islam : Sexual Amputation and Silence
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/004138.php
December 02, 2004
Sexual Amputation and Silence
From one of today's bravest and most insightful commentators, Jamie Glazov at FrontPage:
The mutilation of Muslim girls’ genitals is on a steady rise throughout Europe.
Young girls born in Europe to immigrant Muslim families, mostly from Africa, are being assaulted with female genital mutilation (FGM).
No one, save a handful of courageous activists, is doing anything about it.
The Scotsman.com recently reported that Waris Dirie, the Somalia-born supermodel and best-selling author, who has campaigned to stop female genital mutilation (which disfigured her at age five in her homeland), has stated that approximately one out of every three African families in Europe is secretly perpetrating this crime against their daughters. Germany, the Netherlands and Austria are the main scenes of this barbarity -- where approximately 8,000 girls have been assaulted.
European authorities, with the exception of those in France, are benignly standing by, operating according to the progressive Party Line that disallows any criticism of Third World cultures in general -- and Islamic culture in particular. Police officers, social workers, teachers, doctors and nurses operate under the social obligation not to report this crime.
This sexual lobotomy of women is usually performed on girls at the age of seven or eight, right before their menstrual periods begin. The impulse behind this savagery is clear: the hatred of women and the terrifying fear of their sexuality. Demonizing female sexual desire and pleasure -- and annihilating it -- becomes the priority. To successfully achieve female genital mutilation, therefore, the mutilators have to legitimize and institutionalize it. As a result, they socially construct the pathological ideology that a girl’s genital area is “dirty” and, therefore, unacceptable. In Egypt, an uncircumcised girl is considered nigsa (unclean). The way she becomes non-nigsa is to have her clitoris sliced off. In Sudan, the term used for getting rid of the clitoris is tahur -- which means “cleansing” or “purification.”
Africa and Arabia are the regions where misogynists carry out the highest number of these “purifications.” Muslims serve as the principal religious group that bestows this cleansing gift unto women. In Egypt, 97 percent of girls are circumcised. Nawal el Saadawi, a leading Egyptian feminist and author, describes in her autobiography, The Hidden Face of Eve, how, at the age of six, this monstrosity was violently perpetrated against her -- while her mother stood by and smiled proudly.
While Egyptian girls’ clitorises are amputated (clitoridectomy), in countries like Sudan the purifiers are not so kind: all the women’s external genital organs are completely removed. In a crime against humanity called infibulation, the clitoris, the two major outer lips (labia majora) and the two minor inner lips (labia minora) are amputated.
Many of the “purified” victims lose their lives during this torture – which is often inflicted with broken glass. Most victims suffer from severe and chronic infections and pain for the rest of their lives. With serious and disabling lifelong consequences, the mutilation robs women of their equilibrium forever. It deprives them from enjoying the fullness of their sexuality and the completeness of their lives.
More than a hundred and thirty million women living today have been victimized by this horrifying crime, and more than two million girls are assaulted by it each year. In other words, we are talking about 6,000 girls every day -- 6,000 girls today.
Read it all.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Friday, December 03, 2004
Law team believed rape girl
Law team believed rape girl
By Jennifer Sexton and Natasha RobinsonDecember 3, 2004http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11573511%255E421,00.html
BARRISTER Ian Harrison SC pursued a withering cross examination of an 18-year-old girl who was allegedly gang-raped on a school excursion, even though his own legal team believed the girl was telling the truth.Mr Harrison, the president of both the NSW and the national bar associations and a fervent defender of the legal fraternity, walked a "narrow line" when he presented to the court surveillance taken in the past few weeks of the young woman on nights out in Sydney.
In the court room this week Mr Harrison questioned the young woman about covert pictures taken by the defence's private detective, showing her sitting on a bar stool in a mini-skirt. He questioned her about a condom in her wallet, and he put it to her that she had "overstated the severity of any condition" and "concocted the story that you had been raped".
All the while, the solicitor for Tara Anglican School for Girls, Ric Vass, who was instructing Mr Harrison, believed she was raped. Only yesterday did he make that admission to The Australian.
"I believe she was raped," Mr Vass, a partner at McCabe Terrill Lawyers, who represented the school and the school's insurer, Gerling, said.
Admitting he "had to think twice" about whether to use the video and photos as evidence, Mr Vass said "it is a very narrow line" but denied the defence had suggested the girl's behaviour invited sexual assault.
It was Mr Harrison who gave the green light to use the controversial evidence, and the school did not object, he said.
He said it was used to counter her claim she was too traumatised to socialise normally.
"Why wouldn't you have a look at her on a couple of Friday nights to see whether that is true or not?" he said.
"The object was not to be provocative or to introduce sexuality, but it was to show that she was being a normal girl."
Mr Vass said the defence case centred on the belief the supervision provided by the school was adequate. "We were never going to say she was not raped," he said.
Mr Vass said the defence had an obligation to test her claims.
Mr Harrison is the same man who early last month made a strident defence of Supreme Court Justice Jeff Shaw - exonerating him from having any role in the mystery of disappearing blood samples which followed the judge's car crash in October.
"If it went missing, it could not have had anything to do with the judge," Mr Harrison told ABC radio on November 3. He criticised the media for "dancing around the issue" in a way which suggested Mr Shaw did have a role.
It was later revealed Mr Shaw had in his possession both blood samples, which have registered a blood alcohol four and a half times over the legal limit.
Asked to defend this apparent contradiction, Mr Harrison was last night silent.
"My strict reaction in cases in which I appear is that I will not comment," Mr Harrison said.
The girl, who was 15 when she alleges she was raped by four men on the bonnet of a car in Sorrento during a school trip to Italy, sued the school for negligence, claiming it failed to adequately supervise a tour of Italy and Greece.
The school paid an undisclosed settlement on Thursday.
The girl's father yesterday expressed his dismay that the defence team had put his daughter through such an ordeal while believing she had told the truth about the rape.
"I find it hard to believe that he would admit that now. It's just ridiculous. In your wildest dreams, you would not think that was happening," he said.
Terry O'Gorman, president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, slammed the use of the footage and photographs in court.
"The school has a duty to ensure that the methods used to run the case are sensitive to the needs of the student," Mr O'Gorman said.
The NSW Rape Crisis Centre said the footage and photographs were designed to undermine her credibility. The Australian
By Jennifer Sexton and Natasha RobinsonDecember 3, 2004http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11573511%255E421,00.html
BARRISTER Ian Harrison SC pursued a withering cross examination of an 18-year-old girl who was allegedly gang-raped on a school excursion, even though his own legal team believed the girl was telling the truth.Mr Harrison, the president of both the NSW and the national bar associations and a fervent defender of the legal fraternity, walked a "narrow line" when he presented to the court surveillance taken in the past few weeks of the young woman on nights out in Sydney.
In the court room this week Mr Harrison questioned the young woman about covert pictures taken by the defence's private detective, showing her sitting on a bar stool in a mini-skirt. He questioned her about a condom in her wallet, and he put it to her that she had "overstated the severity of any condition" and "concocted the story that you had been raped".
All the while, the solicitor for Tara Anglican School for Girls, Ric Vass, who was instructing Mr Harrison, believed she was raped. Only yesterday did he make that admission to The Australian.
"I believe she was raped," Mr Vass, a partner at McCabe Terrill Lawyers, who represented the school and the school's insurer, Gerling, said.
Admitting he "had to think twice" about whether to use the video and photos as evidence, Mr Vass said "it is a very narrow line" but denied the defence had suggested the girl's behaviour invited sexual assault.
It was Mr Harrison who gave the green light to use the controversial evidence, and the school did not object, he said.
He said it was used to counter her claim she was too traumatised to socialise normally.
"Why wouldn't you have a look at her on a couple of Friday nights to see whether that is true or not?" he said.
"The object was not to be provocative or to introduce sexuality, but it was to show that she was being a normal girl."
Mr Vass said the defence case centred on the belief the supervision provided by the school was adequate. "We were never going to say she was not raped," he said.
Mr Vass said the defence had an obligation to test her claims.
Mr Harrison is the same man who early last month made a strident defence of Supreme Court Justice Jeff Shaw - exonerating him from having any role in the mystery of disappearing blood samples which followed the judge's car crash in October.
"If it went missing, it could not have had anything to do with the judge," Mr Harrison told ABC radio on November 3. He criticised the media for "dancing around the issue" in a way which suggested Mr Shaw did have a role.
It was later revealed Mr Shaw had in his possession both blood samples, which have registered a blood alcohol four and a half times over the legal limit.
Asked to defend this apparent contradiction, Mr Harrison was last night silent.
"My strict reaction in cases in which I appear is that I will not comment," Mr Harrison said.
The girl, who was 15 when she alleges she was raped by four men on the bonnet of a car in Sorrento during a school trip to Italy, sued the school for negligence, claiming it failed to adequately supervise a tour of Italy and Greece.
The school paid an undisclosed settlement on Thursday.
The girl's father yesterday expressed his dismay that the defence team had put his daughter through such an ordeal while believing she had told the truth about the rape.
"I find it hard to believe that he would admit that now. It's just ridiculous. In your wildest dreams, you would not think that was happening," he said.
Terry O'Gorman, president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, slammed the use of the footage and photographs in court.
"The school has a duty to ensure that the methods used to run the case are sensitive to the needs of the student," Mr O'Gorman said.
The NSW Rape Crisis Centre said the footage and photographs were designed to undermine her credibility. The Australian
Thursday, December 02, 2004
NEWS.com.au | Half Britons not heard of Auschwitz (December 2, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Half Britons not heard of Auschwitz (December 2, 2004)
This does not surprise me in the least.
Bogs Doddy
This does not surprise me in the least.
Bogs Doddy
NEWS.com.au | Accused killers 'laughed as they fled' (December 2, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Accused killers 'laughed as they fled' (December 2, 2004): "Accused killers 'laughed as they fled'
December 2, 2004
TWO men charged with murdering a man during a bungled robbery were seen laughing as they fled the scene, the NSW Supreme Court heard today.
Victim ... university student Simon Taylor.
Ferras Dehaybi, and a youth who can be identified only as JD, have pleaded not guilty to murdering 33-year-old Simon Taylor in Glebe in March 2003.
They also pleaded not guilty to robbing Mr Taylor of a diamond ring and his mother Rosalie of her handbag.
Dehaybi, 22, also pleaded not guilty to maliciously wounding Simon's father, Robert, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The Crown alleges the murder occurred after Dehaybi answered the Taylors' newspaper advertisement, pretending he wanted to buy the diamond ring Simon was selling.
His fiancee had returned the ring, valued at $26,400, after their engagement ended.
During closing submissions today, Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC told the jury the robbery went wrong after Dehaybi lured the three Taylors into the courtyard of a Glebe home.
Dehaybi was armed with a knife and JD - who was 17 at the time - threatened them with a replica pistol.
'You might think that what happened to the Taylors was an urban nightmare, to be tricked into going into that courtyard, to be tricked into bringing that valuable ring, to be confronted by these two armed men and threatened with their lives ... and then the ultimate tragedy - to lose their son,' Mr Tedeschi said.
Robert Taylor was stabbed after JD stole Mrs Taylor's handbag containing the ring and Simon Taylor was fatally stabbed when he gave chase, the court heard.
Mr Tedeschi asked the jury to reject Dehaybi'"
December 2, 2004
TWO men charged with murdering a man during a bungled robbery were seen laughing as they fled the scene, the NSW Supreme Court heard today.
Victim ... university student Simon Taylor.
Ferras Dehaybi, and a youth who can be identified only as JD, have pleaded not guilty to murdering 33-year-old Simon Taylor in Glebe in March 2003.
They also pleaded not guilty to robbing Mr Taylor of a diamond ring and his mother Rosalie of her handbag.
Dehaybi, 22, also pleaded not guilty to maliciously wounding Simon's father, Robert, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The Crown alleges the murder occurred after Dehaybi answered the Taylors' newspaper advertisement, pretending he wanted to buy the diamond ring Simon was selling.
His fiancee had returned the ring, valued at $26,400, after their engagement ended.
During closing submissions today, Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC told the jury the robbery went wrong after Dehaybi lured the three Taylors into the courtyard of a Glebe home.
Dehaybi was armed with a knife and JD - who was 17 at the time - threatened them with a replica pistol.
'You might think that what happened to the Taylors was an urban nightmare, to be tricked into going into that courtyard, to be tricked into bringing that valuable ring, to be confronted by these two armed men and threatened with their lives ... and then the ultimate tragedy - to lose their son,' Mr Tedeschi said.
Robert Taylor was stabbed after JD stole Mrs Taylor's handbag containing the ring and Simon Taylor was fatally stabbed when he gave chase, the court heard.
Mr Tedeschi asked the jury to reject Dehaybi'"
NEWS.com.au | Accused killers 'laughed as they fled' (December 2, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Accused killers 'laughed as they fled' (December 2, 2004): "Accused killers 'laughed as they fled'
December 2, 2004
TWO men charged with murdering a man during a bungled robbery were seen laughing as they fled the scene, the NSW Supreme Court heard today.
Victim ... university student Simon Taylor.
Ferras Dehaybi, and a youth who can be identified only as JD, have pleaded not guilty to murdering 33-year-old Simon Taylor in Glebe in March 2003.
They also pleaded not guilty to robbing Mr Taylor of a diamond ring and his mother Rosalie of her handbag.
Dehaybi, 22, also pleaded not guilty to maliciously wounding Simon's father, Robert, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The Crown alleges the murder occurred after Dehaybi answered the Taylors' newspaper advertisement, pretending he wanted to buy the diamond ring Simon was selling.
His fiancee had returned the ring, valued at $26,400, after their engagement ended.
During closing submissions today, Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC told the jury the robbery went wrong after Dehaybi lured the three Taylors into the courtyard of a Glebe home.
Dehaybi was armed with a knife and JD - who was 17 at the time - threatened them with a replica pistol.
'You might think that what happened to the Taylors was an urban nightmare, to be tricked into going into that courtyard, to be tricked into bringing that valuable ring, to be confronted by these two armed men and threatened with their lives ... and then the ultimate tragedy - to lose their son,' Mr Tedeschi said.
Robert Taylor was stabbed after JD stole Mrs Taylor's handbag containing the ring and Simon Taylor was fatally stabbed when he gave chase, the court heard.
Mr Tedeschi asked the jury to reject Dehaybi'"
December 2, 2004
TWO men charged with murdering a man during a bungled robbery were seen laughing as they fled the scene, the NSW Supreme Court heard today.
Victim ... university student Simon Taylor.
Ferras Dehaybi, and a youth who can be identified only as JD, have pleaded not guilty to murdering 33-year-old Simon Taylor in Glebe in March 2003.
