In which Australian PM Tony Abbott realises how many times he embarrassed himself and prepares excuses for non-attendance at future Davos forums

AFTER a flying three-day visit to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps, Tony Abbott believes the Prime Minister of Australia should attend such conferences but not all of them and not every year. As the chair of the G20 this year, the world leaders' premier economic forum, the Prime Minister attended the World Economic Forum for three days with 2500 delegates, 40 world leaders and scores of chief executives for the world's biggest corporations. [The Australian, Dennis Shanahan In Davos, 25 January 2014]

Abbott reveals his grasp of international affairs

Video evidence of Abbott's poor sense of geography: http://youtu.be/o5QWqmrh47E

A blast from the past

The Beeb in the 1970’s:

BBC TRANSCRIPT TO BE USED IN WAKE OF NUCLEAR ATTACK

This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes.

Remember there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you could be exposing yourselves to greater danger.

If you leave, you may find yourself without food, without water, without accommodation and without protection. Radioactive fall-out, which follows a nuclear explosion, is many times more dangerous if you are directly exposed to it in the open. Roofs and walls offer substantial protection. The safest place is indoors.

Make sure gas and other fuel supplies are turned off and that all fires are extinguished. If mains water is available, this can be used for fire-fighting.

You should also refill all your containers for drinking water after the fires have been put out, because the mains water supply may not be available for very long.

Water must not be used for flushing lavatories: until you are told that lavatories may be used again, other toilet arrangements must be made. Use your water only for essential drinking and cooking purposes. Water means life. Don't waste it.

Make your food stocks last: ration your supply, because it may have to last for 14 days or more. If you have fresh food in the house, use this first to avoid wasting it: food in tins will keep.

If you live in an area where a fall-out warning has been given, stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out. When the immediate danger has passed the sirens will sound a steady note. The "all clear" message will also be given on this wavelength. If you leave the fall-out room to go to the lavatory or replenish food or water supplies, do not remain outside the room for a minute longer than is necessary.

Do not, in any circumstances, go outside the house. Radioactive fall-out can kill. You cannot see it or feel it, but it is there. If you go outside, you will bring danger to your family and you may die. Stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out or you hear the "all clear" on the sirens.

Here are the main points again:

Stay in your own homes, and if you live in an area where a fall-out warning has been given stay in your fall-out room, until you are told it is safe to come out. The message that the immediate danger has passed will be given by the sirens and repeated on this wavelength. Make sure that the gas and all fuel supplies are turned off and that all fires are extinguished.

Water must be rationed, and used only for essential drinking and cooking purposes. It must not be used for flushing lavatories. Ration your food supply: it may have to last for 14 days or more.

We shall repeat this broadcast in two hours' time. Stay tuned to this wavelength, but switch your radios off now to save your batteries until we come on the air again. That is the end of this broadcast.

70th Anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin 1942 - revisionism run wild

Let’s get real folks – all these glowing media reports on the 70^th anniversary of the first Japanese bombing of Darwin are so distorted that they bear little relation to the 1942 reality.

Yes, there was an attempt to defend this northern city and some of it could be described as ranging from brave to heroic. Yes, the entire subject was censored at the time and not all eyewitness records are in the same place.

BUT. The was also widespread NT Government, civilian, Australian and American defence forces panic, with a good many fleeing without authorisation to the Adelaide River (some servicemen getting as far as southern cities) in a rout wryly described at the time as The Adelaide River Stakes.

There was looting by civilians and servicemen and in at least one case a cruelly racist response to Aboriginal casualties.

So let’s be adult about this and truly Aussie on the first national day of observance – reject the historical revisionism currently doing the rounds in the meeja.
You can start with Charlie Lowe's March 1942 first report in the official investigation and go on from there.

Pic from ABC News

Doomsday is a minute closer now according to atomic scientists

Doomsday Clock moves to five minutes to midnight

10 January 2012

It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.

Nuclear disarmament

Despite the promise of a new spirit of international cooperation, and reductions in tensions between the United States and Russia, the Science and Security Board believes that the path toward a world free of nuclear weapons is not at all clear, and leadership is failing. The ratification in December 2010 of the New START treaty between Russia and the United States reversed the previous drift in US-Russia nuclear relations. However, failure to act on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by leaders in the United States, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, and North Korea and on a treaty to cut off production of nuclear weapons material continues to leave the world at risk from continued development of nuclear weapons. The world still has approximately 19,500 nuclear weapons, enough power to destroy the Earth's inhabitants several times over. The Nuclear Security Summit of 2010 shone a spotlight on securing all nuclear fissile material, but few actions have been taken. The result is that it is still possible for radical groups to acquire and use highly enriched uranium and plutonium to wreak havoc in nuclear attacks.

Obstacles to a world free of nuclear weapons remain. Among these are disagreements between the United States and Russia about the utility and purposes of missile defense, as well as insufficient transparency, planning, and cooperation among the nine nuclear weapons states to support a continuing drawdown. The resulting distrust leads nearly all nuclear weapons states to hedge their bets by modernizing their nuclear arsenals. While governments claim they are only ensuring the safety of their warheads through replacement of bomb components and launch systems, as the deliberate process of arms reduction proceeds, such developments appear to other states to be signs of substantial military build-ups.

