Weekend at Bernie's

Painting: By the late Raymond John Denning done in Katingal

PRISONERS; JOURNALISM; POSTAL SERVICES (AUSTRALIA)

NSW: In 1977, notorious Australian bank robber and prison escaper Bernie Matthews was behind bars and swapping letters with a young Kiwi reporter. Now an award-winning journalist, he says it was that pen-friendship that set him on his new career path. Last month a quarter of a century after they lost touch the pair met for the first time. DONNA CHISHOLM reports...

TWO WEEKS after prison guards flogged Bernie Matthews unconscious, leaving his blood smeared around the white cement walls of a visitor's booth, another of his distinctive blue aerogrammes landed in my cubby-hole at the Auckland Star. "Not much news," he wrote.

A few of the guys had got drunk on Brasso and boot polish, he had read a book about whaling days in New Zealand called Harpoon in Eden, and he asked for some postcards of Auckland to relieve the tedium. He cracked a few politically incorrect jokes. He had just had a bowl of spaghetti "you wouldn't give to a Jap on Anzac Day", and did you hear the one about the cross-eyed girl who cried tears down her back?

No mention of the fact he had barricaded himself in a prison workshop and torched the place in a suicide bid 10 days before. Nor that guards had subdued him, with mace and batons before carting him unconscious to Long Bay prison hospital.

The letters might have been censored anyway, but, he admits 27 years on: "I didn't wantto worry you."

These days, though, Bernie Matthews is achieving more at the point of a pen than a gun. In October, at the age of 55, he became student journalist of the year at the Queensland Media Awards, where he also won best online report and was runner-up to A Current Affair for investigative reporting.

It is that investigation into the possible misuse of DNA in the case of a man he met in jail that brings us together for the first time nearly 25 years after we lost touch. His research in 2002 unearthed Sunday Star-Times stories of the David Dougherty DNA-related rape acquittal, and he immediately emailed the paper to find out if the writer was his long-lost penfriend.

"I just couldn't believe it," he said.

"Is that really you?" I emailed back. "Where have you been for 25 years?"

We had begun writing in 1977, when he contacted the Auckland Star looking for international precedents for prisoners suing newspapers for defamation. He was fighting several Sydney tabloids after he was wrongly named as the man who had repeatedly raped a woman at gunpoint while on the run. He later discovered it was a police ploy to put pressure on accomplices to turn him in.

Our letters, exchanged almost weekly for three years, fostered his first sparks of interest in journalism. He went on to edit a prison newspaper, turning it into a controversial platform for inmate grievances, which captured headlines in the mainstream media. Even then, it was obvious he was not a typical jailbird. He would use words in his letters like subservient and obsequious, no apostrophe was misplaced and his magazine of choice was Der Spiegel.

He would send photographs of himself taken by the prison chaplain in his cell looking cheery at the typewriter or sitting on his bed holding a placard reading: "Love me, I'm lonely."

When we meet in the lobby of a Sydney hotel, he is recognisable but much changed. A physical cross between former All Black coach Grizz Wylie and movie tough guy Charles Bronson, he stands with legs planted wide a stance that imparts a don't-mess- with-me presence.

There is an impenetrable wall behind his eyes, but he is all charm and twinkling bonhomie. He brings a bunch of my old letters, a stack of tourist guides to Sydney and newspaper clippings from which his surly face of 30 years ago stares out grimly under headings such as "Rapist seeks a gun" and "Fugitive writes: Police want to kill me."

Then, he was one of Australia's most wanted men he was recaptured at gunpoint in a high speed chase that ended when police shot out his car's tyres after he had spent six weeks on the run.

Sydney detective Mike Kennedy, now a mate of Matthews' describes him as an old- school crim and an "organic intellectual". The sort of bloke who would rather do 25 years than rat on anyone; who would spend the proceeds on Jack Daniels and women rather than a needle in his veins. Someone who would never admit anything even if you asked him if he were breathing.

And someone with an unwavering sense of integrity about what he will and will not do. "My mother taught me never to go into a woman's handbag," he says (presumably she never taught him not to point a machine gun at a person's chest).

What makes his latest conversion remarkable is that Matthews spent nine of his nearly 17 years behind bars in some of the most inhumane prison regimes in Australia including the notorious Grafton "tracs" for intractable inmates, where prisoners were greeted with a "reception biff" by five or six guards.

