This week's stories: Running People Over Legalised...No, Blood For
Oil...US Government Says It Doesn't Need Evidence...Most People Don't
Trust Politicians...Cost-Effective and Streamlined, But At the Same Time
Not Very Good...Nestle Tries To Get Blood From A Stone...A Terrorist Is
Someone Who's Against Us...Quotes of the Week.
Police have refused to charge a driver who ran a refugee advocate over
in a 4 wheel drive.
The Department of Immigration was attempting to fly a sick refugee to
the detention centre on Christmas Island, despite medical advice that he
was unable to fly. The man was attempting to stop a van which was
driving the refugee to the airport. The driver had stopped but then
restarted their engine, ran over the man's leg, and then reversed back
over it.
US government officials are considering proposals to take Iraq's oil
revenue as 'spoils of war' after invading it, to finance their occupation.
(The Age, January 11).
United Nations weapons inspectors have said that they have found no
"smoking gun" - no evidence that Iraq is developing weapons of mass
destruction. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that "the lack of
a smoking gun does not mean there's not one there...you don't really
have to have a smoking gun" White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said
that "we know for a fact that there are weapons there", and explained
the lack of evidence by saying "the problem with guns that are hidden is
you can't see their smoke".
(The Age, January 11).
83% of Australians believe that politicians aren't trustworthy,
according to an online poll.
(ninemsn.com.au, November 27).
Standards in universities are falling, according to a new study, and
many lecturers say they are under pressure to pass students who should
be failing.
The 178 page study by the Department of Education, Science and Training
interviewed more than 2000 academics and found a "deep sense of concern"
about standards, with the majority saying that standards have fallen in
the last ten years.
The study also says that universities are unable to provide evidence for
claims that they have high standards.
Universities have have been made to run in a more 'free market' fashion,
relying more on full fee-paying students and on running their own
income-generating enterprises.
(The Age, January 12).
Food and coffee multinational Nestle is demanding $US6 million ($A10.6
million) from the government of the world's poorest nation, Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is struggling with its worst famine for almost 20 years.
The money is compensation for an Ethiopian business which the previous
military government nationalised in 1975. According to Oxfam, the amount
could feed amillion people for a month. The business was not owned by
Nestle at the time, but Nestle bought the firm's former parent company
in 1986.
Last month, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said six million
people needed emergency food aid. This could increase to 15 million soon.
The famine, brought on by the failure of rains for the third successive
year, has been intensified by a collapse in the price of coffee which
supports a quarter of the country's population.
Ethiopia has the lowest income per head in the world, with the average
person surviving on $US100 a year. More than 10 per cent of its children
die before their first birthday.
Aid agencies believe the famine could be worse than 1984's in which one
million people died.
Nestle, the world's largest coffee processor, made $US5.5 billion profit
last year.
(The Guardian (UK), December 20).
The Immigration Minister has banned an anti-globalisation protestor from
entering Australia, and refused to say why.
22 year old Doyle Canning's only conviction is for taking part in a
sit-in at a US Congressman's office. She has been classed as a
'dangerous alien', putting her in the same category as people with
terrorist connections.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has refused to tell Ms Canning, the
Commonwealth Ombudsman, or the press why he or intelligence agencies see
her as a threat to Australia.
(The Australian, January 3, 2003).
Quotes of the Week:
"This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of
the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole
responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the
culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by
those who believe that the United States must seize the opportunity for
global domination, even if it means becoming the "American imperialists"
that our enemies always claimed we were....Rome did not stoop to
containment; it conquered. And so should we."
"The President's Real Goal in Iraq", Jay Bookman, Atlanta-Journal
Constitution, September 29, 2002.
"If you ask [Palestinian children] to draw some shapes, many will draw
something like a square, a circle, a tank and a triangle. That's how
ever-present the [Isreali] Occupation is for these children".
(www.burningriver.org).
"I saw myself as part of the car; an extension of the
steering wheel"
"We preferred to work in total silence, so we didn't
have to be friendly. We never used to try and chat.
They used to say Princess Margaret could freeze a
daisy just by looking at it."
"I feel I have wasted a lot of my life under an
illusion that you do a good job and get rewarded for
it. With the royal family, loyalty is a one-way
street. We were scrabbling around to live. The royal
family used to live with this sense that working for
them was a great privilege."
David Griffin, Princess Margaret's former chauffeur. In The Guardian
(UK), December 11, 2002.
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