More than 70 percent of Australian Year 11 students believe bullying is a serious problem in their school, according to a new survey.

More than half the students said they had never been given any guidance on how to deal with bullying.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

The United States government is pressing the Australian government to restrict cheap alternatives to brand-name medicines.

United States law allows drug companies to engage in lengthy lawsuits with rival companies once the patent on a drug expires, effectively stopping them from developing cheaper 'generic' alternatives. US trade negotiators are seeking similar laws for Australia.

Generic medicines have saved Australians about $2 billion since 1994.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

The Federal Government admitted it bowed to pressure from the Chinese government, to stop a Greens protest against Chinese President Hu Jintau.

Two Greens Senators were barred from entering Parliament during the speech.

Three guests of the Greens were also barred from the 'public gallery'. The gallery was actually closed to the public during the speech, and supposedly reserved for guests chosen by politicians.

(Source: Herald Sun, Taiwan News)

 

Pre-war claims that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program were completely wrong, according to Australia's leading expert on Iraq's weapons.

Brigadier-General Stephen Meekin, who commands a 500-strong unit with primary responsibility for collecting Iraq's illicit military technology, made the claims in an interview with the Washington Post. Brigadier Meekin is also director-general of scientific and technical assessment for Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation

The Post's investigation found that the central points of the Bush Administration's case were insubstantial or untrue.

Among the closely restricted internal judgements of the Iraq Survey Group are: that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991; that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign; and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.

The Bush Administration built its case for war against Iraq on the claim that Iraq aimed to use aluminium tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear warhead. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, among many others, rejected the Iraqi government's explanation that it sought the tubes as artillery rocket casings.

Brigadier Meekin said simply that "the tubes were used for rockets". His remarks were supported by other investigators, who said they feared to be named.

Participants in the Pentagon-directed special weapons teams noted that the Iraq Survey Group had taken no steps to collect the estimated 20,000 tubes in Iraq's inventory. Brigadier Meekin said he no longer knew where the tubes were. "They weren't our highest priority," he said. "The thing's innocuous." He said that people had probably taken them and "sold them as drain pipe".

(Source: The Age)

 

British police have admitted to beating a handcuffed prisoner with a truncheon.

An officer admitted in Cardiff magistrates court that he had beaten Val Swain around the legs with a truncheon in order "to change her thought processes", after handcuffing and arresting her.

Ms Swain, who has no previous convictions, has been denied bail on charges relating to protests against McDonalds. Earlier in the day the same judge granted bail to a man who had threatened to kill his neighbour.

(Source: Indymedia UK)

 

A prison guard at a women's jail has been charged with raping a mentally ill inmate.

Kelvin McCann has been accused of raping a woman, who was being held at a Melbourne prison's management unit because of her mental state and risk of self-harm. She became pregnant, and DNA tests confirmed that McCann was the father.

(Source: The Age)

 

A black American soldier who served in the same unit as Jessica Lynch, was shot in both legs and held prisoner for 22 days in Iraq, was nonetheless given a disability benefit worth about $930 Australian a month less than Ms Lynch.

Shoshana Johnson's parents said she is unable to stand for long periods of time and sometimes unable to sleep as she continues rehabilitation for her injuries.

Ms Lynch was given an 80 percent disability benefit, whereas Ms Johnson was given a 30 percent benefit.

(Source: The Age)

 

The official inflation rate is considerably understating the actual increase in average prices, according to research by the Australian Tax Association.

The research found that the average Australian's grocery bill rose by 14.8 percent during the last three years.

However the official inflation rate was only 11.5 percent for the same period.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

Quote of the moment:

"Iraq was an appropriate target because it was completely defenseless, having been reduced to the edge of survival by a decade of murderous sanctions, primarily targeting the civilian population, with a toll of hundreds of thousands dead by conservative estimate, and leaving most of the country in ruins. This followed brutal and destructive wars and horrendous internal terror, most of it with the backing of the US and Britain, including those now running Washington, facts regularly suppressed. Iraq had also been virtually disarmed by rigorous inspections, and such limited defenses as it had were destroyed by regular US-UK bombing attacks. By the time of the invasion, Iraq was one of the weakest states of the region, with military expenditures about a third those of tiny Kuwait and far below the US allies in the region, let alone the US and its British client. It is astonishing that there has been any resistance at all".

