APEC Protesters Should Be Alert For Agent Provocateurs In Their Midsts

Alan Jones Wants Police To Drive Trucks Into Protest Rallies, Demands Marches Be Made Illegal

NSW police have made clear that they anticipate violence during protests at the APEC summit in early September. So much so that 500 places will be cleared in prisons to house protesters, who can be held without bail for up to 11 days, merely on the suspicion that they may be planning violent acts.

But a stunning admission by police in Canada should act as a clear warning to those planning to march and protest. Be on the lookout for masked, hooded 'protesters' who will attempt to cause violence so police can break up marches and detain hundreds of people.

During a protest in Quebec earlier this week, protest organisers surrounded and singled out three men, wearing ski-masks and bandannas to disguise their identities, who were were trying to provoke the police blocking a street. The three men were acting aggressively and at least one was armed with a large rock and was ready to throw it at police before he was stopped by the protesters.

The three masked men then tried to seek shelter with the police, and were supposedly arrested when they pushed through the police line.

The twist to this tale is that Quebec police have now admitted that the masked men were undercover officers.

The police were only forced to admit all this because the entire incident was captured on a remarkable piece of video footage now setting fire to the internet, and Canadian media locked onto the story and forced the police to answer questions raised by the video.

Australian media must now ask the NSW and federal police if they also intend to use masked, undercover officers and agents to infiltrate crowds of peaceful protesters during the APEC marches and rallies.

And all protesters must be on the lookout for masked people trying to provoke police or cause damage to shops and vehicles.

Thanks to this remarkable admission by the Quebec police, Sydney protesters cannot simply assume that there will not be those amongst their ranks who are there to cause trouble, so police have a justification for arrests and canceling other marches.

Watch the video and read the rest of this incredible story over at Your New Reality.


One of prime minister John Howard's best friends, radio shock jock Alan Jones, is playing along with the 'Stop The Violent Protesters' script, and is loudly attempting to prepare the public to oppose the democratic right of Sydneysiders to voice their opinions and march through the streets of their own city.

Jones is also hyping the proposition that APEC protests will turn violent. He states it as a fact, two weeks out from the first public march or rally.

Incredibly, Jones is now urging police to use violence against any and all protesters, before the first march has even been held and wants the police to use trucks as battering rams.

So much for free speech. So much for democracy. Jones wants any and all opposition and dissent crushed, violently if need be. He's also wondering if the Army should be called in to deal with protesters. Ignorant idiot that he is, Jones doesn't even know that armed soldiers are already scheduled to patrol the streets of Sydney. But to deal with, and react, to possible acts of terrorism, not peaceful protesters

Why should the protesters be given approval to march or assemble just because they want to?

...we've got the spectacle of what happened last year at the G20 summit in Melbourne. rightening. Barricades burnt, police pelted with bottles and garbage. We've only got 14,000 police.

Do we need the Army?

There is no reason why these people should be allowed to march.

Except for the whole democracy thing, you remember that, don't you Alan? Democracy? What our troops are supposedly fighting for in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Tell them they can't be trusted to behave in APEC week.

Tell them that our police and security services are not going to be made frontline fodder for their violence.

Make an application to the Supreme Court to argue that case. And if there's a 600,000 dollar water cannon which we've purchased, use it. If it can knock protesters off their feet, if they defy the law in numbers, use it.

Not only does Jones think the mini-police state that is about to engulf Sydney is a good thing, he doesn't think the security zones and vast new police powers go far enough.

Of course, when talking about riots and how such footage aired on international television will embarrass and shame all Australians, Jones doesn't mention the riot at Cronulla Beach, where thousands of white Australians chanted racists slogans and dozens brutally beat, punched, kicked and assaulted innocent people, and even women who happened to get in their way.

Why didn't Jones make reference to the Cronulla Beach riot when he talks about how a protest can get out of control and turn violent?

Surely it wouldn't be because he helped to rally, organise and inflame the violence and hatred on show at Cronulla Beach in December 2005 by reading out e-mails and text messages on his radio show for the full week proceeding the riot? Even when police told him to shut the hell up?

There is no reason why these people should be allowed to march.

