Are you deaf, blind and stupid

The perception that corruption is something that happens in banana republics, but not at home, is still being pushed by big media. That is true for countries like Russia, as well as the US et al.

Ernst & Young just released their report on commercial corruption. I haven’t seen it, but these two differing views are telling. First from Novosti and Reuters:

Western cos. say corruption main challenge on emerging markets *RIA Novosti, Russia

Firms expect fraud from emerging nations: E&Y study Reuters

*Half of Western firms say bribery and corruption are the main problems they face on emerging markets, a study released Friday by Ernst & Young said.

"The greatest risk identified in emerging markets is corruption and bribery; almost 50% of respondents identified this as the most threatening," the financial services company said in a press release for its "Global Fraud Survey: Fraud Risk in Emerging Markets."

Both developed (60%) and emerging market (86%) companies said the risk of fraud was prevalent primarily in emerging markets, the company said, adding that many organizations made an investment decision based on multiple criteria, including fraud risk.

"Our survey found that one in five organizations has made a decision not to invest in an emerging market as a result of fraud risk assessment," the company said

From South Africa, a reasonably developed economy:

'More fraud in developed economies' Cape Argus, South Africa

Emerging markets may still foster perceptions of loose business practices, but in reality more fraud takes place in developed economies, an Ernst & Young survey shows.

"Of the respondents that recently suffered a significant fraud, 75% experienced a fraud in their developed country operations, while 32% experienced a fraud in an emerging market," Ernst & Young's 9th Global Fraud Survey showed.

However, 42% of the respondents were without a formal anti-fraud policy, virtually unchanged from the prior 2003 survey, Ernst & Young said.

I’m starting to feel like a Basil Fawlty, when he remonstrates with a guest over the view from the room: “Are you deaf, blind and stupid?” Of course that is the infamous misquote, but it suits my purpose and mood.

How can we read, day in day out, headlines from the US, Britain, Australia, France and every other ‘developed’ economy, regaling us with news of corporate and political corruption, then still believe it doesn’t happen HERE?

"Our survey found that one in five organizations has made a decision not to invest in an emerging market as a result of fraud risk assessment," the company said.

I can only guess that means the assessment must give a positive to the potential for corrupt practices.

It is time everyone stopped deluding themselves about corruption. African leaders have just recently begged developed economies to reign in their own crooked dealings.

It goes like this, according to the ‘banana republics’: The big bribe money comes from the big countries, and the loot is usually stored in banks in those big countries. Or to put it in a simpler way – it takes two to tango!

It could get Gorey

I can’t help thinking that Al Gore is waiting, not just for an invitation, but for a total clamouring mass of invitations. He really wants to be co-opted, made an offer he can’t refuse.

You can’t blame him if those are his thoughts.

For starters losing on such a vast stage, regardless of the dubious circumstances, must be a sobering experience for anyone with an ounce of self respect and dignity. Gore must have seen enough to know that those human traits are not the stuff of political success.

“No hide, no Christmas box”, as my old Granny used to say, or as the political hard-arses would have it – “crash through or crash”; ignore little issues like being seen as a crook or liar, or just hones feelings of rejection, because success is the only thing that matters.

So now Mrs Gore is on his case to go for it, mainly because she thinks Hillary sucks, according to some reports. Bill doesn’t seem to think she suck’s, but few of us will ever get closer enough to feel easy about the woman.

It would be refreshing to have a world leader who was a touch on the sensitive side, but I expect the US will have a woman president before they ever get a sensitive one.

It just ain’t gonna happen! Al is setting himself up nicely with his environmentalist profile, another refreshing and fatal touch.

Columnist Jim Kouri has wandered out of his usual crime and corruption patch to give an insight into Gore’s future if he decides to run.

From Kouri’s Al in Wonderland “So, Al Gore has gone Hollywood. He certainly fits right in with the rest of those idiot savants who can make movies or act, but lack the common sense of a seven year old.”

That from a side player; wait till you see the crap flowing from the sewer of the hard arse political practitioners on all asides.

Gore is, in every way, a soft target. Hell, if you tell the average voter that accepting the idea of global warming will hit them economically, they will run from the idea in droves. Never mind reality, we are talking about potential future expendable income here.

I have to admit, I’ve grown to like Al. I used to see him as a sort of educated, articulate J. Danforth Quayle. Sorry Al, I know that isn’t very fair, but perceptions are powerful.

It is the perception which will be dragged out to beat Gore to a pulp. There is simply too much powerful vested interest in destroying our planet for a quick, dirty buck top allow some nice guy do-gooder to step in and fuck it all up.

But, having said all that, I am more than willing to be proved totally wrong. I guess, like so much troubling this world today, it depends on whether the average American voter can just once ignore the predictable force-fed crap and think and listen for themselves.

No, sorry Al, I can’t see it.

Meanwhile, at the local church...

I’m not sure if it gains something in the translation, or just that bullshit is universal:

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolay Patrushev - "We are continuing to notice a trend toward the escalation of religious extremism and radicalism based on the extremely dangerous ideology of intolerance and confrontation of Muslim and Christian values and also powerful financial and material support of international terrorist organizations”

Translates as – give us more money and powers!

What really gets to me, besides the tortuously long sentence, is that the intelligence or reporting thereof, fails to define the targets.

On both sides, Christian and Muslim, there are important distinctions between genuine followers and those using the creeds as a cover for extremism.

Islamist, like fundamental (or its variants) Christian suggests their philosophy to be a political extrapolation. The blanket generalisation is just plain stupid with even a quick analysis.

If the intelligence communities cannot define their potential targets more efficiently we are all in deep trouble.

Defining conflict and responsibilities

Dodging bullets and makeshift explosive devices will seem child’s play to coalition troops and their political masters, compared to the damage they are doing to their own prestige and standing.

These undefined conflicts, a ‘war on terror’, which apparently is not a war is in serious danger of increasing casualties from the friendly fire of semantics and spin.

The military elite and their masters proudly trot out the ‘rules of engagement’, but it is becoming obvious that these instruments are more window dressing than hard fact.

The fact seems to be that the rules and definitions of these ‘non-wars’ are being made up on the trot, with consequent ‘outrages’ rebounding badly on the defenders of what is apparently good and noble about our great cause. The following report from the Sydney Morning Herald gives a glimpse of this situation:

DETAINEES captured by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan are not being given prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, because the Federal Government says there has been no declaration of war and it is not an armed conflict between nation states.

This means that prisoners have no right to a fair trial and no right to be released at the end of the hostilities.

The situation, confirmed by Defence this week, has been criticised by an international law expert because it sets a bad precedent and means that in future conflicts, Australian troops who are taken prisoner might lose the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

Devika Hovell, the director of the international law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, says: "The problem with refusing to apply the law in the short term is that you lose its protection in the long term."

Very detailed POW provisions which were set out in the Geneva Conventions after World War II, and which Hovell said were designed to inject a "modicum of humanity into warfare", will not be applied.

