This Wednesday, January 11, 2012 marks ten years since the opening of Guantanamo Bay, and although in 2009, President Obama announced its closure within the year, it still remains open. 

A Sydney-based friend wrote the following letter to members of the Labor Party in early November 2011:

“Dear Member

What can possibly justify the relentless U.S. diplomatic (and mainstream media) assault on Iran?

The Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, has secretly pushed for increased surveillance by federal police intelligence officers of environmental activists who have been protesting peacefully at coal-fired power stations and coal export facilities.

WE NEED YOUR HELP.

We urgently need you to write in support of the SBS series “The Promise”

In a scorching complaint that cites internal company memos, parents say their child died because Johnson & Johnson issued a "phantom or stealth recall" of tainted Children's Tylenol, buying up the drugs from stores on the sly without issuing a recall, "so the general public, ignorant of the dangers, would continue buying and administering these brand name drugs to their children."

Something is seriously amiss when the former prime minister, John Howard, asserts that parents should be concerned about "one-sided science" being taught in our schools.

Leave aside that Howard was endorsing a new children's book on climate change by Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist whose sceptical representations of climate science for adults seem driven more by a conservative ideology.

Offshore processing is not a solution and will not stop people dying at sea.

The Prime Minister has dismissed a call by the Labor elder Bob Hawke to slash the power of unions within the ALP.

Julia Gillard defended the factional and union influences that were responsible for the destruction of Kevin Rudd's leadership in 2010.

Leaders of Canberra's Muslim community were surprised and saddened by offensive anti-Islamic pamphlets distributed to homes throughout Queanbeyan over the Christmas holidays.

Householders in Queanbeyan received the material depicting a Muslim man physically abusing a woman and a child and an Islamic elder condoning the violence as acceptable to his faith.

One local Muslim leader has questioned the legality of the material and said it was un-Christian to distribute such offensive literature.

The pamphlets were published by Chick Publications, a United States-based evangelical company.