The Science and Security Board also reviewed progress in meeting the challenges of nuclear weapons proliferation. Ambiguity about Iran's nuclear power program continues to be the most prominent example of this unsolved problem — centrifuges can enrich uranium for both civilian power plants and military weapons. It remains to be seen how many additional countries will pursue nuclear power, but without solutions to the dual-use problem and without incentives sufficient to resist military applications, the world is playing with the explosive potential of a million suns and a fire that will not go out.

The potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and particularly in South Asia is also alarming. Ongoing efforts to ease tensions, deal with extremism and terrorist acts, and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in international relations have had only halting success. Yet we believe that international diplomatic pressure as well as burgeoning citizen action will help political leaders to see the folly of continuing to rely on nuclear weapons for national security.

Nuclear energy

In light of over 60 years of improving reactor designs and developing nuclear fission for safer power production, it is disheartening that the world has suffered another calamitous accident. Given this history, the Fukushima disaster raised significant questions that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board believe must be addressed. Safer nuclear reactor designs need to be developed and built, and more stringent oversight, training, and attention are needed to prevent future disasters. A major question to be addressed is: How can complex systems like nuclear power stations be made less susceptible to accidents and errors in judgment?

Climate change

In fact, the global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth's atmosphere. The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification. Since fossil-fuel burning power plants and infrastructure built in 2012-2020 will produce energy — and emissions — for 40 to 50 years, the actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be impossible to redirect. Even if policy leaders decide in the future to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting technologies, it will be too late.

Among the existing alternatives for producing base-load electricity with low carbon dioxide emissions is nuclear power. Russia, China, India, and South Korea will likely continue to construct plants, enrich fuel, and shape the global nuclear power industry.
Countries that had earlier signaled interest in building nuclear power capacity, such as Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and others, are still intent on acquiring civilian nuclear reactors for electricity despite the Fukushima disaster. However, a number of countries have renounced nuclear power, including Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. In Japan, only eight of 54 power plants currently operate because prefecture governors, responding to people's opposition to nuclear power, have not allowed reactors back online. In the United States, increased costs of additional safety measures may make nuclear power too expensive to be a realistic alternative to natural gas and other fossil fuels.

The hopeful news is that alternatives to burning coal, oil, and uranium for energy continue to show promise. Solar and photovoltaic technologies are seeing reductions in price, wind turbines are being adopted for commercial electricity, and energy conservation and efficiency are becoming accepted as sources for industrial production and residential use. Many of these developments are taking place at municipal and local levels in countries around the world. In Haiti, for example, a nonprofit group is distributing solar-powered light bulbs to the poor. In Germany, a smart electrical grid is shifting solar-generated power to cloudy regions and wind power to becalmed areas. And in California, government is placing caps on carbon emissions that industry will meet. While not perfect, these technologies and practices hold substantial promise.

Yet, we are very concerned that the pace of change may not be adequate and that the transformation that seems to be on its way will not take place in time to meet the hardships that large-scale disruption of the climate portends. As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity's survival in the 21st century is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, without exposing people to loss of health and community, and without risking further spread of nuclear weapons.

The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges. The political processes in place seem wholly inadequate to meet the challenges to human existence that we confront.

As such, the Science and Security Board is heartened by the Arab Spring, the Occupy movements, political protests in Russia, and by the actions of ordinary citizens in Japan as they call for fair treatment and attention to their needs. Whether meeting the challenges of nuclear power, or mitigating the suffering from human-caused global warming, or preventing catastrophic nuclear conflict in a volatile world, the power of people is essential. For this reason, we ask other scientists and experts to join us in engaging ordinary citizens. Together, we can present the most significant questions to policymakers and industry leaders. Most important, we can demand answers and action. As the first atomic scientists of the Bulletin recognized in 1948, the burden of disseminating information about the social and economic "implications of nuclear energy and other new scientific developments rests with the intelligent citizens of the world; the intense and continuing cooperation of the scientists is assured."

Few of the Bulletin's recommendations of 2010 have been taken up; they still require urgent attention if we are to avert catastrophe from nuclear weapons and global warming. At a minimum these include:

• Ratification by the United States and China of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and progress on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty;
• Implementing multinational management of the civilian nuclear energy fuel cycle with strict standards for safety, security, and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, including eliminating reprocessing for plutonium separation;
• Strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency's capacity to oversee nuclear materials, technology development, and its transfer;
• Adopting and fulfilling climate change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through tax incentives, harmonized domestic regulation and practice;
• Transforming the coal power sector of the world economy to retire older plants and to require in new plants the capture and storage of the CO2 they produce;
• Vastly increasing public and private investments in alternatives to carbon emitting energy sources, such as solar and wind, and in technologies for energy storage, and sharing the results worldwide.

The Clock is ticking.

Science and Security Board, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Editor's note: The audio recording of the January 10, 2012 news event can be found here.

