In today's Advertiser, Phillip Coorey tips Finance Minister Nick Minchin will take up the Defence portfolio, although Mr Minchin wishes to retain Finance.

Mr HIll has been offerred the position of Australian Ambassador to the United Nations.  If he takes the position the current Senator For South Australia will  become housemate to former SA Premier John Olsen, who presided over Halliburton's takeover of the South Australian Water Supply.

 The two portfolios seem so inter-related these days that it would save much beaureaucratic shuffling if the two ministres were merged.

The Australian Government has been aware of bribe payments for Iraq wheat sales for five years, it has been claimed today.

The United Nations sent official warning to the Prime Minster and the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2000, according to Opposition Foreign Affairs Spokesman Kevin Rudd.

Mr Rudd asked today:

What did [Trade Minister] Mark Vaile do in response to that cable?"

"What did [Foreign Affairs] Alexander Downer do in response to that cable given that it went to his office as well?

"What did John Howard do in response to that cable - it went to his office as well.?"

Having had local councils on my mind since learning how the Byron Bay
Council gave Halliburton a contract because they were afraid of a
lawsuit, I"ve had a coincidental week.

I was just smiling over my front gate to a council inspector while explaining my unregistered dog. As I don't drive, I have no licence. In order to prove who I was
I had to find three pieces of identification. This was in order to receive a fine.

You can appreciate my level of annoyance, having flown to Queensland using an album cover and a 1971 (age six) passport,  played at Edinburgh Air Force Base using a
multi-coloured Land Rover and a pub social club card and getting to Port
Lincoln using letters sent to me from the State Attorney General, the
former Arts Minister and a Liberal MLC.   These actions, admittedly, indicate a possible phobia.

 In Australia, foreign bribes are tax-deductable

The  Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has found Australia should increase fines for companies that bribe foreign officials

It's also concerned that lining the pockets of foreign officials to "grease the wheels of progress" will get you a discount at the Australian Taxation Office.  The ATO calls the bribes "facilitation payments"

The Australian-based company that the world knows best for bribery is Halliburton.  A subsidiary company, wholly owned by its U.S. parent, Halliburton organises construction projects worldwide from its offices in Adelaide, South Australia.  With many projects in many countries, many wheels could need greasing.

 Mr Downer, the beginning of the inquiry into possible corrupt practices by the Australian Wheat Board  in Iraq will be notable in hindsight as the beginning of your demise as Australian Foreign Minister.. 

How easily the mighty can fall.  One minute you're touted to head the International Atomic Energy Agency, the next you're about to become embroiled in an international bribery scandal !

The cabinet that houses the Uluru server (our server) will be undergoing emergency maintenance tonight (16th January 2006) at 12:00am AEST to facilitate a power upgrade.The server will be offline for a period of around 5 to 10 minutes maximum.

Apologies for any inconvenience this causes.

Nigel 

Australia’s Donald Rumsfeld, Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Robert Hill, offered a pious rebuttal of Kim Beazley’s call last week for the withdrawal of Australian forces from Iraq (‘No Question Of Walking Away’, Herald, January 12). 

Next to the UK, Australia was the most vocal supporter for the illegal war of aggression mounted by the US against Iraq, with Howard, Hill & Downer at times seeking to outdo each other with their hyperbole in support of the draft-dodging George Bush’s middle-east military adventure (two days before Hill’s piece was published, Lord Downer unpacked another of his shrill performances by declaring that pulling out of Iraq would be 'catastrophic').  

‘This week, we thrill to the domestic media’s continuing obsession with a dozen unnecessary deaths in West Virginia. We admire the mainstream media’s noble determination to get to the bottom of the accident and we happily rush to blame and berate Big Coal.  

If only this heartfelt reaction and media diligence could be directed at the elephant in the corner, the immovable field of funerary and wrongheaded foreign policies called Big Iraq.’ 

It would be tempting to dismiss Neil Brown’s ranting Opinion piece as illogical puffery (‘Ruthlessness In Pursuit Of Terrorism Is No Crime’, The Australian, January 9), were it not for the fact that it acts to promote a number of deceitful & dangerous fictions, whilst being afforded prominent & unjustified exposure in our community. 

Essentially Brown argues that the US & its allies, including Australia, need to free of any moral & legal constraints & totally ruthless in their prosecution of the alleged “endless war on terror”. 

 ABC Radio's AM has revealed that the Department Of Defence has made a secret compensation payout over copied equipment designs.

"It seems as though it's in the order of one million dollars that's been spent either in compensation or legal fees, perhaps a bit more than that, and that is money that could have gone to properly equipping our troops, Quite frankly it's a scandal."   Opposition Defence spokesman Robert McClelland told the ABC

Mr McClelland has called on Defence Minister Hill to investigate "systematic flaws, if not corrupt practices" within the defence force's procurment arm, the Defence Materiels Organisation.

" North Korea's recent brinkmanship is nothing but a desperate reaction to the Bush administration's sudden policy shift, which has made the impoverished nation economically crippled and internationally isolated. With the prospect of an imminent war in Iraq, North Korea regards itself as the next target of US unilateralism and its agenda of "regime change".  Parmendra Jain, Professor of Asian Studies, Adelaide University, March 2003

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider.....the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think....for people who did not want to think anyway gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about.....and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated.....by the machinations of the 'national enemies,'  without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us..... 

It's official!  In any future war, Adelaide is a prime missile target!

When you make a conjecture you're a conspiracy theorist... until the information comes out!

Four months ago I wrote a piece for Webdiary called Halliburtton's Adelaide, referring to the JORN missile systems possible uses.  Today I read in The Age of how integral JORN is to the Missile Shield.  

[extract]

‘On Christmas Eve, I dropped in on Brian Haw, whose hunched, pacing figure was just visible through the freezing fog. For four and a half years, Brian has camped in Parliament Square with a graphic display of photographs that show the terror and suffering imposed on Iraqi children by British policies.  

The effectiveness of his action was demonstrated last April when the Blair government banned any expression of opposition within a kilometre of Parliament.