The fact that Jones has a radio show where he can voice such opinions is exactly the reason why people should be allowed to march.

It's called Freedom of Speech. It's all a part of the excellence of living in a free democracy.

Scroll down for more stories related to the coming APEC summit.

Video Of Undercover Police Trying To Stir Up Violence During Peaceful Protest

Sydney Airport, Bondi Beach, North Shore Suburb, Major Hotels, To Fall Under APEC 'Security Zone'

APEC Protest Hysteria Gets Big Fat Tabloid Push

Police Warn School Student Protesters : We Cannot Guarantee Your Safety

President Bush's Early APEC Arrival Will Cost Taxpayers $6 Million

The $331 Million Party You're Not Invited To, But You're Paying For


The Daily Telegraph's Kara Lawrence and Joe Hildebrand use their remarkable psychic powers to predict what will happen in Sydney during the coming APEC summit, when thousands of Australians exercise their democratic rights to free speech and right of assembly :

A WEEK-long campaign of mayhem involving every major protest group in Sydney will cause mass CBD disruption during next month's APEC summit.

Unlike the APEC summit itself which, of course, will cause absolutely no mass disruption to the centre of Sydney at all. Except for the ten foot high, five kilometre long 'steel wall' cutting the city in half, BlackHawk helicopters sweeping over the city, massive presidential motorcades blocking traffic for hours at a time, and the deployment of more than 5000 police, armed soldiers and foreign secret service onto city streets who have the right to body search and detain, without charge, anyone they feel like.

The organisers of the APEC summit, according to the Daily Telegraph are bracing "for protests from a range of radical groups..."

Radical groups? Oh my gawd. Hizbullah? Hamas? Tamil Tigers?

Ah, no. Some of the radical groups the Daily Telegraph is referring to, in regards to their self-proclaimed 'campaign of mayhem', include :

Amnesty International, the Greens, Vietnamese and Chinese groups, and Critical Mass...

Amnesty International is a radical group? Chinese groups protesting Communism and campaigning for human rights are radical groups?

Well, Critical Mass sure sound like a bunch of dangerous radicals. Who are Critical Mass? They're bike riders, celebrating their love of biking, and promoting the riding of bicycles as an alternative to filling city streets with more cars.

Yeah, that's pretty radical.

Clearly the Daily Telegraph has already decided that 'MAYHEM' will be the action word in all its stories and headlines covering the protests surrounding the APEC summit. Even if there isn't any mayhem.

Here's a couple of headlines you'll never see in the Daily Telegraph :

'Thousands Of Australians Celebrate Their Love Of Democracy'

'Peaceful Protests Turn Sydney Streets Into One Big Party'

Meanwhile, police are warning that they cannot "guarantee the safety of children caught up in the protests".

As long as the 21 world leaders at the APEC summit don't get tasered, hit by water cannons, targeted by disorientation weapons or stepped on by police horses, how could any parent complain?

The Daily Telegraph also helpfully provides starting times and meeting place locations for a variety of rallies and marches, something the mainstream media rarely does, usually because police would prefer they didn't reveal such details.

By publishing full details of the events, the Daily Telegraph now stands accused of actively encouraging and promoting the rallies and marches by the very groups they've deemed to be 'radical' :

September 7 and 8 - the peak of APEC leaders' week - have emerged as the most popular for protest groups.

Hyde Park, Martin Place, Sydney Town Hall, Belmore Park and Milsons Point will all be occupied on these days.

On Saturday, September 8, at least 15,000 protesters are expected to clog the CBD. The biggest protest, at 10am on that day, is expected to be the 10,000-strong Stop Bush Stop Howard rally and march from Sydney Town Hall to Hyde Park North.

...the Vietnamese community is also staging a protest on that day, which is expected to attract thousands of protesters to Belmore Park, opposite Central railway station.

The Stop Bush Coalition is also organising a stunt protest at Sydney Town Hall to coincide with the arrival of US President George W. Bush on September 4.

Students from at least five Sydney high schools will also walk out of school in a student strike at 1pm on September 5 for a protest at Belmore Park.

The group is to then march along Elizabeth St and back to the park.

