, Manafort admitted his guilt of the remaining counts against him
in this case.
U.S. v. Alex van der
Zwaan (1:18-cr-31, District of Columbia)
Alex van der
Zwaan, of London, pleaded guilty on Feb. 20, 2018, to making false
statements to FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001. Van der Zwaan was
sentenced on April 3, 2018, to serve 30 days in prison and pay a $20,000 fine.
U.S. v. Internet
Research Agency, et al (1:18-cr-32, District of Columbia)
A federal grand jury in
the District of Columbia returned an indictment on Feb. 16, 2018, against 13
Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of violating U.S. criminal
laws in order to interfere with U.S. elections and political processes. The
indictment charges all of the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United
States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud,
and five defendants with aggravated identity theft.
U.S. v. Richard
Pinedo, et al (1:18-cr-24, District of Columbia)
Richard Pinedo, of Santa
Paula, Calif., pleaded guilty on Feb. 12, 2018, to identity fraud, in violation
of 18 U.S.C. 1028. On Oct. 10, 2018, Pinedo was sentenced to serve six months
in prison, followed by six months of home confinement, and ordered
to complete 100 hours of community service.
U.S. v. Michael T.
Flynn (1:17-cr-232, District of Columbia)
Lieutenant General
Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), of Alexandria, Va., pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to
making false statements to FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001.
U.S. v. George
Papadopoulos (1:17-cr-182, District of Columbia)
George Papadopoulos, of
Chicago, Illinois, pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2017, to making false statements
to FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001. The case was unsealed on Oct.
30, 2017. On Sept. 7, 2018, Papadopoulos was sentenced to serve 14 days in
prison, pay a $9,500 fine, and complete 200 hours of community service.
Labels:
Russian probe,
US politics
GJD Developments' Byron DA rejected by NSW Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel as “disrespecting the process”
A four-storey
mixed use development covering three building lots totally 2,834m2 approx. 1km from Main Beach, comprising
commercial premises, café, child care centre, 24 shop top residential units, 26
serviced apartments and underground parking for 120 cars, has failed to gain
consent.
Echo
NetDaily, 14
November 2018:
A contentious
application to build a four-storey residential/commercial development at the
southern end of Jonson Street has been refused by the Joint Regional Planning
Panel, with one panelist branding it ‘disrespectful’.
There was a burst of
applause from the public gallery as the panel unanimously rejected the $21.1m
development at a meeting in Mullumbimby on Wednesday afternoon.
In doing so the panel
went against a recommendation from Byron Council staff that the development
be approved.
Instead, the panel
accepted one of the main objections from locals, namely, that the proposed
development was to be two-and-a-half metres above the current 9-metre height
limit for that part of Byron.
This would have allowed
the developer to squeeze a fourth storey into the building, going against
resident’s long-held desire to maintain a three-storey CBD height limit.
In arguing that its
proposal should be approved, the developer relied heavily on the fact that
Byron Council has proposed to increase building height limits in this part of
town to 11.5m.
But the panel found that
until the proposed increase had gone through the appropriate community consultation
processes and become law, the development could not be approved.
‘I’m concerned that
we’re being asked to vary a height limit based on a proposal that hasn’t been
subject to community consultation,’ panel member Pamela Westing said.
‘I find it disrespectful
quite frankly, not to go through that process before making the application.’
Panel Chair Garry West
agreed.
‘Who’s to say that,
after the community consultation process, it [the new height limit] won’t come
back to 10.5 metres or 10 meters?’ Mr West asked.
‘If we were to approve
that at the moment we would be disrespecting the process.’
Earlier, the meeting
heard from around a dozen residents and resident group representatives, all of
whom objected to the proposal development.
Labels:
Byron Bay,
coastal development,
overdevelopment
Saturday 17 November 2018
GIF of the Week
— Richard Au Tuffin 🌈 (@RichardTuffin) November 14, 2018
Labels:
Scott Morrison
Friday 16 November 2018
Yet other digital privacy betrayals
The global situation......
The
Guardian, 14
November 2018:
Google has been accused
of breaking promises to patients, after the company announced it would be
moving a healthcare-focused subsidiary, DeepMind Health,
into the main arm of the organisation.
