The News Report,Issue 377

The News Report,Issue 377

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a
revolutionary act." George Orwell

Index

1. Thought for the day: Georges Clemenceau - F/w Shondra Briton

2. Request:

3. Opinion: Labour Shortages - Antonia Feitz

4. Opinion: Self verifying and self falsifying beliefs - Antonia Feitz

5. Article: Stock markets: US going the way of Japan by Orlin J Grabbe - F/W Karolyn Martin. Additional comment - Neil Baird

6. Article: Nice guys get illegal immigrants by John Derbyshire, VDARE - F/w Karolyn Martin

7. Article: The Milosevic defence that no one was allowed to hear by Joel Skousen - F/w Karolyn Martin

8. Article: National outpouring over boat people - Jeremy Lee

9. Article: The real Jesse Jackson: Shame Jesse Shame by Ali Baghdadi - MER

10. Humour: Well I'll be - F/w Philip Madsen

11. Life Sciences: Globalisation Inc: The unmentioned agenda by RAFI - F/w John Massey

12. Feedback: Australia's international reputation - Greg Weilo

13. Feedback: Has Israel met its Vietnam? - Maurice Horsburgh

14. Feedback: Oslo poll is a major blow for Labor - F/w John Markovina

15. Feedback: Doesn't this make you proud? - F/w Kerry Spencer Salt

16. Feedback: Hollywood helps CIA come in from the cold by Duncan Campbell - F/w Karolyn Martin

17. Feedback: Tory's golly joke "Moronic" - F/w Greg Weilo

18. Feedback Contacts:

19. Editorial Policy:

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1. Thought for the day:

War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.-- Georges Clemenceau (Former President of France)

Forwarded by

Shondra Briton

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2. Joining & Leaving Instructions / Funding:

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Welcome aboard if you are joining. Thankyou for being with us if you are leaving. Many thanks, good luck & may your god go with you. Neil Baird.

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3. Opinion:

Labour shortages

Recently the sentence in the paragraph below appeared in a News Report item which unfortunately I've deleted. It doesn't really matter because the sentence is an example of an idea that is frequently cited: labour shortages.

"Worker shortages, especially in low-wage service jobs, have made business groups more willing to consider the basic labor protections that Democrats and the unions would demand in any guest worker program."

"Worker shortages"? Hang on, whatever happened to the magic, mystical markets? According to economic theory there can't be a labour 'shortage'. Any such 'shortage' is the result of employers being unwilling to pay a wage rate high enough to attract workers.

But an alleged labour shortage is the reason that the US Government, while publicly making indignant protests, secretly welcomes illegal migrants. They're 'brown gold' - a source of cheap labour.

Greg Palast said, "US cities compete for prime-pick foreign workers as they would for a foreign auto plant." He said George W. Bush is pro-immigrant "not out of a weepy compassion for the 'huddled masses yearning to breathe free'. Immigration is simply good business."(Observer (London) September 6, 2001)

He continued, "In fact, it's the deal of the millennium, says Dr Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank founded by big-name Republicans. 'It's a form of reverse foreign aid. We give less than $20 billion in direct aid to Third World nations and we get back $30bn a year in capital assets.'

"By 'assets' he means workers raised, fed, inoculated and educated by poorer countries, then shipped at the beginning of their productive lives to the US . (The average age of immigrants is 28.)

"The Cato Institute reckons that the US 'imports' about $25bn a year in human 'goods'. 'It is the lubricant to our capitalistic economy,' said Moore ... 'giving US companies a big edge over European competitors.'...

"American industry saves a bundle due to its access to an army of low-skill, low-wage foreign workers who can be hired, then dumped, in a snap. US industry also siphons off other nations' best and brightest, trained at poor nations' expense.

"The habit of siphoning off other countries' high-skilled workers, let me note, permits America's monied classes to shirk the costly burden of educating America's own underclass. (So far, this system hums along smoothly: Bangalore-born programmers in Silicon Valley design numberless cash registers for fast-food restaurants so they can be operated by illiterate Texans.).."

Such is the nature of unrestrained capitalism. It's time for the re-introduction of some controls.

Antonia Feitz

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4. Opinion

Self-verifying and self-falsifying beliefs

In his book, "Economics, a new introduction", Hugh Stretton illustrated how economists can disagree about beliefs which look like statements of fact or beliefs about what causes what but which "have the awkward quality that they prove true if people believe in them, or alternatively prove false if people believe in them." (p.9) He called these phenomena self-verifying and self-falsifying beliefs.

As an example of the first, Stretton said that if people believe that inflation will continue they will act accordingly: producers raise prices; workers demand higher wages; lenders raise interest rates. Naturally inflation does continue precisely because people believe it will. That's a self-verifying belief.

But the example he gave of a self-falsifying belief is even more interesting and germane to our times - the behaviour of banks. Stretton wrote,

"People observed that their bank managers were prudent with money and imposed strict standards of prudence on borrowers. After a generation of that reassuring prudence it seemed sensible to ask,'Why should governments regulate such prudent people who know their business so well and do it so conservatively?'

"So from the 1970s governments deregulated them. The bankers responded by expanding credit two or three times faster than before. They fuelled inflation. They financed the most extravagant office-building boom and slump of the century. They enticed the poor people of the third world into crippling debt. They turned the international exchanges into a casino in which gambling transactions outnumber trade and investment transactions many times over.

