John Fitzpatrick. About New China, the Koreas, Myanmar, Thailand, and also about Japanese and Chinese writers and poets. The main emphasis is on North Asia and the political tectonics of this very important, powerful, and many-peopled area.
The US justice department has filed
criminal charges against a fugitive ex-intelligence analyst who leaked details
of a secret surveillance operation.
The charges against ex-National Security Agency (NSA) analyst Edward Snowden
include espionage and theft of government property.
In May, Mr Snowden fled to Hong Kong after leaking details of a programme to
monitor phone and internet data.
The US is also reported to be preparing an extradition request.
His leaks revealed that US agencies had systematically gathered vast amounts
of phone and web data.
The criminal complaint was lodged with a federal court in the Eastern
District of Virginia and a provisional arrest warrant had been issued, court
documents show.
Mr Snowden was charged with "Theft of Government
Property", "Unauthorized communication of National Defense Information
Information" and "Willful Communication of Classified Communications
Intelligence".
Each of the charges carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. The complaint
is dated 14 June although it was made only public on Friday.
Mr Snowden's whereabouts are unknown since he left his hotel on 10 June,
after going public about his responsibility for the leaks.
Hong Kong police have declined to comment on a local newspaper report that he
is staying in a police safe house.
The BBC's Katy Watson in Washington says the move shows how seriously the US
administration is taking the issue.
Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, a member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, welcomed the charges.
"I've always thought this was a treasonous act,'' he said in a statement. "I
hope Hong Kong's government will take him into custody and extradite him to the
US."
Correspondents say that although the US and Hong Kong co-operate on law
enforcement matters, Mr Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any extradition
proceedings. Beijing influence
Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, has a high degree of
autonomy from Beijing and signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1998.
The debate in Hong Kong over whether Mr Snowden should be handed over to the
US continues. Legislator Leung Kwok-hung said Beijing should tell the
authorities to protect Mr Snowden from extradition and the people of the
territory should "take to the streets" to shelter him.
Beijing is allowed to exert its influence in foreign policy matters, says the
BBC's Juliana Liu in Hong Kong, but it cannot order officials to deviate from
the law.
Beijing is highly unlikely to intercede in what is likely to be the early
stages of a long legal battle, our correspondent adds.
The leaks led to revelations that the US is systematically seizing vast
amounts of phone and web data under an NSA programme known as Prism.
Mr Snowden also alleged that US intelligence had been hacking into Chinese
computer networks.
He said he had decided to speak out after observing "a continuing litany of
lies" from senior officials to Congress.
The leaks have been a severe embarrassment for President Barack Obama's
administration.
US officials have since launched a robust defence of the practice by US
intelligence agencies of gathering telephone and internet data from private
users around the world.
They say Prism cannot be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone
in the US, and that it is supervised by judges.
Earlier this week the head of the NSA, Gen Keith Alexander, told Congress
that it had helped to thwart terror attacks.
In another development, the Guardian newspaper has reported that the
UK is tapping fibre-optic cables and gathering large quantities of data.
The Guardian says its report is based on more documents released by Mr
Snowden and leaked from the UK's electronic eavesdropping agency, GCHQ.
Data from global communications, including internet and phone use, was stored
for up to 30 days to be analysed the papers says.
Tahiti's footballers have received a standing ovation from the crowd at the Maracana in Brazil after being crushed by Spain 10-0 at the Confederations Cup.
Spain broke the record for the biggest margin of victory at an international FIFA event, as Fernando Torres scored four times and David Villa claimed a hat-trick.
Tahiti sit 138th in the FIFA rankings and qualified for the tournament by winning the 2012 OFC Nations Cup.
The result equalled their heaviest defeat - a 10-0 demolition by New Zealand in 2004 - but Spain fell short of matching their 13-0 annihilation of Bulgaria in a 1933 friendly.
No team had previously won by 10 goals at an international FIFA event, with Hungary (9-0 against South Korea at the 1954 World Cup, 10-1 against El Salvador at the 1982 World Cup) and Yugoslavia (9-0 against Zaire at the 1974 World Cup) the co-holders of the previous record.
Tahiti's goalkeeper Mickael Roche, who was drafted into the side to replace Xavier Smith, has told Australia Network he has mixed feelings about the match.
"It was still great to play Spain - it was an experience," he said.
"We have such great support from the crowd here - they gave us a standing ovation despite the result, even when the score is that heavy, it is unbelievable."
Fernando Torres has also praised the Tahitians for their performance.
"Often inferior teams look to break up the game and get aggressive, they play without spirit or hope," he said.
"Standards aside, Tahiti showed a great example of how to go about playing football.
"We have tried to show them respect in every sense."
For a nation largely comprised of 'boat people', asylum has generated the most debate, and at times hysteria, of all immigration matters in Australia.
By Melissa Phillips, University of Melbourne and Martina Boese, University of Melbourne
For a nation largely comprised of “boat people”, asylum has generated the most debate, and at times hysteria, of all immigration matters in Australia.
Is this due to what multiculturalism academic Ghassan Hage calls the “sensitivity of thieves”, linking the invasion and theft of Australian land from its traditional owners by white settlers 200 years ago with current attitudes to asylum?
Or do attitudes to asylum reflect a genuine concern for Australia as a sovereign nation?
The setting of tight restrictions on immigration policy has been Australian politics since federation. One of the first acts of federal parliament in 1901 was the Immigration Restriction Act that established a dictation or language test for potential migrants in any European language.
At the same time, the Pacific Islander Labourers Act placed restrictions on the arrival of Pacific Island workers. These and other measures that limited the immigrant population to white, English-speaking people would come to be known as the “White Australia” policy – a policy that would remain in place for the next six decades.
In addition to controlling the entry of certain groups or types of people deemed unsuitable, the White Australia policy supported an image of the “ideal” future citizen who would fit with Australia’s national character.
The policy of assimilation, first imposed on Aboriginal Australians, was subsequently applied to migrants. In essence, assimilationist policies meant that irrespective of heritage, language or culture, all differences would be erased and people would come under the rubric of “Australian”. It was assimilationist policies that resulted in Aboriginal Australians being denied their heritage and official citizenship.
Even as the White Australia policy was being informally relaxed, migrants were also expected to avoid displaying cultural and linguistic differences. These federally-imposed policies actively encouraged a homogenising force of White Australia. Fears of countless numbers of Asians “invading” Australia, commonly referred to as the “yellow peril”, were invoked by proponents of the White Australia policy as a justification for this “you’re either with us or against us” approach to a vision of a white Australia.
After the mass migration programs from the 1950s onwards, the White Australia policy was finally relaxed in the 1960s. Some of these programs brought groups of people displaced by World War Two to Australia. Like they are today, displaced people only formed a small proportion of much larger migration programs.
Migrants and displaced people were accommodated in government-run hostels where they were provided with training and other support. But in these early days, migrants and displaced people had no limits imposed on their movement and while they did face hostility as newcomers, they soon settled and found work.
With the arrival of Vietnamese asylum seekers in the 1970s, the phrase “boat people” entered the national lexicon and a spotlight was shone on people fleeing their homes due to persecution. Up until now migration, including the humanitarian (refugee) component, had largely been controlled centrally by the Department of Immigration. Who was arriving, when and how, was clearly set under quotas and a visa system. But between 1976 and 1982, 2,059 Indo-Chinese refugees arrived directly in Australia by boat.
They were met with mixed reactions – racism, public alarm, concern over their cultural differences and also, importantly, genuine concern about their welfare and plight. At the highest level, prime minister Malcolm Fraser permitted the admission of Indo-Chinese refugees arriving by boat and supported the resettlement of over 200,000 more refugees whose claims were processed in camps in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand.
