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Australia currently has 94 children held in immigration detention camps. Another 90 children are held on the island of Nauru under Australia’s “Pacific solution”. As well as being morally abhorrent, the detention of children in these camps, most of which are located in the most inhospitable regions of Australia, breaches international treaty obligations including the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is the sponsor of an online petition which calls on the Australian government to end the imprisonment of children.

This is not how we as Australians want to treat families. The needs and rights of children must be put first. We the undersigned call for an immediate end to the detention of children. We call for an immediate change to regulations that enforce separation between parents and dependent children. We call for changes in legislation that will protect future children arriving unauthorised on Australian territory or in Australian waters. Damaging children is not acceptable to us as Australians.

Anyone from any country can sign the petition.

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, says George W. Bush “is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen.”

“The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction.”

Livingstone is organising an official reception “for everybody who is not George Bush,” who he says he won’t formally recognise as US President “because he was not officially elected.”

Australia has crawled into bed with some very unsavoury types in it’s decision to sit on the fence for today’s UN vote on Israel’s iron curtain:

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved late on Tuesday a resolution demanding that Israel halt construction of a barrier cutting deep into Palestinian West Bank lands.

The vote was 144-4 with 12 abstentions, with the United States and Israel voting ‘no’ along with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

Abstaining were Australia, Burundi, Dominican Republic , Ecuador, Honduras, Malawi, Nauru, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea , Rwanda and Tuvalu.

The vote capped six hours of haggling between European Union and Arab governments over the text of the measure, which initially had been drafted by Palestinian UN envoy Nasser al-Kidwa and took a harsher line against Israeli actions.

In the end, all 15 EU nations agreed to sponsor the compromise, which said the barrier was “in contradiction to international law” and demanded that Israel “stop and reverse” its construction in Palestinian lands.”

(Reuters report by Irwin Arieff, via Crikey.com.au, emphasis added)

I suppose the fact that we didn’t actually vote ‘no’ along with the US should be of some comfort, but it’s hard not to feel despair at the fact that my country has so little regard for human rights, international law or plain decency. Sad.

I’ve spent a wee while cruising the wires for reaction to the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger (“a wildly mediocre semiarticulate muscle-bound power-hungry famously sexist actor with zero political experience and zero real-world awareness and zero communication of anything resembling detailed public policy,” said SF columnist Mark Morford a few days back. But let’s give the guy a chance.

It’s early in the news cycle yet (another 24 hours before US media will be able to do any serious op-ed) but here’s a sampling from the global press. Continue reading →

Exactly how dumb is this?

It’s a JOKE, right? Do the Americans realise how hilarious the rest of the world finds this?

What next, a singing attorney-general?

(Letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 2003-10-03, in response to this story)