"The bankers had indeed been prudent for a generation, but - it turned out - that was because they were strictly regulated by prudent governments. As long as people doubted their prudence and therefore regulated them, they behaved prudently. As soon as people came to believe they were inherently prudent, and therefore freed them, they used the freedom to show how false the belief was."

In such clear and readable prose Stretton has rescued the discipline of economics from its dead-end obsession with mathematics and restored it to its proper focus of study: man.

Antonia Feitz

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5. Opinion

Stock Markets: US Going Way of Japan?
Down, down, down, and the flames grow higher.

Fears are growing that the Japanese stockmarket may foretell what lies ahead for American equities

WHEN the Nikkei stockmarket average touched its all-time high of 38,915 on December 29th 1989, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at just 2,753. This week the Nikkei fell to a 17-year low of 10,410, closing in fast on the Dow which, despite a half-hearted attempt at a traditional post-Labour Day rally, has been bobbing around 10,000 as it too loses its fizz. Shares in the rest of the world have followed their downward lead; the Morgan Stanley Capital world index of stockmarkets is down by 7.6% since July and by 17.9% so far this year. How much worse can things get?

On Wall Street, hope springs eternal, and not everybody thinks the game is up. Abby Joseph Cohen, a notorious bull at Goldman Sachs, still expects the market to be significantly higher by the end of the year—ie, she expects the S&P 500 index to rise to 1,500 from today's 1,100. The bulls even have some better economic news to support them: this week, the National Association of Purchasing Managers' index of new orders was at a 16-month high, suggesting that manufacturing at least may have bottomed out.

On the other hand, corporate profits show no sign of touching bottom. American unemployment is rising and that may dampen consumer spending, which is what has kept the economy alive over the past year. Moreover, economic growth continues to slow in the rest of the world, particularly in the big economies of continental Europe and Asia.

Japanese manufacturers' pre-tax profits dropped by 21.2% between April and June, according to a survey published by the Ministry of Finance on September 5th. How to value Japanese shares remains almost as controversial as it was during the bubble, not least because accounting measures of profit and assets often bear little relation to reality. Although the stockmarket has dropped sharply in recent months, price/earnings (p/e) ratios still average around 34.

As ever in Japan, prices are being moved by things that have little to do with fundamental valuations. Japanese banks have been aggressive sellers of shares, in part because they will be required to mark their assets to market at the end of September, and they want to cash out as much as possible before the true state of their capital (in)adequacy becomes clear.

Foreign investors have been quite keen on Japanese shares too. According to Avinash Persaud of State Street, which tracks international portfolio flows, overseas investors have bought the equivalent of 1% of Japan's market capitalisation since the end of July, making it (proportionately) their fourth favourite market. One reason may be that Japan is no longer any more bubbly than markets elsewhere, including America's and Europe's, where shares have also been falling. Moreover, foreign investors may be taking advantage of locals selling at distress prices.

Forever bursting bubbles
Japan's continuing troubles nearly 12 years after its bubble started to deflate should be a salutary lesson to any investor tempted to think that the bursting of America's own bubble is largely over. No two bubbles are alike. Indeed, history suggests that “bubble” is not the perfect metaphor, at least for the end-game. The quick “pop” is less typical than the prolonged sickness, remission and relapse of a cancer victim.

After the crash of 1929, share prices did not bottom for three years. And when the long bull market peaked in 1965, it did not bottom in real terms until 1982. The fall in American share prices over the past 16 months, particularly in the Nasdaq, may be only the beginning.

Even at current levels, American shares remain expensive. They have not tumbled as far as profits, at least as measured under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). By this measure, the average p/e of the S&P 500 index exceeds 37, an all-time high. Even using operating profits (adjusted to ignore claimed one-off costs), the average p/e is 23. In 1929 and 1965, the peak p/e was 21. Today's ratios are well above the average for the past century (of 14) or the 17-18 which Jeremy Grantham of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo, a fund-management firm, reckons is now the trend ratio.

His firm has enjoyed spectacular success in the past 16 months because of its bets that the bubble in American shares would burst, and that key price ratios that were out of line would revert to their long-run means. In April 2000, the firm calculated that the Nasdaq—then near its peak—would need to fall by 70% to reach its “fair value”. It also expected that the historical relationship between value and growth shares, which had never been further away from trend, would reassert itself, which it now has.

If anything, the Nasdaq is now less overvalued—at around 1,700, compared with a fair value of 1,250—than the bigger company indices, such as the Dow and the S&P 500, says Mr Grantham. Assuming that

p/e ratios return to 17-18,
profit margins slip from 8% to 6%, and
that sales per share grow at (an optimistic) 3.6%,

it would require the S&P 500 to deliver annual real returns of -0.5% in each of the next ten years, or else record an immediate 40% decline, to return to fair value.

Mr Grantham thinks it will get there in the end, though maybe only after a short-term rally of up to 20% as investors get excited by evidence that the economy is turning up—and before they realise this is not delivering much in the way of profits.

Investors still have a lot of faith in equities. Most American institutions have allocations to shares of around 70% of their portfolios. Flows from individual investors into equity mutual funds have slowed, but would probably accelerate if the stockmarket were to show signs of life. Past bubbles have not ended until most investors have not just turned bearish, but given up. It may, alas, take a lot more pain before it comes to that.

