The cost of cancelling Iraq's debts to Australia has been paid from Australia's foreign aid budget, a new report has claimed.

The report also claims that $1 billion of Australia's aid budget is not used to alleviate poverty. It also states that funding of Federal Police salaries in the Solomons and construction of Pacific detention centres was included in our aid budget.

The Aid Watch document claims that 95% of the $A661 million debt was for wheat purchases from Australia. Aid Watch writes that "Australia decision to cancel this debt was part of an agreement made in 2004 by the international group of rich nations called the Paris Club and was based on the premise that it would increase Iraq's economic prospects."

The "new" Australia/Japan/US Missile Shield pact came out of Tokyo just in time for Downer and Rice's tete a tete. Downer followed up by saying that Australia was going to help but wouldn't be directly involved. Aha, that must be why we need the three ships.

 

‘The former head of the Star Wars missile defense program under Presidents Ford and Carter has gone public to say that the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory and his main suspect for the architect of the attack is Vice President Dick Cheney.’

Former Head Of Star Wars Program Says Cheney Main 9/11 Suspect

meanwhile …..

1996 Tour de France Winner Admits to Doping …..

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/sports/othersports/26cycling.html?hp

By IAN AUSTEN

Published: May 26, 2007

 

According to Amnesty International's 2007 Report the world is being polarised by the "politics of fear" & this has resulted in a serious erosion of human rights.

Unsurprisingly, the report delivers a stinging rebuke to the human rights policies & abuses meted-out by the empire of evil on the people of this planet, without sparing its own.

‘A recent trip to Australia to cover a conference on agrichar allowed me to see the Australian drought crisis on the ground and talk to a few Australians about their thoughts on climate change. Agrichar is an agricultural technique that sequesters carbon, see Birth of a New Wedge.

"In December 2003, Australia announced its decision to participate in the U.S. Missile Defense program. Subsequently, the U.S. and Australia signed in July 2004, a Framework Memorandum of Understanding on Missile Defense Cooperation, and a Research & Development MoU was signed in October 2005. Three specific cooperative projects -- involving the Over-the-Horizon Radar, modeling and simulation, and fusion and tracking technologies -- are currently under discussion. On August 16, 2005, Canberra announced it had chosen the U.S. firm Gibbs and Cox as the preferred designer for their navy's air warfare destroyers worth up to $6Billion Australian Dollars. Three vessels are currently funded, with the first scheduled to be operational in 2013. Each will be equipped with AEGIS sensors and will be interoperable with the military forces of the United States and with those of other future coalition partners.

'Pope Benedict just visited Brazil and his comments have caused uproar when he said, “the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas. They had welcomed the arrival of European priests at the time of the conquest as they were "silently longing" for Christianity.” Satere Mawe, chief coordinator of the Amazon Indian group Coiab responded, “It’s arrogant and disrespectful to consider our cultural heritage secondary to theirs."

‘Only days before the fifth anniversary of September 11, President George W. Bush addressed military officers in Washington to warn that nuclear-armed terrorists could "blackmail the free world and spread their ideologies of hate and raise a moral threat to America."

But while the United States demands that other countries end their nuclear programs, the Bush administration is busy planning a new generation of nuclear weapons. Nearly 20 years after the Berlin Wall crumbled, the United States is allocating more funding, on average, to nuclear weapons than during the Cold War.

 

from the 7:30 report …..

Local pentagon spokesperson, rattus government propagandist & branch procurement officer for the US military-industrial complex, was at it again last night, touting the phoney government justification for Australia’s ongoing involvement in the systematic rape & destruction of Iraq …..

Hole-in-the-head defended Australia’s participation in the organised looting of Iraq’s oil wealth by claiming that: “the world was better in the post-September 11 world without Saddam Hussein, who tortured and murdered on average 70,000 people a year for 15 years”, conveniently neglecting to explain why the coalition marketers of ersatz freedom & democracy had done nothing to correct those alleged crimes over that period.

 

PM warns Coalition of electoral annihilation …..

The Prime Minister has warned his colleagues that current opinion polls mean the Coalition would not just lose a federal election, it would be annihilated.

John Howard has told a meeting of Liberal and National MPs the polls show Labor would win emphatically.

He has warned if they are expecting him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he does not have a rabbit.

He wants to lay across my piano wearing fishnets? What do I do with this walking international embarrassment? Is it just me or is Alexander Downer just like the star of that show The Office? The only thing he has going for him is that Americans can understand him while he tells us how much he likes us. He speaks Transatlantic well, for someone who's a bore and a buffon. Believe it or not, I've remembered a second good thing about Alex - he shares a similar IQ to President Junior, so the guy's occassionally useful. Sometimes, when you hear those two talk, you'd swear they shared the same brain. You'd be right- they swap every second day, just after Afternoon Nap.

David Hicks has been moved out of the torture camp and into a cell about 20 k's from where I live. South Australian police served as "deputy sheriffs" to form a posse/parade to take him the short distance from the airstrip to his new cell. It's like George Bush just sh^t in my nest. Watching my fellow locals eat their offerings is sickening.

South Australia has now become a place that enforces the laws of other countries, even in contravention of its own statutes, with a lapdog-like glee. Currently our Treasurer is acting as Premier. He's the one who's been kissing the backsided of Halliburton and the military corporations taking over this place. Do you think his opinions might be financially motivated?