The USA is our most important ally.

Also very critical for the right of free navigation in the South China Sea. The passage where more than half of Australia's trade passes. 

Don't know how to edit posts here, meant to say "one question I haven't seen asked". Yeah offshore detention is horrible.

I don't know why people don't ask the government why they are willing to spend so much on offshore detention and claim a 'budget crisis'. If they want to turn the budget back to surplus they need to cut off these money pits its Nauru and PNG.

The fear spread by both major parties about refugees is shocking.

What a farce

Because if we go to onshore processing, the fear is, that illegal immigration will increase to new high levels and of course this will lead to more drownings at sea. This belief is supported by historical fact. 

Also, if we are having more boat arrivals, will it really be cheaper? 

At the end of the day, the current Government has truly controlled illegal boat arrivals from the previous Government's debacle. It achieved that through its tough stance. Under the previous Government we also had hundreds of juveniles in detention. Today there are virtually none. 

If you don't have a tough stance, then you got no chance of controlling it. 

Irrational fear. What difference does it make where we house them? Christmas Island still isn't the mainland of Australia.

There is a solid argument that the current 'tough' stance is a violation of human rights.

It's not an irrational fear.

A watering down of these laws will be a great signal to overseas smugglers that Australia is open for business.

This is what happened under the Labor Rudd/Gillard/Rudd administrations. There were also hundreds of sea drownings reported. There is no reason to suggest this is irrational fear mongering when we know this is what has happened in the past. 

The commitment to prevent these people from being settled in Australia stopped a lot of boats. This has nothing to do with where they are detained for processing.

My issue is off-shore detention which is poorly regulated and extremely expensive.

There are certain laws about this which Australia has been circumventing. They are trying to prevent people from arriving in Australia in the first instance.

Under the relevant Refugee Treaties (many of the illegals are NOT refugees though), Australia is obliged to settle them in Australia if they claim asylum. 

How is refugee status determined?

-PB

In reality, letting these people leave and preventing them from returning does not make the people in this country safer. Just because someone is no longer in this country does not mean they don't have contacts and networks in this country.
I reckon some try-hard playing jihad in Australia has less chance of inspiring impressionable angry youths than someone who has travelled overseas and is now being "persecuted" by the Australian government.

I don't know. You will need to look at the UN Refugee Treaties to see the terminology.

Usually those running from oppressed societies, war, persecution, famine, weather disasters etc are real refugees. Others fleeing some countries now deemed safe, like Pakistan, are NOT refugees. They are economic migrants.

So if you come from Syria, you are probably a refugee. 

There are other laws in place if I am not mistaken. Such as refugees who make it to a third country, like Turkey, then illegally migrate to another country like Greece. When they do that, they lose their refugee status as far as Greece is concerned because Turkey is considered a "safe" country. Therefore, Greece is technically within its rights to return them to Turkey. 

These rules also apply to Australia. A Syrian who migrates to Australia from let's say Indonesia. Australia's argument is that they should be processed in Indonesia. 

China starting to build reinforced hangers on reclaimed reefs.

Wonder how were gonna get dragged into this...

-PB

If they get aggressive we should seize everything China owns in Australia and expel all their people ;)

We are forced to get involved. That's because we are one of the countries begging the USA to do our own bidding and protect Australian Interest and trade lanes.

The Americans always come to the party, but they always say, "OK Australia, Japan, South Korea, Philipines, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam! I will take care of business but only if you guys pull your weight as well"

So we have no choice in the matter.

Another day another shooting and another riot

This nonsense needs to stop.

Rodrigo Duterte "son of a whore" quote Lost in Translation

The story is the journalists will to misinterpret Duterte when he meant 'son of a gun', Duterte says: 'then again, im not an international spokesperson, so they can go to hell'

ROFL he has such a zero fucks approach.

Love it.

-PB

So what do you guys think should be done or not be done about North Korea's nuclear program?

The regime only hangs on with Chinese support. Nothing much can be done unless China says so.

lol Israel saying if you don't support their settlement ideas then you support ethnic cleansing.