Economist, Sept. 6, 2001

Nice Guys Get Illegal Immigrants
By John Derbyshire

There are places that Americans never think about from one year’s end to the next, but whose affairs occasionally shed light on important topics. There is, for example, Australia. You’re going to need an atlas for this one: I shall pause while you pull it down.
Got it? Good. Now fix your eye on Cape York, which is the northern-most point of the Australian mainland—the tip of the “terrier’s ear,” for those who like to fancy they see human and animal images in the shapes of countries. (Britain is a man riding a pig. Italy is a boot. China is a pot-bellied dragon. The U.S.A. doesn’t look like anything.)

From Cape York, scan westwards about forty degrees of longitude, to a point in the ocean a couple of hundred miles south of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. There you will find a tiny place with a charming name: Christmas Island, so named because the first person who bothered to name it (one Captain William Mynors of the East India Company) arrived there on Christmas Day, 1643. Christmas Island belongs to Australia, and is much in the news down there this past few days.

This story began early Monday morning, August 27th, when a Norwegian cargo ship named the Tampa, on her way from Singapore to Fremantle in Western Australia, picked up a distress call from another ship that was sinking. Tampa went to the rescue, as she was obliged to do, both in humanity and under maritime law. She found an Indonesian ferry boat, the KM Palapa 1, in distress, with more than 400 souls on board in peril of their lives. The Tampa, a small vessel with a crew of only 23, took them all aboard, tallying 369 men, 26 women—four of them pregnant—and 43 children. (Subsequent recounts have altered these numbers slightly.) Her next step, under international law, was to take these people to the “nearest feasible disembarkation point,” which would have been any one of three or four Indonesian ports. At this point, politics kicked in.

Those 400-odd people turned out to be “asylum seekers”—a phrase already very familiar to Europeans and Australians, and which will be coming soon to a U.S. entry point near you. Most of them are from Afghanistan, a few from Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia. They are “seeking asylum” because, for one reason or another, life is intolerable to them in their own countries, and they want something better elsewhere. “Elsewhere,” of course, means a country with a high standard of living, a demand for cheap labor, and a mature welfare state.

In this particular case, it means Australia. The people the Tampa rescued want to go to Australia. They made this unmistakably plain to the captain, threatening him and his way-outnumbered crew with harm if he did not take them to Australia. In effect, they hijacked his ship—an act of piracy. The captain thereupon headed for Christmas Island, the nearest Australian territory.

The Australian government, once they knew what was happening, refused permission for the Tampa to land its “passengers” on Christmas Island. For one thing, the island is tiny and well-nigh uninhabitable. The current population is 1,500, so the Tampa’s guests would have increased it by thirty per cent. In fact, because of its status as Australian territory and its closeness to Indonesia, Christmas Island is a favorite destination for “asylum seekers,” and hundreds have already landed there in recent weeks. Australia has ferried them to the mainland and interned them in camps in the deep outback while their cases are processed.

For another thing, the Australians are fed up with “asylum seekers,” who they believe to be economic, not political, refugees. It is known that Indonesian cartels are running huge people-smuggling operations into Australia, with customers from the Middle East, India and China paying $5,000 each to be dumped on Australia’s 16,000 miles of coastline. (That’s a yard and a half of coastline for every man, woman and child in Australia. You see the problem.)

Measures of the fed-upness of Australians are not hard to find. John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, told a cheering parliament: "It remains our very strong determination not to allow this vessel or its occupants, save in excepting [sic] humanitarian circumstances clearly demonstrated, to land in Australia. ... We cannot surrender our right as a sovereign country to control our borders. We cannot have a situation where people can come to this country when they choose."

Opinion polls show support of Howard’s policy in the range 80 to 90 per cent. (There is, let me add, an election coming up in Australia.) Newspaper editorials and radio call-in shows reflect this sentiment. When the ship entered Australian waters off Christmas Island, it was boarded by a team of Australian commandos.

Notwithstanding all of which, I hereby predict that the “asylum seekers” on the Tampa will eventually become Australians. Why? Because no-one else will have them. The Indonesians have already made their position very plain. They have threatened military action if there is any attempt to land the “asylum seekers” on Indonesian soil. A spokesman for the Indonesian armed forces said: "We will not allow these illegal migrants into the country. The military is ready to take any measures to ensure the government is able to carry out this policy." Nobody thinks he is kidding.

Asian countries have a straightforward approach to boatloads of refugees that appear off their coasts: they refuse them entry, towing them back out to sea if necessary. Sometimes they sink them. In one incident, a boat-load of 93 refugees was used as target practice by the Vietnamese navy; only eight survived to tell the tale. The ironclad rule in these situations is: Whichever country is most squeamish about watching kids drown off its shores, ends up by taking in the “asylum seekers.”

Or, to put it another way: Nice guys get illegal immigrants.

In any case, the “asylum seekers” do not want to go to Indonesia, and have threatened to jump overboard if the ship heads back there, or even if it just leaves sight of Christmas Island. They want to go to Australia. These people are not, or not only, fleeing from, they are fleeing to. They didn’t pay five thousand bucks a head to get to Jakarta. Back in the days of the Vietnam boat people, twenty years ago, several thousand ended up in detention camps in Hong Kong, under fairly unpleasant conditions. Moved by compassion, the Republic of Ireland—this was in the days before the “Celtic Tiger” awoke—offered residence to a certain number of them. There were no takers.

