Post: #1

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/...d12e2cd6a8

On the face of it, this sounds like a simple case of ignorant Western women doing stupid things in Middle Eastern shitholes. A 60 Minutes crew has been arrested for its alleged part in attempting to kidnap/rescue (your pick) two kids out of Lebanon to return to their mother. Basically, they go with a pack of ex-cops and other assorted meatheads and pull in kids off the street who've been allegedly kidnapped by their father and hoisted off to a country which doesn't recognise Australian family law authorities.

For bonus points, the lead journo who's in the shit is none other than Tara Brown, previously gracing our screens as almost getting punched if not raped for filming rapefugees in Sweden and then mindbogglingly justifying it as "just down to the tensions in the area" and feeling that "because she was female, they wouldn't hurt her."

So what, you might say. Stupid Western reporters go white knighting in Islamic shithole and get their noses cut off.

Oh, but it gets better, because Australia's small media-commentary program, Media Watch, has taken an interest in the story.

Media Watch, while hosted by the leftie ABC, is a gorgeous little show devoted to sticking big pins in the mainstream media and exposing serious journalistic abuses. It's well worth a click on their website to illustrate how bad it can get in the MSM for outright lies. As said, it has some bias, but at least it's willing to even crucify its own channel for egregious errors in reporting or ethics.

And as they told the story last night ...

Quote:They were detained with their two-man crew after a botched attempt to recover—or perhaps kidnap—two Australian-born children.

Five year old Lahela and three year old Noah.

from their Lebanese-American father, Ali al-Amin.

And this in broad daylight is how it went down.

Quote:"PETER STEFANOVIC: Through the grainy CCTV footage what appears to be two women and two small children walking along a street. Then, from an already parked car, a snatch and grab as the children are taken and rushed into the vehicle, which is then driven off leaving the two women behind. Reported by local media to be the grandmother and nanny.

GRANDMOTHER: They hit me on the head with something and I got quite dizzy. They pulled the child from me. Then they hit the nanny and took the little girl. We held onto them as much as we could, but we couldn’t stop them.

— Channel Nine, News, 7 April, 2016

The men who grabbed the children are also now in jail, along with a former British police officer alleged to have organised the snatch Now if that is true—and Nine has denied it—what were they thinking?

No doubt the answer is: the story would rate its socks off.

But Nine would doubtless argue it was also trying to help a mother in distress.

Five months ago, Sally Faulkner made this impassioned plea to the Australian government for help:

Quote:"SALLY FAULKNER: My two small and very young children have been kidnapped and taken overseas to Lebanon by my ex-husband. For six months now I’ve not seen them or heard from them. My daughter turned five only a number of days ago and my son turns three next month.

— Facebook, Change.org, 21 November, 2015

But sad and moving as it undoubtedly is, the story is not so simple.

Although the children were born in Australia they lived in Beirut from 2011 to 2013.

And it was Sally who took them to Australia nearly 3 years ago.

She then tore up their passports—their father Ali al-Amin claims—and told him they weren’t coming back to Beirut, where he owns a surf shop.

So Nine’s crusaders do not have right all on their side.

But worse than that, they may not have been just innocent bystanders.

Quote:"60 Minutes crew detained in Beirut paid $120,000 to a child recovery agency which 'faked' success stories on Facebook and whose operators have been arrested around the world

— Daily Mail Australia, 7 April, 2016

Yes, the Daily Mail claimed last week that 60 Minutes actually put up the money for the failed abduction.

And the ABC’s Matt Brown reports that one of the child snatchers has allegedly repeated this claim to the Lebanese police.

Quote:"Authorities say they now have a signed statement from a member of the "recovery team" who says Nine paid $115,000 for the operation.

— ABC Online, 9 April, 2016

If 60 Minutes did conspire to organise a crime on foreign soil, then Tara Brown and Stephen Rice may be in serious trouble.

Not least because the recovery team has a record of breaking the law, as the Daily Mail revealed:

Quote:"Former British police officer Adam Whittington, who runs Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI) and who is reportedly under police arrest in Beirut along with 60 Minutes' Tara Brown and her crew, was jailed in Singapore 18 months ago over a child abduction case.

Another CARI operative, Kevin Critchley, is currently in a Peruvian prison following the alleged kidnap of a five-year-old girl in Lima last month.

— Daily Mail Australia, 7 April, 2016

We asked Nine whether they did pay the snatch team, or paid Sally Faulkner so she could hire them, but they declined to comment.

