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NEWS.com.au | Corby begs judges for freedom (25-03-2005)
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Football
From Baghdad to Sydney
By JOHN TAYLOR Soccer Writer
March 25, 2005
Daily Telegraph

THEY may not be the world's best footballers but they are certainly full of courage.

They are members of the Iraqi national team, who are in Sydney to play a one-off game against the Socceroos at Telstra Stadium tomorrow. Life hasn't been easy for these home-grown heroes who have been dodging bullets and living on a knife edge in war-torn Iraq.
Goalkeeper Wisam Gased has lost younger brother Hamid, who was shot two months ago. Wisam says he is still trying to come to terms with the loss.
But he said he can't thank Australia enough for allowing Iraq to play here. "Australia is like a second country to us," he said at a reception at NSW Government House yesterday.
Socceroo captain Craig Moore said: "We need to perform well against Iraq."
Full report in today's Daily Telegraph.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/25/2005 01:28:00 AM 3 comments

Corby on stand, states innocence
By Marian Carroll in Denpasar
March 24, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au

A TEARFUL Schapelle Corby took the stand at her drug smuggling trial in Bali today, saying she had no idea how a stash of marijuana got into her luggage.
The panel of three Indonesian judges hearing the case meanwhile gave the defence until April 7 to produce a key witness who is now in a Victorian jail.
Ms Corby, 27, is facing a possible death sentence over accusations she tried to smuggle 4.1kg of cannabis into Bali's Denpasar airport in her boogieboard bag last October.
"I don't like drugs," she said, pleading with judges to make the "right decision" and let her go home to Australia
"It's not my drugs. I wouldn't even know where to get the drugs from."
Ms Corby's fate may now hinge on the testimony of a Victorian prisoner - named in court today as John Ford.
The judges gave three possible dates for Ford to testify about an alleged Australia-based drug ring: next Tuesday, March 29; Thursday, March 31; or April 7.
Ms Corby hopes his evidence will clear her name.
Earlier, she told Denpasar District Court that she had never been involved with illegal drugs.
Asked to examine the pillowcase-sized sized stash on the witness stand, Ms Corby refused even to touch the bag, saying: "This is destroying my life."
Ms Corby said she had surrendered her luggage and placed her faith in airport security when she checked in at Brisbane Airport for a Bali holiday with family and friends last year.
"I surrendered it at the airport," she said of her luggage.
"I have nothing to do with it after it leaves my hands."
Challenged by judges to explain where the stash could have come from, she said: "That's what we're here to find out."
"I have many theories in my head. It's been six months. I'm still here."
Offered a last chance to defend herself, Ms Corby said she could add nothing more to prove her innocence.
"I didn't do it," she said. "I would not jeopardise my life like this."
The court had earlier burst into applause after an Australian criminologist said he had no doubt Ms Corby was an unwitting drug mule who had been used by a criminal gang.
Bond University professor and criminologist Paul Wilson - who has studied similar cases in Thailand - said Ms Corby did not fit the profile of a typical drug trafficker.
"Is this the face of a drug criminal?" the judge asked Professor Wilson, instructing Ms Corby to stand up.
Professor Wilson responded: "Your honour, I can not look at her face alone".
"I can listen to her talk to my questions, which I have done. I can look at her face and I can speak to people who know her well," he said.
"Using all of that information, I can honestly say that she did not know there were drugs in her bag."
A senior Qantas baggage handler from Brisbane airport, Scott Stephens, meanwhile testified it was highly possible that anyone from engineers to catering staff could have gained access to Ms Corby's luggage as it waited to be loaded onto the plane.
Australia's consul in Bali Brent Hall said he had written to Indonesian authorities in support of Ms Corby's bid for an adjournment to allow Ford to be flown to the holiday island to testify.
If the Melbourne prisoner was unable to attend in person, authorities could consider arranging a videoconference to allow him to testify, Mr Hall said.
Prime Minister John Howard also took a personal interest in her case, saying the Government was doing everything it could to help Ms Corby.
"We will do everything that we are properly and reasonably asked to do (by Ms Corby's lawyers) to see that any relevant evidence is presented," he said.

NEWS.com.au | Protesters storm seat of power (25-03-2005): "Protesters storm seat of power
By Nick Coleman in Bishkek
March 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse

Opposition supporters attack presidential supporters /
AFP THOUSANDS of protesters have seized the seat of government in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, overwhelming security forces in a dramatic escalation of the political upheaval sweeping the country.
Hundreds of riot police abandoned their guard posts around the government compound in the city centre after being pelted by some of a swelling crowd of at least 5000 protesters.
Dozens of mounted police charged the demonstrators at one point, but they were unable to prevent the protesters from running inside the tall wrought-iron railings surrounding the 'White House', as the seat of government and presidency is known.
The protesters, many waving wooden clubs, then entered the compound, throwing portraits of President Askar Akayev out of the windows and waving the national flag of Kyrgyzstan.
Imprisoned Kyrgyz opposition leader Felix Kulov was freed as protesters took control of key government facilities, the Interfax news agency cited opposition sources as saying.
Mr Kulov, once a vice president under embattled President Askar Akayev, was imprisoned in 2000 under embezzlement charges that supporters said were politically motivated.
His release could be a key element in unifying the Kyrgyz opposition, which until now has lacked a single clear leader.
Kyrgyz opposition supporters also today took over the state television building in Bishkek, Interfax reported.
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The protesters entered the building after storming the main seat of government in the Central Asian nation, chasing away hundreds of riot police.
State television has not reported today's prote"
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The New York Times > International > Middle East > U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents: "

US Backed Iraqis Kill 80 of Michael Moores Minute Men
March 24, 2005
U.S.-Backed Iraqis Raid Camp and Report Killing 80 Insurgents
By EDWARD WONG

AGHDAD, Iraq, March 23 - Iraqi and American forces killed at least 80 insurgents on Tuesday in a fierce battle during a morning raid on what appeared to be the largest guerrilla training camp to be discovered in the war, Iraqi officials said Wednesday. Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and six wounded.
Scores of guerrillas were reported to be living in tents and makeshift buildings at the marshy lakeside encampment, northwest of Baghdad.
The size and location of the camp suggested a shift in strategy by insurgents, American military officials said: It was first time the military had come across insurgents organized in such numbers in a remote rural location, an arrangement similar to Al Qaeda training camps in the arid mountains of Afghanistan.
'A year ago, they preferred to organize in small cells in urban areas,' said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, which sent soldiers and attack helicopters to aid the hundreds of Iraqi commandos who raided the camp. 'Here, they organized into a large group in a remote site, perhaps under the impression that coalition forces wouldn't look for them there.'
The Iraqi and American forces, who were responding to a tip from villagers nearby, discovered munitions, training manuals, car bombs, suicide-bomber vests and computers, along with identification papers that indicated that some of the fighters had come from outside Iraq, Major Goldenberg said.
He declined to specify the nationalities of the foreign insurgents; Iraqi officials said most came "

Legend "insurgent" = Minute men as described by Michael Moore and his Democrat / Socialist / Communist Comrades.
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Aust troops head home from Aceh: "http://au.news.yahoo.com//050323/21/tndv.html
Thursday March 24, 10:54 AM
Aust troops head home from Aceh
The last Australian military personnel in the Indonesian province of Aceh will head home today, three months after a devastating tsunami hit the region.
Australian troops have spent the past three months clearing mud and rubble, transporting emergency supplies, repairing water systems and operating a field hospital for the injured.
Before the tsunami hit the province, it had been officially off limits to foreigners, with the Indonesian military engaged in a long-running conflict with Acehnese separatists.
Now with the emergency phase of the relief operation declared over, Indonesia wants all foreign military forces out of the province by the end of the week.
At the peak of the aid effort, Australia had 1,000 troops on the ground in Aceh.
Back-breaking
The work for Australian troops has often been dirty and back-breaking.
The military's trucks and earth-movers have frequently had to contend with impassable mud and debris.
And then there has been the death, the injuries and the anguish of survivors.
Despite those obstacles the Australian military has completed its emergency mission within the three-month timeframe set by the Indonesian Government.
Today, the final remnants of the Australian contingent will board the amphibious assault ship HMAS Kanimbla for the journey home.
Thus, the Australian force will have officially vacated the province ahead of Indonesia's Saturday deadline.
Aid workers
Initially, Indonesia required aid workers to leave by the same day. But it lifted that edict as the magnitude of the problem sank in.
Instead, the Government is asking the more than 160 foreign aid agencies in Aceh to formally register so it can assess h"
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Spy agency runs recruiting drive
From correspondents in Jerusalem
March 23, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
News.com.au
ISRAEL'S domestic spy agency Shin Bet - a driving force in the fight against militant activity in the Palestinian territories - went online today with a website to lure new recruits.
The Hebrew-language site, www.shabak.gov.il, offers employment in everything from intelligence to security to logistics, with special openings for students to work part-time on two-year contracts for at least 100 hours a month.
Israel's overseas intelligence service Mossad, considered one of the highest calibre spy agencies in the world, launched a similar online recruitment drive last year.

Family Gaddafi

Gaddafi won't free HIV nurses
By Paul De Bendern in Algiers
March 24, 2005
From: Reuters
News.com.au

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gaddafi today rejected calls from the West for the release of Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for injecting children with the HIV virus.
"Everyone from the West comes to Libya, and says to me release the Bulgarian nurses. This means that our children died and this was not considered as important," Col. Gaddafi said.
"I swear to God I will not release them," he told an Arab League summit in Algiers, attended by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death last year after being found guilty of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the deadly HIV virus that causes AIDS.
The verdicts were based on confessions the nurses - who remain jailed - say were extracted under torture.
They prompted strong protests from the US and the European Union and have hampered Libya's efforts to renew normal ties with the West after decades of diplomatic isolation.
"When the court sentenced the Bulgarians to death by hanging there were demonstrations (in Benghazi) supporting this sentence," Col. Gaddafi said. "They (the West) consider our people cheap."
"The 47 children are dead and the others are still on the death bed," Col. Gaddafi said. "The Bulgarian nurses and a physician said to be Palestinian injected... children in the children's hospital in Benghazi with the AIDS virus."
The nurses, who have been imprisoned since 1999, say they are being used as scapegoats to prevent a backlash against medical authorities at the Benghazi hospital where they worked.
Late last year Tripoli suggested it would release the nurses in exchange for financial compensation. Bulgaria has refused, saying any payout would be an admission of guilt.
The AIDS epidemic killed at least 40 of the 426 infected children and caused outrage in Libya.
AIDS experts have testified the epidemic began before the medics arrived at the hospital, possibly due to the unhygienic handling of needles and blood products.
In January nine Libyan police officers and a physician appeared in a Tripoli court on charges of torturing the five Bulgarian nurses to confess they infected the children.
Libyan lawyers and diplomats see the public trial of police officers as a move intended to counter foreign criticism of the Tripoli authorities.
- Additional reporting by Mohamed Abdellah

See Libyan Freak show

30 held over rapes, 40 murders
From correspondents in Baghdad
March 23, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
News.com.au

IRAQI police have seized 30 men linked to terror groups and involved in three beheadings, the rape and murder of three women, and the separate murders of 40 other people, General Adel Molan said today.
Some of the men belonged to al-Qaeda and some to its sister group Ansar al-Islam and were caught in Baladruz, 60km north-east of Baghdad, the general said.
He said police had divided the detainees into three groups: the first was wanted for beheading three people; and the second for the separate murders of 40 people, including some Diyala provincial council members and Iraqi security forces.
The third group raped and then murdered three women, Gen Molan said.
On the other side of the Iraqi divide, army General Mohsen Hazaa Bayram al-Bayati, a Turkman who was seriously wounded on Sunday in the northern city of Kirkuk, died of his wounds today, medical sources said.
"He died of his wounds around 11am (7pm AEDT). They had cut out his kidney and he suffered complications in his digestive tract," said Khaled Abdel Wahad, a doctor at Kirkuk general hospital.
The general was shot as he entered his home in the second such attack in less than a week. A Christian general working at the interior ministry was shot dead on March 16 in Kirkuk.
In more violence, an Iraqi truck driver died in a bomb blast near the town of Shurgat in Saddam Hussein's home province of Salahaddin, said police Lieutenant Colonel Fares Mehdi.
The driver, Mohamed Sadun Zaidun, was in a convoy guarded by US and Iraqi forces, Lt Col Mehdi added.
The corpses of five Iraqi soldiers were found in Kut, south-east of Baghdad, a defence ministry source said.
In another attack today, Husam Hussein, the driver of an interior ministry official, was gunned down in the southern district of Doura as he went to work, security sources said.

Blast edges Lebanon towards abyss
By Nicolas Rothwell
March 24, 2005
From:
News.com.au

THE shadows over Lebanon deepened yesterday, and the country's much-feared return to factional violence seemed to be accelerating, as the second bomb in four days exploded in a Christian quarter of north Beirut, killing three people and wounding eight.
The blast, which came even as tensions over Syria's political place inside Lebanon mounted, suggests forces opposed to the country's fledgling democracy movement might be prepared to engage in a systematic campaign of violence.
First reports suggest the dead in yesterday's bombing were foreign cleaners, working in a shopping centre at the heart of the upscale Jounieh district.
The shock wave from the blast left the windows and fronts of plush shops and nightclubs - symbols of Beirut's role as an Arab pleasure capital - shattered and torn.
The device which caused it was reportedly placed in one of the shopping centre's stairwells.
In the previous incident, a car bomb exploded in a Christian suburb of Beirut early on Saturday, wounding 11 people.
Lebanon has been in a state of suspended crisis and hope ever since the massive explosion in central Beirut on February 14 that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri and unleashed a wave of anti-Syrian protests.
The UN report into that attack is due to be released today in New York and a leading newspaper controlled by Hariri's business empire is already reporting the document will accuse the Lebanese Government of negligence and evidence-tampering.
Although a prolonged campaign of demonstrations and counter-actions, coupled with intense international pressure, has transformed the map of Lebanon in recent weeks, the situation in Beirut is still delicately poised.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is at the Arab League summit in Algiers, confirmed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last night that his forces would complete a full two-stage withdrawal from Lebanon, where parliamentary elections are due next month.
But opposition leaders claim that a campaign of intimidation by Syrian intelligence has begun, and there are now deep fears among the activists of the "cedar revolution" that Damascus will sow discord in order to retain its overarching security role inside the country.
At the scene of last night's blast, opposition parliamentarian Faris Bouez was unambiguous: "It is a political message to the independence uprising."
The broader landscape of contending forces is still unclear.
Negotiations to form a caretaker government in Beirut are continuing, with the opposition demanding half the seats in any new cabinet.
Opposition leaders, gathered around Druze politician Walid Jumblatt, have also been pressing for the immediate resignation of Lebanon's six top security chiefs - and some even want the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud to step down.
But these demands appear to have been relaxed in the latest behind-the-scenes negotiations.
With fresh protests scheduled in the days ahead, the mood is ever more tense in the Lebanese capital and apprehensions about a possible bombing campaign have already caused many Christians to move out of the city.
Many Lebanese opposition figures are now attempting to craft a fresh political compact.
Talks are to be held soon between the head of the Shia Hezbollah militia, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir about the possible place of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon's future.
Hezbollah, which is armed and pro-Syrian, has staged vast rallies challenging the authority of the opposition in recent weeks, and appears to positioning itself to play a part in Lebanon's politics after the formal Syrian departure.
But many observers mindful of the ruinous civil war that destroyed the country between 1975 and 1990 fear that the rivalries between the different communities of Lebanon are now primed to spill over, and that the potential exists once more for a more extensive form of conflict.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/24/2005 02:30:00 PM 1 comments

School's out ... dozens of ------- Bull Shark attacks Horse
whaler sharks swim through
the bait fish off
South Stradbroke Island.
Picture: Sarah Marshall

Sharks gorge on pre-Easter feast
By Phil Bartsch
March 24, 2005
News.com.au

A BANQUET of bait fish has lured dozens of sharks - some measuring 3m and more - to the waters off the Gold Coast.
Packs of the hungry predators put on a fearsome spectacle close to shore yesterday as they gorged themselves on large schools of pilchards off South Stradbroke Island.
Tourists watched from a safe distance on the beach as the sharks - with jaws wide open - darted in and out of the seafood smorgasbord not far from the water's edge.
"One just came right up, just pushed himself straight up on to the beach just chasing them in and waited for the next wave and got himself out," said one onlooker.
The pilchards, appearing as oil-slick-like dark patches in the ocean by bunching together tightly, were easy pickings for the sharks.
Large schools of bait fish are commonly sighted off the coast during the warmer months, usually keeping close to shore.
But the sharks are never too far away. Convoys of whaler, tiger and hammerhead sharks are often seen stalking the bait fish.
The menacing display comes as many beachgoers look forward to one last dip over the Easter break before winter starts to bite and water temperatures drop.
Gold Coast chief lifeguard Warren Young said the whereabouts of the sharks would be monitored from the air.
"If they stay out to sea they're not a problem. If they come in close to bathing areas then we take action," he said.
In previous years, lifeguards and lifesavers have had to call swimmers from the water as they used jetskis, jetboats and rubber duckies to herd the predators away from patrolled areas.
Three years ago, competition at the surf lifesaving national titles was put on hold as sharks feasted on the massive schools of fish just off Kurrawa beach.
Meanwhile, a horse trainer yesterday told how a 500kg race horse was dragged underwater by a bull shark while it was swimming in the Brisbane River.
Alan Treadwell said six-year-old gelding Glen-burns Arm was in the river, near Kholo, west of Brisbane earlier this month when the horse "went over backwards and twisted and then all of a sudden he went berserk".
Mr Treadwell, who is based in Grandchester, said he was exercising his star charge on a lead when a shark up to 2m long bit the pacer on the rump.
"I saw this white thing come out of the water when he went over backwards," Mr Treadwell said yesterday.
Mr Treadwell said the attack left a "jaw mark", puncture wounds and bruising around the horse's leg.

Shark bites horse !!!!
By Roberta Mancuso
March 23, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au
A 500kg racing horse was dragged underwater by a bull shark while it was swimming in the Brisbane River, its trainer said today.
Alan Treadwell said six-year-old gelding Glen-burns Arm was in the river, near Kholo , west of Brisbane when the horse "went over backwards and twisted and then all of a sudden he went berserk".
Mr Treadwell, who is based in Grandchester, said he was exercising his star charge on a lead when a shark up to 2m long bit the pacer on the rump.
"I saw this white thing come out of the water when he went over backwards," Mr Treadwell said today.
"I kept pulling and every time he surfaced I kept dragging him in. I was getting him in slowly and when he could stand he was just trembling and carrying on - he had a white tail when he come out of the water."
The attack came less than a month after a bull shark bit 18-year-old Nathan Shaxson on the finger and the head near a boat ramp at Karalee - 15km downstream from the Kholo river site.
Although bull sharks are relatively small - most are between just 1.5 and 2.5 metres - they can cause death by loss of blood from bites or shock.
They are found in most Australian water systems, including Sydney Harbour, the Brisbane River, the Swan River in Perth, Lake Macquarie near Newcastle and the Herbert River in North Queensland.
Mr Treadwell said the attack lasted about 30 seconds, leaving a "jaw mark", puncture wounds and bruising around the horse's leg.
"I never thought it'd happen," he said.
"I know there's little sharks there they say, but I thought how big a shark could pull a horse down? He's 500 kilos."
Shark expert Craig Franklin said sharks in the Brisbane River could reach as long as 3.5m.
He said it was unusual for a bull shark to take on such a large "food item".
"It was probably a mistake," the University of Queensland professor said.
"They're opportunistic feeders, they tend to be quite aggressive sharks and it probably got a bit of a surprise to find it was quite a large food item."
Mr Treadwell said his horses would now be trained in a nearby dam.
"It's a lot safer," he said.
Despite the close scrape, Glen-burns Arm will race at the Gold Coast trots tomorrow afternoon - in the Have A Safe Easter Pace. Bull Shark Facts and info

// posted by Ridge @ 3/24/2005 02:25:00 PM 2 comments

Mr Qasim ... will do whatever it takes to leave Australia.
I'm a Kashmiri, get me out of here
By Elizabeth Colman and Tom Richardson
March 24, 2005
From:
News.com.au

Mr Qasim ... will do whatever it takes to leave Australia.
LONG-SERVING detainee Peter Qasim has begged to be deported from Australia, saying he will go wherever immigration authorities can find that will accept him and he will go immediately.
As such, he appears to be a prime candidate for the Government's new "removal pending visa", which allows those who have given up their fight to stay in Australia to live freely in the community until they can be deported.
But Mr Qasim faces a substantial hurdle because the Immigration Department insists he has been "unco-operative".
If he can convince immigration authorities - and, in turn, minister Amanda Vanstone - that he is, as he claims, a Kashmiri unable to secure travel papers, he will be released on the removal pending visa unveiled by Senator Vanstone yesterday.
Mr Qasim, who is in South Australia's Baxter detention centre, said yesterday he had repeatedly asserted that "if India is willing to give me travel documents, then I will go home".
"It's no problem for me if they send me to India - I just want to be out of here," he said.
Until her announcement yesterday, Senator Vanstone had refused to consider Mr Qasim's release from detention after six years behind razor wire, on the basis that he had changed the story he initially gave to officials.
She said new information had been provided by Dick Smith -- a self-described "friend of the Prime Minister" -- that she had passed on to the department.
"I've been asked by Dick Smith to look at some material that he's put forward to me in relation to Mr Qasim," Senator Vanstone said.
"There are two aspects there. One is separate information that the department is considering at this point and the second is his co-operation levels."
The new material, obtained by The Australian, alleges the department "mishandled and misrepresented" the Qasim case. A document, prepared by an advocate for Mr Qasim, Greg Egan, states, among a list of concerns, that the department did not use a translator in its initial interviews with Mr Qasim.

