Australia, the International Image and disintegration of human-rights

The continued disintegration of human rights in Australia will leave no one immune.

The international image of Australia is, by now, surely under question, if not from the governments of the international community, then from the organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations. And not least from the citizens of the world who watch the news, seeing Australia but thinking South Africa, or Communist Russia.

I was pondering developments over the last ten years in Australian politics this morning, thinking; where did this degradation of our rights as citizens begin? To answer that question fully (and truthfully), we must look back to the beginning (for white 'settlement' in the country); but in terms of recent history, I believe it had to do with jobs.

There is, of course, that seedier beginning which needs mentioning; the indigenous Australia has long suffered at the hands of the government and 'white' Australia, and we (apart from the indigenous people, of course), have thought little of it, collectively at least. But, to quote Winston Churchill, we could sum up, quite succinctly, the huge setbacks the aboriginal population has suffered since the beginning, since Churchill's viewpoint played such an important role in the world's views, and confirmed Australia's view at the time:

"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Now, in Australia to a greater degree, but to the US, the UK and other countries to a lesser (or less obvious) degree, the same dog status is being reapplied to the lower class citizens (and strengthened against the indigenous everywhere), those with heritage in the mid-east, and Asia, and Africa, those with poor backgrounds, and to an even greater degree, the original owners of this country.

A quick look at the recent past will show us many occasions where the Australian government has shunned or rejected the covenants of the United Nations, from maritime law regarding the Tampa crisis to the indefinite imprisonments of refugees and their children, to mandatory sentencing for aboriginal children in the northern territory and western Australia - where a teenager can be locked up for years just for stealing a chocolate bar from a shop.

Add to these publicly accepted methods of infringement and disregard for human rights the lesser known and complete media blank on such stories as the genocide of Aborigines through forced birth control, the arrests and harassments and murder of children in the Block - Sydney by armed police and the refusal of pay from the government to Aboriginal workers of the 50s,60s and 70s (effectively turning what was tacitly regarded as slave labour to an actuality).

These are just off the top of my head. To think of injustices committed in the name of Australia, and more specifically, the Australian government, requires no leaps of faith, no taking one's mind back and sorting through the politics to perhaps find a silent injustice - the reality and regularity of such events are such that the average Australian forgets them almost as soon as they occur - for the little they are explored in the media. We need only to be told the police were 'just doing their jobs' to accept the situation and go back to our lives.

It is less like a broad representation of the novel '1984' (as in other countries such as the UK and the US), and more like a directly quoted passage of the script. We don't know our enemy; the irony is we rely on our enemy to tell us that important information.

Now with the new legislation - generously provided by one dissident minister, against the wishes (read 'demands') of the prime minister, set to become a reality in the very near future, Australia faces a further risk - and a further and even more serious deterioration of human-rights - because this time it will affect all citizens (though in reality, it will affect only all citizens unconnected or directly disconnected to the present government).

This is (so far) the point to which freedom has regressed in Australia, during the term of the Howard government. But I want to take it back a little here - to see how it began, because one thing people are not discussing in or about Australia at the moment that I can see as relevant is this; the laws may be changing to disregard the powers and rights and freedom of the people, but
Mr Howard is not the one who will be responsible for enforcing these laws. That is in the hands of people - state and federal police, ASIO officers, the military. Like all areas of industry in a free country, they could rebel, with a strike. They could stand up and say, 'enough is enough. We will not do it.'

Maybe they will.

Chances are though, they will do their jobs, as John Howard envisages it. Indeed, it seems they have already started along these lines with the recent deportation of Scott Parkins. People often ask of military regimes, such as those in Chile or Iraq, 'Why do the soldiers do it? If afterwards they tell us they were just doing their jobs, and they feared for their own lives, if they are all the same in their thoughts, surely they could have rebelled?'

The thing is, people could rebel, they could en-masse say 'No', but one major things stops them - money (translated as hunger). If not for themselves, for their families. In the past 10 years, John Howard has taken a functioning and purposeful health and social welfare system and turned it on its head. He has brought the working community to his side, telling them that welfare is a drain on their taxes, and that there is work, if people would do it.

He has made the welfare recipient a dirty dole bludger rather than an unfortunately unemployed citizen, and, on the opposite side of that coin, he has made the lowest socio-economic demographic feel dirty and worthless, and turned them against the employed 'elite', abandoning Centrelink for abject poverty.

This has served 2 purposes; the first to ensure that people want work, whatever the cost, whatever the work. The second has been to bring down official unemployment figures (measured by the number claiming unemployment benefits) to an all time low, at the same time as sending the unofficial unemployment figures up perhaps even higher than they were under the previous Labour government. In addition, it has put a further economic strain on the employed who have unemployed family or friends which are no longer claiming unemployment benefits (and yet, ironically, the employed are still paying taxes - higher than ever).

When people are desperate, they will do desperate work, and incidentally, government work is the most lucrative for the uneducated and educated alike, out of any industry in the country. He has also systematically brought down the once many safeguards in the commercial labour market put there initially to protect the worker. There are many examples, but a recent one is the removal of the laws surrounding unfair dismissal. It puts greater power in the hands of the employer, less in the hands of the worker. A person can be fired without reason, which provides a more transient job market and more desperate part-timers, looking for enough for next month's rent.

How attractive then, would the prospect of working for the government be in these terms, where the pay is high and guaranteed, as long as you can put your moral standards aside for long enough to feed your family? Its not yet reached the Pinochet or Saddam Hussein level of government, but some would argue it is well within the boundaries of the current Russian government already (barring size and colonies); nevertheless it is fast approaching such dictatorial leadership.