They also pleaded not guilty to robbing Mr Taylor of a diamond ring and his mother Rosalie of her handbag.
Dehaybi, 22, also pleaded not guilty to maliciously wounding Simon's father, Robert, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The Crown alleges the murder occurred after Dehaybi answered the Taylors' newspaper advertisement, pretending he wanted to buy the diamond ring Simon was selling.
His fiancee had returned the ring, valued at $26,400, after their engagement ended.
During closing submissions today, Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC told the jury the robbery went wrong after Dehaybi lured the three Taylors into the courtyard of a Glebe home.
Dehaybi was armed with a knife and JD - who was 17 at the time - threatened them with a replica pistol.
'You might think that what happened to the Taylors was an urban nightmare, to be tricked into going into that courtyard, to be tricked into bringing that valuable ring, to be confronted by these two armed men and threatened with their lives ... and then the ultimate tragedy - to lose their son,' Mr Tedeschi said.
Robert Taylor was stabbed after JD stole Mrs Taylor's handbag containing the ring and Simon Taylor was fatally stabbed when he gave chase, the court heard.
Mr Tedeschi asked the jury to reject Dehaybi'"
Herald Sun: Lesbian minister faces trial [02dec04]
Herald Sun: Lesbian minister faces trial [02dec04]: "Lesbian minister faces trial
From correspondents in Pughtown, Pennsylvania
02dec04
A US Methodist minister facing a church trial for being a practicing homosexual said she believes God created her as a lesbian but she does not expect to keep her job.
Irene Elizabeth Stroud, associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia, is accused of flouting the church's ban on homosexual clergy.
'I feel that God created me a lesbian,' Stroud, 34, told reporters with her partner Chris Paige by her side before her trial began. 'That's an essential part of my being. It's no more likely to change than the colour of my eyes.'
Stroud is charged with 'practices incompatible with Christian teachings'. In an April 2003 sermon, she told her congregation that she is a lesbian 'living in a committed relationship with a partner'.
Same-sex unions has been a controversial topic this year and was an issue in last month's US presidential election. Numerous state resolutions banning same sex marriage were seen by some analysts as helping the reelection of President George W. Bush.
Homosexuality has also divided the global Anglican faith, after the US Episcopal Church last year ordained New Hampshire's Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop.
Stroud, who asked for a public trial, said had declared her sexuality because it would be dishonest not to. She hoped church law would change to allow openly homosexual clergy but doubted she would succeed in this case.
'I believe that I could probably have kept my minister's credentials if I had kept silent,' she said. 'That would have compromised my growth as a Christian and my integrity.
'For me to win a verdict"
From correspondents in Pughtown, Pennsylvania
02dec04
A US Methodist minister facing a church trial for being a practicing homosexual said she believes God created her as a lesbian but she does not expect to keep her job.
Irene Elizabeth Stroud, associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia, is accused of flouting the church's ban on homosexual clergy.
'I feel that God created me a lesbian,' Stroud, 34, told reporters with her partner Chris Paige by her side before her trial began. 'That's an essential part of my being. It's no more likely to change than the colour of my eyes.'
Stroud is charged with 'practices incompatible with Christian teachings'. In an April 2003 sermon, she told her congregation that she is a lesbian 'living in a committed relationship with a partner'.
Same-sex unions has been a controversial topic this year and was an issue in last month's US presidential election. Numerous state resolutions banning same sex marriage were seen by some analysts as helping the reelection of President George W. Bush.
Homosexuality has also divided the global Anglican faith, after the US Episcopal Church last year ordained New Hampshire's Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop.
Stroud, who asked for a public trial, said had declared her sexuality because it would be dishonest not to. She hoped church law would change to allow openly homosexual clergy but doubted she would succeed in this case.
'I believe that I could probably have kept my minister's credentials if I had kept silent,' she said. 'That would have compromised my growth as a Christian and my integrity.
'For me to win a verdict"
NEWS.com.au | Woman charged over child sex (December 2, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Woman charged over child sex (December 2, 2004): "Woman charged over child sex
December 2, 2004
A 36-year-old Melbourne woman has been charged with child sex offences.
The Dromana woman was charged yesterday with sexual penetration of a child under 16 years.
She was bailed to appear in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on December 6.
Police refused to confirm or deny media reports the woman was a school teacher in Rosebud, a seaside town on the Mornington Peninsula. "
December 2, 2004
A 36-year-old Melbourne woman has been charged with child sex offences.
The Dromana woman was charged yesterday with sexual penetration of a child under 16 years.
She was bailed to appear in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on December 6.
Police refused to confirm or deny media reports the woman was a school teacher in Rosebud, a seaside town on the Mornington Peninsula. "
They were together since 2nd grade.
They were together since 2nd grade.
Moshe Taranto, 23, an officer in the IDF from Ashdod and his best friend, Aviv Chakani did everything together. Moshe and Aviv were inducted into the IDF on the same day. They were both members of the handassa "engineering" corp of the IDF.
In May 2004, Aviv Chakani was killed as his Nagmash(small tank) was blown up by terrorists' land mines in the Gaza Strip (tzir Philadelphi). Aviv's mother, Edna, was the high school teacher for Aviv and his best friend Moshe in grade 10. The IDF appointed Moshe Taranto to replace his best friend after Aviv was laid to rest in May 2004.
Today as Aharaon and Eida Taranto opened their door in Ashdod, the IDF 'team' of clergy informed them that their son, Moshe was killed today in the same location in the Gaza Strip as his friend Aviv had been killed in May 2004. The Egyptian and Israeli border which is supposed to be 'watched' by Egypt(oxymoron) had once again allowed terrorists to build a tunnel
for arms smuggling which our IDF had discovered under Moshe Taranto's command of his engineering unit. The tunnel collapsed and Moshe fell 7 meters to his death.
Moshe and Aviv are now two friends in Heaven, dying 6months apart, best friends from grade 2.
Edna Chakani, the mother who buried her son six months ago, was with the Taranto family tonight in Ashdod to give them chizuk(support). She told us on the news tonight that Moshe, her late son's best friend, and successor officer at the same location was with her every day during shiva in May 04.
Tomorrow, Moshe Taranto, 23 will be laid to rest in Ashdod's military cemetery. Tomorrow night, the 'boys from grade 2' will be 'reunited.'
Harvey Tannenbaum
Real Stories
Dead Soldiers/Best Friends
Same Location
Moshe Taranto, 23, an officer in the IDF from Ashdod and his best friend, Aviv Chakani did everything together. Moshe and Aviv were inducted into the IDF on the same day. They were both members of the handassa "engineering" corp of the IDF.
In May 2004, Aviv Chakani was killed as his Nagmash(small tank) was blown up by terrorists' land mines in the Gaza Strip (tzir Philadelphi). Aviv's mother, Edna, was the high school teacher for Aviv and his best friend Moshe in grade 10. The IDF appointed Moshe Taranto to replace his best friend after Aviv was laid to rest in May 2004.
Today as Aharaon and Eida Taranto opened their door in Ashdod, the IDF 'team' of clergy informed them that their son, Moshe was killed today in the same location in the Gaza Strip as his friend Aviv had been killed in May 2004. The Egyptian and Israeli border which is supposed to be 'watched' by Egypt(oxymoron) had once again allowed terrorists to build a tunnel
for arms smuggling which our IDF had discovered under Moshe Taranto's command of his engineering unit. The tunnel collapsed and Moshe fell 7 meters to his death.
Moshe and Aviv are now two friends in Heaven, dying 6months apart, best friends from grade 2.
Edna Chakani, the mother who buried her son six months ago, was with the Taranto family tonight in Ashdod to give them chizuk(support). She told us on the news tonight that Moshe, her late son's best friend, and successor officer at the same location was with her every day during shiva in May 04.
Tomorrow, Moshe Taranto, 23 will be laid to rest in Ashdod's military cemetery. Tomorrow night, the 'boys from grade 2' will be 'reunited.'
Harvey Tannenbaum
Real Stories
Dead Soldiers/Best Friends
Same Location
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11549050%255E32522,00.html
JANET ALBRECHTSEN
Stop tolerating tribal punishmentDecember 01, 2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11549050%255E32522,00.html JANET ALBRECHTSEN
Perth: An Aboriginal woman is facing tribal punishment after she was given a suspended sentence for stabbing her cheating partner to death with a kitchen knife.The Australian, September 2A SMALL story tucked inside this newspaper signals why indigenous violence continues. Multiculturalism excuses it. It is hard to know what is more wrong: a society that allows a woman, who deliberately kills her husband, to walk free because she is Aboriginal; a society that appears to treat tribal punishment as a minor cultural blip; or a society that carries out tribal punishment.
They all point to a nation that allows tolerance of different cultures to morph into different laws for different people. And the results are horrendous. Last month the head of the new National Indigenous Council, Sue Gordon, said: "Aboriginal family violence is monstrous."
Former AFL footballer Michael Long will soon end his long walk to Canberra to highlight the plight of indigenous people. But the time for token gestures is surely over. Behind the walks and marches and apologies lies a more fundamental issue. Just as white culture is not perfect, some aspects of Aboriginal culture are flawed. Yet saying so is deemed impolite or, worse, derided as a new form of racism.
Meanwhile, indigenous people are suffering because of that reticence – a reticence coerced by a radical brand of multiculturalism, where all aspects of all cultures are revered as beyond reproach. This extreme brand lingers and is promoted by those who should know better.
By all accounts, Deborah Sturt is a decent person. But on September 13, 2003, the 32-year-old Aboriginal woman from a remote community in Kununurra, Western Australia, killed her de facto husband. Both had been drinking at Halls Creek. Sturt saw her partner have sex with another woman. An argument followed later that day. Then Sturt went to her house, found a large knife and returned to stab her partner once in each thigh. Sturt claimed she was inflicting traditional punishment for infidelity. Her husband was so drunk, he was defenceless. He died.
It is important, said WA Supreme Court Justice Michael Murray, that the court uphold the sanctity of life and try to prevent the taking of life. Murray then gave Sturt a suspended sentence, allowing her to walk free. In sentencing Sturt, the judge considered her youth, her remorse and the tribal punishment to be meted out to her by the Ringer Soak community.
Murray dances around "traditional punishment", "tribal punishment" and "Aboriginal law" as if the clash of cultures is too hard to address. The judge said he did not condone the traditional punishment Sturt inflicted on her husband, yet it was left to the prosecutor to point out that this is vigilantism, making it a more egregious case. Murray said he did not condone the tribal punishment that Sturt's community had planned for her – yet, by taking it into account, is he not implicitly excusing it?
Radical multiculturalism is at the heart of this decision. And the message is powerful: violence is unofficially tolerated if culture permits it. Murray's decision suggests that our legal system will not fully punish perpetrators if tribal law imposes its own punishment. In doing so, have we not condemned indigenous people to further violence?
This is not a one-off case of colliding cultures. In a book published earlier this year, Joan Kimm, a postgraduate student from Monash University, traces the sorry history of a legal system that has allowed, indeed encouraged, Aborigines charged with violent crimes to plead cultural defences in mitigation. A Fatal Conjunction: Two Laws, Two Cultures (The Federation Press) talks of cases where indigenous women have been stabbed or sliced or beaten with wood or rocks or iron bars and their male perpetrators have claimed, with some success, it is merely "righteous" or "moral" violence aimed at disciplining wayward women according to tribal law. Others say tribal law is "bullshit" law – fabricated to exonerate Aborigines, usually men, from their violent crimes.
In the wake of last week's riots on Palm Island, triggered by the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee, it is worth noting that, as in the past, there is no hesitation in laying blame when violence can be sheeted home, even indirectly, to non-indigenous people. Kimm points out that between January 1, 1980, and May 31, 1989, more indigenous women died at the hands of indigenous men than all Aboriginal deaths in custody. While deaths in custody remain a hot public issue, the reason for which the majority of men were incarcerated is rarely mentioned.
Critics of multiculturalism are invariably labelled as critics of tolerance. Although tolerance is a worthy goal, it is only meaningful when tempered with moral judgments about what is right and what is wrong. Yet intelligent people have been captured by this multicultural madness where nothing is right or wrong, all cultures are equal. Never mind that some erode basic freedoms.
A couple of weeks ago author Colleen McCullough said the men of Pitcairn Island were simply following their customs when they had sex with young girls. "These are indigenous customs and should not be touched," she said.
For others, it's tempting to sneer at Pitcairn Island as an uncivilised outpost clinging to an uncivilised culture. Yet equally abhorrent violence is happening under our own noses, with indigenous perpetrators ducking for cover under the very same safe umbrella of culture.
JANET ALBRECHTSEN
Stop tolerating tribal punishmentDecember 01, 2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11549050%255E32522,00.html JANET ALBRECHTSEN
Perth: An Aboriginal woman is facing tribal punishment after she was given a suspended sentence for stabbing her cheating partner to death with a kitchen knife.The Australian, September 2A SMALL story tucked inside this newspaper signals why indigenous violence continues. Multiculturalism excuses it. It is hard to know what is more wrong: a society that allows a woman, who deliberately kills her husband, to walk free because she is Aboriginal; a society that appears to treat tribal punishment as a minor cultural blip; or a society that carries out tribal punishment.
They all point to a nation that allows tolerance of different cultures to morph into different laws for different people. And the results are horrendous. Last month the head of the new National Indigenous Council, Sue Gordon, said: "Aboriginal family violence is monstrous."
Former AFL footballer Michael Long will soon end his long walk to Canberra to highlight the plight of indigenous people. But the time for token gestures is surely over. Behind the walks and marches and apologies lies a more fundamental issue. Just as white culture is not perfect, some aspects of Aboriginal culture are flawed. Yet saying so is deemed impolite or, worse, derided as a new form of racism.
Meanwhile, indigenous people are suffering because of that reticence – a reticence coerced by a radical brand of multiculturalism, where all aspects of all cultures are revered as beyond reproach. This extreme brand lingers and is promoted by those who should know better.
By all accounts, Deborah Sturt is a decent person. But on September 13, 2003, the 32-year-old Aboriginal woman from a remote community in Kununurra, Western Australia, killed her de facto husband. Both had been drinking at Halls Creek. Sturt saw her partner have sex with another woman. An argument followed later that day. Then Sturt went to her house, found a large knife and returned to stab her partner once in each thigh. Sturt claimed she was inflicting traditional punishment for infidelity. Her husband was so drunk, he was defenceless. He died.
It is important, said WA Supreme Court Justice Michael Murray, that the court uphold the sanctity of life and try to prevent the taking of life. Murray then gave Sturt a suspended sentence, allowing her to walk free. In sentencing Sturt, the judge considered her youth, her remorse and the tribal punishment to be meted out to her by the Ringer Soak community.