-PB

Anyone been following this bombing/bombs being found in New York City & New Jersey. 

Over the last couple days I'd heard about it, but with everything that's gone down in America in the last decade, and around the world, I'm not shocked like I used to have been at hearing this sort of news. I'm almost completely desensitised to it. 

Basically a bomb was discovered along a route of a planned US Marine Corp charity fun run on the 17th. A second bomb then detonated along the route where the runners were meant to be running, but due to the race being delayed with the discovery of the first bomb, nobody was hurt or killed. A third pipe bomb was discovered in the area but also didn't go off. 

Then later that night a bomb went off in Manhattan, New York, believed to be contained in a pressure cooker. That wounded at least 29 people, 1 seriously. A second device, almost identical was discovered not long after a few blocks away, but was safely defused and taken away for examination with the FBI. 

The FBI then discovered the suspect - an Afghani-American who had gone to America in 2000. Apparently his family had embraced US culture - even opened up a fried chicken shop. The bloke had been spending time flying to and from Afghanistan, but was not believed to have been on any terrorist watch lists. Police found him last night and arrested him after a shootout in which he shot 2 Police Officers and was shot twice himself. Crazy shit. 

But what's shocked me more than anything is how desensitised to the whole thing I am. Similar to the Boston Bombings which was shocking in it's brutality, but this just feels like 'another day in America', 

Yup feel the same.

I wanna know what they put in these pressure cookers to make em go bang so much.

-PB

You know how many attacks have happened in Pakistan and Syria. Everyone is over it. 

Nuts, bolts, screws and other bits of shrapnel.

I don't think he is asking what the shrapnel is but more so the explosive material.

Aid convoy bomb outside of Aleppo.

The fuck are these wankers doing?

-PB

Being the scum they are. 

Swedish military told to look out for foreign spies

Sweden's military has urged staff to stay alert as more and more incidents that could be linked to suspected espionage are emerging across the country, report Swedish media.

"Every week I receive reports about both more and less serious spy activity," Mikael Frisell, head of the northern Swedish military region, told public broadcaster SVT, which reported on Tuesday that an internal memo had been sent round to Armed Forces staff instructing them to stay vigilant.According to unconfirmed reports to SVT, a Nato officer was threatened by Russians on a visit to the pub during a Nato exercise in Luleå in northern Sweden. They allegedly showed pictures of his family and requested specific information about the exercise."I can tell you that during the air exercise Ace in Norrbotten I received a security report about an individual being contacted but I don't want to say more than that," said Frisell.Last week the country's Armed Forces said that foreign spies had been present at an international military exercise in the south of Sweden in August, to "gather intelligence and information".And earlier this month the southern Swedish military opened a dedicated phone line for members of the public to provide tips about suspicious behaviour and warned of foreign intelligence gathering."Everyone has to start to realize that this is what it looks like now, that this really is happening in Sweden and we have to start taking it seriously," said Frisell.Meanwhile, the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper also reported on Tuesday that soldiers had been approached by unidentified individuals during another recent exercise on Gotland, the Baltic Sea island where Sweden last week decided to station permanent military troops."People in foreign-registered cars approached soldiers and asked different kinds of questions about the operations," lieutenant-colonel Hans Håkansson told the Swedish daily.A press spokesperson for the Armed Forces confirmed that a higher number of 'security incidents' have been reported in recent years, but added that it could also be due to increased vigilance.

"We also know that there are contact attempts going on, reconnaissance and that there have been unauthorized individuals at protected objects," Jesper Tengroth told the Aftonbladet newspaper.Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on Monday denied suggestions that a perceived growing military threat from Russia was behind the decision to put permanent troops on Gotland."I've said it before and it remains unchanged: there is no direct military threat to Sweden," he said. "… but we have long been able to note that the security situation has changed, not least because of what happened in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea."

http://www.thelocal.se/20160920/swedish-military-told-to-watch-out-for-foreign-spies

I can't see how the damage to the trucks were caused by an air strike like the Americans are claiming. No craters, trucks in relitive good condition compared to damage one normally sees from vehicles damaged from air strikes.