GREG SHERIDAN
The Australian
Agenda driven by leading hawks
March 24, 2005

THE pattern of senior appointments in Washington offers a fascinating insight into where the second Bush administration is heading. If you're a Bush critic, the good news is that George W. Bush is going to take the multilateral system and international issues hugely seriously. The bad news is just the same.

Bush is going to engage all the issues his critics claim he neglected in his first term - Third World development, the image of the US throughout the world, reform and reinvigoration of the UN. But he will do so in a way that is consistent with his political values.

Three appointments make this clear - Paul Wolfowitz to move from Deputy Secretary of Defence to president of the World Bank, John Bolton to move from under-secretary of state to US ambassador to the UN, and Karen Hughes, the President's former communications director, to become under-secretary of state for public diplomacy.

This is clearly earnest intent. They are all Bush insiders and genuine heavy hitters. Each will be criticised but each offers Bush the chance to make a real difference.

Wolfowitz was the intellectual behind the invasion of Iraq and must shoulder some blame for the many foul-ups. But he is much more than that. In the 1980s he was a popular and effective ambassador to Indonesia and a champion of serious US dialogue with the Muslim world.

The most interesting aspect of Wolfowitz's background, in terms of the World Bank appointment, is that he is a true neo-conservative. Neo-con is such a misused term, especially in Australia, as to have become almost meaningless. But it originally referred to Democrats, liberal on domestic issues and liberal internationalists, who were also anti-communist but became sickened by the anti-Americanism of the Left and thus defected to the Right, becoming Republicans.

Wolfowitz, who served in the Carter administration, fits this description perfectly. He believes in democracy and development. James Wolfensohn was a mixed grill as World Bank president. His message became woolly and confused by the NGO rhetoric he picked up in his attempts to make the World Bank more palatable to its critics. Wolfowitz will be more intellectually robust. He has a chance to move development issues, including aid, to the centre of US concerns.

Bolton is a bold appointment as UN ambassador. He is regarded as the hardest of hardliners and has made many speeches critical of the UN. But the UN desperately needs reform and appointing Bolton shows that Bush is taking the UNseriously.

Moreover, Bolton has already done the UN the greatest good turn of anyone in its history. In 1975 the UN General Assembly passed a foul and disgraceful resolution equating Zionism with racism. The magnificent Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, then the US ambassador to the UN, famously pronounced: "The US rises to declare before the General Assembly of the UN, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act."

Enter Bolton. In 1991, in the administration of George H.W. Bush, Bolton was the critical actor in getting the resolution overturned. This was a prerequisite in rehabilitating the UN in US opinion. It was a classic example of tough love. Bolton is being compared to Moynihan and another US ambassador to the UN, Jeanne Kirkpatrick. But Bolton, though more conservative than either of those two, has a much more substantial record for getting things done.

In the first term of this presidency, for example, Bolton alone constructed the Proliferation Security Initiative, designed to prevent North Korea proliferating weapons technology as well as illegal drugs and other contraband. It was the most effective act of counter-proliferation in many a long year. It was also effective multilateralism, it just didn't involve the UN.

And finally there is Hughes. No adviser, not even Karl Rove on the domestic

side at the White House, or Condoleezza Rice when she was national security adviser, was closer to Bush personally than Hughes.

Although Hughes has no background in the Arab or Muslim worlds, where much of the work is to be done, she is enormously smart, is used to succeeding and has the full confidence of the President. Her appointment shows that Bush takes seriously the need to get America's message out and into play.

The war on terror is in many ways similar to the Cold War, but the US has not put in place anything like the vast information effort it ran in the Cold War. This is in part because the State Department, which would run such an effort, is seen by many in the Bush team as institutionally hostile to core elements of the Bush policy. No one has been keen to dole out money to State, much less for something mushy like public diplomacy.

But this State Department, under Rice, is going to be central to the second Bush administration. Bob Zoellick, the former US trade representative and now Rice's deputy, is an unusually senior person for the No.2 slot at State. It is almost unheard of to go down from being a cabinet member to being a sub-cabinet officer. But with Rice, Zoellick and Hughes at State and Bolton as UN ambassador, the State Department is now set up to be the key institution for Bush mark II.

None of this guarantees success for Bush's foreign policy, but it does indicate that he knows what his priorities are and has deployed his best people to address them. It does suggest that although BushII may speak to the world in a more gentle way, the message will be no different from Bush I.

Bush saw the way presidential power ebbed from his father in his last days in office. He is determined to use his time in office. He has tackled such big issues, he will be seen as either a very good or a very bad president, depending on how they work out. He is a profoundly interesting and complex politician. His mark on history, these appointments suggest, will be substantial.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/24/2005 02:17:00 PM 2 comments

Serial rapist faces new claim
March 24, 2005
News.com.au

FRESH rape allegations against serial pedophile Robert Ernest Excell have sparked moves by a Perth lawyer to halt his planned release from prison and deportation to the United Kingdom.
Lawyer John Hammond today said a former prisoner came to him yesterday alleging he was raped by Excell in 1992 and again in 1998 when they were both inmates of Perth's Casuarina prison.
Excell, 66, has spent 37 of the last 39 years in West Australia's prison system for convictions dating back to 1965, when he sodomised a seven-year-old boy.
Since then he has been paroled three times and re-offended on all three occasions.
He had been expected to be released from jail and deported to the US yesterday but has remained in Perth's Acacia prison due to delays within the immigration department.
Attorney General Jim McGinty later clarified that Excell would be deported from Australia within days.
However, Mr Hammond wrote to Mr McGinty late yesterday and asked that the process be deferred until the new allegations were examined.
Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan had also been notified of the former inmate's complaint, Mr Hammond said.
"He (the former inmate) claims that whilst he was an inmate at Casuarina in '92 and '98 - he was serving separate terms of imprisonment - he was raped by Robert Excell," Mr Hammond said today.
"He claims that in '92 he complained about the sexual assault and he was told to keep it quiet by the authorities.
"He says in '98 he did nothing because he had no faith that any investigation would be undertaken and any charges laid."
The former inmate - who had been serving time for fraud and robbery offences - came forward after learning through the media that Excell was to be freed.
"He became very agitated and sick at the thought of Excell being released and he decided to come forward," Mr Hammond said, adding that he went to Rockingham police, who advised him to contact a lawyer.
Mr Hammond said his client, now a free man, wanted sexual assault charges laid against Excell and hoped he would remain in prison and not be deported.
No response had been yet been received from Mr McGinty's office, Mr Hammond said.
WA Police today confirmed the allegations were under investigation.
Comment was being sought from Mr McGinty.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/24/2005 02:15:00 PM 1 comments

Womens "Open" surf boat final at Kurrawa Beach, Gold Coast Queensland Australia. Picture Simon Dean.
 

The latest in Islamic "barking DOG mad" "truth"
http://www.geocities.com/rabbtaala/boycott_coca.gif

'I didn't plant dope on Corby'
By Matt Cunningham and Mark Buttler
March 24, 2005
News.com.au

A MELBOURNE man has denied he planted marijuana in a surfboard bag that landed Schapelle Corby in a Bali jail fighting for her life.
The man, who wanted to be known only as John, was interviewed by Australian Federal Police agents this week after they received information from Ms Corby's lawyers.
John claimed AFP officers told him: "Without your help she's gone."
They are believed to have been acting on an affadavit supplied by a Victorian prisoner who has contacted Ms Corby's legal team purporting to have information that could save her.
But John, a former prisoner, told police he was not involved. "I told the AFP I had nothing to do with the drugs that the girl in Bali was arrested with," he said.
"I would love to be in a position to be able to get the girl in Bali out of prison."
The Howard Government last night said it would help clear the way for John to be flown to Bali to give evidence at the trial today. But it could act only on request from the Indonesian Government.
Gold Coast businessman Ron Bakir said time was running out for the Gold Coast beauty therapy student.
"We need the prisoner here tomorrow," he said.
In Canberra, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said the Government was doing everything it could to help Ms Corby. "Because the witness is a prisoner in Victoria this requires a request by Indonesia to Australia under a bilateral agreement on mutual assistance in criminal matters," he said.
"The government stands ready to agree to a request and we are doing all we can to work with the Indonesian Government to facilitate this."
A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said no request had been received from Indonesia.
"If a request was received . . . the Attorney-General has indicated that we would work expeditiously to act upon it," she said.
Earlier, John told the Herald Sun that AFP agents believed he financed a smuggling operation between Brisbane and Sydney airports or had handled the drugs at some point. "They said information had been received that I was the man," he said.
"They said it came from three different sources. They were telling me that her life was in my hands. I'm supposed to be the financier.
"I didn't even have the money to take the bus home after they interviewed me. I had to borrow it."
John, a convicted burglar, said he had never been involved in drug trafficking, no had he ever met Ms Corby.
"The sad part is you see on the news she's all happy that this information has come out but there's nothing there," he said. "For them to come to me with all these allegations, there's obviously nothing there."
John, 38, said he was at a friend's house in Reservoir on Tuesday when they noticed they were being watched.
He had received a phone call from an agent requesting an interview and later spent four hours at AFP headquarters in the city.
John, who has spent eight years in Queensland and Victorian jails, believes the prisoner might be spreading the rumour in return for special treatment on the inside. "Criminals will give information for anything to get themselves out of trouble," he said.

Daniel flies blind into Tony's turmoil
By LUKE McILVEEN in Canberra
March 24, 2005
Daily Telegraph

DANIEL O'Connor flew halfway around the world to spend Easter with his new family, but was forced to change his plans after discovering Tony Abbott was not his father.
The Daily Telegraph has learned Mr O'Connor accepted an invitation to spend Easter at the Abbotts' home at Forestville, in Sydney's north, and returned from London especially for the long weekend.
He had planned to fly to Port Hedland next week to spend time with his mother, Kathy Donnelly, and her husband and five children.
The devoutly religious Mr Abbott invited Mr O'Connor to spend a relaxing Easter weekend with his wife and three children, believing the attention that followed their dramatic reunion last month would have faded.
But the extraordinary news this week that the pair were not related forced Mr O'Connor to change his plans and he is now likely to spend Easter in Canberra with his adoptive parents.
Mr O'Connor is based in London but was raised in Canberra and worked as an ABC sound technician in the Federal Parliamentary press gallery.
Ms Donnelly this week revealed that soon after the reunion was made public she received a call from "Bill", a man she had slept with once, who suggested Mr O'Connor might be his.
Ms Donnelly has already told her story to the Nine Network, but it's understood she has also been approached by the ABC's Australian Story and several women's magazines.
"Daniel was really looking forward to spending some time with the Abbotts away from all the glare of the past month and getting to know his new siblings," a source close to Mr Abbott said yesterday.
"That's not happening now. Daniel thought it would be better to spend the holiday with his adoptive family in Canberra."
Mr Abbott tried to concentrate on his job as Health Minister yesterday, visiting a private psychiatric hospital in Melbourne.
"A lot has been said, a fair bit probably had to be said, but I don't know that there is anything more anyone can say and I think it's time to allow everyone involved – particularly Kathy and Daniel – to reclaim their own lives," Mr Abbott said.
"There is no longer any Abbott connection, so Daniel and Kathy, Daniel's parents, Daniel's natural father – all of them – should be allowed to live their lives without the media games that inevitably follow around someone who is a minister in the Government."
One of Mr Abbott's closest political mates, Treasurer Peter Costello, yesterday pledged his support.
"I feel for him very deeply and I told him this," Mr Costello said.
"To have thought you found a child and then to find out that you never had the child must have been one of the most rollercoaster rides that you can imagine and he has handled it with great dignity," he said.
Another colleague described Mr Abbott as "absolutely distraught" behind the scenes.
Concerned Cabinet colleagues have told the Health Minister to take all the time he needs to recover from the mix-up, which saw him wrongly convinced he had an illegitimate son for 27 years.

ANDREW BOLT

Devil in the DNA Andrew Bolt
23mar05

HOW strange that Parliament's most famous Catholic, Tony Abbott, is now a symbol of the once-forgotten dangers of sin.I feel for the poor bloke, because the humiliating news that he isn't, after all, the father of the boy he gave away 27 years ago doesn't make life easier for him.
Indeed, it makes it worse -- and not just for Abbott, but for his ``son'' and his former girlfriend, Kath Donnelly, too.
What only weeks ago was being sold -- not least by Abbott -- as their happily-ever-after story has instantly become a biblical morality play instead. Abbott has already had to live for years with an uneasy conscience over the decision he made with Donnelly -- when both were teenagers -- to adopt out what he thought was their baby.
That decision stays made, whoever the baby's father is, and is fixed in Abbott's knowledge of himself. He walked from his duty to look after the son he was sure he'd sired, leaving him to the mercy of strangers.
Maybe this is why Abbott is a strong Catholic. Like all wise moralists, he knows how easy it is to sin, and how much we all need help.
When the boy he'd given up was revealed to be Daniel O'Connor, an ABC sound recordist who'd often stuck his mike in the Health Minister's face, Abbott had to face his failure again -- and did it publicly, which wasn't sensitive or smart.
It must have hurt to front up to the ABC's 7.30 Report, knowing that among the viewers were many thousands who loathed him, and to confess: ``I was a pretty callow kid, and I wasn't ready for responsibility, and I regret that I wasn't more ready for responsibility.''
A note to the jeerers, by the way: would you have given up your child -- or, worse, killed it in the womb -- had you faced what Abbott and Donnelly faced as mere 19-year-olds? Answer fairly, or drop those stones.
I guess a lot of people did make just that calculation, and it was remarkable how many journalists reported the reunion of Abbott with his son as a feel-good story in which no one had been hurt and everyone ended up very happy. Cue in swelling orchestra and sunset glow.
No one I know actually asked O'Connor whether he'd felt hurt to know he'd been put up for adoption. Nor, to my knowledge, was his adoptive dad, a gardener, asked if he was scared his son would now think less of him, knowing his ``real'' dad was a powerful politician.
Still, what's one more happy-tales deceit in an age when so many insist divorce doesn't hurt children, and one parent at home is just as good as two -- or better? That's how we've progressed over the past 30 years -- from Erica Jong writing of the ``zipless f..k'' to papers now spinning the myth of the ``zipless divorce''. Not to mention the ``zipless abortion'' -- and this ``zipless adoption'', too.
YET now this happy reunion story has collapsed -- destroyed by the grunt-sweaty reality of a DNA test which confirms that while Donnelly is O'Connor's mum, Abbott sure isn't his dad.
So now Abbott isn't just a man who'd given up his baby, but a cuckold, too. Worse, O'Connor -- whose search for his real parents started this melodrama of revelations -- may well feel more betrayed than ever, and perhaps most of all by his natural mother.
And Donnelly may seem to some a woman who, as a teenager, was not just careless with her birth control, but too careless with sex and its consequences.
``I don't know that I am a free-thinking, bare-footed hippie,'' she recently said, ``but I am an artist and I perhaps do think a little outside the square.'' Has there actually been much thinking in all this, inside or outside the square?
There will be gimlet-eyed progressives who will blame all this on the DNA test that blabbed what didn't need blabbing, causing far more misery than good.
How many other lives have been destroyed by the tattle of the DNA tale? We know some 5000 paternity tests are done in Australia each year, and up to a third find that daddy isn't the daddy, after all. I know of a couple of such cases, involving monstrous hurt -- with these foul tests poisoning the years of love and loyalty between a father and the children he spent years in raising. Agonising stuff.
Think, for instance, of Liam Magill, who lost a recent court case for damages from his estranged wife, having learned that two of their three children weren't his after all.
Maybe fond belief is better than knowledge when it comes to paternity -- particularly when the Australian Medical Association thinks some 200,000 families may include a dad who actually isn't, more fool him.
But let's not shoot the DNA test which tells us we've lost the thread. If these tests threaten so many families, it's because never have so many families had such reason to be suspicious of who's fathered who in their domestic zoo.
If DNA tests had to be invented, then this was just the time to invent them, since we're freer than ever to do what we think best -- freer to sleep around, freer to abort, freer to dump, freer to move on. Bye-bye, kids!
Freedom like this has sure been fun for the strong, I admit. It's also rescued people from life-squishing marriages and given many a second crack at happiness.
But there was a reason why many religions and many cultures made pre-marital sex taboo, and treated marriage as a sacred bond. As the DNA tests in part reveal, there's no telling what wild misery we can create, particularly for children, when we feel free to make up our moral rules.
Look at the Tony Abbott and Kath Donnelly of today, and at the son Donnelly gave away, and we can see the pain of our foolishness can emerge even decades later, and in ways we in our passion never imagined.
I know, the old moral codes weren't painless either. But there's one thing to say about a grim sermon on saving sex for marriage -- it's sure cheaper than any paternity test, and a lot less shaming, besides.
bolta@heraldsun.com.au see also Kath could it be mine?

'I was crying but she was laughing'
By JUSTIN VALLEJO and MATT SUN
March 24, 2005
Daily Telegraph see pictures here
A RELIEVED mother yesterday told of her panic as she tried to hang on to her baby's pram as 102km/h winds tried to tear it from her grasp.