These were the first steps in a tyrannical government, set in place almost 10 years ago. The effective dictator thinks forward, and plans well ahead. That is the man that John Howard is; the early attempts to dismiss him as a fool were as foolish as those same sentiments directed at George W Bush. The only difference is that the US president pays men like Cheney and Rumsfeld to think for him - Howard does it by himself.

Australia is a much smaller country globally, and plays a lot less influence over its neighbours than does the US or even the UK, (though what influence it does have it uses to bully and intimidate - see East Timor), but what this means to Australians is a dictator's penchant for control and power is directed inwards, towards those within the country.

Australians need to join together, united against their government, if there is to be any hope, not divided against one another, as it has happened, (beginning officially with our treatment of Indigenous Australia, and reaching now to the poor and the foreign-born.) Unofficially, it has also been those things, but smaller differences have played a part in the rifts between us too, from the differences between the Labour and Liberal voters (or democrat, greens etc), between the logger and the environmentalist, between the city and the country. These divisions are there because your government made it so. Its time to put aside those differences (for a while) and put your voices forward, because soon, if you are not for the government, it will consider you 'seditiously' against it.

By Derek Lane Wednesday October 19, 2005 at 11:53 PM

The Secret Rulers of the World - New Link

• The Secret Rulers of the World - Present/Past
• 2. The Secret Rulers of the World - Only the Start
• 3. Secret Rulers of the World - Profiting from 9/11
• 4. Secret Rulers of the World - Hidden Empire
• 5. The Secret Rulers of the World - Vatican Hoarding
• 6. The Secret Rulers of the World - Amen Pharaohs
• 7. Secret Rulers of the World - Forbidden Link
• 8. Secret Rulers of the World - Oceans of Blood
• 9. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Queen
• 10. The Secret Rulers of the World - King of Kings
• 11. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Empire
• 12.The Secret Rulers of the World - The Cult of Amen
• 13. The Secret Rulers of the World - Committee of 300
• 14. The Secret Rulers of the World - Rothschild
• 15. The Secret Rulers of the World - New World Order
• 16. The Secret Rulers of the World - Freemasonry
• 17. The Secret Rulers of the World - Money Control
• 18.Secret Rulers of the World - Credit Monopoly
• 19. The Secret Rulers of the World - Bush Nazis
• 20. The Secret Rulers of the World - Palestine Israel
• 21. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Butchers
• 22. Secret Rulers of the World - The Asses of Evil
• 23. The Secret Rulers of the World - Drug Running
• 24. The Secret Rulers of the World - War on Terror
• 25. The Secret Rulers of the World - Iraqi Dates
• 26. The Secret Rulers of the World - The AntiChrist
• 27. The Secret Rulers of the World - Enslavement
• 28. The Secret Rulers of the World - Tax Enslavement
• 29. The Secret Rulers of the World - The Power
• The Fabian Society, the Freemasonry and the Beehive
• The Occult Catholic & Islamic Connection pt.1/11
• The Fabian Society: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
• The Round Table: World Overview & Control
• Tavistock Institute: Global Mind Control
• Zeitgeist, The Movie - Remastered

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Spots and Stripes
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Exporting the death penalty - Bali 9
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News on David Hicks:
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Victorian cops the most corrupt in Australia
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What is Happening to Australian Democracy
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Hundreds attempt self-harm in detention
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The clock is ticking: Aboriginal Leaders
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Association for the Prevention of Torture
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Our human rights are poor: judge

Australia's reputation as a human rights champion [?] had been so tarnished in recent years that it could be called a wolf in sheep's clothing, the retiring High Court justice Michael McHugh said yesterday.

[Unless of course, Australia's reputation has always been tainted? That depends on what governments can and will hide and secrets for 30 years etc. Tainted with things like Colonialism, Imperialism and Ruling Class, Noble Cause Corruption etc. Now, this may mean that it is getting much worse than what it was, is and perhaps, as it has always been?]

In his last speech as a member of the High Court, he told Sydney University law students that judges were being "called on to reach legal conclusions which have tragic consequences".

[Do tell? Like draconian laws and 20 years for thought crimes?]

These verdicts could often be at odds with their personal beliefs because of the respect which had to be paid to Parliament.

Justice McHugh urged the adoption of a bill of rights, saying its absence was the main reason our judges were not as empowered as those in the United States Supreme Court to defend fundamental human rights.

And he agreed with a comment that Australia's legal system was "seriously inadequate in protecting the rights of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in our society". [Like Aboriginals and Muslims?]

He cited the 2004 decision of al Kateb, in which the court said a provision which allowed unlawful citizens to be detained until they could be deported was not unconstitutional. Ahmed Ali al Kateb was stateless and unable to leave Australia.

Justice McHugh said there was "a powerful argument" that the verdict of the 4-3 majority - "who, I'm afraid, included myself" - would have been different with a bill of rights.

Justice McHugh, who will be replaced by Susan Crennan when he steps down from the court on November 1 - his 70th birthday - follows figures such as the former chief justice, Sir Anthony Mason, and a former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, in pressing for rights to be enshrined in the constitution.

He said Australia had played a leading role in encouraging human rights [?] and had been praised as a model member of the United Nations. [Although Australian authorities have had little or no regard for the UN constitution, the rights of the child, refugees, indigenous and of course the illegal and degrading war for resources in the Middle East.] "Given this record, why then have we been recently called a wolf in sheep's clothing? [Laugh.] It is undoubtedly the case that Australia's international reputation as a champion of human rights has been somewhat tarnished over recent years." [More recent years than you might like to imagine?]

He said Australia was "very much the odd man out" and that by failing to adopt a bill of rights the nation was arguably failing to meet its obligations under international law.

It would provide "a set of navigation lights for the executive ... [and] allow the public a clear overview of the rights they are being asked to give up in the name of national security, for example". [In the name of illegal and degrading resource wars in the Middle East.]

Justice McHugh said,: "My own social views are probably as radical as anyone in this room [ruling class?] - maybe more so - but when you are a judge there are constraints. You have to give effect to what the purpose of Parliament is."

[Noble Cause Corruption, Colonialism, Imperialism, murderers, thieves and criminals. Oh! and a few rock spiders to boot?]

He said a former High Court colleague, Justice John Toohey, had once told him: "You are very radical in relation to the common law and equity but you are very conservative in relation to the constitution and statutes".

[Perhaps radical in relation to noble causes for masters and prestige for himself? And conservative in relation to making sure one has the right to be able to do that? Laugh.]

Justice McHugh said: "I think that's very accurate ... In relation to the constitution it's my belief ... that judges don't have the legitimacy to be making up the rules and pushing their own social views."

[Otherwise they don't serve the Queen I.E. the 300 club of the worlds richest ruling class. Don't get me wrong I think it takes a brave judge to stand up for human rights, so good on ya. But to suggest that Australia has been a champion of human rights is quite wrong. The same reason John Howard couldn't say sorry to the indigenous people who were here before they invaded.]

By Michael Pelly 13 October 05

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Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Association for the Prevention of Torture
What needs to be done now? The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

Baxter visit convinces Burke of need for royal commission
AUSTRALIA/CUBA Federal Labor's new immigration spokesman Tony Burke says after visiting the Baxter detention centre he is now more convinced then ever of the need for a royal commission into immigration detention.

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

Fascist Australian Govt torture exposed
The fascist Federal Government has been exposed for the torture of Australian Mamdouh Habib and the US Government's allegations against him (if they were true) would have been made under duress.

WAR ON TERROR, WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS: AMNESTY
The Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group & the Justice for Hicks & Habib Campaign welcome the statement by Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan, condemning the US Administration for condoning torture and the suppression of 'human rights' in their 'war on terror'.

Torture okay: propaganda paper
Mean in Black John HoWARd and Pastor Peter Costello with Professor Mirko Bagaric, and fellow Deakin lecturer Julie Clarke, torture okay for them. Question?

Where the Norm is Not the Norm: HARM-U
In the absence of public policy, this paper is an attempt to shine a light through the rhetoric and test for coherency in the policy and function of NSW’s only supermax prison, the High Risk Management Unit. Its present use will be compared with the ‘vision’ flogged by the Premier and the Department of Corrective Services (the Department) at its inception in 2001.

"TIME TO MOVE ON" - NO JUSTICE FOR TJ

In reply to written requests to out new Premier, Morris Iemma and out new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Milton Oskopoulos, sent on 15 August 2005, ISJA was contacted by the Chief of Staff of the Minister's office, Nathan Rees, to arrange a meeting to 'discuss matters'.

On 28 September 2005, Rees met with this Association, accompanied by Warwick Neilley of the Premier's Office, at my Waterloo residence.

They first made it quiet clear that neither they, nor any other member of their respective offices, would be making themselves available for the Public Meeting to be held at The Settlement, 17 Edward Street, Chippendale on Saturday 8 October 2005, beginning at 5:30 pm to further plan actions to obtain Justice for TJ.

The new Premier and Minister were invited in the hope that, with the retirement of Bob Carr, perhaps some real Justice may now occur. The Minister especially had publicly stated that he wanted to meet Aboriginal people within the NSW Communities, but according to Rees, this Community was not one of them. Maybe he chooses his meetings so that he only meets with those whom he sees as being 'suitable or preferred' members of the Communities that he will visit?

The next question put to them was on seeking their opinion on the call to have the Hickey Inquest either re-opened or a new one called. The answer was, to quote Neilley:- 'it's time to move on. It's not going to happen. Far better to work with the Government on important issues.' The advice to 'get a life' was also gratuitously given.

They then moved to their agenda that involved their wishes to find an organisation that would remove Mick Mundine from the Aboriginal Housing Company and for that organisation to then work with the Government on solving the Block issues.

Whilst not surprised - it is well known that the NSW Government has 'problems' with Mick - their offer was totally rejected as being neither viable nor useful. This Association believes it is up to the Block residents - past and present - and the current AHC Management to decide what is in the best interests of the Block.

A further request to Rees that the Minister meet with Gail Hickey and her Family was agreed to on the condition that the death/murder of her son not be raised! The meeting finished.

No Justice for TJ. No Justice for the Hickey Family. No Justice for the Redfern, Waterloo, Walgett Communities.

Come to the meeting on Saturday to help us plan our next steps in our ongoing struggle for Justice for TJ, Gail, her Family and supporters.

By Ray Jackson ISJA Inc 7 October 05

For further details contact Ray Jackson (02) 9318 0947, 0415 858 264, or email isja01@bigpond.net.au.

Related:

Police drivers sneer at the rules
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Refutethelies
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Whitewash over Hickey's death
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Redfern police need education not weapons
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Carr defends Redfern riot fallout
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The Young Man From Kamilaroi
On Monday, 5 July 2004, the Hickey Family and their supporters will come together in the Glebe Coroners Court with the Redfern Police, the same police, specifically unknown at this time, who pursued the Young Man to his death by impalement.

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Payback over Redfern riot after death in custody
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Redfern police 'need to be made accountable'
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TJ HICKEY MEMORIAL MARCH AND VIGIL
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It's not the terrorists' it's us

While we watch the latest round of appalling violence and mayhem spilling across our screens it is worth considering its cause.

