Australia asked to dig deeper for aid programs

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is urging Australia to increase foreign aid.

The OECD gave Australia's foreign aid programs high marks, commending the Government's peace-building [colonialism] and AIDS-prevention efforts in the Pacific.

However, the organisation says Australia could be more generous.

Even though Australia's economic growth has outpaced most of the industrialised world in recent years, the country's foreign aid programs remain at 0.25 per cent of gross national income.

The OECD wants Australia to do more, with an eye to eventually reaching the United Nations goal of putting 0.7 per cent of gross national income to foreign aid programs.

UN Complicity in WAR

UN panel proposes criteria for legitimate military action
With countries still bitterly divided over the war in Iraq, a high-level panel appointed by the United Nations has recommended a five-step guideline to determine when to use military action.

Fallujah refugees in desperate need of aid: UN
More than 200,000 people who fled Fallujah ahead of the US attack have yet to return and many are in desperate need of aid, with temperatures in Iraq heading towards freezing, a new UN emergency report says.

US accused of breaching international law
The United States is violating international law by holding prisoners in its war on terror incommunicado and in secret hiding places, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be published on Tuesday calling for an end to such practices.

Allies 'planned' Iraq war despite denials
The United States, Australia and Britain started to plan the invasion of Iraq months before the conflict, according to a report Wednesday quoting a leaked Pentagon document.

UN warns of Iraqi malnutrition
One in four Iraqis are dependent on food rations to survive and many of them have to sell what little food they have for basic necessities like medicine and clothes, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said.

Annan tells world leaders to respect law
United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan has made an impassioned plea to bring about the rule of law across the globe today. Mr Annan told world leaders to respect international law at home and abroad.

CO-OFFENDERS DO NOT REBUFF UN ON 'ILLEGAL WAR'
The 'coalition of the killing's' complicities - the US, Britain and Australia - have insisted that their countries' military action in Iraq was legal after they have committed war crimes against humanity.

Iraq war illegal, says Annan
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says the United States decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 was "illegal". Australia was a key supporter of the war on Iraq and sent troops to join the United States-led invasion last year.

Ed: Just how much more can the UN and Australia do for peace?

By Just Give 17 December 04

Related:

Violence never the answer, Pope says
Pope John Paul II has condemned [the Coalition of the Killing, NATO, and UN complicity] man's readiness to use violence to impose [resource wars] peace, and denounced what he called the unfolding drama in Iraq which had led to "uncertainty and insecurity" for the whole world.

E Timor threatens campaign against Aust over oil deal
East Timor's Foreign Minister is threatening to launch an international campaign to pressure Australia for a bigger share of their own oil and gas royalties from the Timor Sea.

Fool me twice 1-20 -Official release (BALI BOMBINGS/ETimor) Exposing the Australian government's lies about the East Timor massacres, the cover-up of the Bali bombings (including '93 WTC attack) and subsequent anti-terror legislation forced through parliament.

HoWARd Government intelligence cover-up
The Federal Opposition has described the Government's failure to release the final report into the claims of intelligence failures within the Defence Department as a cover-up.

Lest We Forget Eureka Stockade!
On October 16, 1975, five journalists filming the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, for Australian TV channels, were killed at a place called Balibo. This name seems set to become one of the rallying cries of 2nd Renaissance secession movements in Australia. The facts surrounding the Balibo killings are so damning of the central governments of Australia and Indonesia that the event will rank in Australian consciousness with the Eureka Stockade uprising of 1854.

TIME TO GO JOHN SYDNEY PREMIERE...
BLACK BULLION I Jen Hughes: The Howard Government's withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea has forced East Timor to back down on their right to negotiate their Maritime Boundaries on an equal footing and access their resources for survival beyond the paternalism of Australia and other colonial powers. A film about the tension between personal friendship and the betrayal of trust for black bullion.