Louize O'Keefe's nine-month-old daughter was in the pram as the wind lifted it from the pavement and sent it tumbling down the Newcastle street – and all the mother could do was try and hold on.
While little Bradey-Ann lay smiling and laughing in her overturned pram, two firefighters came to her aid.
"The wind came straight up under the pram and just lifted it. It flipped about four or five times, then the pram hit the ground and so did I," Louize, from Gosford, said yesterday.
"I was freaking out and crying but she was OK. She was smiling and laughing and clapping. She then waved to everyone."
Louize and Bradey-Ann were walking along Newcastle's King St at about 10.30am when the gale-force gust struck.
Emergency services were in the street attending to other wind damage when Bradey-Ann's pram was blown away.
"I thought I would have to take her to hospital but she is completely fine, she didn't even shed a tear," Louize said.
"We were just lucky she was strapped in and the emergency people were nearby.
"I don't know who they were or where they came from but I am just so grateful they were there because she is my first daughter and I love her so much."
The heroes of the moment were Newcastle firefighters Dean Ball and Steve Cox.
Mr Ball said the wind in the street became so bad they had to close it off to pedestrians, because the buildings had created a wind tunnel.
"The wind took her and the pram and blew them both over on the road," he said.
"The bub was still in the pram but they are okay and that is the main thing.
"We just happened to be there and whatever needs to be done that's what we do and we are trained for. So we were happy to help out."
The winds also caused 20,000 homes in Sydney and on the Central Coast to lose power at various times from Monday night to yesterday morning.
The State Emergency Service said areas east of the Pacific Highway in Sydney, Gosford and the lower Hunter were the hardest hit areas.
More than 280 SES volunteers were attending to 924 requests for assistance last night.
Rain continued to bucket down across Sydney and Newcastle yesterday, with Chatswood receiving 85 mm and Turramurra 82 mm in the 24 hours leading to 9am yesterday.
But the downpours were not enough to top up dam levels.
Yesterday's rain was only enough to delay Sydney's dams reaching their lowest levels.
A spokesman for Environment Minister Bob Debus said water capacity is sitting at 42.2 per cent – just 0.3 per cent above the historic 41.9 per cent low set in the early 1980's.
"The rain is welcome but we need seven days of heavy rain with 40mm a day for us to get back up to acceptable dam levels," the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Sydney was littered, literally, with evidence of the wet and wild weather.
While wind speeds did not reach extreme levels during yesterday's daylight hours, they were still strong enough to destroy hundreds of umbrellas across the city.
Last night Sydney was littered with broken umbrellas, dumped in bins after they were torn to shreds by the gusts.
The big wet caused havoc on the roads. Problems began early with traffic lights blacking out at a number of busy intersections throughout the day.
Westbound lanes of traffic on New Canterbury Rd were blocked when a tree fell across the road at the intersection of Toothill St in Lewisham.
Heavy traffic flows in the M5 East tunnel were exacerbated when a car break down closed on lane about 2.15pm.

100 km/hr appx 60 mph.

Below correspondence sent by anon. Bogs.

"Has anyone here seen a more comprehensive litany of islamic stupidity than the following? I have seen muslims say everything below, but never in one continuous stream of idiocy. "---
----------------------------------------------------------

In truthOfIslam@yahoogroups.com, Shaikh Hyder wrote:

The facts are:Ibrahim, Moses, Mary and Jesus (PBUT) were all MuslimsThe word Jew was not there at the time of Moses (PBUH). The wordwas derived from Judea tribe which defeated all other tribes afterlong in fighting The word Christianity was not there at the time of Mary andJesus (PBUT). The word was invented in a sarcastic tone by the enemies of Jesus (PBUH). However latter followers of Jesus adoptedsaying that it was a good word. However this was a part of a campaignby Paul (A truly rabid rabbi) who invented Jesus worship in order to kill the true message of Jesus (PBUH). Muslims do not hate any country or people of a country.

They want to save entire world form hell of this world and that worldMuslims of course hate Bush, Sharon and other terrorists whokilled thousands of innocent people. Sharon killed 3000 un-armedPalestinian women on 16th September 1982 in Shatilla and Sabiracamps. This was his one night feast of human blood and flash. Hitler’s mother was probably Jewish and several of his ministerswere also Jewish. As a matter of fact there was close cooperationbetween Zionists and Nazis. It was Zionists who wanted to push Jewsto leave European countries and to go nowhere but Palestine. It wasZionists organization who prepared the lists of those Jews who they thought were useless for future Israel and gave to Hitler to put themin gas chambers. All attempts to rescue Jews were foiled by the Zionists themselves.
They all foiled all attempts to settle migratingJews to any place other than Palestine. (Ref: Pharis Galib: TheZionists Nazi Relations; containing all only Jews references printedin Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA)Allah Ta’lah has promised to bad Jews that He will keep imposingpeople upon them who will inflict painful punishment on them... (Ref.Surah Araf, Aya 167, Al-Quran). All honest Jews will admit that theirleaders had been giving them sever pains and punishments. Several good Jews have accepted Islam. This includes the Chiefof Jews in Madina at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. He was thebest and most learned among Jews. In the current times Dr. Assad andMaryam Jamila are among the prominent Jews who accepted Islam.
They have written excellent books and they were/are truly noble scholars. Only stupid people will believe in WMDs and 9/11 being attackedby Muslims. And only mentally retarded will believe that Anthrax bugscan come from Torah Borah mountains to Washington DC and onlyextremely good and nerd will buy that video tapes travel from TorahBoar to Kabul to Islamabad to Qatar to Al-Jazirah TV and no one wascaught. And this kept happening every other week.
These tapes are cooked in the back yard of White House which in reality is house of white lies. Islam is a way of life which is most natural, most healthy andmost progressive. Muslims founded all modern sciences. When therewere e100 good hospitals in one Muslims city Qurtabah (Cordoba) therewere none in entire Europe. Non Muslim Europe took 300 years to makefirst hospital in Paris. All so called laws described by Newton weredescribed by Ibn-e-Haitham several centuries ago.
The entire” New World Order” is to stop common Americans andEuropeans to accept Islam as Islam and only Islam has the power toheal the decaying Western Society. Islam will unite the families andwill eliminate AIDS and other mental and psychological disorders. Itis Islam alone which can eradicate IMF and World Bank which areresponsible for all poverty in the West and East. Yesterday it was Jesus (PBUH) who was spreading the light ofIslam which Zionists forefathers could not tolerate as Islam wouldhave eradicated their exploitation of the poor and the week.
Today again the war is between Islam and thugs and terrorists. We mustunderstand that all terrorism in the world is being carried out bythe enemies of Islam and they attribute this terrorism to Islam thustrying to kill two birds by one stone (Destruction and keeping peopleaway from Islam which could stop this game of destruction.My request to all of you is to study Quran, learn its languageand teach to others. If we all did this, world will be entirelydifferent world tomorrow, a peaceful and truly humane world.

Your brother in Islam; Anwar Ul Haque

Arutz Sheva - Israel National News

The True Freedom Fighters
by Nonie DarwishMarch 23, 2005

As an Arab myself, I am extremely inspired by what is happening in the Middle East ever since the Iraqi elections. The will of the Iraqi people to stand up for freedom and democracy has inspired the rest of the Middle East. This was the first time I have heard a collective, strong voice among Muslims and Arabs saying to the world loud and clear: "We want to join the civilized world in democracy and freedom, and we are committed to stand against the terrorists among us." The courage of the Iraqis has inspired Lebanon and Egypt, and the rest is yet to come. There is a new era in Arab political life in the making.

I could not help but compare that honorable stand of the Iraqi people to the often neglected and rarely mentioned heroic stand of the Israeli people against terrorism for so many generations. Despite constant terrorism, they managed to grow, excel, maintain a democracy, continue the business of living, riding buses, voting and maintaining their moral standards. Despite many losses in Israeli lives and the constant threat of terror from all their neighbors, most of the Israelis share a deep feeling of wanting to live in peace with the Palestinians.

Their courage and struggle to survive and thrive in a sea of hostility, boycott and terror went unnoticed by the world. It is time for the world to say enough is enough to the terrorism against Israel. Israel is part of the inspiration to the new Middle East yearning for peace and democracy, and the world needs to give the Israelis credit for that. It is also time for the United Nations to end its unremitting attacks against Israel.

Israel is like the Iraqi voters, like the Arabs yearning for peace and democracy in the area. It is trying to survive in an area of the world that has no respect to individual rights and freedoms; an area of the world with extreme elements that would rather kill its own citizens than see them free to choose. Israel was the first country to set that example, half-a-century ago.

Unfortunately, there are still many in the West who think of themselves as "progressive", "liberal" or "humanitarian" who shamelessly call terrorists "freedom fighters". Such people gratify themselves by believing they are championing the underdog when they excuse terrorism and refuse to call it by its real name. Having accepted the arguments of the terrorists themselves, they have lost the ability to recognize and celebrate true freedom fighting when it shows up, as it did in Iraq. Instead, they make excuses for terrorists, who are, in fact, the hidden hands of Arab dictators and religious leaders who use the terrorists to obtain compliance, obedience and to maintain power.

Terrorists want to preserve the status quo in the Middle East. They want to maintain the oppressive tyrannical regimes, such as the Taliban and the mullahs of Iran; they want to keep Arab women in bondage and are fighting democracy by any means. They often work in harmony with tyrannical rulers, who use terrorism as a tool to blackmail the West and Israel for more concessions and financial aid.

We Arab-Americans who want to promote freedom and democracy in our culture of origin are extremely discouraged by terror apologists, who claim that terrorists have a good cause. To them, I say, "No!" We are the freedom fighters; they are evil terrorists.

Terrorists do not have an honorable cause, but are pursuing the causes of old, tired despots and tyrants of the Middle East, those who suppress freedom at any cost. You have no idea how oppressive it is to live in the Middle East. Terrorists deliberately target and kill children, women, civilian men and leaders who sign peace treaties, such as President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Terrorists shamelessly hold the Koran and recite verses while beheading the innocent without mercy. Terrorists do not care if their actions hurt the reputation of Islam, a religion they claim to love. Terrorists have no intention ever to make peace with Israel, or to accord respect or equality to Christians, Kurds, Jews or other minorities in the Middle East. To them, peace negotiations are just a game to confuse the West and misrepresent their true intentions. When will all the Western powers realize this and understand this game?

The goal of Osama Bin-Laden is to subdue the entire world, especially America, under Islam. Terrorists follow that one goal blindly and will not allow anything to stand in the way, not even the safety and security of their own children. Like the Communists before them, terrorists believe that their ideal state has not yet been accomplished, and no Muslim country or constitution is pure enough to satisfy them. Even the Saudi regime, which follows Sharia, Islamic law, is not Muslim enough for them.

The years of indoctrination by mullahs and dictators have turned many Arab people into robots for terror, following a mirage of ideals and beliefs in the perfect Islamic state. To them, the mere existence of the non-Muslim world stands in the way of accomplishing this perfect Utopia. When the terrorists speak to Western media, they give themselves the right to lie and blame the West for all their problems. Western journalists also frequently fall into the trap of being the enablers of these 'freedom fighters'.

"Progressives"' in the West must start seeing the budding aspirations of the true freedom fighters in the Middle East. The true freedom fighters are those who are standing for democracy and freedom, respect for minorities, peace with Israel and joining the civilized world in a relationship based on mutual respect. They are the Arabs and Muslims who are speaking for peace, many of whom are jailed in places like Syria, Iran and Bangladesh for this "crime".

Today's true freedom fighters are the voters of Iraq. It is the few of us speaking against the stoning of Muslim women, the lashing and torture of men, and the cruel and unusual punishments still going on in Muslim countries. We are fighting the extreme poverty in the Arab oil-rich region that is plagued with corruption. We are struggling against the indoctrination of Arab children, who learn the 'values' of hate, terror and vengeance.

We hear about the horror of how a whole Coptic Christian Egyptian family was slaughtered by terrorists in New Jersey, but we are not dissuaded and continue to speak out for peace and freedom. We are the freedom fighters.

At a rally against terrorism in Berkeley, California, some Arabs were trying to disrupt the event by chanting, "Two, four, six, eight, we are martyrs, we can't wait!" They were foolishly supported by some Americans. I want to tell the "progressive" Left in America that they are supporting the wrong side; they are not supporting the oppressed underdog, they are supporting the oppressors and the terrorist system that promotes their hate and brings it to America.

I wish the Left would see the new reality in the Middle East. Please move beyond the sixties. The old causes they are supporting are the very ones standing in the way of progress. They have now become part of the problem and not part of the solution. They are no longer progressive, but are buried in old and tired arguments of days gone by. Progressives of America: you need a revival.

Let the world step back and see who the true freedom fighters are, and who are the real terrorists, and never confuse the two.
Link

Mall bunnies hunt for neutral names

Thanks to Warner for this Politically Correct RUBBISH
IT'S THE freaking EASTER BUNNY !!!!!!!!!!!
Get it through your thick skulls .

And Now for the SPRING Bunny:
Link

Death at 'immoral' picnic in the park - World - Times Online

Times on line

March 23, 2005

Death at 'immoral' picnic in the parkBy Catherine Philp
Students are beaten to death for playing music as Shia militiamen run amok
THE students had begun to lay out their picnic in the spring sunshine when the men attacked.

“There were dozens of them, armed with guns, and they poured into the park,” Ali al-Azawi, 21, the engineering student who had organised the gathering in Basra, said.

“They started shouting at us that we were immoral, that we were meeting boys and girls together and playing music and that this was against Islam.

“They began shooting in the air and people screamed. Then, with one order, they began beating us with their sticks and rifle butts.” Two students were said to have been killed.

Standing over them as the blows rained down was the man who gave the order, dressed in dark clerical garb and wearing a black turban. Ali recognised him immediately as a follower of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric. Ali realised then that the armed men were members of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, a private militia that fought American forces last year and is now enforcing its own firebrand version of Islam.

The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern city, where religious militias rule the streets, forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops that sell alcohol or music.

In the election in January, the battle between secular and religious forces in Basra came down to the ballot box. The main Shia alliance triumphed with 70 per cent of the province’s vote, most of the rest going to a secular rival.

That victory has brought to a head the issue of whether Iraq’s new constitution will adopt Islamic law — or Sharia — as most religious Shia leaders desire.

In Basra, however, Islamic militias already are beginning to apply their own version of that law, without authority from above or any challenge from the police.

Students say that there was nothing spontaneous about the attack. Police were guarding the picnic in the park, as is customary at any large public gathering, but allowed the armed men in without any resistance.

One brought a video camera to record the sinful spectacle of the picnic, footage of which was later released to the public as a warning to others.

It showed images of one girl struggling as a gunman ripped her blouse off, leaving her half-naked. “We will send these pictures to your parents so they can see how you were dancing naked with men,” a gunman told her. Two students who went to her aid were shot — one in the leg, the other twice in the stomach. The latter was said to have died of his injuries. Fellow students say that the girl later committed suicide. Another girl who was severely beaten around the head lost her sight.

Far from disavowing the attack, senior al-Sadr loyalists said that they had a duty to stop the students’ “dancing, sexy dress and corruption”.

“We beat them because we are authorised by Allah to do so and that is our duty,” Sheik Ahmed al-Basri said after the attack. “It is we who should deal with such disobedience and not the police.”

After escaping with two students, Ali reached a police station and asked for help. “What do you expect me to do about it?” a uniformed officer asked.

Ali went to the British military base at al-Maakal and pleaded with the duty officer at the gate. “You’re a sovereign country now. We can’t help. You have to go to the Iraqi authorities,” the soldier replied.

When the students tried to organise demonstrations, they were broken up by the Mehdi Army. Later the university was surrounded by militiamen, who distributed leaflets threatening to mortar the campus if they did not call off the protests.

When the militia began to set up checkpoints and arrest students, Ali fled to Baghdad.

A British spokesman said that troops were unable to intervene unless asked to by the Iraqi authorities.

Colonel Kareem al-Zeidy, Basra’s police chief, pleaded helplessness. “What can I do? There is no government, no one to give us authority,” he said. “The political parties are the most powerful force in Basra right now.”

The students have begun an indefinite strike, but fear that there is little that they can do to stop the march of violent fundamentalism. Saleh, 21, another engineering student, said: “If this is how they deal with the most educated in Basra, how would they deal with ordinary people? The soul of our city is at stake.”
Link

Manila
Britain warns of fresh terror attacks
From correspondents in Manila
March 23, 2005
Daily Telegraph

TERRORISTS are in the final stages of planning an attack in the Philippines, the British embassy has warned in an updated travel advisory.

"We believe that terrorists are in the final stages of planning an attack," the bulletin issued ahead of Easter weekend said.
"However, attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in the Philippines."
The US has also updated its advisory, saying reprisals by the Abu Sayyaf Muslim militant group were possible.
British citizens are being discouraged from travelling to central, southern and western Mindanao, and the Sulu archipelago where military operations against Muslim groups continue.

The advisory noted that "extremist groups" including Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation front (MILF) operated in the Philippines, and communist insurgents remained active.
"There is a high threat from terrorism throughout the Philippines," the bulletin said.
"There continues to be threats against Western interests and there is a danger of collateral damage from terrorist attacks targeted at others.
"Terrorists and criminal elements are continuing with plans to kidnap Filipinos and Westerners.
"Westerners have been targeted before, particularly in the southern Philippines and coastal resorts, and may still be considered an attractive tareget."
AFP

Some detainees to be released
By Elizabeth Colman, Steve Lewis and wires
March 23, 2005
From:
News.com.au

THE Federal Government's refugee policy was unravelling because it played politics with the problem, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today.
His comment followed Canberra's announcement it would release detainees who had been refused refugee status but who could not return to their home countries, until the situation that kept them in Australia was resolved.
"If the Government was systematic instead of political, they would have solved this problem a long time ago," Mr Beazley said in Melbourne.
Holders of the Removal Pending Bridging Visa would have to agree to return to their home countries as soon as the Federal Government considers it possible for them to do so.
They would also be required to report regularly to the Department of Immigration, but would have access to some benefits, including Medicare and short-term income support.
The visas would apply only in a small number of cases to detainees already imprisoned for a long time, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said.
"The new bridging visa will not be available to detainees with current visa applications, or who are challenging decisions, either through review or courts," Senator Vanstone said.
Mr Beazley said that under a Labor government asylum seekers would be properly tested on security grounds but the processing would be done quickly "so we don't have people effectively locked away for very long periods of time".
"We need to keep that deterrent element there, that mandatory detention element there, but we also need to do it with humanity and expedition," he said.
"This Government mucks around with it, always looking for a political opportunity, and now their chickens have come home to roost."
Under Labor, asylum seekers would be processed within 90 days and then released, unless there were security or health reasons to keep them in detention.
For detainees, there would be a monthly review with the onus on the immigration department to justify why they should remain in custody.
The visa would also provide access to trauma and torture counselling, schooling for children, and child care tax benefits - the same as those provided to people living in Australia on Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs).
Today's announcement represents the government's first - if small - departure from its hardline stance on immigration detention.
But Prime Minister John Howard stressed it did not foreshadow a change of policy.
"We have no intention of altering the policy ... of mandatory detention. That policy has worked extremely well," he told reporters in Canberra after a cabinet meeting yesterday.
The decision to release a small number of detainees followed two days of intense speculation that the government was reconsidering the cases of Christian convert asylum seekers.
The move outraged Muslims, Labor and Family First who feared a string of copycat conversions.
But today's decision is unlikely to please refugee advocates, who argue the government's entire policy of mandatory detention is unlawful and cruel.
Amnesty International today warned against a "quick fix" approach to the problems and said there should be a presumption against detention for all asylum seekers entering Australia.
The Government's latest shift on refugee policy has come after a group of prominent Liberal backbenchers raised concerns about conditions in detention centres, with cabinet agreeing to relax strict controls on who can be released into the community. Announcing the shift, the Prime Minister insisted the Government's hardline policy on border protection and commitment to offshore processing had not been compromised.
"What we have been looking at is a situation where a person has been judged not to be a refugee. In other words, all of the avenues of examination and adjudication have been exhausted, yet for practical purposes that person can't be sent back to the country from whence he came," he said.
"While that situation continues, it's not reasonable that he or she continues to be in detention and the desire is that that person be let out into the community on the understanding that when the impracticability about the person's return has been removed, then that person will be returned to the country from whence he came. Of course, at no stage has it been judged that that person is a refugee."
Senator Vanstone will have the discretion to determine when to send stateless visa holders back to their country of origin. The new visa category will incorporate those who have exhausted their legal claims against the commonwealth.
The case of long-term stateless detainee Peter Qasim, who is in his seventh year in immigration detention, has been the focus of intense lobbying by Coalition backbenchers and advocates.
Mr Qasim, who claims to be from Kashmir, has dropped all appeals for protection and asked to be deported from Australia, but no country will accept his bid for residency.
The Howard Government had until yesterday taken a draconian approach to migration law, fighting hundreds of court battles to cement its right to detain a person living in Australia without a visa, following the arrival of the Tampa boatload of Afghan refugees in August 2001.
Mr Howard exploited community angst over refugees at the so-called Tampa election of 2001 by campaigning on the memorable slogan: "We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come".
Government MPs, including NSW's Bruce Baird and senator Marise Payne, Victorian MPs Petro Georgiou and Phil Barresi and West Australian member Judi Moylan, have raised the issue of children in detention and stateless detainees in the partyroom and privately with the Immigration Minister.
And Nationals Kay Hull and John Forrest have been instrumental in changing policy on asylum-seeker issues such as temporary protection visas and regional workers.
Mr Barresi told The Australian last night that he had spoken to Senator Vanstone and Mr Howard of his concerns about the "mental decay" of indefinite detainees.
"Full marks to the Prime Minister and Senator Vanstone," Mr Barresi said. "(The decision) doesn't undermine the border protection policy the Government has, but it does demonstrate a great deal of compassion."
Mr Barresi praised fellow Coalition MPs who had lobbied "discreetly" and outside of the election context and "within the system".
"Bruce Baird, Judi Moylan, John Forrest, Petro (Georgiou), these people have stood up and spoken and I'm pleased that it took that visit to Baxter to speed the process on it," he said. "Petro got the ball rolling."
The breakthrough comes as activists from the NSW Refugee Action Coalition plan to rally in the hundreds outside Senator Vanstone's house in Adelaide and then move to Baxter on Good Friday.
Including copy from The Australian
Labor 4 Refugees

The Labor Party is the Party that wants OPEN BORDERS and NO detention of anybody who arrives from any where so long as they say they are not a
Terrorist. Bogs.

