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JOHNPILGER Thu, 6 Mar 2008
Most white Australians rarely see this third world in their own country. What they call here “public intellectuals” prefer to argue over whether the past happened, and to blame its horrors on the present-day victims. Their mantra that Aboriginal infrastructure and welfare spending provide “a black hole for public money” is racist, false and craven.
The Northern Territory is where Aboriginal people have had comprehensive land rights longer than anywhere else, granted almost by accident 30 years ago. The Howard government set about clawing them back. The territory contains extraordinary mineral wealth, including huge deposits of uranium on Aboriginal land. The number of companies licensed to explore for uranium has doubled to 80. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the American giant Halliburton, built the railway from Adelaide to Darwin, which runs adjacent to Olympic Dam, the world’s largest low-grade uranium mine. Last year, the Howard government appropriated Aboriginal land near Tennant Creek, where it intends to store the radioactive waste. “The land-grab of Aboriginal tribal land has nothing to do with child sexual abuse,” says the internationally acclaimed Australian scientist and actvist Helen Caldicott, “but all to do with open slather uranium mining and converting the Northern Territory to a global nuclear dump.”
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PRESSTV Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:03:50 GMT
An Australian judge has ruled that an Australian man's claim that he was mistreated in Pakistan before being sent to a US jail could not be believed.
Habib said he would appeal. Habib, an Egyptian-born immigrant, was arrested in late 2001 in Pakistan, where he says he was held for 28 days and was interrogated by Americans before being transferred to Egypt, then six months later he was sent to the US jail at Guantanamo Bay.
Habib told the court he had been beaten "like a dog'' and electrocuted by his captors while he was in Pakistan, and that while in Egypt he was kept drugged and shackled, had his fingers broken, and was sexually molested.
He claimed that Australian officials were present during parts of his ordeal. Habib was returned to Australia in January 2005. No charges were ever filed against him, and the Australian government says he has committed no crime under Australian law. The government cancelled his passport, saying he posed a continuing security threat.
"I spent half my life in Guantanamo Bay, the rest I'm going to spend in an Australian court house,'' he told reporters outside the court. "I want to get justice, that's what I'm after.''
Habib has appeared regularly in media interviews talking about the alleged abuse. In 2007, he ran for state parliament in New South Wales on a ticket that included trying to draw attention to alleged rights abuses at Guantanamo.
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BBC Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:54:29 GMT
After World War II many Britons were sold the dream of a new life in Australia, seduced by a fare of just £10. Over one-and-half million went, but what became of the Ten Pound Poms?
Australia was sold as a land of boundless opportunity. In the first year alone 400,000 Britons applied to migrate.
Australia desperately wanted white British stock to populate its shores and build its burgeoning post-war economy.
The racist law, known as The White Australia Policy, meant blacks or Asians need not apply. Britain was more than happy to oblige, helping to populate the Commonwealth with Britons.
Beginning in 1947, it was one of the largest planned mass migrations of the 20th Century. Some were transported in refitted troop ships.
Britain alone could never supply enough migrants for Australia's needs.
During the 60s, Australia was forced to open its door to other races, gradually abandoning the White Australia Policy. The Ten Pound Scheme finally came to an end in 1982.
But it had already left its mark on Australia in the form of more than a million Britons who had stayed, and the country had left its mark on them.
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BBC Thu, 22 Nov 2007,
The Australian leader has condemned party members' use of fake leaflets implying Labor backed Muslim bombers, two days before nationwide polls.
PM John Howard, who is trailing Labor rival Kevin Rudd, said the Liberal Party had not authorised the leaflets.
Distributed in a key Sydney seat, they purported to be from an Islamic group which thanked Labor for its sympathy towards the Bali nightclub attackers.
Both party leaders have been campaigning hard ahead of Saturday's election. The prime minister is seeking a fifth term in office but polls indicate Mr Rudd is maintaining a sizeable lead.
The BBC's Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says that this kind of scandal is just about the last thing Mr Howard's beleaguered party needs.
On Wednesday, Liberal Party members were caught distributing leaflets purporting to be from an Islamist group in the key Sydney marginal of Lindsay.
In the leaflet, which carries the Labor Party logo, a fake organisation - the Islamic Australia Federation - applauds Labor for supporting Islamic extremists.
It refers to the men imprisoned for the 2002 nightclub bomb attacks in Bali, which left more than 200 people dead.
"We gratefully acknowledge Labor's support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings," it said.
Labor supported the building of new mosques, the leaflet added, thanking the party for backing the entry of controversial cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali - who likened scantily-clad women to uncovered meat.
Mr Rudd has urged the Liberal Party to clarify who knew about the leaflets.
"This says everything about the desperate and desperation politics on the part of the Liberal Party on the eve of the election," he told Australian radio.
The issue has been referred to the Australian Electoral Commission and Labor has asked it to investigate whether the group acted illegally by appealing to anti-Muslim sentiment.
President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Ikebal Patel told ABC radio that while election campaigning to date had been "fairly good" on the issue of migration, the use of the flyers was "quite despicable".
Two unidentified members of the Liberal Party face disciplinary action and volunteers who distributed the leaflets have been removed from campaign teams.
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NEWS SUMMARY
River-boarding inquest adjourned
Ledger artwork wins people's vote
Pope 'will text young Catholics'
Tributes after woman's fatal fall
Women better managers than men
Waltzing Matilda 'not socialist'
Australian state in drink purge
Sinking without trace: Australia's climate change victims
Fiji deports Australian publisher
'Big Dry' hits Australian farmers
Australian wins 'coldest' contest
'Riverboarding' death woman named
Australia to improve gay rights
Scientists make weight loss claim
Colossal squid out of the freezer
Murder in mind on Aussie soap set
Olympic flame crosses Australia safely
In Pictures: Australia torch relay
Olympic torch relay starts in Australia
Canberra braced for torch relay
Saving Australia's water
An orange a day keeps bone doctors away
Belle, New Zealand
Olympic torch arrives in Canberra
Car odyssey family go Down Under
Australia extends rights over sea
Cate Blanchett shows off baby son
2020 summit renews republic calls
Australia renews republic calls
Students killed in NZ flash flood
Australia final 'was bomb target'
Aborigines 'used in experiments'
Strong quake hits Southern Ocean
Shark kills Australian teenager
Ancient tools found in Western Australia
School rampage in Australia
Australia incest pair in TV plea
New Zealand city to get Whirlies
Man 'used hedgehog as weapon'
Youths attack Australian school
Rudd Bush salute irks Australians
Stuttle mother to visit Australia
First images of Australian wreck
Australian wrestles 8-foot saltwater crocodile to save wife from its jaws
Man wrestles croc to rescue wife
Australia to begin carbon capture
Tasmanian Devil cancer hope
Australia inquiry into lost warship
Australia to probe WWII mystery
David Hicks gag order expires
Australia: Wilders' film highly offensive
E Timor leader criticises troops
Cricket: NZ in IPL compromise
Australia leader set for US talks
Rice breaks 200m medley world record
Cricket: Mills out of England clash
E Timorese leader out of hospital
Australian to auction off 'life'
Kidney hope for 'down under' twin
Australian, NZ dollars hit record highs
Dolphin 'rescued beached whales'
Surgeon held on Australia deaths
Hostel 'turned away' Aborigines
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