(Noam Chomsky)

 

Nearly one in five of the Aboriginal men in New South Wales appeared before a court charged with a criminal offence in a single year.

The figure for indigenous men aged 20-24 was over 40 percent.

The Research by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics covered court appearances for 2001.

A paper produced by the Bureau argued that the root cause for these figures was not police bias but simply "high rates of involvement in serious crime" by Aboriginals.

However, the director of Sydney University's Institute of Criminology, Chris Cuneen, disagreed, saying that most criminologists believed systemic bias against Aboriginal people still existed.

Brendan Thomas, executive officer of the NSW Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council, said that big concentrations of police near some indigenous communities showed there was still a bias.

Aborigines were heavily policed in public spaces for minor offences such as using offensive language, which enmeshed them young in the criminal justice system.

"In one local government area Aboriginal people were arrested at 80 per cent higher than the state average for offensive language", Mr Thomas said. "Are the people likely to be 80 times more offensive than any other area?".

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

Nurses, teachers and academics would be banned from striking under new legislation introduced by the Federal government.

The legislation comes as university staff strike for the first time in five years. The strike is in response to government plans to remove entitlements such as maternity leave, and to force universities to promote non-union agreements or have funding withheld.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

The logging industry is effectively left to regulate itself, routinely breaks the law, and has a culture of "cronyism, intimidation and deception", according to a former regulator.

Bill Manning is a former worker with the Tasmanian Forest Practices Board. His job was supposedly to check that the logging industry complied with the law, and to issue tickets if it did not.

Mr Manning told a Senate enquiry that, while there were 150 officers whose job was to uphold the state forest practices code, virtually all of them were employed by the logging industry.

He said that in his time as auditor, he found nearly 100 breaches of the Forest Practices Act, none of which led to any prosecution. Eventually he did issue a ticket over a new plantation site. He was told he was heavy-handed and the notice was over-ridden.

Mr Manning said that the Forest Practices Board received only the cover sheets of 20-page forest practice plans, and the documents were changed retrospectively.

"If the intent of the RFA and the 2020 Vision was to oversee the widespread destruction of native forests, and the attendant unique flora and fauna by an unsupervised and negligent industry, then it has succeeded" he said.

3.4 million tonnes of timber were taken from public land last year, mostly as woodchips.

(Source: The Age)

 

A senior United States military official has implied that he believes Moslems worship Satan.

Earlier this year, Lieutenant-General William Boykin told a religious group that Islamic fundamentalists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation...and the enemy is a guy named Satan".

In another speech, General Boykin said that a Moslem warlord in Somalia was captured because "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol". Ironically, General Boykin is in charge of efforts to capture Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

General Richard Myers, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that "at first blush, it doesn't look like any rules were broken". Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to condemn General Boykin, and would not say whether he would take any action or review his comments.

(Source: The Age)

 

The United States government has been accused of murdering independent journalists during the war in Iraq.

On April 8 the United States military launched two seperate attacks on the Arabic media networks al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV. Both networks had notified the US military of their exact location so as to avoid the risk of 'collateral damage'. US sources claimed that their forces had fired in self defence after being attacked, a claim contradicted by eyewitnesses.

On the same day, the US bombed the Palestine Hotel, which had become a base for journalists. The Pentagon again claimed that their forces had been fired on first. David Chater, a British journalist who survived the bombing, said that there was no gunfire from the hotel. Other journalists reported seeing the tank carefully select its target and take some minutes to aim before firing.

Of 17 journalists killed in the brief war, only 2 were 'embedded' - a phrase referring to journalists who were allowed to follow the United States military closely and who generally gave an uncritically pro-US view on the war.

Aidan White from the International Federation of Journalists said "it is impossible not to detect a sinister pattern of targeting".

When these claims were aired by ABC reporter Linda Mottram on the AM program, they attracted one of many complaints of bias against the ABC by Liberal Senator Richard Alston. The resulting enquiry described Ms Mottram's comments as showing serious bias.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

Melbourne's local council funds are being spent on personalised number plates, limousine hire, gifts, valet parking, Grand Final tickets, alcohol and clothing among other 'expenses'.

Mayors, councillors, and chief executives and directors of local councils are commonly given credit cards which are paid for out of council funds.

