Travel and beyond …

My blog today is short as I have been travelling back home and trying to land on both feet – running! Today, you can view a video of the Berlin event on September 28, 2017 and find out what the citizens of Newcastle have been doing while I was away – going down to the beach no less. Regular blogs will resume tomorrow.

Final note on US-European Tour

I am now back in Australia and catching up on things. It was great meeting so many different people – some old friends, new friends – at all the events we spoke at during the 18 days travelling around.

Thanks to all the organisers of the events who clearly put work into making them happen. Thomas and I surely appreciated that.

It was exhausting – we presented at 16 events across 7 countries and 10 cities and in 17 days. I had little time to do anything other than get up early, go out running (to keep sane as much as anything), then attend meetings, functions, events until late into the evening.

I hope all those who took the time to participate enjoyed that time.

The next tour is coming up in November (to New Zealand) but for now, a sort of normality (as much as it gets) returns.

I have a very limited supply of the book available again which I can offer at the author’s discount price.

I can offer to Australian readers for $A28 plus $A7 postage – see www.reclaimthestate.org – for details.

Adani Protest

You cannot turn your back for a second and expect things to stay quiet.

While I was away, the glorious citizens of Newcastle went down to my local surf beach (Nobbys) to stage a visual protest against the plans to build the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, which will cause further damage to the environment, not to mention accelerate the deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef of the coast.

The company Adani, an Indian corporate giant has been revealed to have unsavoury links to tax havens and there are extensive allegations of a corporate strategy based on corruption, bribery and environmental destruction.

The Australian government, which is captured by the coal lobby, is preparing to give the company around $A1 billion to help its project in Queensland.

While the rest of the advanced world is moving out of coal as quickly as possible, Australian governments (federal and Queensland) are proposing to help a dubious foreign investor build one of the largest mines in the world in an extremely sensitive coastal area.

Madness doesn’t come any more clearer than that.

The mainstream banks have boycotted the project because they know that the majority of Australians are against it and do not want the negative response from their customer base.

Here is what they came up with – a human message to the Australian government to stop this ridiculous waste of public money.

Protests like this were mounted on Saturday all over Australia in 45 locations – along beaches.

The 46:40 minutes ABC Four Corners special – Digging into Adani – which was aired on Australian television in September and is available for public viewing via the Internet (until Sunday 3 October 2032 8:30pm – go figure on the timeline) examined:

The dubious dealings of India’s corporate colossus.

The Indian police frustrated the attempt by the investigative team from Four Corners to delve into the Indian company.

The program discloses a litany of “financial and environment crimes” committed by the Adani Group:

… not accidental violations, the report found deliberate violations, wilful violations.

The hope is that the project dies due to lack of funding notwithstanding our own government seemingly intent on wasting public money. The company needs more than the $A1 billion to proceed.

Berlin Event – September 27, 2017

Here is an edited video of my presentation in Berlin on September 27, 2017. It shows my presentation and the German translation by Dr Dirk Ehnts. If you just want the English then you have to skip the excellent job Dirk did on our behalf.

This event was a joint book launch held in the Neues Deutschland building, which was the original party newspaper of the GDR and was the East German state’s main propaganda arm.

It is now a smaller newspaper allied with Die Linke (PDS).

We launched the German translation of my Eurozone Dystopia book published by Lola Books and our current book – Reclaiming the State

The total video runs for around 35 minutes.

That is enough for today!

(c) Copyright 2017 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.