DOE V RUMSFELD 2011: a sweet smell of karma is in the air

According to a Government Accountability Project media release on 3 August 2011:

Yesterday, a federal court in Washington, DC upheld the validity of a constitutional rights claim against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for his role in the torturing and illegal imprisonment of a U.S. citizen who was working as a translator in Iraq.

At LongIslandPress on 4 August:

Lawyers for the man, who is in his 50s, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.

Court papers filed on his behalf say he was repeatedly abused, then suddenly released without explanation in August 2006. Two years later, he filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that Rumsfeld personally approved torturous interrogation techniques on a case-by-case basis and controlled his detention without access to courts in violation of his constitutional rights.

Excerpts from a U.S District Court (District of Columbia) Order and Opinion dated 2 August 2011 in the matter of John Doe v Donald Rumsfeld et al:

In this challenge to the conditions of and procedures used in detaining an American citizen at a United States military compound in Iraq, Plaintiff John Doe sues former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, other high-ranking United States government officials, and several unidentified United States officials and agents. He alleges multiple constitutional violations in his seizure and detention…..

Doe also sues Defendants Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, Robert S. Mueller III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Alan Bersin, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, and John Morton, Assistant Secretary of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in their official capacities, to secure the return of the property seized upon his detention and for alleged violations of his right to travel.

Finally, Doe brings claims against unidentified officers or agents of the United States, alleging:

(1) false arrest,

(2) unlawful detention and conditions of confinement,

(3) torturous and unlawful interrogation,

(4) denial of the right to counsel and the right to confront adverse witnesses,

(5) denial of the right to present witnesses and to have exculpatory evidence disclosed,

(6) denial of access to courts and to petition,

(7) blacklisting, and
(8) conspiracy……

The Court finds, however, that Doe had a constitutional right to be free from conduct and conditions of confinement that shock the conscience, that such right was clearly established at the time of Rumsfeld's conduct, and that Doe has pleaded factual allegations sufficient to support a claim that Rumsfeld's conduct violated this clearly-established right. Accordingly, Rumsfeld’s qualified immunity defense to Doe’s substantive due process claim fails…..

The Court thus finds, under the circumstances alleged, that a reasonable federal official would have understood conscience-shocking physical and psychological mistreatment—including temperature, sleep, food, and light manipulation—of a United States citizen detainee to violate the detainee’s constitutional right to substantive due process. Accordingly, Rumsfeld is not entitled to qualified immunity from Doe’s substantive due process claim…..

..the Court DENIES Rumsfeld’s motion to dismiss Doe’s substantive due process claim. The Court GRANTS Defendant Rumsfeld’s motion to dismiss Doe’s procedural due process and access to courts claims.

The Court further GRANTS the government’s motion to dismiss Doe’s return of seized property claim; the Court permits Doe leave to amend his complaint if he can plead, in good faith, factual allegations supporting a reasonable inference that the government’s refusal to return his property was a “final agency action.”

Finally, the Court DENIES the government’s motion for a more definite statement of Doe’s right to travel claim.

Potted History: Australia 1966 - 'very well and cunningly devised'

Correspondence between W.C. "Billy" Wentworth MP and Minister for External Affairs Paul Hasluck concerning censorship in July 1966 - four years after Australia's involvement in Viet Nam began and one year after Prime Minister Menzies formally committed Australian troops at battalion strength to the Viet Nam War.
[Digital images from the Australian National Archives,Communism - Control of Communist Propaganda in Australia - Vietnam War]

Click on images to enlarge

Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan

Sometimes it seems that our imperialist overlords never learn.

Der Speigel Online 21^st March 2011:
“The suspected perpetrators are part of a group of US soldiers accused of several killings. Their court martials are expected to start soon. The photos, the army statement said, stand "in stark contrast to the discipline, professionalism and respect that have characterized our soldiers' performance during nearly 10 years of sustained operations."

Wall Street Journal 22nd March 2011:
“A soldier being court-martialed on a U.S. Army base near Seattle for the murder of three Afghan civilians has agreed to plead guilty Wednesday in hopes of earning a reduced sentence, according to one of the attorneys handling his case. "My client is admitting on the record to three counts of murder, plus one count of conspiracy to commit assault and battery and one count of illegal drug use," said Geoffrey Nathan, a lawyer….
12 soldiers charged with an array of offenses stemming from an incident last year when the Army says three Afghan civilians were murdered by members of the 5th Stryker Brigade operating in the Maiwand district of Kandahar Province.

And sometimes grandsons of Anzacs thinks it's macho to ape the attitude of these racist brutal overloads.

Canberra Times 25th March 2011:

"Controversial Facebook posts which label Afghans as ''sand niggaz'' and ''dune coons'' have prompted an urgent ADF investigation that could result in some soldiers being sacked."

Daily Telegraph 25th March 2011:

"I'm in Afghan ... now. running over c---- yeeha." "dune coons, sand niggaz. f--- em all".

This is the true face of the Coalition of the Willing. Is there no end to our national shame?

Tony Blair is coming to Australia and he wants to hold an audience.....

In July 2011 former British prime Minister and alleged war criminal Tony Blair is coming to Australia to do a little revenue raising in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth.

Wonder who will actually admit to paying these prices to meet him or which Australian corporations (besides Visy) might actually believe that being associated with this man will enhance business reputations?
Will someone try to claim Monbiot's bounty by performing a peaceful citizen's arrest?

An Audience With Tony Blair: Lessons in Leadership, Negotiation and Innovation

TICKET PRICES

$1,000 per person
Ticket includes a full sit down banquet meal and attendance at the pre-event cocktail party

$10,000 per Table of Ten
Tables of ten include a full sit down banquet meal and attendance at the pre-event cocktail party

$1,500 VIP Ticket
Includes a seat at one of "the best tables in the house", one ticket to private pre-event "meet and greet" cocktail party and individual photograph with Tony Blair

$15,000 VIP Table of Ten
Includes "the best seats in the house" table of ten, ten tickets to private
pre-event "meet and greet" cocktail party and individual one photograph
with Tony Blair, full page advertisement in the program, logo recognition in the program and on the screens at the event

"Sh* t happens": Did Tony Abbott just illustrate a lesson never learnt from Viet Nam?

With Tony Abbott’s relaxed and laid back “sh*t happens” reassurance to Colonel Jim Creighton (US sector commander directing military operations in which Australian troops were deployed) making the news recently, one has to wonder if the explanation he so easily accepted that fire support of Australian troops was “more than adequate” should have been explored further.

Given that the American penchant for fudging facts has apparently survived intact beyond the Viet Nam debacle (a war which blundered on from the early 1960s to 1975) and now allegedly rears its head again in Afghanistan in this decade.

The US Center for Public Integrity on 6 February 2011 stated that an investigation found that Civil Affairs reservists tasked with winning the hearts and minds of locals have died disproportionately in Afghanistan and Iraq. The statistics offer a grim picture. Though these soldiers only make up about 5 percent of the Army’s reserve forces, they account for 23 percent of the combat fatalities among reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also found that generals in the field, unable to obtain sufficient Civil Affairs units, sent reservists into harm’s way without hardened vehicles, protective plates for their armored vests, and machine guns. Further, the Army inflated the number of active-duty Civil Affairs soldiers to give Congress the appearance of a fully-staffed division.

According to U.S. Government Assange not a journalist or a whistleblower, but a biased anarchic political actor with an 'agenda'

There is an awful fascination in watching a geo-political giant set out to eliminate one individual and website from any visible presence in cyberspace.

The fascination is heightened by the fact that Julian Assange was born in Townsville, Australia and spent some of his primary school years living in the NSW Northern Rivers region at Lismore.

The latest censorship effort resulted in the whistleblower website losing its U.S. domain name according to an Associated Press report.

In what may be considered the first World Wide Web information war, www.wikileaks.org appears to only be available in Google Cache at the time of writing.

However, this is cyberspace we are talking about and Wikileaks can now be accessed at http://88.80.13.160/ and Cablegate specifically at http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html. While Wikileaks at Twitter is at http://twitter.com/wikileaks.

From the daily press briefing at the U.S. Department of State on 2 December 2010:

QUESTION: From your perspective, what is WikiLeaks? How do you define them, if it is not a media organization, then?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, as the Secretary said earlier this week, it is – one might infer it has many characteristics of some internet sites. Not every internet site you would call a media organization or a news organization. We’re focused on WikiLeaks’s behavior, and I have had personally conversations with media outlets that are reporting on this, and we have had the opportunity to express our specific concerns about intelligence sources and methods and other interests that could put real lives at risk.

Mr. Assange, in a letter to our Ambassador in the United Kingdom over the weekend, after documents had been released to news organizations, made what we thought was a halfhearted gesture to have some sort of conversation, but that was after he released the documents and after he knew that they were going to emerge publicly. So I think there’s been a very different approach. And Mr. Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities, and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him as being considered a journalist.

QUESTION: What is his political objective?

QUESTION: The same letter --

MR. CROWLEY: Hmm?

QUESTION: What is his political objective?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, his – I mean he could be considered a political actor. I think he’s an anarchist, but he’s not a journalist.

QUESTION: So his objective is to sow chaos, you mean?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, you all come here prepared to objectively report the activities of the United States Government. I think that Mr. Assange doesn’t meet that particular standard.

QUESTION: But just so I understand, P.J., what – I mean you just said the – that you thought he was --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, but I mean – let me – he’s not a journalist. He’s not a whistleblower. And there – he is a political actor. He has a political agenda. He is trying to undermine the international system of -- that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments and to work in multilateral settings and on a bilateral basis to help solve regional and international issues.

What he’s doing is damaging to our efforts and the efforts of other governments. They are putting at risk our national interest and the interests of other governments around the world. He is not an objective observer of anything. He is an active player. He has an agenda. He’s trying to pursue that agenda, and I don’t think he can – he can’t qualify as either a journalist on the one hand or a whistleblower on the other.

