Free Republic

NOT a single welfare payment has been cancelled for terrorist recruits leaving Australia for the Middle East, or those merely deemed a national security threat, since new laws were enacted last October to crack down on the so-called welfare warriors. The Daily Telegraph revealed at the weekend that 96 per cent of the junior ­jihadis who snuck out of the country before last September had been on some form of welfare payment, prompting the introduction of new laws to stop it. ... Subsequent inquiries, however, have revealed that the new laws have yet to be used, despite some 40 more...

MELBOURNE, Feb. 26 (UPI) — Researchers have 3-D printed everything from animal prosthetics and human teeth to whole cars, but now a university in Australia has tackled printing two jet engines. A group of researchers at Melbourne’s Monash University, in conjunction with Deakin University and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), used a large 3-D printer to manufacture the two engines.

Many Australians who fight for the Islamic State will be stripped of their citizenship, the Prime Minister has announced, as part of tough new counter-terrorism laws. The dramatic pledge came as a review released today revealed more than thirty Australians have returned home after fighting for jihadist causes overseas. In a landmark national security address, Mr Abbott said the government will attempt to strip or suspend the citizenship of Australians with dual citizenship fighting overseas. The government is also exploring taking away some of the rights of jihadists who are sole Australian citizens, Mr Abbott said. That could include restricting...

This Oz sheila newsanchor / movie-critic gives her right devastating review of the movie.

TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with 3500 Australian ground troops to confront the Islamic State terrorist group. Flanked by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, in a meeting in ­Canberra on November 25, the Prime Minister said the move would help halt the surge of ­Islamic State in northern Iraq. After receiving no resistance from Ms Credlin or his other staff in the room, Mr Abbott then raised the idea with Australia’s leading military planners. The military officials were stunned, telling Mr Abbott that sending 3500 Australian soldiers without any US or NATO cover would be disastrous...

Australia had a problem with illegal immigration. It doesn’t anymore.In the past seven months, not one single illegal immigrant arrived on Australian shores. Not one single boat has docked on the Australian coastline.Compare this to the preceding four year period: over 50,000 illegal immigrants arrived on Australian shores. More than 800 boats. Upwards of 1000 people drowned at sea. A budget blowout of more than 10.3 billion dollars.Those that arrived were given welcome hampers, mobile phones, plasma TVs, housing, medical and other household items- all at a cost to the taxpayer.And the overwhelming majority of those that came were not genuine...

TONY Abbott says the nation’s $50 billion submarine project will create at least 500 new jobs in South Australia, as the government reveals a shortlist of foreign partners to design and build the new fleet. The Prime Minister has moved to end months of uncertainty over the project in a visit to Adelaide this morning, saying government-owned shipbuilder ASC would be guaranteed more work “under any possible scenario”. “There will be at least 500 new jobs in South Australia,” he said. Mr Abbott said the government would select a foreign contractor by the end of the year, but has narrowed...

THE ABC is trying to destroy Tony Abbott. Its bias — actually unlawful — has never been so ruthless. Even the ABC’s hand-picked reviewer had to admit this week that the ABC’s coverage of the Abbott Government’s first Budget was marred by anti-Liberal bias — and she hadn’t even looked hard. Colleen Ryan, a former Fairfax editor, had been asked by the ABC to check its reporting of the Budget in the week after it was delivered. This Budget was the country’s first and best hope of reining in Labor’s massive deficits. If it wasn’t a make-or-break moment for the...

"What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as...

Radical Islamist group Hizb-ut- Tahrir which cleverly avoided global scrutiny while spreading its ideology may become a more dangerous terrorist group than the ISIS and it's presence in South Asia should be a cause for concern for India, according to a report. "While ISIS runs amok in Syria and Iraq, demanding media attention through acts of barbarous cruelty, HuT (Hizb-ut- Tahrir or the Party of Liberation) is quietly building a global infrastructure of radicalised youth and deep-pocketed Arab support in preparation for the global Khilafat," said the report published in the latest edition of CTX Journal. The group has cleverly...

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has released details of the video in which one of two accused terrorists made threats about carrying out an attack on Australia and stabbing victims in their 'kidneys' and 'livers'. Mohammad Kiad, 25, and Omar Al-Kutobi, 24, were arrested in their shared squalid granny flat at Fairfield, western Sydney, on Tuesday afternoon, where a police raid allegedly uncovered a machete, a hunting knife, an Islamic State flag and a video featuring both the men, with one recorded making threats of carrying out an attack. During Question Time in parliament on Thursday, Mr Abbott said he was...

Last month, I posted “the cartoon argument” for Social Security reform. My main goal, as an American, is to achieve this important reform in the United States. And I’ve tried to bolster the argument by citing lots of hard data, including the fact that “funded” accounts already exist in nations such as Australia, Chile, Sweden, and the Netherlands. In this spirit, I wrote an article for the most recent issue of Cayman Financial Review, and I looked at the issue from a global perspective. I first explained thatdemographics are destiny.

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott is facing an uphill battle after a Newspoll has revealed the Coalition’s worst polling ­figures, and Liberal MPs are divided on the leadership spill. The latest Newspoll, taken ­exclusively for The Australian, shows the Coalition’s primary vote down three points to an eight-month low of 35 per cent. Labor is up two points to 41 per cent. In two-party terms, the government’s vote went to 43 per cent with Labor on 57 per cent, which is the Coalition’s worst result since November 2009. Tony Abbott has admitted he could be removed as leader on Monday but...

8.31am: Half an hour to go. You can read a handy pointer to how a leadership spill works here (although do note the 102 partyroom has been reduced to 101 after one MP called in sick): 8.28am: Tony Abbott will need to channel John Howard’s historic 2001 recovery in the polls if is to emerge victorious, says Mathias Cormann: ‘Abbott has done this before’ 8.25am: Chris Kenny is saying on Sky that he is hearing there is strong support for the spill. 8.22am: Tony Abbott spoken briefly while leaving the church service.“We want to put the internals behind us and...

No link yet - this is breaking news based on leaks.

JOHN Howard has urged the Liberal Party to give Tony Abbott more time to improve his performance amid signs the Prime Minister will stare down a leadership spill today but risk an ongoing revolt and subsequent challenge. The former prime minister said that “obviously some things have to change” but that Mr Abbott should be given the chance to fix the problems, in an influential move in the battle over the government’s future. Malcolm Turnbull will contest the leadership if today’s spill succeeds but Liberal MPs said a majority was unlikely to vote for change today despite frustration with Mr...

A bid by an Australian archaeologist and other sailors to recreate an ancient voyage in a traditional reed boat has struck trouble in the Arabian Sea. Nautical archaeologist Dr Tom Vosmer and seven other sailors had set off from Oman for a two-week voyage in the Magan, a 12-metre-long sailing boat made of reeds, rope and wood, but capsized within hours. "Water leaked into the Magan causing it to capsize, but a support ship from the Omani royal navy accompanying the boat intervened and rescued the sailors," a source from Oman's culture and national heritage ministry which organised the trip...

Egypt's top court had in January ordered a retrial of the three men. But an Egyptian official told Agence France-Presse news agency on Sunday: "There is a presidential decision to deport Peter Greste to Australia." Another official told Associated Press the release had been co-ordinated with the Australian embassy in Cairo. The BBC's Orla Guerin in Cairo says Egyptian law requires those deported under these circumstances to either finish their sentence in their home country or be put on trial again there, and it is unclear whether the Australian authorities have agreed to that. Al-Jazeera has demanded the release of...

The co-founder and former guitarist of the popular world-famous Christian rock band the Newsboys has officially renounced his Christian faith and is calling members of the current version of the band hypocrites. George Perdikis, who founded the chart-topping Christian band in 1985 with his friend Peter Furler, wrote an op-ed on Wednesday published by the website Patheos explaining how he transformed from a guitarist in one of the most popular Christian rock bands of all-time to a cosmology-enthused atheist. "I always felt uncomfortable with the strict rules imposed by Christianity. All I wanted to do was play rock and roll,"...

Colleen McCullough, a former neurophysiological researcher at Yale who, deciding to write novels in her spare time, produced “The Thorn Birds,” a multigenerational Australian romance that became an international best seller and inspired a hugely popular television mini-series, died on Thursday on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, where she had made her home for more than 30 years. She was 77.