Terrorists 'at large in Australia'
March 23, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au

AUSTRALIA'S top spy has told an international law conference that suspected terrorists are moving freely around Australia because security authorities don't have enough powers.
Legal loopholes had enabled many suspected terrorists to escape prosecution, ASIO Director-General Dennis Richardson said.
Mr Richardson said fewer than one in 10 people known to be involved with terrorist groups in Australia were ever likely to face court.
"The great majority of people in Australia, who are assessed to have trained with al-Qaeda and associated groups, remain free in the community because, amongst other reasons, the relevant laws did not come into force until July, 2002," he told the LAWAsia conference on the Gold Coast.
Mr Richardson said Australia was not alone in this regard.
"In many cases, the capacity to obtain evidence sufficient to meet proper legal standards is beyond reach," he said, adding that Australia had not been slow to respond to terrorism.
But he said Australians had an understandable expectation that the government would lawfully protect them from the potential threat posed by those involved with terrorist groups.
Australians could have confidence that its legal system had worked well so far and had the capacity to adjust to future challenges.

Travolta a high miler
By Natacha Butler
March 23, 2005

News.com.au

HOLLYWOOD heartthrob John Travolta has revealed he likes to get saucy once the fasten seatbelt lights go off at 34,000 feet.
The cheeky flying fanatic, who pilots his own plane, says he and his gorgeous wife once created their own turbulence in the skies.
" In my Lear jet days, we joined the club. I shut off the cockpit, let someone else fly, and we had our day," 51-year-old Travolta told men's bible FHM.
"No more details necessary."
Despite their saucy mile-high antics the Be Cool star says his marriage to Kelly Preston may not have survived were it not for counselling.
The A-list couple, who married in 1991 and have two children, visited a counsellor every six months for 12 years.
"Relationships grow and change. If you don't update your relationship, you grow apart. We got to know each other over the years," he told Britain's Night And Day magazine.
"But sure, I could have seen us separating without counselling."
Kelly, an actress in her own right, must certainly tire of the female attention her blue-eyed husband garners.
Travolta, though, seems to take all the adulation in his stride, even confessing he is flattered by the attention of fresh-faced beauties like his Love Song For Bobby Long co-stars 21-year-old Scarlett Johansson and former chart-topper Christina Milian.
"Between Scarlett and Christina I'm in a good place. I love it, but I think what they're responding to is their memory of me in Grease.
"I'm flattered that they get excited over me. Whatever it is that they like, I'm all for it. Young, gorgeous girls like these two are so much fun to be around because they're light hearted, very healthy and uncomplicated, meaning they don't have a lot of baggage, so there's a purity to them."

Oil money pledged to official
By Marc Carnegie at the UN
March 23, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au

THE UN is facing new questions about the Iraqi oil-for-food program after admitting it agreed to use Iraqi money to pay the legal fees of a UN official under investigation.
Benon Sevan, who ran the scandal-tainted program, has already been accused of serious violations of UN conduct after an enquiry found he got oil allocations from the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein for an acquaintance.
The UN said overnight that it had pledged to reimburse Mr Sevan for "reasonable" legal fees while he was under investigation by the enquiry headed by former US Federal Reserve banking chief Paul Volcker.
The money was to come from an escrow account containing 2.2 per cent of Iraqi oil revenues used to run the defunct $US64 billion ($82bn) oil-for-food program, the largest aid scheme in UN history.
Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the arrangement was halted last month when an initial report from Mr Volcker's commission, known as the IIC, charged
No money had been paid and the UN was questioning the legal bills Mr Sevan had presented for payment, Mr Eckhard said.
"Although Mr Sevan has subsequently submitted legal fees, the amount he is seeking is currently being questioned by the UN on the grounds that not all costs releate to his co-operation with the IIC," he said.
Since Saddam was ousted by US forces two years ago, Iraq has repeatedly said the UN should turn over the remaining money in the so-called 2.2 account.
Instead, part of it has been used to pay the costs of the Volcker investigation, estimated to be $US30m.
Mr Annan appointed Mr Volcker to head the probe in a bid to head off charges of fraud and corruption in the oil-for-food program, which he said had cast a shadow over the UN.
Mr Volcker's next interim report, due to be released next week, is expected to focus on questions about Mr Annan and his son Kojo, who worked for a company that had contracts under the oil-for-food program.
The Oil-for-food program, which ran from December 1996 to November 2003, was intended to ease the effects of international sanctions on Iraqis, allowing Iraq to sell oil and use the revenue to buy humanitarian supplies.
An Iraqi newspaper last year published a list of individuals it said had received allocations of oil from Saddam's regime.
Last month, the Volcker panel said Mr Sevan had steered oil allocations to a firm linked to a relative of Mr Annan's predecessor as secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and that the regime was trying to buy influence through Mr Sevan.
The panel stopped short of saying Mr Sevan had taken bribes or committed a crime, but it raised questions about cash payments he claimed had come from a relative - and said the investigation into his affairs would continue.
Mr Sevan's behaviour "created a grave and continuing conflict of interest", the panel said.
"His conduct was ethically improper and seriously undermined (UN) integrity."
Mr Eckhard, who said Mr Annan personally decided to authorise paying for Mr Sevan's legal fees, said the UN reserved the right to get any money back from the accused if the charges against him were upheld.
The oil-for-food debacle has embarrassed the UN and the latest revelations, first reported in the New York Sun, came just one day after Mr Annan pledged UN reforms to improve accountability and transparency

RUBISCO

ANDREI RUBLEV PAGE 3

ISLAMIST ORGANIZATIONS USE PUBLIC TELEVISION TO MARKET SHARIA LAW TO AMERICAN YOUTH
ANDREI RUBLEV PAGE 3

For Most Americans who regularly watch the news, the term “Sharia law” evokes gruesome images of beheadings, punitive amputations, and women being stoned to death. Muslims who do not approve of the cruelty and misogyny that is often associated with Sharia have two legitimate options for dissociating these practices from Islam. They can either reject Sharia law altogether (much like modern day Judaism no longer proscribes Mosiac law), or they can at least demand that the egregious human rights violations that are currently associated with Sharia be declared forever obsolete.
A high school teaching module prepared by the Council on Islamic Education titled “What is Sharia?” rejects the first option by describing Sharia as the "centerpiece and backbone” of Islam 1. It ignores the second option by failing to make any reference whatsoever to the barbarism and misogyny that is currently associated with Sharia law. Despite this appalling oversight, students are expected to explain significance of the five major schools of Islamic law, list the fields of knowledge required for a qualified Muslim jurist, and learn a total of no less than 21 legal terms. In an era when college professors are lamenting the lack of basic knowledge of modern-day high school graduates, it is amazing that anyone should remotely consider supplementing their social studies curricula with so much arcane minutia.
This particular module comprises only 1 out of 29 that the CIE has presented under the auspices of “The Islam Project,” which the Boston Herald describes as an educational and interfaith initiative designed to dovetail with the PBS documentary "Muhammad: The Legacy of a Prophet" 2, 3. Since the Sharia module avoids the issue of Sharia-related human rights abuses, one might expect these issues to be addressed in other modules like “Human Rights and Religious Tolerance in Islam and in the French and American Enlightenment Traditions.” Don’t hold your breath.
The “Human Rights” module draws “analogies” between Islam and the Enlightenment 4. Quotes from the Jefferson Memorial and the “Rights of Man” are chosen to represent the American and French traditions (Handouts 2 and 3). Quotes from the Quran and Hadith are used to represent the Islamic tradition (Handout 1). The Islamic quotes in Handout 1 are organized under three sections. They include “universal human rights, social justice, and religious tolerance.” The first two categories include passages that stress the importance of moderation, the weighing of good and bad deeds, charity, honesty, honoring one’s parents, respecting property rights, and repressing jealousy. The Enlightenment quotes from Handouts 2 and 3 address freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equality before the law, separation of powers, fair taxation, government accountability, and the government’s duty to respect the general will of the people.
In effect, the quotes in Handout 1 consist almost exclusively of guidelines for improving personal and social behavior. In contrast, the quotes in Handouts 2 and 3 outline safeguards for preventing tyranny (what most Americans recognize as “human rights”). This stark contrast should be obvious to any thoughtful adult. How will this register on the mind of a high school student? How will these students define human rights after being required to compare apples and oranges?
Most relevant to the issue of human rights in Islam is the section in Handout 1 containing Quranic quotes that promote religious tolerance. Foremost is the quote “There is no compulsion in religion” Q 2:256. This section also includes passages that acknowledge the legitimacy of Christianity and Judaism such as the following:
"Those who believe (in the Qur'an) those who follow the Jewish (Scriptures) and the Sabians and the Christians any who believe in Allah and the Last Day and work righteousness on them shall be no fear nor shall they grieve." Q 5:69
But other verses from the same chapter denounce some of Christianity’s core beliefs 5. These verses are not in the handout:
“They do blaspheme who say: ‘Allah is Christ the son of Mary.’ But said Christ: ‘O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.” Q 5:72
“They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.” Q 5:73
Later, in this chapter condemnation is re-directed towards Jews:
“Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted in excesses.” Q 5:78
“Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, ‘We are Christians’: because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.” Q 5:82
Earlier in the chapter, Muslims are advised not to befriend Christians and Jews:
“O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.” Q 5:51
Numerous quotes to this effect can be found in Q 3:28, Q 4:144, and Q 48:29. At best, the Quran offers mixed messages with regards to Christians and Jews, but for those leaving Islam the promise of Hellfire in the Koran is unwaivering Q 2:217, Q 3:86, Q 4:137, Q 9:67, Q 16:106. Although to its credit, the Quran does not proscribe earthly punishment for those who leave Islam, the Hadiths compiled by Sahih Bukhari contain a whole section titled “Dealing with Apostates” 6. Here is a key sample:
"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." Bukhari vol. 9 #57
In a letter by Thomas Jefferson titled “"A Summary View of the Rights of British America" (available in Handout 2) he states, “I am certainly not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.” Fortunately for the CIE, most high school students are not sophisticated enough to see the irony in reading this statement as part of a lesson plan that places early medieval scriptures for overcoming tribal animosities on the same level with laws and ideals that represent the culmination of centuries of reasoning and painful soul-searching following the Renaissance and the Reformation. Nor are they likely to know that even today, apostasy is a capital offense in Saudi Arabia, and that vigilante attacks on apostates throughout the world compel many ex-Muslims to hide their change of heart, even in America.
Finally, another module titled “Women’s Rights and Marriage in Islam” does touch upon the issue of human rights violations specific to the Muslim world 7. These next two passages from articles written by Lois Lamya' al-Faruqi and Azizah Yahia al-Hibri in Handout 2 address the issue of misogyny. Predictably, the West gets much of the blame:
“As far as Muslim women are concerned, the source of any difficulties experienced today is not Islam and its traditions, but certain alien ideological intrusions on our societies, ignorance, and distortion of the true Islam, or exploitation by individuals within the society.”Here is Q 4:34 in its entirety 5:
"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient and guard in absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all) ."
Other translations do not usually include the word “lightly,” but that is beside the point. Subjection to any kind of beating is degrading to any adult, and extirpating this portion of Q 4:34 goes way beyond conventional forms of cherry picking.
Taken together, these modules prepared by the CIE represent a despicable shell game, where the issue of Sharia-related human rights abuses is dissociated completely from the “Sharia” module, turning up only as a “ideological intrusions” in the “Women’s Rights” module. Furthermore, the definition of human rights is expanded in the “Human Rights” module to the point where it is rendered almost meaningless.
Were this the work of an obscure organization whose work goes unacknowledged in the public sector, these lesson plans would be little more than a source of amusement. Unfortunately, the influence of the CIE is felt in middle and high school social studies textbooks across America 10, 11. Its staff also offers workshops for training public school teachers in America and the CIE’s principle writer, Susan Douglass also works for the “Dar al Islam Teacher’s Institute,” a New Mexico-based organization that provides free 12-day summer training sessions for secondary school teachers 12, 13, 14.
Eight other modules on the Islam Project website (out of a total of 37) were prepared by individuals not necessarily associated with the CIE. A module titled “Shari'ah: An Islamic Law Simulation” by Joan Brodsky Schur is perhaps more malignant than any product the CIE ever made available to the American public. In this simulation, students play the roles of judges, claimants, and defendants. Those playing judges are expected to “pass judgment” after consulting a variety of Islamic sources. According to the teacher’s guide that accompanies “American Muslim Teens Talk,” Ms. Schur’s online lessons appear on the Web sites of the National Archives and PBS. Given that her interest in Islam began after she attended the aforementioned “Dar al Islam Teacher’s Institute” in 1998, the pernicious influence of these teacher workshops should not be underestimated 15, 16.
It should be clear to any competent educator that the Islam Project has overstepped its stated agenda of merely clearing up “fear and misunderstandings” about Islam in the wake of 9/11. They are using his as an excuse for marketing Sharia to America’s most vulnerable citizens, thereby making America safe for Sharia. Those of you who don’t believe it can happen here should look up the “Arbitration Act of Ontario,” 1991 which now permits Muslims to set up Sharia courts in order to settle family disputes. Elka Enola of the Humanist Association of Toronto has rightfully pointed out that “If family law decisions agreed to under Shari’a reached the civil courts, most of those decisions would be thrown out. The intent, it seems, is to keep decisions detrimental to women, children, apostates and homosexuals, tightly within the Muslim community, and unchallenged” 17.
In the final analysis, Sharia law should not be tolerated in the free world in any shape or form whatsoever. A quick glance at all of the modules available on the Islam Project lesson plans shows that nearly all of them were designed to be used in conjunction with either "Muhammad: The Legacy of a Prophet" or Frontline’s “Muslims.” Both aired on PBS within two days of each other in December 2002 and comprise “the heart of the Islam Project” 18. By serving as a platform for Islamist organizations trying to indoctrinate American youth, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has defrauded not only the trust of its honorable contributors, but American taxpayers as well. Shame on PBS for its cavalier disregard of the first amendment!
1 http://www.theislamproject.org/education/D01_IslamicLaw.htm
2 Christopher Cox “Leap of faith; Consultant puts career on hold to become spokesman for Islamic society” The Boston Herald (11/6/02)
3 http://www.theislamproject.org/
4 http://www.theislamproject.org/education/D02_HumanRights.htm.
5 http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/
6http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/
7 http://www.theislamproject.org/education/D03_WomeninIslam_Marriage_topic2.htm
8 Lois Lamya' al-Faruqi Islamic Traditions and the feminist movement: confrontation or cooperation? From Women, Muslim Society and Islam American Trust Publications, 1988 http://www.salaam.co.uk/knowledge/faruqi.php
9 Azizah Yahia al-Hibri From "Muslim Women’s Rights in the Global Village: Challenges and Opportunities," first presented at the Hannibal Club Event (9/28/99) http://www.karamah.org

10 William Bennetta “Examining the treatment of religion in schoolbooks: Houghton Mifflin's Islamic Connection,” The Textbook Letter (July-August 2000) http://www.textbookleague.org/113centu.htm
11 Gilbert T. Sewall “Islam and the Textbooks” (2003) http://www.historytextbooks.org/islam.htm
12 Paul Sperry “Look who's teaching Johnny about Islam,” WorldNetDaily.com (5/03/04) http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38304
13 http://www.cie.org/teachers.asp
14 Dar al Islam http://www.daralislam.org/about/
15 http://www.theislamproject.org/education/lawsimulation.html
16 American Muslim Teens Talk: Overview http://www.theislamproject.org/education/AMTT.htm
17 Elka Enola “Shari’a, A Threat to the Canadian Society” (4/22/04)
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewLetter.cfm?REF=1351
http://www.theislamproject.org/muslims/muslims_overview.htm
Link

Prisoner free to fly
By Cindy Wockner
March 23, 2005
Daily Telegraph
SCHAPELLE Corby's legal team are confident authorities will help clear the way for a Victorian prisoner to fly to Bali this week to testify at her trial that drugs were planted in the young woman's bag.
Late yesterday, millionaire mobile phone dealer Ron Bakir, who is paying for Corby's legal defence, revealed that plans were well advanced for the man to be escorted to Indonesia by Australian police to testify tomorrow.
He said Indonesia's Ambassador to Australia had contacted the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta to get clearance for a prisoner to be allowed into the country.
Also, the defence intends to call three other witnesses in their case - a security officer from Brisbane airport, a criminologist and a detective of 13 years' experience.
Mr Bakir said Professor Paul Wilson, a criminologist from Bond University, would testify that in his opinion the 27-year-old does not fit the description nor have the attributes of a drug trafficker - the crime for which she is on trial and facing the maximum death penalty.
Corby is accused of smuggling 4.1kg of high quality marijuana into Bali in her unlocked boogie board bag - a crime which she has consistently denied. She is on trial before three judges in the Denpasar District Court.
Mr Bakir also said a security officer from Brisbane airport, where Ms Corby and her companions boarded the flight to Bali last October, would give evidence about what the defence says are poor security arrangements at the airport and that a detective would testify about the domestic drug problem within Australia.
But it is the mystery prison informant, currently on remand in a Victorian prison, where he has been housed for the past 14 months, whose potential evidence, according to the defence lawyers, gives Corby her best hope yet of beating the charges.
The man has given a sworn statement to Mr Bakir and the lawyers that he overheard a conversation between two other prisoners and that the men told how the 4.1kg of marijuana was mistakenly put in Corby's bag as part of an interstate drug trafficking scam at airports.
The man has since been interviewed by Australian Federal Police. However, Commissioner Mick Keelty, who read the man's statement, has cast doubt on the man's evidence and credibility, describing it as hearsay upon hearsay and questioned whether the overheard jail conversation even related to the Corby case.
Mr Keelty angrily denied claims the man had been trying to contact the AFP for two months to pass on the information, without success.
Days of diplomatic talks and meetings between the lawyers and Australian Government ministers and officials have preceded the decision to allow the man to come to Indonesia.
After the witnesses give their evidence, Corby will be the last witness in her case, either tomorrow or the following week.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/23/2005 03:13:00 AM 1 comments

ON LINE opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Cannon fodder of the culture wars