Trillions of dollars and thousands of hours of media time are being spent in the spiralling escalation of brutality, but the real problem is not the terrorists, it is us, says Australia's World Peace Society.

"We are constructing a society that alienates," say Sunirmalya Symons, the society's secretary.

"A materialistic society so fundamentally fanatical about its possessions and about striving for the ownership of more, that any price will be paid to protect them, even human life."

Sunirmalya says that the real problem is a culture of alienation and fear. "Whether it be refugees that we alienate because they have the wrong address, or indigenous peoples, or our youth or more obviously, so-called 'terrorists'." [ As well as scapegoats andpatsies.]

"Yesterday's freedom fighters are today's terrorists, depending on who governments are supporting at the time", says Sunirmalya.

The World Peace Society believes that the 'war on terrorism' [war on resources in the Middle East] cannot be won by violence, but dialog.

"We have created this problem by alienating people, and there is no wrath greater than that of the misunderstood," says Sunirmalya.

"How many of us have asked why so many people would be so desperate to be heard that they would be willing to give their lives to do so?

How many of us have considered the desperate methods we use every day to alienate and demonize?

How many of us have been through war and found that rather than there being devils on the other side, there were human beings, sisters and brothers just like us, with families and grandparents and babies that just wanted to be listened to."

Sunirmalya says we should consider the problem as we would one family.

"Get Dr Phil in", he says. "He would tell us that violence is not going to solve our problems. That alienating our children is not the way to encourage their development. That we have to spend less time at work and more time with our families and communities, developing relationships and communicating."

"Our policy of alienation, of jailing or isolating any perceived threat to our 'relligion of the dollar' we cannot and will not succed because as we build bigger and smarter weapons to create more alienation, we are also creating more and more alienated sisters and brothers ready to give their lives to be heard."

The society says that the problem of terrorism is our problem.

"We would be far better served if instead of us demanding the titillation of the latest round of bombs and deaths on our news screens, we demanded to understand why? Why are people willing to give their lives to kill others, so that they can be heard?" says Sunirmalya

Rather than jailing the 'terrorists' perhaps as a mother would tell us 'that he isn't really a bad boy, he' just misunderstood', we should be discovering how we alienated this group of people and how we can re-engage them in a society, that will listen and act with compassion and empathy.

By Sunirmalya Symons posted 3 October 05

Sunirmalya Symons
World Peace Society of Australia
tel: 61-7-4156 6765
For additional information: please contact Sunirmalya Symons

Ed: Violence vs Non-violence

Someone once said there are six billion versions of Non-violence ;) What does Non-violence mean to you?

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Moqtada Sadr says he will not take part in Iraq's political process while the US remains. Resistance to foreign troops in Iraq is "legitimate", Shiite leader Mr Moqtada Sadr said.

Don't Blame Bush
Maybe you think that it's all just a bad dream. In a few years there will be a new President of the United States and everything will be different then. Everything will be back to normal. The bad news is, you are awake. The really bad news is, it isn't Bush.

Suicide bombers may target PM: UK
AUSTRALIA: UK bombers are warning fascist war criminals like john HoWARd that they could become victims to suicide bombers if they continue to pre-emptively kill, maim and torture innocent indigenous people in sovereign nation states like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Galloway breaks consensus over London bombings
He said: "The purpose of terrorism is not only to kill and maim the innocent. It is to put despair and anger and hatred in people's hearts. [Also as a call to arms for the British people to try to legitimise the occupation's of Iraq and Afghanistan and to continue with their resource wars in the Middle East.]

London terror bombings: a political crime!
Once again, the world is witnessing horrific scenes of death, injury and suffering sustained by people who bear no responsibility for the crimes committed by their governments.

Galloway: Cry for social change
Then there came a time when the colonies said, "We want to become independent and free." Now we are returning to the colonies we were driven out of. The most significant of these is Iraq.

UK false flag: where the bombers struck
The London transport system was coping with the peak of the morning rush hour when the coordinated terror attack the capital had feared became reality.

Zarqawi: Everywhere and nowhere
AMMAN, Jordan - A remarkable proportion of the violence taking place in Iraq is regularly credited to the Jordanian Ahmad al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his al-Qaeda-linked organization in Iraq.

US confirms civilian deaths in Afghan air strike!
American-led forces have mistakenly killed scores of Afghan civilians since engineering the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, including 48 who died when a wedding party came under attack three years ago.

Labor, 'Showroom Dummies'
Labor does not oppose illegal and degrading wars? Nor do they stand up for renditioned and tortured citizens, welfare rights, people held in detention for years on end? Or anything else that matters to the marginalised voters who have to rely on the minor parties time and time again for some support.

Australia: Lib/Lab Cult Squad
AUSTRALIA: WHEN pastor peter costello delivered a speech in July last year from the pulpit of the hillsong church, an 18,000-strong cult, based in Sydney's northwestern suburbs, most people wrote them off, all accept those neo-liberals who were seeking the gargoyle vote.

Back to kill the innocent
THE fascist Federal government will send Australian militants and guerrillas to war on Afghanistan, two years after they were last deployed there in the mountains full of indigenous people.

Crush, Kill, Destroy, Labor Wants War on Afghanistan
Labor's Pre-emptive war spokesman, robert mcClelland, says Australia needs to redeploy troops to Afghanistan after an attack today against a US helicopter left 17 missing.

Howard off to US, UK - part 5
PART-5- PRIME minister john hoWARd will meet US president george w buSHIT, British prime minister tony blair and queen 'imperialism' herself during a 10-day visit to the United States and the UK next month.

Searching for resistance in Afghanistan
Tribal leaders listen in a meeting in Miana Shien, Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, on Saturday in an attempt to end the fighting that has killed more than 175 freedom fighters since Tuesday.

