Free Republic

China has lately been resorting to defiant and audacious acts like claiming its territorial rights over waters around artificial island it has built in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and unilaterally designating an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea. While these acts are visible to all, the real front battle line lies deep in the sea where submarines are principal players. This article attempts to provide in-depth descriptions of the real picture of submarines of the Maritime Self-Defense Force and their roles, as little has so far been made known about them. During the...

People like Senator David Leyonhjelm are using the tragedy of the Paris attacks to further their pro-gun agenda, twisting facts to create a narrative that is misleading and dangerous. On Tuesday, in response to a tweet that read: “Aust’s tough gun laws have better insulated us against a Paris-style terror attack, Keenan said ...” Leyonhjelm tweeted: — David Leyonhjelm (@DavidLeyonhjelm) November 24, 2015 Sure helped a lot in Paris. And let's not mention the Lindt Cafe and Parramatta. https://t.co/8yfuKG6Gbx In fact, Leyonhjelm has appointed himself Australian “spokesman” of the NRA, the US pro-gun lobby, which has political influence disproportionate to...

Keith Michell, the Australian-born actor and director who has died aged 89 88, was celebrated for his many imposing stage and screen performances as Henry VIII. Michell came to monopolise one of British history's favourite subjects for dramatisation. Such was the charm of this burly, sturdy, square-set, square-jawed, mellifluous upstart from the Antipodes that when he revived Shakespeare's King Henry VIII at the Chichester Festival in 1991 he could with justice claim to have made the part of the much-married monarch his own for a quarter of a century.

..... After each atrocity complacent political leaders trot out the same platitudes. They tell us: "This has nothing to do with Islam, etc." It is wearing thin with the public. All these attacks are coming from people who subscribe to one religion, which is not Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Buddhist or Yazidi. Plainly it has something to do with Islam. And the people who are doing it think it has everything to do with Islam. That is why they shout Allahu Akbar while firing their guns and detonating their explosives. ..... One great illusion that Western liberals use...

A new page in Christian civilization’s prolonged moral suicide note to the world is under consideration in Australia. It is a small symbolic matter, with much weightier matters behind it.The Australian Army is removing the 102-year-old motto “In this sign conquer” from the hat badges of army chaplains, apparently because it is offensive to Muslims.The move comes after an imam approved by the Grand Mufti was appointed to join the… Religious Advisory Committee to the Australian armed forces in June.Oddly enough, none of the other ethnic groups such as Vietnamese (many of whom are Buddhist) serving in the forces have...

SOMETIMES your body plays tricks on you when you least expect. A simple untimely case of the hiccups has turned a seven-year-old Adelaide local into an online sensation after his rendition of Advance Australia Fair was hijacked by his uncontrollable breathing spurts. A video posted on YouTube by ABLtv.com shows the young child identified by the stadium’s ground announcer as Ethan Hall singing a memorable version of the Australian national anthem before the Australian Baseball League match between the Adelaide Bite and Brisbane Bandits at Cooper’s Stadium in the City of Churches on Friday night. Unfortunately, right at the start...

Skulls found in Mexico suggest the early Americans would have said 'G'day mate' By Steve Connor, Science Editor 04 September 2003 The accepted theory of how prehistoric humans first migrated to America has been challenged by a study of an ancient set of bones unearthed in Mexico. An analysis of 33 skulls found on the Mexican peninsula of Baja California suggests that the first Americans were not north Asians who crossed to the American continent about 12,000 years ago. The skulls more closely resemble the present-day natives of Australia and the South Pacific, suggesting that there might have been an...

THE Australian Army is removing the motto "In this sign conquer" from the 102-year-old hat badges of army chaplains because it is offensive to Muslims. The move comes after an imam approved by the Grand Mufti was appointed to join the ­Religious Advisory Committee to the Services in June. Australian Army chaplains have had the motto on their hat badges since 1913. ..... The Defence spokeswoman said: "There are 102 ADF permanent members who self-identify as Muslim. In addition there are 40 Active Reservists who have declared as Muslim."

The Paris attacks have seen two competing Australian voices in response - Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott. The crisis has revealed Abbott's long-run strategy - positioning himself on the global and domestic stage as a champion of the conservative forces in the current international security crisis. Abbott believes the threat from Islamist violence is the defining issue of the age. It occupied much of his prime ministership and he intends to become a rallying point in the war of ideas and ideology at its heart. Abbott as a politician can only exist and operate with a mission. It has always...