Odd that they don’t deny it.

Meanwhile, father Ali al-Amin has told the Guardian’s reporter in Lebanon that he was warned the abduction was coming.

Quote:"He said he had access to his wife’s emails until last December, and had taken screenshots of emails discussing the outlines of the plan, which allowed local police to identify the suspects ...

— The Guardian, 9 April, 2016

al-Amin told the ABC that the emails he has seen do not implicate 60 Minutes, but he still reserved his fiercest comments for them.

Quote:" “To hire mercenaries to come and kidnap your kids? How horrible are you guys? You’re endangering everyone’s lives including my mother and the kids, for what? For a story?”

— The Guardian, 9 April, 2016

It’s widely expected that charges will be laid today.

And unless the Australian government can work some diplomatic magic, it seems likely Tara Brown and Stephen Rice will be among them. At least, that’s the implication of this report in Lebanon’s Daily Star , which shows two happy-looking children, back with their father.

Quote:Seven to be charged in child abduction case

— Daily Star, 9 April, 2016

If 60 Minutes did effectively pay for the abduction of those two children—and that will be for a court to decide—they have behaved disgracefully. And whoever authorised it should be sacked.

Just imagine for one moment that it was a Lebanese TV crew doing that on an Australian street. Would anyone line up to defend them then?

(There are hyperlinks to the supporting articles or websites for these contentions, but I skipped them - click on the link if you want to find them.)

And there are some stories circulating right now suggesting that when the recovery was botched, she went and approached the abductionists' chief rival, proudly saying that 60 Minutes would foot the bill if they could go in.

Let's be clear: child abduction is no small thing. But as Tara and friends are now learning: white knighting doesn't solve shit, and sometimes it blows up in your face. Especially if, as Media Watch is implying, the mother abducted the kids by keeping them in Australia.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

And one of the comments on the article (per 'brigitte') has a chilling ring to it:

Quote:Agree the whole kid snatch via 60 minutes is reprehensible. Sarah Faulkner chose a vile way to resume contact with her kids.She could of come to an arrangement with the kids father to live in Lebanon and have regular access that the father would have agreed to as well as probably assist financing her.Oh forgot she'd already found a new chap and has 4mth old baby. A baby she had no probs leaving behind, but she might not been at all prepared to leave a new chappie hehind.Looks like new chap is glad she's gone and will split too with the baby seeing her true nature.He and family are going really great without Sarah going by his reports. .Entitled selfie publicity seeker insightlessly thinks playing at being a fun mum is all there is to parenting.No concept of stability and security or avoiding traumatising kids.or importance of keeping kids safe. Any short cut to get kids to fit her current whims.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #2

Today is a good day!

Post: #3

On the bright side, they can start a new episode of Banged Up (Locked Up) Abroad.

Post: #4

___

Post: #5

The level of white knighting for women in Western countries always surprises me. They wouldn't even consider doing half of this for a man, and funnily enough I knew a guy who lost his 2 kids to a women and she moved to Turkey, never to be seen again.

Post: #6

Don't they know what happens when you mess with a father's daughter? Memes are becoming real.

Quote:Tara Brown and a 60 Minutes crew have appeared in a Lebanese court over a botched child recovery mission in the capital Beirut. Brown, senior producer Stephen Rice, camera man Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment are facing four separate charges, including kidnapping, causing harm and not respecting local authority.

"You done goofed."

Quote:But it was from his house that internal security forces recaptured the children after their father established contact with his estranged wife, which police were able to trace.

"Because I back-traced it! You've been reported to they cyber and state police!"

Quote:Brown, senior producer Stephen Rice, camera man Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment are facing four separate charges, including kidnapping, causing harm and not respecting local authority. All the accused were put before the judge one-by-one to answer the kidnap claims, which carry between three years and life.

"Consequences will never be the same."

Post: #7

There is a god.

Post: #8

Did they really clock an old grandma over the head to do a snatch and grab?

I think they all deserve 3 years minimum for that shit.

Aussies are the biggest white knights i've ever seen these days.

The general thirst and state of culture decay into radical far leftist ideology lends to this sort of debacle.

The idea of meatheads participating in this for some supposedly "oppressed" sheila is all you need to know at how completely simp like the mentality is.

Post: #9

Where is the pic of Tara?

Post: #10

Tara, as taken from the 60 Minutes official website. WNB.

Post: #11

I hope the white knights stay in jail for some time. This behaviour has to be curtailed and it should start somewhere.

