The Battle of Omdurman in 1898 was a decisive conflict in which British and Egyptian forces, led by General Herbert Kitchener, defeated the Sudanese Mahdist forces. This battle marked the culmination of the British campaign to reassert control over Sudan. The British utilized modern weaponry, including machine guns and artillery, overwhelming the Mahdist warriors who suffered heavy casualties. The victory effectively ended the Mahdist state and established British dominance in Sudan.

The 5 RAR Association is pleased to announce the celebration of its 60th Anniversary Reunion, scheduled to take place from 27 February to 2 March 2025. This special event will be hosted at the Twin Towns Services Club, located in the beautiful Tweed Heads.

Members, past and present, along with their families and friends, are warmly invited to join in commemorating this milestone occasion. The reunion promises to be a memorable gathering, offering a wonderful opportunity to reconnect, share stories, and celebrate the rich history and camaraderie of the 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment.

To confirm your attendance or for further details, please reach out to Gary Townsend. He can be contacted via phone at 0412 767 975 or by email at [email protected]. Don’t miss out on this significant comemorative5RAR event!

Regards,

Gary Townsend

5 RARA Membership Officer/Tiger Tales Editor 

[email protected]

82 Lake Hills,

117 Palm Meadows Drive,
CARRARA, QLD, 4211, AUSTRALIA
Ph: 07 5594 4780   Mob: 0412 767 975

Recent arrests of high-ranking Russian military officials have raised questions about President Vladimir Putin’s motives and control over the Defence Ministry. The arrests began last month with a deputy defence minister and have since included several senior officials. All face corruption charges, which they deny.

These arrests come as Putin starts his fifth term and shifts Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to a new role. Analysts speculate this could be an effort to reassert control over the military, a result of internal power struggles, or a broader anti-corruption drive.

The Role of Corruption in Russia

Corruption is deeply ingrained in Russian governance, serving as both a tool for maintaining loyalty and a method of control. Experts suggest that the state uses compromising material on officials to selectively target them, thus reinforcing Putin’s grip on power. The war in Ukraine has increased defence spending, creating more opportunities for graft.

Key Arrests

• Timur Ivanov, former Deputy Defence Minister, accused of taking large bribes, oversaw major military construction projects, including in Mariupol.
• Yury Kuznetsov, head of the Defence Ministry’s personnel directorate.
• Ivan Popov, former top commander in Ukraine, known for criticizing the Defence Ministry.
• Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the military general staff.
• Vladimir Verteletsky, from the defence procurement department, charged with abuse of office.

Why Now?

The crackdown suggests a shift towards reducing blatant corruption within the Defence Ministry. Putin’s replacement of Shoigu with economist Andrei Belousov indicates a focus on integrating defence spending with broader economic goals. Russia’s defence budget, now 6.7% of GDP, underscores the need for efficient spending.

The appointment of Belousov and the subsequent arrests may also be an effort to address internal criticisms and ensure the war in Ukraine is managed more effectively. Analysts believe this could either be a Kremlin-led initiative or a move by the security services to counter military dominance.

Potential Outcomes

Further arrests are likely as the new defence minister seeks to demonstrate accountability. However, the pervasive nature of corruption in Russia means that aggressive crackdowns could destabilize the system. If more officials are targeted, it could lead to panic and unrest within the government.

Overall, while the Kremlin denies any purging, the situation indicates significant internal shifts and a potential power struggle within Russia’s political and military hierarchy.

A Sudanese migrant with a criminal record who “self-identifies” as an Aboriginal man was granted the right to stay in Australia.

CLICK LINK to continue to the story

Criminal Sudanese migrant who ‘identifies as Aboriginal’ allowed to stay in Australia | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

If the governing Conservative Party wins the national election on July 4, all 18-year-olds in Britain will be required to perform a year of mandatory military or civilian national service, the party announced Sunday.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to reintroduce a form of national service for the first time in over 60 years, aiming to revitalise his election campaign after a sluggish start. Historically, the UK implemented military conscription during World War II and maintained 18 months of mandatory military service for men from 1947 to 1960. Since then, the country has relied on an all-volunteer military force, which has gradually decreased in size.

Under the new proposal, a small fraction of 18-year-olds—approximately 30,000 out of an estimated 700,000—would spend 12 months in the military, serving in roles such as logistics or cyber defence. The majority would engage in monthly volunteer work with charities, community groups, hospitals, police, or fire services.

Sunak emphasized that the program would foster “a shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country.” However, the exact mechanism for enforcing this compulsory service remains unclear. Home Secretary James Cleverly assured that no one would be compelled to join the military.

Cleverly clarified that the primary objective of the new plan is to create “a society where people mix with others from different communities, backgrounds, religions, and income levels.” The Conservatives estimate the national service plan will cost £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) annually, funded in part by reallocating £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, established in 2022 to revitalize deprived communities.

