Posts Tagged ‘Arms’
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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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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Monday, February 15th, 2010
Steven Freeland; 15/2/10
There are approximately 300,000 children acting as front-line troops in armed conflict worldwide, with another 500,000 who are conscripted into government, paramilitary and guerilla groups as sex slaves, porters, cooks, spies and to plant landmines. These young boys and girls, who under international law are regarded as ”children”, are often forced to participate in the commission of heinous crimes. This horrific trend has a number of root causes. Children are seen as ”attractive” participants in armed conflict. They are vulnerable to outside influences, can be trained to become efficient soldiers and can be made to perform the most dangerous (and brutal) of tasks, through intimidation, manipulation, or under the influence of drugs. In addition, the proliferation of lightweight weapons such as the AK-47 means that children can be effectively deployed in active combat.
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Tags: Arms, Childrens Rights, Global
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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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Monday, February 8th, 2010
8/2/10
After ignoring and dodging the issue for years, the US army is being forced to face the alarming numbers of soldiers who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The suicide rate among troops on active duty is at an all time high and rising, while veterans are bringing the war home to their families and communities in the form of addiction, abuse and even murder. They are committing suicide at the rate of 18 a day. Al Jazeera’s The War Within programme examined the toll repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are taking on soldiers. To understand the symptoms and causes of PTSD from a medical perspective, Al Jazeera spoke to Barbara Van Dahlen, a clinical psychologist and the president and founder of Give An Hour (GAH), a nonprofit organisation that provides free mental health services to US military personnel and their families who have been affected by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
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Tags: Arms, health, USA
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Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Matt Wade; 4/2/10
The guns fell silent more than eight months ago but the brutal conclusion to Sri Lanka’s civil war is still being felt by Tamils caught up in the conflict. Anthony Pillai, his wife and four children were among thousands of civilians who fled fighting in the north-east two days before the Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated last May. During the escape, disaster struck. Mr Pillai trod on a landmine hidden beside a lagoon. It blew off his right leg below the knee and sprayed his wife, Mary Josephine, with shrapnel. But worse was to come. When the couple’s son, 26-year old Jayadevan, heard his mother’s scream and turned to help he, too, trod on a mine that shredded his right foot. ”It was so terrible; we couldn’t tell where the mines were,” Mr Pillai told the Herald.
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Tags: Arms, Human Rights, Sri Lanka
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Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Robert Milliken; 30/1/10
From the air above Maralinga you can still see the sites where Britain tested nuclear weapons in the South Australian desert 54 years ago. At least one is still contaminated with plutonium. The township that once hummed with Australian and British servicemen and nuclear scientists is just a shell. But if the new owners have their way, this secret place, once an unlikely flashpoint of the Cold War, may soon have a fresh life. The new owners are really the old owners: the Maralinga-Trarutja Aborigines, who were pushed aside when their traditional lands became an atomic testing ground. Late last month dignitaries again flew in, this time to witness a ceremony marking the symbolic closure of one of Australia’s most bizarre stories.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Arms, Australia, Environment, UK
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