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Australia and coal
|This article is part of the Global Energy Monitor coverage of coal and power industry data
Australia is a major producer and consumer of coal. The country has undergone a massive expansion of coal mining, predominantly for export but also for coal-fired power stations, over the last thirty years. In 2019, Australia produced 504 million tonnes of coal, ranking 5th in the world.
Coal Resources
According to expert reports commissioned by the World Energy Council in 2011, Australia's reserves included "'Subeconomic demonstrated resources' and 'inferred resources', additional to the proved amount in place, are vast: Geoscience Australia's current assessment puts those of black coal at 119 billion tonnes, of which 75 billion tonnes is estimated to be recoverable. Comparable figures for brown coal are 174 billion tonnes and 156 billion tonnes, respectively."[1] On the resource quality in Australia's coalfields, see Adrian C. Hutton's scientific paper Geological Setting of Australasian Coal Deposits.
Resource Details
|Reserve Classification
|Data Year
|BGR Estimate
|million tonnes
|BGR Estimate
|million tonnes
|Geological Reserves
|149,079 Mt[3]
|million tonnes
|Geological Resources
|million tonnes
|Commercial Reserves
|million tonnes
|Commercial Resources
|million tonnes
Coal Production
Coal mining
In 2009-10 Australia total raw black and brown coal production was approximately 539.79 million tonnes. Of the total raw coal production approximately 267.6 million tonnes was produced in Queensland, 190.1 million tonnes in New South Wales, 8.39 million tonnes in Western Australia, 68 million tonnes of brown coal in Victoria, 3.84 million tonnes of black coal in South Australia and 680,000 tonnes of black coal in Tasmania.[4][5] 97% of Australia's total coal mining production came from the Queensland and New South Wales coalfields.[4]
For details on coal issues on a state-by-state basis see:
- New South Wales and coal
- Northern Territory and coal
- Queensland and coal
- South Australia and coal
- Tasmania and coal
- Victoria and coal
- Western Australia and coal
Of the estimated 471 million tonnes of raw black coal produced in 2010, 365 million tonnes were saleable. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimated 300 million tonnes were exported, despite the impact on production in Queensland from abnormally high rainfall late in the year. ABARE estimated that during 2010 exports of metallurgical coal increased by 18 per cent to 159 million tonnes and , while thermal coal exports increased by 1 per cent to 141 million tonnes. Coal exports earned $43 billion in 2010.[6]
In 2010 ABARE estimated that approximately 157.26 million tonnes of coal exports were metallurgical coal. Of this, it estimated that 97.7 million tonnes were of "high quality" coal which was sold, in order of value, to Japan, India, the European Union, China, Korea,Taiwan and Brazil. A further 59 million tonnes of metallurgical coal was sold. Thermal coal exports were estimated to total 134.98 million tonnes, with 66 million tonnes to Japan, 24.84 million tonnes to South Korea, 19.55 million tonnes to Taiwan and a little over a further 24 million tonnes to other countries.[4]
Based on 2009 data, the World Coal Association ranked Australia as the world's largest coal exporter[7] and the fourth largest hard coal coal miner. (The latter ranking excludes brown coal).[8]
Just under 80% of the coal mined in the country in 2010 was from open-cut mines.[4]A little over 75% of black coal mine is from open cut mines. Including brown coal mines in the tally -- all of which are open cut projects -- means that 79.6% of all coal is from open cut mines. As of July 2012 coal prices in Australia have dipped 30% since the beginning of the year, largely because of a dip in Chinese demand.[9]
Coal mines
Coal mining in Queensland is predominately in the Bowen Basin along with mines at Newlands, Blair Athol, and near Brisbane. In New South Wales the bulk of the coal mined is from the Gunnedah Basin.[10] BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), which is a 50-50 joint venture between BHP Billiton and Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan, accounts for more than one-quarter of Australia's annual coal exports.[10]
For a full list of current Australian coal mines see Global Coal Mine Tracker's coal mines in Australia. In April 2010 ABARE released detailed of dozens of new or under construction coal mines in Australia. See ABARE April 2010 major projects list for more details. (ABARE's next detailed listed is scheduled for late May 2011).
Minerals Resource Rent Tax
The Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) is a proposed tax on profits generated from the exploitation of non-renewable resources in Australia.[11] It is the replacement for the proposed Resource Super Profit Tax (RSPT).
The tax, levied on 30% of the "super profits" from the mining of iron ore and coal in Australia, is proposed to be introduced from July 1, 2012.[11] The RSPT was initially announced as part of the initial response to the Australia's Future Tax System review, known as the Henry Tax Review, by theTreasurer of Australia, Wayne Swan and the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. The tax is similar in concept, although different in operation, to the existing Petroleum Resource Rent Tax levied on off-shore petroleum extraction activities.
The RSPT was to be levied at 40% and applied to all extractive industry including gold, nickel and uranium mining as well as sand and quarrying activities. The tax was replaced by the MRRT following the appointment of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister of Australia in late June 2010.[12]
The controversy regarding the RSPT was such that an "ad war" between the government and mining interests began in May 2010[13] and continued until the downfall of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in June 2010.[14] The Australian Electoral Commission released figures indicating mining interests had spent $22m in campaigning and advertisements in the six weeks prior to the end of the Rudd prime ministership.[15] Mining interests re-introduced the advertisments arguing against the proposed revised changes during the 2010 federal election campaign.[16]
On the November 23, 2011, the tax passed through the lower house with the support of the Greens.[17] The bill is scheduled to be debated at the Senate in 2012.[18]
Massive floods cost Australian coal industry billions
In January 2011, floods in the Australian state of Queensland had cost companies in the country $2.3 billion in coal sales. Analysts reported that it could take months for coal production to resume. Since December 2010, about two-thirds of Queensland, an area twice the size of Texas, has been ravaged by massive flooding, which hampered coal mining and transport operations.[19]
The Queensland Resources Council predicted in late January 2011 that coal production would crash by between 25 and 50 per cent for the country's forthcoming March quarter. It was estimated that Queensland's gross state product for 2010-11 would take a hit of at least $4.5 billion, rising to $8 billion on the Queensland Resources Council's worst-case scenario.[20]
Coal Consumption
Australia consumed 129,642,679 short tons (st) of coal in 2016, ranking 10th in the world, accounting for about 11.4% of the world's total consumption.
Coal-Fired Power power stations
In 1962-62, total Australian coal production was 23.4 million tonnes, of which 2.71 million tonnes was exported. In 1982-83, 26.91 million tonnes of black coal was consumed for power generation with a further 33.42 million tonnes of brown coal used in power generation.[21] (ReadFinancing coal power stations in Australia has greater detail.)
Abandoned coal-fired power stations
- Collie B (Griffin Energy) Power Station was a proposal by Griffin Energy for a 330 megawatt power station adjacent to the existing Collie A Station, which is scheduled to be retired. The proposal was submitted to Western Power as a tender for a power procurement process. The bid did not win the tender.[22]
- Collie B (Premier Coal) Power Station was a proposal by Premier Coal for a 300 megawatt power station adjacent to the existing Collie A Station, which is scheduled to be retired. The proposal was submitted to Western Power as a tender for a power procurement process. The bid did not win the tender.[23]
- Kwinana Power Station with Carbon Capture and Storage, proposed in 2007 by Hydrogen Energy, a joint venture of BP and Rio Tinto.[24] The 500 megawatt project was quietly shelved later that year.[25]
- Redbank 2 Power Station was a 151 megawatt power station proposed by National Power to use coal tailings and cost $230 million to build. In 2003 the proposal was rejected by the NSW Government. the NSW Infrastructure and Planning Minister, Craig Knowles, told parliament that "Redbank 2 would generate greenhouse emissions higher than the state average and at a higher intensity than other coal-fired station in the Hunter Valley," he told parliament.[26] The company lodged an appeal against the government's decision in the Land & Environment Court in early 2004. Climate Action Network Australia (CANA) joined the case as a third party. However, prior to the commencement of hearings scheduled for November 2004 the company abandoned its appeal.[27]
Proposed coal-fired power stations
- Linc Energy is a Brisbane-headquartered company that has proposed to develop a "commercial Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) to Gas to Liquids (GTL) operation" in the Walloway Basin. It has floated the prospect that it could -- as a second stage in a project based on converting underground brown coal to gas -- build a 250 megawatt power station.[28] See Walloway Basin power station.
- Arckaringa Coal-to-Liquids and Power Project is a proposal by Altona Resources for what it describes as "an integrated 10 million barrel per year Coal to Liquid ('CTL') plant with a 560 MW [megawatt] co-generation power facility."[29]
- Caroona Coal Project, BHP Billiton, New South Wales. While the company has discussed the project as only comprising a proposed coal mine[30], concerns have been raised that the company is also required to investigate the possibility of an associated power station as well.[31][32]
- FuturGas Project, South Australia is a proposal by Hybrid Energy Australia for a 300 megawatt brown coal fired power station. In November 2007 it was stated that the project would be subject to a two-year feasibility study. The project has a notional commissioning date of 2015.[33]
- ZeroGen is a proposed Carbon Capture and Storage project in Queensland. It is proposed by ZeroGen Pty Ltd that the first stage of the project will be to build a 120 megawatts gross coal gasification plant located near Rockhampton in Central Queensland by 2012. "CO2 emissions will be captured at site and transported approximately 220 kilometres by truck for injection and safe storage in deep underground reservoirs in the Northern Denison Trough," the company's website states. The feasibility study on this part of the project is expected to be completed Stage One feasibility study is now expected to be completed by the end of 2009.[34] The second stage of the project, depending on the outcomes of the first stage, would involve the construction of a 400 megawatt CCS project in Queensland at a site yet to be determined. The pre-feasibility and feasibility studies for the second stage are scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2008.[34]
- Bluewaters Power Station Expansion is a proposal by Griffin Energy to add a further two 208 megawatt coal-fired generating units (3&4). They originally were proposed to be commissioned in 2012 and 2014 however they have been delayed due to a variety of factors including the fact that Griffin Coal went into liquidation. The company states that it "will also ensure the Bluewaters Power Station Expansion project will be capable of adopting carbon capture technology in the future, once this developing technology becomes commercially viable in Western Australia."[35]. Griffin Group went into receivership at the beginning of 2010, collapsing under nearly $1 billion of debt. Griffin coal has been sold to Indian company, Lanco Infratech, and the Bluewaters 1 & 2 power stations were sold to Japanese companies Kansai Electric Power Company and Sumitomo Corporation in early 2011.[36] As of May 2011, it is not yet clear whether the new owners will proceed with the building of new generating units, Bluewaters 3 & 4.