Battlelines drawn on Security Council
THE US has outlined its first detailed position on UN Security Council reform, proposing a limited expansion of the permanent membership by two nations - one of them Japan - and foreshadowing a major statement next week on specific criteria to be met by candidate countries.

Bush's demon-aid tactic strikes again
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the George W Bushit's mastermind demon to help bolster support to continue to wage the US-led Illegal and degrading war on Iraq. Another report that senior aide to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (a George Bushit demon) used time and time again, as an excuse to wage war in Iraq has allegedly been captured.

Zarqawi tape 'magic': ABRACADABRA
An [alleged] audio recording in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, alleged Al Qaeda's leader [scapegoat and patsy in the resource wars who must have bled to death in Iraq by now], 'already', denies reports that he has been seriously wounded, and that's magic, says Mr Houdini, a magician.

Lying and bullshitting the same thing
Australia: The Un-Australian Newspaper: "AS well as all the bullshit in politics, there's even more in our metaphoric and colloquial language. Bullshit is the subject of serious philosophical inquiry in a little book called On Bullshit, published by the 'highly respected' Princeton University Press. To the surprise and delight of the author, it's stampeding out of bookshops all over the world."

Is this our most dangerous Newspaper?
The Daily Terrorist should be managed with manacles and flown into Siberia via a jumbo jet tomorrow amid fears government fascists may attempt to use them again on someone else.

IRAQ: Washington gives up on Iraqi security forces?
According to a United Press International report published the next day, General John Abizaid, who directs all US military forces in the Middle East, described the progress in developing Iraqi forces to fight the anti-occupation resistance as "disappointing".

UN Dialogue among Civilizations
This roundtable is a contribution to the UN Dialogue among Civilizations project that began in September 2000. At the first round table debate on Dialogue among Civilizations, Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN stated that, cultural diversity - in his opinion - is not only the basis for the Dialogue among Civilizations, but also the reality that makes dialogue necessary, since the perception of diversity as a threat is the very seed of war. [The role of religion in creating a culture of peace and moving on from a culture of fear.]

Zarqawi' figment of the US imagination, used time, and time again! US propaganda 'terror monster' the alleged Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq has been used by the US and its Coalition of the Killing as an excuse so many times he has bled to death, surely?

BUSH ON TRIAL
Tuesday May 17, 2005, Brussels - Today, representatives of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) delivered a law summon and invitation letter addressed to President Bush at the US Embassy in Brussels.

Iraqi police vent anger at US after car bombings
Iraqi police hurled insults at US soldiers after two suicide car bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least seven people and left 19 wounded, including policemen. "It's all because you're here," a policeman shouted in Arabic at a group of US soldiers after the latest in a bloody wave of attacks that have rocked Baghdad this month. "Get out of our country and there will be no more explosions," he told the uncomprehending Americans staring at the smouldering wreck of a car bomb.

UK report shows Iraq war illegal: former defence chief
Ruling Class Lord Goldsmith said a final UN resolution may be needed, that hard evidence of Iraqi non-compliance may have been required, and the UK could face sanction by international courts.

300,000 Iraqis protest occupation and genocide
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Chanting "Death to America" and burning effigies of President Bush and Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Iraqis flooded central Baghdad on Saturday in what police called the largest anti-American protest since the fall of Baghdad, the capital, exactly two years ago.

Annan calls for human rights agency revamp!
The commission has been harshly criticised recently by human rights groups claiming it has become less of a body for upholding human rights, and more of a haven for violators.

Attacks kill 21 two years after Iraq invasion
IRAQ: At least 21 people were killed on Sunday in attacks mainly targeting US/Iraqi security forces on the two-year anniversary of the US-led illegal and degrading war on of Iraq.

Wolfowitz's World Bank nomination worries Oxfam
The head of Oxfam in Australia has raised concerns about the nomination of US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as the next head of the World Bank.

USA - FEELING THE HEAT FROM INTERNATIONAL FIRE:
It seems the United States of America (The World Watchdog) is dictating and practising double-standards --- a unique law for America and another set of laws for all other countries.

CALL TO ACTION of the ANTI-WAR ASSEMBLY
Two years after the invasion of Iraq, there is more opposition to the war in the US, in the coalition countries, and all over the world than ever before.

Returning veterans of Iraq/Afghanistan
In the last two years, nearly one million U.S. service-members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of how you may feel about the war, most of us agree that those service-members deserve the best possible care and treatment our country can provide.

The Veil of Freedom
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two years after the invasion of Iraq and just weeks before the country's first free election, [occupation, US puppet gov't] "Amina" began wearing a headscarf for the first time in her life. Her father insisted upon it.

Iraqi women eye Islamic law
BAGHDAD - Covered in layers of flowing black fabric that extend to the tips of her gloved hands, Jenan al-Ubaedy knows her first priority as one of some 90 women who will sit in the national assembly: implementing Islamic law.

IRAQ: Shiite and Sunnis to unite against occupation?
Iraq: "I call on all religious and political powers that pushed towards the elections and took part in them to issue an official statement calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq", Moqtada al Sadr, the popular young Iraqi Shiite cleric who last year led an armed rebellion against the US-led occupation, declared on February 4.

Democracy, Iraqi style
"In a darkened hall, candidates for Iraq's main Shia party sit listening to a turbaned cleric speaking into a microphone. They are being told how to campaign for the election without getting killed.

Violence continues ahead of Iraq Shoe Sale
Pre-Shoe Sale violence in Iraq is showing no signs of abating with the deaths today of two American militants following on from yesterday's killing of 22 US/Iraqi militants.

US transport company pulls out of Iraq
A large American transport company has become the first contractor to pull out of Iraq because of the continuing violence.

