The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections has thrown the parties in the faltering peace process into a real spin. Even more so given the fact that the US illegally tried to pre-empt the election outcome in favour of Fatah (U.S. Spent $1.9 Million to Aid Fatah in Palestinian Elections). 

But the “surprise” result once again underscored the inability of the US & its allies – the phoney champions of “freedom & democracy” - to truly understand the dynamic forces at work in the region, whilst their shrill, alarmist reactions to the election outcome rudely highlighted the fact that they were caught entirely unprepared to deal with the new situation. 

The Editor, 

Sydney Morning Herald.                                                             January 27, 2006.

‘Like Bush's America, Howard's Australia is not so much a democracy as a plutocracy, governed for and by the "big end of town," even though, as Mark Twain pointed out, this is "an entire continent peopled by the lower orders." He was not that far out; for my generation, like that of my parents, we were the poor who had got away. There was a sense that we had inherited something other than the British legacy. Long before the rest of the western world, Australians gained a minimum wage, an eight-hour working day, pensions, maternity allowance, child benefits and the vote for women. The secret ballot was invented here and became known as the "Australian ballot." The Australian Labour Party formed governments 25 years before any comparable social democracy in Europe. In the 1960s, with the exception of the Aboriginal people - who are always the exception - Australians could boast the most equitable spread of personal income in the world.

This will need remembering.  For some reason I find this to be quite disturbing.  No doubt an Australian  equivalent will follow.
[from Construction and Maintenance (posted today)]

 KBR awarded U.S. Department of Homeland Security project

Arlington, Virginia – KBR announced that the Department of Homeland
Security’s (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity
(IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of
an emergency.

With
a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting
of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively
awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000
through 2005.

ICE is one of three agencies that make up the
Border and Transportation Security (BTS) Directorate of the DHS. The
mission of the BTS Directorate is to secure the nation's air, land and
sea borders. ICE, the largest investigative arm of the DHS, is
responsible for identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities in the
nation’s border, economic, transportation and infrastructure security.

KBR
is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton. KBR
employs more than 60, 000 people in 43 countries around the world.

Halliburton Watch continues:
:

 As he steps down as Defence Minister, Robert Hill is completing the militarisation of South Australia

MR Hill says that  said he had written to the
leaseholders and local indigenous groups indicating his approval of the
acquisition of land near the Cultana training area, near Port Augusta.

The training centre, currently used by Army units for manoeuvre and
weapons training, will triple in size, making it one of Australia's
largest military training areas.

"This project will see an expanded range ready for use by 2009 and will
increase the Army's presence in regional South Australia, providing
significant economic benefits, particularly for Port Augusta and
Whyalla," .
"An expanded all-weather training range at Cultana will provide the
Australian Defence Force with a training area that can be used during
the northern Australian wet season and support future joint training
needs."

 If this is the information that ASIO used to deport Parkin, some questions will need to be asked.

Firstly, was ASIO acting based on a current profile of Parkin, or outdated infomation it had previously received from TALON

Secondly,
is the Australian Cabinet, from Prime Minister Howard downward, guilty
of acting on inappropriate information simply because it existed ?

Thirdly:
Have ASIO's activities in Australia mirrored the intensity of Paul
Wolfowitz' US program?  If so, how many how many profiles of Australian
anti-war activists and writers now exist in ASIO's files.

"Contractors with conflicts of interest would be prohibited from conducting oversight or writing contract requirements they could bid on, as Halliburton did for its $7 billion no-bid Iraqi oil contract awarded in 2003."

Australian aside:..... and  the warship environmental  measures, and the nuclear dump safety consultancies, and South Australia's Major Works Development 

Adding to the statement in the introductory paragraph,  US Democrats believe what is needed is  “closing the revolving door between federal contract officials and private contractors.”

If an Australian local council has "emotional problems" using Halliburton, it must accept them anyway.  That's the message being sent to the world this week by the Shire Council of Byron Bay, on the Northern coast of New South Wales.

The town, once the haven of surfers and hippies, now the "holiday home" of international stars such as Paul Hogan and Hugh Jackman,  is now home to KBR employees as they upgrade the local sewerage plant.

Councillor Tom Tabart made the situation plain when he recently told the Northern Star newspaper that " "Refusal on a political basis would have surely resulted in legal action against us,"

US television and newspapers today are dumping the story into Middle America of how, at one particular army base, Halliburton have been dumping sewerage into a river and then using it to serve U.S. troops.

While on-the-ground KBR employees emailed thunderous complaints, from deep in the bowels of Halliburton Headquarters the stamdard response was trotted out- Halliburton stood firmly behind the statement that there was no problem.
.
While bottled water is used for drinking, the contaminated water, reportedly twice as dirty as the river Euphrates, is used for everything else, including making coffee.