- Coolimba Power Station is a 400 megawatt coal-fired plant near Eneabba in Western Australia which is being developed by Aviva Corporation with a scheduled commissioning date of 2012.[37]
Coal exports
Australia is a leading coal exporter. In 2016, it exported 77% of its coal production.
|Million Tons Coking
|Million Tons Steaming
|Million Tons Total
|% of exports
|Korea (ROK)
Coal export infrastructure
Existing coal export terminals
- Abbot Point Coal Terminal is an export coal terminal which is ultimately owned by the Ports Corporation of Queensland, a Queensland government-owned business.[39] The coal export terminal is operated by Abbot Point Bulk Coal Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Xstrata Coal Queensland.[40] In April 2011, the Indian company Adani Enterprises, the country's largest coal importer, agreed to pay A$1.83bn ($1.98bn) for a 99-year lease on the Abbot Point Coal Terminal. The bid was among a number placed by Indian groups in Australia and elsewhere as the country to secure energy resources to meet rising demand for power to complete infrastructure projects in India.[41]
- Brisbane Coal Terminal is an export coal terminal which is owned by Queensland Bulk Handling, which in turn is owned by New Hope Corporation. QBH states that the port has the ability to load 48,000 tonnes per day. [42]
- Carrington Coal Terminal is operated by Port Waratah Coal Services Limited (PWCS) and located in Newcastle, Australia. The terminal has an annual capacity of 25 million tonnes per year.[43]
- Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal is located 38km south of Mackay. The terminal, has has been leased from the state government, is operated by DBCT Management Pty Ltd, a private company.[44] Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal is immediately adjacent to the Hay Point Coal Terminal.
- Hay Point Coal Terminal, which is located 38km south of Mackay, is owned and operated by BHP Billiton. The company states on its website that "the terminal has the capacity to handle and despatch around 43-45 million tonnes of coal a year."[45].
- Kooragang Coal Terminal is operated by Port Waratah Coal Services (PWCS) Limited and is located in Newcastle, Australia. The terminal has a capacity of 88 million tonnes per year.[46]
- Port Kembla Coal Terminal is managed by BHP Billiton on behalf of a consortium of coal companies comprising Illawarra Coal, Centennial Coal, Xstrata Coal, Tahmoor Coal, Peabody and Gujarat NRE.[47] The terminal has a capacity of 15 million tonnes per annum but exports approximately 10 to 11 million tonnes a year.[48]
Proposed coal export terminals
- Balaclava Island Coal Terminal is a proposed new export coal terminal which is currently being investigated by Xstrata Coal Queensland, a wholly owned subsidiary of Xstrata Coal. Balaclava Island is located approximately 40 kilometres north of Gladstone. In July 2008 Xstrata Coal announced that it would undertake a pre-feasibility study for a coal export port for up to 20 million tonnes of coal per annum.[49]
- Wiggins Island Coal Terminal is a coal export terminal for the port of Gladstone which has been proposed by Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal Pty Ltd, a consortium of 16 coal companies. At the end of September 2010 the consortium announced that eight coal companies had made commitments to export 27 million tonnes of coal which would be sufficient to enable the funding of the first stage of the terminal. The consortium stated that it expected that financing the proposal would be completed early in 2011 and shipments commence in 2014.[50]
- Hunter Ports is currently developing a $2.5 billion coal terminal on the former BHP Steel site on the Hunter River in Newcastle, Australia.[51] The port would ship this coal to Asian markets.[52] The planned Hunter Ports terminal is subject to state government approval to use the proposed site, may start exports from 2015. Existing coal mines and projects in and around the Hunter Valley, where Rio Tinto Group and Xstrata Plc own mines, would support additional annual exports of 65 million to 90 million tons of coal "if there is the infrastructure".[52]
Export controls and taxation
Like several other coal exporting countries including Indonesia, in recent years Australia has seen the rise of resource nationalism, i.e. policies directed at capturing an increased share of the returns from natural resource exports.
Screening direct foreign investments in mining
In February 2008, in response to a growing wave of coal and iron ore mining proposals by state-owned Chinese companies, the Australian government adopted a new policy of screening investments on the basis of national concerns. The new policy replaced foreign direct investment (FDI) policies that had been in place since 1992, when the Keating Goverment removed special rules under its "One Nation" liberalization program.[53]
Carbon Capture and Storage
In September 2008 the main climate change adviser to the Australian government, Professor Ross Garnaut, outlined the results of modeling on the impact of global climate change policy. In one of his reports to the government, he wrote that "the future of the Australian coal industry depends critically on the success of carbon capture and storage not only in Australia, but in the rest of the world, and especially in Australia's major coal markets in Asia."[54] Garnaut reported that the modeling showed that "the introduction of a near-zero-leakage CCS technology (with leakage reduced from 10% to 0.1%) would significantly increase the demand for coal-fired electricity generation and hence increase demand for Australian coal, relative to a scenario with only 90 per cent CCS."[54]
Australia and global warming
Experts are concerned that Australia, which has higher carbon dioxide emissions per capita than any country on earth, may also be the first to collapse from the impact of climate change. A study by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation described its ecosystems as potentially the most fragile and vulnerable to climate change, in part because its climate is already hot, dry and variable. In addition, the population is concentrated on the coast, subjecting it to the rising oceans and damaging storms that accompany global warming.[55]
Australia's summer of 2009 has already shown record temperatures and drought in the country's worst heatwave in history. For the first time on record, temperatures passed 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 Fahrenheit) for three days in a row, while other cities broke similar records. Most of the southern portion of the country is undergoing an unprecedented 12-year drought, and agricultural productivity has decreased dramatically.[55]
Experts say it will get worse as global warming continues. Even slight temperature increases are expected to worsen drought by 70 per cent in New South Wales and cut Melbourne's water supplies by more than one third. Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne warned that, while the record heat seems unusual, "it will become much more like the normal experience in 10 to 20 years."[55]
Australia has the highest carbon dioxide emissions per person of any major economy outside the Arabian peninsula. The country has been hard hit by droughts and bushfires. But the coal industry keeps their politicians on a short leash. [56]
Citizen action and protest
For a more extensive listing see Citizen action and protests against coal in Australia. However, some of the most recent protests from 2010 and 2011 are below.
March 28, 2010: Flotilla aims to block coal ships in Newcastle port
A flotilla of 60 rafts, kayaks and a yacht try to blockade coal ship movement into the port of Newcastle. Newcastle is the port through which the rapidly expanding coal mines in the Hunter Valley are being exported. "We're not willing to accept the massive expansion of the coal industry in New South Wales and coal is Australia's major contributor to climate change and it's also the fastest growing," said Rising Tide spokesperson, Naomi Hodgson.[57]
May 19, 2010: Tractor Blockade in Queensland
On May 19, 2010, 54 cotton and grain harvesters and tractors formed a kilometer-long blockade in Queensland, Australia, to protest the expansion of the coal seam gas mining industry on the Darling Downs. The blockade was accompanied by a rally of 500 farmers and other concerned citizens, organized by Save Our Darling Downs. Speakers expressed concern that extraction of methane gas from coal seams would require use of large quantities of underground water from the Great Artesian Basin, thereby undermining local agriculture and threatening farming communities such as Cecil Plains.[58]
September 26, 2010: Protests Close Australia Coal Port
Climate change activists in Australia associated with Rising Tide attached themselves to equipment inside the world's largest coal port, in Newcastle, Australia, shutting down its operations, the terminal operator and protesters stated. The protestors stopped operations at all three terminals operated by Port Waratah Coal Services, which typically runs a continuous operation, a company spokesman told the Reuters news agency. "All operations have temporarily stopped," the spokesman said, after about 50 protesters took action at dawn on Sunday morning. Some attached themselves to loaders and machinery inside the facility, while others demonstrated with banners.[59] News reports stated that two were arrested during the protests.[60]
October 2010: Projection about onto Yallourn power station targeting ANZ's role in financing coal
At least 33 protests have been held in NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria, with demonstrators giving out flyers and holding placards as well as hanging banners outside ANZ bank headquarters, and projecting the same message on a power station: ANZ We Pollute Your World. On 19 October 2010 Greenpeace displayed a projection on the side of Yallourn W power station, in Moe, Victoria, as part of the campaign targeting the financing of Australia's coal industry.[61] Greenpeace referred to the power station as "the third most polluting power station in Australia and one of ten across the country financed by ANZ over the last five years."[62]
October 21, 2010: Banner hung off ANZ state office, Brisbane
On 21 October 2010 Greenpeace hung a banner on the side of the ANZ state headquarters in Brisbane, Queensland to highlight the the fact that ANZ has provided $1.6 billion in finance to the coal industry over the past five years while claiming to be a leader in sustainability. "ANZ have been winning awards for sustainability amd has a commitment for going carbon-neutral, but at the same time, they're the bigget financiers of polluting coal in Australia. We think that is hypocritical. They should put their money where their mouth is," said Greenpeace spokesman John Hepburn said. Four Greenpeace activists associated with the protest were arrested.[63]
November 26, 2010: Protesters Blockade Condamine Highway to Stop QGC
Activists with the Western Downs Alliance and the Friends of the Earth protested against coal mining, underground gasification, and coal seam gas operations by QGC. The actions were intended to kick off the organizations' "Lock the Gate" campaign. Members of Western Downs Alliance, which represents landowners living near Tara, blockaded the Condamine Highway before marching on QGC's Kenya gas field south of Chinchilla. In Brisbane, about 40 protestors led by Friends of Earth spokesman Drew Hutton picketed outside QGC's headquarters.[64]
July 2011: Direct action halts coal seam gas rig in Australia
On July 5, 2011 the NSW Nature Conservation Council released a statement stating that peaceful protesters stopped a coal seam gas exploration rig in the Pilliga Forest, south of Narrabri, Australia. One protester in climbing gear was suspended high above the ground at the top of a 25 metre rig at an Eastern Star Gas operation, with another group of protesters on site. Local groups Friends of the Pilliga and the Northern Inland Council for the Environment, and Newcastle-based Rising Tide conducted the action to highlight the environmental costs of Eastern Star's proposed 1100 gas well project in the Pilliga Forest.[65]
September 2011: Protester chains himself to test drilling rig
In September 2011 an environmentalist chained himself to a test drilling rig that was located eight metres off the ground to protest the Bacchus Marsh coal mine project. The activist, Shaun Murray, of the Switch Off Coal group, said he would not leave until has was removed forcibly. He said he had a group of supporters that were helping him maintain his protest.