Rumsfeld's war, torture and occupation ideology!
War criminal Donald Rumsfeld faced critical questioning at a Washington media conference, after the announcement that it was a suicide bomber who caused the blast inside a US military base in Mosul yesterday, killing 22 people including 14 illegal militants.

Annan admits to a tough year
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan admits he has had his worst year at the United Nations and he is looking forward to it being over.

Iraq sale to be contested by 100 buyers
A hundred buyers, blocs and independents will contest Iraq's first shoe sale, in decades, on January 30, the George Dubya Bushit - Iraqi Sales Commission (GDB/ISC) said.

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.

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.

Indonesians rally against Fallujah assault
About 8,000 Indonesian Muslims have staged a peaceful rally against a major US-led assault on Iraq's rebel city of Fallujah, which has claimed 2,000 lives.

UK politicians launch Blair impeachment bid
Parliamentarians and celebrity campaigners have launched a bid to impeach UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for "gross misconduct" over his justification for the Iraq war.

'This One's Faking He's Dead' 'He's Dead Now'
Fallujah: Video shows US soldier killing wounded insurgent in cold blood
by Andrew Buncombe in Washington.

US: Very superstitious? Writing's on the wall!
The US military says it has discovered close to 20 torture sites in the course of its massive attack against the resistance in the Iraqi city of Fallujah?

World Vision Aust pulls out of Iraq
The organisation says the country has simply become too dangerous and its decision to leave was made before the apparent murder of Care Australia's Iraq director Margaret Hassan.

US Senator slams !!! 'dysfunctional, rogue' CIA
Influential US Republican Senator John McCain blasted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a "dysfunctional" and "rogue" organisation that needs to be reformed.

Civilian death toll to rise in Fallujah
The attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah has taken its toll on Iraqi civilians no doubt including children and young babies. Iraqi's have witnessed civilian casualties. Yesterday during the assault on the main hospital nurses and patients were blindfolded after the US/Iraq militia stormed the main hospital and took control.

Illusionary demons blamed for US led Attack Iraq, Fallujah
In the name of an illusionary figure thought up by US militants suggests that Al Qaeda's? ally "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" has called on Muslims to take up arms against their US enemy as American militia attacked the Iraqi city of Fallujah? Just a coincidence or just good timing?

Full-scale attack on Fallujah begins
Correspondents say radio traffic heard at a US militant's staging post just outside Fallujah indicates US/Iraqi militia have moved at least four blocks into Fallujah, and are still advancing.

US/Iraqi militants storm Fallujah hospital
United States troops and US/Iraqi militia have seized the main hospital in the Iraqi city of Fallujah without a fight, according to a pool reporter travelling [in-bed] with the troops. Those in hospital beds did not resist they were too sick and the doctor kept on operating regardless.

US warplanes and artillery attack Fallujah!
Journalists [in-bed] with the US military say warplanes fired at suspected resistance targets around Fallujah as night fell on Sunday, while artillery shells pounded a nearby town.

State of emergency: Allawi 'killer of saints'
The US puppet, Iyad Allawi otherwise known as "Sock" killer of saints has declared a state of emergency for 60 days to quell violent resistance gripping the country ahead of January's shoe sale.

US Empire Votes For Pre-Emptive War!!!
United States President George Dubya Bushit has been re-elected, winning four more years to press his war on liberty after a bitter campaign against Democrat John Kerry that focused on the US empire's role as - imperialists - initiating pre-emptive war - on the sovereign nation of Iraq - without the United Nations approval and in direct contravention of International law.

Saddam's family dismiss lawyer
The family of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has dismissed the head of his defence team. Other team members had accused the lawyer, Mohammad Rashdan, of acting without consulting them.

Who's counting the dead in Fallujah? CARE?
In distress: CARE says it is deeply concerned about the wellbeing of Mrs Hassan. But who's counting the dead in Fallujah?

Iraqi civilian deaths put at 100,000
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to public health experts who estimate there were 100,000 "excess deaths" in 18 months.

Unknown News Update - 2009
More than 103 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004. About 241 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001.

Bushite group threatens civil liberties in Iraq
Allegedly a group led by George W Bushite has forced freedom fighters to threaten to behead a Japanese hostage it said worked with Japanese forces in Iraq if Tokyo does not withdraw its forces from the country within 48 hours.

US secretly moved prisoners out of Iraq for questioning: report
The CIA has secretly transferred detainees out of Iraq for interrogation after asking the US Justice Department to write a memo justifying the practice, which violates the Geneva Conventions.

Weapons inspectors missed WMD in Iraq
An Iraqi minister has said United Nations nuclear inspectors are welcome to return in response to concerns of an "apparent systematic dismantlement" of Saddam Hussein's once-vigorous nuclear program.

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.

Jordan's king doubts Iraqi elections possible
Iraq is far too unsafe to hold elections as scheduled in January and extremists would do well in the poll if Baghdad tried to hold it, Jordan's King Abdullah said in an interview. Excluding troubled areas from the nationwide poll would only isolate Iraq's Sunnis and create deeper divisions in the country, he 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.

Bush team 'knew of abuse' at Guantanamo
Evidence of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes at Guantanamo Bay reached the highest levels of the Bush administration as early as autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, chose to do nothing about it, according to a new investigation.

Journalists ordered to leave Najaf as fighting continues
Journalists have been kicked out of Najaf as clashes flared in the Iraqi city, prompting speculation that a major United States-led assault on enemy Shiite fighters was imminent.

Enemy Mortars attack opening of Iraqi summit
US Enemies have fired mortars at a meeting where Iraqi puppet government leaders met to pick an interim national assembly, killing at least two people.