QUESTION: Sorry. What is that agenda, that political agenda? Can you be more --

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll leave it for Mr. Assange to define his agenda. He has been interviewed by some of your news organizations. He has the ability to talk for himself. But you asked -- I was asked a specific question, “Do we consider him a journalist?” The answer is no.

* In an allegedly unrelated matter Interpol released this:

_____________________________________________

Sweden authorizes INTERPOL to make public Red Notice for WikiLeaks founder

---

ASSANGE Julian Paul

LYON, France - INTERPOL has made public the Red Notice, or international wanted persons alert, for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the request of Swedish authorities who want to question him in connection with a number of sexual offences.

The Red Notice for the 39-year-old Australian, which was issued to law enforcement in all 188 INTERPOL member countries on 20 November, has now been made publicly available by INTERPOL following official authorization by Sweden.

All INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) have also been advised to ensure that their border control agencies are made aware of Assange's Red Notice status, which is a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view to their provisional arrest and extradition.

Many of INTERPOL's member countries however, consider a Red Notice a valid request for provisional arrest, especially if they are linked to the requesting country via a bilateral extradition treaty. In cases where arrests are made based on a Red Notice, these are made by national police officials in INTERPOL member countries.

INTERPOL cannot demand that any member country arrests the subject of a Red Notice. Any individual wanted for arrest should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

___________________________________________________

UPDATE:

Wikileaks now has a Torrent download of its 1.38GiB Cablegate file at:

http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/5723136/WikiLeaks_insurance.5723136.TPB.torrent

Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month: Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget
Field of poppies in France

Die a wrongful death in Oz and you're worth something, die in Afghanistan and.....

The Herald-Sun yesterday:
"THE going rate for a life in Afghanistan's war is about $US1200 ($1230).
That's the figure the Defence Department and Federal Government are secretly paying to civilian casualties of war.
Australian soldiers paid $US10,200 to compensate for the lives of six civilians, five of them children, accidentally killed in a night raid just north of the Tarin Kowt base on February 12 last year."
While here in Australia:
"A Woolworths employee who injured his lower back while lifting a tub of meat has won a compensation payout of more than $82,000."
and
"CHRIS Hurley - the policeman acquitted of manslaughter over a Palm Island death in custody, only to face a civil claim from the victim's family - received a confidential $100,000 payment from the Queensland Government after the incident."
and again
"In August 2005, Mr Yousefi lodged a claim in the Supreme Court of NSW for compensation due to permanent psychiatric damage suffered as a result of his experiences in detention. He was awarded $800,000 compensation for wages, and lifelong medical care. As a result of his ordeal in detention, Mr Yousefi could never work again and would require medical care for the rest of his life."
and again
"The widow and four children of Mr Ward, whose first name cannot be published for cultural reasons, will receive a total $3.2 million as an ex-gratia payment from the state government for his death.
It includes an earlier $200,000 interim payment.
Mr Ward, 46, of Warburton, died in January 2008 while being transported 360 kilometres from Laverton to Kalgoorlie to face a drink-driving charge."
and yet again
"Andrew Mallard has been offered a $3.25 million compensation payment by the WA Government after being wrongfully jailed for 12 years over the 1994 murder of Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence.
The ex-gratia figure includes an earlier payment of $200,000 that Mr Mallard received in December 2006."
What's wrong with this word picture?
Well it seems that compensation for death, injury or loss suffered at the hands of Australian governments or corporations is worth more if it actually occurs within national boundaries. Heck, even a person allegedly responsible for a death gets the moola.
On the other hand - if a life is wrongfully taken in Afghanistan then it's only chump change which will be handed out by the Federal Government.

Personal political perspectives debating the Afghanistan War

Statements made by Federal MPs with electorates on the NSW North Coast, during the Afghanistan War debate in the Australian House of Representatives.

Janelle Saffin, Member for Page [Hansard, 26 October 2010]

I also have had a conversation with a constituent who is the mother of a serving soldier in Afghanistan, and she feels quite passionate about it. She talked to me about when we will be able to leave and things like that, but at the same time she wants us there and wants the job well done. There is a conflict around it. Like a lot of members, I have been contacted by a whole range of groups from around the country, particularly social justice groups. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, ACFID, the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Pax Christi, Jason Thomas, who is a commentator, and all sorts of people and organisations have contacted us.

My local newspapers have been talking about the issue. There was an editorial in the Daily Examiner by David Bancroft, the editor, with the headline 'Keeping the Peace'. I would like to put on record the last two sentences from an article that Chris Masters wrote:

There is no question that our soldiers should leave Afghanistan, and leave sooner rather than later. But only once the job is done.

That is the overwhelming feeling that comes from the community. That is the commitment of the government and the opposition and the message of most of the comments that have been made in this place.

There is currently talk about whether or not we should talk with the Taliban. My information and experience leads me to the view that we always have to talk to those that we seek to make peace with in some way, whether that be through military or other means. But it should always be done strategically, for some sort of strategic advantage. The Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan was toppled in 2002, but the Taliban are certainly a part of life in Afghanistan. There has been quite a lot of commentary about that recently. I always remember very well what the wonderful President Nelson Mandela said: ‘We don’t make peace with our friends.’ We make it, obviously, with our enemies.