The activist said he was prepared to be charged with trespass. "There is police here and they've asked me to leave, but I've told them I wouldn't be leaving voluntarily," he said. "I'm prepared to stay here for as long it takes. At the end of the day if I haven't been removed I'll probably call it a day and consider that a good day's work. But I expect the police will call a search and rescue unit and bring a cherry picker to cut me off."[66]
Articles and Resources
- ↑ Energy Resources: Coal , World Energy Council, Country Notes, 2013.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 BGR Energy Study 2019 - Data and Developments in German and Global Energy Supplies (23), Hannover: Germany.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Geoscience Australia, [Australia's Identified Mineral Resources (AIMR) https://d28rz98at9flks.cloudfront.net/124309/124309_AIMR.pdf], 2018
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, "Australian mineral statistics: December quarter 2010", March 2011, page 21.(PDF)
- ↑ See also Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, "Coal: Table 244", Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, December 2010. (This link is to a downloadable Excel spreadsheet).
- ↑ Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, "Australian mineral statistics: December quarter 2010", March 2011, page 4.(PDF)
- ↑ World Coal Association, "Coal Market & Transportation", World Coal Association website, accessed April 2011.
- ↑ World Coal Association, "Coal Mining", World Coal Association website, accessed April 2011.
- ↑ "Fading fortunes: China's demand for 'big coal' wanes" Leslie Hook, Financial Times, July 17, 2012.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Pui-Kwan Tse, The Mineral Industry of Australia: 2006, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, May 2008.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Full statement and detail of new mining tax". The Australian. 2 July 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
- ↑ "RSPT v MRRT - the differences". The Age. 2 July 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
- ↑ "Kevin Rudd defends mining ads: News.com.au 29 May 2010". News.com.au. 29 May 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
- ↑ AAP. "Mining stocks soar as RSPT ads axed: NineMSN 24 June 2010". Money.ninemsn.com.au. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
- ↑ A snip at $22m to get rid of PM: SMH 2 February 2011
- ↑ 24 July 2010 12:00AM (24 July 2010). "Miners launch new war on Julia Gillard's tax: The Australian 24 July 2010". Theaustralian.com.au. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
- ↑ Hudson, Phillip (23 November 2011). "Mining tax passes lower house after Julia Gillard, Greens strike deal". Herald Sun. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
- ↑ "The Minerals Resource Rent Tax bill passed parliament just before 3am". The Australian. 23 November 2011. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
- ↑ "Queensland coal's $2.3 billion toll" UPI.com, January 17, 2011.
- ↑ "$8bn coal hit wipes year's growth in Queensland" Jamie Walker & Sarah Elks, The Australian, January 28, 2011.
- ↑ ABARE Australian commodity statistics 2007: Coal Excel Spreadsheet.
- ↑ Collie Coal, "Future Generation", Collie Coal website, accessed 2008.
- ↑ Collie Coal, "Future Generation", Collie Coal website, accessed 2008.
- ↑ "BP and Rio Tinto plan clean coal project for Western Australia", Media Release, May 21, 2007.
- ↑ Fiona Harvey, "BP axes plan for carbon capture plant", Financial Times, May 12, 2008.
- ↑ "Hunter power station plan rejected", Sydney Morning Herald, October 14, 2003.
- ↑ Climate Action Network Australia/NSW Environmental Defenders' Office, "Coal Power Proponent Pulls Out of Legal Battle", Climate Justice, Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), September 8, 2004.
- ↑ Linc Energy, "Australian Projects", Linc Energy website, accessed May 2010.
- ↑ Arckaringa Coal-to-Liquids and Power Project
- ↑ BHP Billiton, "Caroona Coal Project", undated, accessed August 2008.
- ↑ "Hunter Coal Mines" , Question No 122 Budget Estimates Hearing, Parliament of New South Wales,undated.
- ↑ Mr George Souris, BHP Billiton Caroona Coal Project, New South Wales House of Assembly Hansard, September 26, 2006, page 2262.
- ↑ "Bipartisan support for Kingston power station plan", ABC News, October 19, 2007.
- ↑ 34.0 34.1 "ZeroGen Mark II", ZeroGen website, accessed August 2008.
- ↑ Griffin Energy, "Bluewaters Power Station Expansion", Griffin Energy, website, accessed August 2008.
- ↑ Andrew Burrell, "Japanese energy giants in $1.1bn Griffin power buy" , The Australian, April 09, 2011.
- ↑ Office of Energy, Government of Western Australia, "Wholesale Electricity Market", Office of Energy website, accessed August 2008.
- ↑ http://www.australiancoal.com.au:80/the-australian-coal-industry_coal-exports_coal-export-details.aspx
- ↑ North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation Limited, "NQBP Ports", North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation Limited website, accessed November 2010.
- ↑ "Abbot Point", North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation website, accessed November 2010.
- ↑ "Adani buys Australian coal port for $1.98bn" Peter Smith & James Fontanella-Kahn, Financial Times, May 3, 2011.
- ↑ Queensland Bulk Handling, "Reliability"", Queensland Bulk Handling website, accessed November 2010.
- ↑ Carrington Coal Terminal, Port Waratah Coal Services website, accessed December 2008.
- ↑ North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation, "Hay Point", North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation website, accessed July 2010.
- ↑ BHP Billiton, "About BMA: Operations", BHP Billiton website, accessed July 2010.
- ↑ Port Waratah Coal Services, "Kooragang Coal Terminal", Port Waratah Coal Services website, accessed April 2011.
- ↑ Port Kembla Coal Terminal, "Shareholders", Port Kembla Coal Terminal website, accessed June 2010.
- ↑ Port Kembla Port Corporation, "Terminals", Port Kembla Port Corporation website, accessed April 2011.
- ↑ Xstrta Coal, "Xstrata Coal commits to Port Alma pre-feasibility study" , Media Release, July 2008.
- ↑ "Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal achieves major milestone", Media Release, September 30, 2010.
- ↑ "About" Hunter Ports, accessed November 29, 2011.
- ↑ 52.0 52.1 "Tinkler Proposes Competing A$2.5 Billion NSW Coal Terminal" Elisabeth Behrmann, Bloomberg, November 29, 2011.
- ↑ Jeffrey D. Wilson, "Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining the Australian approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector," Paper for OCIS IV Refereeing Process, March 31, 2010
- ↑ 54.0 54.1 Ross Garnaut, "Targets and trajectories: Supplementary Draft Report", Garnaut Climate Change Review, September 2008, pages 14-15.
- ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 Geoffrey Lean and Kathy Marks, "Parched: Australia Faces Collapse as Climate Change Kicks In," The Independent, February 1, 2009.
- ↑ Paragraph 4 "[1]"
- ↑ "Protesters trying to block Newcastle's coal port", ABC News, March 28, 2010.
- ↑ "500 Strong Protest to Reject Coal on the Darling Downs", Six Degrees, May 22, 2010
- ↑ "Protests close Australia coal port" Ajazeera, September 26, 2010.
- ↑ "Pair arrested over coal port protests" Dan Cox, September 26, 2010.
- ↑ Greenpeace Australia, "October 2010", Greenpeace Australia website, October 2010.
- ↑ Greenpeace Australia, "Greenpeace takes action against ANZ - Australia's dirtiest bank", Greenpeace Australia, accessed April 2011.
- ↑ "Greenpeace protesters arrested after scaling ANZ building in Brisbane and unfurling banner", Courier Mail, October 21, 2010.
- ↑ John Farmer, "Protestors send message to QGC," The Chronicle, November 27, 2010
- ↑ "Direct action halts coal seam gas rig" NSW Nature Conversion Council, Green Left Weekly, July 5, 2011.