Iraqi Women in the Occupation Prisons As Material and Means of Violations It is important to say at the beginning that there are many psychological, social and cultural obstacles for Iraqi women to talk openly about what they actually went through inside the occupation prisons.

Ancient Babylon ruined by foreign troops: Iraqi minister
Iraq: Foreign forces in Iraq have caused severe damage to the site of ancient Babylon, one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, and need to leave the area as soon as possible, Iraq's Culture Minister Mofeed al-Jazaeri said.

Whatcha Gonna Do, When They Come For You? Bad boy!
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a threat and sought to possess weapons of mass destruction, United States President George W Bush reaffirmed when asked why no such weapons had been discovered in Iraq.

Saddam trial US propaganda
Saddam Hussein's trial will play an important part in the US election no doubt and for that to work at its potential just put a "women" behind it "She called the trials". Then add some "cleansing" like she's just doing the dishes and then some "reconciliation" by slaying Hussein during a US election. Now you can go and tell everyone you're reversing the trauma but really you're killing two birds with one Saddam.

The clock is ticking: Aboriginal Leaders

Aboriginal leaders say only immediate action will remedy the appalling state of remote communities in the Northern Territory, writes.

Tracker Tilmouth points angrily at a tin shanty where 23 Aborigines are living in squalor. "Take a look. That's not only a disgrace. It symbolises what I believe amounts to a form of cultural and social genocide," he says. "This is as bad as anywhere on earth, right here on Australian soil."

Tilmouth knows more than most people about Aboriginal poverty, poor health, high crime, alcoholism and substance abuse.

Snatched from relatives living in an Alice Springs creek bed when he could barely walk, Tilmouth has spent most of his life in remote indigenous communities, where new research reveals that a population explosion and 30 years of underfunding in education, health and infrastructure have created a social time bomb.

"I have to speak out now because things are getting worse for people in these communities," says Tilmouth, 53, a former head of the Central Land Council, the peak Aboriginal body in central Australia. "The system delivering services to these places has collapsed. But nobody wants to talk about it. Governments have one last chance to get it right or else they will be dealing with a catastrophe."

Bob Beadman probably knows more about the problems of Aboriginal Australians than any other non-indigenous person. He also says it is time to speak out to shock Australia about the state of remote indigenous communities.

The former senior public servant, who is chairman of the Northern Territory Grants Commission, says that 30 years of multilayered policies that bureaucrats considered generous failed tragically because they denied Aboriginal people any effective role in their own lives.

"We are now on the rocks," he says. "We need to fundamentally set a new course and abandon the old tiller settings. People need to be shocked. They need to be moved from their tacit acceptance that everything is OK. A huge task confronts the nation, and particularly Aborigines themselves."

Beadman says people need to abandon political correctness and tackle the taboos of indigenous communities such as "child molestation, family violence, or even diet or personal hygiene. Only when the dirty linen is put out for the wash will it be washed."

But above everything else Aboriginal people need to become re-engaged so momentum for change comes from them, Beadman says. "They have been encouraged to think inadvertently that government would prefer them to be paid to sit down rather than to work," he says. "Billions of dollars have been thrown at this problem and we still have a deteriorating outcome."

Steve Sunk, a lecturer at Charles Darwin University, has decided to blow the whistle on what is happening in remote indigenous communities, where he has worked for the past eight years. He told the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Clare Martin, in a letter that some children in the communities are starving and begging for food from teachers. Appealing for urgent government action, including providing protection and daily meals, he said children were being raped and "there is a lot of molesting and incest going on with the kids and it's too disgusting to mention the facts".

"They [children] are sleeping on concrete floors, they don't have the luxury of a mattress even to share with a camp dog," Sunk said in the previously unpublished letter. "Kids have sores all over which are not healing up because of lack of proper food."

The Australian National University's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research has found that fertility rates in 1300 remote indigenous communities are so high that the present total population of about 100,000 could double in 20 to 25 years. John Taylor, a senior fellow at the centre, says that unlike the rest of rural Australia, where economies are shrinking and populations declining, the "clock is ticking for remote indigenous communities".

Speaking in Wadeye, the largest remote community, 420 kilometres south-west of Darwin, Taylor warns that unless there is an immediate response from governments the cost of trying to fix the inevitable social dysfunction in the future will be enormous. He says the communities have remained largely out of sight of mainstream Australia, which for years "managed to avert its glance, so to speak".

But he says that as the communities become increasingly accessible and open to the outside world "Australia cannot afford to avoid them any more".

The problems confronting Wadeye, a former Catholic mission with a population of about 2100, are similar to those of other remote communities. An average of 17 people are living in each sweltering, graffiti-covered house such as the one Tilmouth pointed out. Almost half the population is under 15 and most of the teenagers cannot speak English. Infant mortality is four times the national average and life expectancy is 20 years less than that of non-indigenous Australians. Up to 80 per cent of the prisoners in the Northern Territory's jails are indigenous, many from remote communities.

The administrators and elders in almost all the remote communities complain about a lack of basic services that are available to other Australians.

Many of the communities look like Third World refugee camps. There are no banks, high schools, libraries, bitumen roads, child-care centres, restaurants, nursing homes or even privately owned service stations, milk bars or hardware stores, the sort of facilities you would see in a town of similar size in other parts of Australia.

While thousands of well-paid public servants from federal and territory departments work on indigenous matters in air-conditioned offices in Darwin and Alice Springs, administrators in remote communities complain that their pleas for help go mostly unanswered.

Ngukurr, a community at the edge of Arnhem Land, asked for eight months for help on chronic petrol sniffing among teenagers. One social worker with expertise on the problem visited for one day.