Well, you can follow the rest of the Tampa story on the AP wires . There is a good email-in discussion on the BBC News “Talking Point” website. All I want to do here is to make my point about the inevitability of these people eventually becoming Australians. They will become Australians because Australia is a Christian country with a strong humanitarian tradition, an Anglo-Saxon legal system, and a huge load of white-liberal guilt about poor people in poor countries.

Already the armies of what my Uncle Fred calls “the love-the-world crowd” are mustering. Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and a four-star generalissimo in those armies, has declared that Australia bears “primary responsibility” for the immigrants and should accept them. Just to remind you: Australia is involved because the “asylum seekers” hijacked a Norwegian ship and ordered it to make for Australian waters. This is how, in the mind of Ms. Robinson, you acquire “primary responsibility.”

In related news, as we say in the bloviating business, Michael D’Andre, a county legislator here in my own county, is being asked to step down because of remarks he made during a public hearing last Tuesday. The hearing was one of many, many we have been having here in Long Island’s Suffolk County on the issue of “day laborers”—illegal immigrants from Central America who gather on certain street corners to get a day’s work from local contractors. Mr. D’Andre’s own town has not yet been afflicted by this blight. He felt moved to say that if it was: “We’ll be up in arms. We’ll be out with baseball bats.” You can imagine the reaction of the local Mary Robinsons, of whom Suffolk County has a good supply.

In the dismally predictable way these things always develop, D’Andre—the 78-year-old son of Italian immigrants, legal immigrants—has issued a grovelling apology, a course of action that will, of course, do nothing to prevent him from being torn to pieces by a howling mob of love-the-worlders.

“Asylum seekers.” “Day laborers.” “Undocumented aliens.” Welcome to the great issue of our times. Just don’t expect to hear your legislators talking truthfully about it, much less taking any decisive action. The latest news I have is that Australian Prime Minister John Howard is “seeking a compromise.” That’s what politicians in Anglo-Saxon countries do. They “seek a compromise.” Then they surrender.

[John Derbyshire (send him mail) is one reason we keep reading National Review. (The other is Jonah Goldberg.) You can buy his new book Fire from the Sun on-line, and read all his published columns on his homepage.]
September 04, 2001

VDARE?

Forwarded by

Karolyn Martin

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THE MILOSEVIC DEFENSE THAT NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO HEAR

Slobodan Milosevic, with a little help from his friends, wrote a brilliant defense against his indictment before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). True to the Tribunal’s "star chamber" roots, the judges refused to allow Milosevic to present his case. The West has apparently been taking lessons from Soviet tribunals. Despite Milosevic’s Communist background (for which I have no sympathy) every person ought to be very concerned about how this case is being prosecuted. Someday, they could be on the docket themselves. The Milosevic brief was leaked to sympathizers and found its way onto The Emperor’s Clothes website (http://www.emperors-clothes.com), one of the web’s best resources for facts and analysis on the systematic manipulation by the NWO of the ethnic conflict in the Balkans. The brief’s logic is impeccable. It’s no wonder the judges didn’t want to listen, or allow the arguments to be entered into the public record. Truth is dangerous, even from the mouth of a former Communist tyrant.

As background, keep in mind that the ICTY was an ad hoc creation of the UN Security Council--not the UN. It is not to be confused with the International Criminal Court, the UN’s official tribunal that was so flawed and dangerous to American legal rights that it was specifically rejected by the usually pro-globalist Clinton administration. As the Milosevic brief correctly stated, "When an International Criminal Court was finally agreed upon in July 1998 by 120 nations meeting in Rome, it was by treaty which had been studied, drafted and debated for years. The United States, the most powerful participant in that long process, consistently sought to weaken the treaty to exempt US leaders and military personnel from prosecution before it. Having failed, the US was then the most prominent and powerful of the handful of nations that refused to sign." At present 37 nations have signed on to the ICC. Even while continuing to lobby heavily against further implementation of the ICC, the US pushed the Security Council into creating the International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia, in order to demonize and destroy any potential independent legitimacy of Yugoslavia (so as to continue to justify further intervention in the Balkans).

Returning to the brief, here is a summary of the three key arguments.

Argument 1: The UN Security council has no authority under the Charter of the UN to create an international criminal court or tribunal. "Nothing in the history of the planning, drafting, discussion, approval or ratification of the UN Charter implies, or is consistent with, an intention to empower any body created by, or under, the Charter to establish any criminal tribunal...There would never have been a United Nations if its Charter stated, or implied, that a criminal court could be created under its authority...An International Criminal Court Can Be Created Only By A Multinational Treaty, or Amendment to the Charter of the United Nations."

Argument 2: A one-time, one-episode court targeting a single country is an arbitrary use of power and can only lead to further division and conflict in the international arena. What Milosevic fails to realize is that this is one of the prime goals of UN intervention--to provide the seeds of future conflict, especially to develop a hatred within the former Eastern Bloc against NATO and the West. The Milosevic brief states, "An ad hoc court violates the most basic principles of all law. Equality is the mother of justice. An international court established to prosecute acts in a single nation and...pre-programmed to persecute, [is] incapable of equality."

Argument 3: The ICTY operating procedures do not protect fundamental rights nor provide due process of law. It recognizes no legal precedents from other courts, no common legal traditions and no relevant case law from prior international courts, except as it chooses to do so. This is the very essence of arbitrary power. The ICTY presently has no power to enforce orders against other governmental entities, which is a good thing in general, but it also means the tribunal has no power to compel testimony of others, or conduct depositions, both of which are necessary to obtain a fair trial and promote discovery of evidence on behalf of the defense. Even the right to counsel has been denied by the ICTY. Milosevic claims that the ICTY "denied to me the right to consult with lawyers of my choice on legal matters for several weeks after my arraignment." When Milosevic was allowed to finally speak with his attorneys, all conversations were monitored, which is a violation of attorney client privilege.

