The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald.                                                             August 23, 2006.

Perhaps the assertion by US President, George Bush, that there “must be consequences if people thumb their nose at the United Nations Security Council”, might be taken more seriously if it wasn’t so blatantly hypocritical (‘Nuclear inspectors barred from Iran plant’, Herald, August 23)?

I've just seen the main story in today's Advertiser, of the commercial spaceport trials to be conducted by NASA at Woomera/. 

[excerpt]

In a boost to South Australia's credentials as the defence state, U.S.-based Rocketplane Kistler secured a $272 million NASA contract to launch rockets from Woomera, carrying cargo to the station.

 [excerpt]

After a trial of five launches, NASA is expected to decide around 2009-10 which company is capable of better servicing the space station. It is possible both could be selected, Rocketplane Kistler said.

If successful, the Woomera site would be used to launch cargo such as fuel and food to the station as often as every two weeks.

As NASA requires the K-1 to have crew transportation capabilities, however, the Woomera site could see the first astronauts leave from Australia.

‘It should be small comfort that the security establishments of the UK and the USA - and the "terrorism experts" who inform them and wheedle billions of dollars out of them for bomb puffers and face recognition gizmos and remote gait analyzers and similar hi-tech phrenology gear - have bought the Hollywood binary liquid explosive myth, and have even acted upon it.

We've given extraordinary credit to a collection of jihadist wannabes with an exceptionally poor grasp of the mechanics of attacking a plane, whose only hope of success would have been a pure accident. They would have had to succeed in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence, and in spite of being under police surveillance for a year.

Abbott remains unconvinced of stem cell benefits ….

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott says there is no convincing evidence that therapeutic cloning will lead to a medical breakthrough in the treatment of diseases.

Liberal Senator Kay Patterson is developing a Bill to overturn a ban on therapeutic cloning, and the Prime Minister says he will allow a free vote on the issue.

Mr Abbott has told the ABC's Insiders program that despite the findings of the Lockhart review on stem cell research, [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1719247.htm|hedoes not think changes should be made].

‘Iraq has the third largest oil reserves in the world but yesterday drivers were forming mile-long queues outside petrol stations, knowing that they would spend the night in their cars before they could fill up.

Only six weeks ago, Baghdad's streets were jammed with traffic. Now they are nearly empty because pumps have all but run dry.

The official explanation is attacks on infrastructure. A pipeline from the northern oilfields around Kirkuk was targeted last month while the Beiji power station, one of the country's largest, was partially closed after workers fled following death threats.

From the ABC …..

Manufacturing tariffs to stay in China FTA

The Federal Industry Minister has ruled out abolishing import tariffs in the automotive and clothing industries as part of a free trade agreement with China.

It is expected Chinese negotiators will push for import tariffs to be cut to allow China to sell more products in the Australian market.

‘The term "Bush lawyer" is Australian slang for a hick counsellor, ignorant of the law. Thanks to recent decisions of the US Supreme Court and inquiries into torture at Abu Ghraib, it has been given a wider meaning, to denote the lawyers in US Government service who have misunderstood or misrepresented the fundamental rules of human rights in their advice to the President. Their mistakes have been so damaging that the British Attorney-General has taken to tendering his own advice to the White House about Guantanamo Bay - namely to close it. The case of David Hicks should provide his Australian counterpart with an opportunity to do likewise. 

‘It's not enough that the Transportation Security Administration wastes hours upon endless hours of time. It's not enough that they confiscate our Chapstick and toothpaste and claim that it is for our own protection. It's not enough that we must fork over our ID at five different checkpoints before boarding a plane, and have strangers paid with our tax dollars rifle and snoop through our bags again and again.

No, that's not enough to keep us secure on our airline flights. Now we must be careful not to wrinkle our noses, press our lips together, raise our upper eyelids, or – Heaven forbid – thrust forward our jaws.’

If this account is true then the manner in which Halliburton's action might be perceived diplomatically by the Iranian government is of concern for us all.  If the dismissal of Iranian nationals is interpreted as possible "damage control" in the face of activities that might prove to be bad publicity for the company, then the Iranians might assume an angry bell is tolling. 

On the other hand, if the Iranians suspect that the action is an attempted act of reverse psychology then they might be unhappy at the attempted provocation and respond angrily.

Then again, if it's perceived as double-reverse psychology they might just lie low for a while.

‘And there, of course, was the same old problem. To protect the British people - and the American people - from "Islamic terror", we must have lots and lots of heavily armed policemen and soldiers and plainclothes police and endless departments of anti-terrorism, homeland security and other more sordid folk like the American torturers - some of them sadistic women - at Abu Ghraib and Baghram and Guantanamo.

Yet the only way to protect ourselves from the real violence that may - and probably will - be visited upon us, is to deal, morally, with courage and with justice, with the tragedy of Lebanon and "Palestine" and Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Why Aug. 22 as a date for its announcement regarding its [Iran's] nuclear program? That is when it's said the Prophet Muhammad made his ascension into heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem."

 

 Conflict In The Middle East:( From Investors' Business Daily) As a top cleric warns of a strike on Tel Aviv if the West takes action against Iran's nuclear program, it's clear the real winner was not Israel or Hezbollah. It's Tehran.

Club Troppo's Nicholas Gruen posted this bell-ringing article by a former UK ambassador, and it's ringing out danger.  Have a look at this extract  for a different point of view to that of the mainstream media:

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.

The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening us and complaining that "Some people don't get" the need to abandon all our traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.

15 August 2006

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LAWS

RADIO 2UE, SYDNEY

PRIME MINISTER:

Well there's no easy solution to this problem and I don't hold out the LPG subsidy as being a silver bullet, as being the answer to high petrol prices. It's doing something at the margins to help, I suspect, a reasonably large number of people. I guess the best way of helping people in relation to high petrol prices generally is to put more money in their pockets through things like tax cuts. I remember at the time of the Budget, there was a debate about whether there should be a cut in the petrol excise. I don't mean a debate within the Government; I mean a debate in the community. And I said at the time, as did Peter Costello, that we both thought the best way of helping people a little with high petrol prices was to make sure everybody got some tax relief, because that's putting money in the pocket, and people can then use that money in whatever way they think fit. Now I'm not representing to the community that what I announced yesterday is an answer to high petrol prices. What I announced yesterday will help at the margins. There is no cure-all answer to high petrol prices, absent a fall in the price of crude oil, which of course is influenced by forces beyond our control.