Post: #12

Hilarious, if the genders of the parents were reversed they wouldnt have even considered their little mission.

Post: #13

If the media does not dole out justice...?
Then who will...?
Who will...?

Post: #14

This same story has happened so many times in the last 10 years I've lost count.

Nothing the Australian leftard media like more is a bleeding heart story of a mother separated from her children.

Involve a female and children and you have your Sunday 60 minutes lead story that becomes water cooler conversation among the quacking old ducks in the office Monday morning while they sip their 3rd caramel skinny latte for the day wondering why men are such pigs.

Post: #15

^
Heh.
Did you just call the Arabic men that conduct such acts pigs?

& is that halal certified pig or not?

Post: #16

If there was half a reporter between them, they might have done some research before going to Lebanon to kidnap a child.



But being Australian, I'm fairly sure they just said "Awwwh, the guy who works in the kebab shop downstairs is a good guy. So I'm sure that we will be sweet no matter what happens. It would be racist to assume otherwise!".

Post: #17

(04-13-2016 01:02 AM)spalex Wrote:  If there was half a reporter between them, they might have done some research before going to Lebanon to kidnap a child.

But being Australian, I'm fairly sure they just said "Awwwh, the guy who works in the kebab shop downstairs is a good guy. So I'm sure that we will be sweet no matter what happens. It would be racist to assume otherwise!".

That's perhaps one of the most ironic elements of many Australians.
For a people who conduct so much travel to so many places abroad,
they largely retain such naivety as to how the world really works or how foreigners behave...

Cause like, it's 2016. It's the current year...

Post: #18

Brilliant.

The conduct of Channel 9 has been questionable for years. Maybe this leads to its downfall?

Post: #19

They forgot (or just ignored) a founding pillar of journalism; "Report the news, don't make the news".

They also seemed to have forgotten to not aid in a kidnapping as it's illegal.

You play stupid games you get stupid prizes. Not a shred of sympathy in sight.

Post: #20

^
I'm sure somewhere, Schapelle Corby is having a slight chuckle.

Post: #21

The mother has another kid with another guy back home in Australia. I bet this guy is relieved he now does not have to care for 2 children that aren't his.

Post: #22

60 Minutes: Mother pleads with husband to drop Lebanon child abduction charges in exchange for custody

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-15/60...dy/7328396


Owned. Rare sight of a woman BEGGING for her children even with the court system fully on her side. She wants to give him sole custody in Australia so she will be allowed some visitation rights.

Post: #23

(04-14-2016 06:57 PM)[email protected] Wrote:  60 Minutes: Mother pleads with husband to drop Lebanon child abduction charges in exchange for custody

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-15/60...dy/7328396


Owned. Rare sight of a woman BEGGING for her children even with the court system fully on her side. She wants to give him sole custody in Australia so she will be allowed some visitation rights.

In Lebanon she doesn't have the court system fully on her side. That's why she's down to begging and turning on the tears.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #24

(04-13-2016 07:55 AM)[email protected] Wrote:  The mother has another kid with another guy back home in Australia. I bet this guy is relieved he now does not have to care for 2 children that aren't his.

Now he has to deal with an even more insane situation. Either she is imprisoned, which I would be cool with since you can't disrespect the rules of a country or comes back a nutjob. After prison, she will be a nutjob also. And this is to add on to the fact she was probably nutty from the beginning.

It is the arrogance of Western people sometimes that gets them in so much trouble. Maybe arrogance isn't the word, righteousness. When people think they are in the absolute right, they feel they can justify anything.

I am always cautious of those that are righteous and think they can do whatever.

Post: #25

(04-14-2016 10:17 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(04-13-2016 07:55 AM)[email protected] Wrote:  The mother has another kid with another guy back home in Australia. I bet this guy is relieved he now does not have to care for 2 children that aren't his.

Now he has to deal with an even more insane situation. Either she is imprisoned, which I would be cool with since you can't disrespect the rules of a country or comes back a nutjob. After prison, she will be a nutjob also. And this is to add on to the fact she was probably nutty from the beginning.

It is the arrogance of Western people sometimes that gets them in so much trouble. Maybe arrogance isn't the word, righteousness. When people think they are in the absolute right, they feel they can justify anything.

I am always cautious of those that are righteous.

There were some discussions for a plead-out if she gives up custody of the kids in return for release. It'll get hilarious if she cops the deal and goes flying home to Australia with her arse on fire but the 60 Minutes crew gets all principled and gets five years.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm