Quote of the Moment:

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."

Charles DeGaulle.

More quotes

 

An Iraqi woman says she was tortured, and her brother was sexually assaulted and died in American custody.

Huda Alazawi says that an informant working for the United States army demanded $10,000, or he would write a report saying that she and her family were working for the Iraqi rebels. When she refused to pay, she and her sister and brothers were arrested.

An American officer told her that she would be tortured unless she confessed.

"My hands were handcuffed. They took off my boots and stood me in the mud with my face against the wall. I could hear women and men shouting and weeping. I recognised one of the cries as my brother Mu'taz. I wanted to see what was going on so I tried to move the cloth from my eyes. When I did, I fainted." Her brother was sexually assaulted.

She was then returned to her cell. "The cell had no ceiling. It was raining. At midnight theythrew something at my sister's feet. It was my brother Ayad. He was bleeding from his legs, knees and forehead. I told my sister: 'Find out if he's still breathing.' She said: 'No. Nothing.' I started crying. The next day they took away his body."

The US military later issued a death certificate citing the cause of death as "cardiac arrest of unknown etiology". The doctor who signed the certificate did not print his name, and his signature is illegible.

After Ayad's body had been taken away, Alazawi says that she and 18 other Iraqi detainees were put in a minibus inside the military compound. "The Americans told us: 'Nobody is going to sleep tonight.' They played...music continuously with loud voices. As soon as someone fell asleep they started beating on the door. It was Christmas. They kept us there for three days. Many of the US soldiers were drunk."

Finally, after a US guard broke her shoulder as she left the toilet, Ms Alazawi and her surviving siblings were transferred - first to a police academy in Baghdad's interior ministry and then, on January 4 2004, to Abu Ghraib prison. She spent the next 156 days in solitary confinement.

"The guards used wild dogs. I saw one of the guards allow his dog tobite a 14-year-old boy on the leg. The boy's name was Adil. Other guards frequently beat the men. I could see the blood running from their noses.They would also take them for compulsory cold showers even though it was January and February.

She was held in a two-metre-square cell, initially with no bed and a bucket for a toilet. "Because I could speak a bit of English I was given the job of emptying the rubbish. There was never enough food and one day I came across an old woman who had collapsed from hunger. The Americans were always eating lots of hot food. I found some in a packet in a bin and gave it to her. They caught me and threw me in a one-metre-square punishment cell. They then poured cold water on me for four hours."

Ms Alazawi's surviving brothers are still in custody in Abu Gharib prison, held along with 2,400 other prisoners without charge or legal access.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

A Redfern police Aboriginal liasion officer says his house was burned down and the police made death threats, to try and stop him coming speaking at an enquiry into the death of local teenager TJ Hickey.

Paul Wilkinson, a civilian employed by the police to promote better relations with the Aboriginal community, also said that one constable said when he heard a scream: "I hope it was a coon underneath our tyres."

Another liasion officer, Derek Wilson, criticised the police's internal report, which found that police did not receive enough warning of the riot that followed TJ's death. Mr Wilson says he warned Inspector Bob Emery that trouble was brewing more than 24 hours before the riot.

(Source: Courier-Mail, ABC News website)

 

Private schools have not used government funding to reduce fees and so allow them to take students from less wealthy families, but to "position themselves in the market" for rich families, a new study has found.

The study by the Australian National University and the University of Canberra looked at how government policy has affected the growth of private schools.

The study said that the growth in the number of students attending 'independent' schools has far outstripped either public or Catholic schools, with such schools using their funding "to position themselves in the market for high-SES (socio-economic status) students".

The study warned that, unless the trend is reversed, the public school system may cease to be viable.

Australian Secondary Principals Association president Ted Brierley said that government schools were unable to meet national schooling goals because they received about $2000 less per student than non-government schools.

(Source: The Age)

 

A Filipino man has lost his job with a pharmaceutical multi-national, because he marred a woman who worked for a rival firm.

The man was transferred from his job with Glaxowellcome, after first being told his wife should quit her job. He has lost a court case challenging the policy.

(Source: The Age)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country....corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."

Abraham Lincoln.

from the new quotes page - www.apolitical.info/quotes

 

Openly gay Democrat MP Brian Grieg has swapped preferences with a morally conservative party that opposes gay marriage.

In Senator Grieg's maiden speech to federal parliament, he said he had known he was gay since the age of 12, and that "this has profoundly influenced my life and given me personal insight into intolerance, prejudice and the hatred that I might not otherwise have experienced."

Senator Grieg said he had no objection to a preference deal with the Family First Party, who believe that "families are the 'foundation stone of society'" and oppose gay marriage.

