Irfan Yusuf; 16/5/08

In 2006, I visited the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta. Before you reach for your National Security Hotline fridge magnets and mobile handsets, I should disclose that I was on an exchange program organised by the Australia-Indonesia Institute and funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Like many others in Indonesia, this university campus had an “American Corner” — a largish classroom with wall-to-wall shelves containing a range of books, magazines and other publications about American life and culture in both English and Indonesian. Computer terminals offered free English-language multimedia materials. Copies of the glossy American Muslim magazines and books by Arab and Muslim Americans were prominently displayed.

See: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/guantanamo-policy-is-winning-few-friends-in-the-muslim-world/2008/05/15/1210765051021.html

Kathy Marks; 16/5/08

All of the Pitcairn men convicted of raping and sexually assaulting young girls on the remote South Pacific island are expected to be free by Christmas, after serving less than two years in a prison that some of them helped build. Eight men, all descendants of the Bounty mutineers who settled on Pitcairn in the 18th century, were convicted at trials held on the island in 2004 and in New Zealand in 2006. A ninth pleaded guilty. Six received prison sentences, which they began serving in late 2006 after their final appeal was rejected by the Privy Council in London, the highest court for British Overseas Territories. Despite the severity of their crimes, which included gang-raping a 10-year-old, the islanders were given jail terms of only two to 6½ years.

See: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/rapists-of-pitcairn-all-free-soon/2008/05/15/1210765056637.html

Jewel Topsfield; 16/5/08

The terror of fleeing the Taliban and ethnic cleansing in Afghanistan, a hair-raising journey in a rickety boat and three years of detention on Nauru is more than anyone should have to endure. But even after asylum seekers such as Mohammad Dawlat-Hussain were found to be genuine refugees, the former government sought to punish them for another five years, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said yesterday. Mr Dawlat-Hussain, whose boat reached Ashmore Reef in 2001, is one of almost 1000 refugees who will be granted permanent residency within months of the Government’s abolition of the controversial temporary protection visa.

See: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/1000-refugees-celebrate-dropping-of-temporary-visa/2008/05/15/1210765057420.html

Nico Hines & Jane Macartney; 15/5/08

The Chinese Government rushed 2,000 troops to a dam above the devastated town of Dujiangyan, in Sichuan province, today in an emergency attempt to plug cracks caused by the earthquake. If the Zipingpu Dam were to collapse, torrents of water would surge downriver into some of the areas where more than 42,000 people are reported dead or missing. Rescuers finally reached some the worst hit of those areas in the Sichuan province today. The official death toll now stands at 14,866, but while the army and emergency workers battle to reach isolated areas and scour mile after mile of rubble, the scale of the disaster continues to rise.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23702600-25837,00.html
‘Save me’: girl freed after 50 hours under rubble
Zhang Yufei, & Rowan Callick; 16/5/08; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23705081-25837,00.html

Children try to make sense of disaster
John Garnaut & Maya Li Mianyang;16/5/08
“My name is here,” said Li Chunchun, lifting her shirt and pointing to her tummy. A nurse at Mianyang Central Hospital said the policeman who found five-year-old Li had written her name there so she wouldn’t get lost. Little Li said she had been walking with Grandma back to school after lunch, singing the song the class was planning to sing that afternoon. “Xiao yu sha sha sha, Zhongzi sha sha sha, quntian yao lai li (The sound of drizzling rain, the sound of seeds growing, spring is coming).” Li prattled away: “A rock this big (stretching her arms) smashed Grandma in the eyes and nose. There was lots of blood. I called Grandma but she didn’t say anything.”
See: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/children-try-to-make-sense-of-disaster/2008/05/15/1210765056655.html

Kenneth Denby; 16/5/08

The Burmese authorities have sealed off the cyclone disaster zone from the outside world, expelling foreign aid workers and placing multiple checkpoints along roads into the Irrawaddy Delta, to the despair of foreign diplomats and aid workers. The isolation of the delta confirms the growing sense among international organisations that the Burmese junta is never going to allow a wide-ranging foreign-led aid effort of the kind that was mounted in several countries after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Aid groups are trying instead to mount a stealth operation in which Western aid is distributed by government organisations, local aid workers, and international staff from countries that the regime regards as friendly and compliant.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23705084-2703,00.html
Burma kids in peril as survivors struggle; 15/5/08; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23699863-25837,00.html