These provisions include the right of prisoners not to be interrogated, other than to give their name and rank, and the right not to be punished for mere participation in hostilities.

The situation is the same with Canadian troops in Afghanistan, who have been told the Geneva Conventions regarding the rights of POWs do not apply to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters captured on the battlefield.

These non-wars are having devastating effects on the troops in the front line. A recent British finding says that close to 60 military personnel are reporting severe psychological stress every month. That represents an attrition rate of nearly 10% of the British troops.

In part that stress must come back to poorly defined actions which no amount of spin or semantics can ameliorate.

These are the same conditions which are encouraging excesses among the US forces, from prisoner abuse to sick parodies and outright murder.

It is time for proper considered definitions to replace the ad hoc, politically motivated spin, which is guaranteed to simply bounce back on the US led coalition again and again.

If it is not war, what is it? What are acceptable rules of behaviour, and who will set them? It seems the first real casualty of these non-wars in not simply the truth but the trust that we really did belong to honest, reliable societies.

Economic predictions

This from the AUSTRALIAN. Probably says it better than I can.
I rely on bloggers like reality-based educator for an overview of the markets.

Ruling: 'tortured' Britons' can't sue

pic: Saudi torture victims - Ron Jones, Les Walker, Bill Samson and Sandy Mitchell

Britain's highest court has ruled that four men who were imprisoned and allegedly tortured in Saudi Arabia do not have the right to sue their foreign captors.

The House of Lords allowed an appeal by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against a Court of Appeal decision in October 2004 allowing the men to sue for damages.

The kingdom had argued that the State Immunity Act protected its officials from proceedings brought in this country, and today five Law Lords agreed.

Sandy Mitchell, Les Walker and Bill Sampson were arrested after a series of terrorist bombings in the Saudi capital Riyadh and Khobar in eastern Saudi Arabia six years ago and claimed they were tortured into admitting responsibility.

Ron Jones, one of the four, said he was disappointed with today's judgment.

"We have come to the highest court in the land and we have not received justice," he said.

"The case has been looked at from the point of view of the law and not of justice. It is now time for the British Government - which intervened to back the law of state immunity - to intervene on our behalf in order to get us some justice."

Jones’ treatment by captors, which included being beaten on his hands and feet, being suspended by his arms, deprived of sleep and forcibly fed mind-altering drugs, has been independently confirmed.

Scots invented football

Over at our sister site - GP Daily - we run a section called Juice Radio, a collection of some of the odder news stories doing the rounds.
WE found this one in The Scotsman -

Scotland may not be at the World Cup, but the country can at least lay claim to having invented football, following the translation of a book written almost 400 years ago.

In 1633, more than 200 years before the Football Association was formed in England, David Wedderburn, a poet and teacher at Aberdeen Grammar School, described a match in his pocket-sized tome Vocabula.

You can read more on Juice Radio where news of the odd, weird variety is posted regularly.

It's great to be Rove

Scanning the headlines, it’s easy to imagine the media are more upset than most with Rove’s escape. Very few seem to actually endorse the prosecutor’s decision. Here is a sample:

Rove Avoids Being Charged in CIA Leak Case

Karl Rove escaped being charged in the CIA leak case CNN

Karl Rove Dodges Indictment in CIA Leak Case

Observers say that Rove, by contrast, may have only neglected to tell the grand jury that he talked about the matter with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

NPR

Rove free to strategize campaigns after being cleared Houston Chronicle

Karl Rove Escapes Prosecution and Now, What About Cheney? Yahoo! News

Rove Sidesteps Indictment Los Angeles Times, CA

Rove case is croaked Boston Herald, United States

“At the end of the day it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.” - former Ambassador Joe Wilson, August 2003.

Telling the FBI the truth saved Karl Rove MSNBC

Fitzgerald Leave Questions Unanswered Washington Post, United States

Rove's lawyer says he's safe Chicago Tribune, United States

I suspect for many in the media it will mean a more critical eye is kept on the Houdini of the white House. I get the sense that the media can smell the putrefied prawns; they just can’t locate the source. Either that or the story, or subject thereof, is just too good to let go.

Australia’s Guantanamo Bay shame

David Hicks, an Australian resident, has had to turn to his birth country Britain to secure freedom from Guantanamo. The Howard government in Australia has consistently refused to intervene on his behalf, backing the Bush detention policy all the way.

Lawyers for Hick have successfully applied for his rightful UK citizenship, in the face of Australian intransigence. But while Britain has intervened for all other nationals they are not in any rush to extend their support to the hapless Hicks.

British lawyers for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks will today ask the High Court to order the British Government to stop thwarting his bid to gain British citizenship and arrange for him to swear the oath of allegiance immediately.

Lawyer Stephen Grosz said he was taking court action because the Government had said it would consider using the new Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act to deprive Hicks of British citizenship.

He said the Government had had six months to make arrangements to register Hicks as a British citizen and had not done so.

Meanwhile, several Australian Coalition backbenchers with deep concerns for Hicks are pushing for him to be brought to trial immediately. Hicks is due to face a US military tribunal on terrorism charges.

Liberal MP Danna Vale said she was "disturbed" by legal delays in Hicks' case when he had been incarcerated since 2001 in the US military prison where three detainees committed suicide on Friday. Hicks' lawyer said he was in a fragile state.

Perhaps more than any, Hicks represents the stupidity and travesty that is Guantanamo Bay. Holding him in isolation has become little more than an attempt by the coalition partners to keep a lid on a highly embarrassing episode.

They have exposed the fruitless idiocy of the whole terrorist incarceration program, by netting and holding dumb adventurers like Hicks. His release would obviously expose truths which the coalition governments would prefer to cover up.

At the very least authorities must give Hick an open and fair trial, not the secret military hearing they have planned. Better still, just let the poor bastard walk, the Guantanamo Bay damage has been done now, anyway.

Spotlight on Guantanamo Bay

The image is confronting, it is supposed to confront, supposed to be a wake up call. Guantanamo Bay symbolizes the illegality and amorality of the Bush administration’s war on terror, or as we a finding, war of terror!.

Lawyers who represent some of the 460 men at the prison said no one should be surprised by the suicides of three inmates at the weekend - one of whom was 17 years old when he was incarcerated and another who was earmarked for transfer.

Bill Goodman, legal director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said: "The Bush administration has systematically and deliberately denied these men their most basic rights through a policy of choking off all contact, communication, information and hope."


"[It has] consistently fought to keep these men from lawyers, doctors and others who were willing to help them."

In 2003, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the only independent organisation granted access to the prisoners, warned of the severe mental health issues facing many and said the nature of their incarceration and interrogation - including humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions - was "a form of torture". Britain’s Independent

I have been waiting to see the US domestic response to this latest situation. The local media is generally a little slow in taking up confronting national issues. But it has started flowing now.

From SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, within shouting distance of my current location:

The deaths will intensify the global attention on and criticism of the way the
Bush administration has used the facility to deny basic legal and human rights.