Wadeye, which has a new invigorated governing body based on centuries-old traditions, has declared that enough is enough. It is planning to sue the Territory Government for years of neglect of its children's education.

A report written by Taylor says the community receives less than 50 cents in the dollar for the education of a local child, compared with the full dollar distributed to children on average across the Territory. But the average is weighed down by other remote communities and Taylor says a direct comparison between Wadeye and Darwin is likely to be many times worse.

The revelations about remote communities come amid signs that a bold experiment by the Howard Government to trial a "whole of government" approach to delivering services to 10 indigenous communities, including Wadeye, is faltering.

In early August, the federal Minister for Family and Community Services, Kay Patterson, was taken aback when she was told during a visit to Wadeye that community elders were close to quitting the second stage of the Council of Australian Governments trial.

Patterson, whose department leads the trial in Wadeye, was not aware that the community was missing help from government departments it should have been receiving because it was wrongly believed it was getting all the help it needed from COAG.

A report written in August by Wadeye's Thamarrurr council told COAG the trial was "placing unsustainable pressure on council members and staff and on council resources". The report suggests the trial has caused the community to chase its tail. "We have come across our own tracks many times," the report said. "Our people ask how can this be?"

Of $1.3 million allocated to another COAG trial in the far-east Kimberley region of Western Australia, only $327,000 was spent on Aboriginal people and programs over 2? years. The rest went on salaries, travel and other related administrative expenses of the Department of Transport and Regional Services, which administers the program.

Tilmouth describes COAG as a Band-aid solution and a waste of time. "There are so many meetings they have to hold more meetings to discuss the problem of so many meetings," he says.

As the Howard Government pushes shared responsibility agreements it has negotiated directly with communities such as Wadeye, Aboriginal leaders and administrators in central and northern Australia question how much of the federal funds sent to the Territory Government to tackle Aboriginal disadvantage actually reaches the communities.

Norman Fry, chief executive officer of the Northern Land Council, the peak indigenous organisation in northern Australia, says spending on indigenous health, housing and other social indicators within the Territory Government remains a "deep, dark secret" that his organisation wants investigated. He says the truth about Aboriginal funding "must be exposed so that the true causes of dysfunction in remote communities may be addressed".

The council's chairman, John Daly, told the National Indigenous Times last month that "every indicator and every report points to serious concerns with the NT Government's expenditure of monies targeted for Aboriginal disadvantage".

Indigenous leaders point to reports that just over $1.5 billion of the $4 billion of the GST revenue expected to be collected in NSW and Victoria in 2005-06 will go the Territory Government to meet the needs of Territory Aborigines. They say that $1.5 billion is more than the entire national budget of the now dismantled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

They point out that while the commission's taxpayer funds were spent primarily on work-for-dole and infrastructure maintenance programs, the Territory Government is responsible for education, health and infrastructure.

Indigenous leaders in the Territory regard education as the most important priority and want to see an exact account of where the money is being spent. Taylor says that only 25 per cent of children of school age in remote communities actually sit down behind a desk on any one day at school. But the Territory Government continues to receive 100 per cent of federal funding for the education of these children.

The delivery of health services is another area of concern. The Territory receives about $115 million from the Federal Government for Aboriginal health.

The Northern Territory's Aboriginal leaders believe that after the demise of ATSIC the Howard Government should establish regional authorities that would receive and distribute Commonwealth funds earmarked for Aboriginal disadvantage rather than send them first to mainstream government departments and agencies.

Beadman, a former head of the Territory Office of Aboriginal Development who has written a report on the future of Aboriginal youth for the Menzies Research Centre, says the establishment of strong regional authorities would be a "better co-ordinating mechanism for state and territory-level funding and federal funding".

Leon Melpi, a Wadeye elder, is fed up with bureaucrats coming to the community with pieces of paper to discuss one solution or another. "They should stay away and do their business and not come back until they have a final solution," he says. "All I will say is that we want to deal directly with the people who actually make the decisions that affect us. We want to cut out the middleman."

In the meantime, Melpi plans to build an ecologically friendly motel on his land above a magnificent white sand beach that few non-indigenous people have ever set foot on.

"We just want to be a normal part of Australia with all the services and opportunities that are available to the rest of you," he says.

"Remote?"

Apartheid Australia?

Absolutely

By Lindsay Murdoch posted 18 September 05

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The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is asking for an extra $450 million a year to be spent on the health needs of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.

Labor to request Senate inquiry into ATSIC's future
The Federal Opposition has announced it will call for a Senate inquiry into the Government's plan to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Reconciliation dreaming
Djerrkura had witnessed the collapse of ATSIC, which he led from 1996 to 1999, with sadness. Despite the peak indigenous organisation's flaws, which he did not deny, its abolition, he said, had been done in "the classic imperial fashion, without negotiation, without understanding and with little empathy".

Amnesty sees lack of progress on reconciliation
Amnesty International says the Federal Government must be held accountable for its commitments to Indigenous services.

The bone has been pointed at Howard
A Queensland Indigenous leader says an ancient Aboriginal curse placed on Prime Minister John Howard is no laughing matter and could even have deadly consequences.

Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT. Part 1

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research: Aboriginal Crime
In 2001 more than forty percent of the Aboriginal male population aged 20-24 in NSW appeared before a NSW court charged with a criminal offence. One in ten Aboriginal males in NSW aged 20-24 received a prison sentence.

Inquiry told reforms will decimate Indigenous education
A Senate inquiry has been told the Federal Government's proposed higher education reforms will decimate education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The National Indigenous Postgraduate Association Aboriginal Corporation says Indigenous students will be the hardest hit by increases in student fees, interest on postgraduate loans and attacks on student representation.