Free Republic

Australia and Iran will share intelligence to track foreign fighters working with the Islamic State group in Iraq, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Monday, as lawmakers urged caution. In the first trip to Iran by an Australian minister in more than a decade, Bishop said it would be an informal arrangement. Her comments came after a meeting with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, President Hassan Rouhani and Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign affairs adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "We have a common purpose with Iran in defeating Daesh and helping the Iraqi government," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,...

Australians have started a campaign calling for Britain to hand over the first map ever to refer to the nation by the word "Australia", claiming that the document is country's "birth certificate". Captain Matthew Flinders Matthew Flinders, a British explorer and cartographer, drew the map in 1804 after becoming the first European to circumnavigate Australia. It was the first time a navigator used the name "Australia" to describe the continent, which had previously been referred to as New Holland or Terra Australis. Flinders, who hailed from Lincolnshire and spent several years charting the coast of Australia, wrote a book about...

Counterterrorism police have alleged two of the five men they arrested in an operation in Melbourne were planning an Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack on an Anzac Day ceremony. The two men, an 18-year-old Hallam man and an 18-year-old Hampton Park man, were arrested this morning during a major joint counterterrorism team operation. Another man was arrested for weapons offences and two other men were in custody assisting police with their enquiries, after seven search warrants were executed as part of Operation Rising. The Australian Federal Police said they believed the two 18-year-olds were plotting an attack to take place on...

LATEST: PREMIER Daniel Andrews says security will be stepped up across Victoria after police allege they’d foiled Anzac Day terror attack in Melbourne by ISIS-inspired teens. Police allege they have foiled the terrorism attack against serving police officers involving “associates’’ of the dead Melbourne terrorist Numan Haider. The Australian Federal Police counter-terrorism chief Neil Gaughan confirmed details of the terror plot today following raids across Melbourne. Two teenagers were arrested in relation to allegations they were “planning a terrorist attack in Australia’’. “It is alleged both men were undertaking preparations for a terrorist attack at an Anzac Day event in...

There is a question I keep asking myself — is Barack Obama to blame for failing on virtually every front imaginable? I want the answer to be in the negative so badly that I fear I may be shutting out an ugly reality. Domestically and internationally, the US President’s policies have been a mix of brilliance and failure. On foreign policy I had hoped for so much from him. After an inarticulate fool such as George W. Bush, the world deserved something special from America. At the time of his election Obama was the answer most of us were seeking........

MORE than 300 Australian troops will be deployed to Iraq for a training mission, starting tomorrow. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the 300 strong force, first announced last month, will be largely from army’s 7th Brigade in Brisbane and will serve alongside New Zealanders at the Taji military complex, north of Baghdad Federal cabinet has approved the deployment of the additional Australian troops to the Middle East to help train Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State. The deployment will be for two years from the middle of May. “It is a dangerous place and I can’t tell you...

Mystery of the 'alien' signals solved: Baffled astronomers trace source of noise to the observatory's kitchen MICROWAVE Strange signals, known as perytons, originated near to the planet Scientists could not explain where they were coming from for decades They replicated signal by opening microwave door while still running For years, scientists have been trying to uncover the source of mysterious radio signals being picked up in Australia. Theories have ranged from evaporating black holes to extraterrestrial communication and mergers of neutron stars. Now researchers at the Parkes Observatory claim they have finally found the source of these 'alien' signals -...

“IF I was running al-Qa’ida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.” These prophetic words were uttered by John Howard less than 24 hours after Barack Obama announced he was running for US president. Mr Howard was always the master of the understatement, no more so than on this occasion. It wasn’t just al-Qa’ida but rather, practically every sinister outfit on the planet that must have popped the bubbly the day Obama was swept to power in a...

HE’S Australia’s fiercest soldier. One of the most decorated members of the Australian Defence Force, he was singled out for acts of extraordinary bravery when locked in a bloody gunbattle with an unpredictable enemy in 2010. But for Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith, there is a group of men who put his achievements on the battlefield in the shade. Tonight, Roberts-Smith will present a special episode of Sunday Night where he will uncover extraordinary stories of valour that turned 10 of the first Anzacs into legends. There are not many Australians who can truly say that they’ve walked in the...