Rob Oakeshott, Member for Lyne [Hansard 21 October 2010]

We have now found ourselves in one hell of a bind. If we leave, like when the 120,000 Russian troops left in 1989, there will be a void. There will be civil unrest and there will be blood. The bad elements of the Taliban would push back and potentially again gain control. The implications for being a 'base for terrorist groups' would potentially re-emerge. On the upside if we leave, however, our 1,550 Australian troops are safe, our tight budget has less strain and our ability to engage on both domestic and regional defence matters arguably increases. Importantly, we must also recognise that article 4 of the ANZUS treaty would be tested if we left.

Compare this with our military staying; there would be more Australian deaths and wounded. The 'base for terrorism' would continue to move to alternative locations such as Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, several Asian hot spots and even into locations such as London. We would continue to work on peace and reconstruction, with gun in hand—'shoot and talk' as General Petraeus recently put it—and we would continue the work of clear, hold and build for at least another 10 years.

Importantly, however, if we are operating in Australia's sovereign interests, we have to leave sometime and we cannot delay the inevitable void that will follow—not now nor in 10 years time. It is this issue—the one called Australia's sovereign interests—that should be central to this debate. We will leave sometime so that we do not spend another $6.1 billion on questionable return. We will leave sometime so we do not continue to lose Australian soldiers for a corrupt regime. We will have to at some point accept a lesser democracy than ours and we will have to at some time recalibrate to focus on our international obligations to our region, to the many challenges that religious extremism and terrorism pose and to what we can and should be doing to develop peace and development in our own region.

Luke Hartsuyker, Member for Cowper

Has not yet risen to his feet in the Afghanistan War debate in the House of Representatives, according to Open Australia records.

Justine Elliott, Member for Richmond

Has not yet risen to her feet in the Afghanistan War debate in the House of Representatives, according to Open Australia records.

Around the traps in the last few days.....

A bit of free promotion APN didn't need?
With the euthanasia debate heating up, I was amused to see that APN Outdoor received a bit of free promotion on the nightly news last week after one of its outdoor billboards advertising in Yagoona ran a large advert promoting the pro-choice position. Probably won't please the bishops.

Fine print on the back of that NBN envelope?
NATIONAL Broadband Network users will not be able to use their telephones in a power failure unless they pay for a back-up system.
Telstra copper lines will be replaced by NBN fibre as part of the $11 billion deal with the federal government.
NBN Co has a hands-off approach to ensuring lines will be available at all times.
Customers will rely on the fibre network for broadband and fixed telephone services. Each home and business will need a network termination unit for power.
The unit needs a standard 240 volt, 10 amp power outlet and without that it cannot work.
If the unit loses power, telephone lines will not work unless NBN users have a back-up battery system, an optional item under NBN Co guidelines.
The peak electrical body says NBN Co and the government must ensure service providers guarantee basic telephone services or people's lives could be in danger in emergencies.
The company says it will not supply, install or maintain the battery back-up. That means network users will have to purchase a back-up unit and battery, and ensure the unit is next to a power outlet.
Users must buy the back-up unit from their NBN service provider. The 12V 7.2Ah sealed lead acid battery for the back-up costs about $50. {The Australian 22nd October 2010}

NSW water raiders using #agchatoz to tweet their displeasure....
nswirrigators: 464 pages of Volume Two of #basinplan just released online. Saving the environment by ruining a forest? http://tinyurl.com/3x4umuw #agchatoz
nswirrigators: 3.30pm on the day #basinplan volume two was meant to be released and nothing yet. These people do not learn... #agchatoz #abcrural

A victim of friendly fire
"This is a debate that Australians need to have about the future of banking, and the banks now are clearly ignoring the government," Mr Hockey has said. "The Australian people need to know where the banking system is going."....
Liberal MP Don Randall launched into a withering attack on Mr Hockey's suggestion, labelling a "typical lunatic fringe idea" from the Greens - until it was pointed out that it came from the Coalition's top money man. "It's really going to have a negative effect on our economy ... it's really a worry". {news.com.au 21st October 2010}

Ad astra takes on Tony
Take the attack on the Government by Tony Abbott over the contemporary court martial of three Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. In a particularly contemptible assault he accused the Government of ‘stabbing the soldiers in the back’ and not giving them the support they deserved, of abandoning these men fighting as they are for their country. It was a powerful and aggressive strike. Yet what did the mild-mannered Stephen Smith say? He said Abbott’s words were ‘unfortunate’. Too right they were, but in the hurly burley of politics, words hardly like to make headlines, hardly likely to effectively rebut the Abbott charges.
I would have preferred him to say to Abbott: “How dare you have the temerity to make such outrageous accusations. It was the Howard Government, in which you were a minister that created the process for such trials of servicemen thought to be in contravention of the rules of engagement, and it had bipartisan support from Labor. You know perfectly well that in this process Government has no part to play, nor have politicians or politics. You know that this Government wants the process YOU established to bring about a considered outcome and that it wishes to play no part in it. Yet you come along with this completely illegitimate accusation which you know is dishonest, in order to score political points. And you were only too willing to enlist Alan Jones to promulgate this deception, something he was only too ready to do. Worse still, you allowed him, without contradiction, to denigrate the female prosecutor for laying the charges, even although you knew that she was acting completely in accordance with the process the Howard Government established. How dare you behave in this disgracefully disingenuous way, cast aspersions on those involved, and the Government too, although it is NOT involved. This is worse even that the usual low standards of political discourse which you employ. You are a disgrace.” {The Political Sword 22nd October 2010}