While some have cautioned against characterising this as a “golden age” of asylum, Fraser’s decision to offer permanent protection to these boat arrivals and then resettle countless thousands more demonstrated unparalleled humanity. Arguably the closest any other Australian prime minister has come to such a courageous act of flexibility within the immigration program was Bob Hawke, who allowed 42,000 Chinese students to remain permanently in Australia after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
Since the 1990s, asylum policy could be characterised as a race to the bottom on both sides of politics. In 1992, Paul Keating’s Labor government introduced mandatory detention for all people arriving without a valid visa. People who entered Australia on a valid visa and then claimed asylum were, and still are, not subject to mandatory detention. They remain in the community for the duration of their asylum claim.
One of the lower points of asylum policy was the 2001 Tampa Affair. Having already introduced temporary protection visas (TPVs) for onshore asylum seekers in 1999 and with an election on the horizon, prime minister John Howard used the arrival of a boatload of asylum seekers seeking entry to Australia as a moment to initiate some of the harshest policy responses to asylum seekers.
These measures included refusing the boat in question to enter Australia’s territorial waters and excising Christmas Island from the migration zone. There was widespread public support for these measures, and attitudes to asylum harshened in the aftermath of Howard’s election victory and the arrival of more boats.
Under Kevin Rudd there were promising signs of a shift in attitudes to asylum. The TPV system was dismantled and some detained asylum seekers were released into the community. The number of boats carrying asylum seekers into Australian waters kept increasing, however. This served the Coalition opposition well as a convenient reminder of the government’s failure in tackling an issue deemed to be out of control. Australia has a long history of boat arrivals – so why is a hard line being taken on asylum seekers today? Commonwealth of Australia
In 2011, the proposed “Malaysian solution” by prime minister Julia Gillard signalled a major setback. However, the suggested exchange of 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia for 4000 refugees and the building of detention centres in Malaysia was prevented by the High Court’s ruling on insufficient human rights protection under Malaysian law and the invalidity of the ministerially-agreed bargain.
Lacking options for legal amendments due to its minority in the Senate, the Gillard government’s next step was the appointment of the Houston Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers. The panel’s recommendation to re-introduce offshore processing on Nauru and re-establish a regional processing centre on Manus Island was met with disbelief by many. The strategically named “no advantage” rule, aimed at denying boat arrivals any advantage in the processing of their claims, revealed the government’s desperate attempt to signal they were still in charge of Australia’s borders.
The language of rules and order in combination with insinuations of foul play through “queue jumping” has long dominated public discourse on asylum seekers, not only in Australia. The “bogus asylum seeker” has become a widely used term that neatly separates undeserving and deserving refugees.
The most recent low point in the sad affair of Australian asylum policy is the excision of the Australian mainland and Christmas Island from the migration zone. This allows the removal of those deemed as unlawful arrivals for detention and processing offshore. Former immigration minister Chris Bowen had referred to this legislation as a “stain on our national character” when it was put to parliament under the Howard government.
Does anyone really believe that these changes will stop people’s desperate attempts to reach a safer place via a potentially deadly journey? The number of deaths keep increasing while Australia keeps watching on the current stalemate in Canberra.
With a federal election looming neither major party is proposing a shift away from demonising asylum seekers. It is somewhat striking that the same country that has gained international reputation for its system of humanitarian settlement services demonstrates so little political will for a humane response to treating asylum seekers.
While immigration matters have long been exploited at the political level, concern for asylum seekers has waxed and waned at a community level. There have been genuine demonstrations of concern for people on TPVs and over deaths at sea. But what is numerically one of the smaller migration programs – when compared to both temporary and permanent skilled migration – does garner overwhelming public attention, which is more than often negative.
What is clear is that when strong political leadership and genuine concern at the community level coalesce – as they did during Malcolm Fraser’s time – compassion for asylum seekers is possible. Melissa Phillips has received funding from the Australian Research Council.
Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong before the scandal
broke 
