Sydney : Inside 'The Cage'

"We're Like A Bunch Of Fucking Rats In A Maze!"


The 'steel wall' goes up only metres from the Sydney Opera House.

Report And Photos By Darryl Mason

On the outside of the 'steel wall' stretching five kilometres through the centre of Sydney, it looks like a fence. A three metre high, concrete reinforced fence.

But it's only once you're on the inside of the 'security zone' that you realise what it really is.

It's a cage. It's not the Great Wall Of Sydney, as the media were referring to it a few days ago.

It's The Sydney Cage.


One of The Cage entry points for vehicles in the heart of Sydney.

Inside The Cage yesterday afternoon, police, security guards and foreign secret service agents patrolled the streets, manned entry points along the 'steel wall' and videod every person who walked past the side and rear service entries to the Intercontinental Hotel, where President Bush is now staying.

The few pedestrians and tourists wandering around inside The Cage barely spoke. Heads down, shoulders slumped, people moved as fast as they could to get to where they were going. Entire cafes, normally crowded with tourists, sat empty, rows of chairs and tables bereft of customers. If you wanted coffee, or food, you waited until you were outside of The Cage to stop and get what you wanted.

Nobody wanted to linger in there. Inside The Cage was a Sydney I'd never seen before. Quiet, subdued, confused and nervous.

Inside The Cage, police can stop you, demand you show your ID, question you about your reasons for being inside the 'security zone' and ask to see photographs on your cell phone or digital camera.

The police 'can' do all these things, according to the media. We must get used to it.

But there isn't any law that allows the police to do any of these things.

The media has actively helped to create the mindset amongst Sydneysiders that they have to do what police and security guards demand of them, whether that be hand over their day planners and cell phones for investigation, or provide details of where they work.

But police don't have the law on their side. You can refuse all these police requests, and on Tuesday afternoon I witnessed a number of Sydneysiders, furious and frustrated at being forced to navigate a series of steel corridors just to cross the street, telling police they were not going to comply with requests for ID and personal details.

"You have no right to ask me for that information," said one elderly man, on Bridge Street. "Show me the law that says you have the right to question me like this."

The policeman couldn't, and he look embarrassed at being challenged.

At best, all the police can do inside The Cage is ask to you leave the area, and if you fail to do so, they are allowed to escort you out. If you resist, police are then able to arrest you on any number of minor offences related to resisting police directives.


More than 40 wireless 'emergency alert' speaker systems were installed throughout the city centre. They emit ear-piercing sirens and spoken alerts.

Before the arrival of President Bush, the general mood of the hundreds of security guards and police milling about at various check points and gate ways along the walls of The Cage was not tension, or paranoia, it was sheer and total boredom.

Inside, or outside, The Cage, there were no hordes of "violent protesters". No "roaming gangs" of anarchists and anti-capitalists as the media and John Howard had promised.

There were just an enormous number of security people standing around doing nothing, or chatting quietly with tourists.


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The only people I found in two hours of walking around inside The Cage who were close to anarchy were the owners and managers of retail shops, tourist outlets and restaurants and cafes.

Dozens of cafes and food courts and restaurants and bars had less than four or five customers, many others sat completely empty. Food outlets that struggle to break even at the best of times were selling off meals and containers of unsold food for a quarter of their normal prices. Literally forced to give away their products and produce by the presence of an economic summit that promoted free trade and free markets.

Nearly all the small business owners I spoke to inside The Cage, that rely on street traffic trade for their livelihoods, said their takings were down 60 to 80% because of the APEC summit, and the presence of the 'steel wall' security fence. They still have five more days of such economic ruin to endure before The Cage is taken down.

For many of these pro-capitalism entrepreneurs, the APEC summit has heralded a financial disaster that will take months to recover from. Staff have been laid off, deliveries from wholesalers cancelled, the financial damage seeps out from these small businesses across the sprawl of Sydney and its suburbs.

Tens of thousands of Sydney workers have been told they aren't needed to work this week in restaurants, cafes and retail outlets. For most of these casual workers, a day off means a loss of a day's wages. A week with no work means big financial trouble for minimum wage workers who are already struggling to get by.

None of the cafes, restaurants and retail outlets inside The Cage who are suffering from a massive loss of trade and income due solely to the APEC summit have been offered any kind of compensation by the state or federal government.


The three metre high 'steel wall' also, bizarrely, cuts through the heart of Sydney's Botanical Gardens. The local fauna were as confused as the office workers who usually eat their lunch in the park.

"I don't want to go in there," said one elderly German tourist to his family, at Circular Quay, as he balked at entering The Cage. "I don't like checkpoints and questions."

Neither do most Sydneysiders.

The crush of pedestrians on street corners at 5pm as people headed home from work was intense. Open gates to get out of The Cage were few and far between. You were forced to squeeze through small openings, people rushing to make buses and get home slammed into each other as the disorientating effects of so many 'steel walls' and checkpoints and gate ways caused confusion and anger.


Sydney, 3pm Tuesday - No cars, few pedestrians, stunned tourists, local businesses suffer 80% downturn in takings.

It's remarkable how easy it is to get disorientated trying to navigate your way through the maze of fences. Street names and routes through the city you've known and walked for decades become mysteries as you discover you can no longer duck down that back lane, or cross the street where you have thousands of times before. Everything looks different when there's a three metre high security fence blocking your view and looming over your head.

"We're like a bunch of fucking rats in a maze!", one business man cried out on a Bridge Street corner. "Look at this bullshit! We're rats in a goddamned cage!"

None of the dozens of people, all trying to squeeze through the one metre wide gap in the fence to get across the road, disagreed with him. Nobody laughed. Everybody just wanted to get out of there.

And then, on the other side The Cage, outside of that rat maze, the tension in the crowd visibly lifted. The pedestrians streaming towards relocated bus stops began talking, some were laughing, but everybody seemed far more relaxed.

It was like being free, for the first time that afternoon.


Bush Tells Australian Minister "We're Kicking Ass!" In Iraq

No Customs, No Traffic, No Red Lights - Airport To City Hotel In Less Than 15 Minutes - It's Good To Be The President

Pro-Bush Rally Granted Permission To March Outside President Bush's Hotel - Inside The Security Zone Cage

Head Of Riot Squad Says Anti-Bush Protesters Run The Risk Of Being "Injured" If They March In Sydney

Police Tell Supreme Court Anti-Bush Protesters Will Target War Memorial, Smash Shop Windows - But Judge Refuses to Believe Them

APEC : Welcome To Australia, President Putin

Thank Russia For 'Winning' World War 2 , Says Former Australian Prime Minister

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating believes it's time for Australia to make an historic shift away from the America-first focus of our international relations and foreign policies.

Keating recognises Russia under Vladimir Putin as a rising star on Australia's trade horizon, and also thinks its time for Australia, the US and the rest of the former Allies, to finally recognise the enormous sacrifices the Russian people made to "win" World War 2.

If APEC really is about expanding Australia's trade frontiers, as prime minister John Howard claims, then clearly Russia should be of particular focus, as there is enormous new wealth there to soak up our coal, uranium and mineral exports. Along with a good, solid push to ramp up Australia as tourist destination number one for all those cashed-up Russians.

That Australia under John Howard is even thinking about spending billions to help the United States establish its Russia-and-China-baiting global 'missile shield' in our part of the world shows we're still doing the bidding of the US, even when no nation in the world poses a credible threat to Australia.

That Australia is still willing to help the US 'contain' and surround Russia and China in such relatively peaceful and prosperous times shows just how big the American thumb pressing our foreheads still is.

Instead of baring our teeth, t's time to pay homage to the Russian people, then and now, says Keating.

No doubt, Vladimir will be very, very pleased with the former prime minister's editorial :

Russia was offered a place at the APEC table not because it was a natural constituent, but as a consolation prize by the Americans, for their having taken strategic advantage of it in the years immediately following the Cold War.

No one should ever forget that the Russians carried the primary burden of winning World War II, losing 26 million of their people in the process. More than the present population of Australia. A level of death, destruction and misery on a scale unprecedented in human history.