The Greater Dandenong Council set the Melbourne record for credit card expenses, charging $160,000 on 11 cards over the past two years. Four senior members of Casey Council spent a total of $157,000.

Expenses charged on credit cards are in addition to other reimbursements, which can be up to $110,000 per year for City of Melbourne councillors and up to $57,000 per year for councillors in other areas.

Banyule City Council spent $550 on costume hire for a staff revue and $795 on boarding kennel fees.

The people given the cards are far from underpaid. Council executives are given packages of up to $250,000 per year, plus bonuses. This did not stop the former mayor of Greater Dandenong using council funds to pay for a $7.05 McDonalds meal.

Councils spent $150,000 on meals and $6910 on alcohol. Maribyrnong Council includes Footscray, known for its many cheap restaurants. However of the 71 meals that the council's chief executive and mayors charged to the council credit card, only 27 were in the council's boundaries. Maribyrnong ratepayers paid for meals in more up-market areas such as Port Melbourne and the city.

The total amount charged in 20 councils in Melbourne over 2 years was $1,038,067. This does not include any money from Maroondah Council, which refuse to issue any figures.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

A police officer who assaulted a prisoner in a police van has been found guilty, but has had no conviction recorded against him.

A magistrate found that the injury to the prisoner was caused by 'a deliberate application of force' by police officer Scott Russell.

However magistrate Ward said that working in Tennant Creek could be stressful and frustrating for police, and that Russell had a strong commitment to the community. He paid a fine of $1000 and had no conviction recorded.

(Source: ABC News)

 

Ordinary members of the public will be barred from the 'public gallery' when US President George Bush gives a speech to Parliament.

All seats have been assigned to politicians' invited guests.

In other news related to Mr Bush's visit, the leaders of the Labor Party have made efforts to ensure that there is not even a token protest by Labor MPs against Mr Bush.

Opposition Leader Simon Crean's office said that he believed Mr Bush should be applauded after his speech, and that MPs should stand as he leaves the chamber. Opposition frontbencher Lindsay Tanner said that "as far as I'm concerned, if it is appropriate for the entry and exit of the President to be acknowledged by members standing I don't have problem with doing that".

(Source: Indymedia)

 

An American cocaine user has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 12 years jail, because her baby was stillborn.

The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by 22 year old Regina McKnight.

It is not certain that the stillbirth was caused by Ms McKnight's cocaine use.

(Source: The Age)

 

A 45-year-old detainee has been badly beaten at Maribyrnong Detention Centre by Australasian Correctional Management guards.

Rachel Judd, a close friend of the detainee, spoke to him on Saturday morning.

"He told me that he had been taken into isolation and then beaten by ACM guards. They stripped him, and threw him onto the bed a number of times. He said he felt as if his arm and wrist had been broken. He¹s already vulnerable because he has a back injury and relies on crutches to walk".

Refugee advocates say that after he was taken into isolation he was denied any telephone contact with his lawyers. Repeated attempts to contact him failed.

"I was continually reassured by ACM management that he was all right, and it was only this morning that I found out what had happened" Ms Judd said.

Fleur Taylor from the Refugee Action Collective said that "this man has a history of being targeted by ACM and DIMIA [the Department of Immigration, and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs] and these tactics are an attempt to intimidate him and his supporters".

(Source: Indymedia)

 

Quote of the moment:

"rotting, but still alive".

(Source: Lab report on animals used in experiments by the Huntingdon Life Sciences company)

 

Quote of the moment:

"Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption a way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions in consumption...we need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-growing rate".

(Source: marketing consultant Victor Leblow, 1955. Quoted in 'Pip Pip' by Jay Griffiths)

 

Quote of the moment:

"In November 1994 , Christopher Bryant, a Birmingham solicitor suffering from overwork, took a rope and hanged himself...after his death, the firm of solicitors [that he had worked for] sent a bill to his mother, charging her for their time in going to tell her that Christopher was dead".

(Source: 'Pip Pip', by Jay Griffiths)

 

Quote of the moment:

"According to the official view of history, CIA aid to the mujaheddin began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan... But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise".

Zbigniew Brzezinski, US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.

At Brzezinski's urging, in July 1979, President Carter authorised $500 million to help set up a fundamentalist terrorist organisation based in Afghanistan. The goal was to lure the government of the USSR into a war with its neighbour, which they succeeded in doing.

