Archive for the ‘Arms’ Category
Friday, May 7th, 2010
7/5/10
It takes a brave man to stand up to Iran’s state media and tell them to stop broadcasting his songs. But Mohammad Reza Shajarian – Iran’s beloved and acclaimed Persian classical musician – did just that following last year’s disputed presidential elections. After President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected amid allegations of voting fraud, he referred to protesters as ”dust and dirt”. Shajarian then described himself as the voice of dust and dirt, and declared he would not allow state-controlled radio and television to play his music. Eventually, they stopped. Ahmadinejad was back in the spotlight this week with his defiant address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His denials about the illicit nature of Iran’s nuclear ambitions prompted a walkout by a number of delegates, including the US representative. Iran matters hugely to the future peace and stability of the world, yet here in Australia we know very little about this Muslim nation, which is why it’s worth listening to this 69-year-old Iranian musician, who is touring Australia for the first time. He offers a timely and revealing insight into the thinking of Iran’s population
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Tags: Arms, Iran, UN, USA
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Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
5/5/10;
Japan’s Prime Minister says moving all of a key US Marine base out of Okinawa is ”impossible”, breaking with past promises to move the base outside the southern island. It was the first time since Yukio Hatoyama became Prime Minister in September that he had officially acknowledged that at least part of Futenma Marine airfield would remain in Okinawa, which hosts more than half the 47,000 American troops based in Japan. Mr Hatoyama had frozen a 2006 agreement with Washington on moving Futenma to a less crowded part of the island, straining ties with the US. Yesterday he said ”it is impossible” to move all of the base out of its current location, saying that Okinawa must share some of the burden.
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Tags: Arms, Terrorism, USA
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Friday, April 30th, 2010
30/4/10
”Drunken troops in ‘schoolies’ binge” (April 29) highlights an entrenched issue of problem drinking that leads to antisocial behaviour, including sexual misconduct. Why don’t we have an intervention and send the army in? More than two years ago troops entered Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory on the premise of reducing drug and alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct. These communities are now ”prescribed areas” that prohibit the use of alcohol and pornography, yet the rest of Australia obviously has problems with the misuse of alcohol, and Federal Parliament is situated just 10 minutes from the porn centre of the nation. Does anyone else see a double standard? Beth Harris Millner (NT)
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Tags: Arms, Australia, Drugs
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Friday, April 9th, 2010
9/4/10
Barack Obama met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague last night to sign a landmark nuclear disarmament treaty that slashes their nations’ atomic arsenals. The two heads of state were expected to sign a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty a year after the US President called for a nuclear-free world in a keynote speech. The new treaty, which must be ratified by the US Senate and Russia’s parliament to take effect, also imposes limits on the intercontinental ballistic missiles needed to deliver the warheads. The White House hopes the treaty will help yield warmer relations with Russia, tougher international sanctions against Iran and multinational co-operation to secure fissile materials and prevent nuclear terrorism.
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Tags: Arms, Russia, USA
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Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Keith John; 7/4/10; (2 Items)
The Obama administration, facing questions about the legality of its drone program — a key part of US counter-terrorism efforts in Pakistan’s Afghan-border region — is pushing back with a legal defence of a program it only tacitly acknowledges.The UN and some legal scholars have questioned whether it is legal for the US to target and execute individuals in countries the US isn’t at war with. Mary Ellen O’Connell of the University of Notre Dame law school has called the drone program “unlawful killing”, and says it violates international law.
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Tags: Human Rights, Terrorism, USA
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Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Sean Parnell; 6/4/10
Defence Minister John Faulkner has blocked another Australian shipment feared destined for a weapons of mass destruction program, sparking an angry response from the award-winning Victorian manufacturer targeted in his secret intelligence. GBC Scientific Equipment managing director Ron Grey yesterday confirmed his company had attempted to export to Pakistan, only for Senator Faulkner to intervene using the extraordinary powers of a little-known act. The Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act was used only once in its first 14 years of operation, but Senator Faulkner issued its contentious prohibition notices three times last year to stop goods reaching Iran. The $US115,000 ($125,000) GBC shipment to Pakistan is the fourth to be blocked by the minister, demonstrating his willingness to scuttle Australian business deals if it will help the government meet its international obligations.
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Tags: Arms, Australia
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Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Jim Wallis; 1/4/10;
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
It’s the largest federal budget in history. President Obama’s 2011 budget totals $3.8 trillion and contains a deficit of $1.3 trillion. The president’s priorities are clear: jobs and the military. Many people are deeply concerned about the rapidly growing deficit. With the economy still in recession and unemployment still hovering near 10 percent, the domestic priority is clearly job creation: The budget includes a $100 billion jobs program, with substantial amounts targeted to tax breaks for small businesses in order to stimulate job creation. Also included are tax credits that assist lower-income workers with expenses such as child care, which make it more possible for them to find employment.
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Tags: Arms, Human Rights, USA
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Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
Cameron Stewart; 31/3/10
The nation’s peak Jewish organisation has warned it would be an “extreme” reaction for the government to expel an Israeli diplomat as retaliation for the fake passport scandal. In its first public comments since Britain last week expelled an Israeli diplomat, raising pressure on Australia to follow suit, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry has called on the Rudd government to take a different path. ECAJ president Robert Goot told The Australian: “I think it would be an extreme reaction or possibly an overreaction (to expel an Israeli diplomat). The Jewish community would hope the Australian government might adopt a more nuanced position, depending on the outcome of the (Australian Federal Police) investigation.” The government says it will not make a decision on whether to take further diplomatic action against Israel until it receives a final report by the AFP into whether the Israeli government was involved in the use of fake Australian passports.
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Tags: Arms, Australia, Human Rights, Israel, Terrorism
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Diarmuid Jeffreys; 18/3/10
The three-year conflict that set Communist North Korea against a South Korea supported by a UN coalition headed by the US. It was the first armed confrontation of the Cold War and by the time a truce was agreed in 1953, two million soldiers and two million civilians had been killed or wounded. Six decades on, the conflict is still not formally resolved. Troops from both sides continue to face each other across the 38th parallel, while the relationship between Washington and Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, is dominated by acrimonious quarrels over the latter’s nuclear weapons programme. But there is another bitter and intractable dispute that continues to haunt both sides. North Korea alleges that the US used biological weapons against Korean civilians during the war– dropping “germ” bombs containing insects, shellfish and feathers infected with anthrax, typhoid and bubonic plague on villages across the country.
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Tags: Arms, Korea, Terrorism, USA
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Monday, March 15th, 2010
Dennis Shanahan; 15/3/10
Diplomatic relations between Australia and Japan are spreading beyond the emotional issue of whale hunting in the Antarctic, as Japanese resentment grows at Kevin Rudd’s decision not to attend a nuclear disarmament meeting in Washington next month. Tokyo’s anger over the Rudd government’s renewed threat to take it to the International Court of Justice over whaling has fuelled disappointment at the Prime Minister’s shifting emphasis on nuclear non-proliferation. Last week, senior Japanese officials circulated an assessment of Japan-Australia relations after the first visit of new Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, which praised progress on trade, defence, disaster relief and nuclear non-proliferation. But the assessment contained blunt views about the Australian government’s threat to take Japan to the ICJ and the refusal to cite the legal grounds for any action outside the International Whaling Commission talks. It also stressed the importance of continuing discussions on the nuclear issue.
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Tags: Arms, Australia, Japan, Nuclear, UN, USA
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Wednesday, 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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Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Troy Lennon; 2/3/10
The documentary “Contact”, screening on the ABC (Australia)_ on Thursday, looks at the moment that first contact took place between the last wandering band of Martu Aborigines and white people in the West Australian deserts less than 50 years ago. In 1946, the Australian government had announced plans to establish a rocket- testing range at Woomera in South Australia, with a target zone in Western Australia. But right in the path of the rockets were thousands of hectares of land still inhabited by bands of nomadic Aborigines. In the ’40s the government appointed a native patrol officer, Walter MacDougall, whose job was to make sure no people lived in the rocket target zone. MacDougall had to cover a vast, arid area – an easy place for people to hide. He cleared many of the people out but even after more than a decade, some still remained.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Arms, Australia, Human Rights
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Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Dan Oakes; 16/2/10
The second-in-command of Australia’s armed forces has admitted that the army has an alcohol problem and demanded that officers tackle a culture of heavy drinking. Lieutenant-General Ken Gillespie said in an email to commanders that he was tired of hearing about soldiers killing and injuring themselves and others through drunken behaviour, according to the army’s internal newspaper. ”To be quite frank, I am sick of seeing the near-daily reports which tell me of officers and soldiers killed, injured or arrested for behaviour that could have been avoided,” he wrote. ”I am saddened when I realise the impact these avoidable incidents have on the members, their families, their units and the army.
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Tags: Australia, Drugs, Military
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Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Paul McGeough; 13/2/10
The kohl-eyed Hakimullah Mehsud probably is dead. He was the target for a missile fired last month from an unmanned aircraft hovering over the Afghan-Pakistani border – but launched by an operator in the US. Mehsud was the ruthless mastermind of multiple suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan. He was part of a suicide mission on December 30 at Khost, just across the border in Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA agents who were working on the covert operation that now appears to have ended Mehsud’s brief and brutal leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan. In the artistry of war, the insertion of a Jordanian double-agent who detonated his explosive vest inside this super-sensitive CIA bunker was flawless. But, in their payback, the enraged Americans confirmed the breadth of a new horizon in modern warfare – launching 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border, as Washington’s electronic eyes and guns sought out Mehsud and his Taliban and al-Qaeda allies. War does not get more radical than this – technically, politically and, perhaps, ethically.
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Tags: Afghanistan, Human Rights, Pakistan, Terrorism, USA
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Friday, February 12th, 2010
Nick McKenzie & Rafael Epstein; 12/2/10
A senior Australian Army media adviser who served in Afghanistan and Iraq has revealed that a culture of excessive spin and unnecessary secrecy stopped important information reaching the public. Andrew Bird, who left the army in December after eight years as an information operations and media adviser, said Defence obscured or painted an overly rosy picture of war in places such as Afghanistan. ”The way that we communicated is all government-centric. It just relayed the ministers’ and prime minister’s message, reinforcing the government’s message. Every image we took, every interview we did and every bit of vision … was to support the government’s view,” he told The Age. A Defence spokesman rejected the claims. Mr Bird, who reached the rank of major, said the army often stage-managed events for the media, blurred the truth in interviews or used the excuse information was operationally sensitive to avoid giving it out.
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Tags: Australia, Military, Politics, USA
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Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Bret Stephens; 10/2/10
There are some excellent arguments for ending the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. And there are some lousy ones. Leave it to the people who mistake moral preening for thought to make the lousiest ones of all. For instance: ending the policy is the great civil-rights cause of our time. As compared to what? On the scale of moral precedence, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is trivial compared to the abuse of women in the Muslim world, or of political dissidents in Cuba, or of homosexuals in Iran, or of American children in inner-city public schools; the support of Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen for ending the policy is the last word on the matter. The argument might have been more convincing if Adm. Mullen hadn’t located his conscience at this moment of maximum political convenience, after saying he’d served alongside homosexuals since 1968.
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Tags: Arms, Homosexuality, USA
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