The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community celebrates Australia Day across all its Mosques in Australia

Ahmadis are the good guys.  They express APPRECIATION of the nations that host them.  They differ from other Muslims in believing that their founder was the Messiah

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Australia invites you to their annual Australia Day celebrations where people can come together, united in allegiance to Australia.

In all its Mosques across Australia, a formal ceremonial event will also take place where the Community will come together to pay respect to and hoist the Australian flag followed by national anthem. Short thanksgiving speeches by community members and invited dignitaries will take please as they share their thoughts on what it means to be an Australian.

The National President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Australia, Imam. I.H. Kauser said:

“We, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, always pray for the progress and development of our homeland, Australia. As per our traditions we will celebrate Australia Day in all Mosques across Australia. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our nation, government and people because our religion teaches us that love of country of residence is part of faith.”

This day holds special significance for the Community; the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mosques across the country will begin the day offering prayers for the prosperity of Australia and for those who lost their lives in recent bushfires. Members of the community will also participate in community celebrations and parades throughout the day.

The Worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the Fifth Caliph, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad guides Community members in this regard:

“True loyalty requires a relationship built on sincerity and integrity… it is essential for a citizen of any country to establish a relationship of genuine loyalty and faithfulness to his nation. It does not matter whether he is a born citizen, or whether he gains citizenship later in life..."

About the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community:

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a very peaceful, law abiding, nonviolent and loving community. Founded in 1889, the Community spans more than 200 countries with membership exceeding tens of millions. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the leading Islamic organisation to categorically reject terrorism in any form. Similarly, the Ahmadiyya Community is the only Islamic organisation to endorse a separation of mosque and state. Today, it continues to be an advocate for universal human rights and protection for religious and other minorities. It champions the empowerment and education of women. Its members are among the most law-abiding, educated, and engaged Muslims in the world. For the official website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association Australia, please visit: www.Ahmadiyya.org.au

Email from Media@Ahmadiyya.org.au






Senior government ministers have dismissed a Liberal backbencher's comments denying the link between climate change and the bushfires as a "sideshow"

It's politically inconvenient to knock global warming

Senior government ministers are distancing themselves from an outspoken backbencher who dismissed the link between climate change and bushfires.

Liberal MP Craig Kelly has caused major headaches after appearing on British television to talk about Australia's bushfire crisis.

As recently as Sunday, the prime minister claimed his government had always made the connection between climate change and extreme weather conditions.

Mr Kelly, who strongly denies the link, made his views known to an international audience.

Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud described his comments as a "sideshow".

"He doesn't represent the views of the government," Mr Littleproud told reporters on Tuesday. "I couldn't give a rats what he said, it's irrelevant, let's just focus on those people that are out there that need our help."

Mr Kelly said the suggestion the government could have reduced the bushfires by bringing down carbon emissions was nonsense.

Instead, he made disputed claims that fuel loads were largely to blame for the spread of the fires.

Scientists have disputed claims a lack of hazard reduction burns have led to the size of the bushfires, with former fire chiefs blaming the effects of climate change.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also put Mr Kelly at arms length from the government. "Our view of climate change is that it's real. We accept the science," Mr Frydenberg said.

While Mr Frydenberg said fuel loads had been a factor in the bushfires, he said climate change was causing hotter, drier summers.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he was despaired by Mr Kelly's comments.  "The tragedy is that he's imposed those views along with a few others to ensure that Australia isn't taking action," Mr Albanese said.

After being panned for the "train wreck" interview, Mr Kelly has defended his decision to go on air, saying he needed to defend the government because it was under attack.

Good Morning Britain host Laura Tobin called Mr Kelly a "climate denier" with Piers Morgan telling the MP to "wake up". "You are facing now one of the greatest crises you have ever faced, and there is you... who still doesn't think this has anything to do with a heating up planet," Morgan said.

Mr Kelly later dismissed Tobin as a "arrogant pommy weather girl" who didn't know what she was talking about, and claimed Morgan "didn't want to hear the facts".

Tobin quickly hit back, pointing out she was a qualified meteorologist and former aviation forecaster for the Royal Air Force.

SOURCE 






Environmental group celebrates as Eden Woodchip Mill burns down in bushfires

There's not much that Greenies like.  They are even against cutting down trees

An environmental group has celebrated on social media the destruction of the Eden Woodchip Mill in the NSW south coast bushfires, sparking outrage from the local community.

On Monday Environmental East Gippsland (EEG) posted on Facebook a picture of the Eden Woodchip Mill burning with a happy face in the description describing the fire as “really good news’’.

The post was deleted but later a new post of the mill burning was published, stating that it was a “symbolic moment”.

A spokesman for Allied Natural Woods Exports, the operator of the mill, Malcolm McComb called the mill’s destruction “tragic”.  It is the largest employer in the town of 3000.

However the EEG said the “writing was on the wall’’ for the mill.

“After 50 years of watching that monster chew up our forests and ship them overseas for Japanese profits, its days might be over at last,’’ EEG said in the post. “The mill has a history of getting taxpayer funded grants to keep them profitable with our money or to build a new wharf.”

“Government must now invest in enviro-friendly industries that have both security and a social licence and are Aussie-owned.”

The mill was vigorously defended by locals on Facebook with the post garnering 900 responses in three hours.

“Why would you even contemplate posting this? It’s totally divisive and makes you look completely heartless,” said one person.

Mr McComb said the town would be seriously affected while the mill was inoperable.

“Seventy people are employed directly by the mill and 600 in the forestry industry in the greater region,” he said.

“It’s going to cause some disruption because we don’t know the extent of the damage yet - the logs about to be chipped are still on fire, so it’s not even safe to go in for an assessment.”

“There will be work to be done in cleaning up and salvaging operations, so we will need people to help there. We also hope to keep arrangements with contractors and stockpile wood, but it’s too early to say.”

“There’s so much rebuilding that needs to be done down here. I just don’t know if we have the engineering capacity to rebuild the mill as fast as we possibly can.”

Environment East Gippsland Inc. describes itself as “the longest running community forest group working for the protection of Victoria’s last and largest area of ancient forest.”

It was started in 1982 and claims to have a membership of over 350 people and is funded by individual donations. Its current co-ordinator is Jill Redwood. She did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE 






Bega wins long-running peanut butter legal battle against Kraft

This is from some months back but I had not previously caught up with it.  It was about an American company being devious and trying to shaft a local honest operator

Australian brand Bega has won the right to use the trademark yellow lids on its peanut butter jars, ending a long-running legal battle with American food giant Kraft.

The federal court ruled on Wednesday that Bega owns and has exclusive rights to use the yellow lid, and red and blue labels that most Australians associate with the peanut spread.

The fight over product appearance and copyright ownership was sparked by a tricky series of takeovers in which Kraft was bought by international giant Heinz and the Australian products including peanut butter moved under the Mondelez umbrella that was later bought by Bega.

Kraft went to the federal court alleging Bega engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct over the marketing of its peanut butter.

After the sale of Mondelez to Bega, the Australian dairy brand ran ads claiming “Kraft peanut butter is now Bega peanut butter” and that it was “never oily, never dry, with the same taste you’ve always loved, and is now Aussie owned by Bega”.

Bega took over the former Victorian Kraft factory in Port Melbourne as part of the sale.

The federal court Justice David O’Callaghan on Wednesday delivered his judgment, declaring that while the goodwill generated by the trademark branding had rightly benefited Kraft, and later Kraft and Mondelez, those rights had been transferred to Bega as part of the sales agreement between it and Mondelez.

As a result, Bega is now “exclusively entitled” to use the yellow lid, and red and blue peanut label.

O’Callaghan found Bega had breached consumer law with respect to its first advertisement, but Kraft also breached the law in an October 2017 press release when it described its product as “loved since 1935”.

A further hearing will be held, which could include discussions about damages.

Bega’s executive chairman, Barry Irvin, announced the win to shareholders with a statement to the Australian stock exchange.

“Importantly, this gives Bega Cheese the right to continue to use the current packaging of its smooth and crunchy peanut butter products,” he said.

The company will review the 178-page judgment before making any further announcements.

Kraft last year tried to get US courts to stop Bega using the branding, seeking “emergency relief” against Bega from the International Centre for Dispute Resolution while also launching its own action in the US federal court.

O’Callaghan told Kraft proceedings there could not continue until the Australian case was handled.

SOURCE 





Not the time for Scott Morrison to stand up India

It’s understandable that Scott Morrison cancelled his trip to India and Japan after the abuse he received over his holiday in Hawaii. But it’s an error of judgment. There’s a world of difference between an overseas holiday taken while most people are still working and when there’s a bushfire crisis, and, on the other hand, an official trip to deepen co-operation with two key regional partners. Provided the Prime Minister had fully announced the government’s response to the bushfire crisis by then, there was no compelling reason not to make this trip. Given the deteriorating strategic situation in our region and in the wider world, it’s a missed opportunity not to go ahead with meeting two of the world’s most substantial democratic leaders.

Of course, Australia must come first in everything that our PM does. But that doesn’t mean managing bushfires should take priority over fostering relationships that will be vital to our long-term national interest.

India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has resoundingly won a second term, despite contentious economic reforms, such as a GST in lieu of state tariffs, and withdrawing large denomination bank notes from circulation to combat tax evasion. Modi is the first Indian prime minister born after independence and without postcolonial hang-ups about the West. He is fully alive to China’s hegemonic ambitions and an ­enthusiastic advocate for the quadrilateral security dialogue that draws together the Indo-­Pacific region’s four most strat­egically significant democracies: the US, India, Japan and ­Australia.

Why miss the chance to clinch a free-trade deal with what is already the world’s fifth-largest economy, and, with the blessings of democracy, the rule of law and the English language, could economically surpass China within 40 years? Or to secure a place in the annual Malabar naval exercises with India, the US and Japan? Just because our PM misjudged going to Hawaii while the country burned, he shouldn’t now be neurotic about leaving the fires.

At the last moment, Modi pulled India out of the Chinese-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade deal because he was wary of giving China a big win after Donald Trump had squandered the chance to create an American-led regional trading bloc by abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But there’s no reason why India could not now do the all-but-­finalised RCEP on a bilateral basis with Australia. This would avoid giving China even more access to the Indian market while linking India with a sophisticated and largely complementary first-world economy — that is, us. But it won’t happen without the ­impetus that only a prime ministerial visit can provide.

Then there’s Japan. Despite Tony Abbott’s inability to finalise a submarine deal with the nation that has the world’s best conventional subs, security co-operation with Japan is deepening. A visiting forces agreement between Australia and Japan is all but ­finalised to allow mutual rotation of troops through each country.

Like Modi, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is a leader of historic significance. He’s now Japan’s longest serving post-war PM and, while his ambitions to deregulate the economy haven’t all been realised, Japan continues to be an underestimated economic powerhouse with about four times China’s GDP per person.

Visits like these are critical because Australia needs to be a much more active and nimble strategic player than ever before. All of the comforting assumptions on which our national ­security and strategic posture rested are crumbling: Chinese liberalisation; continued close US involvement in our region; and the onward march of liberal democracy. Not only can these no longer be taken for granted, but the opposite is just as likely at least for the foreseeable future.

The internment of a million Uighurs, the rapid rollout of a technology-backed system of ­social control, and Xi Jinping’s life presidency have ended any ­realistic hope that China was converging with the West on generally accepted norms of human rights. It’s hard to see the Hong Kong protest movement ending in anything other than severe repression. And there’s little doubt that once Hong Kong has been dealt with, the commissars in Beijing will renew their pressure on Taiwan.

Would America fight for Taiwan as promised and as always previously expected? I doubt that America would risk war with a rival superpower over a country that is legally a province of China. But the abandonment of Taiwan would unravel the US alliance system in East Asia and unleash the biggest arms race in history as every country looked to manage its own security in a post-American world.

Meanwhile the Middle East is as dangerous and as unpredictable as ever. Russia and Turkey are apparently at odds over Syria and now over Libya but are at one in wanting the US humiliated and marginalised. After the usual barrage of presidential tweets, Trump ostentatiously withdrew the US from Syria and abandoned the faithful Kurds to their fate, only to re-intervene a few days later. After taking no real action in response to the Iranian downing of a US drone and the Iranian attacks on Saudi oilfields, the US has just assassinated by drone the head of Iran’s revolutionary guard, probably the most important military figure in that country.

Such impulsive escalation is typical of Trump, but is fraught with peril and far-reaching consequences.

Where does this leave Australia: a Western outpost that can’t defend itself?

Yes, the fires are unprecedented in their duration and extent (if not in their destructive power) and have understandably mesmerised a nation that can’t decide whether they’re caused by climate change or a more prosaic failure to reduce fuel loads.

But should our Prime Minister allow fires that eventually pass to distract him from attending to the strategic alliances that must endure? In cancelling the joint trip to India and Japan, the Morrison government looks like it has a plan to manage the next month but not to manage the next ­decade.

SOURCE 

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here