OILY ADDICTS

'Iraq for sale' documentary has KBR fuming

Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, and Uncovered) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

KBR's RESPONSE: "Halliburton supports an organization like Brave New Films’ right to free speech -- even when they have the facts wrong.
The claims alleged against KBR in this film represent yet another recycled rehash of inaccurate information.
Unlike a fictitious place such as Xanadu, the reality of Iraq, regardless of any political opinion or agenda, requires support and dedication that KBR is proud to continue providing to U.S. and coalition forces."
- Halliburton press release (14 Sept 2006)

HOWARD'S WAY

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard on the looming climate catastrophe

John Howard said he was “sceptical” about “gloomy” climate change predictions.

Prime Minister John Howard, a friend and ally of Bush, said he would not meet Al Gore during his Australian visit and would not heed his advice to sign up to Kyoto. "I don't take policy advice from films," Howard told reporters.

"Whilst believing that the planet is getting warmer and whilst accepting some, I don't accept all, and I believe that the methods that he [Gore] proposes will do a lot of short and medium term damage to the Australian economy."

AL GORE: “He is increasingly alone in that view among people who've really looked at the science. The so-called "gloomy predictions" are predictions of what would happen if we did not act. It's not a question of mood. It's a question of reality. And, you know, there's no longer debate over whether the earth is round or flat, though there are some few people who still think it's flat, we generally ignore that view because the evidence has mounted to the point where we understand that it shouldn't be taken seriously.”

In a talk given in February, Clive Hamiliton (director of Australia's most prominent progressive think tank, The Australia Institute) identifies John Howard as one of Australia's climate change "dirty dozen".

[Australia's Prime Minister John Howard said terrorism was a greater threat to Australia in the future than global warming.
"I think terrorism is a greater threat because I think we are doing things about global warming. We're doing things about terrorism, but terrorism is more arbitrary, it's far more capricious, and of course its immediate consequences on the people it touches are more hideous.]

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

Relatives of 14-Year Old Girl Azza Hammad Killed in an Israeli raid on Rafah yesterday.

Girl killed, seven hurt in IAF Gaza strike

Israel Air Force air strikes on a house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early Wednesday killed a 14-year-old girl and wounded seven other people, hospital officials said.
There were no major injuries in the initial strike, which leveled the house. However, as children gathered to look at the rubble, a second airstrike hit the house, killing a 14-year-old girl and wounded seven other children, hospital officials said.

[Flashback: Not guilty. The Israeli captain who put 17 bullets into a Palestinian schoolgirl. [November 16, 2005]]

EXOTIC ETHICS

AWB lawyer denies ignoring ethics

Senior AWB lawyer Jessica Lyons has told the oil-for-food inquiry she did not put her legal ethics aside to work out how to circumvent UN sanctions.

Ms Lyons received outside legal advice that a lump sum payment would breach UN sanctions. She told AWB executives they could pay over time as long as it was to a company outside Iraq, and they could also get a deal for more wheat sales.
Commissioner Terence Cole says the advice reads as, "We can't pay, here's a way of getting around sanctions on Iraq, and an argument that we're not paying Iraq".

[The Iraqi Grains Board wanted $US2.2 million as compensation for alleged wheat contamination.
The inquiry is investigation $290 million worth of kickbacks paid by AWB to the regime of Saddam Hussein.]

HOT TOPIC

Earth's temperature nears million-year high

Earth may be close to the warmest it has been in the last million years.
James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, says this does not necessarily mean there will be more frequent El Ninos, which can disrupt normal weather around the world.
But he says it could well mean that these wild patterns will be stronger when they occur.
The El Nino phenomenon is an important factor in monitoring global warming, according to a paper by Mr Hansen and colleagues published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[They blame this phenomenon on global warming that is affecting the surface of the western Pacific before it affects the deeper water. ]

AMIGO NO GO

Costello questions Trujillo's $9m salary

Treasurer Peter Costello is demanding the Telstra board explain why chief executive Sol Trujillo is being paid nearly $9 million.
Mr Trujillo has infuriated the Government by strongly opposing its appointment of the former government adviser, Geoff Cousins, to the Telstra board.

[Mr Costello is demanding that the board explain why Mr Trujillo is being paid $8.7 million this year when the company's share price is falling.]

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

US report says Iraq fuels terror

The New York Times newspaper has published what it says are the findings of a classified US intelligence paper on the effects of the Iraq war.
The document reportedly blames the three-year-old conflict for increasing the threat of terrorism and helping fuel Islamic radicalism worldwide.
This latest finding, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, is the most comprehensive report yet, based on the considered analysis of all 16 of the US intelligence agencies.

[According to the New York Times, the report says the invasion and occupation of Iraq has spawned a new generation of Islamic radicalism that has spread across the globe.]

But Bush says America is safer

"We are safer because we've taken action to protect the homeland. We are safer because we're on the offensive against our enemies overseas."

Homer: Ah, not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm!
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away!
Homer: Uh-huh, and how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around here, do you?
Homer: (Looks around) Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.

PAPAL BULL

Pope comment 'linked to crusade'

The Pope's statement has failed to defuse the anger of many Muslims.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said recent remarks by the Pope on Islam were in line with what he called a "crusade" against Muslims.

The background to the controversy, he said, was the "wish of powers whose survival depends on creating crises".

The furore over the Pope's remarks about Islam has left many Catholics inside and outside the Vatican shaking their heads in disbelief over concerns about the Pope's attitude towards the Church's relations with the Islamic world.

The previous Pope, John Paul II, wanted to reach out to other religions and in 2001, on a visit to Syria, he became the first pope to set foot in a mosque.
Benedict XVI undoubtedly wants to achieve better relations with Islam, but there is an important proviso.
It can be summed up in a single word: reciprocity. It means that if Muslims want to enjoy religious freedom in the West, then Christians should have an equal right to follow their faith in Islamic states, without fear of persecution.


[The row began last week, when Pope Benedict XVI repeated criticism of the Prophet Muhammad by a medieval scholar.]

WEATHER CHANGE

Paul Ehrlich

Old school conservative lashes out

“I’m very conservative on conservation issues. We shouldn't allow people to steal the term conservative who are actually radicals and want to destroy the world now for fun and profit. When they nominated George Bush, who was drunk for his entire time at Yale University, knows absolutely nothing, and was a terrible Governor of Texas, I could no longer stand being labeled a Republican."

Ex-Republican, Stanford Professor of Biology Paul Ehrlich.

[Download MP3 of this edition.]

ROCKET GIRL

US entrepreneur and space tourist Anousheh Ansari.

Space tourist breaks three records

A RUSSIAN Soyuz spacecraft blasted off yesterday carrying a woman set to notch up three space records: the first woman tourist, first Muslim woman, and first Iranian in orbit.
Anousheh Ansari, 40, an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, joined a Russian cosmonaut and US astronaut in the cramped interior of Soyuz TMA-9 for a flight to the International Space Station.

Ms Ansari, a US citizen based in Texas who left Iran in 1984, said she wanted to be an example to her compatriots. "I think my flight has become a sort of ray of hope for young Iranians living in Iran, helping them to look forward to something positive, because everything they've been hearing is all so very depressing and talks of war and bloodshed," she said last week.

[Ms Ansari has not said how much her ticket cost but previous space tourists have paid the Russian space program about $US20 million ($A26.5 million).]

PONTIFICATION

"Ratz."

Pope sorry for offending Muslims

In a speech at Regensburg University, German-born Pope Benedict XVI quoted an Emperor of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire regarding:

"part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both."

[The Emperor] "addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The speech incensed Muslims across the world, resulting in the Pontif's belated apology and putting an imminent visit to Turkey into question.


[Read the Pope's entire speech [37KB PDF]]

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

IAEA blasts U.S. intelligence report on Iran

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has written a scathing letter to a U.S. congressional committee saying part of its case against Iran is "outrageous and dishonest".
The report came a day before an Iranian opposition figure accused Iran of using lasers to enrich uranium in its bid to develop a nuclear weapon.
The International Atomic Energy Agency wrote the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, lambasting it for claiming that the Islamic republic "is currently enriching uranium to weapons grade".

[The subcommittee's report also insinuates that the IAEA may be in cahoots with Tehran in covering up Iran's nuclear ambitions. The IAEA shot back that the claim was "an outrageous and dishonest suggestion".]

STONE THE CROWS

CWA votes to push for marijuana trials

THE normally conservative Country Women's Association will lobby governments to begin trials in the medicinal use of marijuana.
In a decision that may send ripples of concern through conservative parties, the CWA national executive voted in Darwin to lobby for cannabis to be tested as a treatment for chronic pain.
Incoming CWA president Leslie Young, a member of the Tasmanian branch from where the motion is understood to have originated, said "cannabis is another option for people who are terminally and chronically ill.
"We'd just like them to do the trials and find out."
Ms Young, a trained nurse who runs a vegetable and livestock farm with her husband and 28-year-old son at East Sassafras near Devonport.

[Queensland Nationals president Bruce McIvor said his party was against the use of marijuana in any form for any purpose.]

LAW OF WAR

Bush aims to kill War Crimes Act

The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The Washington Post recently reported that the Bush administration is quietly circulating draft legislation to eliminate crucial parts of the War Crimes Act.

Observers say the Administration plans to slip it through Congress this fall while there still is a guaranteed Republican majority -- perhaps as part of the military appropriations bill, the proposals for Guantánamo tribunals or a new catch-all "anti-terrorism" package.

