1MDB : Malaysia's SC & ASIC have a mutual assistance agreement that has been ignored: ASIC chief Shipton must step-aside given at very least perception of bias.

by Ganesh Sahathevan



While the Malaysian end is being cleansed by the removal of the relevant officials (see below), in Australia there is still no action from ASIC chairman James Shipton maintains his silence :

Goldman Sachs CEO breaks silence on 1MDB: ASIC's James Shipton needs to do the same

Shipton's position at ASIC is untenable given his former position at Goldman Sachs He needs to stand aside and ASIC must start doing its part in the worldwide investigation into 1MDB.



END 

Reference 

realpolitikasia

Friday, June 29, 2018

RE 1 MDB: Malaysia's SC has a 20 year old mutual cooperation agreement with Australia's ASIC that SC refuses to activate (and keeps hidden from 1MDB taskforce,MACC)

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Don’t ever trust incompetent and shifty looking people

Apandi Ali and Ranjit Singh received awards for not doing their proper jobsPosted on June 4, 2016 by JEBATMUSTDIENo less a person than the former Attorney General of Malaysia, Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman , who now oversees the 1MDB investigation has declared:


"They (investigators) are facing a lot of challenges as these are cross-border transactions (and) have to comply with proper protocol and laws applicable as requested by the Prime Minister.


"(He) said you have to comply with due process and rule of law, so they are complying with that as said so (by the PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad)," 1MDB investigation committee head Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman told reporters today after being briefed by the investigators.


"It may look simple but it can be complicated as it involves so many parties. Our jurisdiction ensures that there are no overlaps in the investigation. We (have) identified the overlaps but we clarify it. The overlap is with the SC and police. However, we are getting clearer on the investigation," he added.


The 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) inquiry is led by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the police.


The SC has had a mutual assistance with the Australian Securities And Investment Commission (ASIC) since 1998.


It's provisions can easily be activated to obtain information from various Australian sources, which the MACC seems to be unaware.


The SC is clearly compromised, if not compromised and incompetent. Like the MACC ,it needs to be flushed before it is allowed anywhere near the 1MDB investigation.


END


See also

Australian High Commissioner visits MACC,assured despite the evidence & PM Mahathir's complaint that 1MDB investigation will not involve Australia

Sarawak Report

Australia And New Zealand Slide From Their Responsibilities Over Mass Corruption In Malaysia

• 21 July 2017
 
• 83

What has turned the sleazy 1MDB corruption scandal, involving a wide-boy from Penang and a dirty Malaysian politician, into a global issue, has been the light it has thrown on the willingness of major financial instutions to turn a blind eye to massive money laundering.

This has in turn been permitted by deliberately under-staffed regulators, controlled by ‘First World’ politicians, who see no benefit in dealing with corruption in places like Malaysia. They have been willing instead to see their own institutions make money out of the proceeds and to hell with the human misery caused back where the thieves are thieving.

Confronted with the blatant nature of the grubby pillaging of 1MDB, however, and the huge sums flushed through property, businesses and the art market, countries like the United States, Switzerland and Singapore have taken action and are punishing financial facilitators in their regions.

Yet, down south, Australia and New Zealand are still doing their best to pretend none of this was to do with them.

ANZ Bank is the most atrocious example of this failure, since the Australian regulators have done absolutely nothing to investigate, let alone chastise or punish blatant failures by this bank to control vast money laundering activity in a subsidiary where it was the dominant shareholder, namely AmBank.

All the top responsible personnel in charge of compliance, executive decisions and customer care at AmBank were on secondment from ANZ and remained primarily employed by ANZ during their periods of deployment at the KL subsidiary.

Yet, when questioned about the failure of this substantial body of Australian staff members to honestly do their jobs, the response of the bank has been that they had no control over their seconded employees, who in turn were apparently not responsible for their own failures to carry out their legal obligations and report money laundering.

ANZ want to have their cake and eat it. They wanted to be able to brag that AmBank was, thanks to their own investment and major shareholding, a top class bank, run according to the highest global benchmark standards. Yet, when it turned out to be a corrupted can of worms, ANZ have turned round and said they cannot be held responsible.  No one in Australia’s regulatory establishment is holding them to account.