- ↑ "I won't budge, coal-mine protester says" Adam Cooper, The Age, September 19, 2011.
Related Global Energy Monitor articles
Coal in Australia
- Australian coal companies with interests in overseas projects
- ABARE April 2010 major projects list
- Arguments used against a ban on new coal mines or a coal phase-out in Australia
- 2011 Australian carbon tax and the coal industry
- Coal and jobs in Australia
- Coal terminals
- Coal terminals in Australia
- Coal-to-Liquids in Australia
- Coal seam gas projects in Australia
- Existing coal-fired power stations in Australia
- Financing coal power stations in Australia
- Fly ash management and use in Australia
- History of coal mining in Australia
- Key developments in coal mining and power in Australia in 2012
- Public opinion polling on coal in Australia
Australian coal industry lobby groups
- Australian Coal Association
- The Australian Coal Association's Proposed Carbon Capture and Storage Taskforce
- Australia-India Energy and Minerals Forum
- Coal promoters in Australia
State profiles on coal
- New South Wales and coal
- Queensland and coal
- South Australia and coal
- Victoria and coal
- Western Australia and coal
External resources
- Productivity Commission, The Australian Black Coal Industry, Productivity Commission, Final Report, 11 February 1999. (This link is to the umbrella page which has sub-links to the final report, submissions and the government's response to the report).
- "Heat treatment", Sydney Morning Herald, October 29, 2009. (Pdf) The document states that "this is a list of greenhouse gas emitting companies and peak industry bodies and the firms they employ to lobby government. It is based on data from the federal and state lobbying registers."
- Dr. Bart Lucarelli, Australia's Black Coal Industry: Past Achievements and Future Challenges, Stanford University Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, March 2011. (Pdf)
External Articles
- International Energy Agency, "Coal in Australia in 2005", International Energy Agency website, accessed June 2008.
- Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) Energy in Australia 2008 (Pdf)
- ABARE Australian energy national and state projections to 2029-30
- ABARE "Australian energy production, consumption and trade 1974-2006
- ABARE "Minerals and energy major development projects – october 2007 listing"
- ABARE Minerals and energy major development projects listing – october 2007
- ABARE "Australian coal exports outlook to 2025 and the role of infrastructure", October 2006
- ABARE Australian commodity statistics 2007: Coal Excel Spreadsheet
- ABARE "Technology toward a low emissions future", December 2007.
- U.S. Geological Survey, reports 1994-2005
- Pui-Kwan Tse, The Mineral Industry of Australia: 2006, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, May 2008.
Citizen Groups
New South Wales
- Anvil Hill Alliance
- Bickham Coal-Mine Action Group
- Barrington-Glouster-Stroud Preservation Alliance
- Caroona Coal Action Group, Hunter Valley
- Citizens' Climate Campaign
- Climate Action Newcastle
- Hunter Community Environment Centre
- GRIP, Gloucester, Hunter Valley
- Marrickville Climate Action Now
- MWcan - Mid Western Community Action Network
- NSW Greens
- Nepean Action Group
- People Against Coal Extraction (PACE), Newcastle
- Rising Tide Newcastle
- Indigenous Justice Advocacy Network
- Save the Drip, Mudgee, Hunter Valley
- Stop CSG (Coal Seam Gas) Illawarra
- Rivers SOS, Hunter Valley
- Wybong Action Group, Hunter Valley


text:
Seagate on Wednesday said it has fixed a bug affecting some Seagate Barracuda hard drives that caused applications to pause.
The bug resulted in the company's 7200.11 1.5TB hard drives hanging at certain times, which led to problems like pauses in video streaming applications. It also led to a failure to recognize drives in certain configurations. The hard drives showed "uncharacteristic operation" when used with the Mac and Linux OSes in multidrive environments, the company said in a statement.
To receive the firmware upgrade and instructions on how to install it, Seagate has asked customers to send the company an e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.com describing the problems and system information, OS and the application in use when the issues arose. Seagate has also asked for the disk drive model number, serial number and current firmware revision. The company said it will respond promptly to e-mail messages.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
In seventy years, no forensic study proving the existence and operation of the "Nazi gas chambers"!
In tribute to Professor Ben Zion Dinur (1884-1973), founder of Yad Vashem in 1953, forced to resign in 1959 for having preferred scientific History to Jewish Memory (as explained in my article in French of June 15, 2006)
For the most commonplace homicide the judicial authority, happily enough, is never satisfied with "testimonies" but demands, before anything else, a forensic examination; to this purpose, the technical service of the police examines both the crime scene and the murder weapon while, for their part, the forensic police put to laboratory analysis all physical elements liable to enlighten the investigators. It is afterwards, in light of the forensic examination and an analysis of the facts as materially established, that one may knowledgeably seek to gauge the value of certain witnesses' accounts. Personally, for over half a century I have wanted to know what the formidable "murder weapon" that was the Nazi gas chamber looked like; I expected to see a technical illustration of that weapon and an explanation of its use. I noted that in some former German concentration camps, since turned into theme parks, visitors were shown a room said to be a "Nazi gas chamber" but, curiously, not the least scientific evidence could be supplied to support that assertion, no results of any forensic examination. In the early 1960s, on my first visit to the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine (CDJC) in Paris, my only question to those in charge had been: "Can you show me a photo of a Nazi gas chamber?" They were unable to do so. Ditto at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1994, and in a good number of other places. The general public may be fooled with photos like that of the American politicians "visiting the Dachau gas chamber" but no longer will anyone venture to employ the same procedure when dealing with a researcher who knows his subject.
After several years of research consisting in visits, readings, meetings with experts – for example, those of the central laboratory of the Paris police, rue de Dantzig in the 15th arrondissement or, in the United States – right from the beginning of my investigation into the execution gas chambers of certain penitentiaries – I had accumulated a considerable amount of information 1) on German gas chambers for disinfestation using Zyklon B, a product whose main component was hydrocyanic acid, 2) on American gas chambers for the execution of a single prisoner, also by means of hydrocyanic acid. However, at the same period, I was obliged to admit that I still did not know how, technically, those supposed Nazi gas chambers, used day and night to exterminate, at Auschwitz for instance, hundreds or thousands of people at a time, could have been made and could have worked. I did not succeed in finding anyone, in France or abroad, to explain to me how the gassers and their helpers could have handled the corpses without mortally contaminating themselves (hydrocyanic acid penetrates the skin and stays there, whereas with airing out, forced ventilation and still other means, it can be removed from clothes, shorn hair, metallic objects or other things). According to a text that was presented as a confession of Rudolf Höss, one of the three successive commandants of Auschwitz, I remained puzzled and no one could explain the mysteries to me. For example, how had the members of a Sonderkommando or "special squad", once the victims' screaming stopped and a ventilation device was turned on, been able to enter "sofort" (immediately) what would have been a sea of hydrogen cyanide, and that while eating and smoking, in other words, without even wearing a gas mask? Zyklon B consisted of hydrocyanic acid on an inert porous base. Invented in 1922 and patented in late 1926, it had the disadvantage of being explosive, ignitable by the slightest spark, even from static electricity. To use it as we are told it was used for the Auschwitz-I "gas chamber", in proximity to a crematory oven heating up, would have been sheer madness. It was I who, ultimately, discovered the building plans of the crematorium at Auschwitz-I and those of crematoria II,III, IV and V at Birkenau. They had been kept hidden since the end of the war. I found them on March 19, 1976 in the archives of the Auschwitz State Museum. Thus I can state, in knowledge of the facts, that it would have been impossible to make 2,000 persons – as asserted by R. Höss in the account he gave at Nuremberg on April 15, 1946 – enter a space of 210 square metres (where, incidentally, assuming it were possible after all, there would hardly have been any need of gas to kill them, for they would simply have died of asphyxiation due to a rapid depletion of oxygen). Never could the men of the Sonderkommando have set about, with all their might, the cyclopean task of disentangling, in an atmosphere full of hydrocyanic acid, so many bodies from one another and dragging each to a small lift connecting to the upper floor and the oven room. I had learnt that, for a team of exterminators carrying out the simple disinfestation of a house with Zyklon B, any physical effort was strictly prohibited, since it would have accelerated the men's breathing and so prevented the gas mask filters from serving their purpose. The rules specified that at the end of a building's disinfestation, when it was time to open the windows to air out the premises, one must not persist in trying to open a window that offered resistance but instead go and open the others. (To those who claim, without any evidence, that the Germans destroyed all their gas chambers, I retort: "In that case, draw me the things which, according to you, the Germans destroyed".)
The stunning conclusion of this research: in nearly seventy years, neither the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg (1945-1946) nor any of the numerous other courts which have had to try cases of alleged crimes committed using gas chambers (or gas vans) has ordered a single forensic examination. Better still: at the "Auschwitz Trial" in Frankfurt, running from December 20, 1963 to August 20, 1965, an inspection of certain points of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was held from December 14 to 16, 1964; one of the judges, Hotz, participated along with four prosecutors; however, it appears that the five men dispensed with any detailed inspection of the places where so many criminal gassings, followed by so many cremations, were said to have occurred. How can it be? A huge show trial had focused, twenty years after the war, on Auschwitz, capital of the greatest crime in world history, and the judges-accusers made not the faintest effort to inquire as to how such mass murder was first conceived, then perpetrated – and all over a period of years? Never has anyone been able to provide me with a copy of forensic examinations of the "crime of Auschwitz". I have been smothered with testimonies, stories, confessions, history books of which I have imposed on myself the most scrupulous reading but, all told, only to discover vague accounts defying the laws of physics or chemistry. One forensic examination, and one only, would have sufficed.