Joel Skousen

World Affairs Brief,

September 7, 2001

Forwarded by

Karolyn Martin

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NATIONAL OUTPOURING OVER BOAT PEOPLE:

Whatever else is said, the tightly-held ‘politically-correct’ lid on illegal immigration and racial issues has blown off. Backbenchers round the nation have received unprecedented messages in the form of letters, phone calls and E-mails. The huge majority have backed Howard’s position, as have radio talk-back programmes and national polls.

Douglas observed that every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. The multicultural and immigration agenda has been created by a small coterie who knowingly designed a programme against the wishes of the great majority of Australians.

As far back as May 25 1993 the former Prime Minister Bob Hawke revealed there had been an implicit pact between the major parties to "implement broad policies on immigration they know are not generally endorsed by the electorate. This has been achieved …. By keeping the subject off the political agenda. Mr Hawke said …. The pact between the parties has been "quite unique in Australian political experience." …." (The Australian, 25/5/93)

What Hawke saw as an enlightened" pact was, in essence, a betrayal of the Australian people and an attack on the democratic ideal. It suggested that politicians were wiser and more humane than those they governed.

This, more than anything else, was the reason for the intemperate attack from the major parties on Pauline Hanson. She dared reveal what they were bent on hiding. While criticizing One Nation at every opportunity, Howard has seen the value in adopting its policies.

As Geoffrey Barker noted wryly (The Australian Financial Review, (Weekend, 1-2/9/01): "Pauline Hanson outlined the One Nation approach to boat people when she launched her campaign for the Queensland State election earlier this year. "You go out and meet them, fill them with food and water and medical supplies and say ‘Go that way’, she told a rally on the Sunshine Coast in February.

John Howard has embraced her policy completely. Australian SAS troops have gone out and met the 460 people on board the Tampa, filled them with food and water and medical supplies (and Portaloos) and told them ‘Go that way’.

No matter how the drama at sea and in international diplomacy and law plays out, the Coalition no longer has to worry about One Nation preferences in the coming federal election. They are in the bag ….."

But the saga is not over. The unique legal circumstances of the Norwegian ship are unlikely to occur again. What of the expected boats of the future that sail without sinking into Australian territory?

The Government will now deploy an additional five naval vessels and four P3 Orion aircraft to the existing coast watch operation. This, as Australian Defence Studies Centre director Anthony Bergin has pointed out, is a deployment of one-third of the Australian Navy. Obviously, more is anticipated than mere surveillance. Already, more than 95 per cent of boat traffic is detected before proximity with Australian waters.

Legally, Australian jurisdiction extends 24 nautical miles from the high water mark of Australian territory. Any action beyond this point, except in the case of illegal fishing, can be interpreted as an act of piracy in international waters. Up until now intercepted boats have been escorted into Australian ports, where the boat people, whether illegal or genuine refugees, have been disembarked. Will added naval power alter this situation? If not, what is the point of the heavy additional costs involved?

In other words, is the Howard Government prepared to intercept boats in international waters and forcibly return them to their point of embarkation?

The test, in the debatable possibility that the Coalition is re-elected before the end of the year, is whether it will continue with a resolute stand against illegal immigration, or whether it will return to "back to normal" once the votes are in the bag. If the second occurs, it will have been the most cynical vote-grabbing exercise in Australia’s history.

Figures produced in Queensland’s Sunday Mail (2/9/01) show Australia’s intake of refugees, per head of population, as second only to Canada, with 41 per 100,000 of the population. (Canada, 45 per 100,000) Humanitarianism is obviously a factor; but each nation must be allowed to decide the point at which the refugee intake threatens toe stability of local communities.

The "take-every-one" brigade seldom have to suffer the consequences on a personal level. It is those who live in such communities as Cabramatta, without any say, who find themselves jostled and discriminated against, bearing the brunt of policies which don’t work.

Jeremy Lee

pickford@hotkey.net.au

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The American sub-agents in Durban did all they could, which was quite a lot, to undermine the will of the vast majority of the world's nations and peoples. That of course is the way of the U.S. in world affairs, and tragically the actual names of the best known of these sub-agens include those at the very top of the United Nations itself, Kofi Annan and Mary Robinson, and oh yes, in the "private" sector that gadfly for all profitable occassions Reverend Jesse Jackson (hoping no doubt to deflect attention from recent revelations of his secret mistress, "love child", slush funds, and law suits). Mr. Annan we've had many occassions to comment on previously; his very appointment to replace the dismissed Boutros Ghali was "made in America".

As for Ms. Robinson, she made brief headlines when she blurted out one evening in Durban that "I am a Jew" -- apparently thinking she was identifying at the moment with those being wrongly oppressed and vilified. There is no record of Ms. Robinson ever feeling the need to say "I am a Palestinian", even as, quite literally as Durban proceeded, the tanks were pulverizing Palestinian refugee camps and the F-16s and helicopter gunships were killing and devastating at will. As for Jesse Jackson...:

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SHAME! JESSIE SHAME!