Grafton Prison NSW

He also survived the "concrete coffin" of the Katingal Maximum Security Unit at Long Bay closed in 1978 after just three years, because of the psychological damage it inflicted on inmates. It was evidence from Matthews and other inmates at the Nagle royal commission that saw Katingal shut and the brutal regime in other jails ended.

Matthews served longer than all but one other in the Katingal bunker, where inmates could not tell whether it was day or night. That was where he "cracked" in the prison workshop one night in September 1977, before staff dragged him into the visitor's booth, awaiting his transfer to hospital.

Although raised by his mother after his father left when he was three, Matthews refuses to blame his childhood for his crimes, despite the fact both he and his sister ended up in jail, she for fraud.

A lot of people nowadays rob banks and they're on heroin or speed or whatever when I was doing it there was none of that. It was a business.

"I was a brash young fool who thought I could take on the world and come out on top," he told me in 1977. His motivation? Greed and the buzz. It was a choice deliberately made.

After his first convictions, a string of escape attempts and the attempted stabbing of a prison guard with a homemade knife took him to Grafton and then Katingal, but Matthews contends the prisons inflicted more harm on him than he ever did to others.

At Grafton in December 1970, he not only got the "reception biff", but he was batoned from neck to knee three times a day for the next eight days.

Evidence of the "reception biffs" were made public in the Nagle report: "The beatings were usually administered by three or four officers wielding rubber batons. The prisoner was taken into a yard, ordered to strip, searched and then the biff began.

The word biff by no means describes the brutal beating which ensued. Sometimes three, four or five officers would assault the prisoner to a condition of semi-consciousness. On occasions, the prisoner urinates and his nervous system ceases to function normally." Says Matthews: "I might have given them a hard time, but they certainly got their own back on me."

When you were being flogged, he says, it was a sign of weakness to scream, so you learned to keep your mouth shut, whatever happened.

"What a bloke should have done was scream at the top of his voice every time they raised a baton. It was a very small jail, Grafton, and there's a distinct possibility people outside might have heard. But it never happened because of this macho thing among your peers. You tensed up and shut your mouth. "Controlling my emotions is how I've survived. My missus used to say `You are the most unemotional bastard I've come across.'"

He sees harm only in physical terms he blanks out emotional trauma. He has not cried since 1973 when he was in solitary and got the news his mum had died. Yes, he has remorse for the civilians terrorised in his bank raids. I'd prefer they were terrorised than shot and killed. You go there to get the money, not to hurt anyone.

You hurt someone, that's a life sentence; you're never getting out." He doesn't see himself as violent a claim that brings a snort of derision from Mike Kennedy. "He jumps on top of a bank counter, he points a machine gun at ordinary women working in the bank. He says get on the f------ ground you f------ moll and give me your f------money. They all wet themselves and are on bloody pills for the rest of their lives, probably, and Bernie maintains because he didn't shoot them that he's not violent? Well that's a matter for him really, but I don't agree with him at all.

When he was finally released from Parramatta jail in 1980, two years after Katingal's closure, he swore he would never go back. But he did three more lags only one of his own making.

In the early 1980s, he lost his home and his lawnmowing business after being charged with the contract murder of a Sydney policeman's wife. The evidence against him rejected by a jury when it acquitted him in 1985, was given by a criminal in exchange for immunity.

After two years wrongfully jailed, Matthews became a high-profile advocate for both prison reform and opposing the rewards and sentence reductions offered to prison informers.

The former head of the New South Wales Prisons Department, Tony Vinson, now an emeritus professor at the University of NSW, says Matthews became such an effective and popular lecturer at student courses that he nicknamed him "professor".

He took over the prisons after Nagle's report and soon became aware of Matthews. "He argued that units such as Katingal not only failed to curb the criminal-ity of most inmates, it appeared
to have enhanced it.

"He was unusual for his passion for seeing the prison more as a source of harm than good, but he seemed to be blessed with a pretty good brain. I find him a very engaging person because of his wit; his capacity to get up off the floor. The fact he has survived so many of the experiences he's had and isn't totally locked in to a life of illegalities is quite remarkable."

Matthews was one of the brightest inmates he had met in the NSW prison system. "He could have made an excellent barrister."

Unsurprisingly, Matthews believes the compensation paid to New Zealand inmates who sued over Paremoremo's behaviour modification regime was fair.

"I can understand people complaining the amount of compo is excessive, but how can inmates respect the law if the same law abandons them when they are behind the walls and razor wire? It's important that prisons are transparent. People are sent there as punishment, not for punishment."

When he and partner Cheryl set up a halfway house for newly-released prisoners in Glebe after his 1985 release, Matthews became a regular guest on television and radio debates and a familiar face in newspapers.