The crematoria of Auschwitz or Birkenau had at most, as I discovered in certain documents hidden since 1945, rooms called Leichenhalle or Leichenkeller (depositories, at ground level or semi-interred, for bodies) perfectly typical in their size and, above all, in their ventilation system. In 1982 I also discovered that there had been a forensic examination of the alleged gas chamber of the Struthof camp in Alsace, which I had visited in 1974 and which had looked to me a crude fake; I was later to learn that it was, in part, the product of work carried out after the war by a firm in the town of Saint-Michel-sur-Meurthe. Entrusted to Professor René Fabre, dean of the college of pharmacy in Paris, the examination concluded, as of December 1, 1945, on the absence of any trace whatsoever of hydrocyanic acid either 1) in the exhaust chimney of the alleged gas chamber and the scrapings taken from them (X jars and Y jars) or 2) in the corpses of the alleged Struthof gassing victims found in Strasbourg civil hospital. René Fabre's report has disappeared from the French military justice archives but we know its findings thanks to a paper in the file signed by three physicians who took part in the study: Drs Simonin, Piedelièvre and Fourcade ("Whether 'Holocaust by gas' or 'Holocaust by bullets': no physical or forensic evidence!"). The three were chagrined at the result reached by Fabre but they had still been honest and scrupulous enough to report it.
Meanwhile, I had had to wait until 1978-1979 for the daily Le Monde to publish two texts in which I demonstrated that the alleged Nazi gas chambers were technically impossible. On February 21, 1979, the same newspaper printed a "declaration" signed by 34 historians retorting to me: "One must not ask oneself how, technically, such a mass murder was possible; it was technically possible, since it happened". This fine bit of academic asininity was but an escape hatch allowing its authors to shirk their duty and refuse any response to my arguments, which were mainly of a physical, chemical and architectural order, but also documentary and historiographical. However, since that date, a multitude of authors – historians, journalists – have certainly tried to defend the thesis of the supposed Nazi gas chambers' existence and operation but none has been able to answer my request, repeated a hundred times: "Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber!" Still recently, a big book of quite scholarly appearance has been devoted to the alleged Nazi mass murders by poison gas, but in it there is not to be found a single representation of a gas chamber, not one technical illustration, not the shadow of a concrete reply to my challenge. It is the second edition, revised and corrected – released in 2012 –, of a book first published in 2011: Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas / Historische Bedeutung, Technische Entwicklung, revisionistische Leugnung, Metropol Verlag, Berlin, xxxiv + 446 pages, particularly dense. The principal authors are Günter Morsch and Bertrand Perz, with the collaboration of Astrid Ley. To these three names should be added about thirty others including, for example, Brigitte Bailer, Jean-Yves Camus, Barbara Distel, Richard J. Evans and Robert Jan van Pelt. The title means: "New studies on the National Socialist mass murders by poison gas / Historical significance, technical evolution and revisionist denial". But how can one devise the study of a lethal weapon's technical evolution without providing a single technical illustration of that weapon? How can one respond to "revisionist denial" without taking up its main challenge, which amounts to saying that the essential weapon of the alleged crime is obviously, quite simply, impossible to design and depict when one is aware, for example, of the unavoidable complication of an American gas chamber for the execution of a lone person? For, in an execution gassing, the difficulty lies not so much in killing another without killing oneself as in going, after the execution, to take a cyanide-infused body out of its seat and out of the chamber, without causing risk to anyone: a difficulty which, as has been noted, the Germans and the Sonderkommando members, for their part, apparently surmounted thousands of times every day. Let us repeat: to kill a crowd of people in a room with hydrocyanic acid is dangerous but not impossible; to enter the room afterwards, even with a gas mask, amid a host of cyanide-infused corpses and then proceed to extricate and carry them, in the course of a few hours, so as to make way for a new gassing of the same proportion, is in the domain of the impossible. The reader will have understood: serial mass gassings are just another silly story (as Yehuda Bauer has admitted in regard to what is abundantly said about "Wannsee") of the same kind as those about "Jewish soap", "lampshades of human skin", extermination of the Jewish detainees at Treblinka by steam (official Nuremberg document PS-3311), their extermination at Auschwitz by electricity and in blast furnaces (the Soviet press in early February 1945), or, near Belzec, by quicklime (Jan Karski). There is an endless list of nonsensical tales in the manner of Elie Wiesel or Father Patrick Desbois, about "geysers of blood", or a hand emerging from a mass grave to grab a shovel, or systematic extermination under quilts or pillows ("the Holocaust by suffocation"!). My own writings are not ignored in this big book, since my name appears 33 times (and not only 12, as the index may lead one to believe). "Mr Faurisson, you haunt my nights!" exclaimed in 1981, in a Paris courtroom, Bernard Jouanneau, lawyer and friend of Robert Badinter. Another time, in 1982, the same Jouanneau was to burst into sobs upon suddenly realising that the evidence of the existence of Nazi gas chambers he had just offered to the first chamber of the Paris court of appeal (presiding judge: François Grégoire) "was not worth very much" (his own words, in a moment of touching sincerity). I think I have also revealed to Raul Hilberg (an American Jew) and to Robert Jan van Pelt (a Canadian Jew, his successor as historian of "the Holocaust") how they have failed, each at his end, in their offers of proof. It is especially R. J. van Pelt who in the book in question takes charge of giving me a reply. His lines of penance (p. 343-354), which are pathetic, are essentially based on the writings of Jean-Claude Pressac, but van Pelt avoids disclosing that their author disowned them on June 15, 1995 (a month after his appearance in the XVIIth chamber of the Paris correctional court, where barrister Eric Delcroix, aided by my information, had subjected him to outright humiliation). Pressac went so far as to admit that the present version, "though triumphant", of the official history of the extermination of the Jews was "rotten" with too many lies and doomed to "the wastebin of history" (quoted in my analysis of May 5, 2000 entitled "Valérie Igounet: 'Histoire du négationnisme en France'"). But has not van Pelt himself admitted – in December 2009 – that the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, where millions of pilgrims have gone on organised visits, contains, so to speak, no "physical evidence" of what we "know" (sic) about "the Holocaust" ("A case for letting nature take back Auschwitz", Toronto Star, December 27, 2009)? Among historians, the myth of the Nazi gas chambers is on its last legs. Instead of trying to keep it alive artificially with the persistent clamour, spectacles, advertising, repression, threats, blackmail, it would be better simply to bury it, as the State of Israel finally decided to do with the body-corpse of Ariel Sharon.
In conclusion, if there is a fact on which we revisionists ought to call the attention of the layman, is it not this tacit agreement of all French or foreign judicial systems never to demand, for 70 years, any criminological inspection of the murder weapon, that is, an unprecedented weapon that enabled the killing, in industrial proportions, of millions of victims? With one exception, that of Struthof, for which, as if by intent, a forensic examination produced a completely negative finding: no gas chambers, no gassed.
At bottom, all judicial systems have followed the example of the instance called International Military Tribunal which, in 1945-1946, assumed the right, as a court of "justice" set up by the winners of the recent war, to try its own vanquished. Its organiser, the American prosecutor Jackson, had declared with a fine cynicism: "As a military tribunal, this Court is a continuation of the war effort of the Allied nations", IMT, vol. XIX, p 398 – 26 July 1946). Articles 19 and 21 of its Charter read: "The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence […]. The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof". Thus did allegations advanced without any proof by Allied propaganda receive the formal endorsement of a strictly Allied – and not "international" – tribunal. Better still, in accordance with the next and closing sentence of Article 21, a whole series of reports drafted by the winners on crimes imputed by themselves to the defeated were to be automatically received as authentic evidence, and no one would be allowed to challenge them! Such were the effects of that Tribunal's "judicial notice". And forty-five years afterwards there was to be something even more abhorrent in the domain of law: in France, "homeland of human rights", Laurent Fabius and his people got a Socialist-Communist majority in Parliament to pass (and to have published in the Journal Officiel de la République Française on July 14, 1990, for the 201st anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, bastion of the privilege-based regime of another time) a law forbidding, on pain of fine and imprisonment, any dispute (in whatsoever manner – including ironic expressions, as case law was to specify) of the reality of those crimes committed especially against Jews, a reality, however, never described or established by any technical or forensic police service. (On this point one will be wary of old Polish examinations attesting the existence of traces of hydrogen cyanide in hair or in metal objects – all disinfected –, or of an examination undertaken at quite a late date – around 1990 – in an attempt to reply to the "Leuchter Report" of 1988; that study, done by the Jan Sehn Institute in Cracow, proved embarrassing for the Poles and valuable for the revisionists). And I shall not expand here on the saga, in Vienna, of the forensic examination by Gerhard Jagschitz, or that by Walter Lüftl; the reader may look up those two names in my Ecrits révisionnistes in order to have an idea of the behaviour of certain Austrian judges who, seized with daring, ordered an examination and then, taking fright, capitulated. The name of a certain captain Fribourg, of the French army, and his "beginning of a study" of the alleged Dachau gas chamber may also be found.