REV JACKSON LOBBIES FOR PERPETRATERS OF RACISM
By: Ali Baghdadi*

Rev. Jessie Jackson must be regretting the day he agreed to set foot in Durban, South Africa to lobby for the U.S. and Israeli position at the U.N. Third World Conference on Racism. Besides the official governmental delegates, the conference was attended by over 10,000 participants representing 3,900 international non-governmental groups (NGOs) and was also hosted by the United Nation. His attendance was one of the gravest mistakes in his political career. He has lost what little remained of his credibility in front of the whole world. Now, Rev. Jackson stands naked in the sunshine. He has uncovered what he had worked hard for many years to cover. Of course, no one should be blamed but Rev. Jackson himself.

Rev. Jackson had the opportunity to go to Durban as a champion of the cause of the oppressed, dispossesed and down treaden. His position as a descendent of slaves in the belly of the beast, the only super power which is behind the new world disorder, in addition to the gifts and skills bestowed on him, make him an effective spokesman. He could have been a shining star among the masses converging from every corner on the globe, demanding, among other things, an end to descrimination, racism, bigotry and exploitation.

On the contrary, Rev. Jackson went on a mission designed to appease the Zionists who control the American media, and to serve the imperialistic interests of the United States government which continues its refusal to face up to its responsibility for slavery of Blacks and virtual extermination of American natives. His sponsers had the power, if they chose, to get him in deep trouble, much worse and more damaging than the recent revelation of his extra-marital activities. He is not willing to stand and fight against evil and for the good of humanity!

Rev. Jackson, a preacher who rose to the top as a national and international figure only after gaining the overwhelming support of the disenfranchised, marginalized and forgotten minorities, almost won the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 1984. Unfortunately, however, he has later abandoned the principles he called for after realizing that the cause, which he attempted to champion, is long and difficult. The civil rights leader has chosen an easier and more comfortable life style. Today, Rev. Jackson stands with the most hated and despised two governments on earth, his 'friends' and benefactors, Israel and the United States.

In his desperate attempt to regain his stature as an international leader and to satisfy his ego, and to give the impression that the mission he had been sent to Durban for was accomplished, Rev. Jackson must have felt an urgent need to twist the facts almost 180 degrees. The piece of paper that he held up to the press after meeting with Arafat did not carry the ailing PLO leader's signature as he originally claimed. The Palestinian statement that Rev. Jackson extracted from the Palestinian Authority did not contain any new concessions as he bragged in front of the TV cameras. It merely reflected the Palestinian Authority's formal position, which, to the great disappointment of the overwhelming majority of developing nations, particularly the Palestinians, has been already diluted to gain Washington's acceptance. Out of respect to the Black community, who as a victim of racism, is greatly sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle, the Palestinian delegate chose not to embarrass Rev. Jackson. Realizing the true role he came to play and his need for self-grandeur and credit, Rev. Jackson was politely described as "over zealous".

Despite the pressure, threats and blackmail exercised by the United States and Israel, the United Nations NGO conference made a historical and courageous declaration by calling things by their right and proper names. Israel was found to be guilty, "a racist apartheid state", which is colonial and commits racist crimes. Human Rights Watch and Jewish NGOs were the only organizations that walked out in protest.

However, in spite of the rampage of terror, murder and destruction being carried out daily against the mostly unarmed and captive Palestinians by the Israeli army, Moshe Katsav, the President of the Jewish settler state, the only country in the world that targets civilians with F-15 and F-16 bombers, was quoted saying "Israel follows higher moral standards than the rest of the world".

Shimon Peres, who, as Israel's Prime Minister, a few years back, ordered the Qana massacre in Lebanon in which over 100 elderly men, women and children who took refuge in a U.N. compound were murdered, said, "The Durban conference is a farce."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, attending as a member of the Black Leadership Forum, described the tone of the conference "inflammatory" that we must fight and change.

The NGO declaration also accused Israel of committing ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian People and condemned it for the "inhumanity in denying food and water to the Palestinians, the victimization of women and children, and the discrimination of Palestinians in Israel".

Article 161 of the NGO paper supported the Palestinian's right of return home. The paper will become one of the documents of the United Nations governmental Conference Against Racism.

Article 168 stressed "the condemnation of those states supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state, and its perpetration for racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide".

Rev. Jackson received a second blow from the African National Congress that held to their gun and insisted not to change a single word in their platform to please anyone. The ANC issued a statement, which warned that the world cannot ignore the plight of the Palestinian people, and that "No international conference against racism can avoid discussing the racist practices of the Israeli state against the Palestinians."

After regaining consciousness, Rev. Jackson, as usual, started to work on a damage control as a face-saving measure. He distanced himself a little from his American and Israeli sponsers who, to his greates disappointment, pulled out and left him stranded after their failure to hijack and derail the conference. The United States and Israel boycotted the two previous U.N. racism conferences - in 1978 and 1983. Hoping to be seen and heard, Rev. Jackson, an intelligent politician, remained and sang together with over 10,000 participant chorus, who were unanimously calling for an apology and reparations for the descendents of victims of slavery.

It is true that the enemy is vicious; that the defense of justice requires a lot of courage, enormous sacrifices and immense pain, and, as we have seen through the years, may end even in murder! Malcom X and Dr. Marthin Luther King are only a couple examples. Rev. Jackson has the energy, talent and experience. Leadership is a heavy burden a few men and women can shoulder. It requires much more than chanting, "We shall overcome! We shall overcome, someday". One must be willing to pay the price. Rev. Jackson had done it before. Surely he understands

* Ali Baghdadi is a Chicago writer who has lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Chicago is the homebase of Jesse Jackson.