But six weeks after he rang a radio talkback programme in December 1990 complaining about informers' rewards, he was again arrested and extradited to Queensland, charged with a $690,000 armoured van robbery and two counts of attempted murder. He was released nine months later when two other men were charged with the crime.

Kennedy: "I tried to help him but I couldn't do a great deal the people who locked him up weren't people I particularly liked. But at the back of my mind you gotta remember Bernie's been accused of armed robbery. He says he never did it, but has he ever admitted to one? Well, no. You think, is he capable of doing armed robbery with a gun? Yeah, of course he is. If he was a racehorse he'd have been the favourite but not all favourites win."

Matthews' release in 1991 saw him begin a five-year losing battle for compensation fromboth the New South Wales and Queensland governments.

He stayed in Queensland with Cheryl and began to dabble in freelance journalism, exposing stories such as the young offender sent to a mainstream jail who contracted HIV there and died of Aids and a scandal involving the health effects on sugar mill workers of the sugar cane byproduct bagasse.

Perhaps it was the bitterness over compensation, his break-up with Cheryl after 11 years, or the need to prove that at 47 he still had what it took to rob a bank that saw him and a mate hold up the National Australia Bank in the centre of Brisbane in 1996.

The moral? Do not rob a bank on the last Friday in September in Australia police Remembrance Day. "When we've come out of the bank and the alarm's gone off, 20 million coppers fell out of the sky and we were arrested," he told a television interviewer.

Doing a three-year non-parole stint the judge took into account his wrongful imprisonment on the other charges in the 1980s and 90s. Matthews began an external journalism course at the University of Southern Queensland, winning a scholarship after excelling at the tertiary preparation exams.

Released in 2000, he was thrust into the role of both mother and father to his then 12- year-old godson, Bodie. "His mother died of a heroin overdose in 1992, his grandmother died in 1993, his dog died in 1994 and his father was murdered in 1995."

On the week we meet in Sydney, Matthews has arranged a journalism student internship for Bodie on Ralph magazine a regular outlet for Matthews' stories. I ask Bodie what is the biggest lesson he has learned from "Uncle Bern's" parenting. "Never rat on your mates," he replies.

Bodie, says Matthews, is the biggest disincentive to return to crime. "I'll be pulling out all the stops not to. I'm responsible enough to recognise temptation. I can say no, I'm not a child. My rules are simple: I run my own race, I don't hurt anyone else and I don't expect anyone else to hurt me. My main problem is to raise a kid and hope he turns out better than I did. And I think he will. "

As unlikely as it seems, the Bernie Matthews I have just got to know is a role model any teenaged kid could be proud of.

He is getting his buzz these days in a different way. He proudly hands over his award- winning DNA story published in a new book.

"To a dear friend from the land of the long white cloud," he has written in the cover. "In reality, you started me on the road to journalism back in the turbulent 1970s when I was an angry young man. Now 25 years later I am a quieter old man and `DNA and the Justice Game' in this book is part of my journey into journalism."

It's a journey Matthews says he would take again if he had his time over, despite 17 wasted years. Crime, for him, is finally paying. Escaping from a life of crime Bernie Matthews' long journey from gunman to journalist October 1969: Convicted on two counts armed robbery, possession of sub-machine gun, larceny of motor vehicles.

June 1970: Escapes before sentence from Court of Criminal Appeal, recaptured the same day.

Sentenced to 10 years' jail, four years non-parole, six months cumulative for escape.

November 1970: Escapes from Long Bay jail. In nearly six weeks on the run, commits four more armed robberies two banks and two payroll heists. Sentenced to 71/2 years cumulative to earlier term, a total of 18 years, eight non-parole. After repeated escape bids, sent to Grafton jail's notoriously brutal intractables section.

October 1975-April 1978: In Katingal Maximum Security Unit at Long Bay, closed in 1978 and condemned as inhumane.

1978-1980: In Parramatta jail.

June 1980: Released. Marries in December. Relationship lasts only eight months. Starts lawnmowing business. December 1983: Arrested and charged with contract murder of NSW policeman's wife, the case based on evidence of a criminal informer. Spends two years in prison before being cleared in April 1985. Loses home and business.

1986-1991: Runs Sydney halfway house for ex-prisoners with partner Cheryl. Becomes advocate for better conditions in prisons, condemns rewards for criminal informers.

January 1991: Arrested and extradited to Queensland over $690,000 armoured van robbery. Charged with two counts attempted murder and robbery with violence. Released after another nine months behind bars, when two other men are arrested for the crimes.