By Kevin DonnellyPosted
Friday, February 11, 2005

In the US it's known as the culture wars: the battle between a liberal-humanist view of education based on the disinterested pursuit of truth and those committed to overthrowing the status quo and turning students into politically correct new age warriors.
The editorial in the latest edition of English in Australia, the journal of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE), provides ample evidence that the culture wars have reached our shores and that those seeking to control our schools prefer indoctrination to education.
Wayne Sawyer, the president of the NSW English Teachers Association and former chairman of the NSW Board of Studies English Curriculum Committee, bemoans the fact that the Howard Government was re-elected and cites this as evidence that English teachers have failed in their job.
Parents and the general public might be forgiven for thinking that English teachers, instead of teaching students the "right" way to vote, should be more concerned with teaching students to read and write and to value good literature. Not so.
Sawyer asks: "What does it mean for us and our ability to create a questioning, critical generation that those who bought us balaclavaed security guards, Alsatians and Patrick's stevedoring could declare themselves the representatives of the workers and be supported by the electorate?
"Three years before, Howard had headlined the non-existent children overboard, he had put race firmly on the agenda as an election issue and cynically manipulated the desperation and poverty of our Pacific neighbours. What does it mean for us and our ability to create a questioning, critical, ethical citizenry that that kind of deception is rewarded?"
One might imagine, in a democracy such as ours, that once the people have voted, those who voted the other way would accept the outcome and respect the people's judgment. Not so Sawyer. As is so characteristic of the elites who seek to control Australia's cultural agenda, Sawyer refuses to accept that the people may have got it right and that their decision, while unacceptable to him, might be based on sound judgment.
It's also ironic, notwithstanding the rhetoric about empowering students to think independently, that Sawyer seeks to impose his view of what is politically correct and judges anybody who begs to differ as being duped.
"We knew the truth about Iraq before the election. Did our former students just not care? We knew before the election that “children overboard” was a crock, but, as it was yesterday's news, did they not care about that either? Has English failed not only to create critical generations, but also failed to create humane ones?"
What Sawyer also fails to consider is that such was the Howard Government's record - high employment, low inflation and secure borders - and the dismal performance of the ALP that voting for the Coalition might have been the action of a sensible person.
Even worse than Sawyer's jaundiced view about the election, and the apparent failure of English teachers to get tomorrow's adults to vote the way he would like, is what the editorial tells us about how English is now taught.
In the post-modern classroom, literacy is defined as social-critical literacy and texts are deconstructed to show how disadvantaged groups, such as girls and women, are marginalised and dispossessed. Ignored is the aesthetic and moral value of great literature.
The result? Traditional fairytales such as Jack and the Beanstalk and children's classics such as The Magic Far Away Tree are criticised for presenting boys as masculine and physically assertive and for failing to show girls in dominant positions.
The English classroom was once a place to learn how to read and write. In the edubabble much loved by teacher educators such as Wayne Martino, this more traditional approach is considered obsolete and, as an alternative, the English classroom must be "conceptualised as a sociopolitical site where alternative reading positions can be made available to students outside of an oppressive male-female dualistic hierarchy - outside of an oppressive phallocentric signifying system for making meaning".
In line with the PC approach to curriculum, the AATE also argues that competitive assessment is inequitable and socially unjust, and that testing and failing students in areas such as literacy is bad for their self-esteem. Given that the AATE has promoted such failed fads as whole language, it is understandable why the association refused to accept the results of the 1996 national survey that showed 27 per cent of Year 3 and 29 per cent of Year 5 students failed to reach the minimum standard in reading.
In the words of a past president of the AATE, Margaret Gill, all is well in Australia's classrooms and the concern about standards is simply a "manufactured crisis". A federally funded survey of Australian parents carried out in 1997 discovered that 60 per cent of those interviewed did not believe that teachers were professional enough or well enough trained to teach about politics without bias. Judged by the actions of professional associations such as the AATE, it appears that they are correct.
First published in The Australian on February 9, 2005.
Dr Kevin Donnelly is the Executive Director of Melbourne-based consulting group Education Strategies. He can be contacted at kevind@netspace.net.au. He is author of Why Our Schools are Failing, freely available at http://www.mrcltd.org.au/ .

© The National Forum and contributors 2000-2005. All rights reserved.

Who could forget .... Pamela Anderson saving another life on the show.

Baywatch comeback
By Natacha Butler
March 22, 2005
From: NEWS.com.au


BIG heaving chests and big hair will hit the big screen as Baywatch babes dust down their red swimsuits for movie-making legend Steven Spielberg's latest project.
The veteran director has bought the film rights to the hit American television series and plans to put the show's lifesaving antics on celluloid.
It's the first time Spielberg's involvement in the surf and sand flick has been confirmed although last year showbiz insiders hinted his production company, DreamWorks, was considering the movie.
The news is sure to delight Baywatch fans across the world. It's unlikely, though, the show's original cast will star in the remake of the sexy series.
Baywatch, which launched in 1989, made small-screen superstars of actors David Hasselhoff and brunette beauty Carmen Electra.
David went on to become a popular recording artist in Germany while Carmen works as an MTV presenter.
But it was busty, blonde bombshell Pamela Anderson who became a household name as hot lifesaver CJ.
With her pneumatic chest squeezed into a super high-cut, tight red swimming costume, Pamela became the epitome of a cool Californian beach babe - desired by men and emulated by women.
Viewers were treated weekly to the show's trademark slow-motion running scenes in which the lifesavers - hard-bodied, Speedo-clad men and well-endowed women - battled the Pacific Ocean to save the lives of reckless swimmers.
By the time the series ended in 2001 it had become a hit in more than 140 countries and had been translated into more 40 languages.
Spielberg, who has made some of the most successful films in history including ET and Raiders of the Lost Ark, is sure to create box office waves with his latest movie undertaking.

Accused wanted media attention
By Kylie Williams
March 22, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au

AN accused terrorist boasted of planning a suicide attack on a Commonwealth office only because he was depressed and wanted the media attention, a Sydney court heard today.
Zaky Mallah has pleaded not guilty in the New South Wales Supreme Court to planning a terrorist attack involving a rifle on the Sydney offices of either the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in late 2003.
He also pleaded not guilty to selling a video tape, typed statement and photographs of himself to an undercover police officer posing as a freelance journalist between November 28 and December 3 that year.
The Crown said Mr Mallah planned to kill himself and government officers in the attack.
But the 21-year-old's counsel Phillip Boulten, SC, said Mr Mallah never intended to kill anybody and boasted of planning the attack only to get media attention.
"He was not a ... terrorist waiting to jump," Mr Boulten said.
"He was a young dreamer, dreaming as it were of his moment in the spotlight."
Mr Boulten said Mr Mallah's parents died when he was a teenager, and he was depressed at the Government's refusal to give him a passport.
The refusal meant he could not go to Lebanon to meet his potential bride, or go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
"He was receiving some relief from his depressed state from the buzz that the media was finding him attractive," Mr Boulten said.
Mr Boulten said his client was also angry that he and his lawyer were shut out of the court during an appeal of the government's decision at the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, while the Commonwealth gave its reasons for refusing him a passport.
"Mr Mallah was not told and never learnt the reason in detail why his passport was refused," Mr Boulten said.
The court was told earlier that phone calls made by Mr Mallah on his mobile and from his home also were recorded, prompting police to raid his Condell Park flat in south-western Sydney.
During the raid, police found a .22-calibre rifle and a written note in which Mr Mallah outlined his plans for the terrorist attack, the court was told.
They also found an application to become an ASIO agent, Mr Boulten said.
"One of the things that the police found when they raided his home in September was a job application ... to seek a job as an ASIO agent...," he said.
The trial continues tomorrow.

Suicide Bomb plot ASIO my Target
Sydney man planned to take hostages in Terror attack

Terror suspect
Thomas was to inform al-Qaeda
By Kate Williams
March 22, 2005
Daily Telegraph

TERROR suspect 'Jihad Jack' Thomas trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001, and was asked to inform the terrorist network about military bases in Australia, a Melbourne court heard today.

Former taxi driver Joseph Terrence Thomas faced Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with a string of offences under Australia's recently introduced counter-terror laws.
The 31-year-old Muslim convert, who has not been required to enter a plea, has denied charges of receiving financial support from al-Qaeda, providing al-Qaeda with resources or support to carry out a terrorist attack, and having a false passport.
The diminutive and bearded father of two from Werribee sat in the courtroom on the first day of his committal hearing with his parents on either side of him.
The court heard that an al-Qaeda operative asked Thomas between November 2002 and January 2003 to return to Australia from Pakistan to do some work for the terror organisation's chief, Osama bin Laden.

Prosecutor Jeanette Morrish, QC, said Thomas was told "to look at military installations".
When asked why, Thomas replied: "Location. Where are they?" Ms Morrish said.
Thomas had also told police al-Qaeda's objectives were to "make America change its ways" through the use of force, Ms Morrish said.
When asked if al-Qaeda was a terrorist organisation, Thomas had replied: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
But Thomas had also said he did not agree with the organisation's methods, Ms Morrish said.
A recent hearing was told that Thomas made several admissions during an interview in March 2003 with Australian Federal Police in Pakistan while he was detained on suspicion of having terrorist connections.
The prosecution alleges Thomas had attended an al-Qaeda training camp at Al Farooq in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001, where he saw Osama bin Laden on a number of occasions.
He then travelled to Pakistan and stayed in several al-Qaeda safe houses where he overheard conversations regarding a plot to bring down a jet carrying a Pakistani president with a rocket launcher and discussed a plan to break a detainee out of US custody at Guantanamo Bay.
It is also alleged that an al-Qaeda associate gave Thomas $3,500 and an airline ticket for Australia and told him to go back to work when he returned to Australia, maintain a cover and then make contact in six to 12 months, the court heard.
His passport was altered to disguise the fact that he had been in Pakistan for an- extended period, it is alleged.
The hearing before Magistrate Lisa Hannan, which has been closed to the public for security reasons, is continuing.
AAP
Jihad Jack attends human rights meeting

Aussie al Qaeda Robert Spencer

// posted by Ridge @ 3/22/2005 08:28:00 PM 1 comments

Nigeria
Town razed by army after feud
By Dave Clark in Odioma
March 22, 2005
Daily Telegraph
Niger Delta Women for Justice
A DEADLY chain of events triggered by the arrival of a team from the oil giant Shell surveying a site for a new well in the Niger Delta has so far resulted in 28 people killed and the town of Odioma burned down by government troops.

The visit reignited a dispute between the neighbouring communities of Obiaku and Odioma, the latest local conflict to erupt from southern Nigeria's poisonous cocktail of abject poverty, squalid politics, well-armed gangs and a multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry.
Thousands have fled Odioma, a sizeable port reachable only by boat through the delta's maze of estuarine creeks and mangrove swamp. The few left have buried 16 people, at least three of whom had bullet wounds, according to the local council of chiefs.
"There were none of these problems before the oil came. The companies and the government have given too much money and power to small boys," complained Daniel Orumiegha-Bari, the 68-year-old council head.
A joint unit of Nigerian soldiers, sailors and police descended on Odioma about 10.30am on February 19. Officially, they were hunting down a local militia leader and black magic guru who was accused of murdering 12 people from Obiaku.
Local leaders said militia chief Osei Clever had grown beyond the control of his community after being armed as a local enforcer by state government officials keen to keep control of the oil-rich creeks of the delta, and that Odioma was the victim of an unjust collective punishment.
"I'm looking for anything I can," mumbled a blank-eyed and expressionless Alabota Johnson, a 60-year-old grandmother, standing pointlessly amid the wreckage of her family home. "Everybody has fled. This is no place to stay."
Barely one of the mud-brick or concrete block homes in the town centre survived intact. Most now stand open to the heavy, slate-grey sky, their roof beams burnt away and the corrugated iron roofs shattered amid the debris below.
The heat was so intense that stacks of beer bottles melted and fused together in the waterfront market.
"I had three houses here. Two were burned down and the third only survived because my wife begged the soldiers on her knees," muttered one local elder, fearful to say more under the gaze of Odioma's new masters, an intelligence officer and a squad of rifle-toting soldiers in T-shirts and flip-flops.
Osei has gone on the run, leaving behind him the clearly marked speedboats donated to his gang by the government for the so-called Bayelsa Volunteers Anti-Piracy Squad.
According to the commander of the raid, Brigadier-General Elias Zamani, stray bullets hit jerry cans of fuel, triggering an accidental fire.
"As soon as our men entered Odioma, the gang opened fire and, of course, we fired back and, in the process, killed one of them. A number of houses were burned because the people stored petrol in their houses," he said.
Fearful local leaders will not openly dispute this, but the evidence on the ground points to deliberate destruction.
There are very few bullet holes in the walls of the remaining homes, while a vast area of the town centre has been systematically razed.
Tellingly, soldiers proudly show off the fetishes seized in the militia leader's home. Somehow, they were able to capture this evidence intact before "stray bullets" touched the fuel drums supposedly stored in this and perhaps 50 more buildings nearby.
"Normally what happens after a crime is an investigation. What baffles me now is that no investigation was made," said Orumiegha-Bari.
As he spoke, rifle shots rang out from the waterfront as soldiers fired warning rounds over passing river traffic.
The raid on Odioma followed an earlier massacre of 12 people from Obiaku - including a pregnant woman and four local councillors - in an ambush on a boat carrying them home after peace talks in the state capital.
Odioma and Obiaku - both ethnic Ijaw communities of canoe carvers, traders and occasional fishermen - dispute ownership of Owukubu, a riverside district where the Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell hopes to site an oil well.
On January 22, a survey company contracted by Shell moved a houseboat and team of engineers to the area to examine the site. Youths linked to Osei's militia headed to the area to demand jobs and compensation from the companies.
Obiaku, which has had an agreement with Shell since 1998, objected to Odioma's attempt to muscle in and the Nembe local government was forced to deploy a well-armed police unit to keep the peace.
Shell spokesman Simon Buerk said the firm had signed a deal with Obiaku and a third community in 1998 and had been unaware that Odioma claimed the land. The surveyors were pulled out on January 29 pending a resolution of the crisis.
Inconclusive talks were held on February 2 between community elders in Yenagoa, under the auspices of the state government, local leaders said.
Local government officials said they thought a deal had been reached, but when the Obiaku delegation set off for home the next day they were pursued by a boatload of youths and sprayed with automatic fire.
AFP

The Daily Telegraph | Beazley on rise, Labor sinks
Socialists on the nose in Australia
Poll
Beazley on rise, Labor sinks
March 22, 2005
Daily Telegraph

FEDERAL Opposition Leader Kim Beazley is on the ascent but his Labor party remains on the nose, according to the latest Newspoll.

The Newspoll published by The Australian puts the ALP's primary vote at 36 per cent, lower than it recorded at the October 2004 election.
The Coalition maintains a commanding lead at 47 per cent of the primary vote, the poll says, and has improved its two-party preferred vote to 54 per cent.
As prime minister, 54 per cent preferred Mr Howard, while 30 per cent thought Mr Beazley would make the better PM.
But satisfaction with Mr Beazley's performance jumped to 49 per cent, far above the 34 former leader Mark Latham could manage in December and January.
The Newspoll shows no backlash against the Government over rising interest rates and the controversy surrounding Senator Ross Lightfoot smuggling money into Iraq.
The poll indicates the Government may have increased its majority had an election been held at the weekend, on the back of the two-point jump in the Coalition's two-party preferred vote.
Labor's 46 per cent two-party preferred result is its worst since the October election.
AAP


Link

Blue angel ... Kylie camps it up on stage in Glasgow
After winning Wimbledon Kylie went on the Road and wowed em ......she's coming to a town near YOU.
Blue angel ... Kylie camps it up on stage in Glasgow
News.com.au

KYLIE Minogue kicked off her world tour at Glasgow's SECC stadium on Saturday night, with French actor boyfriend Olivier Martinez looking on - silencing the latest rumours of a split.
The Showgirl tour ups Minogue's trademark camp factor to 11; indeed it is a seriously gay old time that makes Cher's recent flashy Australian performances look like a Metallica concert.
The former Neighbours star opened the two-hour show with her pop anthem Better the Devil You Know, balancing a Marge Simpson-style feather crown on her head while squeezed into a sequinned corset with huge tailfeather.
And if that isn't camp enough, the concert includes a segment which pays homage to New York's notorious gay bath house era - near-naked male dancers shower on stage while Minogue (in a black lingerie-style body suit) straddles gym equipment to sing her hit, Red Blooded Woman.
The gay-o-meter keeps firing with a surprise inclusion of her Pet Shop Boys collaboration In Denial (about a gay man's coming out) and her own uber-camp Your Disco Needs You, plus a cover of Judy Garland's signature song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, performed while balanced on a moon in a ball gown.
Minogue stays on her lunar prop long enough to turn her dance hit Come Into My World into a stark ballad.
"This is my way to say thank you to my audience and share some of the most important moments of my journey so far," Minogue said.
While not as innovative as 2002's Fever tour, Showgirl's clear highlights come in a segment that blends her 1988 hit Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi with her dramatic classic Confide in Me, complete with dancers in ball gowns and glitter-covered gimp masks.

There will come a day, Darling Pretty
There will come a day when hearts can fly
Love will find a way, my Darling Pretty
Find a heaven for you and I
Love will find a way, my Darling Pretty
Find a heaven for you and I

Sophie star of Variety awards
March 21, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au
Transcript 60 Mins. story

Sophie Delezio, the little girl horrifically burned when a car crashed through a daycare centre in 2003, has presented an award to the man who saved her life.
Sophie presented Westmead Hospital's burns unit head Dr John Harvey with a humanitarian award at the annual Variety Hearts Awards.
Sophie suffered burns to more than 80 per cent of her body and her feet had to be amputated after the crash, which left her and two-year-old playmate Molly Wood trapped.
Sophie's father Ron Delezio said he was proud of his daughter, who wore a pink dress and matching crocheted headscarf.
"She's our inspiration," he said. "She's our strength."
The three-year-old received a standing ovation at the awards attended by TV stars, musicians and business identities.
"It's going to be a long road because she is going to have to have skin grafts and cosmetic surgery and all sorts of things," Mr Delezio said.
The Variety Heart Awards recognise Australians for their exceptional effort in the humanitarian and entertainment fields.
ABC TV host Andrew Denton, for his work on television, actor Jack Thompson, who received a lifetime achievement award, and film director Baz Luhrmann and also received awards.
After receiving his award, an emotional Luhrmann met Sophie and posed for photographs.
Presenters included Kate Bosworth, who is in Australia to film Superman Returns, and Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe.
The Variety Heart Awards were founded 25 years ago, and many high-profile entertainers including Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Bert Newton, Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett have been recognised.

NEWS.com.au | Philippine capital on high alert (21-03-2005)
Link

President G.W.Bush.

Ok ,Ok, Ladies here is the FIRST Bogs Doddy MEN in Sport Pic.My thanks to Susan for this very colourful picture of two teams of Male cyclist prior to their event, one team obviously very excited about the upcoming event, the other, well maybe cycling just does not do it for them.

Kylie a picture of concerntration, about to serve for the match, the crowd is hushed in anticipation of an upset here

Kylie Smashes the ball for yet another ACE, Game Set and match to Kylie .
You go Grrrllll

Uganda
Rebels attack, hack women
From correspondents in Gulu
March 21, 2005

Daily Telegraph
UGANDAN rebels have attacked a group of women collecting firewood in a remote village near the Sudanese border, hacking off their lips, ears and breasts, a government official said today.
Fighters from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have stepped up attacks on civilians and troops after the most significant peace talks for a decade stalled late last year.

"In Kitgum district yesterday the rebels caught seven women and cut off their breasts and lips," Colonel Walter Ochora, chairman of Gulu district, the epicentre of the 19-year conflict, said.
The number of injuries was not immediately clear, with one newspaper saying three women had been mutilated with several others abducted in the attack in Agoro sub-county, about 20km north of Kitgum town.

The state-owned New Vision newspaper reported one of the youngest rebels, aged about 16, had cut off the victims' lips.

Leaders in northern Uganda say the cult-like LRA has conducted hundreds of similar attacks during its campaign, saying the rebels conduct the mutilations to terrorise the population.
Col. Ochora, the top government official in Gulu, warned of the threat of more attacks, saying LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti had crossed into Uganda from hideouts in southern Sudan yesterday with 300 fighters.
"They are well armed," he said.

