How well founded are the alarmist global-warming scenarios put forward by former US Vice-President Al Gore? At a time when the media is awash with dire predictions about global warming and the necessity to adopt emission targets put forward in the Kyoto Protocol and carbon-trading, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has bravely decided to screen…
What can be done for Iraq? THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ:Winning the War, Losing the Peaceby Ali A. Allawi(Yale University Press)Hardcover: 544 pagesRec. price: AUD$57.95 Reading this engaging book is like watching a trapeze act. The writer Ali A. Allawi is an American-educated Iraqi politician who served as defence and finance minister in post-liberation governments in Baghdad. Excluded from the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Allawi took time to write about the tumultuous experiences of the past four years. Despite the subtitle of the book, Allawi does not argue a case for the claim that the US-led coalition and…
Australians are dangerously complacent about the threat of terrorist attacks, warns John Miller. In my two previous articles, I have endeavoured to demonstrate that the moral high ground, afforded the US in the wake of the 9/11 attack on New York’s World Trade Center, has been dissipated by the war against terror and, in particular,…
Sir, One of your correspondents suggested that “truth is not always a defence” in Australian defamation laws (Letters, News Weekly, March 3, 2007). Two years ago this statement would have been correct. However since January 1, 2006, defamation laws across the nation now contain the words: “It is a defence to the publication of defamatory…
East Timor’s recent Presidential election has been characterised by allegations of fraud and voting irregularities, reports Peter Westmore. East Timor voter. Despite the evident desire of about half a million people to vote in East Timor’s recent Presidential election, the counting of the ballot has been so tainted by allegations of fraud and irregularities that it should be done again. Although the United Nations has been involved, the conduct of the election was in the hands of an East Timorese government body, STAE (the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration), a body reputed to be dominated by members of Fretilin, the…
Bill James offers some guidelines on how to detect political bias on the ABC. The federal Labor nomination of former ABC presenter Maxine McKew has ignited a fresh outbreak of the debate over bias at the national broadcaster. Defenders of the ABC are citing Pru Goward’s involvement in the Coalition as proof that the ABC…
