World
Australian spy chief under pressure to name ex-politician who ‘sold out’
The spy chief said a team from an unidentified country had cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician.
Australia’s spy chief is facing calls to name a former politician accused of having “sold out” the country to a foreign power.
Director-general of security for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, said in an annual speech on Wednesday evening that a spy team from an unidentified country had cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician.
“This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime,” Burgess said in a speech in the capital, Canberra.
In his address, Burgess said a foreign intelligence service unit, named “the A-Team”, had made Australia its “priority target” and specifically targeted those with access to “privileged information” by using social networking sites and promising financial rewards.
Burgess added that the unidentified former politician had been recruited “several years ago” and had suggested a plot to introduce a family member of the prime minister into the spy’s orbit, but the plan did not go ahead.
He said police had not charged the person because they were no longer active.
Following the unexpected revelations, Alex Turnbull, the son of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, said in an interview on Thursday with news.com.au that he had been approached about an infrastructure project by a group of suspected Chinese agents in around 2017 when his father was in government.
He said the group had links to a former New South Wales state Labour Party parliamentarian without naming the person.
However, current and former members of the opposition party have pushed for the name of the ex-politician to be released to avoid speculations.
Former parliamentary treasurer, Joe Hockey, who also served as the ambassador to the United States, echoed the demands for the ex-politician to be named.
“Mr Burgess, having gone this far, must name that person rather than potentially smear everyone who has served their country,” Hockey wrote on X.
Mike Burgess from ASIO has publicly referred in @smh to an unnamed politician as the agent of a foreign country. Mr Burgess, having gone this far, must name that person rather than potentially smear everyone who has served their country.
— Joe Hockey (@JoeHockey) February 28, 2024
Opposition party leader, Peter Dutton, also said on radio station 2GB: “The trouble is, if he does not indicate the name then there is a cloud hanging over everybody else.”
Australia is a current member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group, which includes the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, making it a target for operatives from countries such as China and Russia.
In 2018, under former Prime Minister Turnbull’s leadership, foreign interference laws were introduced, of which the “key purpose” of the measures was to expose China’s activities.
A Chinese-Australian businessman was sentenced to years and nine months in jail on Thursday for attempting to win favour with a minister – the first sentence given under the interference laws, according to state broadcaster ABC.
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Head of Greek far-right Golden Dawn party is granted early release from prison
The head of Greece’s extreme far-right Golden Dawn party was granted conditional early release from prison Thursday, after serving part of his sentence for running a criminal organization blamed for violent hate crimes.
A council of judges accepted the request by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, 66, who had served the minimal legal requirement for early release. The decision also took into consideration that he was aged over 65, which increases the time he is formally considered to have served. He is in poor health and spent 18 months in pre-trial detention.
GREECE’S FAR-RIGHT GOLDEN DAWN, COUNTER-DEMONSTRATORS, CLASH IN ATHENS
Restrictions imposed on him include a ban on traveling outside the greater Athens region.
Michaloliakos and five other former Golden Dawn lawmakers were convicted in October 2020 of running a criminal organization and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Other party members received lesser sentences, following a five-year trial.
Golden Dawn was founded as a Nazi-inspired group in the 1980s and rose to become Greece’s third-largest political party during most of the country’s 2010-2018 financial crisis. Its support later declined, and the party failed to enter parliament post-crisis.
The crackdown on the party followed the 2013 fatal stabbing of a left-wing musician in Athens, for which a Golden Dawn associate was given a life sentence.
Greek political parties and the family of the slain musician expressed dismay at Thursday’s decision.
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UN, EU, US urge Georgia to halt ‘foreign agents’ bill as protests grow
Thousands gather in Tbilisi to protest against the bill, which passed its second reading in parliament this week.
The European Union, United Nations, and the United States have condemned legislation making its way through Georgia’s parliament on “foreign agents”, as thousands of protesters snarled traffic in the country’s capital Tbilisi on Thursday with a large new protest against the bill.
Protesters poured into Heroes’ Square, a key junction through which much of Tbilisi’s traffic passes between the city’s neighbourhoods. Long queues of vehicles remained blocked.
“We are all together to show the Kremlin’s puppets that we will not accept the government that goes against the Georgian people’s wishes,” said protester Giorgi Loladze, 27, from Kutaisi, Georgia’s third-largest city.
Tens of thousands of protesters had shut down central Tbilisi a day earlier in the largest anti-government rally yet. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to clear some of them.
The bill – attacked by opponents as authoritarian and Kremlin-inspired – has completed two of three readings in the parliament and the latest comments reflected alarm in both Washington and Brussels over the country’s future direction.
The ruling Georgian Dream party says the law, which would require organisations receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, is needed to ensure transparency.
The party’s billionaire founder said this week that Georgia must defend its sovereignty against Western attempts to dictate to it.
Crowds have protested nightly for weeks outside the parliament in Tbilisi. Inside the building, lawmakers have come to blows.
‘Deeply concerned’
The standoff is seen as part of a wider struggle that could determine whether Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that has seen war and revolution since the fall of the Soviet Union, moves closer towards Europe or back under Moscow’s influence.
Gert Jan Koopman, director general of the European Commission’s enlargement directorate, reiterated the EU’s warning that the bill would put at risk Georgia’s hopes of becoming a member of the bloc.
“There are concerning developments in terms of legislation. The law … as it stands is unacceptable and will create serious obstacles for the EU accession path,” he told a news conference in Tbilisi.
Koopman said “the ball is very firmly in the court of the government”, adding it still had time to change course.
But the government – which put forward a similar law last year, only to withdraw it in the face of protests – has shown no sign it will climb down a second time, which could be damaging ahead of a parliamentary election in October.
UN rights chief Volker Turk on Thursday called on Georgia’s government to withdraw the bill and expressed concern at police violence against protesters.
The White House also expressed concerns on Thursday about the chilling effect such legislation could have on Georgians’ ability and willingness to express themselves.
“We are deeply concerned about this legislation – what it could do in terms of stifling dissent and free speech,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said at a US briefing.
Earlier, US Ambassador Robin Dunnigan said the Georgian government’s choices “have moved the country away from its Euro-Atlantic future” and urged it to recommit to integration with the West.
In a statement, Dunnigan said that senior US leaders had invited Georgia to discuss the issue, but that the country had not accepted the offer.
Britain, Italy and Germany have also criticised the bill.
Georgia’s parliament on Wednesday approved the second reading of the bill, which the opposition says is modelled on a law the Kremlin has used to crack down on opponents in Russia.
Parliamentary debates on Thursday were cancelled after what officials called an “attack” on the legislature.
Georgian television on Thursday showed Tbilisi’s Mayor Kakha Kaladze berating a reporter who asked him about police actions at Wednesday’s protest, calling her a “shameless scumbag”.
Lawmakers are expected to give the bill its third and final reading in around two weeks.
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