Mission & Justice

Michael Pelly; 16/5/08

The Northern Territory Government has the power to make compulsory acquisition of land, even when native title rights exist, the High Court ruled yesterday. In a 5-2 decision, the court said potential limitations on the Territory’s statutory power to acquire land had been removed by legislation in the past decade - a position that clearly annoyed judge Michael Kirby. The majority said the Lands Acquisition Act provided that “all non-native-title rights and interests” could be extinguished once conditions designed to avoid racial discrimination were met.

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Andrew Fraser & Sarah Elks; 16/5/08

The Queensland Government will tell the family of Steve Irwin they must excise an area claimed for mining on Cape York from a nature refuge it is planning for the area. The Irwin family was last year given $6.25 million by the Howard government to buy a 135,000ha property on Cape York that was to be converted into a nature reserve. Mining company Cape Alumina claims to have an exploration permit over parts of the property that allows it to explore for bauxite. Earlier this week, Steve Irwin’s widow Terri launched an online petition to save “Steve’s Place” and said the ecological integrity of the property was under threat from mining.

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Ean Higgins;16/5/08

Australia is undergoing an unparalleled movement of people and ethnic change through “hidden immigration”, but lacks a comprehensive policy to deal with it, according to an eminent demographer. Monash University professor Andrew Markus said raw immigration numbers masked the magnitude of a demographic revolution that had produced a population where one in four residents was born overseas. At 24 per cent, the overseas-born proportion of the population is twice that of the US at 12per cent, and three times that of England and Wales at 8 per cent, where racial tensions have flared again. “Opinion polls in England in July 2007 and March 2008 indicated that immigration and race issues are the main concern of electors,” Professor Markus said.

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Yusuf Muhammad; 15/5/08

Two members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice who were arrested in connection with the deaths of four people in an accident on Khaleel Road near Madinah were released yesterday, their lawyer said. “The two commission members were released on Wednesday after 36 days in detention as there is no legal basis to continue detaining them at the present stage of the case,” said Sultan ibn Zahim, the lawyer representing the two men. Earlier Zahim criticized the General Investigation and Prosecution Board (GIPB) for detaining his clients, claiming it violated clause 37 of the criminal procedures law that states that no one should be jailed without valid legal reasons.

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Roni Singer-Heruti; 15/5/08

Two years have passed since indictments were filed against Salame Abu Ghanem and Mohammed Abu Ghanem for murdering their 19-year-old sister, Reem, and the end of the trial is nowhere in sight - even though the two confessed to the crime during the investigation. Legal foot-dragging has prevented the Tel Aviv District Court from even setting dates for the trial sessions. For a year and a half, the court has not conducted sessions on the matter, other than to set new dates. Now the police fear the same legal delays may bring about the Lod brothers’ release. In a Supreme Court session last week, Justice Esther Hayut was asked to extend the remand of the two for the seventh time.

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15/5/08

Britain has bowed to pressure and said it will open an independent inquiry into the death of an Iraqi hotel worker who was beaten and died in British custody in southern Iraq in 2003. The move follows years of legal wrangling in which the family of Baha Musa and eight other Iraqis who survived the beatings have sought justice. All nine suffered 36 hours of violent interrogation before Musa died with 93 injuries, including a broken nose and ribs. Britain’s ministry of defence admitted in March that its troops tortured and breached the human rights of the men detained at a Basra hotel. The ministry apologised to Musa’s family and the other men, opening the way for potentially large compensation claims.

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15/4/08

Palestinians have held protests across the occupied territories to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when they were uprooted from their homes by the establishment of Israel. In the West Bank on Thursday, rallies and sirens commemorated the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 war. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, speaking from Ramallah, called for an end to occupation and settlement building.”It’s time for the occupation to leave our land … and for the ‘catastrophe’ to come to an end,” Abbas said in a televised speech. “Our Palestinian people have carried in pain the memory, and hope to return to their homeland.”

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15/5/08

The full horror of the Chinese earthquake emerged yesterday as rescuers discovered towns near the epicentre almost wiped out, including one that lost nearly 80per cent of its population. The death toll has climbed well above 20,000, and is rising by the hour as more information comes in from stricken communities. As many as 60,000 people are believed to still be missing in the region near the quake’s epicentre, prompting fears the death toll could rise dramatically.

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15/5/08

The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis which hit Burma on May 3 has been updated to 38,491, with 27,838 people missing, state radio said. The new toll announced today was raised from 34,273 dead and 27,836 missing, issued yesterday. As well as the dead and missing, another 1,403 were injured, state radio said. However, the United Nations has warned the number of dead likely exceeds 100,000, and that many more may die unless vital aid reaches up to two million survivors.

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Patricia Karvelas; 15/5/08

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has defended spending cuts on the Northern Territory indigenous intervention, saying the Government would boost funding as on-the-ground resources including teachers and nurses become available. More than $200 million has been cut from the intervention program launched by the Howard government last year, despite Labor’s promise to close the 17-year gap in life expectancy in a generation. Ms Macklin said the Government would still spend $666 million in the territory and add “new initiatives in the Northern Territory to those which are part of the intervention”. She said additional funding had been budgeted to pay for 200 extra teachers in the territory.

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