Description of local affairs in the Arab world.
U.S. Iraq Policy Fatally Flawed
A collection of articles
UN Suspends Review Process for Sanctions Against Iraq and Threatens New Sanctions
IRAQI ATHLETES BARRED FROM ARAB GAMES

Here is an extract from one of the links:

"If 800,000 people had died in some country of the world because of the direct action of outside powers, would this not be headline news? If 4,500 children, and almost as many adults, were perishing each month as a result of this international crisis, would not world leaders be anxiously huddling and showing great concern to find a solution?

"But when the people dying are residents of Iraq, suddenly all kinds of walls and excuses arise in our minds. Suddenly they are less human. It's all too complicated - or so our leaders would have us believe."

The UN is continually referred to as a "toothless tiger" by those who believe the treaties that mainstream Australia know nothing about will never or cannot be enforced. Yet it is the UN decisions which are decimating Iraq. Why is so much time being spent on preparing the UN Draft Legislation on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? Who are the Australians involved in this process and what is their political agenda? No-one knows. What we do know is that the whole process is undemocratic.

One of the links above refers to the "Arab Games". Well here in Australia we wake up to discover that the 2002 Gay Games and Cultural Festival will be held in Sydney.

Organisers expect more than 10,000 queers and lesbians from around the world to attend the event which will include 30 sports and 6 demonstration sports as well as a series of lectures on gender and sexuality in sport.

And I am sure that Cheryl Kernot will be a guest speaker for the cause.

The event will cost more than Au$10 million to hold and take up 70% of the venues used in the Sydney Olympics.

Gay games spokesperson Gillian Minervini spoke to the ABC from Denver yesterday saying, "The actual event is a bigger event than the Olympics in terms of the number of athletes. There will be 12,000 athletes and 5,000 cultural participants."

Now did I get that right.... "cultural participants".... isn't it funny how queers always seem to associate with multiculturalism... it is like a stamp legitimising their unnatural behaviour by dragging in a "normal" cultural event.

In the Weekend Australiannewspaper the reporter, Jennifer Foreshew, describes the successful bid as part of a "double win" for Sydney - New South Wales minister for Sport and Recreation Gabrielle Harrison announcing yesterday that the city would host the World Lifesaving Championships in the year 2000. The article has a picture of two spikey haired lesbians kissing in Sydney's Banana Bar.

Yuch!!!

Political:

The News Limited papers are reporting in a more and more biased manner finding Howard to be guilty of "racism" because of his ten point plan on Wik.

Yesterday, it appears, Howard tried to censor Patrick Dodson's (the fellow who resigned from the Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee a few weeks ago) eulogy for H C Nugget Coombs. Howard felt that some of the remarks should be cut as "the more political comments seemed inappropriate for a eulogy at a State memorial service for a great Australian", a spokesman said.

Howard was clearly not happy when Dodson presented his eulogy at the funeral at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. The audience of 800 included a number of the elites, Governor General Sir William Deane, Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam.

Dodson said, "I think he (Nugget Coombs) would be profoundly disappointed. I think he would be wondering if after a lifetime of working with governments of all kinds to push the country forwards, at the end of his life, it appears to be going backwards.

"This (the recognition of Aboriginal rights) is what Nugget understood and old age couldn't stop him living by that understanding and fighting for what was right.

"Nugget Coombs would grieve to learn that at the end of the Australian century he did so much to define - and to define in terms of justice and equality and courage and vision - indigenous Australians are going to be denied the right to negotiate over land that was stolen from them and which even now they are willing to share."

About 20 Aboriginal dancers including the chairman of the Northern Land Council, Galawarruy Yunupingu, performed the Yolngu funeral rite before the opening prayers.

Yunupingu is central to indigenous land claims in the Northern Territory and has real problems in relation to his credibility with his and questionable free-spending of ATSIC money...

Somehow these issues get forgotten, lost, become irrelevant in this world of political correctness.

Can you imagine a "white" public servant working for any state government continuing to hold such a high position after these issues had been revealed!

You say:

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Another beautiful day in paradise... rain and storms - but hey, we need them.

Tonight we are having a bar-b-que with our Aboriginal neighbours.

#

See GLOBE International for other world news.