Free Republic

Foreign investment laws in Australia will be completely overhauled as part of tough new rules to protect the country's national security. The federal government's zero-dollar approval threshold will mean all foreign bids for companies from large telecommunication businesses to small defence providers will be vetted by the Foreign Investment Review Board. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will also have the power to force a sale or impose conditions on foreign acquisition of Australian assets even after a purchase is made. Previously the treasury could only block foreign purchases of Australian assets which exceeded a takeover threshold of $1.2billion. The new laws follow...

A reporter screamed live on air as she claimed she was attacked by a screwdriver-wielding man yelling “Allahu Akbar” while covering the Black Lives Matter protest in London. Nine News’ Europe correspondent Sophie Walsh, 34, was assaulted on Park Lane while broadcasting around 9.45am today, according to the Australian network. Footage was not captured of the attack, but Ms. Walsh can be heard screaming and seen clearly shaken afterwards while relaying the incident to one of her colleagues. The alleged attack came as police arrested a man after a car driving “very fast” mounted a pavement and hit a pensioner,...

he Chinese military has said it chased off a U.S. warship near a disputed set of islands in the South China Sea, but the Navy contended the vessel was acting within international law. Senior Colonel Li Huamin, the spokesman for the Chinese People's Liberation Army's Southern Theater Command, said in a statement Thursday by official military outlets that the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin "illegally intruded" into territorial waters near the Paracel Islands, known to China as the Xisha Islands, earlier that day. As a result, Li said Chinese sea and air units were dispatched to "warn off" and...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is prepared to offer extended visa rights and a pathway to citizenship for almost 3 million Hong Kong residents in response to China’s push to impose national security legislation in the former British colony. China’s parliament has approved a decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists, diplomats and some in the business world fear will jeopardise its semi-autonomous status and its role as a global financial hub. Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and the EU have all sharply criticised the move. Foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday...

Beijing has removed references to “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan from its annual work report, signalling the country will take a stronger stance against the island territory. The past six work reports since President Xi Jinping took power in 2013 have signalled that any attempt to reunify Taiwan and China would be “peaceful”.

The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Begin Text: Signatories to this statement reiterate our deep concern regarding Beijing’s decision to impose a national security law in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom. The international community has a significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability. Direct imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by the Beijing authorities, rather than through Hong Kong’s own institutions as provided for under Article 23 of the Basic Law, would...

Coronavirus is so 'perfectly adapted' to infect humans that the possibility it was made in a Chinese lab can't be ignored, Australian vaccine researchers conclude. Professor Nikolai Petrovsky said the virus was better at attaching itself to human cells than to any other animal, explaining why it has infected five million people. The vaccine expert warned the investigation into where COVID-19 started, as proposed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was as a result urgently needed and should have begun months ago. The startling results of his research were first revealed by the Mail on Sunday on the weekend - and...

Researchers at Australian National University (ANU) have called for ‘climate change’ to be recorded as a cause of death on death certificates. They claim that in Australia, the rate of people dying as a result of global warming may be 50 times higher than is officially acknowledged. In a letter to The Lancet Planetary Health, researchers Arnagretta Hunter and Simon Quilty claim the impact of climate change is currently understated. “Climate change is the single greatest health threat that we face globally even after we recover from coronavirus. “We are successfully tracking deaths from coronavirus, but we also need healthcare...

China has reportedly drawn up a list of more Australian industries to target after slapping tariffs on barley and banning some beef imports amid mounting tensions over calls for a coronavirus inquiry. Wine, dairy, seafood, oatmeal and fruit exporters could be hit with new customs rules, quality checks or tariffs to make selling into China more difficult, according to a Bloomberg article which cited 'people familiar with the matter'. Each year Australian companies export about $1billion worth of dairy, $1.3billion of wine and $658million of seafood to China, meaning further tariffs could seriously harm the economy. Meanwhile, Chinese newspaper the...

New figures obtained by RNZ show last year had the highest rates of gun crime and deaths involving firearms for nearly 10 years. But despite that rise, there has not been a corresponding increase in officers taking out or using their guns. The figures, obtained from police under the Official Information Act, show the rates of gun crime went up in both 2018 and 2019. Last year, there were 3540 occasions where an offender was found with a gun. And in both of the last two years, the rate of deadly incidents involving a firearm was the highest it had...

