It's a horrible question to ask, but upon hearing that Messrs Downer and Vaille are to testify at the AWB Commission next week, and on rereading Haifa Zangwana's piece on the assasinations of academics ( currently on page 3 of Webiary home page) I was struck by one of those horrible trains of thought.

Kays Juma was a Professor of Agriculture in Iraq. He would have had a detailed knowledge of the status quo of agriculture-based aid activities in Iraq, and the fact he was also an Adelaide-resident probably would have motivated him to be aware of details such as the differences in Ausaid and USaid agriculture programs and the methodology of their implementation. As an academic he would have been privy to more information than would have been supplied to the CPA.

For the first time an Australian minister of the Bush Administration will face a true battle- telling the public what he wants to without being forced to resign.

Trade Minister Mark Vaille will appear befor the Australian Wheat Board Inquiry on Monday, and Foreign Minister Downer on Tuesday. They will be speaking on the issue in an environment in which our society considers lack of honesty to be the greatest taboo- A sworn oath.

ABC reports that the inquiry wishes to question Mr Downer on diplomatic cables sent by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the Office of the Prime Minister of Australia. The cables raised the department's concern over involvement in the Austalian Wheat Board's bribes to Saddam Hussein.

from the ABC ….. 

Govt to slash business red tape 

Prime Minister John Howard and
Treasurer Peter Costello will today announce a package to cut red tape for
business and make it easier for small firms to access the new workplace
relations laws. 

From the ABC ….. 

PM defends right to override
state IR laws 

Prime Minister John Howard says
there will not be any dramatic consequences for the states if they lose
the industrial relations challenge in the High Court. 

The states are fighting plans for
a national industrial relations system. 

From the New York Times

Algeria Forbids Efforts to Convert Its Muslims

By REUTERS
Published: April 6, 2006
ALGIERS, April 5 (Reuters) — Algeria has passed a law prohibiting efforts to convert Muslims to another religion, the country's chief of religious affairs said on Wednesday. The move seems aimed at maintaining stability after the Islamist violence that had plagued the country for a decade.

Muhammad Aissa, director of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, told the state radio network that the measure, passed on March 20, was prompted by the activities of Christian evangelists, particularly in the restive ethnic Berber region of Kabylie.

From the ABC ….. 

Record petrol prices expected
over Easter!!

Melbourne's petrol prices are
expected to hit new highs over Easter. 

The price of unleaded petrol
reached a record high yesterday of $1.34 in the city and at Wheelers Hill. 

‘Opposition politicians and human rights
campaigners reacted with dismay Tuesday to British Defense Secretary John
Reid's call for international
laws, including the Geneva Conventions, to be redrawn to
ensure states could counter global terrorism and undertake military
interventions.  

The threat of terrorism should
not be used as justification for a watering-down of fundamental human rights,
Liberal Democrats Shadow Defense Secretary
Nick Harvey warned. 

‘"Imperial overreach" is too fancy a term for
what the Bush administration has actually done. While its officials have talked
a great game when it came to achieving "victory" in Iraq and
exporting democracy to the Middle East, its main exports have turned out to be
mayhem and ruins. And those it can continue to export. 

With every new move, yet more rubble, yet more terror, and
undoubtedly yet more terrorists in Iraq and, sooner or later, in the wider
region will be created. This is where the most essential choices made by the
President, Vice President, and their chosen officials in the days after
September 11, 2001 have taken us.’ 

From American Progress ….. 

Yesterday, George Will used prime
space in the Washington
Post and other major papers to suggest — not only is global warming
not the result of human activity -global warming may not exist at all. In a
one-two punch, this morning columnist Robert Novak used his regular space in
the Washington Post to suggest that global warming - if it even exists - would
only impact us so far in the future that our technological advances should be
able to handle it. Neither of these columns is based in scientific fact - their
only purpose seems to be to bolster the position of the administration. 

 It's 2016, a decade after the 6/6/06 commencement of The Armageddon Conflict.  Australia is at war.  Naval vessels, able to stay at sea and away from the Antichrist's terrorists  under technological stealth cloaks are occassionally forced, while trudging between the various global "fronts"  to sail into ports for replenishments, refurbishment of armamentaria and some time off for the sailors.   The boys and girls of Halliburton have every need in readiness to get the job done before there's time to become a missile target.:

As the ships approach the Port of Adelaide, the support system swings into action as Halliburton's program co-ordinates local activity into providing the ship with the quickest return to sea that is humanly possible to provide.  Old tanks are sent to the factory while refurbished vehicles, comlplete with fresh crew desert-ready fguarding the uranium mines, the Adelaide-Darwin railway and the Papua-Adelaide gas pipes are loaded on board, and local water, stored in the specially built sub-city aquifers (piped from the extraterrestrially-refilled Artesian Basin) and produce are speedily transferred to naval supplies Refurbished missiles and the extra-effective depleted uranium ammuntion are restocked, and when the sailors have replenished themselves in the local bars and brothels another nautical Death Star is back on  the high seas, ready to fight for God.

‘The first official recognition that the Iraq war
motivated the four London suicide bombers has been made by the government in a
major report into the 7 July attacks. 

Despite attempts by Downing Street to play down
suggestions that the conflict has made Britain a target for terrorists, the
Home Office inquiry into the deadliest terror attack on British soil has
conceded that the bombers were inspired by UK foreign policy, principally the
decision to invade Iraq.’