1991-1996: Seeks compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

1993: Writes freelance for national newspapers, becomes the first ex-prisoner accepted into Australian Journalist Association without tertiary qualifications.

September 1996: Robs the National Australia Bank in central Brisbane. Captured and sentenced to 10 years' jail. Judge says he should be compensated for time served for crimes he did not commit, and sets a three-year non-parole term.

1998: Awarded entry scholarship as an external student to University of Southern Queensland. After distinguished entry results, is awarded scholarship for Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism.

2000: Released from jail, becomes full-time dad to niece's son. Continues freelance journalism from Tamworth home.

October 2004: Wins three Queensland journalism awards.

By Donna CHISHOLM posted May 22 o5

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THE TALE OF THE ESCAPE OF RAYMOND JOHN DENNING

Retold from the original account by Denning in Australian Playboy Sept 80.

It was a matter of ethical importance that no cars be stolen no violence be committed no further crimes to top the crime of fleeing from criminal but lawful captivity.

All acts to be first done on self alone selfalone selfalone three days of self alone buried with transistor, buried by self to the world a wholly dead criminal.

Outside Grafton underground under grass sticks dirt, wild visions, dreams I can go for weeks without food, weeks of hunger to weak to walk to crazy water.

On the third day I came out and sought manna, the scum puddle bush cistern. Tom's really Ray, Tom's talking, Tom's here Tom's beside me, Tom tells me "Ray put ya pants on ya head and shoulders, Ray keep warm, Ray go back to sleep, Ray get up, go away, they think you're in the Blue Mountains", Tom knows.

Tom knows Ray was the first in the world to escape the walls of Grafton, a significant if little enlightenment, a foul water baptism a semi-religious half mythological case of minor sociological interest, at the time a political thorn, and now the plot source for a reconstructional poem by a little known poet. Tom knows too much, Tom's a smartee. Next time I escape Tom's not coming with me.

P.S.
Written with due respect by a fellow of the first and last land of prisons, the self itself, and one time Two People, scared as hell by the awe of decision that moves like love and yet strikes the heart mute, moves the body with the force of steel, the coldness of steel, the inflexible will to risk and disappear, go out!

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"How could the Bush administration not get to the real people on the ground reporting these atrocities?"

"Prior the US election they were saying we have to nail Saddam to the wall", he said.

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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.

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A George Dubya Bush official, Mr Son of'a Bitch said the administration has been sending forensic teams to investigate those grave sites reported to U.S. officials. So far, the existence of about 40 graves has been confirmed.

"We have found mass graves with women and children with bullet holes in their heads," he said.

But Fatima Al-Zahra the mother of one of the dead Ali Al-Zahra said, "Why didn't they talk to me? Doesn't Dubya Bush want to win the election? Some had bullet holes in their toes as well and that's worse."

"At least being shot in the head is instant death, and how come all they care about is women and children?"

"Do they think they may get more attention that way?"

"What about my son Ali don't they care about him, he was my boy and just as worthy for a sensational news headline purported to be 'USA Today'," she said.

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"With USA Today, Fox News and numerous other corporate media sources there's plenty of collusion with the war criminal US government. They have the, technologically and finance for a 'delusion of this magnitude'," said Doctor Death of Physicians for Human Rights in Australia.

"War criminal president Dubya Bush has also referred to Iraqi mass graves frequently in recent months, saying they provide evidence that the war to drive Saddam from power was justified? Just like the WMD? But what about the bomb craters?"

The U.S.-led administration held a workshop Saturday to train dozens of Iraqis to find and protect the mass gravesites. Bitch said the workers would be crucial in protecting the validity of these sites from desperate investigators trying to dig up the truth about the propaganda.

But Doctor Death said, "The U.S.-led war killed innocent men, women and children as well, allegedly to drive Saddam from power. The US military damaged Iraq's infrastructure and services, using war planes that dropped bombs scattering papers and clothing that could have been used to identify remains."

"No one counted the dead".

"Large mass craters have been discovered all over Iraq where up to 40,000 bodies of innocent men, women and children have been killed." He said.

"Look at any site you like all damaged by military hardware and bombs."

Death said, "Most of the craters have been disturbed by people trying to dig out their relatives and friends."

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Iraqi Human Rights puppet Minister Abdul-Basit Turki said that in addition the families' need to find the bodies of missing relatives."

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"Mass craters can corroborate witness testimony and documents which show what happened in a crime," Death said.