High-ranking calls to China have gone unanswered amid an escalating trade dispute with Australia that has been fuelled by calls to investigate the origins of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has been seeking to speak with his counterpart since China threatened to impose an 80 per cent import tariff on Australian barley. China will make its final decision on the tariff on Tuesday. If it follows through with the threat, Australian exporters fear it will cripple a once-lucrative market. "We've made a request for me to be able to have discussions with my Chinese counterpart," Senator Birmingham...

May 16, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A team of Australian scientists has produced new evidence that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is optimized for penetration into human cells rather than animal cells, undermining the theory that the virus randomly evolved in an animal subject before passing into human beings, and suggesting instead that it was developed in a laboratory. The study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, provides new but not yet conclusive evidence favoring the theory that the novel coronavirus originated not in a food market as has been claimed, but rather in a laboratory, presumably one...

Before the police arrived... You could barely call it a protest, just a handful of people, following all the rules, out the front of the NSW Parliament... The woman told police she was not doing anything wrong, despite the government's social distancing regulations implemented during the health crisis. Video footage shared to Facebook showed the woman speaking with police officers near Parliament of New South Wales in Sydney at about 3.50pm on Saturday Australians are allowed to exercise outdoors but must keep a 1.5 distance from others. 'I don't know how you guys are going home in honour tonight and...

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw A global child exploitation sting triggered by a US Department of Homeland Security investigation has rescued four Australian children as young as two months old who were used to produce and ­exchange child rape videos and images through online pedophile networks around the world. In one of the largest joint operations in the country — led by the Australian Federal Police and spread across five states — 16 ­people have been charged with 738 child exploitation and sexual abuse ­offences following a two-year ­investigation into the online ­exchange of child abuse material. The arrests...

Sydney (AFP) -- Thousands of Australians are expected to take their own lives because of the financial and psychological stress of the coronavirus crisis, far outstripping the death toll from the disease itself, experts warned Thursday. Modelling by the Brain and Mind Centre at Sydney University predicted an additional 750 to 1,500 suicides per year for up to five years as a result of the impacts of the pandemic and economic shutdowns imposed to curb its spread. That would mark a spike of 25 to 50 percent over the 3,000 suicides usually recorded each year in the country.

The coronavirus pandemic is changing how the world sees China and has sparked “outrageous behaviour” towards Australia, say experts. The behaviour of China’s diplomat in Australia this past week has been described as “outrageous” as experts contemplate whether it’s time to rethink the relationship between the two countries. Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove told Q&A on Monday night that the behaviour of Chinese diplomats in the past week had “focused a lot of minds in Australia and around the world about the kind of country we are dealing with”. China lashed out at Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week,...

The president of the European Commission backed calls for an investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus and said China should be involved in the process. Lawmakers in countries like Germany, Sweden and Australia have called for a probe into how the virus started, which has so far infected over 3.2 million people and killed over 230,000. Speaking to CNBC, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive arm, said she would like to see China work together with her organization, and others, to get to the bottom of exactly how it emerged. “I think this is...

SYDNEY—Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has cautioned China against attempts at “economic coercion” as Australia pushes for an investigation into the CCP virus pandemic. Australia last week called for all members of the World Health Organization (WHO) to support an independent review into the origins and spread of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, and is lobbying world leaders. Payne said in a statement on April 27 that Australia had made a “principled call” for an independent review of the COVID-19 outbreak which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan. “We reject any suggestion...

Sydney (AFP) - China's ambassador in Australia has warned that demands for a probe into the spread of the coronavirus could lead to a consumer boycott of Aussie wine or trips Down Under. Australia has joined the United States in calling for a thorough investigation of how the virus transformed from a localised epidemic in central China into a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people, forced billions into isolation and torpedoed the global economy. In a thinly veiled threat, ambassador Cheng Jingye warned the push for an independent inquest into the origins of the outbreak was "dangerous". "The...

Human trials for a tuberculosis vaccine thought to boost immune systems in the fight against coronavirus are underway in Australia but despite the promising outlook, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned against using the vaccine outside of clinical settings. WHO has released a statement reminding countries around the world that the Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine (BCG) used to fight tuberculosis infection is not recommended for preventing coronavirus. It acknowledged that while experimental trials had been conducted and two related to fighting coronavirus were underway, their relevance to the pandemic was still unknown. "Two clinical trials addressing this question are underway,...