Kevin McCarthy’s Idea of Austerity: $115 Billion for Tax Cheats and Oil Companies New Republic
Corruption within the Customs service extends to Australia's waterfront, where underworld figures are using corrupt dock workers to import drugs and possibly even guns.
On Thursday, a 7.30 and Fairfax investigation revealed that a cell of suspected corrupt Customs officers allegedly helped smuggle drugs through Sydney Airport.
It has since been announced that eight people have been charged in connection to the alleged drug ring.
Customs corruption extends to waterfront
Australia’s key law enforcement partners have launched a blistering attack on the Chinese government, saying the state actor poses the gravest threat to the security of Australia and its allies, while alleging that Beijing is also green-lighting organised crime bosses as agents of influence in Pacific Island nations.
The FBI has described US and Australian efforts to ramp up the Western law enforcement presence in the Pacific, marked most recently by the Albanese government’s $317 million “Pacific expansion” funding package for the AFP, as aimed in part at countering China’s own efforts in the Indo-Pacific.
The security leaders warn China's actions in the Pacific are a particular threat.
In exclusive interviews with this masthead and 60 Minutes, police chiefs from the secretive Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group, an intelligence-sharing alliance between Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, described how their investigations had linked the Chinese government to a systemic campaign of covert interference and intimidation in other nations.
Illegal, malign’: China’s state-sponsored crime stretches across Pacific
Russia now knows who hacked Medibank, but it’s doing nothing about it
US banks rethink social media as a threat, not a marketing tool
Ex-politicians who go over to the enemy
Your iPhone's AI brain will soon be able to speak in your voice
“Hi Babe” Case: ASIC witnesses mauled in court, Commbank embarrassed, evidence ends abruptly
Playing chicken to the detriment of democracy and cost to the taxpayer
Investor George Soros Dumps Tesla Stake, Enrages Elon Musk Jalopnik
Global temperatures set to reach new records in next five years
“Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño event, according to a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record. “This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas…”
- See also NOAA Climate Prediction Center – No section of the United States can expect a cool summer – with some areas seeing increasingly elevated temperatures including extreme heat and drought