Although he cautioned: "a bomb crater by itself won't tell you who did it but the bomb casing will and there is circumstantial evidence to consider as well as witness statements." He said.

Death said the majority of people bombed in the mass craters are believed to be innocent Iraqi's killed by the Coalition of the Killing.

"The investigation process would be similar to that used in Bosnia after its 1992-95 war. But he cautioned that if Bosnia were any indication, the process in the Hague would be long and complicated."

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In Iraq, some international teams that were hoping to begin their work before the US election were delayed because more people were being blown up.

By Propaganda Monster 15 October 04

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When language has been butchered and bled of meaning, how do we understand "public power"? When freedom means occupation, when democracy means neo-liberal capitalism, when reform means repression, when words like "empowerment" and "peacekeeping" make your blood run cold - why, then, "public power" could mean whatever you want it to mean. A biceps building machine, or a Community Power Shower. So, I’ll just have to define "public power" as I go along, in my own self-serving sort of way.

Najaf clashes stretch hospital to the limit
Some stroke victims are too afraid of the fighting to go to hospital, doctors don't have the medical instruments to save many victims of mortar bombs and snipers and ambulances cannot get to patients at night. Najaf's main hospital can barely cope with the chaos gripping the city of 500,000 after three weeks of battles between resistance Shiite's and US militants.

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 resistance 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.

Howard's war crimes, Turnbull, at least he's honest
HIGH-profile Liberal candidate Malcolm Turnbull has told voters the Iraq invasion was "an unadulterated error".

Alexanda Downer guilty of war crimes!
The agreement for going to war on Iraq carried with it and incentive and that was free trade with the US. The Howard Government knew about it and went along with it with the US under the guise of Iraq's WMDs. In criminal law this is commonly know as collusion to commit a crime.

John Howard's war crimes blameworthy
General Peter Gration is the spokesman for a group of 43 ex-military leaders, diplomats and departmental heads who have criticised the Government, saying involvement in Iraq has put Australia at greater risk of a terrorist attack.

Human Rights Watch slams Iraq war attacks
Human Rights Watch has condemned the 'wanton' targeting of civilians by 'armed militants', in Iraq. Then what about the Coalition of the Killing?

Genocide and Torture in Iraq: Justice in the balance?
No one is more vulnerable than a prisoner held beyond the reach of the law. So the grim picture of life as a US detainee, [prisoner], held without charge or trial, set out in the Guardian yesterday by three Britons should come as no surprise.

Auditor Generals damning war report
The Defence Department computer system upgrade has cost Australia tens of millions of dollars in a gigantic bungle, according to the Federal Opposition. The Commonwealth auditor-general has issued a damning report into the project.

Truck drivers working for US face death: resistance
A lot has been written about Insurgents they're all over the place these days especially in Iraq and the term means "Rebel" so all the Rebel's once they've been locked up and "tortured" become "Enemy Combatants" without any "rights". Can someone explain to me what is going on?

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.

UK report propaganda
Damaged basic services, cover up of key intelligence and prisoner abuse........They got that right but they got the remedy of the report wrong. Sure as hell they're using this as serious "propaganda".

Iraqis accuse British troops of war crimes.........
British troops committed "war crimes" in post-war Iraq, unlawfully killing civilians and beating and torturing prisoners in their custody, lawyers for the victims have alleged. Soldiers played cruel "games" with prisoners, forcing them to recite lists of English or Dutch footballers and beating them if they failed, Phil Shiner, a British lawyer leading six test cases in the High Court this week, said.

Fifteen "resistance" killed in Iraq shootout
The US military said insurgents opened fire on Iraqi security forces as they provided security for the 1st Infantry Division during a raid in a nearby farming area.

US:Military Draft expected
US: There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately.

US accused of butting into Australian election
The Prime Minister, war criminal, John Howard couldn't win an election this year if he hired the cheerleaders of the US Super Bowl. Howard the coward has accused the Opposition leader of hypocrisy in his response to the, war criminal. Bush administration's criticism of Labor's Iraq policy.

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, [war criminal], George W Bush reaffirmed when asked why no such weapons had been discovered in Iraq.

Saddam trial US propaganda
Saddam will be handed over to Iraqi, [puppet], justice on Wednesday, two days after the country allegedly regained sovereignty from Washington, but US militants will still guard him to ensure he does not escape.

US liars warn against 'fortress Australia'
The US and Australia could lose the war on terror, [the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], if they adopted a fortress mentality and failed to go after the terrorists, [scapegoats and patsies], in their global strongholds, US ambassador to Australia Tom Schieffer warned yesterday.