Bloody right it will intensify global attention. But more to the point, it must galvanize those American’s who believe in a fair system of justice and who are opposed to torture in its many forms.

Right is wrong on the UN

The response from the US right seems to go a long way to confirming the recent remarks by Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Typically the responses have been distinguished by juvenile vilification and the recycling of known falsehoods which mark the lack of depth in the Right’s debating style.

In my reading of his comments, Brown acknowledged that the organisation has its issues, problems which are not being helped by the official US attitude.

Rather than addressing the real concerns expressed by Brown, US critics are more concerned to defend the indefensible in their own backyard.

Brown took one critic, Rush Limbaugh, head on. The response:

"Brown is saying ... that [the U.N.] is not recognized for its true benefit to world peace ... because of me and Fox News poisoning your minds." Limbaugh responded by advising his listeners that Brown "is just another pointy-headed, elitist liberal saying you're a bunch of mind-numbed robots and you can't make up your own minds about things."

That’s right, a bit of good old vilification should win every argument, every time!

This long post continues here:

Beheadings and other curiosities

Saudi Arabia beheaded a man for murder Monday, the kingdom's second execution this year, the Interior Ministry said.

Musfir bin Saad bin Abdullah al Qahtani was found guilty of shooting and killing two Saudi men after a dispute, the ministry said in a statement. He was executed in the capital, Riyadh.

Saudi beheadings are carried out with a sword in public to serve as a deterrent. The kingdom beheaded 83 people in 2005 and 35 people in 2004.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery can be executed.

Okay, I’m one of those people who oppose capital punishment, for a raft of reasons, but two key concerns are:

It is only a deterrent to the person legally killed. If it were a real deterrent then capital punishment would have become redundant long ago.

The second point is that this legal form of murder dehumanizes the societies which practice it. If the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his apparent clones see beheading as an acceptable practice, might it not be because it is a state sanctioned practice?

I know, they would simply use another form of execution, but it is pointless being squeamish about them using an already sanctioned method.

The new Zarqawi

While we are on Zarqawi, reports aren’t confirmed yet, but a replacement has been announced; a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer.

It’s not clear yet whether this new guy is Pentagon sanctioned. We do know that the name al-Muhajer, Arabic for 'immigrant,' suggested he was not Iraqi.

A statement from Al-Qaida in Iraq's council said al-Muhajer was 'a beloved brother with jihadi (holy war) experience and a strong footing in knowledge.

The self serving propaganda on all sides makes it difficult to know what is really going on. No doubt we will receive official reports soon on how this character has been under observation since the year dot, and been a past recipient of US favours.

My score card is getting too convoluted to follow with ease anymore.

Australia 3 - 1 Japan

A little reflected glory, but it has been a long road for the Socceroos, back into the World Cup. Well done!

The Socceroos returned to the World Cup finals in stunning style, scoring three times in the final five minutes to secure a remarkable 3-1 victory over Japan in their opening Group F match on Monday.

Bush a prisoner of Guantanamo Bay

Guantanamo Bay must now symbolize one more strategic failure of the war on terror. The Bush administration is pretty much alone on this one, with the only coalition support coming from Australia.

Senior judges in Australia, Britain and the European Union have been scathing in their criticism of the military commissions and even supporters of the US Administration - such as the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair - have called on Bush to close the prison camp.

Bush a prisoner of Guantanamo Bay

The fact is, they have painted themselves into a corner with Guantanamo, there is no escape clause for George.

"We would like to end Guantanamo. We'd like it to be empty. Trouble is there are some that, if put out on the streets, would create grave harm to American citizens and other citizens of the world," Bush said.

Rhetoric or not, he is trapped by his own words.
But talking of words, the camp's commander, Rear-Admiral Harry Harris, raised the stakes after the suicides of three Guantanamo prisoners over the weekend.

His statement that the suicides constitute "an act of asymmetrical warfare" goes counter to claimed legal basis for the camp, that this is not war but some vague sort of action.

The deaths of a Yemeni and two Saudi prisoners, who hanged themselves, prompted expressions of concern from the White House, but they have no where to move on the issue at present.

Raising the spectre that the camp is possibly a prisoner of war camp the flimsy legal framework the administration has built to justify its existence under International law must surely collapse.

In their well recorded style of simply changing the words and designations, in an attempt to make things more palatable, U.S. government has classified the detainees in Camp X-Ray as "illegal combatants." That title is in place of prisoners of war (POWs), which they claim means that they do not have to be conferred the rights granted to POWs under the Geneva Conventions (at least under that convention).

The U.S. government justifies this designation by claiming that they do not have the status of either regular soldiers or that of guerrillas, and they are not part of a regular army or militia. In short, they created a ‘gray’ military class with equally ‘gray’ justifications.

So not only is the administration, ‘damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t’, the suicides will now put immense, additional International pressure on them to find a solution which George says simply isn’t there.

Speaking about Australia’s David Hicks's, detained at Guantanamo, his Australian lawyer David McLeod, said the deaths were "just dreadful" and it was "very concerning" that prisoners had managed to kill themselves.

"This sort of information about suicide attempts, and now successful suicides, would go around the camp like wildfire and no doubt cause [Hicks] and other detainees to reflect on their own positions," McLeod said.

"Can you imagine what it must be like to be a prisoner in a jail where there have been over 100 attempts at suicide, three of which have finally been successful? Can you imagine what must be the thoughts going through prisoners' minds that would lead you to conclude suicide was the only way out?"

Around 460 individuals of various nationalities are still being held without any evidence against them and with no legal rights.The fact that they have no legal rights is confirmed in a ruling issued by the UN Committee against Torture, which not only requested that the US Government close that arbitrary prison.
The committee also urged the US to change what they euphemistically called interrogation techniques, because they amount to torture, as well as a halt to brutal treatment such as what is called the "submarine technique", in which the prisoner’s head is submerged in water to the brink of asphyxia.

That these prisoners, cut off from the world in virtually every way, can now make such a powerful impact on international opinion underscores the tenuous position Bush finds himself in.

Perhaps had he won a decisive victory, the questions would never have arisen. But a decisive victory in a shadowy, poorly defined conflict, where enemies are as often propaganda constructs as they are real, was never really a possibility.

UPDATE:

A senior US official has suggested that three Guantanamo inmates who committed
suicide had done so as a publicity stunt.

Colleen Graffy, US deputy
assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC World Service
yesterday the suicides were a "good PR move to draw attention".

She
added: "It does sound that this is part of a strategy in that they don't value
their own life and they certainly don't value ours, and they use suicide
bombings as a tactic to further their Jihadi cause."

F**k me foley! Is anyone at home in Washington? I expect the 'publicity stunt' concept has more to do with US admin thinking than it has for these prisoners with no rights and little hope.

More glimpses of the Zarqawi myth

I’m not sure who Patrick Cockburn of Britains Independent newspaper is, but was interested in some of his observations on the Zarqawi saga. - Who's next? The US got its man. Now it must target the real threat in Iraq

I have just pulled some of the issues raised by the article, with idea of looking for some corroborating information. The headings are mine.

