‘The United States has failed to
comply with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture at home and
abroad. To justify torture and abuse in the "global war on
terrorism," the government narrowly defined torture and argued that the
prohibition against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment does not apply
outside the United States. Its selective interpretation of the Convention
justified the development of interrogation techniques that violated the treaty,
created a climate of confusion among U.S. soldiers, and led to widespread
torture and abuse of detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

From the ABC ….. 

Labor got it wrong on AWAs: Howard 

Prime Minister John Howard has
stepped up his criticism of Labor's pledge to abolish individual workplace
contracts, after an opinion poll revealed it has not impressed voters.

The AC Nielsen poll shows support for the ALP has dropped 3 percentage
points since the Labor Leader, Kim Beazley, pledged to do away with
Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA). 

JOURNALIST:

A question for Mr Howard. It's not related to the helicopters but is the
Government planning to allow American military bases to be built in northern
Australia? 

PRIME MINISTER:

‘Well we made an announcement
some time ago, I think it may have been two or three years ago, after a, from
recollection, a visit to the United States by the former Defence Minister
Senator Hill to the effect that we were going to expand the capacity for
training and operational exercises, if I could put it that way, in northern
Australia for Americans. And whether you describe that as bases or not, I don't
know. But can I say very openly that the notion of that sort of thing occurring
in Australia, whether you call it a base or not, involving American forces is
not something that I would do other than very warmly welcome. And I'm sure it
would be warmly welcomed not only by the Commonwealth Government, but I know it
would be very, very warmly welcomed by the Northern Territory Government. 

‘Britain has secretly honoured a raft of senior US
military and business figures in the past three years, it emerged last night.
The recipients include General Tommy Franks, the man responsible for the
"Shock and Awe " Iraq war attack plan, and Riley Bechtel, head of the
Bechtel Corporation.  

Mr Bechtel, the billionaire head
of the US-based engineering giant, was handed a CBE for "services to
UK-American commercial relations" in 2003, according to information obtained
by The Observer. He is a likely bidder for future nuclear plants in the UK and
has made hundreds of millions of dollars in reconstruction projects in Iraq.
Others honoured include several senior US military figures, among them
Vice-Admiral Timothy Keating, the man in charge of maritime forces during the
Iraq invasion, and Rear Admiral Barry Costello, commander of the Third Fleet
and Task Force 55.’ 

‘Contrary to the “catapulted propaganda”,
Enron, Haditha, and Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents or the work of a
“few bad apples”. American savagery and oppressive behavior pervades our
society and predates our nation’s birth. Building its patriarchal wealth on the
backs of Black slaves and cheap labor while acquiring its territory through
Native American genocide, predatory exploitation of non-Anglos, the poor,
women, and the working class emerged as a pillar of America’s socioeconomic
“success” before we even declared our independence. 

‘The US National
Security Agency has been tracking the calls of millions of Americans and
constructing the “largest database ever assembled in the world,” USA
Today revealed on May 10. The nation’s biggest telephone
companies have apparently turned over masses of personal records to the feds,
allowing Uncle Sam to build up a database of the phone numbers of incoming and
outgoing calls of Americans. The revelations blew to smithereens the Bush
administration’s story that only international calls were being tapped without
a warrant as part of its so-called “terrorist-surveillance program.”  

Liberal? A very confusing word? or a word used confusingly? In the US the liberals are associated with the desire of real freedom in social policies, in Australia, the only liberalism being applied is for the rich to make more money on the back of everyone else... The rest is stuck in the dark ages of deliberately misunderstanding the moires of humanity. In the US, the fight is between the Liberals and the conservatives... In Australia the Liberals are the conservatives... And they hug the cream-cake like uncle Scrooge.

Quote from Wikipedia:
""Liberalism is an ideology, philosophical view, and political tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political value. Broadly speaking, liberalism seeks a society characterised by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power, especially of government and religion, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports relatively free private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of minorities are guaranteed. In modern society, liberals favour a liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law and an equal opportunity to succeed...""

Judicial Watch, the U.S. public interest group that
investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that
the Department of the Army, per order of U.S. District Court

Judge
Ricardo M. Urbina, has released to Judicial Watch approximately 100
pages of documents which detail the multi-billion dollar, no-bid
contract awarded in 2003 by the Army to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a
subsidiary of Halliburton Co.

One document uncovered by Judicial Watch
suggests the United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) may have
publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President’s office
in awarding the contract.

‘Two cases of mad cow disease in
Texas & Alabama seem to have resulted from a mysterious strain that could
appear spontaneously in cattle, researchers say.

Government officials are trying
to play down differences between the two US cases & the mad cow epidemic
that has led to the slaughter of thousands of cattle in Britain since the
1980s. 

It is precisely these differences
that are complicating efforts to understand the brain-wasting disorder, known
medically as “bovine spongiform encephalopathy”, or “BSE” for short.

I'd like to show you the levels that My Fine DFAT Friend will go to
protect his reputation.  Given the opportunity to effectively ban a
movie that made his point of view look wrong, Downer leapt at the
chance.

This entry was originally posted  on my private blog in early May 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[From News.com.au]

From the ABC …..

Bush talks up progress in Iraq 

Americans can expect steady
progress in Iraq but it would be unrealistic to hope for "zero
violence", President George W. Bush said after a surprise trip to Baghdad
to bolster the new Iraqi Government. 

From the ABC

Howard should convert to Islam: Bashir
By Geoff Thompson in Solo, Central Java

Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir says Prime Minister John Howard should become a Muslim if he wants to avoid going to hell.

The cleric was speaking after his release from a Jakarta prison where he had been serving a sentence related to the 2002 Bali bombings.

While holding a late night press conference in his Ngruki religious boarding school, Abu Bakar Bashir was asked by the ABC if he had a message for Mr Howard when the Prime Minister visits Indonesia later this month.

"I think John Howard should convert to Islam," he said.

‘The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is considered a
greater threat to Mideast stability than the current government in Iran,
according to a new poll of European and Muslim countries.

The poll found that people in Britain, France, Germany,
Spain and Russia rated the presence of troops in Iraq higher than the
government in Iran as a threat, according to polling by the Pew Research Center
for the People & the Press. Views of U.S. troops in Iraq were even more
negative in countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan.’  

This map from the South Australian Defence site holds a thousand word painting picture- a line through the middle of Australia, owned by Halliburton, along which every freight container leaving Darwin needs to pass. 

South Australia - the Transport Hub of Australia

" Completion of the line increases accessibility to the Cultana Training Area and positions it as a major asset both for South Australia and the Australian Army." proclaims the website.  It doesn't say that every tank and  every boxcar of uranium waste will line the pockets of the company once run by the U.S. Vice President.