Fahrenheit 9/11: Cannes ends in controversy
Moore's film - about the, [war criminal], George Bush presidency and its response to, [US reichstag, call to arms, false flag], 9/11 and the subsequent, [resource], wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - pulls no punches in depicting George W. as a duplicitous buffoon.

George Bush never looked into Nick's eyes
My son, Nick, was my teacher and my hero. He was the kindest, gentlest man I know; no, the kindest, gentlest human being I have ever known. He quit the Boy Scouts of America because they wanted to teach him to fire a handgun. Nick, too, poured into me the strength I needed, and still need, to tell the world about him.

IRAQ: CPT Colleagues Describe Massacre in Fallujah
What is portrayed in the US mass media as a grand and heroic firefight is,in reality, the crassest, goriest, and basest single incident of massacre of innocents by US troops in recent memory.

Lose the Occupation and Win the War on Liberty!
Friendly allies do pull militants out of illegal battles, believe it or not, under the heading, lose the battle and win the war. In this case it's lose the Occupation and Win the War on Liberty.

Spain demands 'radical change' in Iraq strategy
Spain's prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has demanded a "radical change" in the post-war strategy in Iraq otherwise he would withdraw Spanish militants from the country.

'FACTOPHOBIA' HOWARD, BLAIR AND BUSH
Well think about this! Australia's intelligence agencies, [fear mongering, propaganda agencies], look set to receive a substantial funding boost in this year's Federal Budget, with the Prime Minister saying it is an obvious step to take.

US to increase Iraq border security in Iraq
Just plain rubbish, the USA are the terrorists and are dividing and conquering Iraq, by attacking the Shiite Muslims and blaming it on someone else another "A" typical false flag operation.

Halliburton's Ancient Scandals
In the world of corporate scandals, the story breaks, there is a frenzy of reportage, a culprit in the lower levels of upper management is thrown to the SEC and then, slowly, the story dies.

Missile defence program 'will lead to arms race'
A group of Australian doctors opposed to war is warning national security will be compromised by any proposed involvement in the United States' missile defence program 'Son of a bitch'..

Pope calls for sanctions on leaders who violate rights
Leader of the child molesters, Pope John Paul II has called for political leaders who violate human rights to be punished, in a World Day of Peace message released amid worldwide debate over how Saddam Hussein should be brought to justice.

War criminals should be tried: Human Rights
The UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague should try George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard for their part in the coalition of the killing for crimes against humanity.

Who cares wins? Those who inflict or those who endure?
When occupation means war then who cares wins? Not those who can inflict the most, but those who can endure the most, I would have thought.

Coalition of the Killing's alliance against law 'the wrong way'
Australia and Britain [and the Coalition of the Killing], could have agreed that the [resource], wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and liberty, the proliferation of Security Housing Units, and Detention Centres, can be addressed unilaterally - a trend in the US that is feared all over the world - but must be faced collectively.

A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.

Police surround protesters outside US Embassy
Thousands of protesters have marched to the Lodge to protest against [war criminal], US President George W Bush's visit. The protesters had rallied outside Parliament House, booing when the president arrived this morning and chanting "go home Bush you war criminal".

David Burchell: Paradox of anti-Americanism
[War criminal] President George W. Bush's trip to our shores today has focused attention on a striking fact - the apparently irresistible rise in hostility among many Australians towards the US.

Pilger said White House knew Saddam was no threat
Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them.

Illegal and degrading war crimes: Society on the New World Order (OWN)! While Australia and the US are very distinctive societies war criminal, Prime Minister John Howard and war criminal, President George Bush share core values.

Thousands march for peace! But does that mean no war?
THOUSANDS of people took to the streets around the country yesterday to march against the war in Iraq and for world peace.

US disturbed over 'biased' reporting in Arab media! But the US lies to the world! How could anyone describe pre-emptive strikes on a sovereign nation, occupation, genocide, torture, and human rights abuse by the Coalition of the Killing in a positive light?

Coalition force 'surprised' by stiff resistance for food aid
About 4,000-5,000 allied forces have launched what they vowed would be an all-out blitz. "We're going straight through that city," a US Marine officer, who asked not to be named, said. "It will be a Hail Mary with guns ablazing."

Explosions rock Baghdad, jets overhead Iraq
BAGHDAD, March 20 [Rooters] A handful of explosions rocked Baghdad at dawn today as jets roared overhead, Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries opened up and air raid sirens sounded.