The lie of the Nazi gas chambers will go down one day in history as one of the most fabulous impostures of all time. This lie has developed slowly, without plot or conspiracy, and without the general public's becoming aware of it. If the good people have been so badly taken in, it has in a way been with their consent and cooperation. They have believed, then wanted to believe, then in the end wanted to have others believe and are now legally bound to believe. All this has happened in the same way as when a government wants to launch a peaceful population into a military campaign. Such a government has no need of either plot or conspiracy. Making a show of its sentiments of goodness, it will appeal, thanks to the servility of a "free press", to notions of rights, of justice and of virtue precisely because it is about to violate cynically rights, justice and virtue. The people will start believing the government, then go along with it and, finally, run with it. Year in, year out, they will find themselves at war, armed from head to foot. And they will readily fight "the evil beast", against which anything goes, starting with the right to lie and hate, then to plunder, rape, kill by hanging and, supreme reward, the right of their establishment to write the history of it all as it sees fit. Spontaneously they will get into the habit of hating, lying, marching in step. And those who try to make them see reason will no longer be anything but "expert liars, gangsters of history", diabolical "Nazis" quite simply. The lesson has been learnt well. But now it is going to have to be unlearnt, reviewed, corrected. We are at the dawn of the year 2015. Let's draw up the death certificate of the historical lie of the magical Nazi gas chambers. In a return to respect for accuracy in history, let's promise ourselves that this gigantic imposture will be "the very last". Until the next one, of course. For – let's take care not to forget it – Céline, who, as early as 1950, denounced "the magical gas chamber" and stated: "It was everything, the gas chamber. It allowed EVERYTHING!", added nevertheless: "They'll have to find something else, oh! my mind's at rest". In 1932, in Journey to the End of the Night, he warned: "The frenzy of lying and believing is catching like the itch". Frailty of man! Where can he have got this facility, then this ardour to believe in a diabolical weapon that he is not even allowed to see? To aim straight, one must aim low. So then, let's aim low! Let's not have recourse to mass psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology or any other science! I wonder whether a simple point of vocabulary (in French with the curious expression "chambre à gaz", in English with "gas chamber", in German with "Gaskammer" and in other languages as well) would explain the ease and appetite with which such a story has been swallowed. It so happens that the French term "chambre à gaz" is based on that of "chambre à coucher" (bedroom). To name the instrument that administers death, a combination of words that implicitly evoke rest and sleep has been chosen. Why, then, rack one's brains wondering what that instrument looked like and how it worked? A gas chamber, in the minds of the simple, is simple: it must be like a bedroom or any room, but with gas inside. A man is put in it; some time later, the individual is found dead and it only remains to take away the body; as for the gas, it has dissipated. There is no need to undertake a scientific investigation: proof of a gassing is not to be sought in a forensic examination, for testimonies will suffice. After all, hadn't the Germans already distinguished themselves during the First World War by their use of poison gas? One of the most brazen lies in history, the alleged Nazi gas chambers, of course originated in hatred and in the inveterate habit of lying but it has thrived on naivety. In perfectly good faith, the good people were outraged at that "Nazi horror". In doing so, they lent a hand to a gigantic slander, a criminal lie of worldwide proportions. Sancta simplicitas! Blessed ingenuousness! Historians are beginning to show dissent against this mix of lies and candour, whilst the third post-war generation manifests annoyance at the continuing indoctrination. And the Internet is there. The conditions for a reawakening of minds seem to exist. The Jews, as a whole, and the Israelis would have been well advised to listen to the founder of Yad Vashem, Prof. Ben Zion Dinur, born Dinaburg. Some Jews, such as Josef Ginzburg (aka Joseph G. Burg), Gilad Atzmon and Paul Eisen have done so. They deserve our esteem. But, at this moment, our thoughts must go first to the sizeable cohort of revisionists humiliated, insulted, scorned, beaten, driven to ruin, suicide, sentenced to imprisonment and sometimes even forced into dishonour. And to begin with, our thoughts must go to the very first of them: the Frenchmen Maurice Bardèche, author of Nuremberg or the Promised Land (1948), and Paul Rassinier, author of Le Mensonge d'Ulysse (1950, published in English under the title The Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ulysses).
Practical conclusion: from now on, each time an opponent of revisionism takes the liberty of invoking another testimony in support of the existence of the alleged Nazi gas chambers, let's ask him to show us instead a forensic study of the murder weapon, the weapon of the crime of all crimes. Each time, on site at Auschwitz-I, Majdanek, Mauthausen, Struthof or elsewhere, that a guide has the nerve to state: "This place is (or: was) a gas chamber in which the Nazis killed Jews", let's demand, instead of testimonies, proof, one proof only (forensic proof supplied by the appropriate police services), in support of that accusation. To end, in the face of the judges who try us, let's launch the question: "What right has anyone to threaten with the scourge of the law a person who refuses to believe in the existence of a prodigious weapon which, in seventy years, no one has ever been able to describe or show, not even with an explanatory drawing?" There can be no right to convict a man who asked the French University how exactly such slaughterhouses were designed and how they functioned, and to whom thirty-four members of that university pitifully replied with the asinine words quoted above: "One must not ask oneself how, technically, such a mass murder was possible; it was technically possible, since it happened".
December 31, 2014
Complement no. 1: To end, "the killer question!"
If the innocuous body depositories of the crematoria were indeed turned respectively into undressing rooms in one place and gas chambers in another, where was it possible, day by day, to store the bodies of those who had died of natural causes? Let someone show me that area, either on the spot or in the building plans that were kept hidden until I myself discovered them! Where were the bodies put when, particularly, typhus epidemics were wreaking havoc among the detainees, the Polish and German civilians, the German soldiers and doctors in the hospital facilities reserved either for inmates or for soldiers (such as, for example, the SS Revier, situated a few paces away from the Auschwitz-I crematorium)? Let's recall that those depositories could be of three kinds: 1) for bodies not yet placed in coffins; 2) for bodies in coffins; 3) for infected bodies (with reinforced isolation of the room), which was the case in the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg camp. Will someone have us believe that, equipped as they were with an undressing room and a gas chamber, those "Nazi" crematoria simply lacked any body depositories? Crematoria without depositories? Only in the realm of fiction!
Complement no. 2: The alleged homicidal gas chamber of Auschwitz-I ("Everything in it is false", as Eric Conan ended up admitting)
Below, the first photo is that of the door of a genuine gas chamber for the execution of one person alone by hydrocyanic acid (HCN). This is an American gas chamber built according to the technique developed in the 1930s and '40s. I examined it in September 1979 at Baltimore penitentiary. For more photos and all pertinent explanations, see Gas chamber of the Maryland State Penitentiary, Baltimore (USA).
The next two photos show one of the doors of an alleged gas chamber for the killing of a crowd of people with the same gas. This is the "gas chamber" of Auschwitz-I (main camp), thus far visited by millions of tourists. The door opens inwards, which constitutes an absurdity since the corpses strewn about on the floor inside would have prevented it from opening. The same door, closed, reveals two more absurdities, since gas would have escaped through both the keyhole and the easily breakable glass pane, thus reaching the nearby SS infirmary. In 1995 the orthodox historian Eric Conan wrote that I was right about the impressive set of "falsifications" I had discovered in 1975-1976. Numerous others have, in the past, denounced these falsifications. Why are they still passed over in silence today?
These three photos thus invite the comparison of a door of a real execution gas chamber (located in Baltimore) on the one hand, with a door, shown first open and then closed, of an alleged execution gas chamber (located at Auschwitz-I) on the other.
A real execution gas chamber door is of steel, like all the rest of the construction, and its pane is of Herculite glass. To avoid letting the hydrocyanic acid erode the door joints and so, eventually, escape and spread outside, a vacuum must be created in the chamber. But creating a vacuum can cause a general collapse. Hence the extreme and indispensable robustness of the whole. The American humanitarians who advocated execution by gas (instead of execution by shooting, hanging or electricity, considered too cruel) imagined that nothing would be simpler than the use of gas. They were to be disenchanted. It took American engineers seven years (1917-1924) to develop their first homicidal gas chamber. And the first execution, in 1924 in Carson City (Nevada), nearly resulted in disaster from the significant presence of lethal gas in the prison corridors after the death of the condemned man [1].
Finally, a series of twelve photos showing real execution gas chambers (in the United States) with their doors and, at the bottom, four photos showing the doors of a false gas chamber (at Auschwitz).
[1] See Scott Christianson, The Last Gasp. The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2010, xiv-325 p., passim.


text:
On the day that his settlement check arrived, Charles Lewis paused for a moment and stared at the document.
It had been 25 years since he buried his 2-year-old daughter, Darlene, at Burr Oak Cemetery, in an area reserved for children. And it had been three years of attending meetings and searching for death certificates and public records in an effort to sue the cemetery owners after authorities determined graves had been dug up and plots resold.
His daughter's grave was among those that could not be located, he said. And now, after years of complicated bankruptcy hearings, the case that Lewis and thousands of others filed against the cemetery had been resolved.
Lewis was paid $50.
As Lewis stared at his settlement check, disappointment and anger welled up in his chest, he said. He knew it would be modest, but after attorney's fees and administrative costs, even the $100 promised was cut in half.
"I couldn't believe it," said Lewis, 49, whose father is also buried in the historic cemetery. "It's disgusting. That grave site is my only connection to my (deceased) loved ones. Now it's lost. And I get $50."
It's been three years since authorities learned that four workers at the once-illustrious Burr Oak Cemetery were allegedly digging up graves, dumping the remains in a lot and reselling the plots. In July 2009, the cemetery near Alsip was shut down by the Cook County sheriff's office and the four workers were arrested. Three of those cases remain in court; the alleged ringleader was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison.
After the scandal became public, more than 5,000 people joined class-action lawsuits against the owners of the cemetery. Some hoped that by financially crippling the cemetery, the lawsuits would force a closing. Instead, most of those suits resulted in small payments, about $100 to each family.
This month, the cemetery's bankruptcy case officially closed. As the settlement checks have started to arrive, some families say the payments not only offer little closure, but also have opened up old wounds.