Assistant Commissioner Dave Owens, who is heading the police APEC response, said school students who attended protests put themselves at risk.

"These kids might get caught up in a violent protest but, as police, we cannot guarantee their safety if they do," he said. He said police were well-briefed on plans for a student walkout and said "the same rules apply to them as anyone else".

Hear that, children? You have been officially warned that if you turn up and exercise your democratic rights - you know the kind of democratic rights that Australian went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to help spread around to the oppressed - you may be deemed to be posing the same level of threat as violent anarchists and ski-masked agent provocateurs.

Interesting that nobody organising the numerous rallies is planning for, or even anticipating, "violent protest".

The police and the Daily Telegraph aren't trying to scare off people from exercising their democratic rights in the streets of of an Australian city by any chance, are they?

The irony is that the people who have actually unleashed untold violence, death and destruction will be the ones ringed by the kind of ultra-security never seen deployed before in Australia's history.


A report aired on Channel Seven News on Monday night revealed that the APEC summit will cost Australian taxpayers more than $331 million. One lunch alone will cost $12,000. And President Bush's early arrival in Sydney, throwing years of security planning into chaos, will cost an extra $6 million.

But forget about all that. Lookit! School students are taking part in democracy and demanding that vile war makers be held responsible for their actions. Quick! Somebody stop those kids before they start making sense!


The New South Wales Premier, Morris Iemma, has warned "ferals" to stop trying to recruit school students to take part in the protests around APEC.

That's right, students. If you're politically motivated and you want to make a real difference, then think about joining the Young Labor Party. It's a hive of action, and change. Kind of. Then again, not really.

Iemma has to get in early. That way, "ferals" can be blamed for brainwashing students into marching and protesting, when thousands of them turn out in opposition to the anti-environment policies and anti-human rights doctrines that about half the world leaders present at APEC actively support and practice.

Students, particularly high school students, aren't allowed to be motivated by what they see happening in the world around them, and genuine concern for their futures, to take to the streets of Sydney.

They have to be recruited, by "ferals", as though they're taking part in the rallies against their will.

Cops In Disguise - Agent Provocateurs Busted Trying To Cause Mayhem At Protest

Revealed - White House Manual Details How To Isolate, Marginalise Dissenters And Protesters

Police Reveal Secret APEC Weapon - Motorcycles

Water Cannon Can Break Limbs and Blind - Welcome To APEC Sydney, 2007

APEC : Eight Year Olds Subjected To Security Checks

Mobile 'Prisons' Readied For APEC Summit Protesters

Sydneysiders Told To "Leave Town" During World Leaders Summit

Police : "Testing The Power To Arrest Anybody"

Coming on the back of a flurry of alarming stories about police and state and federal governments pushing for new powers to enter homes without warrants to plant surveillance devices and monitor any and all internet activity; of new laws that will allow police to conduct full body searches on anybody they don't like the look of during September's APEC conference; detaining possible "troublemakers" during APEC in a fleet of "mobile prison" buses, and the more recent detention of a suspect who was held without charge for twelve days and then released, without charge, this "accidental" e-mail release could not have come at a worse time.

This morning, the Sydney Morning Herald received an e-mail that stated, ominously :

"Testing the power to arrest anybody".

Naturally, the NSW police claim this was all a big "mistake".

Perhaps so, but the explanation offered up to the Herald makes the "mistake" sound like anything but :

"The email was accidentally generated when a member of our IT [Information Technology] department was doing some testing on the back-end of our website, while looking at ways to improve the distribution of our media releases to you," said Tim Archer, media manager at NSW Police.

"The email was not generated by the Police Media Unit and was not relevant to any police operation or announcement. It was a simple internal test using random text which should not have been sent externally, so apologies if it caused some confusion in news rooms."

The SMH said the email arrived this morning, was three lines long and started with the words :

"Test - Arrest anybody".

Then came tomorrow's date. And then the line "Testing the power to arrest anybody."

"Random text", eh?

The more believable version might have been that the IT people testing the media release service were having a bit of a joke, and wrote the disturbing line and then accidentally fired off an email to someone on their media list. In this case, the smh.com.au.

But with all the other Big Brother-ish, police state-like new laws and opportunities for arrest and detention coming online for police for September's APEC summit, the "mistake" email actually sounds like an internal memo that got loose.

One that was alerting other police that they were going to conduct a test tomorrow, where they would arrest "anybody", as a way of testing the new powers being given to them.

Weird.

We'll see who gets arrested tomorrow in Sydney, and for what reason.

Sydney Turns 'Big Brother Police State' Into A Cliche

If you haven't been to Sydney for a few years, and you're familiar with Communist-era East Germany, you will be shocked at what you see if you happen to be in town come September.

September is, of course, the month that central Sydney is turned over to 21 of the world's most powerful regimists, dictators, Communists, war makers and mega-capitalists. In short, 21 of the world's most powerful leaders.

Sydneysiders will be greeted by police and soldiers sporting machine guns, checkpoints, sniper nests, random full body searches and special badges that restrict the movement of people through the centre of the city where the APEC summit is being held.

Although the State government denies it, the APEC summit is also the reason why light poles and traffic lights in 40 locations around Sydney are now being fitted with large speaker systems, just like in the China of Chairman Mao, from which messages of warning, instruction, control, conformity and behaviour modification can be blasted, thrummed and inaudibly toned.

APEC is the reason the speaker systems are going up, but "unspecified emergencies" is the reason why they will still be there, long after the world leaders have gone home.

First you will hear a wailing siren, then you will hear the messages telling you what to do, where to turn, where to hide, in the case of an "attack", straight from Police Central.

Are we living in Israel now? Is Newcastle or Wollongong about to start launching homemade rockets into our suburbs?

Less detail is know about the 'Text Message Boards', which will also spring up in time for APEC, and will allow police, or Chairman Iemma, to relay glowing, flashing instructions to the people of Sydney from a mobile phone.

Tied in with all this is the fact that the public and private surveillance cameras, red light cameras and traffic cameras are now being united into a combined surveillance system stretching the length and breadth of Sydney and its suburbs.

Terrorism is the excuse. The mega-billion dollar security industry is the reality.


All of the above also gels nicely with extraordinary new super police powers :

Police and security agencies will be given unprecedented "sneak and peek" powers to search the homes and computers of suspects without their knowledge under legislation to go before Federal Parliament next week.

The extensive powers - which also give federal police the right to monitor communications equipment without an interceptions warrant - come amid growing public disquiet about counter-terrorism powers following the bungled handling of the Mohamed Haneef case.

Under the laws, officers from the federal police and other agencies would be able to execute "delayed notification warrants", allowing them to undertake searches, seize equipment and plant listening devices in businesses and homes.

Police and security officers will be able to assume false identities to gain entry and conduct the surreptitious searches.

But the person affected by the raid does not have to be informed for at least six months, and can remain in the dark for 18 months if the warrant is rolled over.

The Greens senator Kerry Nettle said the handling of Dr Haneef's case served as a reminder that law enforcement and intelligence agencies made mistakes, and already had extensive and intrusive powers.

"Given the Haneef debacle, now is not the time to be giving more powers to the Australian Federal Police," she said.

The bill also deals with "controlled operations" - undercover operations where federal agents are permitted to undertake criminal activity in order to further their investigations.

Privacy Is An Illusion.


'Mobile Prisons' Readied For APEC Summit

APEC To Cost A Staggering $24 Million Per Day For Security - Sydneysiders To "Leave Town" During Summit

Detentions Without Charge, Random Body Searches, Machine-Gun Armed Soldiers To Hit The Streets Of Sydney

Prime Minister John Howard is so spooked by his inability to get back in the favour of the majority of Australia's voters that he is refusing to commit to even running for prime minister again, and has taken to babbling like a loon in response to unremarkable questions :

...when asked if he would now guarantee he would lead the Government into what is expected to be an election as close as October, he refused.

"Look I know the games you fellas play," Mr Howard said.

"I have a position in relation to this and it, it, it applies for all time. For all time that's relevant. And I just don't intend, I just don't intend. I know you'll start saying: 'Oh Howard, you know, he's altered his formulation'. Come on, you know that, I know you. Situation normal. Situation usual. Response usual. Response normal."

What?

Maybe the medical reason Howard will cite as a reason to to bow out of running for re-election will be dementia.


If you get picked up by police in New South Wales for so minor an offence as jaywalking, they will soon have the power to take a DNA sample from you and store it in a database. Naturally, it's supposedly all part of the effort to fight terrorism. The new police powers are already being called part of "a police state by stealth." But where's the stealth?


John Howard's beloved "battlers" are abandoning the prime minister in droves. He is widely seen by former Liberal voters as "too old, desperate and sneaky." Not exactly the kind of descriptions you'd want blasted across Sunday newspapers in bold type, but there they are.

Howard is also suffering a "youth revolt", particularly over climate change and WorkChoices. One in four young voters are said to have switched to backing opposition leader Kevin Rudd.


The number of prominent religious leaders, lawyers and politicians demanding the Howard government get its shit together over the treatment of alleged terror suspect Mohamed Haneef grows by the day. At the same time, letters pages and online comments are, in the majority, faulting the government and AFP's handling of the case, and even usually pro-Howard media are raging against the spectacular abuses of civil and human rights now on show.

So what to do?

Slurry the waters even further by getting out rumours that Haneef was somehow possibly involved, or possibly linked to, a possible terror plot in Queensland because he had photos of Queensland buildings in his possession. His lawyer summed up the new rumours that are not yet charges, or even official AFP allegations :

"Obviously if you're Muslim and you come from India, don't dare take any photos of any structures ... or that will be interpreted by the Queensland police force of having a sinister intent."

Another option under consideration is simply to deport Haneef, as soon as possible :

“Our best option is to cancel the Criminal Justice Certificate .... and that is my understanding of what our intentions are,” the source told the newspaper.

“Cancel the certificate and get this guy out of Australia...”

The string of apparently baseless allegations and media leaks against Haneef has proven to be a major international embarrassment, not only for the Howard government and Australia's fight against terror, but also for the Australian Federal Police, who are being referred to as Keystone Kops, "bumbling" and "hopeless" in British and Indian newspapers.


He was bitten three times on the leg by a bronze whaler shark, but the 15 year old boy fought back and has survived the attack. His mother thinks he was inspired to defend himself, and to try and stop the bleeding, after having recently watched a horror movie where a man bled to death.


John Howard was rallying the troops yesterday in western Sydney, while all the usual key Liberal Party media addicts were hiding from the cameras and microphones.

Howard told a Liberal Party conference he was "very proud of the fact in the 11-and-a-half years we have been in government ... we have lifted defence expenditure by 48 per cent in real terms..."

Curiously, this is almost the exact same percentage by which US defence expenditure has risen since the Project For A New American Century architects, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, 'Scooter' Libby and Paul Wolfowitz, started rallying for 1995 and 1996 for less money to be spent on education and health and more on weapons and bombs. Luckily, Al Qaeda and Islamic extremist-linked terrorist attacks rose dramatically around the same time.

Australia will spend more than $23 billion on 'defence' in 2008, giving Australia the second highest per person defence expenditure in the world, after the United States. The Iraq War has already cost Australian taxpayers $4 to $8 billion.


More than 130 people have attended the funeral of a baby boy they didn't know. The baby, named Luke for the service, was found dead and abandoned in rubbish. Many of the people drawn to the funeral, some of whom wept openly, said they didn't want the infant to be unrecognised in death. Police believe the unknown mother of the child may have been amongst the mourners. A christening gown and headstone were donated by the public and funeral directors.


Piers Akerman stabs fruitlessly at his keyboard : "It's no real surprise that the book actually flying out of the stores this weekend is the new Harry Potter novel, and not John Winston Howard: The Biography..."

It's no real surprise because John Winston Howard : The Biography hasn't been released yet.

Akerman claims "the biographers can only recycle and repackage past events, adding a little light and shade gleaned from interviews with some of the participants but nothing that was not already known."

The biographers interviewed more than 70 people, including John and Janette Howard. If Akerman is so keen to write off this book by claiming there is nothing new inside, you can rest assured that there is actually reams of valuable information and important insight to be learned that the vast majority of Australians, and probably lots of federal politicians, didn't know about John Howard.