Natalie O’Brien; 16/5/08

Australia Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has been cleared of giving false or misleading evidence to federal parliament over the Government’s knowledge of Mamdouh Habib’s transfer to Egypt, but he has been criticised for not being more frank with his answers. The Senate Privileges Committee also criticised the AFP’s tardy response in providing answers to questions on notice regarding the inquiry. In a report tabled in federal parliament yesterday, the committee cleared Attorney-General’s Department secretary Robert Cornall of giving false or misleading evidence to the Senate. But it criticised the quality of evidence given by “officers” at Senate estimates hearings, the delay in answering questions and the “narrow focus” of some answers.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706730-5013404,00.html

Weakness of Mohamed Haneef case exposed
Paul Maley;16/5/08
Australia Federal Police considered placing Mohamed Haneef on a control order or in preventative detention just three days after he was arrested, but were advised there was “insufficient information” to support the move. Documents obtained by the Indian-born doctor’s legal team under freedom of information laws show the AFP was energetically exploring contingency plans to detain Dr Haneef in the days immediately after his arrest on July 2 last year. They also show Immigration officials and the AFP were considering the possibility of cancelling Dr Haneef’s visa earlier than previously known.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706733-5013404,00.html

Ashleigh Wilson; 16/5/08

The family of Sydney student Lauren Huxley wants the carpenter who attacked her to “burn in hell” after he was found guilty yesterday of brutally bashing the young woman and leaving her todie. After hearing six weeks of evidence and deliberating for just three hours, a NSW Supreme Court jury found Robert Black Farmer guilty of three offences, including attempted murder, over the attack on November 9, 2005. Ms Huxley, now 21, was left clinging to life after Farmer savagely bashed her and doused her with petrol at her home in the northwest Sydney suburb of Northmead.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706727-5013404,00.html
Family’s agonising road to justice; Bellinda Kontominas; 16/5/08; http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/familys-agonising-road-to-justice/2008/05/15/1210765058781.html

15/5/08

Australia will compensate a number of Indonesian fishermen after 55 men caught last month were cleared of illegal fishing. The compensation is for the wrongful destruction of boats belonging to some of the fishers. The men were caught during a blitz on illegal fishing in the waters north of Australia in late April, when 33 boats were apprehended. Federal Fisheries Minister Tony Burke said today nine of the boats and 55 fishermen had been found not to be involved in illegal fishing.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706292-26103,00.html

Rob Hulls; 16/5/08

Many years ago, I was working with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Mount Isa and I sat in on a coronial inquest where the only witness to a single car collision was an old Aboriginal fellow. This man was called to give evidence as to what he saw in relation to this accident. He got into the witness box, looked around, and was so intimidated by the court surroundings that he said: “I will plead guilty.” That is what the justice system meant to him - a place where you plead guilty. This sad story reflects how many Aboriginal people are alienated by the traditional justice system. It also is indicative of why a culturally appropriate legal system is needed if we are to break the cycle of over-representation of indigenous offenders in our nation’s jails.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23704323-7583,00.html

Tony Koch; 16/5/08

An audit of the 1237 staff accommodation facilities owned by Queensland Health revealed that more than half did not meet criteria acceptable as safe in the event of a security breach, burglary or fire. Health Minister Stephen Robertson yesterday tabled in state parliament the audit report which revealed 17 dwellings were classified by the audit team as “extreme risk”; 100 were “high risk” and an extraordinary 509 were “medium risk”. He explained that “extreme” meant regulatory compliance and security requirements were not met - such as a lack of fire alarms and/or safety switches and inappropriate screening and/or locks.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706555-5013404,00.html

Michael Pelly; 16/5/08

The Northern Territory Government has the power to make compulsory acquisition of land, even when native title rights exist, the High Court ruled yesterday. In a 5-2 decision, the court said potential limitations on the Territory’s statutory power to acquire land had been removed by legislation in the past decade - a position that clearly annoyed judge Michael Kirby. The majority said the Lands Acquisition Act provided that “all non-native-title rights and interests” could be extinguished once conditions designed to avoid racial discrimination were met.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706553-5013404,00.html

Andrew Fraser & Sarah Elks; 16/5/08

The Queensland Government will tell the family of Steve Irwin they must excise an area claimed for mining on Cape York from a nature refuge it is planning for the area. The Irwin family was last year given $6.25 million by the Howard government to buy a 135,000ha property on Cape York that was to be converted into a nature reserve. Mining company Cape Alumina claims to have an exploration permit over parts of the property that allows it to explore for bauxite. Earlier this week, Steve Irwin’s widow Terri launched an online petition to save “Steve’s Place” and said the ecological integrity of the property was under threat from mining.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706675-2702,00.html

Ean Higgins;16/5/08

Australia is undergoing an unparalleled movement of people and ethnic change through “hidden immigration”, but lacks a comprehensive policy to deal with it, according to an eminent demographer. Monash University professor Andrew Markus said raw immigration numbers masked the magnitude of a demographic revolution that had produced a population where one in four residents was born overseas. At 24 per cent, the overseas-born proportion of the population is twice that of the US at 12per cent, and three times that of England and Wales at 8 per cent, where racial tensions have flared again. “Opinion polls in England in July 2007 and March 2008 indicated that immigration and race issues are the main concern of electors,” Professor Markus said.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23706527-2702,00.html

Yusuf Muhammad; 15/5/08

Two members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice who were arrested in connection with the deaths of four people in an accident on Khaleel Road near Madinah were released yesterday, their lawyer said. “The two commission members were released on Wednesday after 36 days in detention as there is no legal basis to continue detaining them at the present stage of the case,” said Sultan ibn Zahim, the lawyer representing the two men. Earlier Zahim criticized the General Investigation and Prosecution Board (GIPB) for detaining his clients, claiming it violated clause 37 of the criminal procedures law that states that no one should be jailed without valid legal reasons.

See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=109921&d=15&m=5&y=2008

Yusuf Muhammad; 15/5/08

The Health Affairs Administration in Madinah has denied that an intermingling of sexes took place at a function organized by the city’s Maternity and Children’s Hospital to celebrate World Thalassemia Day on May 9. “An investigation committee found that men and women attending the function were seated separately as mandated by law, although a few women photographers crossed over to the men’s section to get a better view of stage events,” Adil Ashraf, a spokesman for the Health Affairs Administration in Madinah, told Arab News.

See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=109922&d=15&m=5&y=2008

Roni Singer-Heruti; 15/5/08

Two years have passed since indictments were filed against Salame Abu Ghanem and Mohammed Abu Ghanem for murdering their 19-year-old sister, Reem, and the end of the trial is nowhere in sight - even though the two confessed to the crime during the investigation. Legal foot-dragging has prevented the Tel Aviv District Court from even setting dates for the trial sessions. For a year and a half, the court has not conducted sessions on the matter, other than to set new dates. Now the police fear the same legal delays may bring about the Lod brothers’ release. In a Supreme Court session last week, Justice Esther Hayut was asked to extend the remand of the two for the seventh time.

See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983476.html

15/5/08

Britain has bowed to pressure and said it will open an independent inquiry into the death of an Iraqi hotel worker who was beaten and died in British custody in southern Iraq in 2003. The move follows years of legal wrangling in which the family of Baha Musa and eight other Iraqis who survived the beatings have sought justice. All nine suffered 36 hours of violent interrogation before Musa died with 93 injuries, including a broken nose and ribs. Britain’s ministry of defence admitted in March that its troops tortured and breached the human rights of the men detained at a Basra hotel. The ministry apologised to Musa’s family and the other men, opening the way for potentially large compensation claims.

See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D6E56B36-4688-4761-BACB-98F922807E99.htm

15/4/08

Palestinians have held protests across the occupied territories to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when they were uprooted from their homes by the establishment of Israel. In the West Bank on Thursday, rallies and sirens commemorated the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 war. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, speaking from Ramallah, called for an end to occupation and settlement building.”It’s time for the occupation to leave our land … and for the ‘catastrophe’ to come to an end,” Abbas said in a televised speech. “Our Palestinian people have carried in pain the memory, and hope to return to their homeland.”

See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CC7C6AF7-D771-4A0F-A85B-4D3EE86FDA0C.htm

Israel won the wars, lost the peace
Mark LeVine;15/5/08
On a flight home from a lecture at the University of Arizona on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, I happened to sit next to an elderly woman whose accent, along with the Hebrew prayer card in her hand, suggested she was Israeli. Our conversation during the flight epitomised the obstacles that continue to block a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The woman was born in Poland and had lived through the Holocaust. “Even 60 years later it’s like a dream you can’t believe,” she explained when I asked her if she had still been in Poland when the war began. “You arrive and they send you immediately to the showers; you never knew which shower it was - to clean you up or gas you.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/176C9C52-4564-4797-B192-6E08F6D8932F.htm

Why Bush must recognise the Nakba
Sandy Tolan; 15/4/08
Air Force One will travel back in time this week, banking low near the southern Mediterranean coast and touching down on contested soil where the past is always present. In the Holy Land, the battles over the historical narrative surrounding the founding of Israel in 1948 are as hard-fought as the contemporary struggles over West Bank settlers, Palestinian refugees, and negotiations for a two-state solution. In a long and bitter dispute, there are profound consequences for the “honest broker” (as the US government has long described itself) in identifying with only one side’s history. Yet when George Bush, the US president, steps off his plane to help Israel mark its 60th birthday, he will stride firmly into the past of one side
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1B63B5EF-1708-416C-BCA4-B294A39E3D51.htm
Jordan condemns Israeli crimes against Palestinians; 15/5/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7886
‘I Come from There, and Remember’ - honouring 60 years of memories; Mohammad Ghazal; 15/5/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7887
60 years of denial; Ramzy Baroud; 15/5/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7878
The story has not yet ended’; Michael Jansen; 15/5/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7877

Reuters demands explanation from Israel for death of cameramen
15/5/08
A month after journalist Fadel Shana was killed by an Israel Defense Forces tank crew in the Gaza Strip, Reuters renewed its demand on Thursday for a prompt explanation from the Israeli army of why it fired on its cameraman. Shana, a 24-year-old Palestinian, was killed on April 16 along with eight mostly teenage bystanders by darts known as flechettes that burst out of a tank shell in mid-air. Shana had been filming about 1.5 km (a mile) from two Israeli tanks. The IDF army said it had completed an initial field investigation that had determined the soldiers had followed orders and acted appropriately. But military lawyers still had to study the case before the army could give a full account.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983952.html

Israel’s checkpoints sleight of hand
Mel Fryberg; 14/5/08
At the beginning of last month Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel had removed 61 of the more than 500 roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank “to make life easier for the Palestinians.” At the Annapolis peace talks last year Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also promised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen as he is better known, that the number of roadblocks in the West Bank would be significantly reduced. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) decided to carefully examine the Israeli claim and came up with some surprising findings. It found that only 44 roadblocks had been removed, well short of the claimed 61. Six more of the roadblocks on Barak’s list have been left in place. And the remaining 11 simply never existed. A close examination of the 44 roadblocks that existed and were removed reveals that most of them had no implications whatsoever for Palestinians’ freedom of movem
See: http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/05/14/israels_checkpoints _sleight_of_hand/7205/

1948 War: Facts and Myths
Uri Avnery; 15/5/08
One day, I hope, a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, on the South African model, will be set up here in Israel. It should be composed of Israeli, Palestinian and international historians, whose job will be to establish what really happened in this country in 1948. In the 60 years that have passed since then, the events of the war have been buried under layer upon layer of Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab propaganda. A quasi-archaeological excavation is needed in order to expose the bottom layer. Even the eyewitnesses who are still alive sometimes have problems distinguishing between what they actually saw and the myths that have twisted and falsified the events almost beyond recognition.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=109903&d=15&m=5&y=2008