Murray dances around "traditional punishment", "tribal punishment" and "Aboriginal law" as if the clash of cultures is too hard to address. The judge said he did not condone the traditional punishment Sturt inflicted on her husband, yet it was left to the prosecutor to point out that this is vigilantism, making it a more egregious case. Murray said he did not condone the tribal punishment that Sturt's community had planned for her – yet, by taking it into account, is he not implicitly excusing it?
Radical multiculturalism is at the heart of this decision. And the message is powerful: violence is unofficially tolerated if culture permits it. Murray's decision suggests that our legal system will not fully punish perpetrators if tribal law imposes its own punishment. In doing so, have we not condemned indigenous people to further violence?
This is not a one-off case of colliding cultures. In a book published earlier this year, Joan Kimm, a postgraduate student from Monash University, traces the sorry history of a legal system that has allowed, indeed encouraged, Aborigines charged with violent crimes to plead cultural defences in mitigation. A Fatal Conjunction: Two Laws, Two Cultures (The Federation Press) talks of cases where indigenous women have been stabbed or sliced or beaten with wood or rocks or iron bars and their male perpetrators have claimed, with some success, it is merely "righteous" or "moral" violence aimed at disciplining wayward women according to tribal law. Others say tribal law is "bullshit" law – fabricated to exonerate Aborigines, usually men, from their violent crimes.
In the wake of last week's riots on Palm Island, triggered by the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee, it is worth noting that, as in the past, there is no hesitation in laying blame when violence can be sheeted home, even indirectly, to non-indigenous people. Kimm points out that between January 1, 1980, and May 31, 1989, more indigenous women died at the hands of indigenous men than all Aboriginal deaths in custody. While deaths in custody remain a hot public issue, the reason for which the majority of men were incarcerated is rarely mentioned.
Critics of multiculturalism are invariably labelled as critics of tolerance. Although tolerance is a worthy goal, it is only meaningful when tempered with moral judgments about what is right and what is wrong. Yet intelligent people have been captured by this multicultural madness where nothing is right or wrong, all cultures are equal. Never mind that some erode basic freedoms.
A couple of weeks ago author Colleen McCullough said the men of Pitcairn Island were simply following their customs when they had sex with young girls. "These are indigenous customs and should not be touched," she said.
For others, it's tempting to sneer at Pitcairn Island as an uncivilised outpost clinging to an uncivilised culture. Yet equally abhorrent violence is happening under our own noses, with indigenous perpetrators ducking for cover under the very same safe umbrella of culture.
The Australian: Son faces the cruellest cut of all [December 01, 2004]
The Australian: Son faces the cruellest cut of all [December 01, 2004]
Son faces the cruellest cut of all
Michael Theodoulou
December 01, 2004
A YOUNG Saudi man who had a sex-change operation is fighting to save the fortune he inherited from his father. Relatives insist that, under Islamic law, as a woman he is entitled to only half as much...................
Son faces the cruellest cut of all
Michael Theodoulou
December 01, 2004
A YOUNG Saudi man who had a sex-change operation is fighting to save the fortune he inherited from his father. Relatives insist that, under Islamic law, as a woman he is entitled to only half as much...................
Not for the spineless........
Not For The Spineless
By Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Israel is at war, a war for its very survival. One would hardly know this judging from Israel’s Neronian Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Like Nero, Sharon fiddles while his country burns, but unlike Nero, Sharon doesn’t know he’s fiddling.
Moral cowardice permeates the Sharon government. No outrage by Likud ministers when Sharon reneged on his pledge to abide by his party’s referendum on unilateral disengagement—the policy he campaigned against in the January 2003 election.
And of course no public denunciation of Sharon’s electoral thievery and political skullduggery. But what can one expect from people that have been conditioned by Israeli governments to tolerate the murder and maiming even of Jewish women and children? What can one expect from ordinary citizens given the spineless character of Israeli prime ministers?
And what about the Israel’s general staff? Not a single general resigned from the Israel Defense Forces in protest against Sharon’s indefensible disengagement policy, or to the sacrificing of Jewish soldiers to avoid killing anything but innocent Arab civilians.
So I write for another day. Perhaps men will yet rise to take the helm of state. With them in mind I offer, or rather adapt, some guidelines which another author penned for America in its war against an enemy related to Israel’s.
I. Accept the fact that Israel is hated, not misunderstood.
A. Israel is hated because
1. Jews inhabit land which Muslims claim, rightly or wrongly, as theirs.
2. Israel is a sovereign and independent state, whereas Jews, according to Islam, are supposed to be dhimmies.
3. A Jewish majority in Israel rules an Arab minority, overturning Islam’s moral universe.
4. Israel has defeated Arab armies, thereby assaulting Arab pride—for which affront Arabs must wreak vengeance on the Jewish state.
5. Israel is an outpost of American cultural imperialism, of materialism and hedonism, which may infect and corrupt Islam.
6. Israel is a democracy, a threat to the power structure of Islamic autocracies.
7. Israel’s existence places Islam in question as well as Allah.
B. Hasbara—information programs—will not endear Jews to Arabs or Muslims.
1. Better to be feared than loved, for fear depends on you, whereas love depends on the other.
2. Truth has never been the currency of nations.
II. Israel’s security depends on its ability to kill its enemies.
A. Daintily applying military power—such as targeted killings and brief incursions into Arab-held territory—only prolongs the war.
1. Moderation or self-restraint in war arouses Arab contempt for Israel
2. Moderation in war undermines martial virtue and undermines the soldier’s confidence in the justice of Israel’s cause.
B. To secure its way of life, Israel will have to use military force in the way the U.S. used military force in France and on the Pacific Islands, and from skies over Dresden and Tokyo.
1. Progress in war must be measured by the pace of killing and, sorry to say, by body counts.
2. Among Israel’s enemies the dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because most of Israel’s enemies wear no uniforms or provide havens for those who do.
3. This bloody-mindedness may not be admirable, but it will shorten the war and reduce casualties on both sides.
III. Cant will kill more and more Jews
A. Cease trying to make war civilized.
1. Enough of this deadly nonsense that “self-restraint is strength”!
2. Stop the moral clap trap about “purity of arms.”
B. Israel, to repeat, is in a war for survival.
1. Stop moralizing by saying “we do not want to stoop to the level of our enemies”—which is sheer cant, the language of moral cowardice and defeat.
2. War is hell, hell, hell. American ferocity in World War II did not damage the nation’s moral fiber.
3. Don’t worry about world opinion. Israel is condemned for killing one terrorist. Kill as many as possible in the shortest possible time, but do not stop until the enemy is completely disarmed and utterly incapable of waging war another day.
No doubt some readers will be outraged by these guidelines. Would that such rage would erupt among Jews whose fellow-citizens were reduced to human debris.
By Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Israel is at war, a war for its very survival. One would hardly know this judging from Israel’s Neronian Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Like Nero, Sharon fiddles while his country burns, but unlike Nero, Sharon doesn’t know he’s fiddling.
Moral cowardice permeates the Sharon government. No outrage by Likud ministers when Sharon reneged on his pledge to abide by his party’s referendum on unilateral disengagement—the policy he campaigned against in the January 2003 election.
And of course no public denunciation of Sharon’s electoral thievery and political skullduggery. But what can one expect from people that have been conditioned by Israeli governments to tolerate the murder and maiming even of Jewish women and children? What can one expect from ordinary citizens given the spineless character of Israeli prime ministers?
And what about the Israel’s general staff? Not a single general resigned from the Israel Defense Forces in protest against Sharon’s indefensible disengagement policy, or to the sacrificing of Jewish soldiers to avoid killing anything but innocent Arab civilians.
So I write for another day. Perhaps men will yet rise to take the helm of state. With them in mind I offer, or rather adapt, some guidelines which another author penned for America in its war against an enemy related to Israel’s.
I. Accept the fact that Israel is hated, not misunderstood.
A. Israel is hated because
1. Jews inhabit land which Muslims claim, rightly or wrongly, as theirs.
2. Israel is a sovereign and independent state, whereas Jews, according to Islam, are supposed to be dhimmies.
3. A Jewish majority in Israel rules an Arab minority, overturning Islam’s moral universe.
4. Israel has defeated Arab armies, thereby assaulting Arab pride—for which affront Arabs must wreak vengeance on the Jewish state.
5. Israel is an outpost of American cultural imperialism, of materialism and hedonism, which may infect and corrupt Islam.
6. Israel is a democracy, a threat to the power structure of Islamic autocracies.
7. Israel’s existence places Islam in question as well as Allah.
B. Hasbara—information programs—will not endear Jews to Arabs or Muslims.
1. Better to be feared than loved, for fear depends on you, whereas love depends on the other.
2. Truth has never been the currency of nations.
II. Israel’s security depends on its ability to kill its enemies.
A. Daintily applying military power—such as targeted killings and brief incursions into Arab-held territory—only prolongs the war.
1. Moderation or self-restraint in war arouses Arab contempt for Israel
2. Moderation in war undermines martial virtue and undermines the soldier’s confidence in the justice of Israel’s cause.
B. To secure its way of life, Israel will have to use military force in the way the U.S. used military force in France and on the Pacific Islands, and from skies over Dresden and Tokyo.
1. Progress in war must be measured by the pace of killing and, sorry to say, by body counts.
2. Among Israel’s enemies the dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because most of Israel’s enemies wear no uniforms or provide havens for those who do.
3. This bloody-mindedness may not be admirable, but it will shorten the war and reduce casualties on both sides.
III. Cant will kill more and more Jews
A. Cease trying to make war civilized.
1. Enough of this deadly nonsense that “self-restraint is strength”!
2. Stop the moral clap trap about “purity of arms.”
B. Israel, to repeat, is in a war for survival.
1. Stop moralizing by saying “we do not want to stoop to the level of our enemies”—which is sheer cant, the language of moral cowardice and defeat.
2. War is hell, hell, hell. American ferocity in World War II did not damage the nation’s moral fiber.
3. Don’t worry about world opinion. Israel is condemned for killing one terrorist. Kill as many as possible in the shortest possible time, but do not stop until the enemy is completely disarmed and utterly incapable of waging war another day.
No doubt some readers will be outraged by these guidelines. Would that such rage would erupt among Jews whose fellow-citizens were reduced to human debris.
Not for the spineless........
Not For The Spineless
By Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Israel is at war, a war for its very survival. One would hardly know this judging from Israel’s Neronian Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Like Nero, Sharon fiddles while his country burns, but unlike Nero, Sharon doesn’t know he’s fiddling.
Moral cowardice permeates the Sharon government. No outrage by Likud ministers when Sharon reneged on his pledge to abide by his party’s referendum on unilateral disengagement—the policy he campaigned against in the January 2003 election.
And of course no public denunciation of Sharon’s electoral thievery and political skullduggery. But what can one expect from people that have been conditioned by Israeli governments to tolerate the murder and maiming even of Jewish women and children? What can one expect from ordinary citizens given the spineless character of Israeli prime ministers?
And what about the Israel’s general staff? Not a single general resigned from the Israel Defense Forces in protest against Sharon’s indefensible disengagement policy, or to the sacrificing of Jewish soldiers to avoid killing anything but innocent Arab civilians.
So I write for another day. Perhaps men will yet rise to take the helm of state. With them in mind I offer, or rather adapt, some guidelines which another author penned for America in its war against an enemy related to Israel’s.
I. Accept the fact that Israel is hated, not misunderstood.
A. Israel is hated because
1. Jews inhabit land which Muslims claim, rightly or wrongly, as theirs.
2. Israel is a sovereign and independent state, whereas Jews, according to Islam, are supposed to be dhimmies.
3. A Jewish majority in Israel rules an Arab minority, overturning Islam’s moral universe.
4. Israel has defeated Arab armies, thereby assaulting Arab pride—for which affront Arabs must wreak vengeance on the Jewish state.
5. Israel is an outpost of American cultural imperialism, of materialism and hedonism, which may infect and corrupt Islam.
6. Israel is a democracy, a threat to the power structure of Islamic autocracies.
7. Israel’s existence places Islam in question as well as Allah.
B. Hasbara—information programs—will not endear Jews to Arabs or Muslims.
1. Better to be feared than loved, for fear depends on you, whereas love depends on the other.
2. Truth has never been the currency of nations.
II. Israel’s security depends on its ability to kill its enemies.
A. Daintily applying military power—such as targeted killings and brief incursions into Arab-held territory—only prolongs the war.
1. Moderation or self-restraint in war arouses Arab contempt for Israel
2. Moderation in war undermines martial virtue and undermines the soldier’s confidence in the justice of Israel’s cause.
B. To secure its way of life, Israel will have to use military force in the way the U.S. used military force in France and on the Pacific Islands, and from skies over Dresden and Tokyo.
1. Progress in war must be measured by the pace of killing and, sorry to say, by body counts.
2. Among Israel’s enemies the dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because most of Israel’s enemies wear no uniforms or provide havens for those who do.
3. This bloody-mindedness may not be admirable, but it will shorten the war and reduce casualties on both sides.
III. Cant will kill more and more Jews
A. Cease trying to make war civilized.
1. Enough of this deadly nonsense that “self-restraint is strength”!
2. Stop the moral clap trap about “purity of arms.”
B. Israel, to repeat, is in a war for survival.
1. Stop moralizing by saying “we do not want to stoop to the level of our enemies”—which is sheer cant, the language of moral cowardice and defeat.
2. War is hell, hell, hell. American ferocity in World War II did not damage the nation’s moral fiber.
3. Don’t worry about world opinion. Israel is condemned for killing one terrorist. Kill as many as possible in the shortest possible time, but do not stop until the enemy is completely disarmed and utterly incapable of waging war another day.
No doubt some readers will be outraged by these guidelines. Would that such rage would erupt among Jews whose fellow-citizens were reduced to human debris.
By Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Israel is at war, a war for its very survival. One would hardly know this judging from Israel’s Neronian Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Like Nero, Sharon fiddles while his country burns, but unlike Nero, Sharon doesn’t know he’s fiddling.
Moral cowardice permeates the Sharon government. No outrage by Likud ministers when Sharon reneged on his pledge to abide by his party’s referendum on unilateral disengagement—the policy he campaigned against in the January 2003 election.
And of course no public denunciation of Sharon’s electoral thievery and political skullduggery. But what can one expect from people that have been conditioned by Israeli governments to tolerate the murder and maiming even of Jewish women and children? What can one expect from ordinary citizens given the spineless character of Israeli prime ministers?
And what about the Israel’s general staff? Not a single general resigned from the Israel Defense Forces in protest against Sharon’s indefensible disengagement policy, or to the sacrificing of Jewish soldiers to avoid killing anything but innocent Arab civilians.
So I write for another day. Perhaps men will yet rise to take the helm of state. With them in mind I offer, or rather adapt, some guidelines which another author penned for America in its war against an enemy related to Israel’s.
I. Accept the fact that Israel is hated, not misunderstood.
A. Israel is hated because
1. Jews inhabit land which Muslims claim, rightly or wrongly, as theirs.
2. Israel is a sovereign and independent state, whereas Jews, according to Islam, are supposed to be dhimmies.
3. A Jewish majority in Israel rules an Arab minority, overturning Islam’s moral universe.
4. Israel has defeated Arab armies, thereby assaulting Arab pride—for which affront Arabs must wreak vengeance on the Jewish state.
5. Israel is an outpost of American cultural imperialism, of materialism and hedonism, which may infect and corrupt Islam.
6. Israel is a democracy, a threat to the power structure of Islamic autocracies.
7. Israel’s existence places Islam in question as well as Allah.
B. Hasbara—information programs—will not endear Jews to Arabs or Muslims.
1. Better to be feared than loved, for fear depends on you, whereas love depends on the other.
2. Truth has never been the currency of nations.
II. Israel’s security depends on its ability to kill its enemies.
A. Daintily applying military power—such as targeted killings and brief incursions into Arab-held territory—only prolongs the war.
1. Moderation or self-restraint in war arouses Arab contempt for Israel
2. Moderation in war undermines martial virtue and undermines the soldier’s confidence in the justice of Israel’s cause.
B. To secure its way of life, Israel will have to use military force in the way the U.S. used military force in France and on the Pacific Islands, and from skies over Dresden and Tokyo.
1. Progress in war must be measured by the pace of killing and, sorry to say, by body counts.
2. Among Israel’s enemies the dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because most of Israel’s enemies wear no uniforms or provide havens for those who do.
3. This bloody-mindedness may not be admirable, but it will shorten the war and reduce casualties on both sides.
III. Cant will kill more and more Jews
A. Cease trying to make war civilized.
1. Enough of this deadly nonsense that “self-restraint is strength”!
2. Stop the moral clap trap about “purity of arms.”
B. Israel, to repeat, is in a war for survival.
1. Stop moralizing by saying “we do not want to stoop to the level of our enemies”—which is sheer cant, the language of moral cowardice and defeat.
2. War is hell, hell, hell. American ferocity in World War II did not damage the nation’s moral fiber.
3. Don’t worry about world opinion. Israel is condemned for killing one terrorist. Kill as many as possible in the shortest possible time, but do not stop until the enemy is completely disarmed and utterly incapable of waging war another day.
No doubt some readers will be outraged by these guidelines. Would that such rage would erupt among Jews whose fellow-citizens were reduced to human debris.
Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings'
By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Admitted murderer: Better dead than red (in the face)
They kill their own, too. And the world expects "peace"?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com (KRT) ABU QASH — Rofayda Qaoud — raped by her brothers and impregnated — refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.
Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick.
Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."
The guilty brothers are in jail.
Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a three-judge panel on Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied.
Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem.
Police in Israel investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years.
Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002 — up from five during the first half of 1999 - the last time such incidents were counted before the current Palestinian uprising began, according to the center's study.
But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaoud's case. Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her past research showed the likely number to be 15 times higher than the number of reported cases.
According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's three-room house. On Nov. 26, 2002, doctors at a nearby hospital who were treating Rofayda for an injured leg discovered she was eight months pregnant.
Palestinian authorities whisked her off to a women's shelter in Bethlehem, where she gave birth to a healthy boy on Dec. 23. He has since been adopted by another Palestinian family, court records show.
Rofayda, meanwhile, wanted to return to her parents in the Ramallah suburb of Abu Qash. Ramallah Gov. Mustafa Isa called a meeting with the family and village elders, demanding they pledge in writing not to harm the girl. "He asked me if everyone in the family and the village would promise not to bother this girl, but I told him I couldn't give him a guarantee," Abu Qash Mayor Faik Shalout says.
Rofayda returned home in late January without notifying the authorities.
The shame was unbearable, Qaoud said. Relatives and friends refused to speak to her family. Her elder daughters' husbands wouldn't allow them to visit because Rofayda had returned home.
On Jan. 27, Rofayda sent word that she was in danger to crisis counselors at Abu-Dayyeh's center in East Jerusalem. They, in turn, called Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash.
Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Her three youngest children went to a cousin's house.
At 11:30 p.m. she killed Rofayda, court records show. Tarifi says he's convinced Qaoud had an accomplice, but Qaoud insists she acted alone.
Qaoud turned herself in and, after four months in jail, was released pending the resolution of her case.
While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment — for example, by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man — generally carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says. The fact she is a mother who was trying to protect her family's honor mitigates the crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under Palestinian law, he adds.
The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a relative, Tarifi says.
No trace of Rofayda or her brothers remains in the family home. Qaoud says she ripped up all of their photographs and burned their clothes. The bedroom in which she killed her daughter is now a storeroom.
Erasing the memories is harder, she admits. She eases her pain by doting on her three children still living at home, especially the youngest, Fatima, 9, whom she lavishes with kisses. The children say they've forgiven Qaoud and return her affection.
"My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."
By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Admitted murderer: Better dead than red (in the face)
They kill their own, too. And the world expects "peace"?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com (KRT) ABU QASH — Rofayda Qaoud — raped by her brothers and impregnated — refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.
Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick.
Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."
The guilty brothers are in jail.
Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a three-judge panel on Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied.
Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem.
Police in Israel investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years.
Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002 — up from five during the first half of 1999 - the last time such incidents were counted before the current Palestinian uprising began, according to the center's study.
But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaoud's case. Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her past research showed the likely number to be 15 times higher than the number of reported cases.
According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's three-room house. On Nov. 26, 2002, doctors at a nearby hospital who were treating Rofayda for an injured leg discovered she was eight months pregnant.
Palestinian authorities whisked her off to a women's shelter in Bethlehem, where she gave birth to a healthy boy on Dec. 23. He has since been adopted by another Palestinian family, court records show.
Rofayda, meanwhile, wanted to return to her parents in the Ramallah suburb of Abu Qash. Ramallah Gov. Mustafa Isa called a meeting with the family and village elders, demanding they pledge in writing not to harm the girl. "He asked me if everyone in the family and the village would promise not to bother this girl, but I told him I couldn't give him a guarantee," Abu Qash Mayor Faik Shalout says.
Rofayda returned home in late January without notifying the authorities.
The shame was unbearable, Qaoud said. Relatives and friends refused to speak to her family. Her elder daughters' husbands wouldn't allow them to visit because Rofayda had returned home.
On Jan. 27, Rofayda sent word that she was in danger to crisis counselors at Abu-Dayyeh's center in East Jerusalem. They, in turn, called Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash.
Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Her three youngest children went to a cousin's house.
At 11:30 p.m. she killed Rofayda, court records show. Tarifi says he's convinced Qaoud had an accomplice, but Qaoud insists she acted alone.
Qaoud turned herself in and, after four months in jail, was released pending the resolution of her case.
While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment — for example, by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man — generally carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says. The fact she is a mother who was trying to protect her family's honor mitigates the crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under Palestinian law, he adds.
The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a relative, Tarifi says.
No trace of Rofayda or her brothers remains in the family home. Qaoud says she ripped up all of their photographs and burned their clothes. The bedroom in which she killed her daughter is now a storeroom.
Erasing the memories is harder, she admits. She eases her pain by doting on her three children still living at home, especially the youngest, Fatima, 9, whom she lavishes with kisses. The children say they've forgiven Qaoud and return her affection.
"My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."
NEWS.com.au | Man fined over topless phone photos (December 1, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Man fined over topless phone photos (December 1, 2004): "Man fined over topless phone photos
December 1, 2004
If taking photos of half naked women lying around on a public beach is offensive, why is not the act of lying around half naked on a public beach offensive?
What happens the next time some one wants to take a picture of a beach?
Bogs Doddy.
A SYDNEY man was fined $500 today for taking photographs of topless women on Coogee Beach with his mobile phone.
Labourer Peter Mackenzie, 25, of Coogee, pleaded guilty in Waverley Local Court to behaving offensively in a public place on November 6.
It is believed to be the first time anyone has been prosecuted over such photography.
The partner of a woman he snapped confronted Mackenzie and called the police, staying with him at the beach until officers arrived.
Mackenzie told the court he had agonised over his actions.
'I really feel like I've blemished 25 years of being a decent person,' he said.
Mackenzie faced three months in jail, but Magistrate Lee Gilmore instead fined him $500, warning him that 'women are not objects of decoration for men's gratification'.
Mackenzie's Nokia camera phone will be destroyed.
AAP.
December 1, 2004
If taking photos of half naked women lying around on a public beach is offensive, why is not the act of lying around half naked on a public beach offensive?
What happens the next time some one wants to take a picture of a beach?
Bogs Doddy.
A SYDNEY man was fined $500 today for taking photographs of topless women on Coogee Beach with his mobile phone.
Labourer Peter Mackenzie, 25, of Coogee, pleaded guilty in Waverley Local Court to behaving offensively in a public place on November 6.
It is believed to be the first time anyone has been prosecuted over such photography.
The partner of a woman he snapped confronted Mackenzie and called the police, staying with him at the beach until officers arrived.
Mackenzie told the court he had agonised over his actions.
'I really feel like I've blemished 25 years of being a decent person,' he said.
Mackenzie faced three months in jail, but Magistrate Lee Gilmore instead fined him $500, warning him that 'women are not objects of decoration for men's gratification'.
Mackenzie's Nokia camera phone will be destroyed.
AAP.
Baby Jesus ban lifted........
Baby Jesus ban lifted - gee where do we fall down face first grovelling in thanks for this generous concession?
By BEN SHARKEY and MARK SKELSEY
December 1, 2004
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1260&storyid=2314704
No complaints ... Oporto franchise owner Charlie Saliba with his nativity scene
A FAST food chain yesterday admitted it was overzealous in its pursuit of political correctness when it banned one of its Sydney stores from displaying a traditional Christmas nativity scene.
Last Thursday, Westfield Hornsby Oporto franchise owner Charlie Saliba was told to remove his nativity scene – depicting baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men and a shepherd – for fear it would offend non-Christian customers.
Mr Saliba, a Catholic, said: "I am Maltese and we are very much into our Christmas decorations . . .
they told me take it down and I thought it was a shame because, without a nativity scene, it's not Christmas.
"I've been putting the nativity scene up for the past 3½ years and have not had one complaint. I have had a lot of compliments."
Oporto chief executive Jeff Fisher had previously told The Daily Telegraph the chain supported generic decorations over nativity scenes because Australia was a multicultural society and it would be wrong to push any one religious belief.
Mr Fisher was singing a different tune yesterday after a wave of public opinion.
"The issue [of the nativity scene] is obviously something the community feels very strongly about," he said. "We have listened to the community and corrected the situation.
"We are guilty of being over-sensitive by wanting to keep the decorations to a general nature. We tried to be politically correct and that was overzealous."
Yesterday morning the nativity scene, which cost $500 to construct, was returned to its pride of place next to the shop's second most sacred object: the chip machine.
Regular customer Noreen Dillon, 65, said it was good to see sanity prevail.
"I think sometimes people are afraid of upsetting minority groups, who in reality don't care about the nativity scenes anyway," the Wahroonga resident said. "I have Muslim neighbours and they wish me a happy Christmas so what's the big deal?"
Mr Saliba who said Muslim and Jewish staff had not complained about the nativity scene and were happy to have it in the store.
Keysar Trad, a director of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, said Muslims would have no objection to nativity scenes.
"We celebrate the life of Christ and see him as one of the five greatest people who ever lived and a prophet of God," he said.
Westfield public relations manager Julia Clark said most of the company's shopping centres had nativity scenes.
The only two without were because of space, she said. Even Bankstown Square, amid a large population of non-Christian backgrounds, has a nativity scene.
By BEN SHARKEY and MARK SKELSEY
December 1, 2004
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1260&storyid=2314704
No complaints ... Oporto franchise owner Charlie Saliba with his nativity scene
A FAST food chain yesterday admitted it was overzealous in its pursuit of political correctness when it banned one of its Sydney stores from displaying a traditional Christmas nativity scene.
Last Thursday, Westfield Hornsby Oporto franchise owner Charlie Saliba was told to remove his nativity scene – depicting baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men and a shepherd – for fear it would offend non-Christian customers.
Mr Saliba, a Catholic, said: "I am Maltese and we are very much into our Christmas decorations . . .
they told me take it down and I thought it was a shame because, without a nativity scene, it's not Christmas.
"I've been putting the nativity scene up for the past 3½ years and have not had one complaint. I have had a lot of compliments."
Oporto chief executive Jeff Fisher had previously told The Daily Telegraph the chain supported generic decorations over nativity scenes because Australia was a multicultural society and it would be wrong to push any one religious belief.
Mr Fisher was singing a different tune yesterday after a wave of public opinion.
"The issue [of the nativity scene] is obviously something the community feels very strongly about," he said. "We have listened to the community and corrected the situation.
"We are guilty of being over-sensitive by wanting to keep the decorations to a general nature. We tried to be politically correct and that was overzealous."
Yesterday morning the nativity scene, which cost $500 to construct, was returned to its pride of place next to the shop's second most sacred object: the chip machine.
Regular customer Noreen Dillon, 65, said it was good to see sanity prevail.
"I think sometimes people are afraid of upsetting minority groups, who in reality don't care about the nativity scenes anyway," the Wahroonga resident said. "I have Muslim neighbours and they wish me a happy Christmas so what's the big deal?"
Mr Saliba who said Muslim and Jewish staff had not complained about the nativity scene and were happy to have it in the store.
Keysar Trad, a director of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, said Muslims would have no objection to nativity scenes.
"We celebrate the life of Christ and see him as one of the five greatest people who ever lived and a prophet of God," he said.
Westfield public relations manager Julia Clark said most of the company's shopping centres had nativity scenes.
The only two without were because of space, she said. Even Bankstown Square, amid a large population of non-Christian backgrounds, has a nativity scene.
UPDATE Elite school settles rape claim
Elite school settles rape claimDecember 1, 2004
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11555863%255E26462,00.html
AN exclusive Sydney girls school today reached a settlement with a former student who alleged she had been gang raped on a school study trip to Italy.
Agreement ... the overseas rape claim has been settled.The 18-year-old, known only as N, claimed she was raped by four men in the Italian town of Sorrento while on a school trip in October 2001.
She was suing Tara Anglican Girls School in the NSW District Court, claiming the school breached its duty of care.
But when the trial resumed after lunch today her lawyers told the court a settlement had been reached for an undisclosed amount.
"I'm pleased to announce that the parties have in fact reached an agreement as to the resolution of the matter," her barrister Richard Burbibge, QC, told the court.
N had sued the school claiming it did not properly supervise her on the trip or offer adequate counselling and support following the alleged rape.
Earlier in court the teenager denied she had lied about being gang raped to avoid getting into trouble with her teachers and parents.
Under cross-examination, N insisted she did not make the story up to avoid being punished for breaking school rules, including being out after the 10pm curfew.
"In order to avoid being criticised or getting into trouble, you concocted the story that you were raped," counsel for the school, Ian Harrison SC, suggested. The girl replied: "No".
The court was earlier shown surveillance video of N in a Sydney pub, drinking alone at the bar.
She had previously told the court she did not like going out alone because of what happened to her in Italy.
"Your condition does not prevent you from going out alone and socialising?" Mr Harrison asked.
"It does not prevent me, but it makes me extremely uncomfortable," N replied.
The teenager sought unspecified damages, saying she suffered flashbacks of the attack and recurring nightmares, and harmed herself during bouts of severe depression.
She told the court she had never been kissed before the overseas tour when, aged 15, four men raped her on a car bonnet in an alleyway.
N said supervising teachers and parents offered her no emotional support, with one saying: "You don't look like you've been raped."
She denied telling them she felt "excited and flattered" by the male attention or that she "wanted to see how far it would go".
Her chaperones said it would be traumatic to press charges, and pressured her to sign a statement saying the sex was consensual, she said.
N said she was sent home early as punishment and a teacher made her withdraw money from an ATM at the airport to pay for her cab fare and morning-after pill.
She did not return to classes at the North Parramatta school and was made to sit School Certificate exams alone in a room next to the office of principal Carol Bowern, who told her "to apologise to the teachers for breaking the school rules".
Mrs Bowern - who was in court taking notes throughout the proceedings - denied that publicity surrounding the case had tarnished the school's image.
"The school's reputation hasn't been damaged," she told reporters outside the court.
She refused to comment on the terms of the settlement. AAP
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11555863%255E26462,00.html
AN exclusive Sydney girls school today reached a settlement with a former student who alleged she had been gang raped on a school study trip to Italy.
Agreement ... the overseas rape claim has been settled.The 18-year-old, known only as N, claimed she was raped by four men in the Italian town of Sorrento while on a school trip in October 2001.
She was suing Tara Anglican Girls School in the NSW District Court, claiming the school breached its duty of care.
But when the trial resumed after lunch today her lawyers told the court a settlement had been reached for an undisclosed amount.
"I'm pleased to announce that the parties have in fact reached an agreement as to the resolution of the matter," her barrister Richard Burbibge, QC, told the court.
N had sued the school claiming it did not properly supervise her on the trip or offer adequate counselling and support following the alleged rape.
Earlier in court the teenager denied she had lied about being gang raped to avoid getting into trouble with her teachers and parents.
Under cross-examination, N insisted she did not make the story up to avoid being punished for breaking school rules, including being out after the 10pm curfew.
"In order to avoid being criticised or getting into trouble, you concocted the story that you were raped," counsel for the school, Ian Harrison SC, suggested. The girl replied: "No".
The court was earlier shown surveillance video of N in a Sydney pub, drinking alone at the bar.
She had previously told the court she did not like going out alone because of what happened to her in Italy.
"Your condition does not prevent you from going out alone and socialising?" Mr Harrison asked.
"It does not prevent me, but it makes me extremely uncomfortable," N replied.
The teenager sought unspecified damages, saying she suffered flashbacks of the attack and recurring nightmares, and harmed herself during bouts of severe depression.
She told the court she had never been kissed before the overseas tour when, aged 15, four men raped her on a car bonnet in an alleyway.
N said supervising teachers and parents offered her no emotional support, with one saying: "You don't look like you've been raped."
She denied telling them she felt "excited and flattered" by the male attention or that she "wanted to see how far it would go".
Her chaperones said it would be traumatic to press charges, and pressured her to sign a statement saying the sex was consensual, she said.
N said she was sent home early as punishment and a teacher made her withdraw money from an ATM at the airport to pay for her cab fare and morning-after pill.
She did not return to classes at the North Parramatta school and was made to sit School Certificate exams alone in a room next to the office of principal Carol Bowern, who told her "to apologise to the teachers for breaking the school rules".
Mrs Bowern - who was in court taking notes throughout the proceedings - denied that publicity surrounding the case had tarnished the school's image.
"The school's reputation hasn't been damaged," she told reporters outside the court.
She refused to comment on the terms of the settlement. AAP
WorldNetDaily: Expert: Massive WMD attack 'inevitable'
WorldNetDaily: Expert: Massive WMD attack 'inevitable'
This cant be right after all it's a Religion of Peace isn't it?
Bogs Doddy.
This cant be right after all it's a Religion of Peace isn't it?
Bogs Doddy.
NEWS.com.au | Payback warning targets police (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au Payback warning targets police (November 30, 2004)
If these people were NOT Aboriginal they would have been shot just like any other gang of criminal thugs prepared to riot and attempt to murder Police.
Bogs Doddy.
Payback warning targets police
By Roberta Mancuso
November 30, 2004
AN indigenous leader has issued a chilling warning of "payback" against police and an eruption of violence across Australia if charges against those arrested for rioting on Palm Island are not dropped.
Warning ... activist Murrandoo Yanner / File picture
Eighteen men yesterday faced a north Queensland court charged with offences ranging from arson to serious assault on police following last Friday's violent riots, sparked by the death in custody of a local man.
The island community erupted in anger after an initial autopsy revealed Cameron Doomadgee sustained four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen and liver during a scuffle with a police officer during his arrest on November 19.
"If we're not going to get it through white law, we will take it through our own means, through Aboriginal law which has payback," Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner warned today.
"When someone's killed, someone must be killed in return.
"If this policeman isn't punished, jailed or charged with murder, under the law, if you can't get one policeman you get another."
All but one of the 18 charged over the riots – during which the island's police station, court house and barracks were torched – were denied bail.
Most will re-appear in Townsville Magistrates Court on Monday.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie responded to the remarks this afternoon and called for calm in the area.
"I just urge everyone to calm it down and let the CMC do its work," he said.
But Mr Yanner warned of deadly repercussions if the Queensland Government did not drop the charges as "a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation".
"There will be great trouble right across Aboriginal Australia," he said.
"I'm hoping to avoid that, that's why I'm calling on the Government to immediately release them and withdraw charges, otherwise we're going to fight and resist it.
"I can certainly guarantee in my neck of the woods, the lower Gulf of Carpentaria, we will up the ante on the police, we will have a lot more civil disobedience, we will do the Ghandi/Martin Luther thing, we'll just totally be non-cooperative with police to an amazing degree they have never encountered before.
"We'll have people turn a blind eye ... the police will have no assistance whatsoever in our communities, and if in fact they'll be lucky not to be assaulted and other things."
Mr Beattie has ruled out community-based punishment for the 18 accused Aboriginal rioters despite a traditional court on the island. He said they should face Queensland's court system.
Mr Yanner will attend Mr Doomadgee's funeral, which was expected to be held next week following a second autopsy.
He said Aboriginal Australia was looking at Palm Island with great pride and satisfaction.
"We look around at Palm Island, Redfern, and go bloody good on ya, one for us. I can't wait until I have my go," Mr Yanner said.
"Aboriginal Australia loves those moments.
"They're moments to be extremely proud of."
AAP
If these people were NOT Aboriginal they would have been shot just like any other gang of criminal thugs prepared to riot and attempt to murder Police.
Bogs Doddy.
Payback warning targets police
By Roberta Mancuso
November 30, 2004
AN indigenous leader has issued a chilling warning of "payback" against police and an eruption of violence across Australia if charges against those arrested for rioting on Palm Island are not dropped.
Warning ... activist Murrandoo Yanner / File picture
Eighteen men yesterday faced a north Queensland court charged with offences ranging from arson to serious assault on police following last Friday's violent riots, sparked by the death in custody of a local man.
The island community erupted in anger after an initial autopsy revealed Cameron Doomadgee sustained four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen and liver during a scuffle with a police officer during his arrest on November 19.
"If we're not going to get it through white law, we will take it through our own means, through Aboriginal law which has payback," Aboriginal activist Murrandoo Yanner warned today.
"When someone's killed, someone must be killed in return.
"If this policeman isn't punished, jailed or charged with murder, under the law, if you can't get one policeman you get another."
All but one of the 18 charged over the riots – during which the island's police station, court house and barracks were torched – were denied bail.
Most will re-appear in Townsville Magistrates Court on Monday.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie responded to the remarks this afternoon and called for calm in the area.
"I just urge everyone to calm it down and let the CMC do its work," he said.
But Mr Yanner warned of deadly repercussions if the Queensland Government did not drop the charges as "a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation".
"There will be great trouble right across Aboriginal Australia," he said.
"I'm hoping to avoid that, that's why I'm calling on the Government to immediately release them and withdraw charges, otherwise we're going to fight and resist it.
"I can certainly guarantee in my neck of the woods, the lower Gulf of Carpentaria, we will up the ante on the police, we will have a lot more civil disobedience, we will do the Ghandi/Martin Luther thing, we'll just totally be non-cooperative with police to an amazing degree they have never encountered before.
"We'll have people turn a blind eye ... the police will have no assistance whatsoever in our communities, and if in fact they'll be lucky not to be assaulted and other things."
Mr Beattie has ruled out community-based punishment for the 18 accused Aboriginal rioters despite a traditional court on the island. He said they should face Queensland's court system.
Mr Yanner will attend Mr Doomadgee's funeral, which was expected to be held next week following a second autopsy.
He said Aboriginal Australia was looking at Palm Island with great pride and satisfaction.
"We look around at Palm Island, Redfern, and go bloody good on ya, one for us. I can't wait until I have my go," Mr Yanner said.
"Aboriginal Australia loves those moments.
"They're moments to be extremely proud of."
AAP
NEWS.com.au | Melbourne after gay city crown (November 29, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Melbourne after gay city crown (November 29, 2004)
For the first time in my life I am hoping the City of the "River that runs upside down" wins this contest. Melbourne can have all they want.
Bogs Doddy.
For the first time in my life I am hoping the City of the "River that runs upside down" wins this contest. Melbourne can have all they want.
Bogs Doddy.
NEWS.com.au | Snow White sacked for posing nude (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Snow White sacked for posing nude (November 30, 2004)
If she does not have a bath how could she be Snow WHITE?
bOGS dODDY.
If she does not have a bath how could she be Snow WHITE?
bOGS dODDY.
NEWS.com.au | Nips and tucks a snip on gift lists (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Nips and tucks a snip on gift lists (November 30, 2004)
Believe it or not I was no more than 6 feet away from Pamela Anderson on a pratically deserted beach, just me and her and appx 100 yards away her minders.
I remember, I was surprised how short she was , she was very pretty and had a lovely smile and a great bust.
Are you Ladies really getting Boob Jobs for Christmas?
Bogs Doddy.
Nips and tucks a snip on gift lists
By Richard Finnila
November 30, 2004
LAST Christmas it was all about the digital camera. The year before that, it was the DVD player. Could this Christmas be the year of the breast implant?
Up front... more and more women are following the example of actress Pamela Anderson and opting for breast implants / file
Cosmetic surgery clinics across Queensland have been swamped by people buying their partners procedures in the lead-up to Christmas.
Demand has been so strong that one Gold Coast clinic has had to fly up extra surgeons from Sydney to cope.
Highly popular "gifts" include breast implants, liposuction, penis enlargements and nose reconstructions.
Botox treatments have also been popular as the Christmas party season swings into gear.
Popular television shows such as Nip/Tuck and Extreme Makeover are thought to be behind the boom.
Pamela Noon, who heads the Cosmetic Surgery Report clinic on the Gold Coast, said the number of people having surgery at her clinic had doubled in the past few months.
"We would normally do about 20 or 30 major procedures a month on the Gold Coast, but in October we did around 50," Ms Noon said.
"It's like that all over the place. There could be 20 clinics in Queensland, so multiply that out and that's a lot of cosmetic surgery being done at the moment."
A thriving economy and healthy property market are also thought to be factors in the trend.
Southport partners Georgia Hinds, 18, and her boyfriend Aaron Fahy, 26, are one couple among the many buying each other cosmetic surgery as gifts.
Mr Fahy is buying Ms Hinds a breast enlargement.
She is buying him a teeth-whitening treatment.
The Courier-Mail
Believe it or not I was no more than 6 feet away from Pamela Anderson on a pratically deserted beach, just me and her and appx 100 yards away her minders.
I remember, I was surprised how short she was , she was very pretty and had a lovely smile and a great bust.
Are you Ladies really getting Boob Jobs for Christmas?
Bogs Doddy.
Nips and tucks a snip on gift lists
By Richard Finnila
November 30, 2004
LAST Christmas it was all about the digital camera. The year before that, it was the DVD player. Could this Christmas be the year of the breast implant?
Up front... more and more women are following the example of actress Pamela Anderson and opting for breast implants / file
Cosmetic surgery clinics across Queensland have been swamped by people buying their partners procedures in the lead-up to Christmas.
Demand has been so strong that one Gold Coast clinic has had to fly up extra surgeons from Sydney to cope.
Highly popular "gifts" include breast implants, liposuction, penis enlargements and nose reconstructions.
Botox treatments have also been popular as the Christmas party season swings into gear.
Popular television shows such as Nip/Tuck and Extreme Makeover are thought to be behind the boom.
Pamela Noon, who heads the Cosmetic Surgery Report clinic on the Gold Coast, said the number of people having surgery at her clinic had doubled in the past few months.
"We would normally do about 20 or 30 major procedures a month on the Gold Coast, but in October we did around 50," Ms Noon said.
"It's like that all over the place. There could be 20 clinics in Queensland, so multiply that out and that's a lot of cosmetic surgery being done at the moment."
A thriving economy and healthy property market are also thought to be factors in the trend.
Southport partners Georgia Hinds, 18, and her boyfriend Aaron Fahy, 26, are one couple among the many buying each other cosmetic surgery as gifts.
Mr Fahy is buying Ms Hinds a breast enlargement.
She is buying him a teeth-whitening treatment.
The Courier-Mail
NEWS.com.au | Woman posed as man to bed girl (December 1, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Woman posed as man to bed girl (December 1, 2004): "Click here to print this page
In the SICK file What sentence would you give to this freak if it was your daughter?
Bogs Doddy.
Woman posed as man to bed girl
By Liam Houlihan
December 1, 2004
CRIMES victims groups are angry a woman who disguised herself as a man to seduce a 15-year-old schoolgirl will not be jailed.
The woman was found guilty of nine charges of sexually penetrating a child under 16 - potentially attracting a jail term of up to 90 years.
But she walked free last month with a suspended sentence and a community-based order.
The schoolgirl victim is devastated. And crimes victims groups are lobbying the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal against 'a ridiculously soft decision'.
The case arose from a sexual relationship between a woman, 22, and the schoolgirl in a Victorian provincial city.
The County Court heard the affair lasted 2 years, but ended when police told the schoolgirl her lover was a woman.
Neither party can be identified.
The sentencing judge took into account a psychiatrist's opinion that doing time in a women's jail would cause the woman 'considerable emotional distress' because she considered herself a man.
But victims groups are furious. 'What about the victim's considerable emotional distress?' said victims advocate Noel McNamara who vowed his group, the People's Sentencing Advisory Council, would pressure the DPP to appeal against the sentence.
An Office of Public Prosecutions spokesman said a decision had not been made whether to appeal.
The nine charges related to one instance of oral sex and eight where a sex toy was involved.
The court heard the relationship came to an end last year in 'acrimonious circumstances' with both parties taking out intervention orders.
The DPP has two weeks to lodge an appeal.
"
In the SICK file What sentence would you give to this freak if it was your daughter?
Bogs Doddy.
Woman posed as man to bed girl
By Liam Houlihan
December 1, 2004
CRIMES victims groups are angry a woman who disguised herself as a man to seduce a 15-year-old schoolgirl will not be jailed.
The woman was found guilty of nine charges of sexually penetrating a child under 16 - potentially attracting a jail term of up to 90 years.
But she walked free last month with a suspended sentence and a community-based order.
The schoolgirl victim is devastated. And crimes victims groups are lobbying the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal against 'a ridiculously soft decision'.
The case arose from a sexual relationship between a woman, 22, and the schoolgirl in a Victorian provincial city.
The County Court heard the affair lasted 2 years, but ended when police told the schoolgirl her lover was a woman.
Neither party can be identified.
The sentencing judge took into account a psychiatrist's opinion that doing time in a women's jail would cause the woman 'considerable emotional distress' because she considered herself a man.
But victims groups are furious. 'What about the victim's considerable emotional distress?' said victims advocate Noel McNamara who vowed his group, the People's Sentencing Advisory Council, would pressure the DPP to appeal against the sentence.
An Office of Public Prosecutions spokesman said a decision had not been made whether to appeal.
The nine charges related to one instance of oral sex and eight where a sex toy was involved.
The court heard the relationship came to an end last year in 'acrimonious circumstances' with both parties taking out intervention orders.
The DPP has two weeks to lodge an appeal.
"
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
NEWS.com.au | Kazaa can track downloads, court hears (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Kazaa can track downloads, court hears (November 30, 2004)
Better start down loading fast before Kazaa is no more.
Bogs Doddy.
Better start down loading fast before Kazaa is no more.
Bogs Doddy.
NEWS.com.au | Seven dead in Black Hawk disaster (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Seven dead in Black Hawk disaster (November 30, 2004)
Bad enough been killed fighting in Iraq than at home praticing.
God Bless them.
Bogs Doddy
Seven dead in Black Hawk disaster
From correspondents in Bruceville-Eddy, Texas
November 30, 2004
A US Army helicopter crashed and burned today in Texas after hitting a TV transmission-tower wire in fog.
Wreck ... the crew had no chance as the chopper went down / AP
All seven soldiers aboard were killed, military officials confirmed.
The tower had not been spotted because its warning lights were not working, a TV station official said.
The UH-60 Black Hawk, bound for the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, went down in a field about 48km north-east of Fort Hood, where the soldiers were based.
The fog was so thick when emergency crews arrived that they could not see more than halfway up the tower, authorities said.
Everyone aboard was killed, said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Withington, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood. Their names were not immediately released.
Rock Eicke, who lives about 400 metres from the crash site just south of Waco, said he was getting ready for work about 7am (1am AEDT) when he was startled by a loud metallic rattling sound. He said he looked out his window and saw the helicopter hitting the ground.
"All of the sudden I just saw a big ball of fire erupt from the ground and then boom, an explosion," Mr Eicke said.
Mr Eicke called emergency services and then accompanied a deputy sheriff who needed directions to the crash site.
The main part of the fuselage went down in a field about 200 metres from the tower, McLennan County constable Ken Brown said.
Mr Eicke and Con Brown said charred and smouldering pieces of the helicopter were scattered for hundreds of meters. Two of the bodies were seen inside the helicopter; others were lying in the field.
An investigation team was sent to the scene to determine the cause of the crash.
Lt Col Withington said the team's priority now was "to secure the scene and recover the bodies".
He said other Black Hawk helicopters from Fort Hood would pick up the bodies and return them to the post.
The helicopter hit several of 21 wires stabilising the 540-metre tower, said Jerry Pursley, general manager of Waco-Temple-Killeen station KXXV, which owns the tower. The tower itself was not hit, he said.
The tower's lights stopped working early last week after strong storms hit the area, Pursley said. He said the station notified the Federal Aviation Administration.
FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said the agency sent a notice to a computer database checked by pilots before they fly for information on potential hazards.
Hundreds of such notices are issued every week around the country, and they typically stay posted for 15 days, he said.
The crash occurred at the highest point in McLennan County, with 30 different towers within an 8km radius of where the helicopter went down, Sheriff's Deputy Shannon Mitchell said.
The Black Hawk, which the military began using in 1979, is the Army's main troop transport helicopter. It can carry 15 people and usually is flown by a crew of four.
In November 2003, 17 soldiers were killed when two Black Hawk helicopters crashed in Iraq, apparently as a result of enemy fire.
The Associated Press
Bad enough been killed fighting in Iraq than at home praticing.
God Bless them.
Bogs Doddy
Seven dead in Black Hawk disaster
From correspondents in Bruceville-Eddy, Texas
November 30, 2004
A US Army helicopter crashed and burned today in Texas after hitting a TV transmission-tower wire in fog.
Wreck ... the crew had no chance as the chopper went down / AP
All seven soldiers aboard were killed, military officials confirmed.
The tower had not been spotted because its warning lights were not working, a TV station official said.
The UH-60 Black Hawk, bound for the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, went down in a field about 48km north-east of Fort Hood, where the soldiers were based.
The fog was so thick when emergency crews arrived that they could not see more than halfway up the tower, authorities said.
Everyone aboard was killed, said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Withington, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood. Their names were not immediately released.
Rock Eicke, who lives about 400 metres from the crash site just south of Waco, said he was getting ready for work about 7am (1am AEDT) when he was startled by a loud metallic rattling sound. He said he looked out his window and saw the helicopter hitting the ground.
"All of the sudden I just saw a big ball of fire erupt from the ground and then boom, an explosion," Mr Eicke said.
Mr Eicke called emergency services and then accompanied a deputy sheriff who needed directions to the crash site.
The main part of the fuselage went down in a field about 200 metres from the tower, McLennan County constable Ken Brown said.
Mr Eicke and Con Brown said charred and smouldering pieces of the helicopter were scattered for hundreds of meters. Two of the bodies were seen inside the helicopter; others were lying in the field.
An investigation team was sent to the scene to determine the cause of the crash.
Lt Col Withington said the team's priority now was "to secure the scene and recover the bodies".
He said other Black Hawk helicopters from Fort Hood would pick up the bodies and return them to the post.
The helicopter hit several of 21 wires stabilising the 540-metre tower, said Jerry Pursley, general manager of Waco-Temple-Killeen station KXXV, which owns the tower. The tower itself was not hit, he said.
The tower's lights stopped working early last week after strong storms hit the area, Pursley said. He said the station notified the Federal Aviation Administration.
FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said the agency sent a notice to a computer database checked by pilots before they fly for information on potential hazards.
Hundreds of such notices are issued every week around the country, and they typically stay posted for 15 days, he said.
The crash occurred at the highest point in McLennan County, with 30 different towers within an 8km radius of where the helicopter went down, Sheriff's Deputy Shannon Mitchell said.
The Black Hawk, which the military began using in 1979, is the Army's main troop transport helicopter. It can carry 15 people and usually is flown by a crew of four.
In November 2003, 17 soldiers were killed when two Black Hawk helicopters crashed in Iraq, apparently as a result of enemy fire.
The Associated Press
NEWS.com.au | Keelty says strike here 'inevitable' (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Keelty says strike here 'inevitable' (November 30, 2004)
If the muslim "community leaders" in Sydney are correct that at most 10% of the islamic population of Sydney are a threat to non muslim Australians then we only have to worry about 30,000 mad islamic Terrorist's hell bent on killing as many Australians as they can, now dont you feel better ?
Or if you like 28 million in Indonesia or world wide 100 million mad champing at the bit loons wanting to implement the "Religion of Peace" by hacking off your head or blowing you to a million pieces.
These above numbers put alah's "army" into perspective.
Bogs Doddy.
Keelty says strike here 'inevitable'
November 30, 2004
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty believes it's only a matter of time before there's a terror strike on Australia.
In an interview published in The Bulletin magazine tomorrow, Mr Keelty said he believed such an attack was inevitable.
"Yeah I do," he said.
"I mean commonsense tells you there's absolutely nothing that will make us immune from terrorism and that an attack is inevitable because the objective of the terrorists we are currently dealing with is to break down our western, democratic and liberal values."
Mr Keelty said some terrorists could be arrested or killed.
"But for the long-term effect you must look at ways to turn the thinking around of the individuals who would otherwise embrace this as their philosophy or their ideology," he said.
In the article, friends of Mr Keelty say he was deeply wounded by the row earlier this year in which he said the terrorist bombing in Madrid was more likely to have been linked to Spain's support for the US in the Iraq war.
That was taken as implying Australia was at greater risk of terror attack because of involvement in Iraq, and prompted strong responses from Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Mr Keelty issued a retraction and considered quitting - a move a senior law enforcement source quoted in The Bulletin said would have been a complete disaster for counter-terrorism efforts.
The attack that hurt most apparently came from defence force chief General Peter Cosgrove. The Bulletin said Mr Howard and Mr Downer had since given him what could be construed as apologies.
Asked about his Madrid comments, Mr Keelty said: "Well I think and I did say this in the statement I made at the time, Iraq's but one part of a whole series of things that we've been involved in that makes us a target, not the least being east Timor."
AAP
If the muslim "community leaders" in Sydney are correct that at most 10% of the islamic population of Sydney are a threat to non muslim Australians then we only have to worry about 30,000 mad islamic Terrorist's hell bent on killing as many Australians as they can, now dont you feel better ?
Or if you like 28 million in Indonesia or world wide 100 million mad champing at the bit loons wanting to implement the "Religion of Peace" by hacking off your head or blowing you to a million pieces.
These above numbers put alah's "army" into perspective.
Bogs Doddy.
Keelty says strike here 'inevitable'
November 30, 2004
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty believes it's only a matter of time before there's a terror strike on Australia.
In an interview published in The Bulletin magazine tomorrow, Mr Keelty said he believed such an attack was inevitable.
"Yeah I do," he said.
"I mean commonsense tells you there's absolutely nothing that will make us immune from terrorism and that an attack is inevitable because the objective of the terrorists we are currently dealing with is to break down our western, democratic and liberal values."
Mr Keelty said some terrorists could be arrested or killed.
"But for the long-term effect you must look at ways to turn the thinking around of the individuals who would otherwise embrace this as their philosophy or their ideology," he said.
In the article, friends of Mr Keelty say he was deeply wounded by the row earlier this year in which he said the terrorist bombing in Madrid was more likely to have been linked to Spain's support for the US in the Iraq war.
That was taken as implying Australia was at greater risk of terror attack because of involvement in Iraq, and prompted strong responses from Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Mr Keelty issued a retraction and considered quitting - a move a senior law enforcement source quoted in The Bulletin said would have been a complete disaster for counter-terrorism efforts.
The attack that hurt most apparently came from defence force chief General Peter Cosgrove. The Bulletin said Mr Howard and Mr Downer had since given him what could be construed as apologies.
Asked about his Madrid comments, Mr Keelty said: "Well I think and I did say this in the statement I made at the time, Iraq's but one part of a whole series of things that we've been involved in that makes us a target, not the least being east Timor."
AAP
NEWS.com.au | Student 'isolated' after telling of rape (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Student 'isolated' after telling of rape (November 30, 2004)
Student 'isolated' after telling of rape
November 30, 2004
A TEENAGE girl today told a court how an exclusive Sydney school made her feel alone and isolated after she was gang raped on a school trip to Italy.
Suing ... the girl with her father outside court.
The girl, now 18, is suing Tara Anglican Girls School for breaching its duty of care over the incident in 2001.
The teenager, who can only be identified as "N", claims Tara failed to supervise her properly during the trip or offer adequate treatment and counselling after the alleged rape.
She told the NSW District Court that being raped by four men on the bonnet of a car in the Italian town of Sorrento was the worst experience of her life, but the teachers chaperoning her offered no emotional support after she told them what happened.
Instead, they persuaded her to accept blame for the incident and sign a statement saying the sex was consensual.
The teachers also pressured her to tell her father and school principal Carol Bowern – who was in court for today's proceedings – that she had agreed to the sex.
"They wanted me to tell (them) it had been consensual, which was not the truth," she said.
Having been told by a teacher "to go and pack my bags and be ready to go the next day", N flew home – and was given a bill for her cab fare and the morning-after pill at the airport.
Tara denies liability and sought to protect its identity, but Judge Allan Hughes today lifted a court order suppressing its name.
Counsel for Tara, Ian Harrison SC, said N had written a statement soon after the incident saying the sex was consensual.
But N told the court she wrote it because "I just wanted it to go away, pretend it didn't happen".
"The teachers were telling me how traumatic it would be to go through with the rape charges," she said.
She was told that if she said the sex was consensual, the trip would continue and her parents need not know of the incident.
The court was told the girl did not return to classes at Tara after the trip, and sat her School Certificate alone in a room next to the principal's office.
"Mrs Bowern organised for me to be in that room so I wouldn't be with the other students," N said.
"It was awful being alone, being isolated."
She had already planned to change schools at the end of Year 10 because her parents were moving, but Mrs Bowern offered to have her transferred early.
The court also heard the principal had asked her to sign a statement saying she would not return to the school, but was "still welcome to be a Tara old girl".
