APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, April 9, 2009

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"APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, April 9, 2009", APSNet Semi-Weekly Bulletin, April 09, 2009, https://nautilus.org/apsnet/apsnet-9-april-2009/

APSNet 9 April 2009

  1. Minister tangled in Liu’s financial ties to Beijing
  2. Third asylum seeker boat arrives
  3. Brits’ nuclear sub accident surfaces
  4. Calls for probe after shootings at Papuan demo
  5. Clinton to back defence treaty
  6. The Bush Six
  7. Imagine there’s no bomb

1. Minister tangled in Liu’s financial ties to Beijing, Richard Baker, Philip Dorling and Nick McKenzie, SMH, 2009-04-09

A company called Ausboc was the second biggest shareholder in property development firm Wincopy, which in 1998 donated $20,000 to Mr Fitzgibbon’s Hunter electorate campaign fund. Documents show the ultimate holding company for Ausboc was the Bank of China, which at that time was owned and directed by the Chinese Government in Beijing.

2. Third asylum seeker boat arrives, Mark Metherell, SMH, 2009-04-09

A boatload of asylum seekers, the third in a fortnight, has turned up in Australian waters, as a mix of repression and the global financial crisis generates a wave of fugitives fleeing to countries like Australia. In the biggest influx since earlier this decade, 379 people have been detained at Christmas Island since September last year. They are believed to be largely from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka.

3. Brits’ nuclear sub accident surfaces, Cameron Stewart, Australian, 2009-04-09

A British nuclear-powered submarine with 130 crew crashed into Australia’s continental shelf off the coast of Perth in a potentially deadly accident that was covered up at the time. The incident caused a 5200-tonne Royal Navy attack submarine, HMS Trenchant, armed with cruise missiles, to become “grounded” off Rottnest Island in July 1997, according to information just released in the British parliament.

4. Calls for probe after shootings at Papuan demo, Matt Brown, ABC, 2009-04-09

Human rights activists say a 10-year-old boy was among nine Melanesians shot after Indonesian paramilitary police broke up a pro-independence protest in Papua. The ABC has obtained footage of the incident in the small town of Nabire on Monday, and Amnesty International is calling for an independent investigation. Local activists are campaigning for independence from Indonesia, and Monday’s demonstration was demanding a boycott of today’s Indonesian national elections.

5. Clinton to back defence treaty, John Kerin, AFR*, 2009-04-08

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to assure Australia that the Obama administration IS committed to securing an Australia-US defence trade treaty during annual talks involving the respective foreign and defence ministers in Washington. If passed the treaty would give local business improved access to an annual $US300 billion military and weapons market.
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6. The Bush Six, Jane Mayer, New Yorker, 2009-04-03

If arrest warrants are issued, the Obama Administration may be forced either to extradite the former officials or to start its own investigation. “There’s not much dispute anymore: torture happened, and the law is clear—torture must be punished.” The former officials in question “are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. Until this is sorted out, they are in their own legal black hole.”

7. Imagine there’s no bomb, Malcolm Fraser, Gustav Nossal, Barry Jones, Peter Gration, John Sanderson and Tilman Ruff, Age, 2009-04-08 

The notion that nuclear weapons can ensure anyone’s security is fundamentally flawed. Nuclear weapons most threaten those nations that possess them, or like Australia, those that claim protection from them, because they become the preferred targets for others’ nuclear weapons. Accepting that nuclear weapons can have a legitimate place, even if solely for “deterrence”, means being willing to accept the incineration of tens of millions of fellow humans and radioactive devastation of large areas, and is basically immoral.

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