To show just how ridiculous Akerman's attempts to claim there's nothing new, or of interest to the voting public, to be found in the new Howard biography, in the very same pages of the Sunday Telegraph, fellow columnist Glenn Milne writes :

The most damaging insight to emerge from the new biography of the Prime Minister comes, remarkably, out of the mouth of his chief loyalist: his wife, Janette.

The problem for Mrs Howard here is that she has inadvertently shone a light on the darker recesses of Howard's modus operandi that were for years hidden, but have now come to dominate the public debate about whether he deserves another, final term.

The Sunday Telegraph's lead editorial finally admits that the majority of Australians are unlikely to vote for John Howard come election time :

...the situation for the Prime Minister looks dire.

It's a crushing loss of confidence for John Howard from one of the primary newspapers he has long counted on for support, and to paper over his numerous lies, deceptions and faults, particularly on the eve of yet another Newspoll which is likely to show that Howard has already lost his chance for a fifth term in Kirribilli House :

After 11 years in office, the idea that he is a bit too sneaky has taken hold in the public psyche. It is a culmination of the "children overboard'' affair, the AWB wheat scandal and the ongoing suspicion that he dudded loyal deputy Peter Costello on when he would hand over the job.

Not to mention the widespread realisation that he deceived the nation into joining the United States in the illegal and horrific War On Iraq, and spat in the faces of the 75% of Australians who didn't want their country to be involved when he did so. Not to mention the wage-and-benefits stripping IR reforms. Not to mention the David Hicks fiasco and the widespread disgust Howard's generated by his acquiescence to Indonesia over the Schapelle Corby trail in 2005. The list is long, and grows longer by the week.


ABC Radio's coverage of the horrors of the Iraq War once made John Howard so angry his "face went red and his lips white." That's the trouble with the truth, it often sparks emotional and physical reactions in the people who don't want it to get out.


More than 150 people have died in just four weeks of Sydney's flu epidemic. Hospitals are crowded with the sick and close-to-dying. Hundreds of babies and children have needed specialised care, pushing hospital capacity to the brink. Compared to last year, viral infections are up by an astounding 200%, with respiratory illnesses ratcheting up by 70%.


Australians may soon have to come up with a 20% deposit to secure a home loan. Considering most young Australians don't have $30,00 or $40,000 kicking around, they'll have to get their parents or grandparents to put up their homes as security. Personal bankruptcies are rocketing towards record highs, and falling house prices mean that tens of thousands of families will be left with enormous debts if they are forced to sell the family home due to "economic shock". The Howard government continues to claim that there is no housing crisis in Australia, that the Australian economy is booming and rock solid and that Australian families have "never had it so good."


A former bodyguard of Saddam Husein wants to open a fish and chip shop in Sydney.

'Mobile Prisons' Readied For APEC Summit

Stripping Away Democratic Rights For The Sake Of 'Democracy'


Photo from the Sydney Morning Herald website

It's always nice to be reminded of the kind of democracy you're living in.

31 buses are reportedly to be used to detain protesters during the APEC summit in September, when some 70 world leaders will converge on Sydney and turn most of the central business district into a two week preview of a high-tech police state.

Sorry, did we say "mobile prisons"? Apparently, according to the NSW State Government, the correct terminology is "mobile holding cells".

Each bus can hold some 70 people. To turn them into mobile prisons, the buses have had their back windows blocked by a panel and the windows replaced with wire mesh.

Considering that the rear window in these buses double as the emergency exits, it will be interesting to see how they are going to provide the necessary safety measures that any bus in New South Wales is legally required to have in case of a fire or a traffic accident.

Or are these buses just yet another attempt by the government to intimidate the thousands of peaceful protesters who are planning to exercise their democratic rights during the APEC summit?

Interesting that they would need so many buses to deal with the presumed troublemakers. The NSW police, and ASIO, have a hit list of those they believe are likely to try and protest violently, and there are reportedly less than 60 names on that list. Or one bus load. And the police have already stated they intend to "round these people" up if they even think about heading into the Sydney CBD while the APEC summit is underway.