The United States government gave a total of $4 billion to Islamic militants, and trained more than 100,000 people in camps in Pakistan and the United States. 'Operation Cyclone' continued after the Soviet military withdrew in 1989. Many future Taliban and Al-Qaeda members were trained in these camps.

(Source: Green Left Weekly)

 

Quotes of the moment:

"The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. Today, women are free, and are part of Afghanistan's new government. And we welcome the new minister of women's affairs, Dr Sima Samar".

George Bush in his State of the Union address, in 2002.


"For the past 23 years, I was not safe, but I was never in hiding or travelling with gunmen, which I must do now... There is no more official law to stop women from going to school and work; there is no law about dress code. But the reality is that even under the Taliban there was not the pressure on women in the rural areas there is now [under the US-government-sponsored Northern Alliance]".

Dr Sima Samar, 2003.


Dr Samar, who refused to deny treatment to women under the Taliban, was forced out of the government soon after being installed. She now travels only in a van with blacked-out windows, and with two armed bodyguards.

(Source: Green Left Weekly)

 

The Catholic Church's views on condoms are helping AIDS spread in the Third World, according to Australian health organisations.

In Kenya an estimated 20 per cent of the population is HIV positive. Workers at health centres say they are being prevented from distributing condoms because of church opposition.

Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki said that "the Catholic Church does not advocate use of condoms under any circumstances". The Chair of the Vatican's Council of Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo said that health authorities should be warning people about the dangers of condoms. Cardinal Trujillo said that scientists and doctors accepted the church's belief that "you cannot talk about safe sex".

Don Baxter from the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations said that he believed that "ultimately the Catholic Church someday will be held accountable and culpable for actually increasing the spread of HIV infections. So ultimately, the Catholic Church is actually doing much more damage and putting more people at risk by continuing to push this line vigorously in populations which don't have other HIV education".

(Source: ABC News)

 

Governor-General Michael Jeffery has given a speech strongly endorsing the Bush and Howard governments' foreign policies.

Major-General Jeffery said that the United Nations should be reformed to allow pre-emptive strikes, in trouble spots or in 'potential' trouble spots. He gave as examples "parts of Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and indeed our own region".

Major-General Jeffery also said that any pre-emptive strike sholud be based on the idea that "violence in pursuit of political, religious or cultural aims is wrong and simply never works".

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer defended the Governor-General's right to give political speeches - but said the Governor-General could only speak out if they agreed with government policy.

The Governor-General is effectively appointed by the government, but is generally supposed to be politically non-partisan.

(Source: ABC News, The Age)

 

Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon has admitted 'misleading' the public.

Former independent candidate Kay Nesbit's police records were read by police officers five times, mostly in the leadup to the Victorian state election.

An earlier police internal audit found that the officers had acted correctly. Ms Nixon said at the time that the reasons for accessing Ms Nesbit's file could not be made public, and that Victorians would have to trust her that the officers had acted appropriately.

Soon after a new investigation, Ms Nixon has announced that this was not true.

Ms Nesbit stood as a candidate in the Bass electorate, and her preferences helped the Liberal Party win the seat from Labor.

Ms Nixon claims however that there was no political motivation in accessing Ms Nesbit's files, and that the officers had acted out of curiosity.

In a similar case last year, Victorian Police Minister Mr Haermeyer revealed a knowledge of Liberal candidate Matthew Guy's file when he criticised him in Parliament. The husband of a staffer in Attorney-General Rob Hulls's office was found by the Ombudsman to have accessed Mr Guy's file inappropriately.

(Source: The Age)

 

A report by the Northern Territory's Auditor-General has found that some public sector employees are working so much overtime that their health and safety could be put at risk.

The Auditor-General's report had found that during the past three and a half years the departments of Health and Community Services, Justice and Police, and Fire and Emergency Services are paying large amounts of money to employees for other personnel costs, mainly overtime.

Two employees were found to have worked 68 and 79 hours overtime in a fortnight.

(Source: ABC News)

 

Labor Party leader Simon Crean has intervened to make sure that ALP backbenchers don't make any protest against US President George Bush when he addresses Parliament next month.

Mr Crean said that Labor backbencher Harry Quick's plan to turn his back on Mr Bush during his speech would be "highly discourteous and inappropriate".

