March 11th, 2010
Andrew Darby; 11/3/10
An ancient artefact site that today’s Aborigines are struggling to protect from road building could push human occupation of Tasmania out to 40,000 years ago. Preliminary dating of stone tools from the site beside the Jordan River, north of Hobart, shows people were living on what is now the island state up to 6000 years earlier than previously known. For the first time, evidence of ice-age human habitation in the region has been found in open ground, rather than confined to a cave, consultant archaeologist Rob Paton said yesterday. Thousands, and perhaps millions, of stone artefacts are buried in a 600-metre long bank that gradually built up beside the Jordan through flooding over aeons.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights
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March 11th, 2010
11/3/10
A new election law unveiled by Burma’s ruling military yesterday bars pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from running in upcoming elections, forcing her own political party to say they would have to expel her. The Political Parties Registration Law, published in official newspapers, excludes anyone convicted by a court of law from joining a political party, and may push Ms Suu Kyi out of her National League for Democracy.NLD spokesman Nyan Win said: “I have noticed that we have to expel Daw Suu. Their attitude is clear in this law. I was extremely surprised when I saw this. I did not think it would be so bad.” US envoy Kurt Campbell said in Kuala Lumpur yesterday: “I think it would be fair to say what we have seen so far is disappointing and regrettable.” Aung Thein, a lawyer who has defended activists in the country, called the law “absolutely undemocratic and unfair”.
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Tags: Burma, Human Rights
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March 11th, 2010
Duncan Gardham; 11/3/10
US intelligence agencies misled allies, including Britain, about US mistreatment of suspected terrorists, the former head of MI5 has said. Eliza Manningham-Buller, who retired as head of Britain’s domestic spy agency in 2007 and is now a member of the House of Lords, said the Americans suppressed details of their harsh handling of some prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of organising the September 11 attacks. “The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,” she said on Tuesday at a lecture at the House of Lords organised by an academic group. Britain’s spy agencies have been heavily criticised for alleged collusion in the torture overseas of terrorism suspects, including people in US custody.
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Tags: Terrorism, UK, USA
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March 11th, 2010
10/3/10
A 62-year-old Uighur who has lived in Sweden as a political refugee for the past 13 years has been jailed for spying on Uighur expatriates on behalf of China. Babur Maihesuti, a Swedish citizen, was found guilty of ”aggravated illegal espionage activity” and was on Monday sentenced to 16 months, the Stockholm District Court said. From January 2008 until June 2009, Maihesuti collected personal information about exiled Uighurs, including details on their health, travel and political involvement. He passed the information on to a Chinese diplomat and a Chinese journalist who, on assignment from the Chinese intelligence service, carried out operations in Sweden for the Chinese state. ”The activity has taken place in secret through a special system of telephone calls [and] was also deceptive since the man did not tell the Uighurs he was dealing with he was working for the Chinese state,” the court said.
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Tags: China, Human Rights, Sweden
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March 11th, 2010
Mark Dodd; 11/3/10
People-smugglers caught in Indonesia will face five years’ jail under tough anti-trafficking measures unveiled yesterday during a historic speech to federal parliament by visiting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In the first speech by an Indonesian leader to Australia’s parliament, Dr Yudhoyono announced that a new law would make people-smuggling a crime in Indonesia – a move designed to discourage the Indonesian fishermen who have carried thousands of asylum-seekers into Australian waters.
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Tags: Australia, Indonesia, Migrants & Refugees
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March 11th, 2010
Abraham Rabinovich; 10/3/10
The Obama administration yesterday discarded far-reaching offers made to the Palestinians by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert as it announced the two parties had agreed to resume peace talks that have been frozen for more than a year. Reports last night said US special envoy for the Middle East, George Mitchell, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the understandings reached following the 2007 Annapolis Conference were non-binding in the current round of negotiations. Haaretz reported that Mr Mitchell’s deputy David Hale said the negotiations after Annapolis and the understandings reached would not be binding. Mr Olmert had gone further in offering concessions than previous leaders, proposing an Israeli withdrawal from 94 per cent of the West Bank with the remaining 6 per cent swapped for an equivalent swath of Israeli territory.
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Tags: Human Rights, Israel, Terrorism, USA
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March 10th, 2010
10/3/10
US judge who sentenced a couple to prison for the death of their son says members of their church must stop relying on faith healing when their children’s lives are at stake. “Too many children have died unnecessarily – a graveyard full,” judge Steven Maurer said yesterday. “This has to stop.” Judge Maurer spoke in a quiet voice as he led to his conclusion: Jeffrey and Marci Beagley each should serve 16 months in prison. Members of the Followers of Christ church who packed the courtroom sobbed. The Beagleys were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the June 2008 death of their son, Neil, 16, of complications from a congenital urinary tract blockage. The condition normally is easily treated.
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Tags: Children, Christianity, health, USA
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March 10th, 2010
Peter Alfordl; 10/3/10
Japanese governments lied to their people for more than 30 years about a “tacit” secret agreement allowing nuclear-armed US vessels to use their ports, a special Foreign Ministry panel reported yesterday. The tacit agreement, an undisclosed adjunct to the 1960 revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty, allowed breaches of Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles until 1991 when Washington officially halted deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on warships. Successive conservative governments “offered dishonest explanations, including lies from beginning to end”, the panel convened by Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada reported yesterday. “This attitude should not have been allowed under the principle of democracy,” Mr Okada said. He said it could not be discounted that nuclear weapons passed through Japan during that period – many experts believe it happened frequently – but that current security arrangements between the two countries were unaffected.
