APSNet for 20070129
Austral Peace and Security Network (APSNet)
Twice weekly report from the Nautilus Institute at RMIT, Australia.
Monday 29 January 2007
- Diggers to Target Filipino Terror
- Australia, UN Sign Timor Security Pact
- Study Radio Intercepts, Balibo Five Probe Told
- Inquiry Unveils Corruption in PNG Defence Department
- China Rising: The Next Global Superpower
- Surge in Diggers’ Disorder Claims
- Shutdown of Reactor Will Take Decade
- Australia and France Sign Treaty to Step Up the Fight against Illegal Fishing
- Bird Flu Suspected in Deaths of 17 Birds in Western Japan
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Diggers to Target Filipino Terror, Emma-Kate Symons, Australian, 2007-01-29
Australia will send troops to central Mindanao in the southern Philippines under a landmark defence agreement designed to upgrade Canberra’s role in the regional fight against Islamist terrorism. Australian defence forces are planning military exercises with their Philippines counterparts in the Mindanao heartland of local and foreign al-Qa’ida-linked terrorists. The exercises are subject to ratification by the Philippine Senate.
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Unconventional Warfare: Are US Special Forces Engaged in an ‘Offensive War’ in the Philippines? Focus on the Philippines Special Reports No. 1 January 2006, Focus on the Global South, 2007-01-12
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Australia, UN Sign Timor Security Pact, AAP, Age, 2007-01-26
Australia and the UN have signed an agreement with East Timor to help co-ordinate security assistance in the small but troubled country. The agreement establishes a trilateral forum to discuss security issues and ensure coordination between the Timorese government, UN and Australian-led international peacekeepers who were deployed following unrest last year.
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Study Radio Intercepts, Balibo Five Probe Told, David King, Australian, 2007-01-29
The coroner investigating the death of the Balibo Five has been urged to examine top-secret Indonesian military transmissions intercepted by Australia. A former Defence Signals Directorate officer said he had seen two Indonesian transmissions about the 1975 shooting. He said the coroner needed to speak to traffic analysts, who decoded the secret radio transmissions, as well as radio operators.
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Inquiry Unveils Corruption in PNG Defence Department, Steve Marshall, ABC, 2007-01-27
A PNG Defence Force board of inquiry into the escape of Australian fugitive Julian Moti from PNG to the Solomon Islands last year has found rampant financial abuse and corruption in the Defence Department. The abuse of public money ranges from secret trust accounts to fraud.
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China Rising: The Next Global Superpower, Doug Bandow, AntiWar.com, 2007-01-26
Until now the US and Russia were the only two nations thought capable of making military use of space. But Beijing dramatically crashed this select club by using a ground-based ballistic missile to destroy an old weather satellite. Although America will remain the globe’s military number one for decades, it must begin to contemplate a world in which it no longer stands alone.
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Vital Need for Space Treaty, Michael Richardson, AFR*, 2007-01-29
* Subscription required. -
China’s Missile Message, Elizabeth Economy, Washington Post, 2007-01-25
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Surge in Diggers’ Disorder Claims, Michael McKinnon, Australian, 2007-01-29
One in four Australian soldiers who served in Vietnam has made a successful claim for post-traumatic stress disorder. Recent military operations are taking a toll, with 236 claims for PTSD from defence personnel sent to Iraq, East Timor or Afghanistan. Australia’s leading PTSD expert, Alexander McFarlane, said ‘significantly more’ claims would emerge because of Australia’s high tempo of military operations.
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Shutdown of Reactor Will Take Decade, Heath Gilmore, SMH, 2007-01-28
Australia’s first nuclear reactor will be shut down. The process will take nearly 10 years. Dr Collins, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) chief of research, said the removal of fuel and cooling water from the old reactor would take place soon. The reactor would be idle for 10 years to allow low-level radioactivity to decay before the concrete and steel structure is taken apart.
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Australia and France Sign Treaty to Step Up the Fight against Illegal Fishing, Media Release DAFF07/003A, Ministry for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, 2007-01-09
Australia and France have signed a cooperative treaty to protect the fisheries resources of the Southern Ocean. The treaty applies in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Australian and French Southern Ocean territories. It formalises cooperative enforcement by joint patrols in this region against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels.
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Bird Flu Suspected in Deaths of 17 Birds in Western Japan, AP, IHT, 2007-01-26
Bird flu is suspected in the deaths of 17 chickens at a farm in western Japan, the agriculture ministry said, just hours after it confirmed an earlier outbreak of bird flu was caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.