Hey all,

An interesting news item came my way early this morning.

Apparently the Indian Government had announced some remarkable success in their fight against aids. To quote one item from Reuters this week:

"On Wednesday, India said another 28,000 HIV/AIDS cases were reported in 2004 compared with an increase of 520,000 in 2003, a 400 percent slowdown in the growth of new infections.

"They must be joking," said an incredulous Nafisa Ali a former Miss India and now a leading campaigner with the Action India Trust, a private group spreading AIDS awareness." Link http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL203843.htm .

There's a round-robin going around on Schapelle Corby. Like everybody else I've been appalled at her misfortune but utterly confident that she is utterly blameless and I pray that the Indonesian courts will find her so. I've been likewise absolutely appalled at the indolence and raging incompetence of our airport authorities and the Australian Federal Police.

So let us all spare a thought and a prayer for Schapelle's appalling plight in Bali. Alas, we must understand that Indonesia has all sorts of axes to grind and like any emergent nation doesn't like being pushed around or shown up to be hopelessly incompetent. We know that our Prime Minister has had a quiet word with their President and that means that their President will have had a quiet word with the judges. To find Schapelle guilty would unleash such a storm of protest that no Indonesian would be safe in this country. A touch of common sense at the outset at Bali would have saved a lot of trouble so a way needs to be found to allow the Indonesians to save face. That's what all this hoo-haa is really all about: saving face.

The title to this also includes categories such as 'International' and 'Environment'. I became an instant fan of Dr. James Lovelock when he was interviewed on SBS some time back. All his gloom and doom predictions are now backed up by 1360 scientists from 95 countries. (The Age 31/3) We are heading for destruction of life as we know it within a very finite time and the major causers and greatest disregarders of this are the governments of Howard and Dubya! These two countries, Australia and US of A remain determined not to sign up with the rest of the world to the Kyoto protocol which itself at best provides lip service to a burgeoning problem and a schedule which is hopelessly too far down the track.

John Richardson has been sending me some great stuff about Guantanamo Bay and related issues.

With regard to the future I am very concerned with the direction of International Law, and concerned that the US are promoting international lawlessness on the basis that they can win any Darwinian struggle that might occur.

John has given us some great material with which to consider this quandary. And I am left considering the question, Do we as citizens have a responsibility to insist that our governments obey the law?

First here's a letter John didn't get to the Herald on time.