Free Republic

The Christian Democrats are pushing for a halt to Muslim immigration because there has been no serious study of the effects of Muslims on Australia. They say the 10-year measure would give some breathing space to assess the situation. The party today officially introduced pastor Paul Green as its number-one candidate for the Senate at a media conference in Sydney. Mr Green says he believes Australian people are very concerned about Muslim immigration and would support an immediate moratorium. "If there was bird flu coming from a people's groups across the nation, would we not stop to assess the risk...

The incidents happened at 11.25am and 4.13pm at the corner of Lakes Way and Seal Rocks Rd. One car was targeted and eight others passed close to the beam. The lasers used by Hornet fighters as target designators are the most powerful laser beams used by the air force. The Defence department confessed to the mistake by press release yesterday without any prompting from the public. It said RAF and US Air Force specialists had advised they were not aware of any incidents of laser injuries to people on the ground, as a result of lasings from aircraft in incidents...

JOHN Howard has singled out Muslim migrants for refusing to embrace Australian values and urged them to fully integrate by treating women as equals and learning to speak English. The call for a shift in attitude among some Muslims infuriated community leaders last night, and comes as The Australian can reveal the Prime Minister's own Islamic advisers have already accused Mr Howard and senior ministers of fuelling hatred and mistrust by using "inflammatory and derogatory" language. Mr Howard said: "There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population, and I say a small section ... which is very...

President Bush must die. Or so says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams, in explaining to a class of school children in Australia why she rejects non-violence and remarking how mystified she is that she ever won a prize awarded for promoting peace. "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush," she told the kiddies, causing them to break into spontaneous applause. And Williams is by no means a voice crying in the left-wing wilderness. Air America hostess Randi Rhodes, who apparently thinks that promoting the killing of the president is a real hoot, broadcast a "comedic skit" last...

RECREATIONAL hunters using rifles, crossbows and dogs will be allowed to kill feral animals in state forests and on public lands in a controversial trial next month. Licensed huntsmen will be allowed to hunt feral cats, dogs, deer, goats, pigs and foxes after the State Government approved the two-day trial in four public locations from February 4. However, a declaration published in the NSW Government Gazette on Friday reveals the four state forests have already been designated as the first official, full-scale hunting grounds. The proposed order allows hunting for five years in these areas, with hundreds more to follow...

Nationalists boast of their role on the beach The Patriotic Youth League's Luke Connors predicts more riots. WHITE nationalist groups involved in the Cronulla riots have predicted further racial violence, naming the Melbourne suburbs of Heidelberg, Preston, Reservoir and Springvale as potential "hot spots". The Patriotic Youth League, whose members handed out "Aussies Fighting Back" pamphlets at Cronulla, said it had been inundated with callers wanting to riot in Melbourne. "If it wasn't for the massive police presence there already, and the fact that it's mainly confined to a peninsula, we really could have had a Paris situation on our...

Racial violence has erupted for the second straight day in Sydney, with cars smashed and reports of shots fired just hours after Australian Prime Minister John Howard appealed for calm. Witnesses said "chaos" had broken out in a shopping centre at south Sydney's Cronulla beach late Monday, the scene of mob violence on Sunday, with vehicles damaged and police making arrests as gangs of men roamed the streets. "People are standing around in shock, just watching," said a reporter for local radio station 2GB. "Every window in some cars has been smashed. Roads have been blocked (by police)." One resident,...

GREAT BRITAIN'S STANDING as an ally of the U.S. is near the highest level it's been over the past decade, according to a Harris Interactive poll. Harris has asked Americans which countries are the greatest friends of the U.S. each year since 1993. Great Britain has polled higher than this year only once, in 2001. Among other findings of the telephone poll of 1, 217 adults: France has ticked up slightly over the past two years but it remains sharply lower than where it stood four years ago. Israel has moved gradually higher over the past decade, while Canada...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists have discovered pineapple molecules can act as powerful anti-cancer agents and said the research could lead to a new class of cancer-fighting drugs. Scientists at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) said their work centred on two molecules from bromelaine, an extract derived from crushed pineapple stems that is used to tenderise meat, clarify beers and tan hides. One of the molecules, CCZ, stimulates the body's immune system to target and kill cancer cells, the other, CCS, blocks a protein called Ras, which is defective in 30 percent of all cancers. QIMR researcher Tracey...

"The Western Europeans just can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept that there is evil in the world, there are actually evil people that want to kill them, and that it is not America or the West's fault that these individuals wish them harm. Every single time there is a terrorist attack without fail the first words out of the mouths of the European political class is "We express our Solidarity" with the nation, and victims of the attack. They have used that word so much, and done so little to defeat terrorism, the word "SOLIDARITY" has practically...

