No record of Mirabella declaring money from lover. Sophie Mirabella.
Photo: Glen McCurtayne IN A potential breach of electoral laws, there is no record of Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella declaring any of the $100,000 in financial support she received from her then partner, Colin Howard, QC, in the lead up to her win in the seat of Indi in 2001. The Age revealed on Thursday that Mr Howard, a Queen's counsel who was 40 years older than Ms Mirabella and retired, had cashed in some of his capital assets to help her win the rural seat of Indi in 2001.
Camillagate scoop raises questions for Murdoch. One of the most sensational and damaging British royal stories of the 20th century was the transcript of an illegally taped phone conversation between the married heir to the throne, Prince Charles, and his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles.
The story was ''broken'' by New Idea, the women's magazine then part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, in January 1993. Mr Murdoch's British papers, the rest of Fleet Street and the world media then republished with abandon. The tape achieved notoriety owing to Prince Charles's wistful remark that he'd like to be his lover's "tampon", to which she replied: "You are a complete idiot. Joint Standing Committee on Treaties_2012_05_07_1000.pdf;fileType=application/pdf (application/pdf Object) Greens demand Australia cancel ACTA participation.
News The Greens have demanded that Australia’s Government cancel its participation in the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement international treaty in the wake of an expected imminent rejection of the proposal by the European Union and significant and ongoing global protests against a number of its terms expected to harm Internet freedom.
ACTA is a multinational treaty which aims to establish international standards for the enforcement of intellectual property rights, including setting a framework to tackle counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement. It was signed last year by a number of large first-world countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore and the United States. However, the general public has been excluded in many countries from the process of negotiating the treaty, and critics have slammed it, noting it could potentially affect digital rights, freedom of expression and privacy. Terror fight costs $30 billion.
Add in the costs of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the figure is about $US4 trillion.
Mark Thomson, a former Defence Department official and now an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, is an expert on the defence budget. Drawing on budget figures, he calculates Australia has spent an extra $21.3 billion on defence and security since 2001 on top of what the government would normally have spent. The largest share has gone on the military commitments to the Iraq war ($2.4 billion), and Afghanistan ($7 billion and counting).
Finally, some certainty for our diggers in Afghanistan. Public left in dark over Afghanistan proposal. AUSTRALIA is five weeks away from signing a crucial strategic agreement with Afghanistan that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and outline Australia's postwar role there, but the government has yet to inform the public of its existence.
The previously unrevealed pact, disclosed by the office of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, this week, is a strategic agreement that will mean Canberra provides hundreds of millions of dollars in aid in the post-2014 decade. The international community has set the end of 2014 as the deadline for all international combat operations in Afghanistan. After that time security will be the sole responsibility of the Afghan Army and the Afghan National Police. EA-18G Program: The USA’s Electronic Growler.
Mar 11, 2014 19:07 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff EA-18G onUSS George Washington Navy has 22 EA-18Gs on wish list – will Hagel approve them for the FY15 unfunded list?
; 100th Airborne Electronic Attack kit delivered. March 11/14: Budgets. CNO Adm. March 11/14: Budgets. It’s important not to make too much of this yet. March 4/14: FY15 Budget. , PB15 Press Briefing [PDF]. Nov 26/13: AEA #100. {click to shrink ^} EA-18G at Pax The USA’s electronic attack fighters are a unique, overworked, and nearly obsolete capability. The aging 4-seat EA-6B Prowlers became the USA’s only remaining fighter for radar jamming, communications jamming and information operations like signals interception [1]. EA-6B Prowler (click to view full) All airframes have lifespan limits, however, and the EA-6B is no exception. DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record.
Displaying 539 of 14,455 words (about 37 pages) Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a twin-engine carrier-based multirole fighter aircraft variant based on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.
Australian Government, Department of Defence - The Hon. Joel Fitzgibbon MP Media Release. The Hon.
Joel Fitzgibbon MP,Minister for Defence Printer friendly version 27 Feb 2009. New drones to be sent to Afghanistan. Australian troops fighting in Afghanistan will soon have access to new state-of-the-art unmanned surveillance drones.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare announced on Thursday that a second Shadow 200 Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (TUAS) will be delivered to the army almost a year ahead of schedule. The TUAS system, first used by the United States in Iraq, captures surveillance video during night and day which can be sent back to base up to 125km away. It can recognise targets on the ground while operating at an altitude of up to 8000ft.
Advertisement The systems, purchased from the US, comprises of five drone aircraft, ground control stations, a launch and recovery element and logistics and training. US and Australia discuss drone flights over Indian Ocean. The US and Australia are reportedly in talks about basing Global Hawk drones on the Cocos Islands. The United States and Australia are planning a major expansion of military ties, including possible drone flights from a coral atoll in the Indian Ocean and increased US naval access to Australian ports, as the Pentagon looks to shift its forces closer to Southeast Asia, officials from both countries said. The moves, which are under discussion but have drawn strong interest from both sides, would come on top of an agreement announced by President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard in November to deploy up to 2500 US Marines to Darwin, on Australia's northern coast. Extradition and Mutual Assistance Changes Slip in under the Radar.
By Adam Fletcher Last Wednesday, in the aftermath of the infamous Labor leadership showdown and when all eyes were on the Carr for Canberra drama, federal Parliament passed the Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Amendment Bill 2011.
Unless I missed it, the passage of this Bill into law garnered not a single headline, but it should have, because it makes major changes to Australia’s cooperation with other countries in criminal cases. Nov 14-18 Canberra. WA Electoral Commission to develop telephone voting system - WA Electoral Commission (WAEC), e-voting.
The WA Electoral Commission (WAEC) has commenced work on a telephone-based voting system after the the State Government withdrew funding for its internet voting system. WAEC IT manager, Desmond Chenik, told Computerworld Australia the full internet voting system it was scheduled to develop this year, for the blind and vision impaired along with the armed forces, had been put on hold after several months of work. According to Chenik, the WAEC has put in another request with the government for the funding but even if the request is approved later this year, the internet-based system would not be ready in time for the next state election in March 2013 (the state now has fixed four year election periods).
“It wouldn’t be ready for the next election as it would probably take 10 to 12 months of development work plus another few months of going through the design work again to make sure the technology hasn’t changed and we can’t do better or whatever. ASIO cites security to block teen. The decision condemns the 16-year-old to deportation or infinite detention. Photo: Paul Harris ASIO has issued its first adverse security assessment against a child - a Kuwaiti asylum seeker who repeatedly tried suicide after being held in immigration detention for more than a year. In Australia, a racist border war: politicians compete to keep out refugees fleeing war and persecution. Racist border war: politicians compete to keep out refugees fleeing war and persecution Jayasaker Jayrathna was a young Tamil refugee, driven to seek asylum due to the brutal suppression of Tamils by the government of Sri Lanka.
The 27-year-old, whose mother was murdered by that same government, was in indefinite immigration detention. Although the government recognised Jayrathna as a refugee, it was stalling on his security clearance.