(Source: The Australian)

 

The fact that a nurse was removed from a senior role just days after an argument with NSW Health Minister Craig Knowles, and that this confrontation was mentioned during the meeting where she was told she was removed, was complete coincidence, the Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard.

The inquiry is examining whether Mr Knowles bullied and intimidated nurses who were trying to expose poor patient care.

Giselle Simmons was acting nursing unit manager at Fairfield Hospital intensive care unit when she attended a nursing workshop on February 14 last year.

After Mr Knowles had addressed the class, she challenged him over the lack of 24-hour critical care coverage at her hospital, telling him "people were not receiving good care and some people were dying".

Mr Knowles became aggressive and raised his voice, Ms Simmons said.

Soon after she spoke up at the workshop, Ms Simmons was removed from her senior position at Fairfield Hospital. She alleges that the then-director of nursing, Elizabeth Graham, told her: "You do not say what you said to the minister of health and get away with it."

Ms Graham denied telling Ms Simmons her career was over because of her confrontation with Mr Knowles.

Ms Graham told Ms Simmons that her secondment was ending early, that she was returning to Macarthur Health, and that there was concern about the way she had raised allegations of poor patient care with Mr Knowles.

However Ms Graham maintained that the confrontation with Mr Knowles had nothing to do with Ms Simmons being removed, and that the fact that this issue was raised during the meeting was "coincidental."

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

An American intelligence report says that the best prospect for Iraq is "tenuous stability" and the worst case civil war.

The National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July.

Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, said that "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He added "right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."

W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute, and its leading expert on Iraq, said "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". Terrill said that the anti-US insurgency, which already holds several towns and cities, is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.

Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all."

Since July 2003, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded according to official figures.

President Bush said in a recent speech to the National Guard convention that "our strategy is succeeding."

(Source: poe-news.com)

 

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.

The investigation, by journalist Seymour Hersh, quotes a former marine at the camp recalling sessions in which guards would "fuck with [detainees] as much as we could" by inflicting pain on them.

A CIA analyst visited Guantanamo in summer 2002 and returned "convinced that we were committing war crimes" and that "more than half the people there didn't belong there. He found people lying in their own faeces," a CIA source told Hersh.

The analyst submitted a report to General John Gordon, an aide to Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser.

General Gordon was troubled, and one former administration official told Hersh "that if the actions at Guantanamo ever became public, it'd be damaging to the president".

Ms Rice saw the document by autumn of the same year, and called a high-level meeting at which she asked Mr Rumsfeld, to deal with the problem. But after he vowed to act, "the Pentagon went into a full-court stall", a former White House official is quoted as saying. "Why didn't Condi do more? She made the same mistake I made. She got the secretary of defence to say he's going to take care of it."

A senior intelligence official told Hersh: "I was told [by FBI agents] that the military guards were slapping prisoners, stripping them, pouring cold water over them and making them stand until they got hypothermia."

The secret "special access programme" facilitating much of the mistreatmentof prisoners, widely held to have contravened the Geneva convention, was established following a direct order from the president. Hersh reports that a secret document signed by Mr Bush in February 2002 stated: "I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world."

Hersh reports that an army officer communicated concerns over abuses at Abu Ghraib both to General John Abizaid, the US central command (Centcom) chief at the time, and his deputy, General Lance Smith. The officer told Hersh: "I said there are systematic abuses going on in theprisons. Abizaid didn't say a thing. He looked at me - beyond me, as if to say, 'Move on. I don't want to touch this.'"

Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam war, makes his revelations in a new book, Chain of Command.

It emerged at a recent Congressional hearing that the administration is being accused of concealing up to 100 'ghost detainees' from the Red Cross, which must be granted access to prisoners of war and other detainees under the Geneva convention.

Mr Rumsfeld told reporters on Friday he had approved the use of 'harsh' interrogation measures, but that they had only been meant for Guantanamo. He also justified them on the grounds that terrorists' methods were worse. "Does it rank up there with chopping someone's head off on television?" he asked. "It doesn't."

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

Security experts and the general public agree that the invasion of Iraq has made the terrorism situation worse, according to a new report.

Aldo Borgu, a terrorism specialist with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says that if Iraq is in the frontline of the 'war on terror', that is a result rather than a cause of the invasion. He said the conflict in Iraq is much more an urban guerilla war than a campaign on terorrism.

Borgu says that even the phrase 'war on terror' is misleading, because it creates the impression that the problem should be fought only by military means.

He says the government's white paper on terrorism has excessively played down the root causes of terrorism, such as poverty and the conflict in Palestine.