The cover-up is now well underway.  Lowly staff have been sacked, those more senior have quietly retired and ANZ is eagerly preparing to sell off its stake in AmBank, so it can slide away unscathed.

Stunningly, the proposed purchaser of that stake is none other than the Malaysian Government/Najib controlled public pension fund KWAP, which was itself already a victim of 1MDB, having lent some RM4billion to the fund, which Najib then proceeded to notoriously help himself to.  No accounts have been filed for KWAP since December 2015.

Yet now, once again, this public pension money is being funnelled in to get a 1MDB player off the hook and the Australian bankers responsible are showing not the slightest degree of contrition over their responsibility for the this disgraceful outcome.

It is shameful behaviour that will come back to haunt those who have failed their duties.

Trust Us No More! New Zealand’s Reforms Expose Past Lies

In New Zealand, meanwhile, 1MDB has had a different impact, which the authorities are equally attempting to ignore, according to financial commentators who have passed on their observations to SR.

A headline catching court case at the start of the year in Aukland, saw Jho Low win an important battle in his fight to hang on to a previously secret trust he and his family had used to park ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets around the world (including in London, Singapore, Paris and the United States) all of which had been purchased with money stolen from 1MDB.

Justice TooGood agreed that in order to contest the asset seizures the Lows could regain control of the New Zealand trust, which they had pretended Rothschild bank had been managing on their behalf – thereby proving that such trusts (which then existed by the thousand in New Zealand) are effectively bogus fronts.

But, if Jho Low won that battle, the exposure of this rotten system seems to have lost the war for the New Zealand bogus trust industry. Following the Panama Papers outcry and cases such as this one the government was forced to officially investigate the scandal and then implement reforms, which included new regulations requiring that the beneficiaries of the thousands of rich man trusts set up in New Zealand now need to be declared.

No longer could such billionaires hide behind companies registered in the Caymans, Bahamas or Mauritius.

No problem, if such individuals are indeed the genuine article.  A review of the country’s trusts by one of its top financial big-wigs, John Shewin  had concluded it could find absolutely no instances where the lax system in New Zealand had been abused. Although, Mr Shewin conceeded that it would plainly be possible to do so, hence these telling reforms.

Shine A Light And The Roaches Run

Now the reform has been implemented as of June 30th of this year, it has predictably resulted in some devastating figures.  This from the country’s own Business News:

“.. new foreign trust disclosure rules came into effect in New Zealand on June 30, which meant foreign trusts have to register with Inland Revenue and provide particulars of all parties, including the settlor and beneficiaries, and assets. They will also have to file annual returns and pay registration and filing fees.

New Zealand had 11,645 trusts in April last year but fewer than 3000 have registered with Inland Revenue under the law changes. Some 3000 said they didn’t want to operate under the new rules while another 5000 didn’t respond, meaning they will be struck off.

However, as financial writer Graham Adams has told Sarawak Report “Extraordinarily, the government is spinning this as trusts finding the new conditions to be onerous rather than evidence of the trusts formerly being used to hide illicit money and packing up shop because their cover has been blown”.

And, so it seems. The government minister responsible appears to believe the whole episode provides a grand excuse for New Zealand’s regulators to pat themselves on the back rather than hang their heads in shame over years of harbouring thousands of crooked accounts:

“Revenue Minister Judith Collins said the drop in trust numbers was not surprising and it shouldn’t be assumed that was because many had been handling the proceeds of illegitimate activities.  “There is a much heavier compliance burden under the new regime with more disclosure required than ever before.”.. she said, adding New Zealand now had a “world class regime”.[Stuff NZ]

Who believes that – after all, how burndensome is it to write down your own name?

Nor is this system yet ‘world class’.  The New Zealand Government have notably refused  to extend to the full transparency that would actually be expected of a benchmark regime i.e. an open register where journalists and others could cross reference potentially illegal activity.

This means that, for example, Sarawak Report is unable to inform Malaysians whether Jho Low and his family are one of the few to have re-registered their trust in New Zealand.  They may have done so. After all, in the end they got what they wanted from the courts despite being fully exposed in the process.

Like Australia with its banks, New Zealand should be ashamed of the comparatively paltry $40 million a year that certain financial folk were making out of facilitating grand theft through such trusts from countries around the world, including the largest kleptocracy case ever from Malaysia.

We give the last word to their Labour Revenue Spokesman, Michael Wood, quoted as saying “Our view is the most likely reason [so many trusts have quit New Zealand] is because the people engaged in setting up foreign trusts are by definition wanting to hide their assets from their own jurisdictions and don’t want there to be any sunlight on their activities,”

That conclusion is inescapable and Australian and New Zealand spokesmen have fooled nobody by denying the obvious.

Bourke St jihadi was another known wolf, from a known network: ASIO,AFP ,state counterparts in Vic, NSW continue to reject passive supporters of jihadis as a threat.

by Ganesh Sahathevan 



These  facts of the jihadi attack in Bourke St ,Melbourne, as reported by News.com, have not been disputed:

The attacker in Melbourne was shot by police after he set fire to a ute laden with gas cylinders in the centre of Melbourne and stabbed three people, killing one. The attacker died later in hospital.

Police are now treating the stabbing attack in Melbourne's Bourke St as a terrorism incident.

The knifeman, a 31-year-old Somali-born from Melbourne’s north-western suburbs, died in hospital last night after being shot in the chest by police.

The Herald Sun, on its Twitter page, said the terrorist’s wife “was missing and is believed to have been radicalised”. They say Victoria Police are searching for her.

In a press conference yesterday afternoon Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said the man who is alleged to have stabbed three people, killing one, was known to Victoria Police and federal intelligence authorities.

“We are now treating this as a terrorism incident,” he said.

Commissioner Ashton revealed the man came to Australia from Somalia in the 1990s and had relatives known to police from a “terrorism perspective”.

“He’s got family associations that are well known to us,” he said.

There were some reports that the man yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack but Commissioner Ashton said this had not been confirmed.

As with the case of Numan Haider, the attacker was known, and was known to be affiliated with a network who can be at very least be described as a network of passive supporters. This writer has described the existence of such networks in the literature , in South East Asia,and in Australia, but  rather than review all that, readers are directed instead to this story from last year which describes the  consequences of not addressing the problem of passive supporters, in an earlier incident that took place under Graham Ashton's watch:

Two police officers stabbed by teen terrorist Numan Haider to sue ASIO for not warning them he was a threat

END 

References 

Lone terrorist responsible for deadly attack on Bourke Street

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/two-people-stabbed-man-shot-after-car-set-alight-on-bourke-street-reports-20181109-p50f55.html

9 November 2018 — 9:33pm

A lone terrorist was responsible for a deadly stabbing attack that unfolded on Bourke Street in Melbourne's CBD on Friday afternoon.

One man was killed and two others injured after being stabbed by a man who set a ute alight outside the Target store near the busy intersection of Bourke and Swanston streets.

The attacker, who was a 31-year-old Somali community member known to ASIO, was shot by police after he repeatedly lunged at them with a knife.

He was taken to hospital in a critical condition, but died on the operating table.

A relative of the man was arrested on terror-related charges last year. However, sources said there had been no intelligence from counter-terror authorities about any serious threat.

"He is known to both Victoria Police and federal intelligence authorities," Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said on Friday night.

"There is no ongoing threat that we know of ... as I speak to you tonight.

"But certainly we are treating it as a terrorism incident. He's got family associations that are well known to us."

Late on Friday night, there were reports that IS had claimed responsibility for the attack via the Amaq news agency. However, IS is known to have claimed responsibility for attacks in the past that it has not in fact had any connection to.

It is believed the attacker, who lives in Melbourne's north-western suburbs, arrived in Australia in the 1990s.

Two victims in hospital

Prominent Launceston businessman, Rod Patterson, 58, was one of two victims in hospital on Friday night. He suffered head injuries and was undergoing surgery.

The other victim, a 26 year-old man, was believed to be in a critical condition with neck injuries.

Mr Patterson's wife, Maree, posted a message on social media thanking everyone for their wishes.

"So unfortunately we got caught up in the attack in Bourke Street this afternoon and Rodney was hurt – good news is he is in a great hospital and doing OK given the circumstances," she wrote.

Mr Patterson, a former Autobarn franchisee and president of the South Launceston Football Club, owns an apartment in Melbourne.

The identity of the victim who died has not been released.

How the attack unfolded

The attacker stopped his dual-cab ute on Bourke Street before setting it alight about 4.30pm.

Fire crews later found a number of barbecue-style gas cylinders in the ute.

"This is an evil and terrifying thing that has happened in our city," Premier Daniel Andrews said.

A section of Melbourne's CBD remained in lockdown overnight after the attack sent Friday afternoon shoppers and commuters running for safety.

However, some bystanders risked their own lives to help police stop the attacker. One man tried to repeatedly ram the attacker with a shopping trolley, while another used a traffic cone to fend him off.

A large crowd of people also stood and filmed the man's confrontation with police.

How the attack unfolded

The attacker stopped his dual-cab ute on Bourke Street, near Swanston Street, before setting it alight about 4.30pm.

He then started attacking people with a knife, stabbing at least three people.

Witnesses told The Age they were shopping in the area when they saw a man throw what they believed to be a bomb into a car before it exploded.

They had initially thought the man was running to catch a tram close by, before a nearby police car rushed to the scene.

They heard screams and cries from the crowd before they were rushed from the area.

One bystander tried to push a trolley into the attacker. That man was pushed over onto the street, but got up and tried again with the trolley to stop the attack. Another man tried to ward him off with a traffic cone, a third was seen with a cafe chair.

Transit officers were the first to respond, with one officer using a tree to protect himself from the attacker as he lunged at them with the knife.

Police then shot the lone terrorist in the chest and arrested him before he was taken to hospital.

By 5.20pm, the body of one of the victims was lying under a white sheet on Bourke Street surrounded by police tape, near the entrance to Russell Place. There were large spots of what appeared to be blood near the body, as well as a pair of men's black lace-up shoes.

About 6pm, police confirmed the victim had died.

Witnesses were taken to Melbourne West police station in police vans, some looking shaken.

On Friday evening, there were two dozen people in the police station foyer waiting to give statements. Most sat in three rows of chairs, before being called to one of six tables set up by police.

One man briefly exited the building to greet a woman. He looked shaken as he hugged her - one sleeve of his white jumper was stained with dried blood.

Earlier, a witness, Sarah Krug had told The Age she had been heading to the night noodle markets when "all hell broke loose".

Her immediate thought was, "Oh no, not another Bourke Street incident," she said.

"I thought the car was coming for us," Ms Krug said.

"I didn't know what was happening there was just so much chaos and screaming."

They all had panicked faces'

Stuart Gaut was inside the McDonalds on the corner of Bourke and Russell Streets when he felt the building shake and heard an explosion.

As he ran to the entrance, he saw about 40 people sprinting past in fear. "They were bolting, they all had panicked faces," he said.

An amateur photographer, Mr Gaut grabbed his gear and ran in the opposite direction, towards the scene, to take photos.

"I just saw the car, then the whole area was covered in smoke. There were a lot of policemen moving everyone away. It's funny how everyone just stands around and looks, no one was really running away."

Mr Gaut then went back into the McDonalds, which was in lockdown for more than an hour, to pat the shoulder of a trembling witness recounting his account to police.

The Bourke Street Mall, including Myer and David Jones stores, were evacuated shortly before 5.30pm.

Melbourne's anti-terror sirens and loudspeakers were used for the first time, sounding out across Bourke Street.

The message over the loudspeakers said: "This is Victoria Police, please evacuate the area."

The attack came on the second day of the highly-publicised murder trial of James Gargasoulas, who allegedly drove through Bourke Street Mall on January 20 last year, killing six people and injuring 27 others.

SEP

29

ISIS recruitment & training in Australia: Government ,Muslim leaders must come clean ,

given Monash evidence 

by Ganesh Sahathevan



The following is an extract from a Monash press release(see full form below) quoting "terrorism expert" and lead investigator Greg Barton:

GTReC researchers found Australian militants and terrorists frequently consulted and consumed online extremist material but other factors played far more important roles in radicalising them. Their real world social networks of friends and family, and access to individuals who fought overseas or attended terrorist training camps were far more influential in affecting their thought and behaviour than materials circulating in the virtual world.

Lead chief investigator Professor Greg Barton said relationships, in the sense of social networks, belonging, and the allure of an enhanced sense of identity, play an important role in violent.


Australian jihadis are said to be very well prepared, and the best equipped for battlefield duties. As reported in The Australian:


THERE was something about the six Australians that made them stand out. Thousands of foreigners have ventured into Syria and Iraq during the past year for their journey to jihad; but, for locals who live along the border between Turkey and Syria, this group was different. As they sat drinking coffee before making their final walk into a foreign war, these Australians stood out: they were supremely confident, well-dressed and well-resourced. “It was clear they were not rookies,” says one local who watched them sitting at the coffee shop in Turkey about 50m from the border with Syria. “They seemed to know what they were doing.”


Locals watching the group were struck by several things. First, only one of them spoke Arabic and had to translate everything for the other five. He seemed to be their leader and looked to be in his 40s while the others were younger, in their 30s. Every so often he walked away from the group to talk on the phone, as if for privacy.

Second, they were clearly well prepared; they wore new, strong-looking walking boots, a contrast to many of the bedraggled jihadists who depart from this cafe clothed in little more than their well-worn attire and a desire to join the battle for Islam between Sunnis and Shi’ites. Good shoes and bags full of supplies were low on the list of priorities for those zealots.

Observers who saw the group of Australians said they seemed prepared for a long assignment. But what stood out most was their demeanour. They were calm, confident and relaxed. Locals noticed they all had Australian passports.

They were, one local commented, physically very large — he found them intimidating — and they wore the crocheted woollen caps popular with some Muslim men. All were “very beardy”.

(Unholy foot soldiers in a foreign fight THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 12, 2014)

It is obvious that these Australian jihadis had been trained professionally, were well funded, and had support of strong network of passive supporters. It is time for the Government, law enforcement agencies, and Muslim leaders, to tell us who these people are, and what is being done to eradicate the threat they pose this society.

END 

Understanding Terrorism in an Australian Context: Radicalisation, De-radicalisation and Counter-radicalisation
8 August 2013


The key findings from a four-year Australian Research Council-funded collaborative research project on terrorist radicalisation in Australia by researchers from Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre (GTReC) will be released on Thursday 8 August.

The project, conducted in partnership with Victoria Police, Australian Federal Police, Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Victorian Department of Justice, is the most significant and in-depth examination of radicalisation undertaken in Australia.

Understanding Terrorism in an Australian Context: Radicalisation, De-radicalisation and Counter-radicalisationfocused on developing the understanding of radicalisation in an Australian context and sought international perspectives to enhance the understanding of violent extremism in Australia and relevant international threats.

Project members conducted over 100 interviews, including current and/or former violent extremists, in Australia, Indonesia, Europe, North America and elsewhere, from various ideologies (jihadist,far-right, far-left, IRA and Tamil Tigers). Also interviewed were many of the world’s leading counter-terrorism practitioners and analysts, and representatives from a variety of community groups, canvassing their attitudes on why some individuals become radicalised and ways community, government and religious stakeholders might work together to counter violent extremism.

The role of the internet and on-line materials in radicalising some individuals was also thoroughly investigated. Online sources provided both the lethal inspiration and the technical know-how for Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik’s anti-Islam motivated terrorism in Oslo and Utoya Island in July 2011, in the attack Tamerlan and Johar Tsarnaev perpetrated at the Boston Marathon in April 2013 and the brutal murder of off-duty British soldier Leigh Rigby in Woolwich, London, in May 2013.

GTReC researchers found Australian militants and terrorists frequently consulted and consumed online extremist material but other factors played far more important roles in radicalising them. Their real world social networks of friends and family, and access to individuals who fought overseas or attended terrorist training camps were far more influential in affecting their thought and behaviour than materials circulating in the virtual world.

Lead chief investigator Professor Greg Barton said relationships, in the sense of social networks, belonging, and the allure of an enhanced sense of identity, play an important role in violent extremism.

“Academics like to focus on ideas and ideology, but emotions, social bonds and experiences also play a crucial role. For many who become caught up in violent extremism social networks are much more important than ideology," Professor Barton said.

The findings also highlighted the importance of using, where possible, non-coercive measures to work with vulnerable individuals and groups to deflect and dissuade them from using violence to achieve their goals. These measures, commonly described as ‘CVE’ (countering violent extremism) initiatives, are becoming more prominent in Australia and overseas as many countries’ security services have observed that such ‘hard’ responses, by themselves, have often been ineffective, sometimes paradoxically increasing, rather than deterring the prospects of radicalising individuals. GTReC’s research highlights the effectiveness of including the social networks of radicalised or vulnerable individuals in countering violent extremism in both Australia and elsewhere.

CVE approaches prioritise interventions that are well ‘upstream’, averting problems before they are fully formed and give rise to criminal behaviour. Recognising key signs, or indicators, of radicalisation is an essential element of CVE. To this end GTReC researchers have developed a model that will enable a diverse range of practitioners to collectively recognise signs of radicalisation through observing indicative changes in behaviour, thinking and social relationships that, when occurring together and trending over time, point to reasons for concern and the need for some sort of intervention.

CVE also requires ‘downstream’ initiatives focusing on rehabilitation and helping individuals and groups disengage from violent extremism and re-engage with mainstream society. All forms of CVE require attention to both the individual and their environment.

For more information contact Glynis Smalley, Monash Media & Communications + 61 3 9903 4843 or 0408 027 848.

Posted by Ganesh Sahathevan on September 28, 2015 at 23:43 |

The Problem Of Passive Supporters Of Jihadi Terrorists And The Putin Solution

by Ganesh Sahathevan

While I have previously taken a top-down approach to describing the networks that support  jihadists (see http://sahathevan.blogspot.com/2018/11/structures-for-support-of-muslim_83.html) , the profileartion of Al-Qaeda franchises and off-shoots, such as those at work in Syriaⁱ requires that a bottom-up , or grassroots, approach be adopted.

While the top down approach looked at the support states provided jihadists, the bottom-up approach is concerned with how individuals at the grassroots can comprise networks that jihadists might rely on for their activities. Civil rights activists might be alarmed by such language, afraid that large sections of a given population could be branded jihadists, but there is in fact a theoratical framework and empirical  evidence to support this hypothesis.

Juan José Miralles Canals ⁱⁱ describes these types of networks using a mathematical and computer modeling approach:

Passive supporters of the jihadist cause are normal people who do not need to express their position explicitly. They just do not oppose a jihadist act in case they could. They are sharing independently an identical opinion of identifying with the jihadist cause. They do not need to communicate between then. This is an individual dormant attitude associated to a personal opinion. It does not need to be explicitly so. They are unnoticeable, and most of them reject the violent aspect of the jihadist action.

Social permeability to the jihad describes the physical pathways that nodes of the jihadist networks can establish and use to move freely and safely along, thanks to the passive supporters of the jihadist cause.

Social permeability to the jihad  describes the physical pathways that nodes of the jihadist networks can establish and use to move freely and safely along, thanks to the passive supporters of the jihadist cause.

Canals provides a mathematical analysis which concludes that disruption at the nodes is required to disrupt jihadists activities. Given what was seen in Iraq, and now Syria ,and well before these, Gaza, of apparently innocent non-combatants supporting the jihadists' cause, it does appear that Cannals theoretical perspective has and is being borne out in the real world.

I have previously written about the relevance to this day of the British Malaya administration's policy of new villagesⁱⁱⁱ, used to defeat the Communist Party Of Malaya, which while being financed by the Peoples' Republic Of China, relied heavily on the support of local Chinese to facilitate their activities on the ground.

That solution may today seem inhumane, but critics conveniently forget that lives were saved by that solution. Be that as it may, Russian President Vladimir Putin might have provided an alternative , a middle path:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law the controversial bill ….amending the Criminal Code to expand the number of offenses classified as terrorism and require the relatives of people deemed to have committed acts of terrorism to pay financial compensation for the material damage they caused^iv.

Not unexpectedly Putin's law has already come under criticism. However it is suggested that critics should rather see this law as the basis for other similair policy instruments that might be used to curb acts of terrorism. Either that, or a return to the new villages.

END

i http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/us-syria-crisis-raqqa-idUSBREA0J17W20140120,

ii Fourth-generation warfare: Jihadist networks and percolation

• Juan José Miralles Canals

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0895717709001526

iii http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2007/04/ending_support_.html

iv Russia To Hold Relatives Of 'Terrorists' Financially Responsible For Material Damage
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-terrorism-law-terrorists-financial-liability/25157756.html

Posted by Ganesh Sahathevan on February 25, 2014 at 18:10

See also

CHINA'S JUNDULLAHS---HOME-GROWN JIHADIS

Cost overruns, & now delays and a threat of buying fewer subs: L'affaire Adelaide runs into more trouble, Naval officers casting doubt on project; Minister Pyne insists all is well.

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Concept Design for Australia’s $36 Billion Submarine Fleet 
to Be Finalized by Year’s End


These recent reports from Australian media suggest that L'affaire Adelaide is running  into even  more turbulence ,and well on its way to joining L'affaire Karachi in the annals
of DCNS/Naval Group debacles:


The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 8 November 2018:

The chief of Australia’s navy has revealed that the first of the new fleet of submarines will likely not be fully operational until 2035 - three years after it is due to be in service - and that all six of the existing Collins Class submarines may need to have their life spans extended.

The Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mike Noonan, told Fairfax Media he was expecting the first of the new fleet to be delivered to the navy in about 2032, but they would need to go through extensive testing.

Previously Defence has said that the first of the new fleet, which is being designed and built by French firm Naval Group, will come “into service” in 2032.

On 28 October 2018  the  Australian Financial Review said:

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut has defended the project against claims of a cost blow-out and insists outstanding issues that have stopped the overarching contract being signed with Naval Group will be resolved by year's end.

"So it is in that context that we are putting in place the SPA with that understanding the offer was built around eight boats and necessarily the terms and conditions we have should contemplate that, noting that the size of the fleet beyond eight boats will be a matter for government," he said.

"That doesn't mean we must buy eight boats hell or high water, the contract enables us to contemplate what would occur if it was less than that and what would have to apply in those circumstances.

"What we've done is we've left ourselves flexibility for the number of submarines that we may order at any one time."

See full article below for the full extent of the Rear Admiral's confusion.

As for the Minister in charge, Christopher Pyne, readers can determine for themselves if this article in The Australian  actually describes  a greater degree of frankness and openness, or sheer panic on his part: 

Something rather strange happened earlier this month. The Minister for Defence, Christopher Pyne, went to the media, not once but three times, to rebut criticism based on what he termed ‘‘misguided facts’’ about his department’s $50 billion Future Submarine project. The government is investing political and financial capital in helping create a sustainable, sovereign defence industry that will participate in nearly $200bn-worth of capital equipment projects over the next generation. As architect of this plan, Pyne has been pro-active in explaining and justifying to an often-sceptical industry and general public what the policy is designed to achieve and how. He has created a precedent, if he follows through. Pyne has shown willingness to engage and be candid, to challenge ‘‘misguided facts’’ to prevent a vacuum forming, and that’s a vital break with the past. Truth and reputations matter, and as the Collins project showed, a vacuum kills everything except ignorance and malice.

This writer gets very concerned when anyone starts using terms like "misguided facts" when dealing with the media.

END 

Reference

Is l'affaire Adelaide a repeat of DCNS's l'affaire Karachi-Australian taxpayers have not been told why French subs will cost 5 times more

• Oct 28 2018 at 11:00 PM
• Updated Oct 28 2018 at 11:00 PM

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Australia not locked into buying 12

 submarines, navy program chief reveals

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The French Shortfin Barracuda submarine. Critics have complained cheaper options were available.

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by Andrew Tillett

Australia may not build the planned full complement of 12 next generation submarines, the navy's program chief has revealed amid protracted and at times fractious negotiations with the French designer.

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut has defended the project against claims of a cost blow-out and insists outstanding issues that have stopped the overarching contract being signed with Naval Group will be resolved by year's end.

Admiral Sammut also rejected suggestions that taxpayers were paying too much, saying the $50 billion total budget covered more than just the physical submarines and the cost of the French boats was on par with rival bids.

Canberra and Naval Group had been working towards and unofficial deadline of September to sign the Strategic Partnering Agreement (SPA), which is intended to manage the overall program as the Shortfin Barracuda submarines are designed for Australian needs and built in Adelaide over the coming decade.

But as revealed by the Financial Review in August, a stalemate had emerged over key aspects of the contract, including warranty periods for defects and the implications for technology transfer if Naval Group – which is effectively majority-owned by the French government – should ever be sold.

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Admiral Sammut argued it was crucial to get the SPA right rather than rush in and sign it because it would cover the terms and conditions for the design, build of the first submarines, technology upgrades and subsequent boats.

"We always contemplated that finalising the SPA agreement would be challenging because it is such a complex set of arrangements and contracts in which we'll enter into over the next 30 odd years for the delivery of the submarine," he said.

"We want to avoid a situation where circumstances arise that the SPA and the program contracts that sit under it can't manage appropriately because we don't want to halt the work.

"Whenever there are schedule delays because we can't manage events as they arise, they invariably lead to lower productivity which always increases the costs."

Admiral Sammut rejected the need for arbitration.

"The parties must be able to reach agreement between themselves, not be told to reach agreement because an imposed agreement is not an agreement," he said.

"It's absolutely necessary that Naval Group and the Commonwealth agree on terms mutually. In doing so we have ownership of those terms and conditions together."

While the Rudd government's 2009 defence white paper identified the need for 12 new submarines – doubling the size of the existing Collins class fleet – Admiral Sammut revealed Naval Group and the German and Japanese contenders had only been required to bid on the basis of providing eight conventionally powered submarines.

"So it is in that context that we are putting in place the SPA with that understanding the offer was built around eight boats and necessarily the terms and conditions we have should contemplate that, noting that the size of the fleet beyond eight boats will be a matter for government," he said.

"That doesn't mean we must buy eight boats hell or high water, the contract enables us to contemplate what would occur if it was less than that and what would have to apply in those circumstances.

"What we've done is we've left ourselves flexibility for the number of submarines that we may order at any one time."

Critics of the French choice and the headline $50 billion have complained cheaper options were available. German bidder TKMS claimed it could build 12 submarines for $20 billion, while Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick claimed recently that 20 modified off-the-shelf submarines would cost $20 billion.

But Admiral Sammut said the cost of the French, German and Japanese bids were all "comparable" and dismisses the suitability of off-the-shelf designs as inadequate for Australia's needs for a long-range, conventionally powered submarine capable of operating for long periods away from its home port.

Criticism of the $50 billion budget was "misinformed" because it also incorporated the boats, Lockheed Martin designed combat system, upgrades to wharves, construction of a new shipyard in Adelaide, logistics, project running costs and contingencies.

"The contract with Naval Group will only be a portion of that $50 billion – a major portion but not all of that $50 billion," he said. Admiral Sammut rejected claims of a "blow-out", saying the $50 billion budget in was "constant dollars", which do not account for inflation, and had not shifted since 2016.

He said construction was slated to start in late 2023, and by the time the first submarine entered service in the early 2030s, work on the fourth submarine would be underway.

The SPA did not contain any provision for Australia to switch to nuclear-powered submarines down the track, he said