Speaking of the ChiComs (may be sort of tangentially related to the mysterious pics?) ....
A SATELLITE ground station in the West Australian desert is being used by the Chinese military to help locate Australian and US navy warships in the region.
The explosive claim has been made by the nation's foremost expert on space-based espionage, Des Ball, who says the government may have unwittingly acted against the national interest by allowing China to use the ground station at Mingenew to track Beijing's space satellites.
"This ground station would help China's space-based listening devices to more precisely locate the electronic emissions from aircraft carriers, destroyers and other navy ships," Professor Ball told The Australian.
"We're talking serious stuff here . . . why was the construction of this station never announced?"
Professor Ball's claims come as US President Barack Obama today begins a two-day visit to Australia, during which he will unveil plans for closer defence ties in a move that reflects growing concerns about China's military rise in the region.
The government established the satellite ground station at Mingenew, 400km north of Perth, in 2009 and gave approval for China's space agency to use the station to track Chinese satellites.
Canberra maintains all operations undertaken at the ground station, which is operated by the Swedish Space Corporation, are for "commercial and civilian activities", but Professor Ball says China makes no distinction between military and civil satellites.
China's use of the station was not revealed publicly until Hong Kong's English daily the South China Morning Post quoted Xie Jingwen, a deputy chief of the tracking system for China's space program, as saying it had "added Australia to its global network of ground stations".
Swiped from RTLM at Grouchy's.
Here's the
link, but the body of the story came from him.
Further, I thought I heard
on the "news" this morning that we are deploying 2500 of our troops to Australia now. Anybody else hear anything?
Correction: it had to have been
Rush:
RUSH: Obama, meanwhile, doesn't know where he is. When he's in Hawaii he thinks he's in Asia. When he's in Australia he doesn't know what time zone he's in. And now he says he's going to send -- get this -- up to 2,500 troops, US troops are going to be sent to Australia to counterbalance the ChiComs' growing power there in the region. That's gonna show the ChiComs we mean business, folks, 2,500 US troops. I'm telling you, this is a show of force unlike the United States has ever demonstrated before. We're not gonna be pushed around by the ChiComs anymore. No way, folks: 2,500 US troops to Australia.
Checking for further validation .........