So not only will you need an approved ID card to access entire blocks of downtown Sydney in the first two weeks of September, you will need to pass through checkpoints, get used to being subjected to random body searches, the sight of snipers on rooftops and armed soldiers patrolling the streets, but you may also find yourself thrown into an escape-proof bus just because you happen to look like someone who might be thinking of causing trouble.

Plus, if you are detained because you are protesting incorrectly, you can be held without charge for "the entire duration" of the APEC summit.

Of course, all these rules won't apply to the undercover agents who regularly infiltrate peaceful protests around the world to make sure there are some dramatic scenes of violence and chaos for the media to fill their news bulletins with. It happened all the time during the anti-war protests of the late 1960s, you seriously don't believe that it doesn't happen today?

Haven't you wondered why virtually none of those arrested for kicking in shop windows and tearing up chunks of pavement never end up in jail? Or even facing a court of law?

At any huge protest, there will be a few dickheads. But there are also people who are paid to be dickheads. They are usually the ones who get on television, but rarely get arrested.

Mobile prisons in the streets of Sydney. No wonder the government has already advised people "to leave town" while the APEC summit is being held.

There's nothing more ironic, or New World Order iconic, then stripping away the vestiges of a democracy to welcome the leaders of the world's democracies to a summit, where spreading democracy in the Middle East will be under discussion.

APEC : Random Body Searches And Detention Without Charge - Sydney To Become A Mini-Police State

Sydneysiders Told To Leave Town During APEC World Leaders Summit

APEC Security Will Cost Taxpayers A Mind-Boggling $24 Million Per Day

Sydneysiders Told To "Leave Town" During World Leaders Summit

APEC Security To Cost A Mind-Boggling $24 Million Per Day

Staggering New Police Powers To Be Introduced To Prevent World Leaders Coming Into Contact With The Public

The APEC summit of world leaders is coming to Sydney in September, and locals have been told to "leave town", as the stunning array of security measures that will be deployed will see a huge area of the city undergo a near total lockdown, for at least three or four days.

If you thought the shutdown of the Harbour Bridge when US Vice President Dick Cheney was in town, was way over the top - just so Cheney could be whisked over to the north side of the harbour to dine with the prime minister - that was a mere preview of what's coming in September.

In the heart of Sydney today, a security rehearsal for the APEC world leaders summit will get a "dry run".

Some 200 health ministers are converging on a Sydney hotel for a conference on pandemic bird flu, and as this is the last major event of its kind before the APEC summit, security officials have determined it's a good opportunity to try out some of the "stringent security measures" they intend to inflict upon the people of Sydney when world leaders gather here later this year :

This week will also see the introduction to State Parliament of new police-state level security legislation, all supposedly tied to September's APEC summit of world leaders.

The new legislation will give police the ability to :

Declare restricted security zones.

Conduct random searches.

Ban troublemakers from entering restricted zones.

Stop those arrested for violent acts from getting bail until APEC is over.

Apparently any protester deemed to be a "trouble maker" who dares show their face during the first days of the APEC lockdown can be held without charge.

And anyone caught during any of the days of the APEC summit with devices that can injure police horses, injure people or blow out the tyres of police cars and motorbikes will face an
extraordinary 14 years in jail.

The first two weeks of September would be an extremely bad time to be subjected to a random body search on a Sydney street if you happen to be carrying a bag of marbles.


Newspapers over the weekend expressed a measure of surprise that the costs for the stunning levels of security needed to lock down Sydney for APEC have already "blown out" to almost $180 million.

Security costs for APEC are already more expensive than those needed for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and will cost taxpayers a mind-boggling $24 million per day to prevent the leaders of the free world from coming into contact with the public.

Surely then it will come as no surprise to the media when the security costs again "blow out" to more than $250 million closer to the date of the summit :

The costs far outstrip those of the Sydney Olympics, which featured hundreds of dignitaries and lasted more than two weeks.

During the get-together, heads of government, including US President George W. Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin, will cruise the city in a fleet of armoured limousines provided by Australian taxpayers at a cost of $4 million.

Although meetings involving officials are scheduled to last a full week, most leaders will stay only two days.

But they revealed the Federal Government's security bill for APEC 2007 was $169 million, compared with previous estimates of $143 million.