Lorene Franklin's family buried three relatives at Burr Oak, two sisters and a niece, Ruby Jean, who died as an infant. Over the years, when she visited their graves, Franklin said she suspected poor management. But she swallowed her concerns and kept quiet.
After the scandal surfaced, Franklin and her family couldn't locate their niece's burial plot. Besides the digging up of plots, the cemetery's records were so poorly kept that many families were unable to determine where their loved ones were buried.
"We called a lawyer to investigate more," said Franklin, 59, of Englewood. "It wasn't about money. We wanted to know if our loved ones had been moved. We wanted to find out for sure ourselves."
They were never able to locate their niece's grave, Franklin said. They didn't follow the lawsuit closely or monitor the bankruptcy hearings. Franklin said they completed paperwork when they were told to, and a check arrived in the mail earlier this year.
"It's almost an insult," said Loretta Franklin, Lorene Franklin's daughter. "It's like $100 to shut you up and not talk or think about it anymore. We can't have our relatives moved with that. If we wanted to appeal or fight, we'd have to pay a lawyer. It wasn't just unfair to my family, it wasn't fair" to anyone.
The settlement check reminded Lorene Franklin of all the nights she spent sleepless over the possibility that the remains of her relatives were disturbed.
"We paid for our people to be rested," she said, her voice rising with frustration. "I haven't erased them from my mind. I haven't forgotten them. The spotlight is gone. The pressure is gone. But how do you fix this hurt?"
Through Perpetua-Burr Oak Holdings' bankruptcy plan, about $2.3 million was earmarked to pay the cemetery's creditors, which included the thousands of victims who filed suit, according to court records and documents. How court officials, lawyers and activists arrived at the settlement amount for victims is complicated.
According to the cemetery's court-appointed trustee, Patricia Brown Holmes, because there were more than 5,000 litigants, the court decided that sending out modest payments was the fairest way to split the insurance money.
"We didn't have a lot of money," she said. "Nobody is going to be happy. Who wants to know that their loved one's grave was possibly desecrated? But I can guarantee you that not every grave out there was dug up. Most are still there. We decided to settle with everybody."
The victims were divided into three categories, attorneys said. One class of litigants signed documents forfeiting any payment and devoted what would have been their money toward a fund to maintain the cemetery.
The largest class was made up of thousands of litigants who agreed to fill out paperwork, take a $100 payment and walk away. If they wanted to challenge the owners of the cemetery, they would have had to file suit individually, which likely would have been more expensive.
A third group of litigants, about 370 people, were those who could show evidence of significant harm, and they were negotiated with individually, attorneys said. Their individual settlements were kept confidential, but the total payment to that group was about $1.2 million, Holmes said. While the settlements were not evenly split, that averages to about $3,300 per person.
"The compensation is highly inadequate," said Tom Leahy, an attorney who represented 66 clients in a lawsuit that was folded into the bankruptcy settlement. "I can tell you, what happened at Burr Oak was an emotionally traumatic event. My clients are still having a hard time dealing with this."
Leahy said his office decided to forgo charging their clients, each of whom accepted $100 settlements.
"We basically represented our clients pro bono," he said. "The compensation was so inadequate, we felt it would be overreaching on our part to take any money from that."
Many families who accepted the $100 settlement said they spent more than that trying to prove their case. Lewis, of Milwaukee, and his ex-wife, Lisa Keys, said they spent more than $200 obtaining death certificates and public records to prove they had loved ones buried in Burr Oak.
While the Lewis family started as litigants in the group that claimed egregious harm, they were persuaded by their attorney to transfer to the larger class of litigants. When their settlement checks arrived, they were attached to invoices from the family's attorney, claiming half the money. The Lewis family's attorney, David H. Charlip, did not return calls for comment.
"It's just disrespectful and hurtful," Keys said. "This was supposed to help, but it hurt even more. We can't even go visit our daughter. We don't know where she's buried."
Lewis said the scandal has given him nightmares and fears that his family members are no longer at peace.
"I keep thinking, when I go, will this happen to me?" he said. "A grave is supposed to be sacred. That was my baby. When you lay somebody down, you expect them to stay laid down. You expect them to rest, then you can rest."
For some families, the check represented yet another injustice they had to face and, eventually, try to forget.
"That check brought back bad memories," said Florine Brewer, 79, of Riverdale, who buried four family members at Burr Oak but could not locate them after the scandal broke. Brewer said she cashed her $50 check, then tried to tuck the ordeal in the back of her mind.
"What has been done, has been done," she said. "I just take it one day at a time and move on. I thought, with all that stuff carrying on there, and with so many hurt people, more would have come from this."
Over the last three years, burials have resumed at Burr Oak — albeit at a much slower frequency.
The former director of the cemetery, Carolyn Towns, pleaded guilty last year to criminal charges connected to the case and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Three other former cemetery workers — Maurice Dailey and brothers Keith and Terrence Nicks — await trial and are due in court this month, officials with the Cook County state's attorney's office said.
More than $2 million of insurance money was set aside to revamp the graveyard and clean it up. Some of that funding will also go toward building a monument to honor the dead whose graves were desecrated. The cemetery is now managed by a new staff.
"I tell people it's going to take us a couple of years to get it where it needs to go," said Holmes, the trustee tasked with overseeing the cemetery since September. "It's a big job."
On the day that his settlement check arrived, Charles Lewis paused for a moment and stared at the document.


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The SP SportMaxx delivers Top class performance on both wet and dry surfaces. The tyre's Multi Radius Tread (MRT) offers more control in corner and outstanding dry and wet handling.
With its Dual Silica Compound the Sp SportMaxx offers superb braking and acceleration performance with low wear and tear
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text:
The fearless truth seekers at InfoWars have captured the moment Ed Balls turned up at the Bilderberg conference in Copenhagen, only to be turned away by police at the gates who didn't recognise who he was. The Shadow Chancellor apparently couldn't find his invite. Despite his protestations that "that's my name, I'm on the list to attend," the guards wouldn't let him in.
[jwplatform src="http://content.jwplatform.com/players/v8Rlmk9r-dwaBVFtT.js"]
Your name's not down, you're not coming in.


text:
Michelle Obama was on hand for her Let's Move campaign's tennis clinic at the U.S. Open where she got the chance to serve a few balls with Serena Williams.
The First Lady visited the tennis tournament for the first time Friday and promoted her campaign against childhood obesity while praising the U.S. Tennis Association's initiative to build kid-sized courts.
According to The Associated Press, Michelle served with speeds over 55 mph and
Chelly O even got playful with the tennis great and posed menacingly with her racket before taking on Serena.
Check out Michelle Obama and Serena Williams battling it out below.


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The United States leads the world in economic loss from deaths caused by armed crime, according to a global survey released Friday.
The United States registered an estimated loss of up to $45.1 billion in terms of economic productivity because of violent crimes, said the report by the U.N. Development Program and the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey.
At least 490,000 people are killed in armed crimes each year worldwide, placing a huge economic cost and social burden on nations, the report said.
The report did not give a country-by-country breakdown of the numbers of people killed in armed crimes.
But the report said that Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and South Africa are among the countries with the highest numbers of recorded violent crimes in the world.
More people are killed worldwide in violent crimes every year than in wars, it said, asserting that the phenomenon of armed killings and its economic impact on nations is largely underreported.
Lost potential
In the 90 countries surveyed, the economic cost from people killed by arms each year is estimated to total between $95 billion and $163 billion, according to the report.
"These estimates are based on calculations of the 'lost product' that is represented by premature deaths from armed violence," said Achim Wennmann of the Small Arms Survey.
"These people — had they lived — would have contributed as any other individual as productive members of society. Their deaths represent a loss that can be quantified," he told The Associated Press.
The cost arising from these deaths includes a wide range of expenses from medical care, legal proceedings, and lost earnings to lost investment, the 162-page report said.
Wennmann said the report was based on figures compiled by international organizations and national authorities. The most recent available statistics from all the 90 countries surveyed were from 2004, said Wennmann, one of the editors of the report.
He said they had more recent statistics from North America.
In 2007, the region lost up to $46.76 billion from armed violence, he said. The vast majority of that loss — up to $44.8 billion — occurred in the United States, said Wennmann.
'Fear and insecurity'
Guatemala — which has a high rate of violent crime but a smaller population and a much lower GDP than the United States — the cost of armed violence was estimated to be nearly $2.4 billion in 2005, the latest year of data available, the report said. The figure includes health expenses, security costs, impact on investment and material losses.
Cecile Molinier, who directs the U.N. Development Program's office in Geneva, said armed violence is an obstacle in the fight against poverty.
"It tears apart the social fabric of communities, creates fear and insecurity, destroys human and social capital and undermines development," she said.
Among the 90 countries are nations from every continent, including Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Russia and the United States.
The report was written for the secretariat of the 2006 Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development — a document signed by 94 states that have pledged to work toward reducing the number of violent crimes.
The United States is not a signatory of the declaration.


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This combination medication is used to treat symptoms caused by the common cold, flu, allergies, hay fever, or other breathing illnesses (e.g., sinusitis, bronchitis). Dextromethorphan is a cough suppressant that affects a certain part of the brain (cough center), reducing the urge to cough. Decongestants help relieve stuffy nose symptoms. Antihistamines relieve watery eyes, itchy eyes/nose/throat, runny nose, and sneezing.
Cough-and-cold products have not been shown to be safe or effective in children younger than 6 years. Therefore, do not use this product to treat cold symptoms in children younger than 6 years unless specifically directed by the doctor. Some products (such as long-acting tablets/capsules) are not recommended for use in children younger than 12 years. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more details about using your product safely.