Penalty handed down in Catch the Fire Ministries Free speech and freedom of religion have been guillotined in Victoria (well, in Australia actually! ) Penalty handed down in Catch the Fire Ministries religious vilification case Judge Higgins announced the 'remedy' or 'penalty' at a hearing in the Victorian and Civil and Administrative Tribunal at 10 am this morning (Wednesday 22 June 2005). Judge Higgins basically endorsed all the requests made by the Islamic Council of Victoria at the penalty hearing on 2-3 may with the exception of placing a link on the Catch the Fire Ministries website to the Islamic...

AN envelope found at the Indonesian embassy in Canberra today has tested positive for a biological agent. The embassy has been shut down and its 22 staff will remain in isolation for at least 48 hours after the envelope tested positive for an as-yet unidentified biological agent. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer condemned whoever had sent the package and said the incident would not help Corby's case. "Further analysis of the powder has tested positive as a biological agent so further testing will need to be carried out to find out what that substance actually is," Mr Downer told Parliament. "As...

The Rambo Granny of Melbourne, Australia Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the unsuspecting ex-cons down - - and shot off their testicles. The old lady spent a week hunting those men down -- and when she found them, she took revenge on them in her own special way, said Melbourne police investigator Evan Delp. Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the gun on the sergeant's desk and told him as calm as could be: 'Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by...

Accused drug trafficker Schapelle Corby will today learn if she will face the death penalty if a Bali court finds her guilty of the charge. Prosecutors will tell the Denpasar District Court what punishment the 27-year-old former Gold Coast beauty therapist should receive if convicted.

SYDNEY, (AFP) - Australian Cardinal George Pell reassured fellow Church traditionalists that the Vatican conclave that will meet this week to choose a successor to Pope John Paul II will pick another conservative. Pell, who arrived in Rome on Sunday to help choose the next pope, told ABC radio that the one certainty about the next pontiff is that he will hold to John Paul's staunch conservative line on theological issues. "I'm quite sure that the general line -- fidelity to basic Catholic teachings -- is absolutely unassailable," he said. "There will be debate and discussion on what is the...

Sunken Fires Menace Land and Climate January 15, 2002 Fires are burning in thousands of underground coal seams from Pennsylvania to Mongolia, releasing toxic gases, adding millions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and baking the earth until vegetation shrivels and the land sinks. Scientists and government agencies are starting to use heat-sensing satellites to map the fires and try new ways to extinguish them. But in many instances -- particularly in Asia -- they are so widespread and stubborn that miners simply work around the flames. There is geological evidence that grassland and forest fires, lightning...

15:24 AEDT Sun Apr 3 2005 A Perth unit block has been ripped apart by a gas explosion so strong it shattered windows and blew doors off other buildings within a 50-metre radius. Two people have been taken to hospital, and their conditions were unknown, said a spokesman for Western Australia's Fire and Emergency Services Authority. The blast had all but destroyed the block of eight units in Raymond Street at suburban Yokine about 6.25am (WST) on Sunday, he said. "It's like a war zone. It's really quite incredible," the spokesman said. "The central units where the explosion originated from...

Marsupials not colour-blind after all Catriona Purcell ABC Science Online Monday, 28 March 2005 This little creature, called a quokka, is helping to overturn long-standing beliefs about marsupial vision (Image: Catherine Arrese/Nature) Australian marsupials can see in full colour, new research has found, making them the only other mammals apart from primates to do so. A team led by Dr Catherine Arrese from the University of Western Australia in Perth reports its findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a journal of the UK's Royal Society. Most people think marsupials lack colour vision, says Arrese, but her team's...

NORTH Korea has crossed two red lines. It has admitted, for the first time, that it possesses nuclear weapons and intends to keep building them. Moreover, the unravelling of the Pakistan-based A.Q. Khan network has apparently proved that North Korea sold enriched uranium that ended up in Libya. Alexander Downer's spokesman says that Australia "places a lot of faith" in the six-party talks that North Korea has just walked out of. Let's hope that's just diplomatic pablum. It's time to face facts. The US cannot live with a nuclear-armed North Korea that is not only a menace to its neighbours,...

Abortion, Embryo Research and Divorce Need to Be Fought by All Christians Says Archbishop  Society is Immoral Because Christian Churches are Not Unified on Life and Family Issues Australian Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey has called on his Christian counterparts in Australia to come on side on issues of morality so that society may hear a united Christian voice on the myriad of moral dilemmas facing society. "A big part of society's problem has been the failure of Christian churches to speak with one voice on the crucial moral issues about human life," said the Archbishop in his New Year's message....