Bin Laden calls? CIA blind man's bluff!
A [US propaganda, fear-mongering] taped message purportedly from Osama bin Laden has warned Arab nations against supporting a war against Iraq but has branded Saddam Hussein an infidel.

U.S. AMBASSADOR WARNED TO STOP MEDDLING:
The Australian Federal Opposition and Labor Party Leader, Simon Crean, has again warned the U.S. ambassador to stop meddling in Australian politics.

War: Part one The human cost
On the road to Basra, ITV was filming wild dogs as they tore at the corpses of the Iraqi dead. Every few seconds a ravenous beast would rip off a decaying arm and make off with it over the desert in front of us, dead fingers trailing through the sand, the remains of the burned military sleeve flapping in the wind. "Just for the record,'' the cameraman said to me. Of course. Because ITV would never show such footage.

Mandela speaks out against Bush, Blair
Former South African leader Nelson Mandela has lashed out at US President George W Bush's stance on Iraq, saying the US leader has no foresight, and cannot think properly.

All the way with (LPK) Love Peace and Kindness: Dalai Lama
Communication is a two way street. Threats and punishment solve nothing and serve none. In fact it is against the law in most countries to threaten or punish a person.

Pleas for peace ring the globe
Anti-war demonstrators turned out in their hundreds of thousands around the world on Saturday to protest against United States military preparations for an invasion of Iraq.

Not too late for Iraq peace, Blix says
But we all know that's rubbish now. The Coalition of the Killing were not seeking WMD in Iraq, they were there for their resource wars. So who gave the 'UN' and Blix the wrong information back then? War criminals!

George Bush's other poodle
John Howard, Australia's PM, is the mouse that roars for America, whipping his country into war fever and paranoia about terrorism within.

Detention centre media ban criticised

The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

The annual report says Australia "continued to prevent journalists from covering the situation of refugees held in camps on Australian territory or in neighbouring countries".

In the report, released to coincide with World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontieres - RSF) described 2003 as a "black year" for journalists worldwide, with 42 reporters killed and more than 120 others still imprisoned.

"More journalists were killed in 2003 than in any year since 1995... A black year if ever there was one," RSF said.

Forty-two journalists were killed "while doing their job or for their opinions, mainly in Asia and the Middle East (the Iraq war), compared with only 25 in 2002," it said.

As many as 766 were arrested, at least 1,460 physically attacked or threatened and 501 media censored, the Paris-based organisation said.

"Nearly a third of the world's people live in countries without press freedom."

As of April 1, 2004, more than 120 journalists remained in prison, including 30 in Cuba, 27 in China, 14 in Eritrea and 13 in Burma.

RSF bestowed on North Africa and the Middle East the mantle of having the worst record of press freedom in 2003, noting that 17 journalists were killed in the region beset by various abuses and reinforced self-censorship of the media.

"This was the region with least press freedom," it said.

"It had few independent media and journalists in several countries strictly censored themselves."

Fifteen journalists and two media assistants were killed in the region, including 12 in Iraq, five of whom it said were slain by the "very aggressive" occupying US army.

Australian journalist Paul Moran was killed covering the Iraq war.

Iran remained the region's biggest jail for reporters in the Middle East, with 40 imprisoned during the year. One, Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi, died after being beaten by her jailers.

"Being a journalist in Iran or the Arab world often means not crossing the red lines set by the authorities if you want to avoid the repression of long-established dictatorships, authoritarian regimes or paper democracies," RSF said.

Africa

RSF was damning in its report on Africa.

"Independent news media are becoming scarce throughout Africa and journalists continue to flee with a heavy heart.

"Journalists must face the wrath of aging regimes clinging to power and protective of their authority. They all balk at liberalisation, especially when broadcasting is involved," it said, blaming the increased risk in media work squarely on ongoing wars and intermittent fighting throughout the continent.

Two journalists were killed in Ivory Coast and a third probably executed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Asia, RSF said 16 journalists were killed in the region in 2003 and at least 200 jailed, and in many cases tortured.

"Prison conditions were deplorable and torture was common practice."

"No one needs reminding that North Korea has no idea what press diversity is and China discourages anything that is not propaganda," it said, adding that 190 regional news media were hit by censorship.

Working conditions for journalists in much of the former Soviet Union remained grim, more than a decade after the break-up of the totalitarian superpower.

Media freedoms in most countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes all but the Baltic former Soviet republics, are only deteriorating, RSF said.