The restructure, critics
argue, breaks a pledge
DeepMind made when it started working with the NHS that “data will
never be connected to Google accounts or services”. The change has also
resulted in the dismantling of an independent review board, created to oversee
the company’s work with the healthcare sector, with Google arguing that the
board was too focused on Britain to provide effective oversight for a newly
global body.
“Our vision is for
Streams to now become an AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors everywhere
– combining the best algorithms with intuitive design, all backed up by
rigorous evidence,” DeepMind said, announcing the
transfer. “The team working within Google, alongside brilliant colleagues
from across the organisation, will help make this vision a reality.”
DeepMind Health was
previously part of the AI-focused research group DeepMind, which is officially
a sibling to Google, with both divisions being owned by the organisation’s
holding company Alphabet.
But the transfer and
vision for Streams looks hard to reconcile with DeepMind’s previous comments
about the app. In July 2016, following criticism that the company’s
data-sharing agreement with the NHS was overly broad, co-founder Mustafa
Suleyman wrote:
“We’ve been clear from the outset that at no stage will patient data ever be
linked or associated with Google accounts, products or services.”
Now that Streams is a
Google product itself, that promise appears to have been broken, says privacy
researcher Julia Powles: “Making this about semantics is a sleight of hand.
DeepMind said it would never connect Streams with Google. The whole Streams app
is now a Google product. That is an atrocious breach of trust, for an already
beleaguered product.”......
Here in Australia......
Canberra Times, 15 November 2018, p.8:
The chairman of the
agency responsible for the bungled My Health Record rollout
has been privately advising a global healthcare outsourcing company. Fairfax
Media discovered the relationship between the UK-based company Serco and the
Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) chairman Jim Birch after
obtaining a number of internal documents.
The revelation comes
as Health Minister Greg Hunt was forced to extend the My Health Record opt-
out period after a compromise deal with the Senate crossbench and a last-minute
meltdown of the website left thousands of Australians struggling to meet the
original deadline.
Since April 2016, Mr Birch has been ADHA chairman with
oversight of My HealthRecord, the online summary of key health information
of millions of Australians. Documents from the ADHA, released under freedom of
information laws, show Mr Birch registered his work for Serco in November 2017,
but the relationship was never publicly declared.
After Fairfax Media
submitted questions last week on whether the relationship posed a conflict of
interest, Mr Birch quit the advisory role.
Serco has won a number
of multibillion-dollar government contracts to privately run - and in some
cases deliver healthcare in - some of Australia's prisons, hospitals and
detention centres.
The ability of Serco to
navigate the controversial area of digital health records would
be invaluable to any future expansion plans.
A spokeswoman for
federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said all board members had declared
their interests.
"Board members do
not have access to system operations, and board members cannot be present while
a matter is being considered at a board meeting in which the member has an
interest," she said.
Lisa Parker, a
public health ethics expert at University of Sydney, said the public
had been asked to trust the agency is acting in its best interests. She said
they should make public any information relevant to that trust…..
The register also shows
Mr Birch knows the chief executive of start-up Personify Care, Ken Saman, and
has been giving him advice since August last year. The software company
recently released "Personify Connect", a product that provides
hospitals with "seamless integration" of its original patient monitoring
platform with My Health Record.
Despite being scheduled
to speak at a "Personify Care breakfast seminar" later this year, Mr
Birch has never publicly declared this interest. Mr Birch is also chairman of
another start-up called Clevertar that allows businesses to create
"virtual agents" and offer "personalised healthcare support,
delivered at scale". This relationship is on the public record.
Public sector ethics expert Richard Mulgan, from Australian National
University, said the chairman should submit to a higher standard than ordinary
board members and distance himself from anything suggesting a conflict of
interest.
He said perception was
just as important as reality and the public, not the people involved, was the
best judge of whether there was a problem.
"The personal
interests register must be published," he said.
"The fact they
haven't can only lead to the perception there are conflicts of which they are
ashamed."
Mr Birch, Personify Care
and Clevertar did not respond to Fairfax Media's questions.
A Serco spokesman
confirmed the company met with Mr Birch "occasionally ... over the past 12
months regarding business management", but did not answer whether it paid
him.......