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Tags: Arms, Environment, Japan
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March 10th, 2010
Matthew Franklin; 10/3/10
A long-serving former Liberal MP has broken ranks with his old colleagues to attack the nation’s system of drought relief, saying it encourages farmers to keep working properties that are not viable. Barry Wakelin, who held the South Australian seat of Grey between 1993 and 2007, told The Australian yesterday that farmers should face the same concept of mutual obligation for taxpayer support as was applied to welfare recipients. Wakelin said existing drought-relief arrangements, including interest rate subsidies and direct payments, did not include any incentive for recipients to modify their operations to make them deal better with future droughts. … The current exceptional circumstances drought relief system provides interest rate subsidies and direct income support for farmers who live within areas designated as being affected by drought. Agriculture Minister Tony Burke is working on sweeping reforms, including abolishing interest rate subsidies and making aid contingent on farmers demonstrating a willingness to use good economic times to insulate themselves against future drought. Mr Burke yesterday told parliament he was proceeding with planning for a new system.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Trade
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March 10th, 2010
Tony Koch; 10/3/10
Two witnesses familiar with the Palm Island police lock-up, where Mulrunji Doomadgee died, yesterday supported evidence that the scene of his alleged assault had been visible through a mirror. Appearing at a new inquest into the death in custody of Doomadgee, the witnesses backed testimony by local man Roy Bramwell of the existence of the mirror, which he said had allowed him to see police Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley punch and knee the Palm Islander. Mr Bramwell, who was in the watch-house when Doomadgee was brought in on November 19, 2004, gave several interviews immediately after his death but did not mention the mirror until he was questioned by Queensland’s Crime and Misconduct Commission nearly two years later.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Death in Custody, Human Rights
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March 10th, 2010
Stuart Rintoul & John Lyons; 10/3/10
The father of a fourth Australian caught up in the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai says it was glaringly obvious that the photograph on the passport used by one of the assassins was not his son. Interpol yesterday released the smiling face of the 27th suspect in the January murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, identified as Joshua Aaron Krycer. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said inquiries by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Passport Office indicated Mr Krycer’s passport was fraudulently duplicated, as were the passports of three other Australians used by the assassins. The real Joshua Krycer is a speech pathologist who left Melbourne three years ago to work in a Jerusalem hospital.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Israel, USA
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March 9th, 2010
9/3/10
The Northern Territory is set to house a national radioactive waste dump, after the federal coalition resolved to support government legislation. Opposition energy spokesman Nick Minchin on Tuesday said the coalition had long recognised the need for a central repository, but when in government, had its efforts frustrated by state Labor governments. “It is much more sensible for waste, resulting from medical and research procedures, to be stored in a secure, specifically designated facility rather than in an ad hoc fashion in various locations across the country, as is currently the case,” he said. Labor kept an election promise by repealing the coalition’s Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Environment, Nuclear
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March 9th, 2010
Paul Maley; 9/3/10
A Sri Lankan refugee being held on Christmas Island with her two young children after ASIO declared her to be a security threat worked for the legal system run by the Tamil Tigers. The Australian has learned that the woman, who was rescued by the Customs vessel Oceanic Viking in October, lived and worked in the Vanni district in Sri Lanka’s north, which was controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Speaking from Indonesia, the woman’s brother said his sister had been employed in the de facto justice system set up by the LTTE, which was described by the US State Department as “agents” of the Tamil Tigers. “She was working in LTTE courts,” the man said. “She was working in the law office or court of the LTTE.”
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Tags: Australia, Indonesia, Migrants & Refugees, Sri Lanka
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March 9th, 2010
Lanai Vasek; 9/3/10
When Les Alcorn decided he wanted to take the world’s largest mining company to court, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. He also knew he and his wife, Margaret, would need the full support of the local community to protect their farm of 37 years from BHP Billiton’s exploration plans. Yesterday, Mr Alcorn’s worries turned to celebration as the 75-year-old cattle farmer from Quirindi, on the Liverpool Plains in NSW’s mid-north, savoured a landmark decision handed down in the Supreme Court on Friday. Judge Monika Schmidt found that BHP’s licences to explore for coal on two farms in the region – the Alcorns’ and the family farm of Geoff and Sharon Brown – were invalid because the company had not consulted other landholders: the banks. “I feel vindicated,” Mr Alcorn told The Australian yesterday.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Trade
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March 9th, 2010
Paige Taylor & Debbie Guest, 9/3/10
Outback loan shark Sam Tomarchio has been ordered to stop lending in a Supreme Court writ lodged by Western Australia’s Department of Commerce late yesterday. The writ is the first action resulting from a raid by Consumer Protection officers on Mr Tomarchio’s Laverton home office on January 28, 13 days after The Australian revealed he controlled the Centrelink payments of hundreds of Aborigines across central Australia. Mr Tomarchio said last night both levels of government had yet to provide promised crisis money, which had left many local people without funds. In January, Mr Tomarchio admitted keeping the bank cards and PIN numbers of his clients when they ran out of money and needed a loan. He said he charged them 33 per cent interest and used the eftpos E machine at his chalet business to withdraw money plus interest on the days his clients received their welfare payments.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Trade
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March 9th, 2010
Tony Koch’ 9/3/10,
The key civilian witness to the 2004 watchhouse death of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee has changed his story, telling a fresh inquest he had a clear view of the incident rather than one obscured by a filing cabinet. Roy Bramwell, who was in the Palm Island cell block at the time Doomadgee was brought in, said yesterday he clearly saw the arresting policeman put his knee on the prostrate Aborigine’s chest and punch him. He said he had had initially given a different account of what happened – including the claim that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley repeatedly punched Doomadgee – because he felt intimidated by the other Queensland police called in to investigate the 2004 death in custody. His changed version of events emerged on the opening day of the third inquest into Doomadgee’s death. Mr Bramwell told an earlier inquest his vision of the “scuffle” in the lockup was partially obscured by a tall filing cabinet.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Death in Custody
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