Mr Quick announced that he would not turn his back, but would instead wear a white armband. He said that a number of other backbenchers would join him.

Mr Crean did not approve of any form of protest against Mr Bush.

(Source: The Age, ABC News)

 

While the child-care industry claims it can't afford to give its workers a pay rise, two owners of child-care chains have made the Business Review Weekly's Young Rich List.

Eddy Groves, founder of ABC Learning Centres, was number four on the list. Mr Groves has $146 million. Michael Gordon, head of the Peppercorn child-care management agency, was number fourteen on the list, with $57 million.

Child-care workers in Mr Groves' and Mr Gordon's centres can earn as little as $12 an hour. The union representing child care workers has put in a pay claim which would lead to a payrise of between $32 and $200 a week. Private child-care centres say the pay claim is "irresponsible and counterproductive", and will cause the closure of centres and mass unemployment.

(Source: Melbourne Times newspaper)

 

The United States government is torturing Al-Qaeda suspects held without trial at Camp X-Ray, possibly including Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, according to lawyer Richard Bourke.

Mr Bourke, who has been working with detainees at Camp X-Ray for almost two years, said the United States government was using torture to force confessions out of suspects.

Mr Bourke said one detainee had described how he was tied to a post and shot with rubber bullets. Others "were being made to kneel cruciform in the sun until they collapsed".

(Source: MX newspaper)

 

Large portions of Baghdad were in turmoil after attackers fired an explosive charge into the Foreign Ministry compound.

Elsewhere former intelligence officers demanding back pay or jobs hurled paving stones at American forces and US solders confronted a big demonstration of Shi'ite Muslims after closing a mosque and allegedly arresting the imam.

There were no known injuries in any of the incidents, but traffic in the centre of the capital was at a near standstill with streets around the Foreign Ministry and Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace - headquarters of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority - blocked by US soldiers in armoured vehicles and Iraqi police. The compounds are about a kilometre apart.

Witness Hussein Amin said the mortar shell or rocket-propelled grenade at the ministry compound landed near the office of Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and broke windows. Zebari was not there. Workers in the compound came streaming out. Iraqi guards fired rifles in the air shortly after the mid-morning blast.

The US military press office said it was aware of "a situation" at the Foreign Ministry but had no details. Two US armoured personnel carriers and five Humvees had sped to the scene.

The ministry is also close to the Al-Rasheed Hotel, where many US officials live. The hotel was attacked by small rockets or rocket-propelled grenades on September 27, causing no casualties and minimal damage.

Security was already tight in the palace area because of the demonstration by about 2,000 former employees of the Iraqi intelligence service who are demanding they get their old jobs back.

The intelligence officers have been protesting weekly to demand pay or jobs. After the protest, paving stones littered the street near the palace and the strands of concertina wire which provide security in the area had been flattened by the protesters.

In south-west Baghdad, US soldiers in about 20 Humvees with two helicopters overhead confronted some 600 demonstrators at a Shi'ite Muslim mosque, with protesters claiming the Americans had illegally detained their imam.

Sheikh Mohammed al-Sudani said mosque preacher Moayed al-Karzraji was arrested as he led a 12-man delegation to negotiate with the Americans in the municipal council building.

The group was briefly detained and handcuffed by soldiers, al-Sudani said. Everyone in the group was released, he said, but the imam who was taken to an unknown location.

It was not immediately clear what negotiations were planned.

The military said it was checking on the arrest allegations.

Al-Sudani accused the Americans of putting hand grenades in the mosque as a pretext for arresting the imam and sealing the building.

Protesters shouted "America equals Saddam" and "Today we are raising banners tomorrow we will raise weapons."

(Source: The Age)

 

Australian workers largely dislike their bosses and are unhappy in their jobs, a survey of the nation's workforce has found.

The 2003 SEEK Survey of Employee Satisfaction and Motivation in Australia surveyed over 6,500 workers.

49 per cent of employees said they were unhappy or very unhappy with their jobs, compared to just 25 per cent who were happy or very happy and 26 per cent who were neutral.

The greatest single source of unhappiness was bosses. Six out of 10 employees cited quality of management when asked if they hated anything about their current job.

When asked if they loved anything about their jobs, 54 per cent of respondents said: "the people I work with". Fewer than 20 per cent said they disliked their co-workers.

(Source: The Age)

 

An Australian unionist has been arrested by United Nations police in East Timor.

Mick Killick was arrested after taking part in a protest at Dili Airport. He had arrived in East Timor to try and set up a Maritime and Transport Union.

"It was a sit-in protest at the airport to protest against the loss of jobs from an Australian-based company, Timor Aviation Services, and on the second day the United Nations police came through and only arrested Mick Killick," International Transport Federation Australian coordinator Dean Summers said.

"It would seem they targeted him".

"They took him to the Dili lock up where he has been ever since."

"It was a legal dispute, the relevant Timor government department knew about it, they [the protesters] had fulfilled all their obligations under East Timorese law."

(Source: The Age)

 

An American teacher has been reprimanded because her students were reading in class, instead of watching TV.

3rd grade teacher Jane Ehrenfeld received a letter of reprimand which began "to Ms. Ehrenfeld: This morning I observed that during the morning news program, you and your students were engaged in activities other than watching television".

The students were supposed to be watching the school's morning news show, where other students would read the day's lunch menu among other items.

The class was in an inner-city area, with most students reading at less than the standard level.

(Source: Teacher magazine)

 

Nearly six months after the fall of Baghdad, U.S. troops are suffering an average of three to six deaths and 40 wounded every week, according to the commander of American forces in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said that American forces are being attacked 15-20 times a day, counting roadside bombs.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

Quote of the Moment

"This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination but a crusade to control another nation's natural resource. At least for us here, oil seems to be the reason for our presence".

Letter from a US soldier in Iraq, printed in the September 17 Los Angeles Times.

 

A new report has accused authorities of covering up a rising death toll among mentally ill people, caused by a policy of closing mental hospitals and discharging mentally ill people as soon as possible.

During the 1980s governments halved the numbers of beds in mental hospitals.

A study by the University of Western Australia found that suicides of mentally ill people doubled during the period from 1980 to 1998. The climb was sharpest in the early 1980s at the beginning of the bed closures and accelerated again in the late 1990s when there was another round of bed reductions.

The New South Wales and Victorian governments have not published any statistics, although they both collect them. However figures from 1989 show 2 or 3 suicides of mentally ill people per month in New South Wales. A research paper covering 1993-1995 gave an average five or six deaths a month. Five years later, the toll for 1999 and 2000 was 14 to 15 a month, according to a leaked draft confidential memo from NSW Health.

Murders by mentally ill people are also increasing, seemingly for the same reason. There are an average of three such murders a month in Australia, having increased from 20 victims in 2000-'01 to 36 in 2001-'02.

One public servant, whose job is to add up the death figures, said that "if it had been SARS, there would have been an outcry."

(Source: The Bulletin)

 

A trainee soldier was pushed into suicide by a culture of abuse and harassment, according to an Army report.

However the Army knew of these problems years before and failed to act.

Private Jeremy Williams hanged himself at the School of Infantry in Singleton in February this year. He had injured himself while training.

An 800 page report admitted that humiliation of injured trainees was ingrained at the base. Platoons of soldiers would march past the barracks where injured soldiers were housed, chanting abuse.

However the report claims that senior officers were unaware of any problems. The report does not recommend that any officer be disciplined, and does not name anyone as having acted inappropriately or failed to act.

A report in 2000 into the bullying of another soldier at the same base came to almost identical conclusions. A young soldier, already the subject of abuse, was arrested, thrown in jail on the base and ultimately held in confinement for several weeks. He was released only after the intervention of his parents. This treatment was completely illegal. Again, no officer was named or disciplined. This report was not made public.

A soldier who was injured at Singleton at around the same time told the ABC that "there was constant verbal abuse -- that was constant. There would be things like they would come through our lines where we slept, pouring out garbage bins into our sleeping areas so we'd have to clean up rotting food and garbage and mess out of where we slept". He added that "those who were intent on abusing us, I often found that they were administrators who were often high ranking and in a position of power on the base and they were stopping those who wanted to help us from doing that".

(Source: ABC News, 7.30 Report)

 

The current system of business visas allows employers to exploit foreign workers and have them sent home if they complain, according to refugee advocates.

Artist Rados Stevanovich says he was paid as little as $50 a week and had to sleep in a shed, while working on a mural for a church.

The system of 457 business visas states sets minimum wages and conditions for foreign workers. However Judy Burgess from the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre said that "if a sponsor is underpaying an employee and the employee makes a complaint, the sponsorship agreement is terminated".

"Without a sponsor, the employee is no longer legally employed, and has to go home".

CFMEU State Secretary Martin Ferguson said that "since 1914, I am not aware of a prosecution against an employer".

(Source: Green Left Weekly)

 

Only 19 per cent of people forced into Centrelink's 'intensive assistance' program find full-time work.

More than one in six intensive assistance participants became so disillusioned with their experiences they gave up looking for a job and left the labour market - thus lowering the official unemployment rate as if they had found a job.

(Source: Socialist Worker newspaper)

 

Northern Territory police instructors have been accused of verbally and physically abusing recruits and passing on confidential information.

Police recruits said that instructors constantly made homophobic slurs against both male and female recruits - in one case mocking a man for being gay on the grounds that he drank coffee rather than beer.

Recruits also said that "it's been brought to the attention of the bosses but they haven't done anything about it". They added that "it's not just a bit of blokey stuff - it's really personal. None of the students are laughing about it".

Recruits have also complained of having their personal problems told to other recruits after they have gone to instructors in confidence, as well as having their legs pulled out from under them during physical training exercises.

(Source: Northern Territory News)

 

A new poll shows that 53 percent of Americans now believe that the war in Iraq 'wasn't worth it'.

An interim report by US-government-led weapons inspectors says that they have found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, although they still claim that the Iraqi regime was planning to develop such weapons, and are "not prepared to close the file".

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

Democrats superannuation spokesman John Cherry said his party would abandon its long-held commitment to achieve recognition of same sex couples in superannuation law. Senator Cherry said the Democrats would pass the government's superannuation package without an amendment giving gay couples equal rights.

Gay Democrats Senator Brian Greig said he would cross the floor if the Democrats supported the government. Senator Greig said a back down would be "profoundly disappointing", especially given that, after a decade of trying, the Democrats now 'have the numbers' in the Senate on this issue, with the ALP and Greens prepared to vote against the government.

Australian politicians have a history of supporting equal rights for gay people from opposition, but abandoning their support when they have the power to put it into practice.

In 1995, in Opposition, Tasmanian Liberal Senator John Watson led the Coalition's push to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. In the late 1990s. with the Liberals back in power, Senator Watson wrote a government report rejecting a bill which would have done the same thing. Senator Watson wrote that the bill should be rejected because it would put "same-sex relationships on the same basis as heterosexual relationships" and lead to the "gradual devaluation of the traditional family structure in the eyes of the law and society in general".

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald )

 

A man who beat his wife has escaped charges, as the government deported her as an illegal immigrant rather than keep her in Australia until the case went to court.

The woman had been married for about 18 months when she reported the assault to police.

Soon after her husband was charged by police, Immigration authorities received an anonymous tipoff that she was in the country illegally. She had not applied for a spouse visa.

The man had earlier told police that he would send his wife back to her home country if charges against him were not dropped.

Victoria Police say they decided not to keep the woman in the country, on the grounds of time and cost. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said that the department was fulfilling its requirement to deport non-citizens as soon as possible.

The women was deported on February 26th this year. The man's first court appearance was set for March 7.

(Source: Herald Sun)

 

A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President George Bush, his family, and the US government, have set up a consulting firm to advise companies who want to do business in Iraq, including seeking US government contracts.

The firm is headed by Mr Bush's 2000 campaign manager, and also includes two former assistants to George Bush senior.

The firm's website draws attention to their connections to the administration, and says that "the opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington, DC, and on the ground in Iraq".

Company president John Howland said that there was "a lot of cross-pollination" between the political arena and "the [situation] that exists in Iraq today".

The United States government has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to US businesses. The government more than $US500 million to a subsidiary of Halliburton, which was headed by Dick Cheney from 1995 until 2000, when he left to seek the vice-presidency.

Mr Bush is seeking Congressional approval for an $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

Refugees are being placed in danger by the Australian government's eagerness to send them back to their home countries.

One man died within two months of being sent back to Pakistan, where he and his family had opposed drug traders. The official cause of his death was a heart attack. He was found in a locked room tied to a chair. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock told a delegation that he accepted the official explanation.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)