No great infrastructure

Iraq's most wanted man was living with almost no guards and only five companions, two of whom were women and one an eight-year-old girl.

The ease with which Iraqi police and US special forces were able to reach the house after the bombing without encountering hostile fire showed that Zarqawi was never the powerful guerrilla chieftain and leader of the Iraqi resistance that Washington has claimed for more than three years.

Troops fail goodwill test

The only resistance encountered by American commandos was from local Sunni villagers in the village of Ghalabiya, near Hibhib, who thought the strangers were members of a Shia death squad.

Villagers who were standing guard fired into the air on seeing the commandos, who in turn threw a grenade that killed five of the guards.

American regular army troops later came to Ghalabiya to apologise and promise compensation to the families of the dead men.

Factors in creating the myth

The biggest surprise surrounding his death last week was that it took so long to happen. And the manner in which he died confirms the belief that his military and political importance was always deliberately exaggerated by the US.

He was a wholly obscure figure until he was denounced by then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, before the US Security Council on 5 February 2003.

Powell identified Zarqawi as the link between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein, though no evidence for this was ever produced.

Iraqi police documents, discovered later, showed that Saddam Hussein's security forces, far from collaborating with Zarqawi, were trying to arrest him.

More goodwill lapses

The killing of Zarqawi is a boost for the newly formed government of Nuri al-Maliki, but Iraqis did not fail to notice that when announcing it, he stood at the podium between Gen George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador.

"It showed the limits of Maliki's independence from the Americans," noted one Iraqi commentator. "It would have been better if they had let him make the announcement standing alone."

Just send us your crooks

Robert McCallum: Bush friend

The man President George Bush wants as the next US ambassador to Australia took
"aggressive actions" to destroy a multibillion-dollar fraud case against tobacco
companies, according to the US Government's top prosecutor in the case.
Robert McCallum, the US Associate Attorney-General, was said to have
undermined the case once it became apparent that prosecutors could win.
The
claims were made by Sharon Eubanks, who led the US Justice Department's
nine-month prosecution against the tobacco firms. Last week an internal Justice
Department inquiry found no wrongdoing by McCallum, clearing the way for him to
become the US ambassador in Canberra.
Controversy has dogged McCallum over
his role in slashing the penalty the Justice Department sought to impose on
tobacco companies from $US130 billion ($A174 billion) to $US10 billion. He was
also accused of pressuring three witnesses to tone down their testimony in
relation to the penalty.
McCallum was appointed to a senior Justice
Department post by Mr Bush and had oversight of the tobacco case.

From the Melbourne Age

If George keeps posting his crooks overseas he might start running out descision enforcers at home.
But I'm sure Australia doesn't need any more crooked politicians or diplomats in the wqake of the Oil for Food scandal.

44 candidates with zero votes

Over at my main site, GP Daily, we cover the gamut of corruption news. This inevitably includes elections around the world, which are increasingly linked to questionable practices.

Occasionally, in this mess of daily scandal, a story stands out simply because it is so preposterous. The one playing with my mind at the moment is from the Dominican Republic, where last months elections produced 44 candidates who did not receive one vote between them.

Now you don’t need to be a mathematician to work out the odds of such a result well into the realms of impossibility.

Delving into the story a bit further produced some other interesting factoids for the electorally attuned, but first up some demographics.

The Dom Rep is slightly more than twice the size of New Hampshire.

It shares its Island space with Haiti.

Population is about 9,183,984 spread through cities to rugged highlands and mountains with fertile valleys.

Okay, the rugged mountains must be a bit of a hurdle, but it has taken nearly one full month to count and record the vote from the May 16 election.

A full three days after Dominican voters cast their ballots last Tuesday, the Organization of American States (O.A.S.) International Observers Mission is concerned over the slow rate at which the elections’ results are being released, a delay many blame for the violence in the post electoral process.

Observers from the O.A.S. Mission then affirmed that the Dominican electoral system has effective control and security mechanisms to guarantee the will of the voters.

Despite the duration and the no vote anomalies, the president of the Electoral Central Board affirmed today that the recently concluded Dominican electoral process "was normal within the circumstances."

A critical cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, accused them of “not knowing how to count.”

Within a week of the vote 10 people had been killed in election related incidents.

Unfortunately I’m a little language challenged, so I couldn’t pick up much of the background or the actual published disputed returns. I guess we’ll just have to wait until they hit the English editions.

al-Zarqawi's fate

Bill Leak from The Australian

For some interesting takes on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death I recommend:

Zarqawi was a tool – Born at the Crest

KnightRidder: Zarqawi's Death Changes Little In Iraq - Reality Based Educator

Blair for UN top job?

Tony Blair ruled himself out of the running as the next secretary general of the United Nations as he sought yesterday to close down speculation about when he would quit as Prime Minister.

At his monthly press conference in Downing Street, he set out the challenges facing the Government, ranging from nuclear power to anti-social behaviour. London Daily Telegraph

That’s nice to know, but I didn’t even know he was asked. Apparently Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, told The Spectator this week that Mr Blair would go "well before the next election" and would then take "a very important role on the world stage".

But it does put the current stoush between UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown and the feisty Bolton into some perspective.

What is rendition really like?

From the report by a former Swiss prosecutor for the Council of Europe, which monitors human rights in 46 European nations.

Page 22, section 85 of the report, describes the general characteristics of preparing a detainee for a rendition flight, based on the testimony of victims. One American intelligence source said that within 20 minutes "a detainee is transformed into a state of almost total immobility and sensory deprivation".

I. It generally takes place in a small room (a locker room, a police reception area) at the airport, or at a transit facility nearby.

II. The man is sometimes already blindfolded when the operation begins, or will be blindfolded quickly and remain so throughout most of the operation.

III. Four to six CIA agents perform the operation in a highly-disciplined, consistent fashion - they are dressed in black (either civilian clothes or special 'uniforms'), wearing black gloves, with their full faces covered. Testimonies speak, variously, of "big people in black balaclavas", people "dressed in black like ninjas", or people wearing "ordinary clothes, but hooded".

IV. The CIA agents "don't utter a word when they communicate with one another", using only hand signals.

V. Some men speak of being punched or shoved at the beginning of the operation in a rough or brutal fashion; others talked about being gripped firmly from several sides.

VI. The man's hands and feet are shackled.

VII. The man has all his clothes (including his underwear) cut from his body; an eye-witness described how "someone was taking these clothes and feeling every part, you know, as if there was something inside the clothes, and then putting them in a bag".

VIII. The man is subjected to a full-body cavity search, which also entails a close examination of his hair, ears, mouth and lips.

IX. The man is photographed with a flash camera, including when he is nearly or totally naked; in some instances, the man's blindfold may be removed for the purpose of a photograph.

X. Some accounts speak of a foreign object being forcibly inserted into the man's anus; some accounts speak more specifically of a tranquilliser or suppository being administered per rectum - in each description this practice has been perceived as a grossly violating act that affronts the man's dignity.