"Over the next two weeks you will see what they are going to do, the atrocities they will commit. The rebels want to make a point through a soft target, through the population."
Col. Ochora was welcoming Tony Hall, the US ambassador to the UN agencies in Rome, who was on a one-day trip to assess the humanitarian situation in a region where 1.6 million people have been forced from their homes.

He announced an extra $27 million in US support for the UN World Food Program operations in northern Uganda.

Col. Ochora said Uganda's army had been lax in not stopping the rebels moving large distances on foot before they attacked civilians.
Dozens of people were kidnapped by the LRA last week, according to local officials, but the army disputes the figures.
Reuters

Christianity no ticket to stay: PM
March 21, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au

PRIME Minister John Howard today denied immigration detainees were more likely to be allowed to stay in Australia if they converted to Christianity.
A Sydney newspaper today reported that 30 of Australia's longest-serving immigration detainees were having their cases reviewed and could be freed because they had converted to Christianity since arriving in the country.

But Mr Howard today denied there was a bias towards Christianity in immigration matters.
"There's no denominational or religious-specific clause in the administration of our immigration policy," Mr Howard told ABC Radio in Brisbane.

"Concerns about religious persecution can vary from one religion to another (and) are always factors in deciding how we deal with people," he said.
"But the idea that we would introduce something that is peculiar only to people who convert to Christianity - that's not correct."

The newspaper quoted a spokesman for Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone as saying the only reason for reconsidering the 30 cases was their new religion.
"All these people had exhausted the (assessment and appeals) process and failed," the spokesman was quoted as saying.
"To apply again onshore, the minister has to make a decision under section 48 of the act to lift the bar. That's what has happened in this case; the bar was lifted about two weeks ago."
Asked what had changed in the detainees' circumstances to warrant reconsideration, he said: "Just that they brought new information that they've converted to Christianity and that they want their claim - that they may be persecuted if returned - to be examined."
Mr Howard said the Government was not in the business of giving preference to people who converted to a particular religion.

"We are nonetheless concerned that when people can demonstrate that by having embraced a particular religious belief they may suffer persecution if they go back to a particular country," he told the ABC today.
"That's always been there.
"It's not something that's been inserted with a view to having a preference for a particular religion.
"If that is the tone of the article, then they are not reflecting the administration accurately.á

ABC Online
'Bare-bum' sheep seen as solution to mulesing. 21/03/2005. ABC News Online
This is the print version of story Bare Bum Sheep
Last Update: Monday, March 21, 2005. 4:31pm (AEDT)
'Bare-bum' sheep seen as solution to mulesing
Scientists are hoping to identify the gene or genes which resulted in "bare-bum" sheep on an Eyre Peninsula merino stud, with hopes it can be replicated across the industry.
The genetic mutation resulted in a ram that was completely bare in the crutch and hind leg area.
Professor Phil Hynd from the University of Adelaide says he has no doubts that genetics is the answer to the ethical dilemma of mulesing sheep.
"We want to get away from chemical use as much as possible in the sheep industry," he said.
"The chemical mulesing that we're developing at Adelaide University with Australian Wool Innovation is, as I see it, a stop-gap measure.
"When mulesing's banned in 2009, we need something to replace it."
Professor Hynd says the aim now is to identify the bare-bum gene and to see if it is present in other sheep flocks.
"Genetic solutions are always slow, even with markers, but we would hope that if this is a dominant gene or at least a small cluster of genes that we can identify, we should be able to start making big impacts on the industry over a 10 to 15 year period," he said.

© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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// posted by Ridge @ 3/21/2005 05:51:00 PM 2 comments

Mallah the "terrorist"-------- Mallah the "designer clothes"
wannabe ------------------------ wearing DEFENDANT

Terror accused 'planned suicide bomb'
March 21, 2005
Daily Telegraph

A YOUNG terror suspect planned a suicide attack on buildings accommodating either intelligence officers or foreign affairs personnel after he was refused a passport, a Sydney court was told today.

The New South Wales District Court today began hearing the trial of Zeky "Zak" Mallah, 21, who has pleaded not guilty to charges under Australia's counter-terror laws.
He is accused of plotting to carry out a suicide attack on the Sydney offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) or the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), in late 2003.
The Crown claims he planned to kill ASIO or DFAT officers in the attack.
He also pleaded not guilty to offering to sell a video tape, typed statement and photograph of himself to an undercover police officer whom he thought was a journalist, between November 2003 and December 2003.
Crown Prosecutor Desmond Fagan SC today told the court the tape and statement related to the planned attacks, and Mallah also told the undercover officer he wanted to kill commonwealth officers.
Mr Fagan said Mallah planned the attack after DFAT refused him a passport in mid-2002.
"As a result of that refusal he developed a hostility to that department and ASIO", Fagan said.
The trial continues.
AAP

Suicide Bomb plot ASIO my Target
Sydney man planned to take hostages in Terror attack

Suspect ... a great white. Inset: Mr Brazier's gear is unloaded.

Shark victim will never be found
By Nick Taylor
March 21, 2005
From:
Daily Telegraph

POLICE have said there is little hope of finding the body of a catamaran skipper attacked by a 6m shark at the Abrolhos Islands, 500km north of Perth.
Geoffrey Brazier, 26, from the Perth suburb of Bicton, was snorkelling with two passengers when he was attacked by a tiger shark or a great white about 2pm on Saturday.
Mr Brazier, who was single and had no children, was sailing the 24m charter vessel Matrix on its maiden voyage from Perth to Broome.
Yesterday, police, fisheries officers and fishermen were carrying out an air and sea search of the Pelsaert Islands, about 65km west of the port city of Geraldton.
Two people snorkelling with Mr Brazier in 7m of water near Wreck Point, on the southeast tip of the Pelsaert group, were unhurt.
The attack occurred four days into the Abrolhos cray-fishing season.
The waters around the islands are notorious for sharks, particularly during the cray season. They are the habitat of tiger sharks and great white pointers patrol the nearby continental shelf.
Mr Brazier and 12 other crew and passengers had been anchored in the Abrolhos when the attack occurred.
Senior Sergeant Shaun Miller said there was no indication the snorkellers had been doing anything wrong.
He said it was unlikely Mr Brazier's body, or the shark that killed him, would be found.
There had been several shark sightings around the islands recently, but if one was spotted there would be no immediate decision to shoot it.
Sgt Miller said the situation would be assessed before a shoot-to-kill order was given.
"The crew and passengers are obviously very distressed and we will do our utmost to find any remains," he said.
The search for Mr Brazier's body and the shark would be hampered by the geography, tides and winds around the islands, Sgt Miller said.
West Australian Fisheries regional manager Russell Dyson said any calls for the shark to be shot on sight were a knee-jerk reaction.
Mr Dyson, an experienced diver, said humans were not "natural food" for sharks.
"It was a very, very unfortunate and sad incident," he said.
"It's an absolute rarity for such a thing to happen.
"The person was snorkelling. He was not wearing a wetsuit."

DailyTimes.com.pk
Many Muslims outraged at woman leading Friday prayers
CAIRO: Muslims in the Middle East on Saturday angrily denounced prayers led by a woman in New York City the day before as a violation of Islam. One Egyptian newspaper, Al-Messa, reported the news of Amina Wadud leading Friday prayer services on its front page, with the emphatic headline: "They are tarnishing Islam in America!" It referred to Wadud as "the deranged woman." A female Islamic law professor condemned the act as apostasy, explaining that a woman's body "stirs desire" in men. Some suggested the event was a U.S. conspiracy to mold traditional Islam into a secular American religion. Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led the Islamic prayer service before a mixed congregation of 80 to 100 men and women at an Anglican church. Three mosques had refused to hold the service, and an art gallery backed out after receiving a bomb threat. Organizers of the prayer said it was intended to draw attention to the inequality faced by Muslim women. "Women were not allowed to (have) input in the basic paradigms of what it means to be a Muslim," Wadud said after the service, adding that while the Quran puts men and women on equal footing, men have distorted its teachings to leave women with no role other than "as sexual partners." But in the conservative Middle East, Wadud's prayer service was frowned on. In Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik spoke out against the New York event in Friday prayers at a Riyadh mosque. "Those who defended this issue are violating God's law," he said. "Enemies of Islam are using women's issues to corrupt the community." Sheik Sayed Tantawi, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar mosque, the leading Sunni Muslim institution, said Islam permits women to lead other women in prayer but not a congregation that includes men. Soad Saleh, who heads the Islamic department of the woman's college at Al-Azhar University, considered the act an apostasy, which is punishable by death in Islam. "It is categorically forbidden for women to lead prayers (if they include men worshippers) and intentionally violates the basics of Islam," she said. Explaining why only men lead prayers, she said: "The origin is that the woman's body, even if veiled, stirs desire." The most conservative Muslims also warn that women should not raise their voices as the sound can be seductive. ap

DailyTimes.com.pk
Indian actress who married Bombay don claims asylum
LISBON: Bollywood actress Monica Bedi, who was detained in Portugal in 2002 for using a fake passport, appealed on Saturday for the right to asylum in Portugal, saying in a newspaper interview that she fears she will be tortured if returned to her native India.“I will certainly be tortured. Life does not exist for me in India. People want to kill me, they have carried out protests demanding that I be hung,” she told the weekly newspaper Expresso.Bedi was arrested in Lisbon in September 2002 along with her companion Abu Salem, one of India's most wanted men who is accused of masterminding a series of bombings that ripped through Bombay's commercial district in March 1993 killing more than 250 people.India has sought their extradition ever since the two were arrested. Authorities in predominantly Hindu India believe the bombings -- India's deadliest -- were carried out in retaliation for the deaths of hundreds of Muslims in riots that took place months earlier following the demolition of the Ayodhya mosque by Hindu nationalists.Bedi, who has starred in 30 movies, has completed a two-year jail sentence in Portugal but has been kept behind bars at a Lisbon jail while her extradition case was processed.She told Expresso she only discovered Salem's true identity after she married him in a Muslim ceremony in 2000, the same year she met him. Bedi was born a Hindu but says she has since converted to Christianity. afp

Metal Storm
Live Fire Tests & Demonstrations
The Metal Storm Engineering Team has now completed preliminary equipment testing which included multiple live firing tests in various configurations. The team is very pleased with the consistent performance of the 4 barrel Metal Storm 40mm gun system with a TRAP mount designed to be integrated with small robotic platforms.

Terrorists strike at oil's heart
Nicolas Rothwell, Middle East correspondentMarch 21, 2005
The Australian

THE suicide car bomb that gutted a suburban theatre in Doha yesterday, killing one and injuring 12, marks a new phase in the creeping spread of terrorism into the Gulf states – the critical yet vulnerable heart of the world oil industry.The attack on this soft target in the Qatar capital has yet to be claimed, but it is widely believed to be the work of the Islamist fighting cells already active in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which have both been plagued by bombings in the past 12 months.
The latest blast abruptly raises the stakes. Qatar, a small, distinctly liberal-accented city-state, perched above the world's largest natural gas reserves, represents the future of global energy supply, rather than its present.
The country is in the midst of a large-scale economic expansion supported by expatriate experts – the targets of the weekend attack, which struck a theatre full of Westerners watching a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
One English citizen was killed, the theatre was reduced to rubble and the staff members of a British school directly opposite were evacuated.
At a stroke, a new estimate of the security context in the Gulf is required.
The Saudi kingdom is already engaged in elaborate counter-terror policing, and has raised visible security on the streets of its major cities.
In Kuwait, a recent upsurge of Islamist attacks has transformed the country's sense of distance from the crisis in neighbouring Iraq. The contagion has now spread to Qatar, a desert peninsula bordered by Saudi Arabia and insulated by its pragmatism from the wilder debates of Arab politics.
Much about the attack's site and timing is suggestive. Qatar is celebrated as the home of Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite network that has transformed the airwaves of the Arab world, and has also become the chief transmission channel for messages from militants and associates of al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden.
The country was the base camp for the US invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003 – the second anniversary of which was marked by huge rallies around the world at the weekend. It is also the Gulf state with the closest informal ties to Israel – and if a long-term peace deal is struck between the Israelis and Palestinians, Qatar would be the Arab nation most likely to follow suit and establish diplomatic ties with Jerusalem.
The bombing appears to have been, despite its devastating physical impact, less effective than at first feared: most of those in the theatre audience who were wounded have already left hospital, according to Doha authorities.
Only the car-bomber and one victim were killed. The vehicle used in the attack was registered to an Egyptian, the Interior Ministry has determined: beyond that, little more is known.
Security chiefs, both in Qatar itself and in the wider region, are nervously aware of the spreading extent of the terror strikes under way against soft targets linked to Westerners.
Saudi and Kuwaiti officials had thought that a series of raids in late January had done much to roll up the Islamist networks in the Arab peninsula professing allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his cause: the Doha blast raises the possibility that a new group has proliferated there.
The further fear is that other attacks will follow on relatively undefended locations frequented by Westerners in the Gulf's business cities.
The model for Doha's expansion is neighbouring Dubai, economic centre of the United Arab Emirates and the hub of the modern Arab high-technology sector.
Until now, the Islamist militants have presented the air of freelance fighters determined to mount assaults on Western diplomatic compounds or government ministries. But last week, a leader of al-Qa'ida in the Arab Peninsula group issued a call on an Islamist website, demanding that his fellow militants in the region should make strikes against "crusader" targets.
If a campaign against such civilian locations is continued, the nature of the expatriate societies of the Gulf, so vital to the region's economic development, will change forever – and the prospects for further liberalisation and progress towards democratic government are also likely to be affected.

Jordan recalls top diplomat
From correspondents in AmmanMarch 21, 2005

The Australian

JORDAN said today it was recalling its top diplomat in Iraq for consultations over safety after thousands of angry Iraqis took to the streets to demand the embassy close.Iraqis have joined several anti-Jordanian protests over the past week, angered by reports that a Jordanian man carried out a suicide bombing that killed 125 people south of Baghdad last month and that his family had hailed him as a martyr.
Jordan and the man's family have denied he was behind the single bloodiest attack in postwar Iraq.
"The embassy is not closed; we called our diplomat for consultations. If he says it is safe, then he will go back," Foreign Minister Hani al-Mulki told Reuters by telephone.
"If the Iraqi police cannot protect our embassy from protesters, then we will wait until they can. We will not endanger our staff."
The charge d'affaires was expected to arrive in Jordan today and would brief Prime Minister Faisal al-Fayez on the developments, Mulki said.
Protesters have burned Jordanian flags and broken into the heavily guarded embassy at least twice since the suicide bombing in Hilla on February 28. They held banners reading "no to terrorism" and called on Arabs to speak out against praise of suicide bombers.
The Jordanian embassy has been the target of at least two suicide bombings since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In a statement, Fayez offered condolences to the families of Iraqis killed in "terrorist acts", condemning "those who take religion as a pretext for committing crimes that have nothing to do with Islam".

Riyadh
200 lashes for 'mocking long beards'
From correspondents in Riyadh
March 21, 2005
Daily Telegraph
A SAUDI academic has been sentenced to 200 lashes and time in jail for insulting an Islamist colleague, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported today.
Hamza al-Muzaini, a lecturer in linguistics at King Saud University, was accused by Abdullah al-Barak, a lecturer of Islamic culture at the same university, of defamation and insult, the London-based Al-Hayat reported.
Barak, who is described as a radical salafist - a strict form of Sunni Islam - reportedly accused Muzaini of "mocking long beards" and questioning his knowledge in an article published a few months ago, other reports said.
Muzaini was sentenced to 200 lashes, four months in prison and banned from publishing, a verdict he immediately appealed, the newspaper said.
Muzaini maintains that his case should be examined by the ministry of information as it involves alleged libel, while Barak insists it is a personal matter that should be dealt with by a normal court.
The court has now appointed a committee to "implement the publications law, which dictates that cases involving publication (offences) should not be referred to (normal Islamic) courts," said the newspaper.
Saudi Arabia applies strict sharia, or Islamic law, under which beheadings, as well as mutilating hands and floggings, are accepted punishments.
AFP

From Mover Mike

Black-Only Classes
Isn't this interesting. Race expert wants black-only classes
THE British government should consider educating black boys in separate classes from their white peers in order to help them perform better, the head of a race relations watchdog has said.

Trevor Phillips, (who is black) chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, also told the BBC it might make sense to deny black fathers access to their sons if they refused to attend school parents' evenings. Mr Phillips told the Inside Out program that many black boys were held back by a culture where being clever was frowned upon and that they lacked self-esteem and good role models.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the solution was busing those boys to segregated schools.
Here in the states the Christians complain that God has been kicked out of the schools and children are not being taught about their Judaic-Christian heritage. In Germany the other day, Muslims were advocating special muslim training in the schools, so children of that faith wouldn't be corrupted by the society's school. As I posted here , some Muslim women have been murdered because they tried to break free and live like westerners. I suspect the US schools will delete everything to do with Christianity and European schools will go Muslim.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/21/2005 03:21:00 AM 3 comments

Greenery is shrouding debate
By Michael Duffy
March 20 2005
Sydney Morning Herald

Green propaganda is now so pervasive in the media and public debate it has become part of the cultural background. Extraordinary errors and misrepresentations, on subjects such as global warming and native vegetation clearing, are regularly published without comment. Here's a story about just how hard it is to defend the truth against the Green spirit of our times.

On February 16, 2004 ABC TV's Four Corners aired a program about the Tasmanian timber industry. It is possibly the most biased Australian television program ever put to air. Called Lords of the Forest, its faults included a map that dramatically under-represented the amount of forest preserved in Tasmania, unsubstantiated allegations of criminal activity, the smearing of pro-logging speakers who appeared on the program, and emotive language. This included the following phrases: mushroom clouds, scorched-earth policy, an aggressive forest policy, a voracious appetite for timber, overwhelming devastation, absolute assault on the landscape and the senses, and corruption and cronyism.

Timber pays the wages of about 10,000 people in Tasmania. Many of them, their families and their supporters were appalled that the ABC could produce a program that treated their way of life with such contempt. But that was only the beginning.

Timber Communities Australia (TCA) is a volunteer organisation with a professional secretariat funded by the industry. It complained to the ABC about Lords of the Forests. Following an internal review, Geoffrey Crawford, director of corporate affairs, told TCA the corporation "cannot agree with your view that the program was unfair and impartial". All it would concede was that the map had been "oversimplified" and two other, minor, errors of fact. The ABC put a corrected map on its website but refused a request from TCA to correct any errors on air.

TCA and Forestry Tasmania, the state agency that manages public forests, then appealed to the Independent Complaints Review Tribunal. In stark contrast to the ABC's internal review, this one found, last December, "instances of serious bias, lack of balance and unfair treatment [the program] frequently casts doubt on the credibility of the 'Lords' and their supporters, but scarcely ever subjects their opponents to the same treatment". A complaint about the map was also upheld by the Australian Broadcasting Authority, which found last month that the program had breached the ABC code of practice and had "failed to present factual material accurately".

TCA again asked the ABC for an on-air correction, and was again refused. Apart from a short press release, the ABC did nothing in response to the independent findings. Its response can be compared with that of the British Broadcasting Corporation, which in 2002 also broadcast a biased and ignorant attack on the Tasmanian timber industry. In that case Britain's Broadcasting Standards Commission not only found against the program, it was able to order the BBC to run a summary of its finding on air after each of four subsequent programs, and publish a half-page summary near the front of The Times newspaper on June 2, 2003.

Strange to relate, while the Australian inquiries were under way, Lords of the Forest was one of a group of three programs from Four Corners that won the prestigious 2004 Australian Government Peter Hunt Eureka Prize of $10,000 for outstanding science communication.

Following the damning findings of the two independent review organisations, last month TCA asked the Australian Museum, which administers the prizes, to have the decision reconsidered. The judges met and decided not to withdraw the prize, saying in a written statement that the factual inaccuracies upheld by the Independent Complaints Review Tribunal (including the map) were "relatively minor" and they did not believe the wording used in the program was unusually emotive.

This decision was supported in letters to Barry Chipman, Tasmanian state co-ordinator of TCA, by the museum's director Frank Howarth, and Brian Sherman, the president of the museum trust. Sherman wrote that "your suggestion that the museum overturn the reconsidered decision of a judging panel would, I believe, compromise the independence of the judging process and not be in the best interest of the integrity of the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes".

