Monday, October 26, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The politics of inaction
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/rudd-stays-on-top-by-keeping-off-the-playing-field-20091023-hda8.html
"Rudd wants to keep the centre-left element of his constituency happy with the "humane" part, but he also wants to deflect attack from the right. On both climate change and asylum seekers, Rudd has shown that he prefers to shut down the Opposition rather than to lead public opinion.
Rudd is emerging as a prime minister who defines himself by the fights he avoids. He is uncomfortable advocating an opinion that might be electorally risky. He would prefer to shut down an Opposition attack with narrow political tactics than to overwhelm the Opposition by mobilising broad public opinion.
Quite apart from the fact that the Government's security agencies already screen all asylum seekers, it's true that the men convicted of terrorism related charges here so far all arrived by plane."
"Rudd wants to keep the centre-left element of his constituency happy with the "humane" part, but he also wants to deflect attack from the right. On both climate change and asylum seekers, Rudd has shown that he prefers to shut down the Opposition rather than to lead public opinion.
Rudd is emerging as a prime minister who defines himself by the fights he avoids. He is uncomfortable advocating an opinion that might be electorally risky. He would prefer to shut down an Opposition attack with narrow political tactics than to overwhelm the Opposition by mobilising broad public opinion.
Quite apart from the fact that the Government's security agencies already screen all asylum seekers, it's true that the men convicted of terrorism related charges here so far all arrived by plane."
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Obama and change - the great illusion.
http://counterpunch.com/worthington09162009.html
Is Bagram Obama's New Secret Prison?
"The government was hoping that offering tribunals to evaluate the prisoners’ status would perform a useful PR function, making the administration appear to be granting important rights to the 600 or so prisoners held in Bagram, and distracting attention from the real reason for its purported generosity: a 76-page brief to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (PDF), submitted yesterday, in which the government attempted to claim that “Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”
Despite being addressed in the DoD’s new proposals, these concerns are not mitigated by the fact that, according to these plans, new prisoners will be subjected, on capture, to cursory reviews by “the capturing unit commander” and by the commander of Bagram to ascertain that they “meet the criteria for detention,” and the problem is underlined by the DoD’s insistence that it is not merely holding prisoners “consistent with the laws and customs of war,” but also holding those who fulfill the criteria laid down in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (the founding document of the “War on Terror,” approved by Congress within days of the 9/11 attacks), which authorized the President to detain those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,” or those who supported them.
As I explained, this “seems to confirm, in one short sentence, that, although the CIA’s secret prisons have been closed down, as ordered by President Obama, a shadowy ‘rendition’ project is still taking place, with an unknown number of prisoners being transferred to Bagram instead.”
So closing Guantánamo increases the need for a new Guantánamo, and barring the use of secret prisons just means that you need to find a new place to stash secret prisoners? Have we had it with Guantánamo because it’s unfashionable -- like a played-out spring-break destination, now overrun with journalists and human-rights lawyers hopping on planes in Florida -- or because we actually don’t like extrajudicial, indefinite detention?
Is this what is happening now at Bagram? Shortly after Panetta made his comments, I noted that “the only logical conclusion” I could draw was that, “essentially, the Obama administration’s only real problem with ‘extraordinary rendition’ is one of scale. The Bush administration’s industrial-scale rendition policies have been banished, but the prospect of limited rendition -- to third countries rather than to the U.S. court system, as would surely be more acceptable -- is being kept as a possible option.”
Is Bagram Obama's New Secret Prison?
"The government was hoping that offering tribunals to evaluate the prisoners’ status would perform a useful PR function, making the administration appear to be granting important rights to the 600 or so prisoners held in Bagram, and distracting attention from the real reason for its purported generosity: a 76-page brief to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (PDF), submitted yesterday, in which the government attempted to claim that “Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”
Despite being addressed in the DoD’s new proposals, these concerns are not mitigated by the fact that, according to these plans, new prisoners will be subjected, on capture, to cursory reviews by “the capturing unit commander” and by the commander of Bagram to ascertain that they “meet the criteria for detention,” and the problem is underlined by the DoD’s insistence that it is not merely holding prisoners “consistent with the laws and customs of war,” but also holding those who fulfill the criteria laid down in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (the founding document of the “War on Terror,” approved by Congress within days of the 9/11 attacks), which authorized the President to detain those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,” or those who supported them.