XI. The man is then dressed in a nappy or incontinence pad and a loose-fitting "jump-suit" or set of overalls; "they put diapers on him and then there is some handling with these handcuffs and foot chains, because first they put them on and then they are supposed to put him in overalls, so then they have to alternately unlock and relock them".

XII. The man has his ears muffled.

XIII. Finally a cloth bag is placed over the man's head, with no holes through which to breathe or detect light; they "put a blindfold on him and after that a hood that apparently reaches far down on his body".

XIV. The man is typically forced aboard a waiting aeroplane, where he may be "placed on a stretcher, shackled", or strapped to a mattress or seat, or "laid down on the floor of the plane and they bind him up in a very uncomfortable position that makes him hurt from moving".

XV. In some cases the man is drugged and experiences little or nothing of the actual rendition flight; in other cases, factors such as the pain of the shackles or the refusal to drink water or use the lavatory make the flight unbearable.

XVI. In most cases, the man has no notion of where he is going nor the fate that awaits.

Keep your crooks at home

The US Justice Department has cleared one of its top officials of wrongdoing in a government lawsuit against the tobacco industry, which frees him to serve as US ambassador to Australia.

The last US ambassador to Canberra, John Thomas Schieffer, completed his term in February 2005. Schieffer's deputy, William A. Stanton, has been the embassy's charge d'affaires during the 15 months since.

The internal Justice Department review stemmed from complaints about the agency's decision last year to bypass a recommendation by one of its own witnesses and lower the amount it was seeking in remedies from tobacco companies. SMH

It has been 15 months since the US last had an ambassador to its coalition partner, Australia.
At a time when the two countries have been so closely engaged in their war on terror there has been no US representative, at ambassadior level, in Australia.

Through the rough and tumble negotiations over a free trade agreement the ambassador designate was being investigated for his fancy footwork wity the tobacco companies.
It just goes to show we don't really need diplomats.

Schieffer, the last Bush stooge, pissed-off most Australians when he started taking public pot-shots at Australian politicians who annoyed him. That was really bloody diplomatic.
Now George can't find an honest guy to fill the job, so he hangs out till his crook of choice is conveniently cleared.

Funnily enough, the best US ambassador, and frequent visitor, to Australia is good ole 'Billy Bob" Clinton. The Aussies love him, follow him around like adoring puppies.

So there you go George, you can kill two birds with one stone. Get Bill out of your face by sending him somewhere he's loved and appreciated and keep your crook home where he can look after your dirty business.

Curious about Karl

Forget the on-again off-again Rove crucifixion, the ‘what did Rove tell whom?" story, I want to know what he is doing there in the first place.

Admittedly I’m still very green when it comes to the complexities of US politics, but I do know there is a demarcation in most democratic institutions, a not too fine line between administration and politics.

Not the politicians of course, although there are restrictions on using the trappings of office for political purposes.

That means, for example, canvassing letters, postage, phone calls etc. are the responsibility of the politician and must not be taken from office supplies.
On the other hand, information letters, which might come very close to canvassing, are allowed.

The same goes for personnel, and in the past 12 months a number of US politicians have suffered the consequences of using office staff for political purposes.

Yes, it seems the concept does exist in the US, that a politician’s staff are to be used purely to assist in the functions related to the elected official’s responsibilities.

So when Bolton took over the reigns of the White House skivvies, our Karl’s position was spelled out in the general reshuffle.
According to an NBC report at the time, among many: Rove is giving up oversight of policy development to focus more on politics with the approach of the fall midterm elections.

An administration source told NBC that the shift was "an acknowledgement of the tough political climate."

Now I recall reading that back then, but I don’t recall ever hearing anyone from the White House saying that it was not true. So we can safely assume that Rove’s primary function is political.
Now that’s fine if he’s not being paid by the government, that’s the people.
But if he is, it surely crosses the line between the functions of political office and straight politics.

Out of curiosity I looked up a few Rove quotes:

"Somebody gets to be smart and somebody gets to be dumb. If we win, it'll be because of the president. And if we lose, it'll be because of me."

"At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views of the world."

"Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real antiwar movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an antiwar rally."

"Many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview."

"I think it's dawning on some Democrats that obstructing the Patriot Act, like they've been obstructing everything else, is bad for them politically."

Oh and: "We will f**k him. Do you hear me? We will f**k him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f**ked him." -to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him.

Those are not the public words of a man advising on policy, but then it seems there has never really been any pretence.
I simply ask the question; why do some politicians go to jail for misusing their office in similar ways, yet your president is never even queried on the matter?

Election scandal overload

As a corruption news chaser, my day starts with a scan of online media with an emphasis on Google News, sorted by date, to ensure catching breaking news.

Browsing my usual set of search terms, all related to corruption in its various forms, I'm struck by pages of current US election news.

Don't panic, there hasn't been a rash of new corruption overnight, but nearly every
election race story in the US has the 'corruption', 'scandal' tags embedded in them.

To be fair, there were one or two which were along the lines of 'with no taint of scandal...' or similar, but only one or two.

Oh, and don't start getting all defensive, it is not just US elections. In this current phase of human history, it seems corruption and elections are two words welded together across the world.

No doubt it gives rise to frustration for me, as so many irrelevant stories are corrupted by the tags.
However, the real concern should be the deplorable level of governance demonstrated by elected officials around the globe.
It's one thing for leaders to lead, but we should expect them to lead with positive values and a sense of probity.

Fortunately, after digging deep into the news pages, I found I could rely on those good old, corrupt, third world countries for some real news. As we all know, that is where the corruption really is.

Europe's role in terror abductions

The full extent of European collusion with the CIA during operations to abduct terrorism suspects and fly them to countries where they may be tortured is laid bare today by the continent's most authoritative human rights body.

The UK stands accused of not only allowing the use of British airspace and airports, but of providing information that was used during the torture of one suspect. The report adds that there is strong evidence to suspect two European states, Poland and Romania, of permitting the CIA to operate secret prisons on their soil, despite official denials.

I will reserve comment.

UPDATE:
In fact I'll go one better and give some other voices a go. Check out -

What Rendition May Mean For Europe - Blognonymous (Kvatch)

Quick Facts on the renditions story Born at the Crest of the Empire

Coalition has already tossed the Geneva Convention

I posted a story yesterday on the Pentagon’s intention to unilaterally “omit” parts of the Geneva Convention.

The gist of the story is that proscriptions on humiliating and degrading treatment be ignored.

According to a report by The Los Angeles Times, the decision could terminate a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but would not become final until the Pentagon makes the new guidelines public.

However, the State Department has strongly opposed the military and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the paper said.

Apparently, for all the political two-step, it has already started, as far as the coalition forces are concerned, it’s all bets off!

Unfortunately for those Pentagon guys in their cute uniforms and penchant for the sadism bit of S&M, their Canadian counterparts have been less cautious in explaining the issue.

Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, who heads the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, has said:

"They are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status but they are entitled to prisoner-of-war treatment." He argued that the Convention's provisions "apply in an armed conflict between states," not in the situation in Afghanistan.

I rant and rave about the way US policies infiltrate and corrupt my countries, Australia and Canada. I’ve no doubt the Australian military have adopted this plan with glee, although they are always a good deal more circumspect on contentious issues.

I suspect that had our Canadian warrior not run off at the mouth about this, there would have been no signal at all from the Pentagon. Less said sooner forgotten, or however they operate.

Doesn’t it make you feel proud that your government and your military are a pack of lying, conniving, sadistic bustards?

incompetent ain't the half of it

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that President Bush's support among the American people has fallen to 33%. Even more devastatingly, the survey finds that people's most frequently used one-word description of President Bush is "incompetent."

From: National survey shows President Bush may be witnessing the collapse of his presidency

by Paul Craig Roberts

Incompetent he might well be, but that would appear to be the more engaging and less destructive aspect of this president.

The Bush agenda has failed miserably, doubtless for the supposed benefactors but more especially the people of the US and beyond. I don’t suggest for one moment that ‘the people’ were ever considered among the potential benefactors.

The article also points out: …the principle that "you are with us or against us," Bush's administration is all of one mind.

Well America, how many times are you going to fall for that empty call before you cry out – “We are against you!”

Kennedy’s dumb, rhetorical inauguration challenge – “ask not what your country can do for you…” seems like high falutin philosophy compared to the base self serving Bush model.

Pentagon say cruel is fine

THE Pentagon is pushing for its new policy on prisoner detention to omit a key tenet of the Geneva convention that bans "humiliating and degrading treatment", marking a potentially permanent move away from international human rights standards.

Military officials say the decision follows a lengthy debate within the US Department of Defence, but will not become final until the Pentagon makes the new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed.

The Pentagon has been redrawing policies on prisoners and interrogation for more than a year, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual, which, with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to US soldiers worldwide

From Pentagon set to drop Geneva convention Sydney Morning Herald

At least they are honest, even if they are depraved.

The big doubt

A police officer loads terrorism suspect Shareef Abdelhaleem, 30, of Mississauga, into a holding van at the Durham Regional Police Station on Saturday. (Nathan Denette/CP)

17 terror suspects arrested in sweeping raids across southern Ontario late Friday

“Police and intelligence officials made the arrests late Friday night and early Saturday morning after the group accepted delivery of three tons of ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer than can be explosive if combined with fuel oil.”

As news of this strike against terrorist plotters leaked out over the weekend, my reaction was ‘well, it is feasible. After all, if you go stirring up the wasps nest they are bound to bite back.’

But Canadians are a laid-back bunch and haven’t really bought it. So here I was, quietly cautioning a wait and see, in the face of vehement skepticism, (from this laid-back bunch).

My resolve was weakened a bit by the Australian and British media reports on the event. These were along the lines of: How cute, the Canadians think they have rounded up a bunch of evil terrorists.

Then the Canadian media reaction really throws things into a spin. There are, of course, those ready to claim this as justification for having troops in Afghanistan, to accept without question, as the body bags arrive home, that somehow playing soldiers over there will protect us here.

Well the dumbest Canuck can see that before Canada engaged in Bush’s adventure there was no threat here, but that’s another story.

US praises Canada for terror bust Well that is a poison chalice, and only serves to remind people that Harper is probably more interested in serving the US than Canada. That is the reaction and a fair one too, if you are not an American.

Police planted evidence: Terrorists’ arrest in Toronto. Okay a story from Pakistan, but echoing some of the voices here.

As much as I despise the right wing National Post, I’m inclined to agree with the headline at least: It was only a matter of time

There is a strong ‘live and let live’ feeling among Canadians. Many enjoy a couple of beers and the odd bit of biffo, but there is a strong tendency to do what you have to do, and mind your own business.

Even more than my multi-cultural home of Australia, Canada has an easy acceptance of the racial mix, as long as everyone plays the game and don’t make waves. Trouble makers are never easily accepted.

In this case they want proof of who the real trouble makers are. So while I’m prepared to accept the potential for this kind of thing to visit peaceful Canada, my neighbours aren’t so sure. In fact, they don’t seem too sure of their southern neighbours either.

Leaders losing the way

Signs that the current political paradigm is in decay are becoming stronger among Bush’s major allies. Both Britain and Australia show strong indications that the political pendulum has reached the end of its swing and is starting to drop.

Tony Blair’s grip on power continues to slip as ministers declare their support for his beleaguered deputy, John Prescott.

In a system where the majority party effectively selects the country’s top leadership, qualified support is often a predictor of imminent change.

True it is the Deputy Prime Minister who is in immediate danger of being dumped, but any moves against him are certain to force a full leadership spill.

Blair undermined his own position, in a recent cabinet shuffle, when he sidelined former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

The situation in Britain is even more confused because while the jockeying is underway for Prescott’s plum position, the PM in waiting, Gordon Brown is no longer assured of a smooth transition when his time comes.

All indications are that the once unassailable New Labour is starting to collapse from within.

The Australia conservative coalition, composed of the dominant Liberals and junior partner the Nationals, is also showing signs of unraveling despite their total control of the Federal political scene.

In an effort to break Labor’s hold at state level, the Queensland conservative parties recently cobbled together a plan to form a single party.

Fearful of the fallout across the nation, federal leaders were quick to squash that plan. But the episode clearly demonstrates the fragility of the current situation.

An even greater sign of an administration losing focus and direction, was the federal government’s decision to join key states in selling their stake in Australia’s icon Snowy Hydro Scheme. This proved an asset sell-off too far. Dismayed already by the sales of major national assets, the public stood firm in opposing this one.

That Howard even blundered into this latest mess is a sign that he is losing his famous grip on the public pulse.

There are a number of reasons why the proposed Snowy sell-off was a stupid concept. The bulk of the country’s immigrants, through the 50s and 60s served their time on this massive project. In its conception and construction the scheme was sold as a symbol of a country coming of age. It has deep emotional pull on the country, but a practical one too.

Remember that over 70% of Australia is unarrable, it is the driest continent on earth. Besides generating power, the Snowy scheme feeds major rivers and provides precious water for agriculture industrial and domestic use. The sale would have effectively privatised a major supply of Australian water.

Both Blair and Howard had a reputation for knowing how far and in what direction they could go before risking their support bases. They have lost those skills as surely as they are losing their leadership authority.

Weeping with Xanana Gusmao

WHEN East Timor's President, Xanana Gusmao, received Australia's Alexander Downer on Saturday in his office in the Palace of the Ashes, the humiliation of his country's collapse overcame him.

Gusmao, the charismatic warrior-poet who led East Timor's guerilla resistance movement and spent seven years in an Indonesian jail, broke down in tears and wept openly.

I am no fan of Alex Downer, and I fully sympathize with Gusmao, but Australia’s foreign minister might be slowly learning how to deal with regional trouble spots.
There are signs that the mess will begin to resolve itself over the next few weeks. The long term difficulty is still one of changing the mindset from freedom fighting struggle to positive and peaceful nation building. Gusmao and Ramos Horta are still the best bet East Timor has to guide that process.

Diversion: Blair shows the way

TONY Blair is backing a controversial plan to provide a state funeral for one of the Labour Party's most reviled enemies of recent decades: Margaret Thatcher.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that civil servants have been working for months on the details of Baroness Thatcher's funeral, even though there is no suggestion the 80-year-old is suffering from any life-threatening condition.

Never mind that she is not planning on popping her clogs anytime soon, let’s start a good side debate to distract from the main game.

Personally I don’t have a problem giving the old battleaxe baroness a state funeral. The sooner the better, and take the socially divisive policies and bury them with her. Better still, burn them!

But I don’t think that’s exactly what Tony has in mind. He has followed the Thatcher agenda faithfully, more faithfully than her own party ever did.

No, this is just a bullshit side show to take the heat off, get the country raging about something other than his dying government. Not bad though, I bet it works.

Chipping away at scandal

In the face of the rampant scandals swirling Washington like fog, the Oil for Food fiasco rarely sees the light of day. It should, if only because it shows, again, the cynicism underlying the whole Iraq adventure. Still, there are those who are still trying to shed some light on the issue.

THE Bush administration has been accused of trying to protect the Howard Government from the AWB scandal, as a reward for its support for the US-led war in Iraq.
Iowa senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat on the US Senate agriculture committee, said the White House was going soft on Australia's wheat exporter because John Howard agreed to send troops to Iraq. The Australian

This scandal has become a major focus in Australia and in time threatens to become just one more nail in the Bush coffin.

School kids enlisted in drug war

AFGHANISTAN: Schoolchildren are being used as cheap labour, in an effort to reduce opium poppy cultivation. But it is a dangerous and ineffective approach, according to reports.

After decades of war and years of drought, poppy production is seen by many Afghan farmers as the only way to provide their families with food and shelter.

Authorities, keen to curb the illicit crop, are using school children to flatten the poppies before harvest time.

Read more on Pundit's blog...

Bush playing with fire?

It is easy to forget that there is still a world out there, beyond the policy ‘certainties’ of the Bush administration. This from a Russian analyst:

“Speculations are made that the US has managed to create some kind of infrastructure in Azerbaijan and Georgia – something that will help it to carry out ‘surgical strikes’ on Iran.

If the Americans actually do this, i.e. if they use the South Caucasus in their military campaign against Iran, Russia will have to react in some way.

The situation is like somebody is playing with brushwood and matches in our backyard.

I am sure that Iran’s response will be tough and adequate, and probably even asymmetrical.” Moscow State University of International Relations, Professor Vladimir Degoyev

Reaching the ‘critical mass’

I studied political science, once many years ago, only to discover it isn’t a science and or even an art. It was an easy enough course, once I cracked the code; forget about research and rigour, follow the bouncing ball, stick with the current paradigm at all costs.

Just like politics really, even if things are demonstrably, disastrously wrong, just stick with the program.

I didn’t point out then, and risk being marked down, that the current paradigm fails to take credence of the big picture, the historical records. There could be an element of science, though I’m no scientist. There are historic cycles; clear and definable cycles which are probably related to the human response to power, to greed and hubris. Those parts of the human mind which blind people to visible, provable fact.

Forget the masses, watch the collapsing mass!

The Bush Administration is proving my thesis, just as the Howard’s Liberal’s in Australia and Blair’s New Labour in Britain. President Roh in South Korea is wallowing in the same inevidble trend, as is Chen in Taiwan.

Canada’s Liberals have already been there, allowing the anomaly of a conservative government to be elected at a time when the trend is moving away from conservatism. Berlusconi’s right wing conservatives in Italy have already flared out.

Roh, it should be pointed out, is not conservative, but simply another electoral anomaly.

It is ‘the critical mass’ of political failures; the inevitable build up of wrong minded policy, of incompetence in high places, of unfathomable greed and the greatest failure of all – forgetting the people who vote.

We have been tracking the signs of collapse over the past few months. Those signs now seem to be spinning with a dizzying effect.

Devouring their own

The problematic commitment to Iraq has locked Bush and others into a ready made political disaster. The voter might not really care much about governments making a bad thing worse in Iraq, but mounting deaths, and worse, the revelations of awful, needless massacres do bite after a time.

Then there is the cumulative effect of those ‘entitlements’; the screw you, I’m going to line my pockets while I can’ effect. In the US, the list of ongoing investigations, grand jury proceedings, current trials and politicians under a cloud of suspicion is mind blowing.

Even supposedly resolved issues like Enron contain the seeds of future revelations. Then, every week there seems to be a new expose, a new name to conjure with, another greedy lawmaker caught out dipping into the trough.

Well as that old disappointment once said, “You don’t need a weatherman…” Now we have the fourth most influential lawmaker on the hill, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, facing investigators. Where will it stop?

It doesn’t stop with the obvious manifestations of bad governance, it moves to another level when the politicos start devouring their own. As meltdown moves steadily closer so does the time to settle old scores.

The power elite lose focus on the main job, governing, and turn to jockeying for access to one of the broken deck chairs which might survive the coming disaster. Instead of targeting electoral opposition they turn in on their own, pull down destroy in order to gain some small advantage in the future.

Or even more base and juvenile, start the process of paying back for real and supposed slights and snubs, those creatures which thrive in the political hurly burly.

"If they can't get something like this right, how can we trust them to get anything right?" House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King is lashing out at his fellow Republicans in Washington.

Like the US, this process is well advance in Australia and Britain. Like the US, those governments are unassailable in their respective legislatures, but their majorities are collapsing from within. The weight of accumulated scandal, the fatigue stemming from one failed policy after the next and the hurt and bruised egos of these political heavyweights are all the ingredients of the classic political meltdown. Now we just watch for those mushroom clouds to form.

Keeping up with Jack

Just to keep up to speed with the characters in the Abramoff drama, I put on Scandal files back in November last year.

Now the GP Daily Corruption News is up and running in its new format I thought I would reprint it there for easier access. You can find it HERE

The names and interconnections are still fascinating. I guess the next step is to go through and annotate the article with appropriate updates.

Who cleans the stables

ROOTING out corruption is finally regaining some attention in the halls of Congress - but only, it seems, because there are alleged criminals to be found in both political parties. Toledo Blade

Media coverage of the ethics challenged Washington elite is fascinating. Who would ever thunk a leading Ohio newspaper would go so far as being bipartisan on any issue.

Across the country editorials are mixed, but in the end, generally agreeing that the stench is getting too strong to ignore.

That the media, the leader writers and commentators especially, are starting to distance themselves from previously solid partisan positions must indicate just how far desperate the situation has become.

Lawmakers at all levels have lost control; lost control of political agendas and more importantly, of their power to persuade.

I admit I’m no expert on the US system, but can safely assume that apart from any other motivation, the media rely heavily on government advertising as a bread and butter revenue base. Watching the way government services have been ‘gifted’, or denied, under the prevailing culture would suggest key lawmakers were in a position to ‘massage’ media support.

Were in a position, of course, is the key phrase. If nothing else, the mounting stench of corruption has loosened many of the previous restraints. I doubt any lawmaker would be willing to start the ball rolling on charges of coercing the media.

Given the overall complicity of a willing media, until recently, I see no reason why they should not take up their shovels now and get on with the dirty cleanup. Sure they risk getting splattered a little, but that is just fair compensation.

The depressing part, the chase for easy revenues being so compelling, is that once the mess is cleared out the pack will fall back into the old ways.

Of all the areas of procurement, media buying is the one which should be distanced most from partisan politics. The ability to grant or withhold advertising contracts undermines any potential for a free and impartial press.

It has to be said...

Oddly, and I am in grave danger of overstepping the mark here, but oddly one group of lawmakers see themselves as above the pack – untouchable.

The racist card seems so inviolable that the Democrats Black Caucus can still freely rant and rave, threaten and bluster, to protect one of their own.

Forget the damage being done to their own party, forget the impression given that lawmakers are considered to be above the law, forget the potential to further institutionalize division.

Of all peoples, these should be the ones who understand best the awful effects of unjust government. They should be the ones showing that barriers are divisive and destructive.

This is not a racist rant! Almost nothing; colour, creed, party or anything else should put anyone apart. It is called equality.

Almost anything. Jefferson has a primae facie case to answer. He might well be able to explain, satisfactorily, the damning physical evidence, and he has the right to try. That is hardly the argument. But first and foremost, in this context, he is an electd lawmaker.

The community, the media, anyone in their right mind wants to see some positive action to turn around the lamentable mess US politics has fallen into.

Lawmakers have a very special responsibility, above everyone else; they make the law on behalf of the citizens and must be seen to abide, not by the letter, but the spirit of those laws. The laws must be seen as just for all, not granting special privileges to one group or another.

The Black Caucus are doing themselves and their country a great disservice by shielding one of their own from the standards they would impose on everyone else. And they do so in the cowardly manner of capitalizing on national guilt and fear.

That is hardly a step toward inspiring the trust of the people in the countries political institutions.

Third World Corruption

There is another issue in this debate, one which stretches well beyond US borders. I recent weeks African leaders have been shedding light on the fact that the other side of the crippling corruption in their countries is its encouragement by rich countries.

The World Bank’s Wolfenstein recently put it perspective; to have a bribe taker there must be a bribe giver, and these are coming from the rich countries.

The whole issue of the Jefferson allegations revolves around business dealings with Nigeria. In the frame with Jefferson is the Vice President of Nigeria, among others.

It is all very well for the US to lament the high level of corruption in African countries, and it is all very well to blame maverick, greedy corporations.

The allegation that a lawmaker, of any colour, aided and abetted in the corrupting of one of these countries is deplorable.

Yes, Jefferson might well prove himself to be innocent. But so far there has been no word from him or his caucus on the deplorable subverting of developing economies. I would have thought that would have been a strong moral issue, but not a dickey bird.

Instead we have only seen those efforts we have become so accustomed to from lawmakers in general, damage control.

It is equality alright, but I doubt if it is the sort of equality America or the world needs to experience.

When strategy is the face of the campaign

…does it clearly benefit Republicans to make her [Pelosi] a campaign issue?

After all, the GOP would rather not nationalize the midterm elections. Better for Republicans that voters assess individual candidates district-by-district than treat the midterms as a referendum on a fast-sinking George W. Bush or a GOP congressional leadership defined by scandal and gluttonous pork spending.

Braying about a Speaker Pelosi, the theory holds, simply reminds people about the implications of their vote beyond their district in a way that could really benefit Democrats.

From: MORE ON THE PELOSI PREDICAMENT: New Republic, D.C.

Now I am old enough to remember when election campaigns were about policies, not strategy. The shift is no doubt media driven, but must be a the forefront for the parties or they would be forcing policy into the news.

So I guess we’d better get used to just selecting the cleverest tacticians and forget about what they might do in power.

That point aside, given that the US invented the centralized ‘presidential’ campaign, is it really possible to localize campaigns at will? My experience in several other countries suggests that the central party machines are incapable of devolving responsibility and the media and voter is now trained to look to the simplified, centralized message.

Dili; example of International failure

East Timor's rebel commander, Major Alfredo Reinado

East Timor's rebel commander, Major Alfredo Reinado, says he will not surrender his weapons unless Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri resigns and is charged over the killing of five unarmed protesters last month.

Speaking near his remote mountain headquarters in the coffee-growing town of Maubisse, about 80km south of the capital of Dili, the 39-year-old renegade army officer blamed East Timor's political and security crisis on Dr Alkatiri, accusing him of preparing to wage civil war.

In an interview with The Australian, he said Dr Alkatiri remained dangerous while he continued in the job, despite President Xanana Gusmao declaring a state of siege on Monday and assuming sole responsibility for defence and national security from Dr Alkatiri.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri insists he remains in control of the army and police, threatening to bring 100,000 supporters into the streets in defiance of President Xanana Gusmao and the UN.

As Dr Alkatiri dug in against MrGusmao, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday urged the Timorese leadership to act in the best interests of the nation.

But East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta reaffirmed that Gusmao was in charge of defence and security.

So, while the country remains severely dislocated, Alkatiri is surely revealing himself key instigator of the tiny country’s divisions. Lust for power is a strange beast, and obviously Alkatiri is willing to destroy his country to in his misguided quest.

Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta would obviously prefer to work through this crisis with an eye to the constitution laying a proper foundation for the future. Alkatiri has his own agenda, but the resolution will not rest with any of these key players, it will be imposed from the outside.

Despite Gusmao and Ramos Horta’s lofty ideals, the UN, Australia and other key players will introduce the country to ‘real politics’.

This is an issue which should never have seen the light of day. If the UN mission had been left in place, as many East Timorese requested, Alkatiri would never have had the opportunity and freedom to launch his little adventure.

Former colonial powers, the UN and Australia have presided over a string of similar disasters across the Asia Pacific region. Consider just a few:

Solomon Islands; still simmering after their election crisis.

West Papua; the powers are stubbornly turning their backs on the population’s calls for independence from Indonesia.

Fiji; simmering conflict between native Fijians and the Indian population introduced by English plantation owners is a constant threat to this island nation.

New Guinea; under Australian guidance has yet to achieve real stability.

These and other micro-nations in the region undoubtedly need outside help, but not the kind they have been receiving to date.

They don’t need an imposed ‘one size fits all’ solution. They don’t need ‘global economy’ solutions or aid tied to trade, benefitting the benefactor nations. They need to be listened to and responses tailored to their unique problems.

Of course in a world where the powers can’t even manage their own societies there is little hope of proper responses to these relatively minor countries.