Globalization, Inc.
The "Unmentioned Agenda" for World Food Security

A new Communique, "Globalization, Inc.", (available at www.rafi.org) issued today by ETC group (formerly RAFI) focuses on corporate concentration in the Life Industry and draws attention to its implications for world food security on the eve of the FAO World Food Summit/ Five Years Later taking place in November. The release of the report also coincides with major meetings in Bonn and Havana that are intended to prepare governments, farmers, and other civil society organizations (CSOs) for the important Summit and the WTO Ministerial meeting that follows on its heels in Qatar.

Global Grocery Gluttons:

In the year 2000, only 10 global corporations (many of them dominant in several sectors) control:-

close to half of all prescription drugs;
nearly two-thirds of veterinary medicines;
almost one-third of commercial seed sales; and
well over four-fifths of the agrochemical market.

The top 10 grocery retailers control one-sixth of world grocery sales and the top 32 grocers have in excess of one-third of the sector’s revenues. The specific companies and their market shares and revenues are presented in a series of table and charts in the full report.

Unmentioned Agenda:

ETC group (formerly RAFI) has been reporting regularly on consolidations in the Life Industry since the mid-nineties. In this latest report, ETC group expands its analysis of the seed, agrochemical, veterinary, and pharmaceutical industries to include biotechnology, genomics, food and beverage, and retail grocery sectors. “In effect, the dominant players are the pharmaceutical majors and the grocery retailers,” Hope Shand, ETC Group’s Research Director, says. “As much as they might claim otherwise, the seeds and agrochemical industries, and veterinary medicines are farm teams for the Life Industry’s agricultural interests, while biotech boutiques and the new genomics companies are the pharm teams for the Life Industry’s pharmaceutical interests.

Shand notes that the huge food and beverage industry feeds into the global grocery retailers. “Despite strenuous efforts by the Life Industry to distance the majors from the embarrassment of GM crops, the reality is that the technologies are almost identical and even the end products are merging into the so-called “nutriceuticals” and “farmaceuticals” that grocery chains and drug companies dream of,” Shand stresses.

Bonn "Bomb"?

This issue of ETC Communiqué is timed to fill a gap left by IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC) which is presenting a number of new studies on food security at a conference in Bonn, Germany, September 4-6). Advance response to the studies indicate that they have “bombed” with CSOs attending the Bonn seminar. None of the documents (which generally favour U.S. views on agricultural trade liberalization and globalization) including a new book, The Unfinished Agenda, address the food security threat posed by corporate concentration. Pat Mooney, ETC group’s Executive Director, is attending the conference.

The report is also being presented by ETC group’s Silvia Ribeiro to a major world gathering of small farmers’ organizations in Havana, Cuba. The farmers’ meeting is in preparation for the World Food Summit and WTO Ministerial later this year.

For further information:

Hope Shand, Research Director
Carrboro NC, USA
Telephone: (919) 960-5223
hope@rafi.org

The Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, formerly RAFI, is an international civil society organization headquartered in Canada. The ETC Group is dedicated to the advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights. Our new web site, www.etcgroup.org is under construction. All RAFI and ETC Group’s publications are available at: www.rafi.org

Biohazard Action Alliance

An Alliance of local community groups opposed to the evil science laboratories of the Institute of Molecular Bioscience within the residential environs of Brisbane

Forwarded by

John Massey

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Australia's International Reputation

In case you hadn't noticed, there has been much anguish and hand wringing lately by Australia's chattering classes. They are besides themselves with concern about the alleged damage to "Australia's International Reputation" as a result of the illegal immigration issue. They are desperate to berate and re-educate all of those ignorant peasants who have had the audacity to have an incorrect opinion.

This preoccupation with "what the neighbours think" is a classic example of the middle class morality that the chattering classes claim to despise. More hypocrisy to add to the list. This sycophantic need for the approval of the global elites clearly demonstrates their pathetic insecurity. They are desperate to "keep up appearances" by displaying the correct "airs and graces". Their quest is the never ending ascent of the morality ladder, fuelled by the need to be "holier than thou". The rest of us are just the skeletons in their closets, the lower class relatives impairing their ambitions.

Of course, their self esteem is maintained by preaching their own brand of moral supremacism to those lesser beings who have not achieved the same level of enlightenment. Nothing less than complete acquiescence is acceptable within this church of political correctness. Non believers are treated with disdain, heretics with utter contempt.

Orwellian rules suddenly come into play. What had been bad is now good. It's OK to be judgmental, as long as the internationalists get to make the judgement. It's OK to play the race card, if it can be used to attack national sovereignty. Intolerance is good, when applied to unacceptable political opinions. Free Speech is suddenly restored, when the need arises to racially vilify white people with the 'redneck' insult. When it comes to opinions on illegal immigration, it appears that diversity is not our strength. All of a sudden, diversity is divisive.

The chattering classes have always hated and despised "ordinary Australians". We are not good enough for them. Our culture makes them cringe. We don't appreciate their lifelong struggle to play bit parts on the international stage. Worse still, those who can barely achieve the chorus line are damned with the faint praise of their peers.

The fact is that Australia's International Reputation is undoubtedly enhanced by its defiance of the globalist elites and their United Nations henchmen. Licking their collective boots was never a good look, and you cannot hear the contemptuous comments if you have brown-nosed so far that your ears have been covered.

