Peace activists have accused the Federal Government of Australia acting deceptively in toughening penalties for people who protest against the US Pine Gap spy base.
The Nielsen poll surveyed 1400 voters last week, a few days after the news that two Australian soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan.
Asked for their views on Australia’s involvement in the war, 51 per cent of respondents said they opposed it, and 44 per cent said they supported it. The remainder were undecided.
The slender majority opposing Australian involvement was broadly consistent with earlier polls on the war.
But there was a wider gap when respondents were told that the US might seek an increase in Australia’s troop commitment and asked for their views. Sixty-six per cent opposed sending more Australian troops; 30 per cent supported a bigger commitment.
Sentiment against Australian involvement in the war in Afghanistan was significantly stronger amongst women than men, and among Labor voters than Coalition supporters.
The strong public opposition to increasing troop numbers could present problems for the Government.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has said the US plans to intensify Afghan security force training and step up diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict are “absolutely right.”
The problem is that the majority of Australians opposed to the Afghan war, and the big majority opposed to its escalation, are hardly represented in the Australian parliament. As both Rudd´s ´new´Labor and the conservative Coalition are pro war.
Anti Afghan war demonstration in London, England, on Wednesday, April 1: here.
Industrial action for peace: The Communist Party of Australia and antiwar activity before 1960: here.
FORMER Guyanese president Janet Jagan died on Saturday in Georgetown, the capital of her adopted country. She was 88.
US-born Ms Jagan, who always described herself as a communist, was elected president after her husband Cheddi Jagan died in 1997. She resigned in 1999 due to poor health.
The couple met in Chicago in 1940, where Mr Jagan was studying dentistry and Ms Jagan was a Communist Party of the USA activist.
Despite their different backgrounds – Jewish and Hindu – they married and moved to Guyana. In 1950, they founded the People’s Progressive Party, with Ms Jagan elected general secretary.
Despite persecution by the British colonial authorities, the two led the strugle for freedom for the south American nation until independence in 1966.
Ms Jagan was a dedicated fighter for Guyanese independence and Caribbean unity during years of corruption, gerrymandering, election-fixing and repression by British colonialism and the People’s National Congress government of Forbes Burnham, which worked to divide the country’s black and Indian communities.
In her later years “Comrade Janet” wrote children’s stories, including When Grandpa Cheddi was a Boy (1993), Patricia, the Baby Manatee (1995) and Anastasia the Ant-Eater (1997). She also became a noted patron of the arts, helping to found the National Art Gallery in Georgetown.
While I was in Suriname, I met people who had fled Guyana because of (United States government supported) Burnhamite communalist divide and rule policies. There are no such big intercommunal tensions in Suriname.
This is not a man’s world- ending violence against women in Guyana: here.
Watchdog called in as complaint is made over Lord Mackenzie and an Iraqi minister in exile
By Michael Gillard
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, the Labour peer and former Home Office adviser, is being investigated over his activities as the paid chairman of a private security firm.
A parliamentary watchdog is examining a complaint that the peer used his position in the Lords to further the business interests of the firm, Haymarket Management Services. Separately, Scotland Yard said it is considering a complaint about the security assistance provided by Haymarket to an Iraqi politician wanted in Baghdad in connection with a $1.3bn (£900m) fraud inquiry.
The Metropolitan Black Police Association (MetBPA) complaint is the latest salvo in a long dispute. West Midlands Police is already investigating an allegation made by Lord Mackenzie against Metropolitan Police Commander Ali Dizaei, the president of the National Black Police Association. The peer used House of Lords headed paper to make the complaint about Commander Dizaei’s conduct. The Clerk to Parliament is now investigating the use of Lords’ letterhead. It is also looking into whether rules were broken when Lord Mackenzie hosted a reception for Haymarket in the Peers dining room in June 2006.
A separate claim against the peer is that Heathrow security was breached when the Iraqi politician entered Britain with the apparent approval of the authorities, despite being the subject of an international arrest warrant.
The politician was Hazim al-Shaalan, an Iraqi exile whom the Foreign Office and Washington plucked from obscurity to become the country’s first defence minister in 2004. The Shia politician travelled between the two countries on a British passport.
However, an Iraqi anti-corruption judge issued a warrant a year later after investigators claimed to have found a black hole in the ministry’s accounts and a trail of bank transfers to Jordan. Mr Shaalan and 23 others were accused of embezzling $800m in an arms deal with Poland and Pakistan. He engaged Haymarket apparently in the belief that the security firm’s political and police connections would help in lobbying the Home Office and US authorities over the investigation.
Haymarket is believed to have earned £300,000 for protecting the Iraqi for several months between late 2005 and 2006 while he attempted to establish his innocence. The politician never returned to Iraq to stand trial but was sentenced in absentia to seven years for fraud in May 2007.
Scotland Yard recently sent one of its detectives to examine a dossier of witness statements, emails and other documents relating to the firm’s activities during this period.