Security for the 2000 Olympics is estimated to have cost $152 million.

As well as limousines, the money is being used to secure venues and implement "airspace management".

It is also funding extra border-control measures, intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism response.

The biggest single allocation has been handed to NSW Police, who received $78 million in federal cash to secure "marine area command" - Sydney Harbour - and conduct traffic control, dignitary protection, dog squad and mounted police operations.

The money will also fund aviation, State Surveillance Branch, intelligence and advanced technical support.

The main security event is Leaders' Week, during which 21 heads of government will descend on Sydney.

Previously on this blog :

For up to two weeks in September, a huge area of Sydney's central business district, and tourist shopping mecca, will be blockaded by hundreds of police, security guards and Australia's military. Soldiers, armed with assault rifles, will allegedly be given "shoot to kill" rules of engagement to deal with security threats.

Black Hawk helicopters will patrol the skies, snipers will be positioned on the rooftops of some of Sydney's landmark buildings, train stations will be closed down and checkpoints will screen each and every person who tries to enter 'The Zone'.

In a quick series of announcements earlier this week, the state and federal government unveiled the first slab of details revealing just how severe the ultra-security will be when more than 20 world leaders, including Presidents Bush and Putin, descend on Sydney for the APEC summit in September this year.

The publicly released plans read like scenarios culled of the Orwellian police state portrayed in the movie 'V For Vendetta', and Sydneysiders are already expressing their anger and frustration at an event that they know will paralyse the city centre, while they still have to go to work and try to live their lives.

While news that Australian soldiers carrying assault rifles will be patrolling the streets of Sydney was jaw-dropping enough, we've also now learned that special legislation will be introduced, allowed under anti-terror laws, to allow police to pull people they deem to be a possible security threat off the street and detainee them without charge, for days at a time. Other Sydneysiders can look forward to the possibility of being subjected to random full body searches.

Naturally the notorious, odious Piers Ackerman, a stunningly biased full-time John Howard propagandist, thinks there is nothing at all wrong with APEC being held in Sydney, instead of in Canberra or an island resort. And he loves the idea that the summit will allow the 21 APEC world leaders a forum to continue working out ways to morph their nations into a virtually borderless free trade zone encompassing about a third of the world's surface, which will probably be called Oceania in a decade or two :

APEC is more, much more than a tourist stopover for 21 world leaders, top business figures and senior public servants, let alone a photo opportunity in a funny shirt.

It will place Australia squarely in the role of Asia-Pacific powerbroker with a very serious business agenda that could set the agenda for major changes in the way the economies in this part of the world work.

There is also an APEC nations business travel card which will act as a visa for preferential travel across the borders of 17 of the 21 APEC economies.

A system of APEC-wide standards is also being worked on to simplify trade, a huge step at a time when some member nations don’t even have their own internal standards organisations.

The APEC nations even consider it possible that their Sydney talks may help break the free trade stalemate that has deadlocked the Dohar rounds of talks, cutting red tape and producing a free trade area in the Asia-Pacific region. If Dohar falls over, or more realistically, when, APEC could be the essential basis for a free trade zone.

Of course, Ackerman has nothing to say about the expected half-trillion dollar losses to local businesses when Sydney is shut down for the best part of two weeks later this year. Give him a few months and he will blame the shut down of Sydney on the threats posed by all those nasty protesting, freedom-loving, anti-globalisation 'terrorists' and big puppet heads.

For power groupies like Ackerman, inconveniencing millions of people, inflicting staggering financial losses on small businesses, milking the taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars and subjecting innocent people to draconian police-state security measures just goes with the territory of establishing a mammothic 'free trade' zone in our part of the world.

Australians should feel blessed, you see, and Sydneysiders in particular, that supreme powers have deigned us mere mortal Australians worthy of paying the bill for a world leaders talk fest, where they will sit down to work out how they can further carve up the world and its natural resources for the alleged betterment of all.

And be whisked around the city in bomb-proof limousines while the unworthy sit in gridlock for two or three hours, while being buzzed by Black Hawk helicopters.

It's a small price to pay to have our city graced by the likes of such admired and respected world leaders like President George W. Bush.

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