Revealed: Australia’s secret propaganda unit

In the early 1970s, officials from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) visited Britain for propaganda training. This culminated in the creation of an Australian propaganda unit in 1971, whose operations were focussed on preserving Western power across Asia. The unit was modelled on the Information Research Department (IRD), which was Britain’s covert Cold War […]

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Archeologists excavating Buddhist relics in 2011 before the Mes Aynak copper mine was due to open (Photo: Jerome Starkey / Creative Commons)

Britain and Australia’s resource grab in Afghanistan

A little-known aspect of the disastrous Western occupation of Afghanistan was that UK and Australian companies sought to access the country’s $3 trillion worth of untapped minerals – with little regard for the welfare of Afghans.

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Australian naval commanders and assistant defence minister Andrew Hastie welcome a UK nuclear-powered submarine to Perth. (Photo: RAN / Richard Cordell)

Partners in crimes? The UK/Australia special relationship

Australia’s independence from Britain has been contested ground since the nation’s birth in 1901 – the first real test being Australia’s decision to send troops to Europe for Britain’s war with Germany in 1914.  Two bitterly fought referenda to allow military conscription were narrowly defeated – Australia’s contribution to the Great War was to remain […]

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COP 26 president Alok Sharma MP opens the climate summit in Glasgow (Photo: UN)

Britain courts fossil fuel lobbying governments to increase oil and gas production

Last month, Greenpeace’s investigations unit Unearthed obtained a document leak showing that Saudi Arabia and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Norway and India, have attempted to neutralise a scientific assessment report being prepared by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These countries have attempted to remove […]

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