N said she told the truth when Mrs Bowern asked what had happened in Sorrento, but the principal stopped her when she said the men had pinned her down on the car bonnet.
"From then on she continued to talk about how I must apologise to the teachers for what I had done on the trip ... for breaking the school rules."
N told the court she still felt guilty about the incident, and broke down in the witness box during cross-examination by Mr Harrison.
N agreed she had a condom in her wallet in Italy, but said a classmate had given it to her some time before the trip and she didn't expect to use it.
Mr Harrison also produced recent photographs of N dressed in a skirt and sitting on a bar stool, suggesting it would take confidence to wear such a short skirt in a pub.
But N said she just wanted to dress like her peers.
Judge Hughes adjourned the case until tomorrow.
AAP
Student 'isolated' after telling of rape
November 30, 2004
A TEENAGE girl today told a court how an exclusive Sydney school made her feel alone and isolated after she was gang raped on a school trip to Italy.
Suing ... the girl with her father outside court.
The girl, now 18, is suing Tara Anglican Girls School for breaching its duty of care over the incident in 2001.
The teenager, who can only be identified as "N", claims Tara failed to supervise her properly during the trip or offer adequate treatment and counselling after the alleged rape.
She told the NSW District Court that being raped by four men on the bonnet of a car in the Italian town of Sorrento was the worst experience of her life, but the teachers chaperoning her offered no emotional support after she told them what happened.
Instead, they persuaded her to accept blame for the incident and sign a statement saying the sex was consensual.
The teachers also pressured her to tell her father and school principal Carol Bowern – who was in court for today's proceedings – that she had agreed to the sex.
"They wanted me to tell (them) it had been consensual, which was not the truth," she said.
Having been told by a teacher "to go and pack my bags and be ready to go the next day", N flew home – and was given a bill for her cab fare and the morning-after pill at the airport.
Tara denies liability and sought to protect its identity, but Judge Allan Hughes today lifted a court order suppressing its name.
Counsel for Tara, Ian Harrison SC, said N had written a statement soon after the incident saying the sex was consensual.
But N told the court she wrote it because "I just wanted it to go away, pretend it didn't happen".
"The teachers were telling me how traumatic it would be to go through with the rape charges," she said.
She was told that if she said the sex was consensual, the trip would continue and her parents need not know of the incident.
The court was told the girl did not return to classes at Tara after the trip, and sat her School Certificate alone in a room next to the principal's office.
"Mrs Bowern organised for me to be in that room so I wouldn't be with the other students," N said.
"It was awful being alone, being isolated."
She had already planned to change schools at the end of Year 10 because her parents were moving, but Mrs Bowern offered to have her transferred early.
The court also heard the principal had asked her to sign a statement saying she would not return to the school, but was "still welcome to be a Tara old girl".
N said she told the truth when Mrs Bowern asked what had happened in Sorrento, but the principal stopped her when she said the men had pinned her down on the car bonnet.
"From then on she continued to talk about how I must apologise to the teachers for what I had done on the trip ... for breaking the school rules."
N told the court she still felt guilty about the incident, and broke down in the witness box during cross-examination by Mr Harrison.
N agreed she had a condom in her wallet in Italy, but said a classmate had given it to her some time before the trip and she didn't expect to use it.
Mr Harrison also produced recent photographs of N dressed in a skirt and sitting on a bar stool, suggesting it would take confidence to wear such a short skirt in a pub.
But N said she just wanted to dress like her peers.
Judge Hughes adjourned the case until tomorrow.
AAP
NEWS.com.au | Great White stalks city (November 30, 2004)
NEWS.com.au | Great White stalks city (November 30, 2004): "Great White stalks city
By Matt Williams
November 30, 2004
Great White stalks city
By Matt Williams
November 30, 2004
A FIVE-METRE Great White shark is stalking Adelaide's coastline in search of food.
Menace ... the Great White caught on camera.
The underwater menace circled two men fishing 12km off North Haven on Sunday before moving slowly down the city's coastline where it was sighted four times, as close as 200m from the shoreline of busy Henley beach.
It is believed the shark is cruising up and down coastal waters following food sources such as dolphins, seals, snapper and stingrays.
Fishermen Darren Edwards, 37, and Noel Flounders, 40, were fishing 12km off North Haven when the shark circled their five-metre fishing boat for more than 20 minutes on Sunday.
"I noticed this big shadow and then suddenly I saw it coming toward the boat," Mr Edwards said yesterday.
"It was a terrifying but amazing sight."
The men's sighting of the shark came on the same day swimmers were evacuated from suburban beaches after the sightings of a Great White near Grange and Henley beaches.
Shark expert Andrew Fox said the sightings could "absolutely" be of the same shark.
"There is no doubt that this shark could be the same one that everyone has reported in the past couple of days," Mr Fox said.
"The shark is likely to be following food sources such as dolphins, seals, snapper and stingrays."
Mr Fox said it was possible for the Great White species to follow food sources into shallow waters.
"They go anywhere they like and can travel hundreds or thousands of kilometres in a short space of time," he said.
It was possible a Great White could travel up to 100km a day.
Mr Fox said Great White sightings were common off the Adelaide coast but he was not sure how many could be in local waters.
"All we know is that about 200 Great Whites are killed by fishermen across Australia each year, so there could be anywhere up to 2000 swimming in Australian waters," he said.
On Saturday about noon, two men fishing 10km offshore from St Kilda had their boat nudged by a Great White.
On Sunday, Great White sightings were reported 500m off the Grange jetty at 8.45am, 200m off the Henley Beach jetty at 11am, 1km off of Grange at 12.30pm and 500m off the Henley Beach jetty at 12.45pm. Mr Edwards said the Great White appeared near his boat about 7.30am on Sunday while he was fishing for bronze whaler sharks.
"It grabbed part of the prop on the motor and came up and down three or four times for about 15 minutes," he said.
"Then it cruised off for a while and came back. It must have been curious."
Mr Flounders said he was "shell-shocked" when he saw the shark. "It was very scary because we had no idea what the shark was going to do," he said.
"It was the first one I have seen out on the boat and I hope it'll be the last."
Mr Edwards said it was important for fishermen not to panic if they saw a Great White near their boat. "It's best to just leave it alone and not do anything."
Despite the recent Great White sightings, Surf Lifesaving SA lifesaving services manager Shane Daw said swimmers should not be "too alarmed".
"All is we ask is that people swim at beaches which are patrolled by lifesavers and make sure they are alert at all times," Mr Daw said.
"From what we've been told there appears there isn't any immediate threat to anyone."
Anyone who sees a Great White shark should report it to Fishwatch SA on 1800 065 522.
The Advertiser
By Matt Williams
November 30, 2004
Great White stalks city
By Matt Williams
November 30, 2004
A FIVE-METRE Great White shark is stalking Adelaide's coastline in search of food.
Menace ... the Great White caught on camera.
The underwater menace circled two men fishing 12km off North Haven on Sunday before moving slowly down the city's coastline where it was sighted four times, as close as 200m from the shoreline of busy Henley beach.
It is believed the shark is cruising up and down coastal waters following food sources such as dolphins, seals, snapper and stingrays.
Fishermen Darren Edwards, 37, and Noel Flounders, 40, were fishing 12km off North Haven when the shark circled their five-metre fishing boat for more than 20 minutes on Sunday.
"I noticed this big shadow and then suddenly I saw it coming toward the boat," Mr Edwards said yesterday.
"It was a terrifying but amazing sight."
The men's sighting of the shark came on the same day swimmers were evacuated from suburban beaches after the sightings of a Great White near Grange and Henley beaches.
Shark expert Andrew Fox said the sightings could "absolutely" be of the same shark.
"There is no doubt that this shark could be the same one that everyone has reported in the past couple of days," Mr Fox said.
"The shark is likely to be following food sources such as dolphins, seals, snapper and stingrays."
Mr Fox said it was possible for the Great White species to follow food sources into shallow waters.
"They go anywhere they like and can travel hundreds or thousands of kilometres in a short space of time," he said.
It was possible a Great White could travel up to 100km a day.
Mr Fox said Great White sightings were common off the Adelaide coast but he was not sure how many could be in local waters.
"All we know is that about 200 Great Whites are killed by fishermen across Australia each year, so there could be anywhere up to 2000 swimming in Australian waters," he said.
On Saturday about noon, two men fishing 10km offshore from St Kilda had their boat nudged by a Great White.
On Sunday, Great White sightings were reported 500m off the Grange jetty at 8.45am, 200m off the Henley Beach jetty at 11am, 1km off of Grange at 12.30pm and 500m off the Henley Beach jetty at 12.45pm. Mr Edwards said the Great White appeared near his boat about 7.30am on Sunday while he was fishing for bronze whaler sharks.
"It grabbed part of the prop on the motor and came up and down three or four times for about 15 minutes," he said.
"Then it cruised off for a while and came back. It must have been curious."
Mr Flounders said he was "shell-shocked" when he saw the shark. "It was very scary because we had no idea what the shark was going to do," he said.
"It was the first one I have seen out on the boat and I hope it'll be the last."
Mr Edwards said it was important for fishermen not to panic if they saw a Great White near their boat. "It's best to just leave it alone and not do anything."
Despite the recent Great White sightings, Surf Lifesaving SA lifesaving services manager Shane Daw said swimmers should not be "too alarmed".
"All is we ask is that people swim at beaches which are patrolled by lifesavers and make sure they are alert at all times," Mr Daw said.
"From what we've been told there appears there isn't any immediate threat to anyone."
Anyone who sees a Great White shark should report it to Fishwatch SA on 1800 065 522.
The Advertiser
The Daily Telegraph | School in rape claim named
The Daily Telegraph | School in rape claim named
If this Girls allegations are true, can you think of a bigger bunch of bastards than her Teachers and School Principal ?
I cant.
Bogs Doddy.
If this Girls allegations are true, can you think of a bigger bunch of bastards than her Teachers and School Principal ?
I cant.
Bogs Doddy.
The law adjourns and rapists win - Paul Sheehan - www.smh.com.au
The law adjourns and rapists win - Paul Sheehan - www.smh.com.au
So just WHERE is the Sisterhood when she/it is REALLY needed ? too busy writing affirmative action manuals for the UN I guess
Bogs Doddy.
So just WHERE is the Sisterhood when she/it is REALLY needed ? too busy writing affirmative action manuals for the UN I guess
Bogs Doddy.
Michael Darby
Michael Darby
Green Hoax
KYOTO NONSENSE
This letter (The Australian, 31 May 03) is even more valuable in the light of an announcement on 5 June 2003 by the ignoramus who masquerades as the Premier of Victoria, calling on the Prime Minister to “sign the Kyoto accords”. This was breathlessly reported around 6.30am by the ABC Radio PNN announcer, who warned “Victorian temperatures will double in the next hundred years”.
Global unWarming
From:
The Lavoisier Group Inc.
A0039775B ABN 42 347 055 724
President: Hon Peter Walsh AO PO Box 424
Board: Harold Clough AO Collins Street West
Ray Evans Melbourne
Bob Foster Vic. 8007
Bruce Kean AM www.lavoisier.com.au
Peter Murray AOM
Ian Webber AO
An Open Letter to the Prime Minister
The Hon John Howard MP
Prime Minister
Canberra
Dear Prime Minister,
On 5 June 2002, in answering a question without notice in Parliament you said: “It is not in Australia’s interests to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. . . the Protocol would cost us jobs and damage our economy. That is why the Australian government will continue to oppose ratification.”
The Leader of the Opposition, Simon Crean, then interjected, and you responded to him with these words “It amazes me that a Labor Party that claims, from time to time, to represent the interests f the working men and women of this country would sign an arrangement that would hurt this country. . . The Australian national interest does not lie in ratifying Kyoto: that is why we are opposed to it.”
In stating these obvious truths you dealt a blow to the hopes of some elements of the Canberra bureaucracy, whose career aspirations had been transformed at the prospect of Australia becoming part of an international bureaucracy, with extraordinary powers of inspection and control over the domestic economies of the member states of the Kyoto Protocol.
On 5 June 2002, you ensured that Australia retained its sovereignty with respect to policies on decarbonisation. However, the debate on global warming, de-carbonisation, and Australia’s future as a growing, prosperous and influential nation continues within the government, within the bureaucracy, and within the community at large. It is indeed unfortunate that because of the ready access to substantial public funds which the global warming protagonists enjoy, it has been a one-sided debate.
It is understood that cabinet has recently been asked to approve expenditures which will allow the Australian Greenhouse Office and their colleagues in other departments to conduct economic research into the consequences for Australia of
(a) the introduction of a carbon tax; or alternatively,
(b) the introduction of an emissions trading scheme whereby consumers of fossil fuels such as brown and black coal, diesel and other liquid fuels, and natural gas will be required to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (This is a carbon tax under another name, but the difference here is that traders will make money by buying and selling these government-issued permits, just as brokers earn a percentage in buying and selling taxi-cab licences.)
If the Australian government should adopt either of these proposals, our energy costs will rise. In particular, electricity costs could increase by as much as 50 percent (depending on the severity of the carbon tax). Our international competitiveness, which is based in large measure on low-cost energy, would be seriously affected.
The Europeans who have championed the Kyoto Protocol and the regime of de-carbonisation which is the essence of the Protocol, together with their supporters in Australia, would have us believe that by reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by an almost imperceptible amount (through the establishment and enforcement of an international treaty), we can influence the world’s climate. This notion is, quite simply, a fantasy. W R Kininmonth, former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, has said: “Any suggestion that implementation of the Kyoto Protocol will avoid future damage from weather and climate extremes is a grand delusion.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body established to give advice on prospective carbon dioxide emissions and their alleged impact on the world’s climate, has ignored the abundance of scientific evidence and advice which is contrary to the message of human guilt and climatic punishment which it wishes to convey. In particular the IPCC cannot bring itself to acknowledge that there has been substantial natural variability in the world’s climate. The IPCC has gone to extraordinary lengths to seek to deny the significance of the Mediaeval Warming Period, (900 to 1300 AD) and the Little Ice Age, (1300 to 1900 AD) which were climatic events of great importance in world history.
Astro-physicists now argue that these events were driven by solar perturbations, arguments ignored by the IPCC. The IPCC has also assumed almost unimaginable rates of economic growth in the developing world, in order to artificially boost their astonishing predictions of world growth in anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide during the next century.
Solar perturbations will continue to have a long-term influence, perhaps dominant influence, on our climate and there is nothing that we can do about that. We should, of course, continue our research into all of the factors, direct and indirect solar influences, oceanic heat transportation, atmospheric energy transfers, and others, which can influence climate change. But the admission, by the most committed greenhouse protagonists, that even if the Kyoto Protocol were to come into full effect, it would have no discernible effect on climate, should not be swept aside.
