Between tomorrow and Friday, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) will host a weapons bazaar that ought to be called “The Merchants of Death”.

The times for these merchants are positively bullish, given that total global military expenditure exceeded US$2.4 trillion last year, an increase of 6.8 percent in real terms from 2022.

The introductory note to the event is mildly innocuous:

“The Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition is the premier platform for interaction between defence, industry and government of all levels, to meet, to do business and discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the global land defence markets.”

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The website goes on to describe the Land Defence Exposition as “the premier gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from the United States and Europe”.

At the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in 2022, the event attracted 20,000 attendees, 810 “exhibitor organisations” from 25 countries, and ran 40 conferences, symposia and presentations.

From 30 nations, came 159 defence, government, industry and scientific delegations.

Land Forces 2024 is instructive as to how the military-industrial complex manifests. Featured background reading for the event involves, for instance, news about cultivating budding militarists.

Where better to start than in school?

School military ‘pathways’
From August 6, much approval is shown for the $5.1 million Federation Funding Agreement between the Australian government and the state governments of South Australia and West Australia to deliver “the Schools Pathways Programme (SPP)” as part of the Australian government’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.

The programme offers school children a chance to taste the pungent trimmings of industrial militarism — visits to military facilities, “project-based learning” and presentations.

Rather cynically, the SPP co-opts the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) aspect of government policy, carving up a direct link between school study and the defence industry.

“We need more young Australians studying STEM subjects in schools and developing skills for our future workforce,” insisted Education Minister Jason Clare. It is hard to disagree with that, but why weapons?

There is much discontent about the Land Forces exposition.

Victorian Greens MP Ellen Sandell and federal MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt wrote to Premier Jacinta Allan asking her to call off the arms event.

The party noted that such companies as Elbit Systems “and others that are currently fuelling . . . Israel’s genocide in Palestine, where 40,000 people have now been killed — will showcase and sell their products there”.

Demands on Israel dismissed
Allan icily dismissed such demands.

Disrupt Land Forces, which boasts 50 different activist collectives, has been preparing.

Defence Connect reported as early as June 4 that groups, including Wage Peace — Disrupt War and Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance, were planning to rally against the Land Force exposition.

The usual mix of carnival, activism and harrying have been planned over a week, with the goal of ultimately encircling the MCEC to halt proceedings.

Ahead of the event, the Victorian Labor government, the event’s sponsor, has mobilised 1800 more police officers from the regional areas.

Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines did his best to set the mood.

“If you are not going to abide by the law, if you’re not going to protest peacefully, if you’re not going to show respect and decency, then you’ll be met with the full force of the law.”

Warmongering press outlets
Let us hope the police observe those same standards.

Warmongering press outlets, the Herald Sun being a stalwart, warn of the “risks” that “Australia’s protest capital” will again be “held hostage to disruption and confrontation”, given the diversion of police.

Its August 15 editorial demonised the protesters, swallowing the optimistic incitements on the website of Disrupt Land Forces.

The editorial noted the concerns of unnamed senior police fretting about “the potential chaos outside MCEC at South Wharf and across central Melbourne”, the context for police to mount “one of the biggest security operations since the anti-vaccine/anti-lockdown protests at the height of covid in 2021–21 or the World Economic Forum chaos in 2000”.

Were it up to these editors, protesters would do better to stay at home and let the Victorian economy, arms and all, hum along.

The merchants of death could then go about negotiating the mechanics of murder in broad daylight; Victoria’s government would get its blood fill; and Melbournians could turn a blind eye to what oils the mechanics of global conflict.

The protests will, hopefully, shock the city into recognition that the arms trade is global, nefarious and indifferent as to the casualty count.

Dr Binoy Kampmark lectures in global studies at RMIT University. This article was first published by Green Left and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A correspondent for Iran International was assaulted on Sept. 20, 2023, in New York City by an official from the delegation of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to the London-based, Persian-language TV news service.

Iran International reports that a protocol officer from Raisi’s entourage attempted to wrest correspondent Kian Amani’s cellphone from his hands as the journalist filmed the Iranian president departing a midtown Manhattan hotel. Raisi was in New York City that week for the U.N. General Assembly.

Iran International posted a video of the encounter with footage from Amani’s phone and from another person, who recorded it from a different angle.

In Amani’s video, a man from Raisi’s delegation is seen approaching him while asking in Farsi why he is taking the video and demanding that he show his press credentials, according to a CNN account. Amani tells the man in English not to touch him and identifies himself as a journalist before a scuffle ensues.

In the other video, the assailant is seen attempting to pry Amani’s phone from his hands before a number of people, identified as hotel staff by Iran International, begin to intervene.

“Don’t touch him!” a woman said repeatedly to the man struggling physically with Amani. The scuffle ceased and the assailant departed from the scene.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

The Vietnamese officials met with Blinken on Friday as part of the two-day U.S.- summit with the 10-member Association for Southeast Asian Nations.

According to a series of tweets about the incident by Southeast Asia analyst Nguyen Phuong Linh, the video shows the Vietnamese delegation laughing that U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Chinh that he could “not trust Russia.” Chinh also describes the meeting with Biden as “straightforward and fair and that Vietnam isn’t afraid of anyone,” after which the Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S., Nguyen Quoc Dzung, said they “put [Biden] into checkmate."

Minister of Public Security To Lam is also seen praising the former deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, Matthew Pottinger, for being young and smart and having a wife who was born in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese officials also refer to a number of U.S. officials without using honorific terms that in the Vietnamese language their titles alone would command.

The State Department typically captures video footage of dignitaries prior to meetings with its senior staff and shares the videos on its YouTube account. In most cases, these videos will show smiles and handshakes and are largely uneventful.

The video was published shortly after their meeting on Friday but by Saturday evening, the video became “unavailable” on YouTube. RFA was not able to determine why the video was removed from the State Department’s account.

“So embarrassing for the Vietnamese that the State Dept. appears to have taken the video offline,” former BBC journalist Bill Hayton wrote on his Twitter account.

The dialogue caught in the video “might indicate a more serious issue of how dysfunctional the incumbent cabinet in [Vietnam] is in general, and how incompetent the [Vietnamese] leaders are in terms of comms, foreign affairs and security,” Linh tweeted.

RFA’s Vietnamese Service, which shared the video on its Facebook account, received comments from followers that were critical of the Vietnamese delegation.

“Talking about your host while you’re a guest at their house is so uneducated,” Facebook user Kien Nguyen commented.

“This kind of language, coming from the Prime Minister’s mouth. It sounds like what you hear in bus stations,” Hoa Nguyen, another Facebook user, said.

Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA’s Vietnamese Service.