As I explained, this “seems to confirm, in one short sentence, that, although the CIA’s secret prisons have been closed down, as ordered by President Obama, a shadowy ‘rendition’ project is still taking place, with an unknown number of prisoners being transferred to Bagram instead.”
So closing Guantánamo increases the need for a new Guantánamo, and barring the use of secret prisons just means that you need to find a new place to stash secret prisoners? Have we had it with Guantánamo because it’s unfashionable -- like a played-out spring-break destination, now overrun with journalists and human-rights lawyers hopping on planes in Florida -- or because we actually don’t like extrajudicial, indefinite detention?
Is this what is happening now at Bagram? Shortly after Panetta made his comments, I noted that “the only logical conclusion” I could draw was that, “essentially, the Obama administration’s only real problem with ‘extraordinary rendition’ is one of scale. The Bush administration’s industrial-scale rendition policies have been banished, but the prospect of limited rendition -- to third countries rather than to the U.S. court system, as would surely be more acceptable -- is being kept as a possible option.”
No disagreement on asylum seekers
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/fakewrestling-rivals-box-one-anothers-ears-20091022-hbef.html
"Yesterday, witnesses in the House of Representatives chamber were treated to a stagey, bizarre mock argument between two men who agree with each other.
Kevin Rudd has humanised the immigration process for asylum seekers by easing detention requirements and abolishing the issuance of temporary protection visas.
Neither of these changes was opposed by the Coalition.
Largely, they've reached consensus on this stuff.
And yet they bellow and strut and accuse each other of deep moral turpitude … why?
It's an entirely confected argument, staged for entirely political reasons."
"Yesterday, witnesses in the House of Representatives chamber were treated to a stagey, bizarre mock argument between two men who agree with each other.
Kevin Rudd has humanised the immigration process for asylum seekers by easing detention requirements and abolishing the issuance of temporary protection visas.
Neither of these changes was opposed by the Coalition.
Largely, they've reached consensus on this stuff.
And yet they bellow and strut and accuse each other of deep moral turpitude … why?
It's an entirely confected argument, staged for entirely political reasons."
It's all about how you get here apparently
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/australians-all-let-us-react-says-the-right-20091022-hbck.html
"It's worth remembering that under Ruddock as immigration minister, the number of those living illegally in Australia steadily rose. When he first became the minister in 1996 there were 45,000 people unlawfully living here. About the time he was leaving the portfolio, the numbers had climbed to 60,000, according to the department's 2004 annual report.
Overwhelmingly, these people had arrived by aircraft. It's those who arrive in boats who inexplicably bring out the worst in us."
"It's worth remembering that under Ruddock as immigration minister, the number of those living illegally in Australia steadily rose. When he first became the minister in 1996 there were 45,000 people unlawfully living here. About the time he was leaving the portfolio, the numbers had climbed to 60,000, according to the department's 2004 annual report.
Overwhelmingly, these people had arrived by aircraft. It's those who arrive in boats who inexplicably bring out the worst in us."
Monday, October 19, 2009
A bludgeoned bikie is not the biggest pockmark on Sydney Airport’s security.
http://english.aljazeera.net/archive/2003/09/200849141226178421.html
"Two men dressed as technicians entered a top-security section of Australia's busiest airport in Sydney, spent two hours disconnecting computers and disappeared with the machines.
They entered the airport a week ago, identified themselves as employees of the airport's computer services provider and cleared to enter the customs division's mainframe room, protected by top-level airport security requirements.
However customs officers said the two mainframe servers at Sydney International Airport held thousands of confidential files, including top-secret communications between customs investigators and the federal police and the ASIO."
"Two men dressed as technicians entered a top-security section of Australia's busiest airport in Sydney, spent two hours disconnecting computers and disappeared with the machines.