The Labour Party criticized the proposal as a “desperate £2.5 billion unfunded commitment” from a party “bankrupt of ideas.” Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson derided the plan as “compulsory volunteering” and predicted it would never be implemented.

UK elections are required every five years, with the prime minister having discretion over the exact timing within that period. Sunak, 44, surprised many, including his own party members, by announcing the election date as July 4. The Conservatives, in power for 14 years, are lagging behind the opposition Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, in opinion polls and are struggling against a widespread desire for change.

Sunak’s election announcement, made outside 10 Downing Street, was marred by heavy rain and protesters playing a Labour campaign song. One of his initial campaign stops was at the Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was built—an irony eagerly highlighted by critics.

Voters will elect lawmakers to all 650 seats in the House of Commons. The leader of the party securing a majority, either alone or in coalition, will become prime minister.

Bureaucracy gone mad!

Ray Payne OAM – 28/O5/24

Australia is charging headlong into the financial quagmire of climate zealotry, now targeting our farmers with yet another layer of bureaucratic oversight and wasteful spending. In a recent announcement, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen unveiled a whopping $63.8 million investment to supposedly lower emissions from the farming sector under the Agriculture and Land Sector plan. This is on top of a half-billion-dollar injection into the Future Drought Fund, all aimed at dressing up our agricultural sector in the latest green credentials.

At the Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Toowoomba, Bowen waxed lyrical about the necessity of “accurate standardised emissions reporting” to meet the Paris Agreement targets. This initiative includes educating farmers on emissions accounting—an elaborate process involving the use of standardised methods to quantify greenhouse gases, supposedly helping farmers to identify areas for reduction and ensure transparency.

But let’s call a spade a spade: This is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. The idea of spending millions to measure and manage cow farts and sheep burps is nothing short of absurd. Chris Bowen’s grand plan reeks of the same out-of-touch elitism that often characterizes urban environmental policy, disconnected from the gritty realities of rural farming life.

Bowen asserts that this initiative will “unlock new opportunities” for farmers. However, the reality is that most of these so-called opportunities are little more than regulatory hoops through which farmers must jump. Instead of focusing on productivity and innovation, our farmers are now being conscripted into the climate crusade, burdened with new layers of compliance and reporting that do little to improve their bottom lines.

The minister’s vision of a decarbonised agricultural sector is not just impractical; it is harmful. Farmers already face myriad challenges, from fluctuating commodity prices to the ever-present threat of droughts. Adding the task of greenhouse gas accounting is a distraction they can ill afford. This initiative diverts time, energy, and resources away from actual farming, pushing them into the labyrinth of government red tape.

The breakdown of the funding further highlights the waste. Over $28.7 million will be funnelled into improving greenhouse gas accounting from the national level down to individual farms. This is a boon for bureaucrats and consultants but offers scant tangible benefits to farmers. The lion’s share—$30.8 million—will supposedly accelerate on-ground action to reduce emissions, yet these actions often translate into more invasive oversight and restrictions on farming practices.

Moreover, a paltry $4.4 million is earmarked for long-term research through the Zero Net Emissions Agriculture Cooperative Research Centre. While research is crucial, this token amount is unlikely to yield significant breakthroughs, serving more as a box-ticking exercise to appease climate activists than a genuine attempt at innovation.

Minister for Agriculture Murray Watt claims that reducing emissions will benefit farmers, who are on the frontline of climate change. Yet, this paternalistic approach overlooks the resilience and ingenuity that farmers have demonstrated for generations. They do not need government mandates to tell them how to run their businesses. What they need are practical support and freedom from excessive regulation.

The agricultural sector’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily methane from livestock, is well-documented. However, the solution is not to burden farmers with emissions reporting but to support sustainable practices that naturally evolve from the industry’s needs and innovations. Government interventions often create more problems than they solve, stifling the very creativity and adaptability that are the hallmarks of successful farming.

In conclusion, Chris Bowen’s plan is emblematic of the misguided priorities that plague current environmental policies. Rather than throwing millions at fanciful schemes to measure and manage livestock emissions, we should focus on empowering farmers to do what they do best: produce food efficiently and sustainably. This latest initiative is not a step towards sustainability; it is a stumble into bureaucratic excess and misallocated resources. Australia deserves better, and so do our farmers.

Pushkin House in London, in collaboration with the University of London, recently invited Israeli author Dina Rubina (above) to a literary discussion on Zoom about her books. Then she received the email below from the meeting’s moderator, Nataliya Rulyova, who demanded she state where she stands “on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” because other invited participants need to “understand your position on this issue before responding”. That note and Ms Rubina’s blistering response are reproduced below.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

From: Nataliya Rulyova

Hello, Dina!
The Pushkin House announced our upcoming conference on social media and immediately received critical messages regarding your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They wanted to understand your position on this issue before responding. Could you formulate your position and send it to me as soon as possible?
— Natasha

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Then followed Ms Rubina’s response…….