Too much fiction in Pollieville, U.K.?
A BRITISH MP enraged her constituents and her party after letting slip that her blog, which tells people how hard she works, is "70 per cent fiction".
Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire in southern England, made the admission to investigators during a sleaze inquiry that cleared her of abusing the Government's expenses system but found that she misled voters. {news.com.au 22nd October 2010}

Abbott gave a reshuffle party and nobody came

Surely this14 September 2010 media release would have to heralded one of the quietest reshuffles in Coalition history:

The reshaped Coalition frontbench that I announce today is a strong and experienced team that will hold a weak Government to account. The new Shadow Ministry is a team with deep connections to the community, ensuring that we will continue to put forward practical policies that help Australian families get ahead.

There was little mention of this change to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's team of shadow spokespeople, but quite a few media observations on his attempt to censor video and photographs (below) and his ill-advised interview with Alan Jones.

Leaving one thankful that this man is not the Australian Prime Minister.

State sanctioned assassination: and you thought the world was scary enough as it is..........

Ever since the 11 September 2001 terrorists attacks in the United States of America started a global hysteria and two unlawful wars, the minds of Australian legislators and the legislation they enact have been quietly converging towards a point where they march in tandem with repressive excesses found in American law.

So this latest example of how insane the US Federal Administration has become is disturbing in the lead it gives Australian politicians of all political persuasions:

But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.

The legal arguments can be found at Scribd in Alaulaqi v Obama Complaint* and at FireDogLake in NASSER AL-AULAQI, on his own behalf and as next ) friend acting on behalf of ANWAR AL-AULAQI v. BARACK H. OBAMA, President of the United States; ROBERT M. GATES, Secretary of Defense; and LEON E. PANETTA, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency**:

* 4. Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. The summary use of force is lawful in these narrow circumstances only because the imminence of the threat makes judicial process infeasible. A targeted killing policy under which individuals are added to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and remain on these lists for months at a time plainly goes beyond the use of lethal force as a last resort to address imminent threats, and accordingly goes beyond what the Constitution and international law permit.
5. The government's refusal to disclose the standard by which it determines to target U.S. citizens for death independently violates the Constitution: U.S. citizens have a right to know what conduct may subject them to execution at the hands of their own government. Due process requires, at a minimum, that citizens be put on notice of what may cause them to be put to death by the state.
6. Plaintiff seeks a declaration from this Court that the Constitution and international law prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings outside of armed conflict except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury; and an injunction prohibiting the targeted killing of U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi outside this narrow context. Plaintiff also seeks an injunction requiring the government to disclose the standards under which it determines whether U.S. citizens can be targeted for death.

** This case is a paradigmatic example of one in which no part of the case can be litigated on the merits without immediately and irreparably risking disclosure of highly sensitive and classified national security information. The purpose of this lawsuit is to adjudicate the existence and lawfulness of alleged targeting decisions and to compel the disclosure of any "secret criteria" used to make those alleged determinations. Plaintiff's complaint alleges (i) that the United States has carried out "targeted killings" outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, Compl. ¶ 13, (ii) and has specifically targeted Anwar al-Aulaqi, Compl. ¶¶ 19-21, and, in particular, (iii) that Anwar al-Aulaqi is allegedly subject to the use of lethal force "without regard to whether, at the time lethal force will be used, he presents a concrete, specific, and imminent threat to life, or whether there are reasonable means short of lethal force that could be used to address any such threat." Compl. ¶ 23. At every turn, litigation of plaintiff's claims would risk or require the disclosure of highly sensitive and properly protected information to respond to allegations regarding purported secret operations and decision criteria. Even if some aspect of the underlying facts at issue had previously been officially disclosed, the Government's privilege assertions demonstrate that properly protected state secrets would remain intertwined in every step of the case, starting with an adjudication of the threshold issue of plaintiff's standing (i.e., whether or not there is an alleged "target list" which includes plaintiff's son, and whether he is being subjected to the threat of lethal force absent an imminent threat or a reasonable alternative to force), and the inherent risk of disclosures that would harm national security should be apparent from the outset.

The now retired Hon. Justice Michael Kirby's early words of caution have largely gone unheeded by successive federal and states attorneys-general in this country and, there is no guarantee that a Gillard Government would be anymore respectful of the human rights of citizen's than the Obama Government in America.

