JUSTICE FOR DAVID

Austyralian government seeks to have Hicks 'court' case dismissed

The Australian Government is arguing in the Federal Court in Sydney that a case brought by lawyers for David Hicks should not be allowed to proceed.
Lawyers for Hicks have filed an application in the Federal Court, arguing that the Federal Government has breached its protective duty towards the Guantanamo Bay detainee.

The want to argue that the Australian Government should have asked the US Government to have Hicks returned to Australia.
But the Commonwealth is seeking to have the case dismissed before it is heard.
Solicitor-general David Bennett has told Justice Brian Tamberlin he has being asked to interfere in the area of international negotiations between executive governments, which is inappropriate.
A small group of Hicks supporters, including former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib, are in court for the hearing, which is set down for two days.

[Hicks' US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said, "I think the support here and knowing that there are people out there fighting for him helps him get day by day through the time that he sits in that cell by himself in solitary, 22 hours a day."]

COMET MISSION

European spacecraft completes Mars fly-by

A European spacecraft has successfully completed a fly-by of the planet Mars as part of its journey to a distant comet near Jupiter to shed light on some of the mysteries of the solar system and how it evolved.
This was a critical manoeuvre in Rosetta's 10-year voyage through the solar system to make the first soft landing on a comet.
Rosetta's signal was picked up after 15 minutes of radio silence when the craft passed behind the red planet.

[At its closest, the spacecraft was flying barely 250 kilometres above the surface of Mars, using the planet's gravity to change course.]

EARTH CHANGES

A chilling possibility

In a 2003 report, Robert Gagosian cites "rapidly advancing evidence [from, e.g., tree rings and ice cores] that Earth's climate has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past." For example, as the world warmed at the end of the last ice age about 13,000 years ago, melting ice sheets appear to have triggered a sudden halt in the Conveyor, throwing the world back into a 1,300 year period of ice-age-like conditions called the "Younger Dryas." It is also now known that the Gulf Stream weakened in 'Little Ice Age'
On 6 December 2005 Michael Schlesinger, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, leading a research team, said "The shutdown of the thermohaline circulation has been characterized as a high-consequence, low-probability event. Our analysis, including the uncertainties in the problem, indicates it is a high-consequence, high-probability event." See also: Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age.

SKY LIGHTS

Strange lights seen over southern Queensland

Stargazers have been reporting a strange sighting in the skies over southern Queensland last night.
Numerous residents on the Darling Downs have called the ABC to report a milky glowing cloud and lights moving slowly across the night sky between 3am and 4am AEST.

Former meteorologist and amateur astronomer, Mark Yandle, from Millmerran says he thinks it could have been an explosion in space.
"High in the south-west there was a cloud of gas about twice the size of a full moon and as you watched it over, say, the course of an hour it moved slowly north-eastward and gradually got larger and at the centre of this cloud there was even brighter bits to me that sounds as though it was an explosion of some sort in outer space," he said.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Long arm of US law reaches Australia

Hew Griffiths has been in prison in Australia for nearly three years for allegedly breaching US copyright law. He has been charged by a grand jury in the US, but the offences alleged against him have never been tested, and the Australian Government has refused to resist an American demand to “surrender” him to face trial before the US District Court in Virginia.
Griffiths was born in England and has lived in Australia from the age of 7. His crime was breaching US copyright law via software piracy. The trouble is that Griffiths has never set foot in the US. He has lived all his life in Australia on the NSW Central Coast. He has been in custody for the past three years (he is 44 now) awaiting moves to extradite him to the US.

[Griffiths has already served more time on remand and awaiting extradition than anyone has served for a similar offence. Furthermore, the US authorities say they will not credit Griffiths with the time served.]

EARTH CHANGES

>

After 5m years the ancient Aral sea is now in it's death throes

Once the world's fourth largest lake, the mighty Aral Sea is now in it's death throws. Starved of it's lifeblood of the waters of the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers, the sea has been shrinking for the last 40 years.
From the 1930s, the former Soviet Union started building large scale diversion canals to irrigate vast cotton fields in a grand plan to make cotton a great export earner. This was achieved, and even today Uzbekistan is still a large exporter of cotton. But the cost in ecological and human terms have been astronomical.

[The Aral Sea is one of less than 20 ancient lakes in the world, and is estimated to be more than 5 million years old.]

THE BEE'S KNEES

Scientists abuzz with bee-sized aircraft

Scientists in Britain says they have figured out how insects fly, bringing bee-sized surveillance aircraft a step closer to reality. Experts from the University of Bath in south-west England have studied insect flight to find ways to build tiny aircraft that could be fitteded with cameras and sensors.

Scientists hope the discovery will help construct miniature aircraft that could be used for reconnaissance, border surveillance and spying.

Bath boffins found that bee wings are rigid at the front and flexible at the back.
The structure is the most efficient for generating maximum vortices, or spinning masses of air.

AUSTRALIA'S GUANTANAMO

ASIO error keeps Iraqi in detention until he went mad

The sole remaining detainee at Nauru has just been released after five years as a prisoner on the island nation's Pacific Solution prison.