These products do not cure or shorten the length of the common cold and may cause serious side effects. To decrease the risk for serious side effects, carefully follow all dosage directions. Do not use this product to make a child sleepy. Do not give other cough-and-cold medication that might contain the same or similar ingredients (see also Drug Interactions section). Ask the doctor or pharmacist about other ways to relieve cough and cold symptoms (such as drinking enough fluids, using a humidifier or saline nose drops/spray).
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Scotland may be a small country, but its stake in the future renewable energy is about to get serious as Aquamarine Power's Oyster 800 Wave energy device will soon be installed and connected to the UK grid. We covered the launch of this innovative "near shore" Oyster 800 device last year, and earlier this week Scotland's Energy Minister Fergus Ewing granted full consent to developments of the 2.4MW wave energy demonstration project. This consent means two furtherOyster 800 wave energy devices will be installed at the same site at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, and this will create the UK's first grid-connected near shore wave power array with a total of three 800kW Oyster devices.
Consents play a vital part in the development of such projects, and this consent should pave the way for Aquamarine Power to continue to work with Marine Scotland and gain all the necessary consents for their other sites — a 200MW commercial wave energy site in Orkney, and a 40MW site on Lewis.
Scotland's Energy Minster Fergus Ewing said of the project:
"Scotland has unparalleled natural resources, with a tenth of Europe's wave power, and these new devices will help us to fully harness the huge energy resources around our own coast and contribute to global efforts to expand clean, green electricity generation… it is innovation and creativity such as that behind the Oyster device which will help us meet our ambitious renewable electricity targets and help us reindustrialize Scotland."
Aquamarine Power stated:
"Our application has been granted subject to the implementation of a suitable environmental monitoring and mitigation plan to ensure suitable measures are taken to protect the environment. We look forward to working with the local community in Orkney on the responsible development of our first Oyster array.
"This is a great milestone for our company and for the wave energy industry as a whole. This marks an important step in the development of Oyster which one day will be delivering power to hundreds of thousands of homes."
We look forward to seeing what the new technology will mean for the UK, and in the long run, what it could mean for other nations.
+ Marine Scotland
+ European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC)
Images ©Aquamarine Power


text: Perhaps the worst news about Pokemon Go is how attackers are using it to spread malware. This is not the first time bad-guy hackers have leveraged the popularity of games to spread malicious software. Viral memes spread malware, too, via drive-by attacks as people visit malicious sites that draw them by hosting or linking to the internet-based cultural sensation.Users assume that games and meme sites have integrity. This makes it easy for the hackers to push compromising software onto consumers\u2019 phones and computers and into your organization. Cyber thugs also use man-in-the-middle attacks on game apps to take control of mobile devices and launch attacks on the enterprise.CSO shares the process attackers use to slip inside the enterprise through memes and games together with enterprise security policies and enforcements that help ensure the next viral internet craze doesn\u2019t lead to malware playtime inside your organization.Attackers enter games in a couple of ways. When they see users swiftly adopting a game such as Pokemon Go, they download a copy, decompile it, add malware, compile it, and publish it onto fake and third-party app sites for unsuspecting consumers to download and use. \u201cWhen the user downloads the app, it installs a Trojan or other malware variant that gives attackers complete control of the device along with a mechanism for tracking and extracting personal information such as passwords and payment information,\u201d explains Philip Casesa, Product Development and Portfolio Management, (ISC)2. Attackers can increase their dwell time on the device by allowing the game app to function normally despite the malware.Attackers lure victims by making the cloned games available in parts of the world where the game\u2019s vendors have not yet released the genuine item. \u201cWhile the U.S. population was capturing Pokemon, the U.K. market still had no official release date. This resulted in more people attempting to bypass the relative safety of managed app stores to obtain the software, by jailbreaking their phones,\u201d says Casesa.These hackers also infiltrate game apps that are already in use. According to Bob Palmer, a vice president with SAP NS2, attackers gain access on a communications protocol level using a man-in-the-middle attack that intercepts the handshake between the game app on the device and the game vendor\u2019s server.In either case, attackers can then manipulate the privileges the user granted to the app to extract usage data and personal information including passwords in order to control the device\u2019s behavior and make it do things it would not normally do, according to Palmer. \u201cThey can get the smartphone to send an email with a malware payload into the corporate network hoping someone will open it."As for memes, malicious websites host viral videos, posts, and images to draw people in, and then the site automatically passes malware onto the user\u2019s device. \u201cThe user doesn\u2019t need to actively download anything or engage in other risky computer behavior. Simply visiting the infected website can cause malware or ransomware to exploit vulnerabilities in the operating system or browser,\u201d says Casesa.\u201cOnce an attacker has personal information like passwords they can go after email accounts, which can enable access to other accounts. Where people reuse the same password, attackers can access employee bank accounts as well as work accounts,\u201d explains Casesa.Using work credentials, attackers explore and exploit whatever systems the user has privileges on. \u201cAttackers can use access to these systems to spread more malware, collect additional data, and pick up credentials for more systems,\u201d says Casesa.Enterprise preparations, policies and enforcementsStringent policies are unavoidable where the security of enterprise data and the productivity and safety of employees are concerned. \u201cMobile policies can ban certain apps and jailbreaking or side-loading of software,\u201d says Casesa. When employees understand why this is necessary, it should be easier to get them to comply.You need to use education programs that grab your employees\u2019 attention and engage them while teaching them the risks of memes and games as well as your policies pertaining to such sites and applications. Programs need to identify official app download sites while pointing out the ear marks of unofficial and known bad sites so that your people can tell the one from the other. You need to confirm that they understand and you need to verify a change in their behavior after the training, as well.[ ALSO ON CSO: How to craft a security awareness program that works ]There are other benefits to successful security education. \u201cA knowledgeable workforce is often the first and best line of defense because they can spot risks and report them to the proper teams before these lead to damage,\u201d says Casesa. Rewards systems typically work well for reinforcing healthy employee behavior in response to security risks.Even with a successful rewards program, it is necessary to apply technology to reinforce policies. By using technologies including mobile device management (MDM), mobile application management (MAM), and enterprise mobile management (EMM) as well as network access control (NAC) and endpoint security, and by layering compatible approaches, the enterprise can enforce strong policies and take a strong stance against malware. First ask your existing device and software vendors about available tools.Then you can automatically block device or even user access to corporate networks once these mobile technologies detect behavior that goes outside the security policy. Remember, if you block only the device, the user may still have it synced with other devices, and the malware may enter through one of these other devices that you have not blocked.Additional security for risky memes and gamesThere are many reasons to delay software patches including the need to test these for flaws, the fact that a patch may make the patched software incompatible with other software and applications, and the fact that this incompatibility may break a vital app that serves the needs of your core business. However, you need to weigh these risks against the risks of malware entering through unpatched vulnerabilities.If you can automate testing for patched software in a sandbox and then schedule it for limited production use on a certain set of servers before fully deploying it, you can establish some sort of routine, relatively swift patching program to close those holes while maintaining the integrity of the production environment. If a patch does break a critical application, you will have to weigh the opportunity cost of updating the application and perhaps software with dependencies against the likelihood and severity of the security threat from the unpatched hole.It is as inexpensive to harden endpoints as the time and effort that it takes to set the configurations that do so. \u201cAggressive patching and hardening of these machines goes a long way toward reducing the risk of infections that can provide attackers with a foothold into the organization,\u201d says Casesa.All the technology in the world won\u2019t stop malware from waltzing into your company if employees do not willingly make themselves extensions of the security team. By using ever more positive, rewarding programs to draw employees into the security battle, you can begin to keep them from being extensions of an attacker\u2019s team instead.


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JPMorgan announced a $4.5 billion settlement Friday with institutional investors who suffered losses on mortgage securities purchased from the bank in the run-up to the financial crisis.
The deal resolves one of JPMorgan's many legal headaches in connection with securities tied to risky mortgages it allegedly sold while misrepresenting their quality. The bank called it "another important step" in addressing these issues.
The settlement still requires approval from a court and from the trustees who managed the mortgage pools. The payment would be allocated by a financial expert chosen by the trustees.
The deal relates only to JPMorgan (JPM) and Bear Stearns, and does not include securities associated with Washington Mutual. JPMorgan acquired ailing Bear and WaMu during the financial turmoil of 2008.
Mortgage-backed securities and related derivatives were a key cause of the financial crisis, saddling financial institutions with huge losses as the housing market cratered.
Related: Probe targets JPMorgan hiring in China
The group of 21 investors includes BlackRock, PIMCO and government-backed housing finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie and Freddie were involved in a separate agreement with JPMorgan over crisis-era mortgage securities last month in which the bank agreed to pay $5.1 billion.
The Justice Department is also in talks with JPMorgan over a potential multi-billion-dollar settlement on the same issue.
JPMorgan said it believed it had set aside sufficient reserves to pay for Friday's settlement and any additional litigation over mortgage-backed securities.
It's been a busy year for JPMorgan's legal department.
The firm has paid over $1 billion in fines in connection with last year's "London Whale" trading debacle, and $80 million more over allegedly unfair credit-card-billing practices.
In July, the bank agreed to pay $410 million to settle charges that it manipulated electricity prices in California and the Midwest. It is also facing scrutiny over its hiring practices in China and its alleged involvement in the Libor rate-fixing scandal.
JPMorgan posted a loss for the third quarter based on its massive legal expenses. CEO Jamie Dimon called the loss "painful" and warned that litigation costs could continue to be a drag on earnings at the nation's largest bank for several quarters.