When Hitler failed to smash Britain with his blitz, he unleashed on Russia the full might of his army and air force, then the largest in history. What followed was carnage and human suffering on an unimaginable scale as the Russian people absorbed his ferocious power. A battering they took for four solid years before a second front was opened in the west at Normandy.

The 20th century was nothing but a century of suffering for the Russian people; first the revolution, then the famine and the purges of the 1930s, then the war through the '40s, followed by the belt-tightening and deprivation of the Cold War.

Now the United States and NATO wish to build a series of anti-missile facilities around Russia's front lawn and side driveway, purportedly against rogue states, while none of the so-called rogue states have missile systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.

The Russians know that despite the Soviet Union having been fragmented into 15 nations, with Russia becoming a democracy, the extension of NATO and the ring-fencing of Russia with an anti-missile shield is aimed at Russia itself, the state under permanent suspicion.

Four US presidential terms - the two Clinton ones and the two Bush ones - have witnessed a continual deterioration in relations with Russia. Russia is the state which still has the capacity to threaten Europe, yet its pleas for inclusion and to be taken seriously, have gone unheeded.

The problem is that when the Cold War finished the Americans cried victory and walked off the field. In strategic terms, the world is still set up on the template of 1947, with countries like Germany and Japan not even permanent members of the UN Security Council, while states like Italy and Canada remain part of the G8 at the expense of countries like China and India.

Seventeen years on, the Russians are still on the outside looking in, while the Chinese seek to garner their legitimacy by subjecting themselves to external bodies like the World Trade Organisation. The fact is, the world is run unrepresentatively. This is the problem.

For were it to be run otherwise, Russia, China and India would be part of the world growth amalgam, naturally aligning their security interests with their economic interests.

At least Russia is in APEC with us. Australia won't be circumscribing its interests knowing that inclusion and understanding are the only pathways to peace and progress.

We should welcome Putin on his first visit to Australia and tell him we have not forgotten the 26 million of his countrymen who died for our liberty as well as for their own.

Russians died for our liberty? That can't be right. All those American war movies piped through Australian television sets continually throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s taught us that it was the Americans, not the Russians, that won World War 2 and saved Australia from numerous nasty -isms.


A few recent Russian news stories, of interest :

Russia Flexes Its Muscles Across Asia-Pacific In Bid To Restablish Itself As 'Great World Power'

NATO Hostile Towards Russians, Or So The Russians Believe

Russian Foreign Minister Says There Will Be No Bargaining Over Kosovo Or Missiles

It's Time For Russia To Become One Of Us

Russia Looks To Play Balancing Role In The World

Russia Engages Central Asia In War On Terror

Russia To Deploy More InterContinental Ballistic Missiles In December

Supreme Court Hammers Police For Trying To Block Anti-Bush Protest In Sydney

The New South Wales Police copped an earful from a Supreme Court judge this morning over its attempts to stop a protest march through the streets of Sydney this Saturday, and adjourned further hearings until Wednesday night.

NSW Police were seeing a court order to keep protesters from gathering and marching through public areas outside of the fenced in security zone, but were criticized for not having requested such a court order last week.

The Stop Bush Coalition announced the September 8 march date months ago, and police were criticised in the court for not having made their application sooner.

From ABC News :

A lawyer for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says the 20,000 people expected to assemble through APEC's security zone will pose a risk.

The application for the court order caught the protest group off guard and its three lawyers want more time to prepare their case.

The court heard police had the chance to take the matter to court last week.

Police have been in discussion with the Stop Bush Coalition for weeks over their proposed protest route, which they object to because it includes the declared APEC zone of Martin Place.

In declared zones, officers have more powers to search people and move them on.

Earlier today, coalition spokesman Alex Bainbridge said Martin Place was not a restricted area and protesters should be allowed to be in the same space as the rest of the public.

"We are planning to enter the declared area, which is open to the public," he said.

"It's nowhere near the restricted area or any of the APEC venues. What we believe is that nowhere that is open to the public should have protests banned or free speech restricted."

The court clearly understands NSW Police were trying to railroad and pressure them into granting the order to effectively ban the march.

No dice. It is not illegal for crowds to gather and voice their dissent in a public area of Sydney.

Well, not yet anyway.

NSW Police will have to come up with something better, like actual provable threats posed by protesters, for the court to grant the order to legally stop the Saturday march.

Shockingly Awful Poll For Howard Neon-Signs Election Massacre

Howard Was As Much Of A Loser In March As He Is Today

Good God, can the Last Days Of PM John Howard be any more humiliating or hideous for the old man?

The same night that his foreign minister Alexander Downer was reduced to endlessly repeating the words "climate change", "energy efficiency" and "carbon reduction" on Lateline - like Bob Brown after three month long beer and burger binge - John Howard must have been hiding behind the lounge in Kirribilli with his fingers in his ears trying to block out the staggeringly terrible news pumping out of the box.

Not only has Kevin Rudd leaped ahead to his best favourability rating yet, But Howard's has plunged, along with the vote for his government.

He won't just lose the election off these numbers. Howard will be slaughtered like a goat at the end of Ramadan. He will lose office as prime minister and as a federal member of Parliament.

So will Alexander Downer, and about eight to ten more senior government ministers.

These are not just bad numbers. Not "Oh yes, well, it's just another poll isn't it?" numbers. Not even "It just means I'll have to work harder than ever" numbers.

These are "Hand me that pistol and leave the room, darling" numbers :

...Labor's primary vote soaring to 51 per cent and the Coalition's falling to 37 per cent.

On the basis of preference flows at the last election, the two-party-preferred vote gives Labor an 18-point lead, 59 per cent to 41 per cent.

The Labor leader also stretched his lead over Mr Howard on the question of who would be the better prime minister.

Mr Rudd's support lifted two points to 48 per cent and Mr Howard's fell from 39 per cent to 37 per cent.

The longer Howard leaves it to call this frigging election and get the gruesome end of his political career over and done with, the more voters will want him to be gone, kaput, exito Kirribilli.

There are so many demands for Howard to announce the date of the federal election today over at the once rock solid, Howard-hugging 'The Australian' that they might as well have just run one big fat headline across their entire broadsheet front page : "Bloody Howard! Call The Election For Christ's Sake!"


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I still wouldn't be surprised if Howard quit a day or two after the APEC summit ends, and disappears for a few months with the wife on a farewell world tour. Or maybe he'll just throw himself in Sydney Harbour on Sunday night when the final dinner and show of the $400 million-plus APEC summit ends.

Howard showed which party he was most truly committed to last year when he refused to handover the reins to Peter Costello, as promised, as requested, as expected, as would have been the honourable thing to do - exit while still a winner, and a respectable politician (well, kinda).

But the party our rapidly fading prime minister is most loyal and committed to is the Federal Howard Party.

The only thing bigger in Sydney yesterday than that horrendously ugly security wall was Howard's ego.

There probably won't be much left of it by Sunday night after he spends a week gritting his teeth as 20 world leaders who can read newspaper front pages and know what the words "Faces Crushing Defeat" mean, shrug their shoulders and bid him an early farewell, and then get on the phone to Australia's next prime minister.

Why, some of the APEC leaders will ask Howard, did you not invite Kevin Rudd to address the APEC summit?

Howard will quiver with disgust and horror in reply.

Maybe he can announce his resignation as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party on Saturday afternoon, and then hitch a ride to the US on Air Force One with President Bush?

It's clear that the United States is where Howard's heart truly lies.

Oh, but that's right. Even Bush can't stand a true-blue loser.


UPDATE : Here's a few excerpts from a six month old take on the last days of prime minister John Howard from 'The Orstrahyun'. Howard's poll numbers were appalling in March, and have not improved an iota. But he still refuses to go :

Howard's numbers aren't falling, they're plunging into the basement like a lift crammed full of concrete blocks that's snapped free of its cables. He's almost in George W. Bush territory. And Rudd has led Labor to their best numbers in two decades.

