from our ABC ….

AWB plan 'not a permanent solution'

The US wheat industry has rejected AWB's plan to split the company into two separate businesses.

US Wheat Associates claims the AWB split into a grower-owned operator controlling exports and a commercial agribusiness firm does not get rid of the single desk monopoly targeted by the US.

‘A 1999 study by the National Resources Defense Council of more than 1,000 bottles of water found that, while most bottled water was safe, some brands violated strict state standards on bacterial contamination, while others were found to contain harmful chemicals such as arsenic. The report concluded that bottled water was no safer than water taken from the tap.

‘There are over a half-million foreign students at American colleges and universities; the U.S. borders, for all practical purposes, remain wide open; only 6 percent of the shipping containers are checked; and there is still an overgenerous number of legal immigrants admitted.

I offer this as an antidote to the Bush administration's boogeyman stories about the threat of terrorism. There is a threat, of course, but it is far less than the administration would have you believe. Americans are much more likely to die in automobile crashes or from falls or at the hands of a 100 percent American criminal than they are from a terrorist attack.

‘As Malcolm Gladwell recounts in his book The Tipping Point, Kitty Genovese was viciously assaulted, stabbed three times, and finally killed, on the way to her Queens, New York, home one night in 1964. Thirty-eight neighbors heard or watched her ordeal, but no one called the police until the attack was essentially over. The murder was universally seen as a horrifying example of modern-day indifference to the plight of others. But, Gladwell explains, psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley conducted experiments that led to a far different explanation: "When people are in a group . . . responsibility for acting is diffused. They assume that someone else will make the call, or they assume that because no one else is acting, the apparent problem . . . is not really a problem." Ironically, then, it was not that no one called to help Kitty Genovese "despite the fact that thirty-eight people heard her scream; it's that no one called because thirty-eight people heard her scream."

‘This rampant, arrogant, and care-less US militarism has nowhere been more evident than here in South Korea, especially in the village of Daechuri, near Pyong-taek City. The loathing for George Bush, America, Americans, irresponsible capitalism, corporatism, imperialism and militarism is a planetary phenomenon, but apart from what the US is doing to the wretched countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have never been more ashamed of the US government than when I visited the village of Daechuri with 17 other American peace and social-justice activists and a campesino from Colombia.

It is now possible that the outcome of Scott Parkin's Federal Court case will become a Federal election issue. Spook-squad ASIO have been granted leave to appeal the verdict. Should their appeal fail the Howard Government's only option will be to censor the issue on grounds of national security. Given the timespans involved this decision may be taken just before the next Great Australian Opinion Poll.

It's an amazing amount of fuss over a few peanut butter sandwiches. We know ASIO were aware of a file about them, as its existence was reported in a world-renowned US magazine. We know that ASIO would have, given that Parkin's prior activities were in the US, made its security clearance based on US intelligence. We can make a fair guess from this (as I've said before) that ASIO was at least aware of the Pentagon's Parkin file.

from the Centre for American Progress …..

Stay the Course v.2.0.  

The blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group (ISG) headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton will meet today in Washington to discuss the first draft of its review of Iraq policy. According to the New York Times, the current draft does not include a proposal for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. It is the latest sign that U.S. policy in Iraq is unlikely to undergo a significant shift despite the midterm election results, which were viewed as a decisive national rebuke of the Iraq war. NBC News correspondent Norah O'Donnell noted yesterday that the Pentagon is "already developing an alternative" review of Iraq policy "to give the President an out if he doesn't like the recommendations" of the ISG. According to media reports, that review is likely to recommend a "stay-the-course-plus" strategy, combining a temporary increase of 20,000-30,000 troops with a long-term effort to train and advise Iraqi forces. Also, the White House this weekend repeated its "insistence that Iraq was not in a civil war," days after one of the worst spasms of sectarian violence since the war began, intensifying the bloodshed that scholars say "already puts Iraq in the top ranks of the civil wars of the last half-century." Just before the recent elections, Vice President Dick Cheney announced that the White House would go "full speed ahead" with its current Iraq policy regardless of the election results. "We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney said. He was not bluffing.

Treasurer Peter Costello confirmed in Parliament today that bribes paid by the Australian Wheat board to Saddam Hussein were not tax deductible.

Mr Costello said that such claims would be in breach of the Income Tax Assessment Act. His statement contradicts that of AW's Chief Finance officer Paul Ingleby, who said in May this year that "all our advice is that these payments are deductible." The Australian Tax Office declined to comment to The Age at that time.

from the Sydney morning herald …..

‘This is the cell where David Hicks lives - where the lights are never off and the window, a slit of frosted glass, never opens.

The other photo shows the barren, bookless room at Guantanamo Bay that the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, calls a library.

One of the most telling lines in the AWB story is quoted by The Age today. The unnamed wheat exec goes on to say that if he is charged he will call Minister Downer as a witness, at which point "My QC will rip him to shreds.

On the same day as Commissioner Cole handed down his findings, another muddy inquiry became clearer, as the Australian ran a leak that the verdict into the death of Private Jake Kovco would be that the soldier had killed himself with his own firearm... just like the minister and the MP's said.

Australian government officials have bribed and lied and found themselves to be as untainted as newborns.

Our Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Trade Minister are innocent. It wasn't their fault that a government agency was paying bloody money to a dictactor that Australia was about to go to war with. Anyway, if they didn't read all the cables from everybody trying to tell them what was going on, how could they possibly know.

The first Cole Inquiry stories are bouncing around the world pretty quickly... I picked up the AP version from the Houston Chronicle. You'll find that a lot of US Farmers are going to be interested in this result. The US Democrats certainly, are. They weren't running the inquiry when the Australian ambassador asked for it to be ignored in support of Howard's re-election. They are most certainly in charge now.

Government cleared in AWB probe

The Cole inquiry report has cleared the Federal Government but recommends a joint task force of legal authorities investigate whether charges should be laid against 11 people associated with wheat exporter AWB for breaching United Nations sanctions against Iraq.