From: Dina Rubina
To: Nataliya Rulyova

Dear Natalia!
You’ve written beautifully about my novels, and I’m so sorry for the time you’ve wasted, because apparently, we have to cancel our meeting.

The universities of Warsaw and Torun have just canceled lectures by the wonderful Russian-speaking Israeli writer Yakov Shechter on the life of Galicia’s Jews in the 17th and 19th centuries “to avoid making the situation worse.” I suspected that this would affect me too, since academia is now the main breeding ground for the most disgusting and virulent anti-Semitism, disguised as so-called “criticism of Israel.” I was expecting something like this, and I even decided to write you an email about it… but I put it aside. It’s time for me to publish it.

This is what I want to say to all those who expect from me a quick and obsequious report on my position regarding my beloved country, which currently lives (and always has) surrounded by ferocious enemies who seek to destroy it . My country which is waging a just war today against a rabid, ruthless, deceptive and cunning enemy. The last time I apologized was in elementary school, in the principal’s office, I was 9 years old. Since then, I have been doing what I think is right, listening only to my conscience and expressing exclusively my understanding of the world order and human laws of justice.

Natalia, thank you for your efforts, and I personally ask you to send my answer to all those who are wondering.

On October 7, Saturday, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the ruthless, well-trained, well-prepared and well-equipped Hamas terrorist regime of Iran, Hamas, which rules in the Gaza enclave (which Israel left around twenty years ago), attacked dozens of peaceful kibbutzim and bombarded my country with tens of thousands of rockets. Hamas has committed atrocities that even the Bible cannot describe, atrocities that rival the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah. Atrocities filmed by the way, by GoPro cameras, the murderers having taken the horror to the point of sending the images to their families or on social networks in real time.

For hours, thousands of happy, blood-drunk beasts raped women, children and men, shooting their victims in the crotch and heads, cutting off the women’s breasts and playing football with them, cutting off the babies from the wombs of pregnant women and immediately decapitating them, tying up and burning the small children. There were so many charred bodies that, for many weeks, forensic pathologists could not cope with the enormous workload of identifying individuals.

A friend of mine, who worked in the emergency room of a New York hospital for 20 years, then in Israel for 15 years, was one of the first to arrive in the kibbutzim, as part of a team of rescuers and of doctors. She still hasn’t been able to sleep since.

While she is an emergency specialist, accustomed to dissected bodies and corpses, she fainted when she saw the macabre sight and vomited all the way back in the car. Among the Hamas militants, Palestinian civilians rushed in, participating in pogroms of unprecedented scale, pillaging, killing, dragging everything they could get their hands on. Among these “Palestinian civilians” were 450 members of this highly regarded organization UNRWA (United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

Judging by the utter joy of the population (also captured by thousands of mobile cameras), Hamas is supported by almost the entire population of Gaza. But the essential is there for us: More than two hundred Israelis, including women, children, the elderly and foreign workers, were dragged into the beast’s den. A hundred of them are still rotting and dying in Hamas dungeons.

It goes without saying that these victims, who continue to be mocked, are of little concern to the “academic community”. But that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I am not writing this so that anyone will sympathize with the tragedy of my people.

During all these years, while the international community has literally poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this piece of land (the Gaza Strip) — UNRWA’s annual budget alone is equivalent to a billion dollars! — During all these years, Hamas used this money to build an empire with a complex system of underground tunnels, stockpile weapons, teach schoolchildren from primary school to disassemble and assemble Kalashnikov assault rifles, print textbooks in which hatred of Israel is indescribable, in which even math problems look like this calling for the murder of Jews with every word:

There were ten Jews, the shahid killed four, how many are left?

And now, when finally shocked by the monstrous crime of these bastards, Israel is waging a war of annihilation against the Hamas terrorists who so carefully prepared this war, who placed thousands of shells in all the hospitals, the schools, kindergartens…

The academic community, which was not concerned about the massacres in Syria, nor the massacre in Somalia, nor the mistreatment inflicted on the Uighurs, nor the millions of Kurds persecuted by the Turkish regime for decades, this very worried community, which wears “arafatkas” [keffiyehs], the trademark of murderers, around their necks at rallies under the slogan “Liberate Palestine from the river to the sea”, which means the total destruction of Israel (and Israelis). “Academics”, as polls show, have no idea where this river is, what it is called, where certain borders are located.

And it is this same public which asks me “to express a position clear on the issue”. Are you really serious!

As you know, I have been a professional writer for over 50 years. My novels have been translated into 40 languages, including Albanian, Turkish, Chinese, Esperanto, and many more.

Now, with great pleasure, without choosing my expressions too much, I sincerely and with all the strength of my soul send to all the brainless “intellectuals” who are interested in my position to go fuck themselves.

— Dina Rubina

Editor’s note: In translation, Ms Rubina’s surname can be found online as both “Roubina” and “Rubina”. QoL has opted for the latter spelling

Regards,

Anthony Tudehope