The decline of John Howard's political kingship has already become an amusingly harrowing spectacle. But the laughs won't last. The cacophony of lies, deceit and fear mongering that have punctuated his reign have deafened the masses and deadened their souls. Now they want their revenge. They want to scrape the filth off their shoes and put the past decade of derision and division, of Tampa, of Truth Overboard, of legitimate refugee toddlers razor-wired into desert prison camps, of Australia-funded missiles slamming into Iraqi civilians, of propping up Saddam's hideous regime by plausibly-denying the bribes of the AWB, all of it, all that muck and filth, Australians in the overwhelming majority now want to push it all deep into the back corner of their memories.

Australia has been transformed under the War On Human Decency waged by John Howard for 11 solid years, and many of us have become more like Americans than perhaps even John Howard and Tony Abbott and Piers Ackerman and Andrew Bolt might like to realise.

The Fair Go For All has faded. Give The Little Bloke A Chance is not so popular anymore. But most of all, we don't seem to like Losers as much as we once did, even the ones who try really hard. That's the chief reason why the Iraq War is so vastly unpopular in the United States today. America is losing, and Americans don't like to lose. And now, neither do we.

Howard is a Loser. And everyone knows it. When you're a Loser in Australian politics, you don't get a second chance anymore, as Mark Latham so comprehensively learned.

The stumbling, bumbling, simpering, whimpering decline and fall of John Howard is really going to be almost too cruel to watch. Alan Ramsey called the coming spectacle of Howard's downfall "delicious" in the Sydney Morning Herald last week. Maybe. But there's nothing pretty about a six month long autopsy.

Peter Costello and Malcolm Turnbull must do the decent thing, the humane thing. The only thing that can and should be done. They must feed Howard a handful of sugar cubes and coax him down into the back paddock and...put him out of his misery.

Politically speaking, of course.

Welcome To Sydney President Bush, But Watch Out For The Rocket Launchers

When Will The 'Security Threat' Related Curfews For Sydney Be Announced? Thursday? Or Friday?

The search for nine Army rocket launchers, stolen last year and allegedly sold on through a ring of organised crime members and religious extremists, goes on even today, as President Bush arrives in Australia.

Police and ASIO agents have reportedly spent many long nights digging up sections of national park near Sydney, searching for the missing rocket launchers, believed to have been hidden away inside lengths of PVC tubing, and then buried.

So far, all those night-time searches have turned up nothing.

It's easy to imagine the conference calls between the CIA, Bush's secret service detail, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO :

"Have you found those fucking rocket launchers yet."

"Err, no."

"WHY THE FUCK NOT?"

"Well, we're following some leads, and we believe they've been buried in a patch of land somewhere between Sydney and Wollongong, and we're very confident that..."

"The President of the United States is coming to Sydney and you've lost NINE FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHERS! Find them!"

"Yeah, righto...(click)...bloody Seppos."


The Australian has a detailed story about the intensive, and sometimes bizarre, search for the missing rocket launchers :

The fact that there are nine rocket launchers believed to be in the vicinity of Sydney as a meeting of world leaders begins has meant in recent months this operation has become one of the highest priorities of ASIO.

It is one of the reasons Australian and US security advisers are insistent that protesters will be at least 300m from the President at all times.

Theoretically, the launchers can fire from that distance but an amateur would generally be able to fire them only 125m.

The most worrying aspect of the weapons is that they are concealable - when folded, they are about 67cm, which means they can fit into a backpack. They can be painted any colour to blend with carry bags.

The M-72 launchers are designed to carry warheads that can cut through metal with a small hole then explode. The warheads are designed for a "blast effect". They are often used in warfare to attack bunkers, as they cause maximum damage.

Despite all the claims by prime minister John Howard that "violent protesters" are the reason why the entire Sydney area of APEC conference centres and hotels are surrounded by a ten foot high, five kilometre long 'steel wall', it's clear that the missing rocket launchers are the most active, realistic and dire security threat facing President Bush while he's in town.

It has been occasionally mentioned in the media that the 'steel wall', reinforced by a few tons of concrete blocks every dozen metres, could stop car and truck bombs, it's clear once you've had a look at it that it has also been designed to stop rocket launchers.

Prime Minister Howard has worked hard to make sure that the unlikely threat of "violent protesters" fills news bulletins and newspaper front pages, but some in the media now know they've been conned, and distracted from the bigger, far more dramatic story.

The real story of APEC security threats is, of course, the Missing Rocket Launchers. And today, the media will begin making them the focus of their headlines.

They will make for some very wide-eyes amongst the APEC world leaders, delegates and international media when they pick up their morning newspapers outside their hotel room doors.


The question now is, when will some "new security threat" (which will not be revealed in the interests of national security) be announced, which will lead to the announcement that parts of the city will be put under curfew?

Thursday? Or Friday?

Under the raft of new laws NSW Police have been granted to deal with APEC security, we've been told they have the authority to declare entire blocks of Sydney completely off limits to non-APECers, under a dawn to dusk, or 24 hour long, curfew.

Back to back curfews may be announced due to "ongoing security threats" which would keep everyone but the APECers out of the key security zones for all of Saturday and Sunday.

A dawn to dusk curfew inside and surrounding the fenced off security zone would mean that anybody who doesn't posses APEC accreditation will not be allowed inside the 'steel wall' of Sydney, which takes in the conference centres and hotels where APEC leaders are staying and meeting.

Which means Stop Bush Coalition protesters could be stopped from attempting to march through parts of the city on Saturday.

And which would also mean a weekend long ban on any member of the public getting anywhere near the Opera House on Sunday night, where leaders and their partners will gather on a balcony overlooking Sydney Harbour for the biggest private fireworks show in Australia's history.


April 2007 : Army Captain And Army Officer Arrested For Stealing, Selling 10 Rocket Launchers - Army Captain Was Munitions Expert

January, 2007 : Stolen Army Rocket Launchers Allegedly Sold Onto Man Being Held On Terror Charges

December 2006 : Rocket Launchers Go Missing From Army Base, Intelligence Agencies Begin Hunt To Track Them Down

Police Claim Anti-Bush Marches Will Be "Full Scale Riots", Four Days Before They're Held

Police Attempt To Make All Protests In Sydney Illegal


The five kilometre long 'steel wall' cuts right through the heart of the Botanical Gardens - a beautiful harbourside park.


Go Here For A Special Report From Inside The Sydney Lockdown Zone - Inside The Great Sydney Cage - Photos And Observations


UPDATE : It appears anti-Bush protests planned for Saturday will now be completely locked out of the city centre, as NSW Police ramp up the hysteria about Sydneysiders exercising their democratic rights to free speech.

It's stomach-churning listening to all this bullshit filling every news break, while President Bush is widely praised for his "vision" and "resolve" on Iraq. Incredibly, while police are trying to make protests illegal in Sydney, Bush said during a press conference how disgusted he was by the suppression of pro-democracy activists in Burma, who are getting hammered for daring to march in the streets of their cities.

It's enough to melt your brain.

In the Supreme Court today, NSW Police appeared to be pushing for all protests during APEC to be made illegal, which means anybody who turns up to march or voice their dissent will be breaking the law, and as police have previously warned, "will be charged with the full force of the law". This may also include provisions under the extremist anti-terror laws that would make Hitler shake his head in disbelief.

But get this, a pro-Bush support group were granted permission to gather outside President Bush's Sydney hotel, inside the most extreme security zone ever forced onto the people of Sydney. Not only were the pro-Bush supporters allowed to gather, they were also allowed to use long poles to hoist their banners. Sticks, poles and pieces of plastic tubing are banned in the security zone, as police claim "violent protesters" will use them as weapons.

A news break just quoted one senior police officer as saying he is convinced that Saturday's anti-Bush rally will turn into "a full scale riot". Yet, nobody involved with any of the protests have said they will be using violence, and are actively discouraging anyone who wants to use violence from turning up on Saturday.

The police seem very sure that there will be violence at the Saturday marches.