They entered the airport a week ago, identified themselves as employees of the airport's computer services provider and cleared to enter the customs division's mainframe room, protected by top-level airport security requirements.
However customs officers said the two mainframe servers at Sydney International Airport held thousands of confidential files, including top-secret communications between customs investigators and the federal police and the ASIO."
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Siev X: Australia's most grotesque political shame in recent history.
There are a whole network of people who should be in gaol for this.
Australia's most grotesque political shame in recent history.
http://www.sievx.com/articles/challenging/2003/20030105SundayTelegraph.html
"The sinking of SIEV X was his ultimate sting -- the tragedy that would hit world headlines and ensure Prime Minister John Howard's re-election as a leader ready to deter people-smugglers and protect Australia's borders, whatever the cost in human lives. SIEV X sank 30 hours into its doomed voyage, in international waters some 50-65 nautical miles south of Java. It was planned to sink much earlier, in Sunda Strait, where frequent shipping might have saved more people...A total of 353 lives were lost."
Tony Kevin is a former Australian Ambassador to Cambodia and Poland.
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/tragic-legacy-of-sievxs-fatal-sinking-20091019-h38e.html
Australia's most grotesque political shame in recent history.
http://www.sievx.com/articles/challenging/2003/20030105SundayTelegraph.html
"The sinking of SIEV X was his ultimate sting -- the tragedy that would hit world headlines and ensure Prime Minister John Howard's re-election as a leader ready to deter people-smugglers and protect Australia's borders, whatever the cost in human lives. SIEV X sank 30 hours into its doomed voyage, in international waters some 50-65 nautical miles south of Java. It was planned to sink much earlier, in Sunda Strait, where frequent shipping might have saved more people...A total of 353 lives were lost."
Tony Kevin is a former Australian Ambassador to Cambodia and Poland.
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/tragic-legacy-of-sievxs-fatal-sinking-20091019-h38e.html
Journalism rebooted
The rebirth of The National Times has returned a platform for Australian journalists who actually think before writing articles.
Good political analysis daily.
nationaltimes.com.au
Good political analysis daily.
nationaltimes.com.au
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Why the Emissions Trading Scheme is reckless
No doubt Global Warming is a difficult issue because it requires global co-operation and leadership by world leaders. *cue laugh track*
Add to this, Greenhouse gases come from virtually every process of sustaining human life, such as agricultural production; fertilizers; human, animal and plant methane; pre-dominate forms of electricity production and transport. These all not all carbon emissions. And only carbon emissions will be included in the scheme.
With a growing world population agricultural Greenhouse emissions will rise significantly. As global food shortages become more acute, the chances are that organic agricultural production will not increase as it suffers from lower yields; which is a bulwark to the roll back of commercial fertilisers - a major Greenhouse pollutant.Unless more productive organic agricultural production techniques are employed, organic produce will remain a niche consumer product.
The sheer immensity of the problem surely strikes glee into the hearts Australian Coal Association and many other carbon-intensive lobbyists. For, without a doubt, there are no shovel-ready solutions to this global problem. Dithering and distraction tactics have not helped the cause.
Nevertheless Rudd is playing the issue like a slimy spiv. He plans to increase emissions in Australia up to 2015 and possibly beyond whilst buying carbon credits from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. These credits are in lieu of forgone deforestation.
Firstly, how do we know that these areas are being 'saved' from deforestation in the first place?
Knowing the Australian government, they are adept at creative accounting. The Gunns Pulp Mill in Tassie was brokered on the 'compromise' that a section of the wilderness would be protected from clearing and logging. However Labor snavelled a neat deal for their Gunns mates in that only the virgin rainforest that was too mountainous to be commercially viable for logging was 'saved'. In reality it was never going to be logged whilst vast swathes of virgin rain forests (some of the oldest and most bio-diverse in the world) are to be felled to make... paper?