The only criticism of Australia has come from the international counterparts of our own chattering classes. Several polls have shown that the overwhelming majority of Norwegians, New Zealanders and Britons have supported Australia's stance, just as the overwhelming majority of Australians are satisfied with it.

Real Australians do not crave international attention or approval. We don't need to live up to other people's standards. They can take us or leave us. Australia doesn't even need to be a republic to be a proud, confident and independent country. And that must really hurt.

Greg Weilo

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Hollywood helps CIA come in from the cold
With its budget under scrutiny in the post-Soviet era, the agency is having a TV and film makeover
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Thursday September 6, 2001, The Guardian

The CIA hopes that three new television series and five new films in which the agency is featured in a mainly flattering light will help to change its image as a shadowy organisation specialising in dirty tricks and assassinations. So pleased is it with one of the series that it is throwing a red carpet reception for the premiere at its headquarters in Virginia.

The new starring role for the CIA coincides with the agency's decision to employ a full-time entertainment liaison officer, himself a former CIA officer in Latin America, and to throw open the doors of its headquarters to film-makers. The policy seems to have paid off, with scriptwriters even rewriting history to present an upbeat portrait of the agency. The shows are seen as a way of telling American taxpayers that the CIA provides value for money at a time when security budgets may be tight.

The series with which the CIA is most involved is The Agency, which is being overseen by Wolfgang Peterson, who made Das Boot, Air Force One and The Perfect Storm. "Now that the cold war is over, people are questioning whether we need a CIA and this is a great opportunity to get the word out," Peterson said of the series. He denied, however, that the show would paint the agency in an entirely heroic light: "If we do a show that would only paint them as straightforward heroes, I think it would not be right."

Part of the first episode of The Agency was filmed inside the CIA's headquaters. It stars Gil Bellows, most recently seen in Ally McBeal, Ronny Cox from Beverly Hills Cop, and Gloria Reuben from ER. The villains will include Arab terrorists, Colombian drug dealers, Iraqis and German urban guerrillas. One episode will show how the CIA foils a terrorist attack on Harrods without informing the British authorities, and another shows how it saves the life of Fidel Castro.

Another show, called Alias, will feature a kick-boxing new CIA recruit, played by Jennifer Garner. A third series, 24, on Fox TV, stars Kiefer Sutherland as a "stressed-out spook" leading an elite team who have 24 hours to uncover an assassination plot against a presidential candidate.

Observing the sudden bonanza of CIA-friendly entertainment with satisfaction is Chase Brandon, a CIA officer with 25 years experience in Central and South America who now acts as the agency's entertainment liaison officer. Until five years ago, CIA policy had been to refuse to comment when approached by the media. As a result, Mr Brandon said, the agency had watched the military, the FBI and the police establish themselves as heroic, if flawed, characters through countless television programmes while the CIA appeared as a sinister outfit.

"Any time in the past we would have just said 'no comment', but five years ago I started to change all that," Mr Brandon said. "It's my job to inform and educate the public about a secret organisation and yet not divulge any secrets." Since opening the door, he said, there had been "a tremendous amount of interest".

The CIA looks at a script before deciding whether to cooperate either through advice or by making facilities available. But "when someone wants to do an asinine representation of us, they're free to do so, but I'm not going to support that".

The creator of The Agency, Michael Frost Beckner, spent time with Mr Brandon at his home and at the Virginia HQ and then came up with a rough draft which he sent to the CIA. "I made some comments and he made some changes," Mr Brandon said. He said he was gratified that The Agency had gone out of its way to show "the bravery and decency of the men and women who work here".

Envious eye on MI5
"The taxpaying citizens will have a little better idea of what we do," he said. "The popular image of us is of some kind of rogue organisation creating mayhem and madness on a whim... We hate to see ugly imagery of us in television and films. It's patriotism, it's bravery, it's honour. We've had a bellyful of seeing ourselves miscast." He added that he had cast an envious eye in the past at the way British spies were portrayed. "MI5 and MI6 were always very sophisticated and debonair with John Le Carré and Frederick Forsyth. That was all very good imagery."

Although he said he is anxious to ensure authenticity, he accepts that two of The Agency's stories bear little relation to reality: the CIA would never operate in the UK without informing America's allies, he said, and as for saving Castro when in fact the CIA had tried to have him killed, "I found that one kind of amusing", but "our efforts to hasten his [Castro's] departure from office were a direct order from President Kennedy". All three CIA series could be coming to Britain.

There are also five completed films in which the CIA features and a further two in pre-production. Mr Brandon hopes that the films will also play a part in redefining the agency. "But we haven't gone all Hollywood. The mission of the CIA is to protect the country which gives film-makers the freedom to make their films." What the CIA hopes to avoid are films like Three Days of the Condor, the 1975 epic which showed it in a bad light.

Gloria Reuben, who stars in The Agency, said: "We don't know about the positive things that have happened, because they can't talk about it... I wonder if we didn't have these people, what language we would be speaking right now."

The veteran CIA-watcher Saul Landau, author of The Dangerous Doctrine: National Security and US Foreign Policy, said: "The CIA have not done very well over the years; they have been in a number of scandals and they've murdered people. They certainly need a makeover and who better than Hollywood to do it for them? This is an organisation that was created to fight the Soviet Union and now that it's gone they have no reason to be."

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