One witness, an intermediary between Haymarket and Mr Shaalan, claims a representative of the firm boasted that he could put together a snatch squad of ex-British special forces to bring an Iraqi minister, who was under house arrest in Baghdad, back to the UK. The operation was codenamed Tooth Extraction.
The witness, an Iraqi businessman based in London, also claims the same Haymarket representative said he could arrange to “break into any person’s office or home to remove computer equipment for the sum of £15,000″.
…
The Iraqi politician is understood to have paid Haymarket directly and by transferring money through the client account of Dean & Dean, his solicitors.
He arrived at Heathrow on 8 October 2005. The arrest warrant had been issued days earlier in Iraq, but may not have been received by Interpol. Nevertheless, it is alleged that Haymarket may have used police contacts to facilitate the politician’s entry without going through normal immigration controls.
Amid the ongoing claims of victory in Iraq, American forces and the pro-US government have come into conflict with predominantly Sunni Arab militias that were bribed into ending their resistance to the occupation during the “surge” in 2007: here.
Iraq: British troops withdrawal does not mean peace: here.
Georgia, which fought a disastrous war with Russia over South Ossetia last year, is bracing itself for a political showdown as the opposition tries to oust President Mikheil Saakashvili amid simmering discontent over his role in the conflict.
The opposition will take to the streets of Tbilisi to demand Saakashvili‘s resignation on 9 April – the 20th anniversary of the day when the Soviet army killed some 20 people as it crushed Georgian independence demonstrations.
In recent weeks, anti-Saakashvili posters have appeared all over the capital, while the opposition has also been boosted by a television show featuring a popular singer conducting interviews with opposition activists and local celebrities from a specially constructed “prison cell”. The protest singer Giorgi Gachechiladze – known as Utsnobi, or “The Unknown” – has said that he will remain in self-imposed incarceration until Saakashvili steps down.
Earlier this month, Utsnobi held a protest concert near the president’s residence, drawing several thousand. The 9 April demonstrations are hoped to draw far greater numbers.
The Georgian authorities have accused the opposition of accepting money from Russia to fund its anti-government campaign, although no proof has yet been offered. …
Officials have also claimed that opposition leaders are aiding Georgia’s enemies in Moscow by creating political instability and trying to overthrow the country’s pro-western government.
…
Several senior figures in Saakashvili’s government have defected to the opposition, accusing him of starting an unwinnable war that enabled Russia to strengthen its grip on the rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“He lost the war and 20% of Georgian territory, hundreds of people died and tens of thousands lost their homes,” said Nino Burjanadze, who was one of the leaders of the “Rose Revolution” in 2003 that swept Saakashvili to power. “In any normal democratic country, the president would be impeached,” said Burjanadze.
The mood in Tbilisi has become increasingly tense in recent days after the authorities released covertly recorded police videos of opposition activists allegedly buying automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
…
But Burjanadze, whose activists were among those arrested, insisted that the authorities released the tapes to intimidate opposition supporters.
“They understand that a lot of people will come to the protests and they decided to frighten them and discredit my party and the opposition,” she said.
Burjanadze suggested that there could be a repeat of the crackdown on opposition rallies in November 2007, when similar surveillance videos of alleged coup plotters were also widely publicised.
“We are absolutely sure that what the government and the president are doing is preparing an alibi so they can justify using force against people,” she said.
Home secretary Jacqui Smith embarrassed by new expenses row …
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, apologised today for an expenses claim which included adult films watched by her husband.
Smith said she mistakenly submitted an expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency. …
News of the claim is a new embarrassment to Smith who last month faced criticism for claiming taxpayer-funded allowances for her family home while living with her sister in London.
The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, was criticised last night following the collapse of a five-month police investigation into a series of embarrassing leaks from her department: here. So, this time about her department, not about her appartment.
It reminds me somewhat of the times when the British Conservative government loudly proclaimed “back to basics” “decent” “pro family” anti single mother policies; while behind the scenes, there was one Conservative Party sex scandal after another, landing in the media one by one. It also reminds me of the prude anti-gay etc. policies of Blairite Ruth Kelly and her ilk.
Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers: here.
This video from the USA is called BUSH TORTURE POLICY: John Yoo and David Addington @ Congress.
By Paul Haven, Associated Press Writer:
A Spanish court has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer in the case said Saturday. …
Yoo declined to comment. A message left at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco where Bybee is now a judge was not immediately returned. A message left at Chevron Corp. in San Ramon, Calif., where Haynes reportedly works as an attorney was not immediately returned. …
Spanish law allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of torture or war crimes under a doctrine of universal justice, though the government has recently said it hopes to limit the scope of the legal process.
The Blue Diamond Society is the largest LGBTI (lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intergender people) rights organisation in Nepal. The society’s coordinator, Subash Pokharel, spoke with Ben Peterson about the current situation for LGBTI people and how it relates to the process of transforming Nepal since the overthrow of the monarchy and declaration of a republic by an elected constituent assembly last year.
A more extensive version of that interview is here.
LESBIANS, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals face widespread harassment, bullying and discrimination across Europe, according to an EU report released on Tuesday: here.
Women protesters demand sack of army chief in Nepal: here.