Secondly, is it a good idea to donate potentially billions of dollars to two of the most corrupt countries in the world? They could easily gobble the money and take no action. For one, their bureaucracies are not capable of enforcing existing agreements regarding deforestation let alone gargantuan extensions of such agreements. Indigenous peoples lose out significantly with such agreements and corrupt plutocrats gain. Just as an example, the Forestry Minister in PNG owns a home that was donated to him by a logging company. PNG falls below Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other failed states in Transparency International's 'International Corruption Perception Index'. I wouldn't be surprised if money funneled into PNG and Indonesia creates Boris Yeltsin-esque kickbacks for Labor pollies either.
Both the dithering and distraction must end.
Add to this, Greenhouse gases come from virtually every process of sustaining human life, such as agricultural production; fertilizers; human, animal and plant methane; pre-dominate forms of electricity production and transport. These all not all carbon emissions. And only carbon emissions will be included in the scheme.
With a growing world population agricultural Greenhouse emissions will rise significantly. As global food shortages become more acute, the chances are that organic agricultural production will not increase as it suffers from lower yields; which is a bulwark to the roll back of commercial fertilisers - a major Greenhouse pollutant.Unless more productive organic agricultural production techniques are employed, organic produce will remain a niche consumer product.
The sheer immensity of the problem surely strikes glee into the hearts Australian Coal Association and many other carbon-intensive lobbyists. For, without a doubt, there are no shovel-ready solutions to this global problem. Dithering and distraction tactics have not helped the cause.
Nevertheless Rudd is playing the issue like a slimy spiv. He plans to increase emissions in Australia up to 2015 and possibly beyond whilst buying carbon credits from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. These credits are in lieu of forgone deforestation.
Firstly, how do we know that these areas are being 'saved' from deforestation in the first place?
Knowing the Australian government, they are adept at creative accounting. The Gunns Pulp Mill in Tassie was brokered on the 'compromise' that a section of the wilderness would be protected from clearing and logging. However Labor snavelled a neat deal for their Gunns mates in that only the virgin rainforest that was too mountainous to be commercially viable for logging was 'saved'. In reality it was never going to be logged whilst vast swathes of virgin rain forests (some of the oldest and most bio-diverse in the world) are to be felled to make... paper?
Secondly, is it a good idea to donate potentially billions of dollars to two of the most corrupt countries in the world? They could easily gobble the money and take no action. For one, their bureaucracies are not capable of enforcing existing agreements regarding deforestation let alone gargantuan extensions of such agreements. Indigenous peoples lose out significantly with such agreements and corrupt plutocrats gain. Just as an example, the Forestry Minister in PNG owns a home that was donated to him by a logging company. PNG falls below Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other failed states in Transparency International's 'International Corruption Perception Index'. I wouldn't be surprised if money funneled into PNG and Indonesia creates Boris Yeltsin-esque kickbacks for Labor pollies either.
Both the dithering and distraction must end.
Obama brought me closer to Paul Sheehan
Paul Sheehan got one right; Obama is entirely undeserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/peace-prize-becomes-a-travesty-20091011-gs9f.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/peace-prize-becomes-a-travesty-20091011-gs9f.html
A bubble in Beijing?
Re: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14587027
The Economist really needs to take the perspective of Beijing when questioning the Yuan’s value.
China, if I am not mistaken, is the largest holder of US Treasury bonds. When the developed economies of the world are slumping, it is in everyone’s interest to align devaluing the Yuan with renewed developed world growth. Pre-empting this is flawed. To devalue the Yuan is to shred the worth of China’s investments overseas at a time when much of the world is relying on Sino stability to restore many a bruised western economies.
Luckily for the pragmatists out there, China will not listen to The Economist’s ill-thought advice.
The Economist really needs to take the perspective of Beijing when questioning the Yuan’s value.
China, if I am not mistaken, is the largest holder of US Treasury bonds. When the developed economies of the world are slumping, it is in everyone’s interest to align devaluing the Yuan with renewed developed world growth. Pre-empting this is flawed. To devalue the Yuan is to shred the worth of China’s investments overseas at a time when much of the world is relying on Sino stability to restore many a bruised western economies.
Luckily for the pragmatists out there, China will not listen to The Economist’s ill-thought advice.
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