Consumers in Australia flocked to Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) store in Sydney on Friday to get the world's first up-close look at the tech giant's smartwatch, which the company expects will be its next runaway hit. The Apple Watch, CEO Tim Cook's first new major product, was available for pre-order online and to try out in stores - but not take home. On April 24, consumers will be able to buy it online or by reservation at retail locations including high-end fashion boutiques in Paris, London and Tokyo, part of Apple's strategy of positioning the wearable computer as a must-have accessory.

You can guarantee it. When Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee next year, she and her team will frame the election as “historically significant”. In doing so, they will ignite a great social movement to elect the first Madame President. In the last twelve months, Secretary Clinton’s public speeches and commentary have discernibly shifted in focus and content, to female empowerment, pay equity and her “grandmother glow”. Never far away with a ready and helping hand, the media are showing their intent to advance the Clinton 2016 narrative. Just last month, following the conclusion of her prepared remarks at her...

Protesters waving Australian flags and carrying signs such as "Yes Australia. No Sharia" rallied around the country on Saturday in events organisers said were against Islamic extremism. The "Reclaim Australia" events drew hundreds of supporters but also triggered counter-rallies from other groups who criticised them as racist and called for greater tolerance. "We are pro-Australian values and anti-extreme Islam, but we're not anti-Muslim," Reclaim Australia spokeswoman Catherine Brennan told AFP, adding there was no racism behind the rallies, which she said had attracted people from diverse backgrounds. "Since when is it being racist to love your country and to love...

Protesters waving Australian flags and carrying signs such as "Yes Australia. No Sharia" rallied around the country on Saturday in events organisers said were against Islamic extremism. The "Reclaim Australia" events drew hundreds of supporters but also triggered counter-rallies from other groups who criticised them as racist and called for greater tolerance. "We are pro-Australian values and anti-extreme Islam, but we're not anti-Muslim," Reclaim Australia spokeswoman Catherine Brennan told AFP, adding there was no racism behind the rallies, which she said had attracted people from diverse backgrounds.

Someone's running a poll in Oz. http://www.9jumpin.com.au Let's help them decide.

Not so long ago, The Age made a rather costly mistake by identifying an entirely innocent Muslim lad as the teen terrorist who attacked two policemen in Melbourne, very nearly killing one of them. This sort of error is apt to happen when competent sub-editors are shown the door, replaced by cheap-to-hire, hip-dude children working under the supervision of the few older hands not quite sharp enough to have read the signs of a newspaper in terminal decline and landed jobs at the ABC. Fairfax Media dug deep, slung the slandered kid a sum variously reported to be as much...

A curious condition of early 21st-century life is that for every citizen trained in causal reasoning and dedicated to truth, there is a mob of determinedly unenlightened dolts incapable of distinguishing public opinion from empirical fact, whose greatest champion is the censorial Left. Enter the latest limp cant against Social Services Minister Scott Morrison by former students of his alma mater, Sydney Boys High School. In an online letter endorsed by John Pilger, the moribund band of brothers exhorts the school to withdraw a speaking invitation to Morrison on the charge that he advocated policies in violation of the UN...

CLIMATE change could not just impact agricultural production, but also potentially waken sleeping giants who could in turn exacerbate the warming trend, according to Australian academics.

A MELBOURNE bishop believes the third suspicious church fire in as many days is not linked to clergy sexual abuse. Fire crews and police are investigating a fire at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Foster St, Dandenong, that started about 2.30am. The fire, which caused $250,000 damage, was started in the church’s storeroom. Another was sparked near the altar. A team of about 40 firefighters took about an hour to control the blaze. It comes after fires on Monday at St James in Brighton and St Mary’s in St Kilda East - two parishes home to notorious paedophile priest, Ron...

Australia's most decorated canine war hero, who was at one stage missing in action for nearly 14 months in Afghanistan, has lost her battle with brain cancer. Sarbi, who worked as an explosive detection dog for the Australian Army, suffered a number of seizures in recent weeks and scans revealed a brain tumour. The canine, affectionately known as 'the wonder dog', lost her short battle with the terminal illness on Friday, and died surrounded by her loved ones, according to her handler.

An Australian government official made the mistake that is every office workers’ nightmare: an autofill mistake causing an email to go to the wrong person. Except in this person’s case, the mistaken email exposed the personal details of 31 world leaders, including President Barack Obama. “The cause of the breach was human error,” said an email sent to the Australian privacy commissioner and obtained by The Guardian under freedom of information laws... excerptedThe exposed data included not only names and dates of birth, but passport numbers and visa details as well. On Monday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz...