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The former US President Bill Clinton says dialogue is the best way to resolve the underlying tensions which led to racially motivated riots in Cronulla two months ago. Mr Clinton spoke on a number of controversial topics during his visit to Sydney today. He addressed 700 people who paid almost $2,500 each to hear him at a business conference. Mr Clinton had this advice about moving forward after the Cronulla riots: "Get people together and talk beyond the superficial and to really have contact, and find out they have more in common that what separates them," he said. He also...

QUEENSLAND is not immune to the pressures which sparked the Cronulla riots in Sydney, with the Gold Coast and Logan the likely flash-points, a leading academic said yesterday. Hurriyet Babacan, associate director at the Centre for Multicultural and Community Development at the University of the Sunshine Coast, will today host a symposium on how to respond to the riots. The conference, to be held at Griffith University, will be attended by representatives of nine universities and 30 religious groups, including a number of Muslim speakers. Fifteen speakers would pose the questions: What led to the events in Cronulla and is...

A BRAWL has broken out over suggestions the NSW Government has been too politically correct to arrest the people responsible for revenge attacks in the wake of the Cronulla riot. NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam yesterday repeated his attack on the Iemma Government for being soft on ethnic crime and criticised police for failing to arrest people of Middle Eastern descent. Premier Morris Iemma denied telling police to go soft on people of Middle Eastern descent and responded angrily to the comments. Inspecting the state's new anti-riot squad, Mr Iemma promised a crackdown on antisocial and riotous behaviour. "We're on...

THE New South Wales Government has urged a Sydney beachside council to rethink its decision not to fly the Australian flag over the iconic Bondi Pavilion amid suggestions the move was inspired by racial tensions. But Waverley Council's deputy mayor said Premier Morris Iemma didn't understand the facts and accused Liberal councillors of hijacking the issue for political gain. Mr Iemma today urged the council to reconsider its 6-5 vote against flying the flag over the heritage-listed building. "Our flag is a symbol of national unity and the council decision is just ridiculous, they want to reconsider it and reconsider...

PLANS to erect the Australian flag over the Bondi Beach pavilion were vetoed because of fears the symbols could incite further racial violence on Sydney's beaches. In a decision met with outrage from residents, returned servicemen and ethnic groups, Waverley Council voted six to four against the proposal, declaring Australia's most famous beach should remain clear of flags to "remove provocation". Mayor Mora Main and fellow Green George Copeland led a block of Labor councillors, including deputy mayor George Newhouse, Peter Moscatt and Ingrid Strewe, vetoing the plan by Liberal councillor Joy Clayton on December 13. The Australian flag and...

Council bans Australian flag January 02, 2006 PLANS to fly Australian flags over the famous Bondi Beach pavilion were vetoed because of fears the symbols could incite more racial violence on Sydney's beaches. In a decision met with outrage from locals, returned servicemen and ethnic groups, Waverley Council voted 6-5 against the proposal, declaring the popular beach should remain clear of flags to "remove provocation"...

Jack of the Union Jack? Let's choose a proper ensign for Australia. FOR me, the nightmarish recent events in Cronulla have condensed into a recurring hallucination of red, white and blue. The national flag blurs across heads, biceps, marching standards and car bumpers, then suddenly morphs into red and black flashbacks of the Nuremberg rallies. The flag in not too subtle a fashion was deployed to demarcate belonging and exclusion, owner and Auslander, "grew here" and "flew here" — in short, an Australian caste system. The Prime Minister's response was: "Look, I would never condemn people for being proud of...

THE holiday spirit won out yesterday as Australians celebrated Christmas the best way they know how -- by eating, drinking and relaxing without too much of a care in the world. Another year of living in the shadow of terrorism, coupled with a fortnight of racial tension in Sydney, were forgotten as people headed to the nation's beaches and parklands, or stayed at home to enjoy the festive spirit. Only one incident caused alarm. A prank bomb on a Sydney train, which sparked a full-scale police operation, was the only scare in an otherwise quiet Christmas, tragically marred by 11...

PRIME Minister John Howard is fuelling Islamic radicalism by demonising Muslims, says one of Australia's most controversial Islamic leaders. Firebrand Melbourne cleric Mohammad Omran says the Howard Government has made "naive" Australians paranoid about Muslims and fuelled the belief they would commit terrorist attacks, The Australian newspaper reported today. "The Government is pushing the people to believe they (Muslims) can do all these major disaster things," Sheikh Omran said. He again denied Osama bin Laden was responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US. Sheikh Omran also lashed out at suggestions his teachings were linked to alleged...

A MAN and a teenager are in custody tonight after facing court on charges of burning an Australian flag during Sydney's racial unrest. Two other teenagers were granted bail over a violent incident at Cronulla train station during the December 11 race riot. In refusing bail to a 17-year-old Hurstville teenager, Bidura Children's Court Magistrate Paul Mulroney said he was concerned the youth may commit further crimes. Police said the teenager climbed a pole and stole a flag from the Brighton-le-Sands RSL club on December 11. They allege the flag was sprayed with accelerant and set alight. The youth and...

Islamists have openly declared their hatred of our way of life – in the most violent way possible.In Australia, Norway and Sweden there is a distinct race-based crime in which Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations. A number of teenaged Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002. And the perpetrators of these assaults framed the rationale for their actions in explicitly ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that...

For too long our politicians and police have turned their backs on a festering problem writes Miranda Devine. FORGET Clover Moore as the Grinch of Sydney's Christmas. The "Lions of Lebanon" with their Glock pistols and Molotov cocktails have put her to shame this holy season. While the NSW police lock down entire beachfront suburbs, instruct stores to stop selling baseball bats, and apply the full force of the law to pasty-faced nerds with a taste for Nazi literature, they continue to cower from the real hardmen, the Lebanese-Australian criminal gangs of Sydney's south-west who have ruled the roost in...

Cronulla is quiet again; those intent on exploiting it are not OBSESSIVE Howard-haters and publicity-hungry expats have been keen to exploit the Cronulla unrest for their own ends. The lawbreaking in Sydney's south, they have informed us and the world, is a manifestation of the deeply embedded racism in the Australian psyche. This racism, historically enshrined in the White Australia policy, has been reinvigorated by John Howard as part of his campaign to conscript blue-collar voters to the Liberal cause. As a result, racism is on the upswing, while support for multicultural tolerance is waning. In the aftermath of Hansonism...

SYDNEY's racial violence has not scared off American tourists from visiting Australia over the Christmas holiday period, the head of a major US tourism company said today. Britain, Canada and Indonesia have cautioned their residents to be alert if in Sydney, particularly around some beach areas where the recent violence erupted. Ian Swain, the founder of Philadelphia-based Swain Tours, has about 800 Americans booked to travel to Australia over the next few weeks and not one has cancelled citing fears about the problems that have erupted on Sydney's southern beaches. "Not one," the Australian-born opertor who has specialised in offering...

At the behest of Muslim bigots and multiculturalist fanatics the Bracks Government suspended free speech in Victoria by imposing a blasphemy law dressed up as an anti-vilification law. This has given Islamo-fascists a freehand to attack critics of Islam. In a ruthless attempt to intimidate critics Muslim fanatics reported two pastors to Diane Sisely, the Equal Opportunity Commission boss, for criticising the Koran. This enemy of free speech and her fellow Stalinoids on the commission then launched proceedings against the pastors for exercising their fundamental and inalienable right to free speech. So far these pastors have had to pony up...

AUSTRALIAN are not inherently racist, says Sydney's Catholic Archbishop George Pell. The cardinal says its an encouraging sign that a newspoll has found three out of four Australians disagree with the Prime Minister John Howard's claim there is not (not) racism in Australia because a racist society would never acknowledge being racist. "A deeply racist society would not admit to being racist," Cardinal Pell told an ethnic media forum in Sydney today. "A deeply racist society would never even allow the question to be asked and the answer to be published." The recent race riot at Cronulla, in Sydney, and...

It's the same wretched thing down under There is no doubt that Australia’s worsening civil disorder, in which Muslims and indigenous Aussies have been fighting pitched battles now for days, has been caused in part by white racists. However, the widespread spin that has been placed on this disorder, that it has been caused by white racists and that what it reveals is that, under its veneer of multiculturalism, Australia is a fundamentally racist society positively heaving with people with despicable views who have been itching to have a pop at blameless Lebanese Muslims, is very wide of the mark....

Christmas occurs in the middle of Australia's hot summer and is therefore spent by many Australians at the beach. Last weekend, however, the famous beaches near Sydney were sparsely attended. Only local citizens were allowed to pass checkpoints regulating access to the sea. Even then police were checking motor vehicles for weapons and alcohol. These extraordinary precautions were the official response to the beach riots of the previous weekend in which hundreds of people had been involved. In their way they are a very typical response of modern liberal policing -- to inconvenience the general public instead of cracking down...

20/12/2005 - 14:38:47 Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett returned to her native Australia on Sunday to appeal for calm following the recent race riots in Sydney. Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett returned to her native Australia on Sunday to appeal for calm following the recent race riots in Sydney. Lebanese-Australians have been clashing with white-Australians on the beaches of the New South Wales city, leading to a heavy police presence in the suburbs over the past two weeks. Speaking at Sydney's Coogee Beach on Sunday, The Aviator beauty spoke out against the riots and urged unity amongst the divided communities. Blanchett said: "It's actually...

GOVERNMENTS around the world have declared Sydney's southern beaches no-go zones. England, Canada and Indonesia have warned their citizens to stay clear of Cronulla. Their travel alerts are similar to those normally reserved for international flash points such as Belfast and the West Bank. Both the UK and Canada have warned that random outbreaks of violence, riots and demonstrations could take place in Sydney at any time following the outbreaks that began in Cronulla nine days ago. Indonesia, which has long been critical of Australian travel alerts for Bali, warns its citizens should remain indoors unless completely necessary. "Riots and...