Should Palestinians Forgive Israel?
Samir El-Youssef; 15/5/08
In the first chapter of Amos Oz’s novel My Michael, the protagonist Hannah recalls her childhood friends, Khalil and Aziz, two Palestinians who in 1948 disappeared along with 800,000 of their people. In the last chapter she imagines her two friends coming back to blow everything up. By then Hannah has descended into madness.Hannah, like Oz and his generation of Israelis, knows that before the war of 1948 there was another, older and larger society than her own, and that that society was destroyed and its traces erased; the population was forced to leave, villages were razed to the ground and cities, neighborhoods and streets were renamed.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=109905&d=15&m=5&y=2008

Strong yearning for statehood
Daoud Kuttab;15/5/08
In the spring of 1948, my father, George Kuttab, and his brother Qostandi fled Musrara, a Jerusalem neighbourhood just outside the walled city, after their sister Hoda’s husband was killed in front of her and their children. When Dad used to tell us about the Nakba, the catastrophe that befell Palestinians in 1948, he never talked politics or hatred. He would laugh as he told us how his brother secured their home near Damascus Gate. To assure his mother and brother that the house (in what is now Israeli west Jerusalem) would be safe, my uncle joked that he had double-locked the door, turning the heavy metal key twice. He took that key with him to Zarqa, Jordan, expecting to be able to use it again one day.
See: http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10213231.html

How Checkpoints Make Palestinian Lives Worse
Ben White,
As Bush arrives in Israel, I remember a moment when the gulf between the language of the official “peace process” and the reality on the ground hit me. It was the summer of 2004, and before leaving my house in the morning, I watched then secretary of state, Colin Powell, make all the familiar noises about Israel, the Palestinians and peacemaking. I then walked to work through the Bethlehem checkpoint while over to my left, Har Homa settlement was growing unchecked. Fast forward to May 2008. Har Homa is even bigger, and the disparity between the language and approach of the international community’s peace process and the situation in the occupied territories is even starker.
See: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=109908&d=15&m=5&y=2008

15/5/08

The full horror of the Chinese earthquake emerged yesterday as rescuers discovered towns near the epicentre almost wiped out, including one that lost nearly 80per cent of its population. The death toll has climbed well above 20,000, and is rising by the hour as more information comes in from stricken communities. As many as 60,000 people are believed to still be missing in the region near the quake’s epicentre, prompting fears the death toll could rise dramatically.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23699660-25837,00.html
China quake risk to dams, nuclear sites; May 15, 2008; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23699864-25837,00.html

Damaged dam hampers China rescue
14/5/08
Rescue workers in China faced a new hazard on Wednesday when “extremely dangerous” damage was identified in a dam in Sichuan province as thousands of people remained buried in towns anv illages downstream. Two thousand soldiers have been sent to plug the cracks in the dam and have been told to avoid certain areas due to the risk of the dam being breached and areas flooded. Rescue teams have already been hampered by heavy rains in the two days since a powerful earthquake hit the country’s south-western Sichuan province.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05F89E31-2378-4ACE-AEF5-259D4E6FC9FB.htm

15/5/08

The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis which hit Burma on May 3 has been updated to 38,491, with 27,838 people missing, state radio said. The new toll announced today was raised from 34,273 dead and 27,836 missing, issued yesterday. As well as the dead and missing, another 1,403 were injured, state radio said. However, the United Nations has warned the number of dead likely exceeds 100,000, and that many more may die unless vital aid reaches up to two million survivors.

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23697727-12335,00.html
Burma kids in peril as survivors struggle; 15/5/08; See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23699863-25837,00.html
Myanmar tightens access to disaster zone; 15/5/08; http://news.theage.com.au/world/myanmar-tightens-access-to-disaster-zone-20080515-2ee1.html