Following the ABA finding last month, Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, intervened. He said he "was concerned that this prestigious award, sponsored by my department, has been given to a story that might not have met the highest standards of journalism". After writing to Sherman about the affair, Campbell added a member to the panel of judges: Professor Bob Carter, of James Cook University, an environmental scientist specialising in climate change. Campbell also demanded to see the criteria used for awarding the prize.

In December, Gunns Limited, the big Tasmanian timber company, launched a writ against 20 environmental activists and organisations - an action widely supported by the 10,000 people who live off timber, and their families and their union. To find the motivation behind the writ you need look no further than the frustration and bitterness created by years of media bias, typified by Lords of the Forest. The Tasmanians feel they have been betrayed by revered national institutions such as the ABC and the Australian Museum.

Anyone concerned by the left's domination of cultural institutions in this country will be further depressed by the sad example of this program, the cover-up afterwards, and the lack of interest in the whole sordid affair from the media.


Copyright © 2005
Previous stories
Tsunami of TRUTH sweeps Green HOAX LIES aside
Green Hoax
Science kept out by green’s dogma

// posted by Ridge @ 3/21/2005 02:57:00 AM 1 comments

Friday, March 18, 2005
Norway: The Rapes Continue
7 Kurdish Muslim immigrants are suspects in a gang rape case case against a 16 year old Norwegian girl in Oslo in December. One of the men charged with the gang rape is suspected of being involved in another gang rape of a girl in Oslo ten days later.

Now, everybody is innocent until proven otherwise, and none of these men have yet been convicted of anything. But it does sound a lot like a recent such case in Sweden, where a group of Kurdish males had raped a Swedish teenage girl for hours and taken photos of the event. There are reports of more such incidents coming in with disturbing frequency. Kurdish Muslims in Norway have even openly threatened Norwegian girls with rape before.

I am by now almost convinced that the theory presented in my first post about Muslim rapes in Sweden and Norway is true. The staggering numbers revealed in 2001 in Oslo have been suppressed for political reasons, as they would destroy too many multicultural pipe dreams and be inconvenient for the elites. So in the end, the safety of young Scandinavian women is sacrificed in order to keep the glossy image of a multicultural society intact. I find this absolutely appalling. I don't know who made the decision to quiet down these statistics. It has to be somebody high up in the police hierarchy, or probably in the Ministry of Justice. Regardless, it is in the end the responsibility of the Norwegian Minister of Justice, Odd Einar Dørum, who should announce his immediate resignation.

It is a national, if not international, scandal that the authorities in a nation that prides itself on being a champion of women's rights can put fear of offending Muslim immigrants higher than the security of its own young women. Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik should also consider resigning. At a time when racist attacks from Muslim immigrant youngsters make it increasingly unsafe for Norwegian women in their own capital city, their Prime Minister is mainly concerned with who puts together book shelves at IKEA. Such a politician either does not understand what's going on in his own country or no longer cares about protecting his own people. In both cases, he is unfit for public office, let alone that of Prime Minister.

Sourced from Fjordman

// posted by Ridge @ 3/21/2005 01:20:00 AM 1 comments

Diggers drew guns in sex abuse clash
By Mark Dodd
March 21, 2005
From:
Australian
Australian Diggers in East Timor
AUSTRALIAN soldiers drew arms to protect themselves from Jordanian peacekeepers after a Digger blew the whistle on other Jordanian soldiers' sexual abuse of East Timorese boys.
Corporal Andrew Wratten had to be evacuated and Australian commandos sent to protect Diggers in Oecussi, an East Timorese province in Indonesian West Timor, after he told the UN of the pedophilia that occurred in May 2001.
The Australians drew their Steyr assault rifles after being confronted by Jordanians armed with M-16s, in an escalation of verbal threats triggered by the betrayal of Corporal Wratten by a Jordanian officer in the Dili headquarters of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.
Corporal Wratten, who was working at a fuel dump in the enclave, was told by a group of children that Jordanian soldiers had offered food and money in exchange for oral sex and intercourse.
The allegations involved East Timorese minors, all boys, the youngest of them just 12 years old.
"Wratten informed PKF (peacekeeping force) that he had been receiving complaints from local children about Jorbatt (Jordan Battalion) abuse," said a senior UN official who was based in Oecussi at the time.
"A Jordanian officer in HQ informed Jorbatt that he had ratted on them. Wratten and his guys manning the helo (helicopter) refuelling pad in Oecussi town started getting threatened.
"There was one occasion where Aussie Steyrs were pointed at Jorbatt and Jorbatt M-16s pointed at Aussies."
A secret report into the abuse, obtained by The Australian, led to the expulsion of two Jordanian peacekeepers after an investigation ordered by then UNTAET chief, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, in July 2001.
East Timorese human rights workers have confirmed the story. However, retired Australian major-general Roger Powell, the deputy UN force commander at the time, did not return The Australian's calls.
"As far as I understand, De Mello was very sensitive at the time to the harm such reports would have on the reputation of UNTAET, PKF - and by default himself," said one Western security analyst, based in East Timor in 2001.
Jordan's key role in Middle East peace negotiations added extra sensitivity.
In July 2001, a UN police specialist child interview team flew to Oecussi and spoke to 10 witnesses, including seven minors and three adults.
"The unacceptable sexual conduct alleged was that a minor had sperm around his mouth," the resulting report says.
The board of inquiry found in its report that Jordanian troops regularly offered food and money in exchange for sexual favours from women and boys, including the procuring of prostitutes from across the border in West Timor.
It found it was highly probable that widespread sexual misconduct had occurred after the Jordanians took over from the highly regarded Australian paratroop battalion in early 2000.

// posted by Ridge @ 3/21/2005 01:00:00 AM 1 comments

Kylie's talents won't go to waist
March 21, 2005
Daily Telegraph

THIS time it isn't Kylie's rear end that's the centre of attention. It's her tiny waist. Minogue kicked off her Showgirl world tour in Glasgow yesterday squeezed into a corset that shrinks her waist to just 40cm.

That's just 2cm more than American Cathie Jung, whose 38.1cm waist is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest in the world.
The pacy show with elaborate outfits inspired by showgirls from Moulin Rouge to Las Vegas features Minogue, 36, wearing designs from Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano and Julien McDonald.
With French actor boyfriend Olivier Martinez watching on -- silencing the latest rumours of a split -- Minogue turned up the camp factor to 11, making Cher's recent flashy Australian performances look like a Metallica concert.
"This is my way to say thank you to my audience and share some of the most important moments of my journey so far," she said.
While not as innovative or cool as 2002's Fever tour, Showgirl's clear highlights come in a Soho segment that blends her 1988 hit Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi with her dramatic classic Confide in Me, complete with dancers in ball gowns and glitter-covered gimp masks.
Minogue will now spend almost a month on the road in Australia throughout May and June, with 19 shows in all, and with the new dates added after intense demand from fans.
Tickets for her Australian tour go on sale on April 1.
Two new shows have been added for Sydney -- making it six in all -- on Saturday, May 21 at the Superdome and Thursday, June 2, at the Entertainment Centre.

Miranda Devine
March 20, 2005
The Sun-Herald

It has been amusing watching the tortured knots various pundits have contorted themselves into trying to deny that the flickerings of freedom in the Arab world have anything to do with US foreign policy post 9/11 and, especially, the dreaded George Bush.

Since the invasion of Iraq, a series of events, remarkable when taken together, have occurred in the Middle East, prompting optimists to predict an "Arab Spring" of democracy.

There was Iraq's "purple revolution", as Bush has dubbed it, after the purple-ink-stained fingers of voters. Under the calm leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali Husaini Sistani, the Shiite majority which won the elections is busy involving the Kurdish and Sunni minorities in the democratic process, which keeps proceeding, despite the expectations of Western doomsayers.

Then there was Lebanon's "cedar revolution", when people-power toppled the Syrian puppet government, although by last week, nine days later, the old prime minister, Omar Karami, was back in power and Syrian-backed Hezbollah supporters were out in numbers. But Syria is pulling out thousands of troops as well as its intelligence agents and last week a reported 1 million democracy activists took to the streets of Beirut, some carrying signs that read, "Thank You, George W. Bush."

In Saudi Arabia municipal elections were held, for the first time. In Kuwait, protesters rallied outside Parliament to demand women be given the vote. "Women's rights, now," read the placards. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak promised a free presidential election. And while Libya isn't anywhere near democracy, a few days after Saddam Hussein was arrested, leader Muammar Gaddafi renounced his weapons of mass destruction. All a crazy coincidence?

ABC journalist Monica Attard appeared on Richard Glover's 702 radio program on Thursday to declare the so-called Arab Spring had nothing to do with Iraq, not "by any stretch of the imagination". Those who claim a link do so because it "suits their propaganda purposes". So why now? asked Glover. Attard thought the Arab news network Al-Jazeera and the flowering of regional media might be responsible. In UK's The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash had someone else in mind, asking: "Has Osama bin Laden started a revolution in the Middle East?" Anyone but Bush.

But at a lunch of pastrami on rye in Sydney on Friday, Israel's former ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, had a different view. As president of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs think-tank, he has been adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and long involved with high-level negotiations in the Middle East, including those in 1996 among the US, Lebanon, Syria and France to create the Monitoring Group for Southern Lebanon. So you might say he knows what he's talking about.

Gold says it is too early to write a history book chapter titled " Arab Spring", not even a chapter titled "Late Winter", as one wag suggested.

But, "I think the Iraq war and the fall of Saddam Hussein has ignited something across the region . . . A psychological wall has come down. When an Arab dictatorship collapsed from an assault by coalition forces, perhaps that put a lot of dictatorships on notice.

"In order to defeat terrorism you have to do more than win militarily.

"You have to set conditions which make the ideology of militant Islam less palatable and give an alternative. Only by promoting this democratic ideal can you offer young people a different vision and pull away the outer rings of support for organisations like al-Qaeda."

Last week's agreement in Cairo between Palestinian factions and terrorist groups is a step forward. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, unlike his late predecessor Yasser Arafat, now "realises the use of terrorism by Palestinians is completely self-defeating".

There is not yet talk of peace, only of Tahdi'a, says Gold, which means a period of "calm" in Arabic. But, "Am I optimistic? Yes, there is a basis to feel good." As for the United Nations, it has failed to resolve international conflicts, and shown itself impotent in the face of genocide in places such as Rwanda and Bosnia.

The emerging alternative is a "realignment of global politics [which] involves a coalition of US and its allies in coalitions of the willing".

Australia is in the box seat, along with Britain, Israel, India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

Gold's informed and commonsense assessments show you don't have to be a Pollyanna when looking at the Middle East, but neither do you have to deny reality.

Appreciative ... Mamdouh Habib, centre, with his lawyer, Stephen Hopper and wife, Maha.
Photo: Peter Rae


Habib makes surprise appearance to say thanks
March 20, 2005 - 3:24PM
Sun Herald
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib has addressed an anti-war rally in Sydney, urging Australians to support the still-detained terror accused David Hicks.

Mr Habib, who had not been advertised to speak at the rally, also thanked Australians for supporting him while he was in US detention for more than three years as a terrorist suspect.

Mr Habib, standing on stage with his wife Maha, made the comments to thousands of protesters at Hyde Park in Sydney during an anti-Iraq war protest, two years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"Don't forget, we've got another Australian guy ... he wait for you stand up for him, to bring him back home," Mr Habib said.

"His father wait for him, his family wait for him, please do something for him".

Mr Habib also thanked the crowd for supporting him while he was in US custody.

"Thank you everyone in Australia [for] supporting me to come back home," Mr Habib said.

"I really appreciate what you [have] done for me to come back home in Australia, my country, my home, my family.

"I love Australia, I love people in Australia, I love all Australians because you are all of my family."

Habib and fellow Australian David Hicks were arrested in late 2001 on suspicion of terrorist activities and held in US-controlled Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

Mr Habib was released without charge in January but Hicks remains in US custody awaiting a military trial on terrorism charges. Habib evidence may be used against Hicks

Mr Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper and journalist John Pilger also addressed the crowd, with both speakers condemning the war on Iraq and calling for troops to be withdrawn.

AAP

Search for snorkeller's body
March 20, 2005
From: AAP
News.com.au

POLICE today named the victim of a fatal shark attack off Western Australia's mid-west coast as 26-year-old Geoffrey Brazier.
Mr Brazier, of Perth's riverside suburb of Alfred Cove, was taken yesterday by a six-metre shark while snorkelling with tourists off the Abrolhos Islands group, 60km west of Geraldton.
Police said he had been skippering the luxury vessel, The Matrix, updating their earlier advice that he had been working as a deckhand on the boat.
Police and fisheries officers spent today searching for the shark and Mr Brazier's remains at the scene of the attack at Wreck Point, off Pelseart Island, which is part of the Abrolhos group. The Matrix, a charter vessel, was on its maiden voyage on the Perth to Kimberley route when the tragedy happened.
Police are continuing to interview others who were aboard the vessel when the attack happened about 2pm (WST) yesterday.
The boat's owners, Matrix Ocean Adventures, declined comment on the tragedy, saying police were still trying to determine exactly what had happened.
But a company spokesman said sympathies would be privately extended to Mr Brazier's family and friends.
Yesterday's fatality was the third such attack in WA in the past four and a half years.
Last July, 29- Last July, 29-year-old surfer being attacked by a shark while surfing off Gracetown year-old surfer being attacked by a shark while surfing off Gracetown, about 270km south-west of Perth.
And in November 2000, 49-year-old Ken Crew died in a shark attack at North Cottesloe beach in Perth in an early morning swim.

The Age . NEWS . pic courtesy A Current Affair . JUNE 10, 2003 .
Bilal Khazal has been named in a CIA report as an Al Qaeda suspect.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/
March 16, 2005
New terror target warning: Australia
From our "We Could Have Told You This" Department, coming from the Herald, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm and RB:
AUSTRALIA could be the target of the next Jemaah Islamiah attack to be launched from possibly Indonesia or the Philippines, new intelligence warns....
Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd told Parliament yesterday new terror intelligence suggested the Philippines and Indonesia as likely launch bases for attacks against Australian interests.
Experts told Mr Rudd that JI was providing terror training to smaller outfits in the two countries and growing its membership base. "The reality is that JI is now acting more like al-Qaida," Mr Rudd said.
Uh, could that be because they have exactly the same motivational ideology? Just wondering.Posted at March 16, 2005 04:37 PM


Bogs Doddy Reply
I don't doubt Australia is and has been on the hit list for wanton savagery by the followers of the "Religion" of peace, however it should be pointed out that the source of this story is the Socialist OPPOSITION foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd.

Mr Rudds' Socialist Labor party is AGAINST the war on terror, believes Saddam should still be in power and that the only intervention that should take place ANYWHERE in the WORLD is that which is authorized by the United Nations ie. France Germany Russia.

Saddam was the leader of the SOCIALIST BA'ATHIST Party.
When he was Vice President of Iraq he donated MILLIONS of dollars to his fellow SOCIALIST Party, the Australian Labor Party, that's one reason why the ALP was so supportive of his remaining in office and is to this day demanding the "Coalition of the willing" (or as the left calls it "the coalition of the killing") "CUT & RUN" from Iraq immediately.
This policy clearly would hand Iraq over to its former Terrorist masters.

As I write this the ALPs' rabid left "pit bulls" are salivating their way through the streets of Sydney protesting the down fall of their good Comrade Saddam and calling for the downfall and failure of the Coalition of the willing in Iraq

Given Mr Rudds' ALP policy on "the war against terror" namely give them what they want and they will leave us alone, they really are only after America, America should ask what it did to deserve it , its nothing to do with Australia etc etc etc I find his NEW found concerns for a possible terror attack on Australian soil at best 3 years to late and at worst rank political opportunistic hypocracy, however it is good to see that at least some members of the ALP no matter how superficial acknowledge Australia is at risk from the savagery that passes for a "Religion " of peace.

Perhaps he could ask his party's financial backers the Australian Council of Trade Unions to agree to camera surveillance of the Transport Workers Union at Australia's airports so as baggage handlers could be monitored. Given their preference for employing Muslim's, one of whom is awaiting trial for terrorist activities in Sydney and another who is currently serving a 5 year sentence in Lebanon after fleeing Australia whilst on Bail for numerous terror related offences or is that too big an ask?
Perhaps next time his Labor college Leo McLeay visits the leader of Hezbollah for a private audience he could ask his Comrade to use his influence to leave Australia off the list of targets for Islamic savagery.
Put simply Mr Rudd and the ALP collectively, as far as Terrorism is concerned, would not know if a bus load of terrorist drove up their arse and got off.
It's like the arsonist arriving at the fire issuing instructions on the best way to put the fire out to the fire fighters.
See Transcript of Channel 9 News story below.
Dhimmi Watch
October 01, 2004
Suicide of the West update from Australia
"Australia should be turning its military on both itself and the US" - according to an Australian politician. From the Courier-Mail, , with thanks to Kevin:

LABOR candidate Ivan Molloy posed with a machine gun supplied by Muslim extremists and has said Australia should be turning its military on both itself and the US.
Dr Molloy has also claimed Muslim guerilla groups should not be labelled terrorists.
The group he posed with in the Philippines in 1983 has recently been linked by Washington to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Dr Molloy yesterday denied he was a supporter of the group known as the Moro Liberation Front.
In the early 1980s the group was trying to violently separate the Mindanao Islands from the Philippines and establish a separate Muslim state.
A photograph of the gun-toting Dr Molloy was featured in a 33-page working paper he wrote for his thesis entitled "The Conflicts of Mindanao: Whilst the Revolution Rolls On, the Jihad Falters".
The paper was largely devoted to the Moro Liberation Front, a Muslim guerilla warfare army.
Since Dr Molloy spent time with the Moro group it has splintered but the main faction was the one linked by Washington to al-Qaeda.
"I don't want to get caught in the trap of saying I am sympathetic but I would say I understand their causes," Dr Molloy said yesterday.
I doubt it.