When I was in Washington recently, I had a very funny conversation with Matthew Harries over dinner. It seems there is a proposal for Australia to seek nuclear-weapons state status under the NPT on rather weak claim that the UK had conducted nuclear tests down under in the 1950s. I was delighted when Matt and Hassan Elbahtimy offered to write up a fine riposte to this strange idea. Also, I left you a little easter egg at the bottom. Australia, like many other countries during and after the Cold War, considered developing nuclear weapons but never fully pursued its own...

SEVENTY-four years ago today, Australia's greatest naval tragedy unfolded off the coast of WA. HSK Kormoran was a disguised German warship. Her job was to scour the seas for vulnerable cargo ships carrying the lifeblood of trade to the UK. HMAS Sydney II was a light cruiser. Her job was to escort vulnerable ships, as well as to search the seas for hostile ships - like Kormoran. The initial account of the battle that unfolded on the evening of November 19, 1941, was incomplete and confused. It was built up from interviews of German survivors - individuals who had only...

Intercepted phone calls have revealed terrorist plotters have abandoned a plan to target Parliament House due to heightened security measures leaving them unable to 'even make it up the hill.' Australian Defence Force officers armed with machine guns have stationed themselves throughout the building after counter terrorism officers picked up on terrorist 'chatter' four months ago,The Daily Telegraph reported. Parliament House has been discussed as a potential target for an attack since last year when a security lockdown was initiated following a distinct threat - but plotters said it is now impossible to penetrate the building's perimeter. Last year, the...

Recently, Singapore celebrated 50 years of nationhood. The success of this remarkable country is a vivid exemplar of the proposition that we still live in a world of nation-states. Singapore's birth in August 1965 was traumatic. It was a tiny country with no natural resources, a land area of less than 1,000 square kilometers, and a population of only 1.9 million. Effectively, it had been ejected from the Federation of Malaysia because the pro-Malay policies of the Federation discriminated against the ethnic Chinese who constituted the bulk of Singapore's population. Under the energetic and visionary leadership of Lee Kuan Yew,...

POLICE have arrested and charged another man in relation to the murder of police accountant Curtis Cheng in Parramatta last month.

Australia has seen a rise in gun crime over the past decade despite imposing an outright ban on many firearms in the late 1990s.Charges for crimes involving firearms have increased dramatically across the island nation’s localities in the past decade according to an analysis of government statistics conducted by The New Daily. It found that gun crimes have spiked dramatically in the Australian states of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania. In Victoria, pistol-related offenses doubled over the last decade. In New South Wales, they tripled. The other states saw smaller but still significant increases.Experts said that the country’s 1996...

PRINCE Charles will touch down in Sydney today, where the man who rushed a stage firing a starter’s pistol during his 1994 royal tour is now on the right side of the law as a barrister. David Kang, 45, was yesterday working at Burwood Local Court and helping his mother with shopping on the eve of the future king’s visit. At his family home in Hunters Hill, Kang’s mother Kum said her son, who works at chambers in the city, was “young at the time but he’s grown up now. He has a wife and two children”. “He’s a good...

SYDNEY – All three bidders competing for a 50 billion Australian dollars ($35.3 billion) submarine contract have been targeted by Chinese and Russian cyberattacks, according to local media reports. The submarine builders in France, Germany and Japan have all been provided with the highly confidential technical requirements for the Royal Australian Navy’s new submarines, which will form the basis for each country’s proposal. Manfred Klein, campaign manager of German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, told The Australian newspaper, “We have about 30 to 40 (hacking) attempts per night, that’s what our IT people say.” The bidders declined to publicly say which...

Australian immigration officials say a "disturbance" is taking place at a detention centre for immigrants on Christmas Island. Australia sends asylum seekers to Christmas Island, a remote outpost 2,650km (1,650 miles) north-west of Perth and 380km south of Java in Indonesia.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 02, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hausfeld, a global plaintiffs’ law firm, announced today that the judge overseeing Brown, et al. v. Transurban USA, Inc., et al., No. 15-cv-494 (E.D. Va.), the Honorable James C. Cacheris, has largely denied the Defendants’ motions to dismiss the pending class action case. The plaintiffs in the case alleges that the I-495 and I-95/I-395 HOT Lanes operator (Transurban) and its debt-collection agents (Faneuil, Inc. and Law Enforcement Systems, LLC (“LES”)) violated state and federal law by assessing and seeking to collect crippling administrative fees and penalties for allegedly missed tolls. Drivers who use...

Knights and dames will be dropped from the Australian honours system, the Order of Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced. In a statement he said that the Queen had agreed to the recommendation, and added that knights and dames were "not appropriate" in today's Australia.