Daniel Benjamin, director of counter-terrorism in the US National Security Council during the Clinton presidency and now a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says the invasion had the result of turning Iraq into a recruiting ground for terrorists.

Allan Behm, former head of the Defence Department's international policy and strategy division, says the situation in Iraq has made Australia a greater target, with "more people with more anger seeking to direct their anger at us."

Similarly, a new poll has found that 65 percent of voters believe that the threat of terrorism against Australia has increased as a consequence of the government's involvement in the Iraq war.

(Source: the Age)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"The really astonishing thing about the election is that the markets are quite unconcerned. There hasn't been very much movement at all in the dollar or interest rates that is related to the election. In my own discussions, it rarely comes up as an issue.The main reason is that there's not actually an economic debate, because the two major parties are virtually indistinguishable on the major elements of economic policy."

John Edwards, chief economist for HSBC in Australia and New Zealand.

 

A sociological study of environmental groups has found that lobbying politicians has had no effect in increasing environmental protection, whereas tactics of 'disruption' have.

The American study compares the number of bills passed by Congress with tactics employed by green groups in the same year. Jon Agnone, a sociologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, found that sit-ins, rallies and boycotts were highly effective at forcing new environmental laws.

Time spent lobbying politicians seemed to have no effect.

Agnone, who presented his results on 17 August at the American Sociological Association's meeting in San Francisco, says protest groups lose their effectiveness when they become 'part of the system'; their most effective weapon is disruption.

(Source: New Scientist)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"I'm not particularly proud of what I did...while I understand why parents wanted to shield their sons from danger, I abused my position of power by helping only those who knew me or had access to me."

Former lieutenant-governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, who claims that during the Vietnam War he intervened to allow George Bush Jr, as well as other young men from rich families, to join the National Guard and so avoid going to Vietnam.

 

Quote of the Moment:

"We cannot ignore that there are now dozens of well-documented allegations of torture, abuse, and otherwise questionable detention practices."

Statement by eight former American generals and admirals, speaking of US-government-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.

 

Children have been killed and injured in new fighting in Iraq, according to witnesses.

The US military launched what it called a "precision strike" in Fallujah. Doctors in Fallujah said at least eight people were killed and 16 wounded. Doctor Rafi Hayad said half of those killed and injured were children.

(Source: The Age)

 

The High Court has ruled that unions cannot take industrial action over political, social or environmental issues.

The court ruled six to one that were not allowed to take legally protected strike action over claims not directly related to pay issues or employment conditions.

The ruling was welcomed by Prime Minister John Howard.

Labor leader Mark Latham seemed to play down the possibility of the Labor Party changing the law to nullify the decision, saying that the court's judgment contained "interpretations of the Constitution no one can touch."

No similar restrictions apply to employer groups or businesses.

(Source: Straits Times [Singapore])

 

The architect of the Medicare system has said that the government's plan to increase the rebate will encourage doctors to lift fees, without passing the savings on to patients.

Professor John Deeble said that "the risk in the Government's plan is how much is going to drift off into higher incomes for doctors, and not lower charges to patients?".

Tim Woodruff of the Doctors' Reform Society said that many of his colleages "are simply going to say this is a well-deserved increase in our income and continue to charge the extra payment".

(Source: The Age)

 

Quote of the Moment:

"...neither the prosecution nor the defence are exactly clear on how the rules are going to be applied...we have some concerns as a result of the reports that the observers made that the terms that we negotiated with the Americans are not being fully implemented...when it comes to [Australian terror suspects] Hicks and Habib, whilst on the one hand people will no doubt take the view that the military commission process should be fair, on the other hand, you know, you have to ask yourself what these people were doing in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan at the time they were picked up."

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is in favour of the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial...more or less. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said that the rules governing procedures for the trial were inadequate - but that it would be 'inappropriate' to detail the concerns publicly.

 

The most senior Liberal on the Senate's children overboard inquiry had called John Howard a "lying rodent" on the issue, another prominent party figure has claimed.

Queensland Liberal official Russell Galt has signed a statutory declaration stating that Senator George Brandis complained of having to "cover" for the Prime Minister over the affair.
Senator Brandis has emphatically denied the claims.

Mr Galt's declaration said he attended a preselection meeting with Senator Brandis in May 2003. Mr Galt states that at the meeting, referring to Senate examination of the overboard incident, Senator Brandis said the Prime Minister was a "lying rodent" and "we've got to go off and cover his arse again on this".

Mr Galt resigned as a Liberal state councillor in Queensland last month "because of serious concerns I had about the lack of truthfulness in the approach being taken by the present Federal Government". He remains a Liberal Party branch chairman.

(Source: The Age)