[The War Crimes Act was little noticed until the disclosure of Alberto Gonzales's infamous 2002 "torture memo." Gonzales, then serving as presidential counsel, advised President Bush to declare that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to people the US captured in Afghanistan. That, Gonzales wrote, "substantially reduced the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act."]

VOICE OF REASON

France rejects "war on terror"

France issued an implicit criticism of U.S. foreign policy on Thursday, rejecting talk of a "war on terror."

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, speaking in parliament, expressed these views on global terrorism and noted Chirac's strong opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He said the Arab state had now sunk into violence and was feeding new regional crises.

"Let us not forget that these crises play into the hands of all extremists," the prime minister said in a debate on the Middle East. "We can see this with terrorism, whether it tries to strike inside or outside our frontiers," he added.
"Against terrorism, what's needed is not a war. It is, as France has done for many years, a determined fight based on vigilance at all times and effective cooperation with our partners.

[Villepin's speech in parliament made much of France's leading role in securing a peace agreement in Lebanon backed by the United Nations, which he said had shown the virtues of "listening and dialogue."]

ENLIGHTENMENT

Chop wood, carry water

[The lotus flower is a symbol for enlightenment. Its roots are sunken in silt and debris, yet it grows out of that debris through the water and emerges into the bright sunlight as a beautiful, perfect, fragrant flower. It does not grow out of a pure, rarefied atmosphere, but from decayed matter, from the very stuff of our lives.]

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

BIG BROTHER

The net closes

The exposure of a massive database of Google customers' search queries, some of them excruciatingly personal, highlights the internet’s power to infiltrate our privacy.

In March this year, a man with a passion for Portuguese football, living in a city in Florida, was drinking heavily because his wife was having an affair. He typed his troubles into the search window of his computer. "My wife doesnt love animore," he told the machine. He searched for "Stop your divorce" and "I want revenge to my wife" before turning to self-examination with "alchool withdrawl", "alchool withdrawl sintoms" (at 10 in the morning) and "disfunctional erection". On April 1 he was looking for a local medium who could "predict my futur".

But what could a psychic guess about him compared with what the world now knows?

[This story is one of hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands, revealed recently when AOL published the details of 23 million searches made by 650,000 of its customers during a three-month period earlier this year. The searches were actually carried out by Google - from which AOL buys in its search functions.]

DARFUR CONFLICT

Photo by BBC News cameraman Glenn Middleton in Darfur.

A peace deal signed in Nigeria offered hope that a three-year conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, in which at least 200,000 people have died, could be drawing to a close.
But the violence is continuing.
Attacks by the pro-government Janjaweed militia have caused 2m people to flee their homes since the conflict began. Displaced people continue to arrive in camps, like this one at Gereida.

On the brink of new conflict

For days now the United Nations has nervously monitored the planeloads of Sudanese troops arriving in North Darfur.
Now the purpose of the build-up has become clear: the African Union is being asked to leave, and the days of international peacekeeping are to end. Khartoum is to settle the three-year-old rebellion on military terms.
There now seems no way that a United Nations force can be deployed in Darfur, since the idea of peacekeepers fighting their way into this vast, remote region is hardly plausible.

That will leave the huge camps housing two million displaced people extremely exposed.

EXCELLENT NO MORE

Image provided by the Canda-France-Hawaii Telescope Corp shows the impact of Europe's first spacecraft to the moon.

Europe's spacecraft hits the moon

Europe's first spacecraft to the moon ended its three-year mission Sunday by crashing into the lunar surface in a volcanic plane called the Lake of Excellence, to a round of applause in the mission control room in Germany.

[Mission officials said they had to raise the low point of the spacecraft's orbit by 600 meters by using its positioning thrusters to avoid the 1.5 kilometer-high rim of a lunar crater. Had the orbit not been raised the craft would have crashed one orbit too soon, making the impact difficult or impossible to observe.]

GRAVESTONE MILESTONE

A funeral is held August 25 for U.S. Marine Capt. John McKenna, one of more than 2,600 U.S. service members killed in Iraq.

U.S. deaths in Iraq, war on terror surpass 9/11 toll

The announcement of four more U.S. military deaths in Iraq raises the death toll to 2,974 for U.S. military service members in Iraq and in what the Bush administration calls the war on terror.
The 9/11 attack killed 2,973 people, including Americans and foreign nationals but excluding the terrorists. The 9/11 death toll was calculated by CNN.

["It's now almost five years since September 11, 2001. And the number of young men and women in our armed forces who have sacrificed their lives that we might live in freedom is approaching the number of Americans who were murdered on 9/11 in New York, in Washington, D.C., and in Pennsylvania."
- General Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.]