For example, on the ABC’s 7:30 Report on 13 November 2000, Dr Graham Pearman AO, then Head of the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, referring to atmospheric CO2 concentrations and their impact on global climate said, “The reality of the Protocol as it is at the moment is that even if all of the nations were able to achieve those targets it would hardly make any difference.”
Australia’s contribution, then, would make no difference, at all, to this already indiscernible result. Why should Australia, having joined the US in refusing to be party to a Treaty based on scientific and economic arguments which are strenuously contested by a growing number of eminent scientists and economists, continue to consider measures which will make us much less competitive than our trading partners; particularly when such measures would impact heavily on the poorer sections of Australian society?
Prime Minister, your response on 5 June 2002 was based on sound judgment, and on a concern for Australian workers and Australian industries which depend on low-cost energy for their competitiveness. We urge you to back your judgement and your concerns with a directive to the bureaucrats who seek to undermine your policy to cease and desist.
Yours sincerely
Peter Walsh
(President)
Green Hoax
KYOTO NONSENSE
This letter (The Australian, 31 May 03) is even more valuable in the light of an announcement on 5 June 2003 by the ignoramus who masquerades as the Premier of Victoria, calling on the Prime Minister to “sign the Kyoto accords”. This was breathlessly reported around 6.30am by the ABC Radio PNN announcer, who warned “Victorian temperatures will double in the next hundred years”.
Global unWarming
From:
The Lavoisier Group Inc.
A0039775B ABN 42 347 055 724
President: Hon Peter Walsh AO PO Box 424
Board: Harold Clough AO Collins Street West
Ray Evans Melbourne
Bob Foster Vic. 8007
Bruce Kean AM www.lavoisier.com.au
Peter Murray AOM
Ian Webber AO
An Open Letter to the Prime Minister
The Hon John Howard MP
Prime Minister
Canberra
Dear Prime Minister,
On 5 June 2002, in answering a question without notice in Parliament you said: “It is not in Australia’s interests to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. . . the Protocol would cost us jobs and damage our economy. That is why the Australian government will continue to oppose ratification.”
The Leader of the Opposition, Simon Crean, then interjected, and you responded to him with these words “It amazes me that a Labor Party that claims, from time to time, to represent the interests f the working men and women of this country would sign an arrangement that would hurt this country. . . The Australian national interest does not lie in ratifying Kyoto: that is why we are opposed to it.”
In stating these obvious truths you dealt a blow to the hopes of some elements of the Canberra bureaucracy, whose career aspirations had been transformed at the prospect of Australia becoming part of an international bureaucracy, with extraordinary powers of inspection and control over the domestic economies of the member states of the Kyoto Protocol.
On 5 June 2002, you ensured that Australia retained its sovereignty with respect to policies on decarbonisation. However, the debate on global warming, de-carbonisation, and Australia’s future as a growing, prosperous and influential nation continues within the government, within the bureaucracy, and within the community at large. It is indeed unfortunate that because of the ready access to substantial public funds which the global warming protagonists enjoy, it has been a one-sided debate.
It is understood that cabinet has recently been asked to approve expenditures which will allow the Australian Greenhouse Office and their colleagues in other departments to conduct economic research into the consequences for Australia of
(a) the introduction of a carbon tax; or alternatively,
(b) the introduction of an emissions trading scheme whereby consumers of fossil fuels such as brown and black coal, diesel and other liquid fuels, and natural gas will be required to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (This is a carbon tax under another name, but the difference here is that traders will make money by buying and selling these government-issued permits, just as brokers earn a percentage in buying and selling taxi-cab licences.)
If the Australian government should adopt either of these proposals, our energy costs will rise. In particular, electricity costs could increase by as much as 50 percent (depending on the severity of the carbon tax). Our international competitiveness, which is based in large measure on low-cost energy, would be seriously affected.
The Europeans who have championed the Kyoto Protocol and the regime of de-carbonisation which is the essence of the Protocol, together with their supporters in Australia, would have us believe that by reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by an almost imperceptible amount (through the establishment and enforcement of an international treaty), we can influence the world’s climate. This notion is, quite simply, a fantasy. W R Kininmonth, former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, has said: “Any suggestion that implementation of the Kyoto Protocol will avoid future damage from weather and climate extremes is a grand delusion.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body established to give advice on prospective carbon dioxide emissions and their alleged impact on the world’s climate, has ignored the abundance of scientific evidence and advice which is contrary to the message of human guilt and climatic punishment which it wishes to convey. In particular the IPCC cannot bring itself to acknowledge that there has been substantial natural variability in the world’s climate. The IPCC has gone to extraordinary lengths to seek to deny the significance of the Mediaeval Warming Period, (900 to 1300 AD) and the Little Ice Age, (1300 to 1900 AD) which were climatic events of great importance in world history.
Astro-physicists now argue that these events were driven by solar perturbations, arguments ignored by the IPCC. The IPCC has also assumed almost unimaginable rates of economic growth in the developing world, in order to artificially boost their astonishing predictions of world growth in anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide during the next century.
Solar perturbations will continue to have a long-term influence, perhaps dominant influence, on our climate and there is nothing that we can do about that. We should, of course, continue our research into all of the factors, direct and indirect solar influences, oceanic heat transportation, atmospheric energy transfers, and others, which can influence climate change. But the admission, by the most committed greenhouse protagonists, that even if the Kyoto Protocol were to come into full effect, it would have no discernible effect on climate, should not be swept aside.
For example, on the ABC’s 7:30 Report on 13 November 2000, Dr Graham Pearman AO, then Head of the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, referring to atmospheric CO2 concentrations and their impact on global climate said, “The reality of the Protocol as it is at the moment is that even if all of the nations were able to achieve those targets it would hardly make any difference.”
Australia’s contribution, then, would make no difference, at all, to this already indiscernible result. Why should Australia, having joined the US in refusing to be party to a Treaty based on scientific and economic arguments which are strenuously contested by a growing number of eminent scientists and economists, continue to consider measures which will make us much less competitive than our trading partners; particularly when such measures would impact heavily on the poorer sections of Australian society?
Prime Minister, your response on 5 June 2002 was based on sound judgment, and on a concern for Australian workers and Australian industries which depend on low-cost energy for their competitiveness. We urge you to back your judgement and your concerns with a directive to the bureaucrats who seek to undermine your policy to cease and desist.
Yours sincerely
Peter Walsh
(President)
Monday, November 29, 2004
The Daily Telegraph | Riot warning if Block bulldozed
The Daily Telegraph | Riot warning if Block bulldozed
Demolishing this blight on humanity is an obvious reaction to the squalor and filth that IS the block for all but the "community spokespersons" and Aboriginal "elders"
With the present mindset and leadership that has overseen this debacle for the last 30 years you could give them the Sydney Opera house and it would be in the same condition as the Block in a week.
Change the mindset of the residents and get rid of "Community leaders" and they will soon start cleaning up their own filth just like those wicked taxpaying white folkes have to.
Bogs Doddy.
Demolishing this blight on humanity is an obvious reaction to the squalor and filth that IS the block for all but the "community spokespersons" and Aboriginal "elders"
With the present mindset and leadership that has overseen this debacle for the last 30 years you could give them the Sydney Opera house and it would be in the same condition as the Block in a week.
Change the mindset of the residents and get rid of "Community leaders" and they will soon start cleaning up their own filth just like those wicked taxpaying white folkes have to.
Bogs Doddy.
The Daily Telegraph | ASEAN divided as Howard jets in
The Daily Telegraph | ASEAN divided as Howard jets in
ASEAN divided as Howard jets in
By Rob Taylor in Vientiane
November 29, 2004
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=2308055
SOUTH-EAST Asian nations are divided over whether Australia should have a place at annual trade and security talks as their leaders discussed forming a trade bloc to rival Europe and the United States.
As Prime Minister John Howard jetted into Laos for the first ever talks between the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations and Australia, the Philippines became the latest country to cast doubt on whether Canberra would be welcomed back in Malaysia next year.
A senior Filipino diplomat said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would also add to pressure on Australia to join ASEAN's non-aggression pact as Mr Howard denied that his refusal to sign up would scuttle free trade links with the fast-growing region.
"We think Australia should sign on to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and that's something all the ASEAN leaders will talk about," Sylvia Marasigan said.
She said Mrs Arroyo would raise the issue tomorrow. Thailand's chief foreign spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow also said it was "high time" Australia agreed to sign on to the pact given that other nations like India, China, and South Korea had agreed.
Russia was expected to sign on tonight.
Mr Howard said his refusal to sign would not affect the prime mission of his trip to Vientiane - setting up a lucrative free trade pact with ASEAN.
"They're two unrelated issues and in the end it's the substance of the relationship that we have with individual countries that really matters," he said in Sydney before leaving.
Mr Howard, along with New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, is attending the Laos summit as an ASEAN guest this year.
But there seems to be little enthusiasm among its 10 members to fulfill Australian hopes of an annual meeting with Australia and New Zealand.
Indonesian officials have pointedly called the summit invitation a one-off.
The Philippines, a close US ally in the war on terror, also said Australia's guest status reflected only this year's 30th anniversary of relations with ASEAN.
Foreign Minister Alberto G Romulo had "already decided that from our perspective this would be a commemorative summit and would not be repeated", Ms Marasigan said.
Thailand, however, appeared more open to the idea.
"We see the need for more meetings, but whether it is annual is still a question," Phuangketkeow said.
Meanwhile, at a news conference today an ASEAN spokesman announced plans for an East Asian summit in Kuala Lumpur next year.
Phuangketkeow indicated that it was unclear whether Australian would be invited or in the longer term would be accepted as a member of the proposed new grouping.
The possibility of yearly talks with ASEAN took on more importance as ASEAN completed an accord with China to create the world's biggest tariff- free market of nearly two billion people.
Similar free trade areas were planned with Japan, South Korea - and a blueprint for economic cooperation with India was to be signed before the end of the two-day summit tomorrow.
Phuangketkeow said it was still under discussion whether Australia would ever fit into plans for an evolving "east Asia community".
"We don't rule out participation by other countries like New Zealand and Australia," he said.
But accession to the TAC by Australia would not be used as a bargaining chip for trade access, he said.
Australia's decision to not sign the TAC follows irritation among some Asian nations over past comments by Howard that Canberra reserves the right to launch pre-emptive strikes against terrorists in other countries if they threaten Australia or its citizens.
Labor has expressed concern that Mr Howard's refusal to sign the treaty might jeopardise Australia's chances of locking its economy into a market of more than 500 million people.
Ms Clark has said New Zealand, which also wants free trade links, is open to the idea of signing like several other major economic partners of ASEAN.
Seventeen nations have signed the treaty, including all of ASEAN's members - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Security was tight as ASEAN leaders, foreign ministers and delegates arrived at the new Lao International Trade, Exhibition and Convention Centre for their meeting.
Hundreds of young Laotian men and women in colourful traditional clothes lined up along the driveway to the centre.
They waved the flags of ASEAN countries and guest nations such as Australia in a grand welcome parade.
AAP
ASEAN divided as Howard jets in
By Rob Taylor in Vientiane
November 29, 2004
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=2308055
SOUTH-EAST Asian nations are divided over whether Australia should have a place at annual trade and security talks as their leaders discussed forming a trade bloc to rival Europe and the United States.
As Prime Minister John Howard jetted into Laos for the first ever talks between the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations and Australia, the Philippines became the latest country to cast doubt on whether Canberra would be welcomed back in Malaysia next year.
A senior Filipino diplomat said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would also add to pressure on Australia to join ASEAN's non-aggression pact as Mr Howard denied that his refusal to sign up would scuttle free trade links with the fast-growing region.
"We think Australia should sign on to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and that's something all the ASEAN leaders will talk about," Sylvia Marasigan said.
She said Mrs Arroyo would raise the issue tomorrow. Thailand's chief foreign spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow also said it was "high time" Australia agreed to sign on to the pact given that other nations like India, China, and South Korea had agreed.
Russia was expected to sign on tonight.
Mr Howard said his refusal to sign would not affect the prime mission of his trip to Vientiane - setting up a lucrative free trade pact with ASEAN.
"They're two unrelated issues and in the end it's the substance of the relationship that we have with individual countries that really matters," he said in Sydney before leaving.
Mr Howard, along with New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, is attending the Laos summit as an ASEAN guest this year.
But there seems to be little enthusiasm among its 10 members to fulfill Australian hopes of an annual meeting with Australia and New Zealand.
Indonesian officials have pointedly called the summit invitation a one-off.
The Philippines, a close US ally in the war on terror, also said Australia's guest status reflected only this year's 30th anniversary of relations with ASEAN.
Foreign Minister Alberto G Romulo had "already decided that from our perspective this would be a commemorative summit and would not be repeated", Ms Marasigan said.
Thailand, however, appeared more open to the idea.
"We see the need for more meetings, but whether it is annual is still a question," Phuangketkeow said.
Meanwhile, at a news conference today an ASEAN spokesman announced plans for an East Asian summit in Kuala Lumpur next year.
Phuangketkeow indicated that it was unclear whether Australian would be invited or in the longer term would be accepted as a member of the proposed new grouping.
The possibility of yearly talks with ASEAN took on more importance as ASEAN completed an accord with China to create the world's biggest tariff- free market of nearly two billion people.
Similar free trade areas were planned with Japan, South Korea - and a blueprint for economic cooperation with India was to be signed before the end of the two-day summit tomorrow.
Phuangketkeow said it was still under discussion whether Australia would ever fit into plans for an evolving "east Asia community".
"We don't rule out participation by other countries like New Zealand and Australia," he said.
But accession to the TAC by Australia would not be used as a bargaining chip for trade access, he said.
Australia's decision to not sign the TAC follows irritation among some Asian nations over past comments by Howard that Canberra reserves the right to launch pre-emptive strikes against terrorists in other countries if they threaten Australia or its citizens.
Labor has expressed concern that Mr Howard's refusal to sign the treaty might jeopardise Australia's chances of locking its economy into a market of more than 500 million people.
Ms Clark has said New Zealand, which also wants free trade links, is open to the idea of signing like several other major economic partners of ASEAN.
Seventeen nations have signed the treaty, including all of ASEAN's members - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Security was tight as ASEAN leaders, foreign ministers and delegates arrived at the new Lao International Trade, Exhibition and Convention Centre for their meeting.
Hundreds of young Laotian men and women in colourful traditional clothes lined up along the driveway to the centre.
They waved the flags of ASEAN countries and guest nations such as Australia in a grand welcome parade.
AAP
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