The Courier Mail, 15 November 2018, p.4:
Your dietitian, dentist,
podiatrist, occupational therapist or optometrist will be able to see if have a
sexually transmitted disease or an addiction unless you set access controls
to My Health Record.
Major new privacy
concerns emerged after the Federal Government was yesterday forced into an
embarrassing call to delay the rollout.
People trying to access
the controversial My Health Record hotline and computer
portal experienced major delays during a rush to opt out before the system was
rolled out tomorrow.
Health Minister
Greg Hunt was forced to delay the opt out period until January 31 after
pressure from health groups and crossbench senators.
The Australian Medical
Association was the only major health group not calling for a delay.
The vast majority of
groups were concerned the record would come into effect before key
privacy and security upgrades had been passed by Parliament. AMA president Dr
Tony Bartone denied its position was related to his need to keep the Health Minister
onside while he negotiated key reforms to general practice care.
Australia’s Trump Lite is overseas seeing what other trade opportunities he can wreck
The Australian, 13 November 2018, p.2:
Scott Morrison has
mounted the strongest defence of any allied leader so far of Donald Trump’s trade policies,
denying that Washington has turned protectionist because of its imposition of
tariffs on China.
“The US wants to see
greater trade and more open trade and they want to see it
on better terms,” the Prime Minister told The Australian in an interview in his
Sydney office. “It is yet to be established that the US is pursuing a
protectionist policy.”
Mr Morrison said he did not agree with the
protectionist interpretation of the administration’s trade policy.
Mr Morrison leaves
today on a trip to Singapore and Papua New Guinea for APEC and ASEAN-related
summits, during which he will meet US Vice-President Mike Pence, Chinese
President Xi Jinping, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a range of regional
leaders.
He gave a distinctive
reading of US trade policy.
“If I could summarise US
policy, it is that what they’ve been doing until now has not produced that
(freer trade) so there should not be an expectation that they’ll continue
to do things the way they have been.” But Mr Morrison makes a
controversial judgment: “That doesn’t mean their objective has changed — their
objective being a more open, freer trading system around the world, with a
rules-based order, and everybody respecting those rules and those rules not
being stacked against any one group.
“They have particular
views about how things affect them, then there are other issues around
intellectual property and so on where we have said there are some real issues
here and things that need to be resolved.” Stressing that it was too early to
conclude that the US had made a long-term switch to protectionism, he said:
“You can only judge it on the results, not the rhetoric, so let’s see.”
Mr Morrison cited the trade deals the Trump administration
had done with Canada and Mexico and said many commentators saw early Trump trade moves
against those nations as indicating long-term protectionism, but the result was
new trade deals.
Mr Morrison also
stressed that his government was not taking a position for or against the US or
China in their trade dispute: “We’re not really judging either party in
this because we trade with both and we’ve been successful (with
both), whether it’s staying clear of US tariffs on steel and aluminium or with
China, which is our biggest trading partner.
“We maintain a pragmatic
balance.” This is Mr Morrison’s first Asian summit season, but soon
after the APEC and East Asia summits he will attend a G20 summit, where he will
meet the US President.
Early yesterday, in an
interview with David Speers on Sky TV, he slightly misstated government policy
when he said definitively that territory in the South China Sea was not Chinese
territory.
He cleared this up in a
series of later interviews, confirming that Canberra does not take a position
on the merits of respective nations’ claims to territory in the South China Sea……
BACKGROUND
Crikey,
12 November 2018:
Morrison’s “stop
asking questions from the Labor Party” diktat to the ABC has taken
Australia one step closer to a political discourse dominated by Trumpian
semiotics of “fake news” and “enemies of the people”.
Like Trump, Morrison’s
aim was to undermine the media — and particularly the ABC — in the minds of
that mythical creature, the Liberal Party base, and help out News Corp on the
way through.
It came in the same week
that Trump ramped-up his own war on journalists: revoking
White House clearance from CNN’s Jim Acosta, dismissing another
reporter’s “stupid
questions” and calling a third a “loser”.
For a journalist, Morrison’s
insult is greater. Trump’s name-calling is straight out of the primary school
playground; Morrison’s crack goes to the heart of personal and craft integrity…..
