Correction: Last week's All the News That Fits quoted a story by the Financial Review which gave some figures on the call centre industry. The Financial Review seems to have made a mistake with them.
This week's stories: Australian Soldier Charged Over East Timor...Nursing Home Crisis Continues...Australian Government Works With Iran To Return Dissidents...Marriage Dangerously Close to Being up to the People Concerned...Space Shuttle Disaster May Have Had Familiar Cause...Quotes of the week. A former member of the Australian SAS has been charged with abusing a corpse while on duty in East Timor. Investigations are continuing into allegations of mistreatment of prisoners. The Age, February 22. An 87 year old patient at an aged care centre was assaulted at least four times by another patient. Anastasia Sdrinis says she also found her mother smeared with faeces several times. Other relatives of patients at the Kingston Centre say that emergency buzzers in some wards were broken, dementia patients were often unsupervised and toilets were in a "disgraceful" condition. A worker at the centre has been suspended after removing genital hair from fourteen patients with either dementia or serious mental illness, without consent or authorisation. The Age, February 22. The Australian government is negotiating with the Iranian government, to return 190 Iranian citizens who are seeking asylum in Australia. 22 of the asylum seekers are children. Among the 474 people officially listed as executed by the government of Iran in 2002 alone are people killed by stoning, throwing off a cliff, by public mutilation of limbs, and eye gouging. Most of these punishments were carried out before a public audience. Hundreds were arrested during recent anti-government demonstrations, with the fate of many still unknown. The body of a female student, Leila Nourgostari, was found dumped in a street a few days after her abduction by the government in Shiraz. In January 2003 , a 15 year old girl was condemned to be flogged. It is normal practice to include children under 18 to be sentenced to punishments such as execution, amputation of limbs and flogging in public. On December 28 2002, a member of the powerful Guardian Council said: "[death by] stoning cannot be replaced by any other form of punishment and its validity is not subject to the [considerations of] time and place." Commenting on a possible bill to abolish stoning, a pro-Khatami Majlis deputy Elahe Koulaii said: "This is a lie. No proposal to abolish stoning has been submitted to the Majlis." (State-run Khorassan daily, December 17, 2002). press release by refugee advocates, January 20. The government tried to have the courts declare that a marriage between a woman and a female to male transsexual was illegal, because they could not have children. The government unsuccessfully argued that a principal purpose of marriage was having children, and therefore the marriage should be invalid. A spokesperson for Attorney-General Daryl Williams said that the case raised "serious issues" about "the role of Parliament in determining the meaning of marriage". The Age, February 22. The space shuttle disaster may have been a result of privatisation. The space shuttle program has been 92% privatised and is now run by aerospace companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Over the summer a retired 36-year veteran of NASA called on President Bush to enact a temporary moratorium on all space shuttle flights because of safety concerns, but was ignored. SchNews news report, February 7. Quotes of the Week: "We would never have had tax reform if I had followed the opinion polls on that issue". Prime Minister John Howard, explaining why he will keep supporting war with Iraq regardless of public opinion. "The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States [government] and world public opinion". The New York Times. "For a man leading Australia closer to a war possibly against the wishes of the majority, John Howard seems remarkably at peace with himself. He is absolutely sure it is the morally correct course of action". The Age. [The United States government is] "about to betray, as it has done so many times in the past, those core values of self-determination and human liberty". Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, who at first supported war with Iraq, after seeing the US government's plans for Iraq after the war. Reported in the Age. anarchist news service write to James, PO Box 503, Newtown NSW 2042 or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] contact us to get ATNTF emailed directly to you. If you like All the News That Fits, forward it on. www.angry.at/politicians - new anarchist website with fliers for download, contacts etc. www.angry.at/racists - Anarchist/anti-racist music site with free mp3s, Real Audio, Real Video, internet radio, band interviews etc. Also includes the text of 'Escape', an anarchist novel - www.geocities.com/skipnewborn/novel.doc www.dolearmy.org - information for unemployed people. www.activate.8m.com - anarchist magazine aimed at teenagers. All the News That Fits appears in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review (www.vicnet.net.au/~anarchist - PO Box 20 Parkville VIC 3052) and The Ham (www.theham.cat.org.au), as well as Melbourne Indymedia (www.melbourne.indymedia.org). Media outlets mentioned in All the News That Fits are sources - items are not direct quotes from news media. Background information may have been gathered from sources in addition to media outlets cited. 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