Russia uranium deal makes good sense: Downer

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says the nuclear safeguards agreement signed today with Russia paves the way for the export of at least $1 billion worth of uranium a year.

The agreement has yet to be ratified by federal Parliament and by Russia's Duma.

It stipulates that Australian uranium cannot be sold on to any other nations or used for weapons.

Perhaps the most ridiculous statement to have emerged from the neo-conservative regime that runs the Republican Party is that bin Laden and his gang of terrorists murdered thousands of innocent Americans because "they hate our freedoms." If you are a Fox News Channel viewer or a Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Michael Savage/Michael Medved radio show listener you have probably heard this refrain at least 10,000 times.

But Americans were much freer decades ago, before the governmental Leviathan became as gargantuan as it is now. Why didn’t Muslim terrorists attack us then, if they hate our freedom so much? Whey did they wait until 2001?

11 charged over Chaser APEC stunt

Eleven people from the ABC TV program The Chaser's War on Everything have been charged with offences under the new APEC legislation.

Eight ABC cast and crew members and three hired drivers have been charged with entering a restricted area without justification.

The group was arrested after staging a fake motorcade through Sydney's CBD and were stopped near the InterContinental Hotel where US President George W Bush is staying.

Kevin Rudd -

Labor’s Mandarin-speaking leader Kevin Rudd upstaged John Howard today in a show of linguistic one-upmanship at a state lunch for China's President Hu Jintao.

The Prime Minister's own speech went down well. But when Mr Rudd started addressing the leader of one quarter of the world's population, fluently in his own tongue, the effect was stunning.

US report slams security in Iraq

There has been another sobering assessment about Iraq, with a new report saying the country's security forces will not be able to operate on their own within the next 18 months.

The independent study was done by 20 retired senior military officers and chiefs of police at the request of the US Congress.

It says while the Iraqi Army shows promise, it will not be able to take over security on its own within the next 12 to 18 months.

The White House has proposed military spending of $647 billion in 2008. Adjusted for inflation, that would be the highest level since World War II - topping even expenditures during Vietnam and the Reagan years, calculates Hartung. The current request for Iraq-related spending for 2008 is $116 billion, which would raise total Iraq war spending to $567 billion.

Last night I attended a training session for Human Rights Monitors volunteers. Dale was brilliant, coaching us on how to observe an event as a team, telling us what kind of questions we could hope to get from police, reinforcing our neutral standpoint. Through his efforts much harm might be averted.

The volunteers came from all walks of life; a fair few lawyers, students, nurses, ages ranging from eighteen to forty;

We'll be the ones wearing bright orange vests, videoing and writing down what we see happening around us.

Here's what the NSW Police expect us to see.:

[AGE extract]

Bushit claims that al-Anbar province in Iraq had been written-off to al-Qaeda some six or eight months ago.

Continuing the outhouse’s usual propaganda, bushit continued to justify the butchery in Iraq by linking it to 911.

"Yes, it's a very bad poll for the Coalition ... I recognise that," Mr Howard told Sky News today.

"What it does though is to encourage me, enthuse me to work even harder to convince the Australian public that the future prosperity and security of this country would be better under a Coalition government."

Forty years ago, Aboriginal Australians were recognised (by Anglo-Australians) as Australian citizens. Many Australians, including Aboriginal Australians, thought the days of racism and dispossession in Australia were numbered. They were wrong. Aboriginal Australians remain a marginalised community, unprotected from colonial ideology and laws that violate basic human rights.

Bush hails success on trip to Iraq

US President George W Bush raised the possibility of a reduction in US troops in Iraq during a flying visit to the war-ravaged nation en route to the APEC conference in Sydney.

But he insisted combat force levels would be decided based on the recommendations of his commanders in Iraq, and not by "nervous" politicians in the Democratic-led US Congress.

Life in claustrophobic Baghdad 'jail ....

Thousands of volunteers - all Sunni Arabs - have been stepping forward and offering to protect their own neighbourhoods. Some are former insurgents who have switched sides.

Others are young unemployed men who have had enough of the violence.

It is a remarkable turn-around that so many now want to co-operate with the Americans, the very people they had previously been trying to kill.