AUSTRALIAN LAW - AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, 11 October 2001:

It is impossible for Australian lawyers to collect in Canberra and to proceed in these next few days as if nothing has happened. It is impossible for us to see our Constitution as if it speaks only to Australia and Australians. It speaks of us to the world. It is impossible to pretend that the comfortable topics of the legal profession have the same priority as this moment. It is necessary for us to reflect upon the moment. But to do so keeping our priorities and viewing recent events in the context which our Constitution, our institutions, our law and our tradition of human rights demands that we take.....
In the course of a century, we, the lawyers of Australia, have made many errors. We have sometimes scorned those who, appearing for themselves, could not reach justice. We have gone along with unjust laws and procedures. We have been instruments of discrimination and it is still there in our books. We have not done enough for law reform. We have often been just too busy to repair every injustice. Yet in some critical moments, lawyers have upheld the best values of our pluralist democracy. In the future, we must keep it thus. To preserve liberty, we must preserve the rule of law. That is our justification and our challenge.

Monckton gets legal letter from university threatening to sue and then calls up flying monkeys

Viscount Monckton is not amused and this is the commentary which had him so hot under that ermine collar: Abraham presentation.
While this piece by his lordship is part of the reaon the University of St. Thomas is riled and threatening legal action {see above image}.

Watts Up With That has since published Monckton's call to the flying monkey brigade to make Abraham retract or the uni takedown the critique.

A spectacularly unsuccessful move on his part.

If you want to back the scientific view go to Support John Abraham.

Of course Monckton has troubles with his claims in other areas and the House of Lords has very firmly shot down his claim to be a non-voting member of the house here and here.

The sad fact of the matter is that his father was one of the Lords tossed out when the House was reformed and even though he is an hereditary peer the Lords themselves firmly rejected Monckton when he tried to join their numbers via Crossbench Hereditary Peers’ By-elections in 2008 and 2009.

About that war in Afghanistan.......

Photograph of Afghan war orphans from Flickr gallery

Remember when the media was full of concerns raised about the legitimacy of the war in Afghanistan and whether Australia should even be part of Operation Enduring Freedom or the War on Terror?

That debate appeared to die away over the years - now media and politicians barely mention the war except in terms of troop deployments or casualties. While as an election issue it is a non-event so far this year.

However, many ordinary Australians still hold to their views if the Essential Report on 21 June 2010 is any indication:

61% of respondents think Australia should withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, 24% think we should keep the same number and 7% think we should increase numbers. Support for withdrawal of troops has increased by 11% since this question was asked in March last year.
There was majority support for withdrawal of troops across all demographic groups and voter types. 55% of Liberal/National voters, 61% of Labor voters and 75% of Greens voters support withdrawal of Australia’s troops.

Click on image to enlarge

Round the online traps....

Unflattering pic of Tony Abbott alongside ABC News article about his
Budget Reply 13th May 2010

IanLoveridge: Missed the budget reply on purpose. I like my new TV and I didn't want to harm it!
Orcisano: Tony Abbot spent at least 35 minute of his budget reply attacking the government and praising the Howard government.
{Twitter 13th May 2010}

"Accused war criminal "Captain Dragan" Vasiljkovic spent the night in police custody last night in a Coffs Harbour police station after 43 days on the run."
{The Australian 13th May 2010}

"Electronic Frontiers Australia and Australian Privacy Foundation asking the company [Google] to clarify its reasons for collecting personal Wi-Fi network data from Australian homes."
{The Sydney Morning Herald 13th May 2010}

"For Australia's sake, we need to ban the bikini"
{En Passant 11th May 2010}

"Health authorities are warning of the dangers of eating slugs as a Sydney man battles a rare form of meningitis."
{ABC News 13th May 2010}

"Freud signed, but added in his own writing, "I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone."
{Jonathon Glover "Bits and Pieces"}

"THERE is good reason why the North Coast Area Health Service (NCAHS) doesn't want the public to read a report by an emergency medicine expert about the state of the Grafton and Maclean emergency departments (EDs).
Alleged shoddy clinical practices by certain GPs, bullying of nursing staff by senior Visiting Medical Officers (VMOs), bad relations with Coffs Harbour hospital's ED and a culture of overspending on unnecessary pathological tests are just a few of many inflammatory findings of the report."
{The Daily Examiner 7th May 2010}

"Six Things You Need to Know About Facebook Connections"
{Electronic Frontier Foundation 4th May 2010}

Google receives takedown request for multiple Blogspots offering "direct links to files containing soundrecordings for other users to download"
{Internet Anti-Piracy 14th April 2010}

"How Many Bad Assumptions Can You Make In A Single Article About Content Creation And Copyright?"
{Techdirt May 2010}

"A MAN has pleaded guilty over an armed siege at a Port Macquarie McDonald's restaurant last year."
{Port Macquarie News 14th April 2010}

A genetic test will be offered Friday at Walgreens drug stores, but the FDA warns that "consumers are putting themselves at risk if they use a test not approved" by the federal agency. The test, offered by Pathway Genomics, already is offered online. So are similar tests from other companies. The FDA has not previously intervened.
{WebMD 12th May 2010}

"Prominent economist Ross Garnaut says China has shown more leadership in tackling climate change than Australia."

{ABC News 13th May 2010}

Babies!

{Slate 7th May 2010}