Why would that be? The Stop Bush Coalition organising the main march on Saturday will be policing their own march, watching out for people trying to start trouble or encouraging violence. They are very well aware of the 'agent provocateurs' used by Canadian police recently.

We'll be covering the marches on this blog later in the week, and will keep you updated with the latest stories about Sydney's week as a police state, crippled by ultra-security.

Go Here For The Latest Stories



Previously...

Police overseeing the ultra-security state forced on the people of Sydney - so President Bush doesn't have to see potentially offensive hand-painted signs or hear protesters singing critical songs while holed up in his harbour-view hotel - have launched a legal challenge to effectively make anti-Bush protests illegal while the president is in town.

President Bush arrives in Sydney tonight, and the first anti-Bush protests will be held later today.

But on Saturday, September 8, thousands of protesters are expected to stage a march through the streets of Sydney. A march that the police minister and various police spokesmen claim will become "a flashpoint for violence".

But a key organiser of the 'Stop Bush Coaltion' rightly pointed out the only talk of violence occurring during such demonstrations is coming from prime minister John Howard, the police and ministers in the state and federal governments, along with their echo-friendly talkback radio allies and anti-democracy newspaper opionists.

Naturally, the Australian media, virtually across the spectrum, have repeatedly stated Howard's hallucinatory claim that the presence of President Bush is not the reason why Sydneysiders and tourists are being asked for their ID, searched, detained for questioning, forced to move through the city via security checkpoints and have a massive 'steel wall' dividing their city in half.

No, don't blame Bush, says Howard, on a daily basis, blame instead the threat posed by "violent protesters."

Observe :

"The reason that we have the security clampdown in Sydney, the reason why people are being inconvenienced, is because people in the past have practised and in the current environment are threatening violence," Mr Howard said.

"It's not the fault of the guests in our country, it's not the fault of the American President or the Chinese President or the Russian President, it's not the fault of the NSW Government or the Federal Government; it's the fault of people who threaten violence.

"It's got nothing to do with the motives and the behaviour of people who are coming here as our guests."

Howard is ranting like a loon. And Australians no longer believe his guff. They know very well why thousands will try and march through the streets of Sydney this weekend : President Bush. And China's president Hu. And some of the other Communists and fascist regime leaders who populate APEC.

What is even more curious, however, is that these "urban terrorists", as some media commentators have already begun to parrot, don't appear to actually exist. Or at least, they don't appear to exist in any noticeable number.

When the police released their 'hit list' of troublemakers they were warning to stay away from the city centre, there were less than 25 names. So much for the threat posed by hordes of "violent protesters."

But the media repeats Howard's absurd blame-claims without challenge or correction. Watch too much of the news during Sydney under APEC, and you begin feeling like the John Hurt character from V For Vendetta has shat inside your head.

Let's be very clear about this.

President Bush's 600-plus strong contingent of secret service, undercover intelligence agents and visible security guards are not overly concerned about the all but non-existent "violent protesters".

They're concerned about car and truck bombings, suicide attacks and those nine missing Army rocket launchers that ten months of intensive police searches have failed to locate.

The Australian and US military are co-operating in launching fully-armed jet fighter and helicopter gun ship patrols because they're worried about international or state-sponsored terrorists trying to kill President Bush, not because a dozen protesters might try and scale the 'steel wall' security fence, or wave giant puppets about.

Howard doesn't seem to understand that the vast majority of the public know he is speaking absolute twaddle, and are all too aware that he is actively participating in a massive anti-protest psychological operation. A psy-op aimed solely at scaring away the tens of thousands of people who wish to publicly march in Sydney's streets against the corpse-strewn foreign policies, and soon to be Australia-centric policies, of President George W. Bush.


The Stop Bush Coalition intends to stage its march on September 8 along three Sydney streets that will take the protesters through a section of the 'steel wall' security zone.

NSW Police have refused to grant the Stop Bush Coalition permission to march along this route, citing the potential of security-related threats to the 21 APEC world leaders who will be meeting at this time, more than a kilometre away from the controversial march route.

Despite the legal action by NSW Police, the Stop Bush Coalition said, "we are determined to go ahead."

If successful, the (NSW Police) application will effectively prevent protesters lawfully using city streets for the rally and march...

“We have put several route options to the police for the march and they have rejected all of them,” Mr Bainbridge said.

”We are determined to defend the right to protest.”

But there's some fabulous irony to the news that NSW Police are trying to make protests in Sydney illegal.

In Victoria, their fellow officers of the law, who are sick of crap pay and working conditions, are threatening to launch industrial action, strikes and...protests.

Yes, police protesting in the streets of a major Australia city.

The Stop Bush Coalition should do an amnesty/solidarity deal with the police union that if its members refrain from unnecessarily cracking heads in APEC Sydney this week, they'll throw their now high media profile behind helping police in their fight for a better pay deal.

Personally I think police, ambulance officers, firemen and emergency response workers should all be paid as much as your local state or federal politician, or at the minimum get a federal politicians' superannuation benefits, the very best of all super payments in the nation.

Police, firemen and ambulance drivers have appallingly high rates of PTSD, stress-related illness and fatigue driven burn-out, and most don't have many luxuries to look forward to when they reach retirement age. Unlike our PTSD-free politicians.

Anyone who has to endure the stress and horrors of dealing with alcohol-fueled domestic violence, car accident carnage, bush fires and all manner of Darwin Awards-worthy accidents should be looked after, in work and in retirement.

Masses of police recently marched in Brisbane for improved pay and working conditions. Thousands of interstate cops turned up in support of their Queensland friends and colleagues. Strangely there was little to no coverage of such a remarkable event on the national news.

So the police like to march and protest when the issues that draw them onto the streets are directly related to their working lives, and lifestyles.

But with the threat of the first police strike in eight decades looming in Victoria, and the likelihood of mass cop protests in the streets of Melbourne if they don't get what they want, will police now be seen and heard all over the news snapping off sharp warnings about the threat posed by "violent protesters"?

And if the police protests in Victoria get out of hand, who polices unruly, rioting cops?

The Army?

A Special Report, With Photos, From Inside The Ultra-Security Zone

Welcome To Sydney President Bush, But Watch Out For The Rocket Launchers

No Law Broken, But Tourists Are Questioned, Hassled By Police For Taking Photographs In Sydney

Australia's NeoCon Friendly Prime Minister Faces Election Pure Massacre

Dead Sydney - The Free Online Novel Of A Post-Bird Flu Pandemic City

Australians Like Americans, But Hate Bush, Just Like Americans

The Lambs Of Temptation

The second chapter of the online novel, ED Day, is now up. It's free to read and download and new chapters will be published three to four times a week :

ED Day : Chapter Two


ED Day is the story of how 300 survivors of a massive bird flu pandemic, that kills millions in Sydney alone, rebuild their lives and society in the city centre. They clean up the streets, stockpile food and water, but they are 'trapped'. Outside of the city, something terrible is happening, but so far the survivors only have glimpses of what is going on.

Here's an excerpt from Chapter Two :

...nearly everyone is hanging for fresh meat. A big fat juicy steak smothered with fried onions and sauce is only the stuff of fantasies now. Lots of fantasies.

Nobody yet has snuck into the pen where we keep the sheep and lambs we rescued from the petting zoos in Darling Harbour. Butt some of the survivors get this weird look in their eyes when they’re standing around watching the sheep and lambs crop the grass in Hyde Park.

I probably do, too. There's about sixty legs of lamb walking around the park most afternoons, with Preacher as their shepherd. Trader was drooling over those lambs one day last week, and he pointed out that some of the lambs were snacking on the wild mint that's popping up all over the park.

"Look!" he said. "They're just asking for it!"

Go Here To Read Chapter One Of ED Day

Greg Sheridan's Bizarre Pro-APEC Anti-Democracy Propaganda

From the Sunday Telegraph :

ALL this week and next weekend, Sydney will host the biggest and most important international meeting in the history of Australia.

The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum will attract cabinet ministers and government leaders from 21 economies around the Asia Pacific.

There will inevitably be some traffic disruption in and around central Sydney, but it is truly in a noble cause.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, was right when he said that if there is any real disturbance, the people to blame for this are not the APEC delegates, but the violent demonstrators themselves.

It is a tragedy of modern democracies that violent extremists exploit their freedoms to try to shut down free discussion.

It is a bitter fruit of the anti-democratic, totalitarian, fascist, street-fighting qualities of modern demonstrators that, for international delegates, it can be easier to have a free discussion in Beijing than Sydney.

It would, of course, be madness for a proud, democratic nation like Australia to give in to the anti-democratic forces by not holding meetings such as APEC.

APEC provides an opportunity for leaders to hold private meetings, without all the pre-meeting negotiation involved in one leader visiting another's country.

At difficult times between the US and China, their presidents have been able to meet at APEC and often defuse the tensions between their nations.

APEC is wholly a good thing.

The demonstrators trying to wreck it are nuts.

95% of the commenters who responded to Sheridan's 'story' recognized it for the blatant anti-democratic, pro-fascist propaganda that it is. Most could scarcely believe such crap would be printed in an Australian newspaper.

Tourists Questioned By Police For Taking Photographs In Sydney

What Happened To "Not If, But When" Threat Of Terror Attacks?


Don't worry. Everything's okay. APEC will benefit Sydney and Australia's international reputation enormously. As long as the tourists stopped in the streets of Sydney and questioned by police for up to half an hour by a police squad, for simply taking photographs, don't go home telling tales of fear and paranoia and Sydney becoming a mini-police state.

Taking photos and using your video in Sydney isn't illegal. But your ID information will be run through police and immigration databases, just in case, if you get caught. Pre-crime is now a reality in Sydney, Australia :

German tourist Thomas Gannopp was among those stopped on Bridge Street and forced to delete images from his digital camera as police watched on.

Mr Gannopp said he was quizzed for close to 25 minutes with police wanting proof of his identification down to the exact number of his tourist visa before having him checked through the immigration department's computers.

"I didn't expect all of this just because I wanted to take a photograph of the fence," he said.

The fence. The precious 'steel wall' now cutting Sydney in half. The security fence originally designed and planned to stop terror attacks is now simply to keep the "ferals" away from the world leaders.

Of course, John Howard can't admit that Sydney is at a heightened risk of a terror attack because President Bush is in town because that would cause an association between Bush's foreign policy, supported by Howard, and the threat of terrorism.

The corporate media are allowed to photograph the security fence as much as they like. Photographs of the fence are all over online newspapers and every evening news bulletin had extensive footage filling their stories.

But if you're some homeless guy and you get caught using your camera phone inside the security zone, you may be taken away for further questioning.

A Melbourne documentary maker, Pip Starr, had the gall to shoot footage of the fence and wound up being questioned by police and federal agents for "more than an hour."

"Having police going through my personal diary just for filming on Sydney streets is pretty appalling," he said.

As the full measure of the chilling ultra-security now enveloping the streets of one of the most casual and laidback cities in the world clarifies in the collective mind of the Australian media, the tone changes dramatically.

The most conservative newspaper in Australia is now making reference to "Fortress Sydney" in its headlines and the security fence has become "the wall".

Wait until the first photographers and journalists caught up in protests get hit with pepper spray, water cannon bursts (it's like being smashed with a block of concrete wrapped in carpet) and loose some ankle flesh to police dogs.

As the chant goes, "The Whole World Is Watching."

The first APEC related arrests of protesters occurred in Newcastle, when twelve Greenpeace activists were detained and charged for painting an anti-coal exports slogan on the side of a ship.


UPDATE : As commenters below point out it was very, very strange to see Sydneysiders forced to walk through a surveillance checkpoint on the morning news.

And still no news on those missing rocket launchers. What happened to the threat of terrorism being the reason for the Steel Wall through the heart of Sydney? Howard, Rudd, Iemma, the police chiefs all blame the threat posed by "violent protests". So terrorism is no longer a threat to Sydney and to the world leaders gathering for APEC?


Protesters On Alert For Agent Provocateurs Aiming To Turn APEC Marches Into Riots

April 2007 : Army Captain And Army Officer Arrested For Stealing, Selling 10 Rocket Launchers - Army Captain Was Munitions Expert

January, 2007 : Stolen Army Rocket Launchers Allegedly Sold Onto Man Being Held On Terror Charges

December 2006 : Rocket Launchers Go Missing From Army Base, Intelligence Agencies Begin Hunt To Track Them Down

Sydney To Be Cut In Half By Ten Foot High, Five Kilometre Long 'Steel Wall'

Dead Sydney

By Darryl Mason

This will either be one hell of an adventure, or an absolute disaster. But it's too late to back out now.

From today I will be publishing three or four short chapters a week from my new novel 'ED Day' on a dedicated blog. That is, I'll be posting chapters from the new novel I'm still writing.

The chapters are free for you to read, download and even comment on, if you're motivated or inspired to do so by what you read. And I hope that you are. If you've ever wanted to be a book critic, before the book is finished, here's your chance. Go for it.

I'll be posting chapter two over the weekend. Another two chapters will go up during the next week.

The novel, written in the form of a journal, tells the story of how 300 people survive a massive bird flu pandemic that wipes out millions of people in Sydney. Some of the survivors are convinced there was nothing natural, or accidental, about the pandemic that has killed everyone they knew and everyone they loved.

As the story unfolds, you will learn more about how the pandemic came about, how the survivors met, and how they go about rebuilding their lives and society.

A quiet, still Sydney where humanity has all but disappeared is a scary place, but I like, and believe in, the idea that that survivors of such a near completely fatal pandemic as portrayed in ED Day really would help each other, and take care of each other, and get on with rebuilding their lives and society, as best they can.

As Paul, the leader character of ED Day, says in Chapter Two (or maybe Chapter Three), you can only sit around in your commandeered penthouse getting hammered on free 40 year old whiskey for so long before you want to get back to work and get busy doing something worthwhile. Get busy helping people.

But the world of ED Day is not going to be full of kindness and caring and sharing.

Far from it.

There's something going on outside of Sydney that none of them are even remotely aware of, but I think they're going to find out about it before we get too far into the story.

There are dark forces at work amongst the ruins of a once bustling Sydney society. And for many of those who survived the pandemic, the worst is a long way from over.


Writing the novel this way may prove to be a good idea, or an extremely bad one. Whatever. It will be a writing adventure and that's what I'm most interested in right now.

You can read more about why I'm doing this, and how it came about over at Your New Reality.

Or you can just go straight to the first chapter and start reading :

ED Day - Chapter One : The Silence In The City

Enjoy.

Nine Army Rocket Launchers Still Missing As APEC Summit Begins In Sydney - President Bush To Arrive Tuesday

Frantic Scramble By Security Agencies To Protect Motorcades From Terror And Rocket Attacks

On Monday morning, the APEC summit will begin in Sydney. A five kilometre long 'steel wall' is now being constructed through the centre of the city, and 2500 police, the Australian military, dozens of security agencies and literally thousands of secret service agents from across the Asia-Pacific region are now preparing for the arrival of their leaders.

US President George W. Bush arrives early Tuesday morning, and a much greater, far more expansive security 'lockdown' than previously disclosed to the public is expected to be launched.

This is expected to include blanket mobile phone blackouts when the president is on the move, helicopter gunship escorts and the clearing of boats and cruisers from the harbour for two to five days. If credible terror or security threats are uncovered, all people without the mandatory APEC security clearances may be blocked from entering the fenced off 'security zone' encompassing the Opera House, numerous city hotels and a wealth of tourist attractions.

It would appear every precaution has been taken to keep potential terrorists, assassins or so-called "violent" protesters well away from the hotels and conference centres where the presidents and prime ministers of 21 nations, including Indonesia, China, the US and Russia will converge.

But after more than nine months of intensive searching, arrests, surveillance operations and raids, Australian Federal Police and the ASIO intelligence agency have reportedly still not located at least nine anti-tank rocket launchers stolen from an Army base late last year.

The rocket launchers, capable of destroying a tank from two hundred metres away, can be unpacked, ranged, fired and dumped back into the boot of a car within minutes.

A news report tonight claimed that the anti-tank rockets could rip through the side of a presidential limousine, but that seems a little hard to believe. President Bush's vehicles are supposed to be able to withstand mines and rocket attacks, and support vehicles are said to be equipped with anti-rocket technology and other munitions systems that have never been disclosed.

But despite all the precautions, President Bush, and numerous other world leaders, will still be exposed to potential attack from rocket launchers when they travel in heavily secured motorcades across Sydney and its suburbs, traveling to and from airports and through city streets at speeds most Sydneysiders, used to near day long gridlock, have only ever dreamed about.

Dozens of American, Chinese and Russian secret service and intelligence agents are believed to have been working in Sydney for weeks in preparation for the APEC summit, scouring all possible locations from where attacks by car bombers, or from rocket launchers, could be unleashed on motorcades.


story continues after....
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Darryl Mason Has Launched His New Online Serialised Novel 'ED Day' - Read What Happens In The Aftermath Of An Apocalyptic Bird Flu Pandemic In Sydney


Go Here To Read The Latest News From 'Your New Reality'

Go Here To Read The Latest News From 'The Bird Flu Blog'

Go Here To Read The Latest News From 'The Fourth World War'

Go Here To Read The Latest News From 'The Last Days Of President Bush'

--------------------------
story continues.....


According to news reports this evening, Australia intelligence agencies and the Australian Federal Police also fear that terrorists may choose the APEC week to attack a 'soft' target elsewhere in Sydney, or Australia, while vast police and military resources are tied up with APEC security arrangements.

More than 1500 international journalists and media representatives are flooding into Sydney to cover the APEC summit, where China is now expected to announce literally world-changing plans to tackle global warming.

If terrorists wanted to capture worldwide attention, security experts fear, next week will provide ample opportunities for maximum exposure.

Another reason why, in the age of the 'War on Terror', such mass gatherings of world leaders should be held away from large population centres.

Prime minister John Howard's decision to hold the APEC summit in the heart of Sydney, instead of in Canberra, or on one of the numerous tropical island resorts off the north coast of Australia, literally laid down the welcome mat for terrorists who wished to gain the attention of the world's media by killing civilians.

Yet John Howard would have us all believe that the greatest threat to the people of Sydney is posed by anti-war and anti-globalisation protesters.

You can imagine the scramble to find those rocket launchers is now unfolding at a fever pitch.

The APEC summit, and the presence of President Bush in town for four to five days, has made the people of Sydney sitting ducks for a terror attack.

Sydneysiders can take some comfort knowing that thousands of police, security guards and soldiers will be out in force to keep them safe.

We won't know, however, until next Sunday evening whether all of the ultra-security measures know being deployed across Sydney will have been enough.


April 2007 : Army Captain And Army Officer Arrested For Stealing, Selling 10 Rocket Launchers - Army Captain Was Munitions Expert

January, 2007 : Stolen Army Rocket Launchers Allegedly Sold Onto Man Being Held On Terror Charges

December 2006 : Rocket Launchers Go Missing From Army Base, Intelligence Agencies Begin Hunt To Track Them Down

Sydney To Be Cut In Half By Ten Foot High, Five Kilometre Long 'Steel Wall'

Protesters On Alert For Agent Provocateurs Aiming To Turn APEC Marches Into Riots

Sydneysiders Told To "Leave Town" During APEC Summit

Sydney Set To Become 'Mini-Police State'

The Professional Idiot Admits Defeat On Global Warming

"I've Done My Dash..."


After months of pretending that little had changed at the newspaper and the media company he works for, anti-global warming alarmist, Andrew Bolt, has finally admitted defeat off the back of a massive eight part 'Saving Planet Earth' campaign, with poster liftouts for the kids, in Sydney's Daily Telegraph. A campaign soon to be replicated in Bolt's own newspaper, The Herald Sun, which he likes to point out is "Australia's biggest selling newspaper".

Ever since his boss Rupert Murdoch announced that "climate changes poses clear, catastrophic threats" in early May, Bolt has been slowly degrading the sharpness of his attacks on those who claim to be fighting the rise of global warming.

No longer does Andrew Bolt lash out and call the likes of Al Gore and Tim Flannery deranged and mentally unstable and peddlers of fiction, as he did not so long ago, for their calls to combat climate change. How could he? His own boss has joined the campaign.

Murdoch said he would use his worldwide media empire to spread the message about combating climate change, and seeing as he control 70% of Australia's newspapers, News Limited can now claim the title of being Australia's largest reaching, and most influential, anti-global warming campaigner.

Before Rupert Murdoch converted, Bolt used to call Gore, Flannery and other CC campaigners frauds and liars. If they weren't mentally ill, they were "hysterical". Or they were falling victim to "the "warming faith", "the irrational faith", or the "new apocalyptic faith".

Here's Bolt on May 3, referring to global warming as :

"...a religion that already shows signs of falling apart."

Here's Bolt on Thursday, May 8 :

"I repeat, it’s a religion, and with that old-time hook - Repent, for the end of the world is nigh..."

True believers in global warming and climate change were, according to Bolt, all a bunch of "cultists" and, my personal favourite, they were busy promoting "the most superstitious pagan faith of all".

But then Rupert Murdoch delivered his "Clear, Catastrophic Threats" speech on May 9, and Bolt began to tone down the attacks on the "warming faithful", clearly because Rupert Murdoch had become one of them.

Now the Sydney Daily Telegraph has launched its massive 'Saving Planet Earth' campaign - with a similar campaign to soon begin in the Melbourne Herald Sun - Bolt is facing up to his corporate responsibilities, where blinding hypocrisy is clearly worth less than eight pages of ads in a Sunday liftout. But Bolt goes down with plenty of whining :

"How thrilled I am that one of the papers in our News Ltd family is campaigning to save the world from this shocking global frying that will start any time soon..."

Back in the days when Andrew Bolt didn't have to curb his opinions, or rein in his ranting, global warming campaigners were "planet wreckers". Now he calls them "planet savers".

How infuriating it must be for Bolt to see the "inspiring words" of his arch-enemies of reality, Tim Flannery and Al Gore, featured so prominently, without criticism, at the forefront of News Ltd's full blown climate change campaign.

Flannery? Gore? Even worse, soon to be federal Labor environment minister, Peter Garrett, was online the Daily Telegraph's live blog "discussion" of the day.


Andrew Bolt has admitted defeat :

Face facts: There’s no place now for my kind of petty carping....who might employ me now that I’ve done my dash.

Seniors Weekly?


Tim Blair, columnist with the 'Saving Planet Earth' Daily Telegraph, once warned Tim Flannery and other global warming proponents to stop scaring children with fear campaigns based on (in Murdoch's own words) the "clear, catastrophic threats" posed by climate change.

In particular, Blair warned those climate change true believers to "stay away" from his nieces, and fulminated over the teaching of global warming in schools.

The Daily Telegraph now devotes web resources pages and newspaper liftouts to teaching students the very same kind of Flannery approved "fear campaigns" that Blair and Bolt once railed so vehemently against.

News Limited is even linking up with a 'cool' mascot to 'get down' with the kids on ways of conserving energy : Ollie!

Will Blair now warn of the "alarmist" climate change fear campaigns of his own newspaper, and debunk the 'Saving Planet Earth' series? Particularly now the Daily Telegraph is pumping stories he once mocked about polar bears turning into cannibals due to the effects of global warming?

Yeah, right.



Regardless, Murdoch columnists struggling with their boss's embracing of all that they hate has become a very, very entertaining spectator sport, with plenty more fun to come.


The Changing Climate Of Andrew Bolt - Betrayed By Murdoch Over Climate Change

Bolt Anticipates Terror Attacks In Australia So Howard Can Showcase His "Vast Experience"

Back In The Gutter Where He Belongs

Australians Like Americans, But Hate Bush

More Concerned About Threat Of Climate Change Than Terror

The next time some idiot tells you you're anti-American because you think President Bush is a power-crazed, warpig NeoCon, you don't need to bother to point out that it's not the average American you have a problem with, it's their leader. A new poll reveals the local NeoCon 'anti-American' guff for exactly what it is - a total fabrication :

...more than three-quarters of Australians had a favourable opinion of the nation's people.

Mr Bush is cited by nearly 70 per cent of unimpressed people and he was the top reason they had an unfavourable view.

US foreign policy was cited by 63 per cent as the reason they were turned off America, followed by American culture (41 per cent).

But only one in five Australians cited American people as the reason they had an unfavourable impression of the US.

Australians understand that Americans are as unhappy with Bush as we are, and they don't necessarily blame Americans for the violence and madness Bush unleashes on the world.

While the Federal Government makes much of Canberra's close relationship with Washington, three-quarters of Australians did not believe the US payed much attention to its ally when making foreign policy decisions.

Australians have also been placing less weight on the importance of the Anzus alliance over the last few years.

In 2005, 45 per cent saw it as very important compared with 36 per cent this year.

The Lowy Institute poll also revealed that the majority of Australians believe climate change poses a greater threat to the nation than terrorism.

Asked to consider the effect of foreign policy, tackling climate change and protecting Australian jobs were rated as very important aims by 75 per cent of people.

By comparison, 65 per cent of people saw combating international terrorism as a very important outcome of foreign policy.

86 per cent were worried by the risk posed by climate change compared with 68 per cent for international terrorism.

In all, the poll spells out serious bad news for prime minister Howard.

Australians want workers rights to be protected, for climate change to be tackled and for Australia to stop supporting President Bush so vehemently.

Howard, meanwhile, wants to continue stripping away more workers rights, delay any real action on climate change and follow President Bush into launching military strikes on Iran and extending the horror of the Iraq War for as long as possible.

And he wonders why he can't get an action in the polls?

Will Bush Cancel Australia Visit To Deal With Iraq And Iran?

The rumours have been running warm for a few days already in Washington, but now they're getting some local semi-confirmation from Howard's unofficial information minister Greg Sheridan :

I have heard a whisper, a muffled, confused, hesitant, distant, unsure sort of a whisper, but a whisper nonetheless, that the President may yet cancel at the last minute.

As The Australian revealed on Monday, Bush’s senior advisers unanimously opposed his coming to Sydney. That information is not a whisper. That information is solid.

Now, there is much less solid information that the President may still decide at the last minute to stay in Washington, DC. It could be that the final decision is not yet made. Certainly, if you’re going to cancel this late, it’s better for your host if you cancel at the very last minute because it means no one else will cancel as a result. It also looks more like a genuine last-minute emergency than a decision the meeting is just not that important.

A Bush cancellation would be a grievous blow to his friend John Howard, to APEC and to US standing in Asia.

Howard may be one of the only world leaders at APEC who will truly miss not having President Bush at the big table.

Well, China's Prime Minister Hu might want Bush there. But only so he can pull the US president aside and have a bit of a talk to him about the $1.3 trillion worth of American debt China now holds. Debt that is rapidly losing value by the day.

A no-show by Bush will make a big difference to the traffic delays that are expected to lock up many Sydney streets right through next week. Not every APEC leader will be cruising Sydney with twenty police car escorts and FA-18s protecting the motorcade's airspace. Some will be jumping into limos with a few security guards and not much else as far as security goes.

But don't think a no-show by President Bush will make a lick of difference to the stunningly overblown levels of ultra-security now enveloping Sydney.

Prime Minister Howard has kept up his daily mantra that Sydney will be swamped by cops and soldiers and secret service, divided by five kilometres of 'steel wall' fencing and Sydneysiders subjected to random demands for photo ID and body searches all because of supposed "violent protesters", who haven't yet protested.

Howard actually said yesterday that all the ultra-security had nothing to do with Bush's presence at APEC. The peels of laughter must have stretched from the Central Sydney police barracks all the way down to ASIO offices in Canberra.

If Bush does blow off APEC, the stars of the show will be Russia's President Putin and China's Prime Minister Hu, and considering their vast and aggressive opposition to the US missile defence shield that Howard is backing, and preparing to pour billions of dollars into, not having Bush by or on his side will make APEC all that more tense for Howard as he takes his final strut in the international spotlight.

The curious thing is, however, not being seen with the widely reviled President Bush, and instead being seen to be focusing on regional and local issues, may actually help Howard's standing in the coming election. It will also mean that the Iraq War will be far less of a focus for the media coverage.

Is Greg Sheridan just speculating, and passing on the low-level rumours he's hearing? Or has he already been told that Bush has informed Howard he's out and Sheridan is doing his duty by helping now to lessen the impact of the Monday or Tuesday announcement when Bush just might make it official?

Bush's bailing on APEC will throw the media focus of the talks squarely back where they belong, on Asia and the Pacific.

And the Bush no-show may serve as something of a metaphor for the near future of Australia as we settle into our place in a rapidly changing world order.

The United States slides towards recession and a post-Iraq War hangover amidst growing international hostility, staggering towards isolationism.

Australia, wealthy, confident and peaceful, ready to move into the 21st century with a new government then looks East instead.

China Demands US-Australia-Japan APEC Meeting "Be More Transparent"

China's President Hu Will Sign New Energy, Natural Resources Deals With Australia

This story from the China Post claims that China's President Hu Jintao will be signing new deals for energy and natural resources - read Australian coal and uranium - when he visits Sydney next week.

But those deals are unlikely to feature any significant commitments from China when it comes to climate change, as government ministers have recently claimed.

Australia is now a "main supplier" of energy resources to China, with trade between the nations reaching more than $33 billion in 2006 alone.

But, as expected, China is unhappy with the controversial 'closed door' meeting between the leaders of Australia, Japan and the United States, which is expected to focus on the United States' plans to locate infrastructure for its global missile shield across the region.

Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, repeatedly states that Australia is not helping the United States to "contain" China, but China doesn't believe him. Nor should anyone else.

story continues below....
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Go Here To Read The First Chapters Of Darryl Mason's New Online Novel 'ED Day' - The Story Of Sydney After The Bird Flu Pandemic, And How 300 Survivors Begin To Build Their New Society

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China's Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said of the United States-Australia-Japan security meeting being held during the APEC summit :

"It is our view that such a meeting should be more transparent," Cui said.

This will be the first trilateral security meeting for the three nations, but China has apparently been rebuffed from having observers sit in on the meeting.

China is already kyboshing any talk that there will be major breakthroughs on the climate change front during the APEC summit.

Which should come as a surprised to prime minister Howard.

Or at least, that news should come as a surprise to anyone who believed Howard when he said he expected there would be significant progress with China and the United States on climate change, thanks to the APEC summit.

China still believes that the United Nations should take the leading role in the fight against global warming, and Australia and the United States should endorse UN plans that have already won praise and support from most of the EU.

Will President Bush Cancel His Sydney APEC Visit To Deal With Iraq And Iran?

Howard Claims Climate Change Will Be Top Priority At APEC - But China And US Already Downplaying Any Major Progress

Local NeoCon Mouthpiece Livid Over BushCo.'s APEC Betrayal Of Howard

Bush/Rice To Australia, Asia : Screw You Guys, We're Going Home

China, Russia Likely To Use APEC Talks To Warn Australia Over US Missile Shield Plans


What does it take to make jets of steam shoot out the ears of the usually fawning local NeoCon mouthpiece, and avid BushCo. apologist, Greg Sheridan?

This :

With Bush to attend only day one of the two-day leaders retreat, which has become the heart of APEC, a secondary struggle with the Australians emerged over who would represent the US in the President’s absence.

Until quite late, there was every chance that Bush might not come to APEC at all.

However unpopular Bush may be in Australia, this would have been a devastating blow for John Howard, APEC and the US in Asia Pacific regionalism.

Nonetheless, this was the course that all of Bush’s top advisers strongly advocated.

He cancelled a summit with heads of government of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to focus on Iraq. Bush was supposed to attend this summit on his way to APEC.

...Bush is prepared to snub ASEAN because of the pressing politics at home of the Iraq war.

His Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is prepared to do the same. She skipped the ASEAN ministerial conference for the second time in three years because of Middle East commitments.

When Rice first missed an ASEAN ministerial conference - her predecessor, Colin Powell, attended all four during his term - she was mortified by the severity of the Southeast Asian reaction.

...she turned up last year, but this year skipped it again. Rice was also extremely reluctant to come to APEC but Bush’s attendance gave her no choice.

However, the White House advisers had some success in convincing Bush to leave early.

He will attend the first part of the APEC leaders retreat on Saturday before flying home that night.

The Australians wanted Rice to attend Sunday’s meeting in Bush’s place. This led to a fierce argument between the Australians and Americans.

The Australians tried a little brinkmanship. It was to be Rice or nobody. The gamble failed.

With all the critical Iraq work to come up in the next few weeks, Rice was not going to miss 15 hours on a plane with her President.

In short, those 15 hours were more important than a day with 20-odd Asia Pacific government leaders.

This is a sorry reflection on the priorities of the second Bush administration as compared with the first. Powell would never have done this.

...Rice, like Bush, could not be bothered with the second day of the APEC leaders meeting.

In the Asia Pacific, the US president is required to attend APEC once a year, and the secretary of state is required to attend APEC and ASEAN.

It’s not too much to ask for the most dynamic region in the world, containing a slew of US treaty allies. It is, though, apparently too much for the US to give.

The grinding, frightening clanging of an all too obvious reality is rattling Sheridan's head. The United States doesn't regard APEC to be anywhere near as important as Howard does. If they did, Bush, or at least Condi Rice, would be hanging around for the full weekend of meetings.

How could President Bush do this to Australia, Sheridan quivers? How could Bush and Condi Rice do this to Howard?

BushCo. don't give a bucket of fuck about Australia, not as much as Howard would have you believe anyway, and they couldn't care less about Howard's ultimate hour of glory, as he basks in the warm glow of his long dreamed of APEC Sydney summit.

Australia contributed billions of dollars, and thousands of Australian soldiers, to America's War On Iraq, and in his first visit since that fiasco began, BushCo. can't even be bothered hanging around for the full round of APEC meetings. Nor can Rice.

BushCo. are not going to commit to anything more than the most meagre of climate change related "aspirational" goals in cutting emissions, supposedly one of the key focuses of the entire summit. But the US expects Australia, at APEC, to fully commit to supplying uranium to anyone the US tells them to.

They also expect Australia to take the heat from China, and Russia, over the US-Japan
-Australia plan for regional branches of the Missile Defence Shield.

"It's not about containing China," Alexander Downer squeaks.

Who believes him? Nobody.

China, backed by Russia, think that's exactly what the US missile defence shield is for. And clearly it is.

So why is Howard being all but snubbed by the BushCo. in his moment of international diplomatic glory? Has Howard already told them he will begin pulling out Australian troops by mid-2008? If he manages to somehow win the coming elections?

The excuse that Bush has to get back to the US to deal with the General Petreaus report on the Iraq "surge" is worthless. Bush is not going to pull US troops out of Iraq, and Congress is not going to stop funding the war.

Bush could just play tapes of previous "We Gotta Stay In Iraq, Here's Why" speeches and it would have the same effect as him being there in person.

The real reason why Bush wants to rush home is because he wants to be there for the sixth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. The only time of the year the vast majority of Americans stop wishing that his head or his heart will suddenly explode, taking out vice president Dick Cheney at the same time.

Howard and Downer can spin the BushCo. abandonment of the APEC summit whatever way they want. The Chinese, all the Asians, know they're being snubbed. And they will not like nor appreciate such disrespect from Bush and Rice.

You think you got problems at home President Bush, the Chinese might say, well you better sit up and take notice of this part of the world. If you intend for the US to be a future player in the region, that is.

There will be big, important, world changing meetings at APEC. Yes indeed.

But the biggest and probably most important will be between Russia's prime minister Putin and China's president Hu, who'll be holding follow-up talks to their recent, and apparently successful, joint war games in Russian territory, which marked the military debut of the Shanghai CoOperation Organisation, a future challenger to the global reach of NATO.

They'll share photos and grins with Howard and Downer, and thank them for being gracious hosts, and throwing one hell of an expensive party in the most beautiful city in the world, but Howard and Downer won't be invited to the Russia-China talks.

Well, not to the one that really matters anyway.

Putin and Hu know that Howard and Downer are all but gone from the world stage, and the NeoCon militarism they so avidly supported will go down in history as utterly noxious and horrific, with the smoking ruins of Iraq as its unforgettable apex.

Why should Russia and China bother wasting time with Howard and Downer when, with the US heading rapidly towards recession, they've got half the world to now carve up between themselves?

How much time Putin and Hu spend with Kevin Rudd and his team will be a good indication of how Russia and China are planning to deal with Australia in the coming years.

On the grand bargaining table of a new world order, that is the "One World" that China will market via its 2008 Olympic Games, what does Australia have to offer besides the threat of help the US expand its regional hegemony?

As Paul Keating said recently, "...if we didn't have a pile of minerals to sell to the Chinese they (would) barely doff their hat to (Howard)."

For the next decade at least, China and Russia will both be very interested in our coal and uranium. It seems unlikely the demand for those energy sources will lessen, regardless of who runs Australia.

But Australia is not the only country that can supply such minerals to Russia and China.
Should Australia continue down the road of US-ghosted aggression against China, through its involvement in the US Missile Defence Shield, China may well use the tens of billions it pours into the Australian economy, through coal purchases, to try and ween us away from America.

Alexander Downer would have us believe that China and Russia are not concerned about our involvement with the US and Japan in establishing American missile defence outposts and infrastructure. But Downer is lying, as usual.

Downer, in an interview last night, tried to claim that a meeting between Australia-US-Japan leaders during APEC was no big deal, and was more to do with trade expansion in the region. But China, Australia's biggest trading partner, is not invited to those talks.

Why is that?

Because the prime focus of Japan-Australia-US dialogue will be the firming of plans for co-ordinating defence assets, with an eye towards keeping China from expanding too far, too far quickly, and destabilising the regional status quo.

Whomever controls the Malacca Straits in the next two decades, through which China is shipped most of it oil and coal imports, in turn controls, in some very important ways, the growth of China.

Australia, Japan and the United States intend to keep the Malacca Straits firmly under their control for as long as possible. One of the reasons why the Howard government has assigned billions towards expanding our naval capabilities.

With Australia committing more than $2 billion to the US upgrading of military satellite systems, it's clear Australia is committed, along with Japan, to US plans to deploy missiles and missile defence shield assets throughout the region.

Russia and China will both likely confront Howard and/or Downer over the missile shield controversy during the APEC talks. If either still believe there is a way to stop Australia from going down that path with the US and Japan.

But don't expect to hear Downer or Howard mentioning anything about those discussions. It won't be news of the good kind.

You'll have to look to the Russian and Chinese media to get that story.

Or here.


Paul Keating On The Wasted Opportunities Of Regional Security At APEC

Containing China - Australia To Commit Billions To US Missile Defence Shield

US Military Spying Base In WA Means Australia Is Pre-Committed To All Future American Wars

Yo Bro, You Dead Yet?

They build them tough in Australia :

...Keen and Mr Gilders had been friends for more than two years when the friendship soured after Keen suspected Mr Gilders of sleeping with his girlfriend.

...Keen stabbed (Gilders) in the neck, knocked him to the ground, dropped a large rock on his head twice and stabbed him again.

When he had finished, Keen asked Mr Gilders if he was dead yet, to which Mr Gilders responded: "Not even close, brother".

They shook hands after the stabbing and Keen left his friend for dead. Gilders didn't make a complaint about the attack. Keen confessed to police months later.

There's a definition of mateship you won't find in John Howard's Guide To Being A Ridgy-Didge Aussie.