The lawyer for an Iraqi refugee who has now been granted a visa says the decision proves ASIO was wrong to classify him as a threat to national security. He was refused a visa because ASIO had deemed him to be a security risk.

The Man's lawyer, Anne Gooley, said Muhammad Faisal was not a threat to Australia's national security, ASIO got it wrong.
"He should have had an opportunity to look at the things that ASIO relied on so that he could prove that he wasn't a threat."

[Muhammad Faisal was held on Nauru until last year, when he was moved to a psychiatric facility in Brisbane.]

ROGUE PILOTS

L/Cpl Matty Hull was in a convoy of light armoured vehicles near Basra.

'Rogue pilots' from US blamed for bombing UK tanks

L/Cpl Hull, Household Cavalry Regiment, died from multiple injuries inside his blazing Scimitar tank, despite efforts by colleagues to save him.

He was travelling in a column of light armoured vehicles near the southern city of Basra when it was reportedly attacked by a US A-10 "tankbuster" aircraft.

["British Forward Air Controller basically said they were rogue pilots that were working on their own," said Corporal Ashley Bell, who was also in the convoy.]

AUSTRALIA DAY

GUANTANAMO

US sets terrorism trial rules

The new rules for military courts in the US allow convicted terrorists to be imprisoned or put to death using hearsay evidence or coerced testimony.
The Pentagon's manual will apply to Guantanamo Bay detainees like Australian David Hicks.
It also states a suspect's defence lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence until the Government has had a chance to review it.
The detainee may never get to see classified information. Instead he will be given an unclassified version of the case against him.

Hicks's lawyer blasts new guidelines

David Hicks's American lawyer says new guidelines for his client's military trial are unfair and do not improve on the previous flawed system.
Major Michael Mori says the guidelines released by the Pentagon still do not include fundamental rights such as habeas corpus.
He has also criticised their retrospective nature.
"A law has been passed in 2006 that is being applied retroactively to someone for conduct five years ago," he said.
"That's not acceptable.
"Even the Australian ministers have said creating legislation now and applying it to David retroactively is inappropriate, and yet that's exactly what the United States is doing to David, which we would not accept for Americans."

[ "Unfortunately what we've seen in the past under the illegal system is that the Attorney-General just went right along with whatever his American counterparts told him and didn't exercise any independent judgement," - Major Michael Mori]

Don't accept new rules, Opposition urges Govt

The Opposition says the Federal Government should not accept the new rules for the military trial of non-American detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The Pentagon has released the guidelines, which allow hearsay evidence and information gathered under coercion to be admitted.
Lawyers say the only significant change in the new rules is the removal of the detainees' rights to habeas corpus - that is the right to challenge the nature of their detention.

["The United States' Military Commission Act expressly stipulates that no American citizen can be dealt with by the military commission, so if it's not good enough for an American citizen, if it's not good enough for a British citizen, why is it good enough for an Australian citizen?" - ALPs Kevin Thompson]

CASHLESSNESS

Banking sector wants consumers to pay for online fraud

Currently, banks reimburse consumers the money they've lost in so-called email "phishing" attacks, or from mistakes made during online transactions. But the sector's now lobbying the Australian financial services watchdog, ASIC, to shift responsibility from the banks to consumers.

The Director of CARE Financial Counselling Services, David Tennant, says banks are encouraging customers towards online banking to save costs.
DAVID TENNANT: They make some significant cost savings in consumers doing that rather than physically going into branches and so on. To think that you then reverse that course of savings by passing the risk for that transaction onto consumers just seems plain unfair to me.
JENNIFER MACEY: He says banks are better equipped to protect consumers from online and internet fraud.
DAVID TENNANT: It's now almost an entire occupation in itself to try and keep up with the new problems that you face in an online environment and to expect that average consumers are going to be able to do that when industry itself is struggling with it, I think is a bit rich.

ORANGE BOILERSUITS

Graphic footage of Saddam allies' hangings released

The Iraqi Government has released graphic video footage of the execution of two of Saddam Hussein's key allies.
One was his half-brother, the former chief of the intelligence service Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who was decapitated during the hanging.
The other man was the former boss of the Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bander.
The video first shows both men being prepared for execution, standing next to each other and dressed in orange boiler suits.

[US imperialism spreads in many and varied ways: orange boiler suits are becoming ubiquitous among prison populations and symbolise the pariah.]

SADDAM HANGED

Execution unites country
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said his government could review relations with any country which criticised the execution of ex-leader Saddam Hussein.
Mr Maliki said the hanging was a "domestic affair" for the benefit of Iraq's unity, adding that the former president had received a fair trial.

Execution divides country
The revulsion which was felt in the West and among Sunni Muslims has grown even greater. Yet so has the sense of triumph among Shias in Iraq and elsewhere. In death as in life, Saddam continues to divide his enemies.
His execution has acted like an explosion along the seismic fault-line between the two leading forms of Islam.

WAR ON JUSTICE

Hicks denied mental health assessment

An Australian forensic psychiatrist has been refused access to Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks to assess his mental health.
Professor Paul Mullen from the Victorian Institute for Forensic Mental Health visited Mr Hicks in February last year.
Last week the United States Defence Department cancelled a return visit.
Professor Mullen says there are significant questions that need to be answered about Mr Hicks's state of mind.
"Without independent mental health professionals coming in from outside, we have no idea what kind of state of mind this man is in and how close he is to suicide," he said.
"It's an outrageous situation from a mental health perspective."
Professor Mullen has told ABC Radio's AM Mr hicks needs an independent assessment of his mental health before he is brought to trial.
"Mr Hicks has made a number of statements and the state of mind that he might have been in when he made those statements are part of what the defence has to know," he said.
"There's also the issue of Mr Hicks's current state of mind - whether he is in a state to even be fit to stand trial should they bring him to trial."
Mr Hicks's military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says he has been told that defence counsel can no longer conduct its own assessments at Guantanamo Bay.

[]

RULE OF LAW

The Enemy Within

“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

This writ — or written order — has developed over the years as the principal check on arbitrary state power, the original human right, allowing a person who has been arrested to challenge the legality of that detention. It is called the “great writ,” habeas corpus, or “produce the body so that it may be examined.” Habeas corpus was codified by the British Parliament in 1640 and 1679 and is one of a handful of common laws explicitly referred to and protected in the American Constitution. Alexander Hamilton, the most zealous exponent of executive power among the founding fathers, noted that habeas corpus provided “perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism” than any clause of the Constitution.
But as of Oct. 17 of this year, this great writ has been substantially weakened in the United States by the assent of both the presidency and Congress.

NUCLEAR DAYS

China awards massive nuclear deal

Westinghouse, the nuclear-plant builder sold by British Nuclear Fuels earlier this year, has won a billion-dollar contract to build reactors in China.

The deal, worth about $8bn (£4.1bn), is for four nuclear plants. Analysts said that the deal may help soothe trade tensions with the US.
US-based Westinghouse defeated a number of other international companies to win the tender, including France's Areva and Russia's Atomstroiexport.
The fact that Westinghouse is now owned by Japan's Toshiba may also have helped secure the deal, especially after Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signalled an intention to restore friendlier ties with China.
"This is all relationship driven," said David Hurd, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. "The US is putting pressure on China at the moment, so China's response is 'let's thrown them a bone,'" he explained.

SCALES OF JUSTICE

The Sunday Age newspaper campaigns to bring David Hicks home

He lives in a cell of featureless walls, 24-hour lighting and a single window of frosted glass that in daylight glows like a fluorescent globe.

For five years, David Hicks has occupied spaces like this, caught between a US Government that has been unable to prosecute him and an Australian Government that refuses to try to free him. This sentence without trial, in conditions so secret that he cannot be photographed, could drag on for another two years unless the Federal Government asks the United States to send him home.
Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says Australia is tolerating a terrible situation. While Hicks has been in legal limbo, John Walker Lindh — the so-called American Taliban who trained at the same camp as Hicks — has been charged, pleaded guilty and sentenced. But Lindh broke American law; Hicks has not broken Australian law.

Associate professor at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Unit, David Wright-Neville, regards Hicks' treatment as outrageous in a human rights sense, and counterproductive from the perspective of counter-terrorism. He says the denial of justice and due process smacks of victimisation and threatens an entire community within Australia.
"David Hicks has been offered up as a sacrifi ce to the Bush administration," Wright-Neville says. "They had to let go of the Poms and the Swedes, so they want some token white guy so they can say we are prosecuting Europeans, not just Pakistanis and Saudis."

Law Council of Australia president Tim Bugg says the passage of time and the resulting loss of evidence means Hicks could not have a fair trial. "The Federal Government's inactivity and refusal to do anything is just extraordinary. There's an Australian citizen in the most appalling circumstances and the Government has done nothing to assist," he says.
Bugg says it appeared that political considerations rather than principle lay behind the Government's stance. "Because of that, the Government and the minister involved deserve to be condemned."

The Sunday Age invites readers to register their support to bring David Hicks home, and we will pass it on to the Federal Government. Send your messages to bringdavidhome@theage.com.au

BEAZLEY PUTSCH

Voters dump Beazley for Rudd: poll

SENSE AND PERCEPTION

'Beer goggles' effect explained

Scientists believe they have worked out a formula to calculate how "beer goggles" affect a drinker's vision.
The drink-fuelled phenomenon is said to transform supposedly "ugly" people into beauties - until the morning after.

Researchers at Manchester University say while beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, the amount of alcohol consumed is not the only factor.
Additional factors include the level of light in the pub or club, the drinker's own eyesight and the room's smokiness.
The distance between two people is also a factor. They all add up to make the aesthetically-challenged more attractive, according to the formula.

KEY TO FORMULA
Beer goggles equation
An = number of units of alcohol consumed
S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
L = luminance of 'person of interest' (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
d = distance from 'person of interest' (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)