Conditions for journalists are especially harsh in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, whose presidents are included on RSF's media "predator" list.

The 10 nations in eastern Europe and the Mediterranean that joined the European Union at the weekend largely respected press freedom during 2003.

"No journalist in the region was murdered in 2003 because of their work," RSF said, criticising authorities in EU candidates Romania and Turkey for harassment of journalists.

In the Balkans, advances in press freedom "remained fragile," it said.

As for the Americas, RSF said a "lopsided division endured. Press freedom is generally respected in most countries, but is violated every day in Cuba, Haiti and Colombia," the latter of which saw four journalists killed in 2003.

By AFP 3 May 2004

Related:

Refugee protests expected to move to Sydney
Refugee advocates look set to protest in Sydney this Easter instead of the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia's north.

Baxter detainees' drug use 'not monitored'
The Australian Democrats say detainees at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia are being given high levels of psychotropic medication without adequate monitoring.

Legal action considered to return asylum seeker
The Australian lawyer for an asylum seeker stranded in an airport transit lounge in South Africa says she is looking at court proceedings to bring him back to Australia.

Santa Clause is coming to Baxter
On the 1st day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of peace'.
On the 2nd day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of Joy'.
On the 3rd day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of love'.
On the 4th day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of hope'.
On the 5th day of Christmas 'We give you the gift of faith'.

Ombudsman launches Port Hedland riot inquiry
The investigation comes at the request of the incoming Labor party president, Carmen Lawrence. Soon after the riot at the Western Australian detention centre about two weeks ago, Dr Lawrence released a statement alleging guards had beaten a 14-year-old boy and used a cattle prod on another.

Nauru staff 'fear children are next'?
The group representing the asylum seekers on Nauru has denied women and children have joined the strike and says they have not been asked to take part. [In other words "A" typical fear-mongering by Vanstone like kids overboard to gain some political leveraged!]

More asylum seekers join hunger strike
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Australian Govt human rights record 'worsening'
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Downer out of touch: Archbishop Carnley
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JUSTICE KIRBY: JUDICIAL ACTIVISM
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Howard Govt: Absolute vacuum on Compassion, Reality and Justice
The Northern Territory's Labor Senator, Trish Crossin, says the Federal Government showed no compassion for asylum seekers when it excised Melville Island from Australia's migration zone earlier this month.

Refugee policy, here is a new project: Burnside
The idea is to have thousands of Australian citizens writing to federal parliamentarians asking very simple, but hard, questions about the key aspects of refugee policy. I have devised a letter writing kit for this purpose. I attach a copy. It contains instructions which, are, I hope, fairly clear.

New A-G Ruddock has no regard for the independence of courts
As immigration Minister Ruddock's respect fell short of human rights when he tried to stop appeals introducing the Pacific Solution which means if an illegal immigrant is picked up in Australian waters by our navey they are sent elsewhere for processing. If their application for asylum is rejected they can be deported without legal appeal in Australia.

Judge renews child detainee release call
A Family Court judge, for a second time, has appealed to Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock to address the issue of children in detention.

Ruddock to challenge Family Court ruling
Ruddock said it is unfortunate the Full Court of the Family Court made the decision. He said a successful High Court challenge could see the children returned to detention.

Children in Baxter Detention Centre: Tell me a fable...
Opponents vow to fight yesterday's Family Court ruling against the release of five children from South Australia's Baxter detention centre has strengthened the resolve of groups fighting the Federal Government's policy of detaining child asylum seekers.

Where did you say you reside Mr Carr?
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr says a protest outside Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Sydney home should have been called off for moral reasons. Mr Carr says people who want to protest against the Federal Government's immigration policies should do it in Sydney's CBD, not outside Mr Ruddock's home.

Three protesters tricked outside Ruddock's house
Protest organisers have been critical of police actions at a pro-refugee rally near Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Sydney home.

Australia: Child detention, tell me a fable...
Democrat's leader Andrew Bartlett wants all children in immigration detention centres released, in the wake of the Family Court refusal to put a stay on one of its landmark rulings.

Amnesty calls for release of children from detention centres
Human rights group Amnesty International is pressuring the Federal Government to immediately release children from detention centres in the wake of the latest report on detainee children.

Child detainees 'living in a nightmare', report finds
A report being released today documents disturbing evidence about mental health for children in detention centres. The report is a joint work by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, NSW University and NSW psychiatrists.

Demonstrators prepared for Baxter protest
Thousands of demonstrators will converged at Port Augusta in preparation for this weekend's expected protest at the Baxter detention centre.