The “journalist as enemy
of the people” trope is perhaps the most institutionally damaging part of
Trumpian semiotics adopted by Morrison. But it’s not the only one.
He seems to be aiming
for the Trump look, too. There’s the now-ubiquitous base-ball cap, with
Australian branding substituting “Make America Great Again”. There’s the single
thumbs-up to say “we’re in this together” to go along with the trademark Trump
two handed thumbs-up.
The social media of
choice — multi-platform video snippets — similarly taunt with a “laugh-at-me or
laugh-with-me, but notice me” Trump sensibility.
His prime ministerial
speech patterns reflect both the Trumpian blather of his opening press
statement (“a fair go for those who have a go”) interspersed with the
cut-through insults: “Bill Shorten is union bred, union fed, union led.”
Morrison’s insults do have somewhat more political content than the
personalised “Lyin Ted”, and “Little Marco” that Trump pulled out during the
2016 election.
Policy commitments tend
to be the same vague generalities (“we’re gonna fix this”) and he uses the same
thought bubble technique (Jerusalem, anyone?) to focus the debate on him, for
good or ill.
Meanwhile, Trump has
shown he’s willing to learn from Australia, as he famously suggested in his “you’re
worse than I am” compliment to Turnbull. The “migrant
caravan” that dominated right-wing discourse in the lead-up to the US
mid-terms would have chimed in Australian minds with the familiar sound:
Tampa, Manus, Nauru.
Labels:
foreign affairs,
right wing politics,
Scott Morrison,
trade,
Trump Lite
Thursday 15 November 2018
Has Morrison's loose lips sunk the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement
The populous Indonesian archipelago is one of our nearest northern neighbours. This predominantly Muslim nation is a significant trading partner which purchased $7.03 billion worth of goods and services from Australian business/industry in 2017.
On 24 August
2018 when Scott John Morrison walked
over the political corpse of Malcolm
Bligh Turnbull to become Australia’s 30th prime minister the Indonesia-Australia
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was well on its way to
being signed by both governments.
Australia and
Indonesia announced the
substantive conclusion of negotiations on the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive
Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) on 31 August 2018. This agreement will
launch a new chapter in economic relations between Australia and Indonesia…..
Indonesia is a growing
market for Australian goods and services exporters. In 2017, total two-way
trade in goods and services with Indonesia was worth $16.4 billion, making
Indonesia our 13th largest trading partner. IA-CEPA will provide Australian and
Indonesian businesses an opportunity to expand and diversify this economic
partnership.
IA-CEPA builds on
commitments under our existing free trade agreement, the ASEAN-Australia-New
Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) across goods, services and investment.
In addition to reducing
non-tariff barriers to trade and simplifying paperwork, IA-CEPA will allow 99%
of Australia's goods exports to enter Indonesia duty free or with significantly
improved preferential arrangements. All Indonesia's goods exports will enter
Australia duty free.
IA-CEPA will improve
conditions for services suppliers and the climate for two-way investment.
Australian services suppliers and investors will have greater certainty for
entry and operation in the Indonesian market, helping to facilitate more
Australian investment in Indonesia. This will create more opportunities for
Australians to help meet Indonesia's growing needs for investment and for the
supply of world class services in its market.
Both sides will 'scrub'
the full text of the agreement, to verify its accuracy and internal legal
consistency. The agreement will be translated into Indonesian with the
Indonesian and English versions being equally authentic. Once translated,
the agreement will be ready for formal signature. The full text of the
agreement will be released publicly once it has been signed.
After signature,
Australia and Indonesia will then follow their domestic treaty making processes
to bring IA-CEPA into force. For Australia, this will include tabling the text
of the agreement in Parliament and an inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on
Treaties (JSCOT). [my yellow highlighting]
By Day 81 of his time as prime minister Morrison had managed to publicly offend moderate Muslims here and around the world not once but twice and, the Agreement which was to be signed before the end of the week has now been delayed indefinitely by Indonesia.
Scott Morrison captain's call over the status of Jerusalem in particular was a grave error -based as it was on Pentacoastal teachings and not existing Australia Government policy.
He needs to think before he opens his mouth in future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)