This clown is so typical of Australia's Labor Party (Socialist Left Union Dominated Greens "Peace Activist" rat bags)
For them no pile of dead and wounded is too high a price for others to pay for the implementation of their Communist ideology.
What better tool could the Left have than the Barbarous Savages "freedom fighters" of islam to let loose on the civilized world to first destroy it then to remake it in their Godless image.
Unfortunately for Australia this Molloy is not the exception on the left of Australian Politics.
Yours faithfully,
R Sole.
Posted by: RSole at October 2, 2004 12:30 AM
Below is a transcript of a Channel 9 Sydney news report.
I have to ask just what WAS this "Member for muslims" Labor Politician doing, was he ,
Taking instructions?
Giving instructions?
Delivering a brown paper bag ?
Receiving a Brown paper bag?
Catching up with the Boss?
Or just receiving instructions?
A few points below to consider as well.
The Australian Labor Party along with it's fund raising arm the Australian Union Movement (ACTU)
have long been the beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein hence their loyal support of his regime and their refusal to do anything that could in any way endanger his Presidency.
I fear the election of a Labor / ACTU Government for one reason alone, forget the economic disaster that it would bring, I am more concerned about the retribution that the ALP would engage in on those who did not or who it perceived did not support it at the ballot box.
According to the apologist's for islam there are only 30,000 islamic terrorist's in Sydney, the ALP was responsible for bringing them into Australia in order to vote for their "member for muslims" during the Federal Labor Governments of Hawke & Keating, I believe that the muslim ghettos of South Western Sydney created by the Australian Labor Party are the greatest threat to our National Security since their fundraising arm the ACTU, refused to load supplies to our troops on the Kakoda Track in the second World War and then repeated this infamy during the Vietnam War whilst Australian Soldiers were fighting for their lives in both cases these scum were hoping that they would be defeated (killed) by Australia's enemy's.
Labor Party = International Socialism / Communism
ACTU / Unions = Fundraising arm of International Socialism
This is an exact transcriptof the TV script and therefore has many seemingly irrelevant characters in the text please 'read between the lines' as they say for the relevant printed text
Message
NC 2004 13 60 01JUN2004 TCN 6PM NEWS LEO MCLEAY MEETING WITH TERRORIST ORGANISATION HEZBOLLAH
SHOTLIST: Exclusive: Leo McLeay along towards lift ( for his farewell dinner ), Bob Carr along, WS people in lift, Xlib Hezbollah's Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah at podium, Alexander Downer IV, Xlib Hezbollah fighting, Xlib Hezbollah rebel soldiers along fighting, Alexander Downer IV, Xlib Hezbollah fighting vs, JUN2003 Leo McLeay in parliament, Kevin Rudd speaking in parliament, Xlib Hezbollah supporters chanting, Xlib Sheikh Nasrallah, Leo McLeay IV, PTC reporter Laurie Oakes SU in studio, Alexander Downer IV, Xlib Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah at meeting.
KEYWORDS: Lebanon, Lebanese, Hezbollah meeting, terror, terrorism, terrorists, terrorist, meeting, met, meets, Beirut, leader.
[Notes:DA TO ADD SPECIAL NEW EXCLUSIVE SUPER]
[CG at 0'00":#6000 NNN 2 Line Super\LAURIE OAKES\Reporting\ \ \ ]
[CG at 0'20":#6000 NNN 2 Line Super\ALEXANDER DOWNER\Foreign Minister\ \ \ ]
[CG at 0'55":#6000 NNN 2 Line Super\KEVIN RUDD\Shadow Foreign Minister\ \June, 2003\ ]
[CG at 1'07":#6000 NNN 2 Line Super\LEO McLEAY\Labor MP\ \ \ ]
[CG at 1'16":#6005 NNN 1 Line super\LAURIE OAKES\ \ \ ]
INTRO:
[Notes:EMBARGOED - DO NOT USE!!!!!]
[ReadRate:17]
And a senior Federal Labor MP has come under fire, for his activities in Lebanon three years ago.
Political Editor Laurie Oakes reveals tonight, that former Parliamentary Speaker Leo McLeay, had a meeting with the head of the Middle East terrorist organisation.. Hezbollah.
[TAKE: SOT]
(SOT)
SCRIPT:
Leo Mcleay mp for the Sydney seat of Watson will retire at the next election and last Friday night the host of prominent leaders NSW ALP figures including opposition leader Mark Latham attended his farewell .
But now details have leaked out of a meeting between Mr McLeay and this man Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.
Upsot
Alexander Downer
A member of parliament who meets with a terrorist organisation needs to reflect on the victims of that Terrorist organisation.
Mr Mcleay spent ninety minutes with the sheik in Beirut on July the 10th 2001, Hezbollah was only officially banned as a terrorist organisation under Australian law last year, but it's activities were known long before that.
Upsot:
alexander Downer
It's been responsible of suicide bombs and it's been responsible for terrorist activities outside the Middle East.
Mr mcleay's own labor colleges condemned the organisation in last years parliamentary debate.
Kevin Rudd:
It's declared leader Hassan nasralla who stated last September Quote death to America will remain a reverberating and powerful slogan.
Mr Mcleay says he meet representatives of all Lebanese political groups during his visit .
Upsot Leo McLeay:
Hezbollah is a large political party in Lebanon and is not a banned organisation then or now
PTC:
Surprisingly the meeting was arranged at Mr Mclay's request by the Australian Embassy in Beirut he was taken to see the Sheik in an Embassy car accompanied by an Australian diplomat.
Alexander Downer:
We wouldn't have a senior officer go to a meeting with a Terrorist leader.
Laurie Oakes National Nine News.
So just what WAS the member for muslims doing in Lebanon?
Come clean Mr Latham (and give the money back ?)
Yours faithfully,
RSole.

Posted by: RSole at October 2, 2004 02:48 AM
QANTAS worker committed for trial

Jailed in Lebanon Bailed in Sydney

Bilal Kahzal could be extradited to Lebanon

Terror suspect an informant?

// posted by Ridge @ 3/20/2005 02:09:00 PM 1 comments

Kidman in underware advertisment

Kidman's intimate date with Gaddafi
By gossip writer ROS REINES
March 20, 2005
Sunday Telegraph

NICOLE Kidman shared an intimate Sydney dinner with the playboy son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Al-Saadi Gaddafi, 31, wined and dined the Oscar-winning actress, 37, during a private dinner on the top floor of the InterContinental Hotel to discuss the investment potential of the Australian film industry.
He had originally planned the ultimate setting for the dinner - hiring the State Suite for $15,000 and filling it with fresh flowers and candles - but opted for the 31st floor lounge instead.
Gaddafi, who is captain of Libya's national soccer team, arrived in Sydney last month with his soccer team for a VIP 12-day sport, trade and night-clubbing extravaganza.

His team played several matches, although Gaddafi did not compete because of a back injury.
It is understood he spent time in Sydney inspecting harbourside property in the eastern suburbs.
He is keen to open an investment office in Sydney and has already expressed his interest in the local film industry. He also held meetings with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Trade Minister Mark Vaile during his trip.

Nicole Kidman is still in town after production of the troubled all-Aussie movie Eucalyptus ground to a halt last month. She has been linked with billionaire Steve Bing.
Last week, they dined at several restaurants and spent time at Royal Sydney Golf Club in Rose Bay.

See previous story http://bogsdoddy.blogspot.com/2005/02/libyan-freak-show-in-sydney-oh-gimme.html

Full report in today's Sunday Telegraph.

Habib evidence may be used against Hicks
By Marian Wilkinson, National Security Editor
March 19, 2005
Sydney Morning Herald

Lawyers for David Hicks are concerned US military prosecutors plan to use the interrogation of the former Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee, Mamdouh Habib, in Hicks's military trial.
Hicks's chief defence lawyer, Joshua Dratel, said he understood Mr Habib's interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, along with those of other detainees who had been released, would be drawn on by military prosecutors. "Whatever statements Habib made at Guantanamo, I think their position is that they're free to use anything", Mr Dratel told the Herald from New York. None of the detainees, including Mr Habib, is expected to be called as a witness in the military trial but Mr Dratel believes prosecutors plan to read sections from the detainees' interrogations at the trial.
"The notion that their statements could be read into the record by interrogators, which I think is the US Government's intention, would deny David some fundamental rights in terms of cross-examination of the witnesses," Mr Dratel said. He was particularly worried it would prevent the defence lawyers from testing in the military court whether the detainees' statements about Hicks had been given voluntarily.
Hicks faces charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. In Sydney, Mr Habib said through his lawyer, Stephen Hopper, that he had "no conscious knowledge of ever signing a statement that had any incriminating evidence about Mr Hicks".
Shortly after Mr Habib's release unnamed government officials leaked claims that he had been in a propaganda training camp with Hicks in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001.
Mr Habib was released from Guantanamo Bay in January after the US decided not to go ahead with charges against him. That decision followed claims in a US court that Mr Habib had been tortured after he was allegedly abducted to Egypt by US intelligence officials.
Mr Dratel said he hoped to discuss with Mr Habib's lawyer his client's interrogation at Guantanamo Bay and any evidence he might have given about Hicks. But Mr Dratel, who is Hicks's lead counsel for the military trial, said even if Mr Habib denied giving evidence against Hicks it might not sway the military judging panel. A "recantation across the ocean" would not have the same weight as Mr Habib's testimony from the witness stand, said Mr Dratel, but he conceded: "I don't think we're going to have much success in getting him to come back to Guantanamo."
The Australian Government maintains that Hicks will get a fair trial before the US military commission but Mr Dratel and other defence lawyers strongly disagree and are challenging the fairness of the trials in the US courts. The US Government is fighting in the Court of Appeal in Washington to ensure the military trials go ahead.
Hicks's lawyers and family are worried that as the cases drag on, Hicks will remain at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely. He has already been there for more than three years since being picked up in Afghanistan while allegedly fighting with the Taliban.

“The Seven Pairs of Asses”

by Yashiko Sagamori

They say that amateurs built Noah's ark, while professionals built the Titanic. That is true, and yet, Noah was very lucky he didn't hit an iceberg. Just think what would have happened. Even without an iceberg, the ark began springing leaks as soon as there was enough water around to carry it afloat. Noah's little crew had their hands full taking care of the zoo, so they were barely able to fix the biggest, most threatening leaks. Imagine what it looked like in the hold of the ark on the eighth day of the flood. Animals were standing knee deep in what would make a cesspool seem fragrant in comparison. Unending thunderstorm drowned out most sounds. The waves kept rolling the ark chaotically, like an earthquake in slow motion, and nobody could tell when it would end or how. If they failed to reach land some time soon, they were destined to drown, or starve, or die of thirst, or suffocate. And while every creature aboard was thinking of its survival, the seven pairs of asses, crowded along the port side closer to the rear of the hold, were earnestly discussing anti-drought measures, because, regardless of what was happening to them now, there was a distinct possibility of a drought in the future. Throughout the ordeal, they remained blissfully undeterred by the fact that, until they manage to land and disembark, it was highly doubtful whether they had any future to plan for.

Judging from the eagerness with which we are discussing the prospects of (hopefully) budding democracy in the Muslim world, Jews and Christians must trace their ancestry not to Shem, Ham, or Japheth, but to those seven pairs of asses.

Democracy is so dear to us that we don't mind spreading it by sending our soldiers to die in a useless, hostile country half a world away. Let us ask ourselves, what's so precious about it? Why do we consider it so important that any proposed measure, no matter how obvious its benefits, will be rejected out of hand as soon as there is a consensus that it is undemocratic? Here's why. Societies evolve. Their laws must undergo their own evolution, reflecting societal changes. Interests of individuals, groups, classes, become affected. Conflicts emerge. Democracy is the only system we know that provides an option to solve these conflicts without resorting to violence or oppression. (As we can see from the examples of the Civil War and Oklahoma City bombing, it's only an option, it's not a guarantee.) We cherish democracy because we abhor violence and oppression.

There are societies that do not share our disgust for violence and oppression. In those societies, violence and oppression are a way of life. Every single person in those societies is either an oppressor or oppressed, usually, both. Such are, to a somewhat varying degree, all Muslim societies and, without a single exception, to the ultimate degree, all Arab societies. Why do we expect them to love democracy? What is the basis for our optimistic expectations, besides the liberal superstition that disregards stark differences between cultures and insolently announces, contrary to well-known facts, that all human being share the same dreams? I do not have an answer.

Why did democratizing Arabs suddenly become our national priority? Because of 9/11. If only our administration had a choice, they would've swept 9/11 under the rug, just like every previous administration did with at least two decades of highjackings, abductions, hostage taking, embassy bombings and other multiple assorted acts of jihad. But this time it happened on our territory, and the administration simply did not have a choice. What would have been a constructive response? How could we free ourselves once and for all from the dangers of war waged against us by the savages? The answer is obvious. All we needed to do was to recognize the attack as jihad and jihad as an essential attribute of Islam. Then we would outlaw Islam in the United States, padlock every mosque, close every Islamic organization, deport every Muslim alien, intern every American Muslim, and only then, having taken care of our domestic enemies, turn our attention to the foreign ones.

By the way, there are plenty of people in the United States who were born in Muslim countries and came here escaping the tyranny of Islamic regimes. Their lives and dreams are not that different from yours or mine. I would protest against any attempt to persecute them for their Muslim origins. But every observant Muslim, due to the nature of the ideology he or she adheres to with a quasi-religious fervor, is in fact an enemy of the United States of America. They come to our shores uninvited, like flotsam left on the beach by the receding tide. They falsely renounce their allegiance to any foreign potentate and falsely pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands. All their promises and oaths are nothing but al-taqqiya. Their only allegiance is to jihad. Their main goal is to abolish the Constitution and establish Islamic rule in this country. It's the observant Muslims and their organizations that we have to worry about.

Unfortunately, the liberal wisdom has pronounced Islam just another religion, which automatically makes any such worry blatantly undemocratic. And so, we went to Afghanistan and Iraq, simply because there was nothing else we could do. If this prompts you to conclude that democracy has its shortcomings, you would be right. At the time of war, the shortcomings of democracy make us more vulnerable. However, before we blame democracy, we should blame ourselves.

Take, for example, the case of Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. The good professor has made a career of openly supporting enemies of the United States, which hardly makes him a unique phenomenon in our academia. But when some of his "works" praising the 9/11 attack and stating that its victims ("little Goebbelses" as he put it) deserved to be murdered caught public attention, Professor Churchill suddenly lost the obscurity of a provincial Che Guevara wannabe and became scandalously famous across the country. To make matters not really worse, but definitely funnier, the Indian tribe, of which Professor Churchill had claimed to be a member by birth, publicly disowned him. Protected by the First Amendment, the anti-American professor of ethnic studies enjoys the freedom of shooting his foul mouth off with no fear of prosecution. But when the university president mentioned a possibility of him being dismissed in the near future, the professor confidently promised that if any attempt to fire him was ever made, then he, Professor Ward Churchill, would own the campus. Judge Napolitano, the legal consultant for Fox News, solemnly confirmed that the First Amendment protected not only Professor Churchill's freedom of speech, but also his tenure at the university.

Do you know what the First Amendment says? It consists of a single statement. Here is the statement:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

To lock the professor up for his purely verbal support of Osama bin Laden, Congress would have to make a law abridging the freedom of speech, and that would most certainly violate the First Amendment. Ward Churchill may continue spreading his venom, while enjoying full immunity from prosecution. But where does it say that the University of Colorado must pay him for doing that? Suppose you hire a tutor to help your kid cope with fifth-grade math, and a week later your kid tells you that, instead of teaching him math, the guy forces him to memorize Das Kapital. According to the First Amendment, the tutor has committed no crime. But do you really have any legal obligation to keep him employed? Do you really have any legal obligation to subject your children to his influence?

How could we allow our judges to misinterpret our Constitution to such a degree?

This is the same type of useful idiocy that subjects blue-haired old ladies to strip-search at the airports, while young Muslims men with hatred in their eyes and God knows what in their bags gracefully glide through the checkpoint and board the plane. This is the same type of useful idiocy that prompted President Bush to begin his War on Terror with a sensational announcement that Islam was a religion of peace and, therefore, not the enemy. What an unbelievable authority on Islam our President Bush is.

When did his War on Terror become a war for democracy in the Middle East? When our soldiers kicked the enemy armies all the way to hell, and suddenly everyone saw that getting rid of the Taliban and Saddam failed to make the United States one bit safer from Islamic terrorism than it was on September 10, 2001. In plain English, it's called defeat. As we all know, acknowledging it would spell political death to our president. A new objective urgently needed to be defined, an objective that would make our defeat look like a victory. That's when democracy in the Middle East became an artificial light at the end of a terribly dark tunnel.

According to a recent, not too scientific poll conducted among the Iraqis, 62% of them believe that, thanks to the US-led occupation, their country is moving in the right direction. Even disregarding the fact that their concepts of right and wrong are drastically different from ours, I am tempted to ask, since when did the opinion of a defeated nation become a valid criterion in the assessment of a war's outcome. From the prospective of the United States, the outcome of the war appears rather grim.

In the two countries, we have lost close to 1,500 military personnel killed. Approximately 8 times as many people have been wounded. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and will spend even more before the end of President Bush's second term marks the end of his useless war.

Reporting the war, the mass media concentrate their attention on our mostly imaginary violations of various rules and conventions that no one observes besides Israel and us. Internet spreads news of American soldiers' heroism and sacrifice. Various blogs post letters from the front proudly describing how our intervention is improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis. This is all wonderful, but what has the war effort accomplished for this country, besides doubling the price of gasoline?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The theory that terrorism is rooted in the bad living conditions of the terrorists has been convincingly disproved. Actually, a hungry Arab is less likely to blow himself up that a well-fed one. Therefore, raising Iraqi living standards will not make us safer at home. Then what are we doing there? Why are we wasting the lives of our soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars?

Democracy in Iraq? If Iraqis do not want it, we can't force it on them. If Iraqis do want it, they are free to fight for it themselves. And if they want us to help them along, why don't they pay us for the assistance? They have more than enough oil to cover all our monetary expenses. There is an interesting theory that says that they will continue hating us under any form of government. I am ready to accept that as a working hypothesis. After all, we are dealing with people who have convincingly proven that they hate Jews more than they love their own children. Do you suppose they hate America any less than they hate Israel? If this theory is correct, I prefer not to improve their living conditions. At least, not if I have to pay for it.

How did the Middle East react to the new winds from Washington? They stayed perfectly cool. Muammar Qaddafi assured the world that direct democracy which his country has been enjoying ever since he came to power is a more advanced form of democracy than its constitutional or parliamentary variety. Iran contemptuously announced that it already had Islamic democracy, which, as you understand, is the most perfect form of democracy allowed by Allah. Saudi Arabia made a bold, unprecedented step into the uncharted democratic future and conducted - can you believe it? - municipal elections. Take this, Osama! And Hosni Mubarak who until now has regularly re-elected himself, announced that next time there will be other candidates; I wonder if his son is on the list.

Despite all these iconoclastic efforts of the most backward tyrants on earth, the question remains, whether democracy is in fact compatible with Islam. Some people say that democracy implies the freedom of religion, and the freedom of religion would constitute a gross violation of the most basic Islamic tenets and, therefore, democracy and Islam are incompatible. Some others assure us that democracy is impossible without a certain minimum level of integrity, and since neither the Prophet nor any of his ghost writers possessed a detectable amount of that precious quality, their followers have long ago lost whatever little they might have had of it, and, therefore, democracy and Islam are incompatible. Yet another school of thought maintains that democracy is less a matter of laws than public mindset and traditions, and that the Muslims have so far failed to develop either the mentality needed for or the customs conducive to democracy, and, therefore, democracy and Islam are incompatible.

There are also people, by far the smartest lot of them all, who say that the question is way too important to solve it by sheer speculations. They insist that we won't know until we try. And they are 100% right! Fortunately, we don't have to do anything special to set up an experiment, because attempts to mix Islam with democracy have been conducted on the planetary scale during the last couple of decades, although we are only now becoming aware of their full extent. Let us see how Western Europe (which can be considered the oldest democratic institution on the planet) is affected by the massive influx of Muslim immigrants.

The Muslim population of France has reached the staggering 10% of all French citizens. At the same time, the proportion of Muslims in French prisons has reached 50%. Formerly peaceful Europe is learning to accept religiously motivated murders as a fact of life. Gang rapes bearing the hallmark of Islamic customs

"The victim is "only" sodomized in order not to
hurt her chances of getting
married"

have become so common across the Old Continent that even the New York Times had to acknowledge it in an article that managed not to identify the religion of the rapers. In the Netherlands, politicians who dared to openly oppose the Islamization of their country, are forced to live in hiding. Belgians are rapidly losing control of Antwerp to Muslim gangs.

"Honor killings" are another unique feature of Muslim culture. In the last 8 years, there have been 45 of them in Germany. Six of them occurred in Berlin in the last six months. The latest victim was shot to death by her three brothers. Her crime? She had refused to wear a headscarf and attempted to leave her husband of 8 years. She was 23.

Where does democracy fit into this horrifying picture? Terrorist organizations operate openly everywhere in Europe with no concern for their own safety. And why should they be concerned? Democracy protects them.

The tide of Muslim immigration has changed Europe much more than all the combined terrorist acts against the United States have changed this country. And, in case you haven't noticed, Muslims are coming to the United States as well. They settle on our land and, protected by our democratic institutions, immediately join the effort to erode those institutions from within.

When will we understand that the successes of our armed forces in the Middle East will not protect us from either al Qaeda or Islamization? When will we understand that everything al Qaeda can possibly throw at us is nothing but a diversion intended to provide a smoke screen for the real invaders? When will we understand that the elderly woman with a headscarf peacefully standing behind you in the checkout line at the local supermarket is capable of causing more damage to us in the long run that Osama bin Laden can ever dream of?

And if democracy in the Middle East is really so vitally important to us, why are we helping our enemies demolish the only country in the region that is a functioning democracy?




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