The US is turning Australia into a forward base for potential military operations in the Pacific, with American forces and defense contractors controlling or having access to roughly two-thirds of the country’s military facilities, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

Citing data compiled by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, the newspaper identified 110 facilities across Australia with some form of US military or corporate presence out of 168 surveyed.

13 killed in Kfar Roumine strike, deputy mayor reports

By Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com

Whether you consider it a town or a village, Kfar Roumine was a modest place before the Israeli invasion in March. Some 1,400 people lived there at the time. Forced displacement and persistent attacks, including Monday’s airstrike that killed over a dozen people, have substantially reduced that population.

News24 host Paul Murray says the federal government is the “greatest addict” when it comes to smoking, so they can keep the “product legal” as tax soars. “The greatest addict when it comes to smoking is the federal government,” Mr Murray said. “They keep the product legal. If they truly detested the product, they’d ban it. There's no tax on lead paint. “But they won’t ban it because they know there’s too many people that that would annoy, so let's just whack them as hard as we possibly can when it comes to tax.”

Posted by Tyler Durden, Authored by Monica O'Shea via The Epoch Times,

Australian leaders have pledged to speed up defence cooperation during high level talks.